The Proletarian Revolution and Kautsky the Renegade/Chapter 5

by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

CHAPTER V.

THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY AND THE
THE SOVIET REPUBLIC.

The question of the Constituent Assembly and its dispersal by the Bolsheviks constitutes the crux of the entire book of Kautsky. He constantly returns to it, and the whole literary production of the theoretical leader of the Second international is. stuffed with innuendoes as to how the Bolsheviks had "destroyed democracy." The question is really an interesting and important one, since in that case the relation between bourgeois and proletarian democracy arose before the revolution in a practical form. Let us see, how the question has been dealt with by our "Marxist theoretician."

He quotes my theses about the Constituent Assembly which were drafted and published by me in the "Pravda" of December 26th, 1917 (January 8th, 1918). It might seem that there could be no better proof of Kautsky's seriousness in treating the subject in a business-like, documentary, fashion. But observe how he quotes. He does net tell us that there were nineteen such theses, he does not tell us that they dealt both with the question of the relation between the ordinary bourgeois republic with a Constituent Assembly, on the one hand, and a Soviet Republic on the other, and the history of the divergence, in the course of our revolution, between the Constituent Assembly and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Kautsky suppresses all that, and simply tells the reader, that "the most important of these theses were two"; one, that the Socialist Revolutionaries split into two sections, after the elections to the Constituent Assembly and before its meeting (Kautsky does not mention that this was the fifth thesis) and the other, that the republic of the Soviets is in general a higher democratic form than the Constituent Assembly (Kautsky does not mention that this was the third thesis). From this third thesis alone Kautsky quotes in full only the following part of it: "The Republic of the Soviets represents not only a higher type of democratic institution (in comparison with the ordinary bourgeois republic with a Constituent Assembly at its head), but also the only form calculated to secure the most painless transition to Socialism" (Kautsky omits the word "ordinary" and the introductory words of the thesis: "for the transition from the bourgeois to the Socialist order, for the dictatorship of the proletariat.").

Having quoted these words, Kautsky, with a magnificent irony, exclaims: "Pity that this conclusion was only reached after the Bolsheviks had found themselves in a minority in the Constituent Assembly. Previously no one had demanded it more passionately than Lenin."

This is textually what Kautsky says on page 31 of his book. This is really a gem.^[1] Only a sycophant of the bourgeoisie could present the question so that the reader should get a wrong impression, as if all the talk of the Bolsheviks about the higher type of State were an invention born into the world after they had found themselves in a minority in the Constituent Assembly. Such an infamous lie could only have been uttered by a scoundrel who has sold himself to the bourgeoisie, or what is absolutely the same thing, who has placed his trust in P. Axel­rod, and is concealing the source of his information. For it is known to all the world that on the very first day of my return to Russia, on April 4–17, 1917, I delivered a public lecture in which I proclaimed the superiority of a Commune type of State over the bourgeois parliamentary republic. I afterwards repeatedly stated this in print, as, for instance, in a pamphlet on political parties, which was translated into English and was published in January, 1918, in the "New York Evening Post." Moreover, at the end of April, 1917, the Conference of the Bolshevik Party adopted a resolution to the effect that a proletarian and peasant republic was higher than a bourgeois parliamentary republic, that our party would not be satisfied with the latter, and that the programme of our party ought to be amended correspondingly.

In face of these facts, what name can be given to Kautsky's procedure in telling his German readers that I had passionately been demanding the convocation of a Constituent Assembly, and that I began to speak derogatorily of the dignity of the Constituent Assembly after the Bolsheviks had been left in a minority in it? How can one excuse such a procedure? Did not Kautsky know the facts? Then he should not have written about the matter at all. Why did he not honestly declare that he was writing on the strength of information supplied by the Mensheviks, by Stein, Axelrod and Co.? Kautsky obviously wants, by his pretence to be objective, to conceal his róle as the hand-maid of the defeated and disappointed Mensheviks.

However, these are only small things in comparison with what follows. Granted that Kautsky would not or could not obtain from his informants a translation of the Bolshevik resolutions and declarations on the question whether they were satisfied with a bourgeois parliamentary democratic republic or not. Let us grant this, although the thing is incredible. But surely he must have known my theses on December 26th, 1917 (January 8th, 1918), since he mentions them on page 30 of his book? Does he know them in full, or only such parts of them as have been translated for him by Stein, Axelrod, and Co.? Kautsky quotes my third thesis on the fundamental question whether the Bolsheviks were of the opinion, before the elections to the Constituent Assembly that the Soviet Republic was of a higher type than the bourgeois republic, and whether they said so to people. But he does not quote the second thesis, which ran as follows: "While demanding the summoning of a Constituent Assembly, the revolutionary Social-Democracy has repeatedly, since the very beginning of the revolution of 1917, emphasized, the view that the Soviet republic is a higher form of democracy than the ordinary bourgeois republic with a Constituent Assembly."

In order to represent the Bolsheviks as bereft of all principles, as "revolutionary opportunists" (this is a term which Kautsky employs somewhere in his book in some connection which I now no longer remember), Mr. Kautsky has concealed from his German readers the fact that there was in the theses a direct reference to repeated declarations. Such are the contemptible, petty methods employed by Mr. Kautsky! He has thus once more avoided the theoretical side of the question. Is it, or is it not true that the bourgeois democratic parliamentary republic is a lower form than a republic of the Commune or Soviet type? This is the essential question and Kautsky has avoided it. All that Marx gave us in his analysis of the Commune of Paris has been forgotten by Kautsky. He has also forgotten Engels's letter to Bebel on March 28th, 1875, in which the same idea of Marx is formulated in a practical, terse, and clear fashion: "The Commune was no longer a State in the proper sense of the word."

Here you have the most prominent theorist of the Second International, who, in a special pamphlet on the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat," in a special discussion on Russia, where the question of a higher form of State than a democratic bourgeois republic was raised repeatedly in a direct manner, avoiding again and again the issue. In what does this procedure differ from desertion to the bourgeois camp? (Let us observe, in passing, that in this respect also, Kautsky is merely treading in the footsteps of the Russian Mensheviks. There are among the Mensheviks any number of people who know all passages from Marx and Engels, but not one of them has attempted, between April and November, 1917, and between November, 1917, and November, 1918, to examine and to discuss the questlion of the Commune type of State. Plekhanoff, too, has avoided the question. Evidently discretion is the better part of his valor, too).

It goes without saying that to talk about the suppression of the Constituent Assembly with persons who call themselves Socialists and Marxists, but in practice desert to the bourgeoisie on the main question, on the question of the Commune type of State, would be tantamount to casting pearls before swine. It will be enough if I print in an appendix to the present pamphlet my thesis on the Constituent Assembly in full. The reader will then see that the subject was formulated by me on December 26th, 1917 (January 8th, 1918), both theoretically and historically and as a question of practical politics.

Although Kautsky, as a theoretician, has completely renounced Marxism, he nevertheless as an historian might have examined the question of the struggle of the Soviets with the Constituent Assembly. We know by many of the writings of Kautsky that he could be a Marxist historian and that these works of his will remain a permanent gift to the proletariat in spite of his subsequent apostasy. But on the given question Kautsky also renounces truth as a historian ignoring well-established facts and thus acting as a sycophant. He wanted to represent the Bolsheviks as a party without principles, and he tells the reader how they tried to soften the conflict with the Constituent Assemble before dispersing it. There is absolutely nothing in that procedure of which we ought to feel ashamed. I print my theses in full, and there I say quite plainly, addressing the timorous and hesitating petty bourgeoisie, who had obtained a majority in the Constituent Assembly: either accept the proletarian dictatorship or we shall crush you by revolutionary methods (theses 18 and 19). Such has ever been and will ever be the action of a really revolutionary proletariat in its relations to the halting and wavering petty bourgeoisie.

Kautsky adopts, on the question of the Constituent Assembly, a purely formal standpoint, whereas I say in my theses repeatedly and plainly that the interests of the revolution are above the formal rights of the Constituent Assembly (theses 16 and 17). The formal democratic point of view is just the point of view of a bourgeois democrat, who does nob recognize that the interests of the proletariat and of the proletarian class-war stand above everything else. As an historian, Kautsky would not have been able to deny that bourgeois parliaments are the organs of this or another class: but now Kautsky wanted (in the interests of the dirty cause of abandoning the revolution) to forget his Marxism, and therefore he carefully avoids asking the question as to what class the Consituent Assembly in Russia was the organ of. Kautsky does not examine the concrete conditions; he does not want to face the facts; he does not mention by one single word to his German readers that my theses contained not only a theoretical elucidation of the question about the limited character of the bourgeois democracy (theses 1–3), not only an outline of the concrete conditions which had determined discrepancy between the party lists in the middle of October, 1917, and the real state of affairs in December, 1917 (theses 4–6), but also a history of the class struggle and civil war in October-December, 1917 (theses 7–13). I then drew from this concrete history the conclusion (thesis 14) that the watchword: "All power to the Consituent Assembly," had become in reality a watchword of the Cadets, the Kaledinites, and their myrmidons.

Kautsky, the historian, does not see anything of that sort. Kautsky, the historian, has never heard that universal suffrage yields sometimes petty bourgeois and at other times counter-revolutionary parliaments Kautsky the Marxist historian, has never heard that the method of elections and the form of democracy are one thing and the class-content of a given institution is another thing. Yet this question about the class-content of the Constituent Assembly was raised by me, and answered in my theses. Possibly my answer was not correct. Nothing would have been so welcome to me as a Marxist criticism of my analysis by an outsider. Instead of writing silly phrases (there are plenty such phrases in Kautsky's book) about somebody, somehow, preventing a criticism of Bolshevism, he ought to have set out to make such criticism. But the point is just that he has no such criticism to offer. He does not even raise the question about the class character of the Soviets on the one hand, and of the Consituent Assembly on the other. Hence there is no possibility of discussing with Kautsky. All that remains for me to do is to show to the reader why Kautsky cannot be called by any other name than a turncoat.

The divergence between the Soviets and the Constituent Assembly has its history which even an historian who does not share the point of view of class-war could not ignore. Kautsky refuses even to touch upon this history. Kautsky has concealed from his German readers the universally known fact (which is now also suppressed by rabid Mensheviks) that the divergence between the Soviets and the "State" (that is, the bourgeois) institutions had existed even at the time of the predominance of the Mensheviks, that is, between the middle of March and October, 1917. Kautsky, in substance, takes up the position of an advocate of conciliation and co-operation between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. However much Kautsky may deny this, it is a fact borne out by his whole book. We ought not to have suppressed the Constituent Assembly—that means, we ought not to have fought out the fight with the bourgeoisie to a finish; we ought not to have overthrown it and the proletariat ought to have effected a reconciliation with the bourgeoisie.

Bull if so, why has Kautsky suppressed the fact that the Mensheviks had been engaged in this glorious work between March and November, 1917, and had not achieved anything? If a reconciliation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat were possible, why did not the Mensheviks succeed in bringing it about? Why was the bourgeoisie holding itself aloof from the Soviets? Why did the Mensheviks themselves call the Soviets "Revolutionary Democracy," and the bourgeoisie the "propertied elements"? Kautsky has not told his German readers that it was precisely the Mensheviks who, in the period of their predominance, called the Soviets "Revolutionary Democracy," thereby admitting their superiority over all other institutions. It is only this concealment of an important} fact which has made it appear in Kautsky's book as if the divergence between the Soviets and the bourgeoisie had no history, and had arisen suddenly, without any particular cause, simply through the wickedness of the Bolsheviks. As a matter of fact, it was just the experience of the Menshevik policy of compromise, the attempts at reconciling the proletariat with the bourgeoisie, undertaken by the Mensheviks, and extending over a period of more than six months (a period which is very long for a revolution) that convinced the people of the futlity of such methods, and drove the proletariat away from the Mensheviks.

Kautsky admits that the Soviets are a most excellent fighting organization of the proletariat, and that they have a great future before them. But if so, Kautsky's position collapses like a house of cards, or like the Utopia of a petty bourgeois, who believes that one can do without an acute struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. For a revolution is one continuous, desperate struggle, while the proletariat is the advance guard of all the oppressed, the focus and centre of all aspirations of all the oppressed striving for their liberation. It is natural, therefore that the Soviets, as the instrument of the oppressed masses, should have reflected and expressed the moods and changes of view of these masses much more rapidly, much more fully, and much more faithfully than any other institutions. In this, among other things, lies one of the reasons why the Soviet democracy is the highest Дуре of democracy.

In the period between March 12th and November 6th, 1917 the Soviets held two All-Russian Congresses, representing the overwhelming majority of the population of Russia, all the workers and soldiers, and 70 per cent, or 80 per cent, of the peasantry; not to speak of the vast number of local, district, urban, provincial, and regional congresses. During the same period, the bourgeoisie did not succeed in calling into life a single institution which represented the majority of the people, except that obvious and insulting sham, the so-called Democratic Conference, which enraged the proletariat. The Constituent Assembly reflected the same mood and the same grouping of the population as the first (the June) All-Russian Congress of Soviets. By the time of the meeting of the Constituent Assembly in January, the second and third Congress of Soviets had met in November, 1917, and January, 1918, respectively, and both demonstrated up to the hilt that the masses had gone to the Left, had become revolutionary, had turned away from the Mensheviks and Social-Revolutionaries, and passed over to the Bolshevik side; that is, had turned away from petty bourgeois leadership, from illusory compromises with the bourgeoisie, and joined the revolutionary fight for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. Thus, even the external history of the Soviets shows how inevitable the suppression of the Constituent Assembly was, and how reactionary that body was. But Kautsky stoically persists in his watchword: "May the revolution perish, may the bourgeoisie triumph over the proletariat, so long as 'pure democracy' flourishes!" Fiat justitia, pereat mundus!

These are the figures of the Russian Congress of Soviets in their development in the course of the Russian revolution:

All-Russian Congresses of Soviets	Number of Delegates	Number of Bolsheviks	Percentage of Bolsheviks
1st, 16th June, 1917	790	103	13 p. c.
2nd, 10th Nov., 1917	675	343	51 p. c.
3rd, 23rd Jan., 1918	710	434	61 p. c.
4th, 20th March, 1918	1,232	795	64 p. c.
5th, 17th July, 1918	1,164	773	66 p. c.

A glance at these figures will show why the defence of the Constituent Assembly and the talk (of Kautsky, among other people) that the Bolsheviks have not behind them a majority of the population is met in Russia with laughter.

1. Kautsky, among other things, quotes repeatedly, with an evident attempt at sarcasm, the expression "most painless." But since this is an attempt for no noble purpose, Kautsky a few pages later commits a little forgery and simply quotes: "painless transition." Naturally, it is not difficult by such means to put into the mouth of an opponent any absurdity. The forgery also facilitates the evasion of the argument materially, namely, that the most painless transition towards Socialism is only possible with the help of the organization of all the poorer classes (in Soviets) and of the central State power (of the proletariat).