20
a democratic programme was equivalent to a retreat; as was also the case with a democracy "favourable to the workers," like that included in the plan for a constitution drawn up by the People's Commissariat.
The fact that the representatives of a class in revolution, or engaged in any other phase of the class struggle, are not conscious of the struggle's true aim and import does not necessarily mean that one must give up the struggle or that all is bound to end in shipwreck. It ought not to be interpreted as a struggle against one's own class; or as conscious or unconscious deception. The struggle in itself is a historic fact, it is the principal fact which decided and conduces to a true result, and each man who, according to the measure of his strength and ability takes part in the revolutionary struggle of the aroused class, upholds that class in so doing, even if on his lips and his thoughts he nourishes the most unhistoric, unscientific facts one could wish for. The Finnish Social Democracy, by carrying out its duty of putting up a fight, did not betray its class, and by its struggle upheld the programme of the revolution, even though inscribed on its banners were the watchwords of the old democracy.
It was not the first time in the history of the world that such a thing had taken place as the foremost champions of a struggling class adopting a watchword which was not consonant with the historical idea of their struggle. Revolutionary watchwords have generally arisen fortuitously, and have been made up of high-sounding, superficial and not very far-seeing political phrases, to which are joined as by chance the strange expressions of an inverted symbolism. For example, the Hussite movement in Bohemia was at bottom a struggle for the most real class advantages, although in the first place the point at issue was a theological dispute concerning the Host, communion, and the drinking of wine. During the Finnish revolution the democratic programme was for the S.-D.'s of Finland their communion wine. It did not hinder Social-Democracy from taking part in the revolutionary struggle, but as a programme it was no longer of service in the struggle itself. If an unskilled navigator is steering a wrong course which will lead him to destruction or carry him away from his destination, and a violent storm throws him back in to the right course without his knowing
