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"Now there are about ninety per cent of the population participating in the Government—and I do not believe that percentage of people vote in America. And those who do useful work with hand or brain—and that means now about ninety per cent of the population—have representation in the Soviets. The teachers send delegates, as do the medical associations composed of doctors and nurses. What was in the beginning a dictatorship of the proletariat—with action begun as it always must be begun, by a militant minority—is now a true democracy.
"Those sabotaging against the Bolsheviki in the early days when they thought that the Government would not last six weeks, are giving up their opposition as they realize that this is a Government which has come to stay. I was in Samara when the teachers' association met, split into a left and right wing: the majority reorganizing the association and electing delegates to the Soviets, the minority going out of the association altogether.
"A considerable section of the Intelligentsia were with the Bolsheviki from the first. A glance at the Bolsheviki Cabinet wiil prove that. I think one might say that it is the most cultured Cabinet in Europe, Many of the rest of the Intelligentsia have been houestly converted since then.
"A minority objects to the centralization of industry—says there is not democracy enough and that the industries should be immediately and completely handed over to the workers.
"But remember that the Bolsheviki do not claim that Russia is wholly Socialistic. They say that the Co-operative Commonwealth is not immediately possible, especially in a country as industrially backward as Russia. They say that Russia will have to develop the stage known as State Capitalism, with concentration of industries and formation of trusts. Mme. Kollontai said: 'We cannot fully socialise Russia all at once. You other nations have a much better chance to socialise your countries, as industry is already partly socialised with you. You can begin where we leave off.'
"But centralisation of industry under proletariat rule is a very different thing from centralisation under bourgeois
