On the Road to Insurrection/The Approaching Catastrophe and How to Avert it

by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The Approaching Catastrophe and How to
Avert it^[1]

(Published at the End of October, 1917)

1.—The Approaching Famine

RUSSIA is menaced by an inevitable catastrophe. The disorganisation of railway transport is unbelievable and grows worse and worse. The train service is ceasing to function. Raw materials and coal for the factories are no longer being transported. Corn will soon cease to arrive. The capitalists sabotage production without abatement, in the hope that the catastrophe that they provoke will involve the burial of the republic, the failure of the democracy of the Soviets and of all the proletarian and peasant organisations in general, and will facilitate the return of the monarchy and the restoration of the omnipotence of the bourgeoisie and the large landed proprietors.

The menace of an unprecedented catastrophe, the threat of famine weighs upon Russia.^[2] For a long time already this alarming situation has been a matter of comment throughout the Press. In an incredible number of resolutions adopted both by the different Parties and by the Soviets of workers', soldiers' and peasants' deputies it is recognised that the catastrophe is inevitable, that it is imminent, that it is necessary to fight desperately against it, that the people must make "heroic efforts" to avert disaster, &c.

Everyone is speaking of it. Everyone recognises the danger. Everyone is passing resolutions.

And yet nothing is done, absolutely nothing.

Half a year of revolution has gone by. We are now within an ace of catastrophe. The stoppage is beginning to tell. How does it come about that in a country well supplied with cereals and raw materials and lacking manufactured goods, finished products and skilled workers, there arises especially at such a critical moment, a gigantic stoppage? Do we need further facts to demonstrate that, during six months of revolution, our democratic republic with its plethora of Trade Unions, organisations and institutions of all sorts proudly styling themselves "revolutionary democratic" has taken no serious steps to meet disaster and famine? We are rushing to destruction; the war goes on and the disorganisation to which it gives rise in every branch of the national life spreads with ever-increasing rapidity.

And yet, only a little care and reflection are needed to convince us that means exist of combating disaster and famine; that these means are clear, simple, completely attainable and quite within the power of the people, and that if these means are not adopted it is only because their adoption would affect the huge profits of a handful of large landed proprietors and capitalists.

One would be hard put to it to find a single speech, a single newspaper article of no matter what complexion or a resolution of a single gathering or institution of any kind which does not clearly realise the fundamental and essential measure needed to avert disaster and famine. This measure is central inspection, registration, State regulation, reasonable redistribution of labour and the products of labour, the suppression of all waste, economy of the strength and labour of the people. To control, to inspect, to register—these are the ways to fight disaster and famine. No one denies this and everybody recognises it. And it is precisely what is not being done for fear of encroaching upon the unlimited power of the large landed proprietors and the capitalists, and upon their unlimited, unheard of and scandalous profits, profits resulting from the high cost of living and military supplies (who does not work directly or indirectly for the war?) profits of which everyone is aware, which everyone can calculate, and which everyone deplores.

And the State is doing absolutely nothing, however half-hearted, to institute control, inspection and registration.

 

2.—The Complete Inaction of the Government

Everywhere there is a systematic and ceaseless sabotage of all control, and of every attempt at the organisation of control by the State. One must be either an extraordinary simpleton or a hypocrite not to understand, or to pretend not to know, the origin of this sabotage and the forces by which it is maintained; for this sabotage by the bankers and capitalists, this obstruction of all control, inspection and registration, is adapted to the forms of the democratic republic, to the existence of "revolutionary democratic" institutions. The capitalist gentlemen have learnt perfectly this oft-repeated lesson which the partisans of scientific Socialism verbally acknowledge, but which the Mensheviks and S.R.'s have been eager to forget since their friends were installed in the ministerial and secretarial armchairs—this truth, that the economic essence of capitalist exploitation is quite unaffected by the substitution of democratic republican forms for monarchical forms; and that to protect capitalist profits with as much success in a democratic republic as under the autocratic regime, it is only necessary to modify the methods of struggle.

The latest method, the present republican democratic method of sabotaging all control, registration and inspection, is for the capitalists (this goes without saying), and the Mensheviks and S.R.'s, to recognise verbally, without protest, the "principle " and the necessity for control, but to demand its "gradual" application. It is with these seemingly plausible pretexts that the capitalists veil their real activity, which is to make control miscarry, to transform it into a fiction by the creation of a mass of complicated and bureaucratic machinery, dependent upon them, doing nothing and incapable of doing anything.

To make it clear that these are not just airy assertions, we will base our case on the evidence of the Mensheviks and S.R.'s; that is, of the people who have had the majority in the Soviets during the first half-year of the Revolution, who have participated in the "coalition government," and are therefore politically responsible before the workers and peasants for the benevolent neutrality they have observed towards the capitalists, who were occupied in making abortive every attempt at control.

The official organ of the most important of the "plenipotentiary" (don't smile!) organs of the "revolutionary" democracy, the Isvestia of the C.E.C. (that is, of the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Worker, Soldier and Peasant delegates), published in No. 164, on September 7, a decree of a special institution for dealing with questions of control, an institution created by the Mensheviks and S.R.'s, and entirely in their hands. In this decree, this institution, which is the "Economic Section" of the C.E.C., officially acknowledges the complete inaction of those central organs for the "regulation of economic life" that have been formed around the Government.

Can one imagine a more eloquent testimony to the bankruptcy of the Menshevist and S.R. policy than this, signed as it is by the Mensheviks and the S.R.'s themselves?

Even under Tsarism the necessity of regulating economic life had been recognised and some institutions had been created for this purpose.^[3] But they could not put a stop to the disorganisation, which never ceased to grow and finally reached monstrous proportions. Also from the beginning of the Revolution it was recognised that the first task of a republican revolutionary government was to take decisive measures to put an end to the disorganisation. When the "coalition " Government was formed, with the participation of the Mensheviks and S.R.'s, it gave, in its solemn declaration to the whole Russian people on May 6, its formal promise to establish the control and regulation of economic life by the State. The Tseretellis and Tchernovs as well as all the leading Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries swore then with great oaths that they would not only answer for the Government but that the "plenipotentiary organs of the revolutionary democracy," which were in their hands, would effectively supervise the Government and control it.

Four months have rolled by since May 6: four long months in the course of which Russia has sacrificed hundreds of thousands of soldiers for an absurd imperialist "offensive"; four months during which disorganisation has not ceased to grow, so that the catastrophe is now imminent; four months which the hot season allowed us to use for river-transport, for agriculture, mines, &c.; and after these four months, the Mensheviks and the S.R.'s are compelled to admit officially "the complete inaction" of the institutions for control that were formed around the Government!

And now these same Mensheviks and S.R.'s, with the most serious air, like true statesmen, are going to tell us (we write on the eve of the opening of the Democratic Conference, September 12) that the way to remedy the situation is to replace the coalition with the Cadets by the coalition with the big-wigs of commerce and industry, with Riabouchinsky,^[4] Boublikov,^[5] Terestchenko^[6] and Co.

Truly one may demand an explanation of this extraordinary blindness of the Mensheviks and S.R.'s. Must they be considered as inexperienced babes in politics, who do not know what they are doing and are genuinely self-deluded? Or rather is this peculiar political blindness due to their possession of such a wealth of posts as Ministers and Secretaries, governors and commissars and so on …?

 

3.—The Measures of Control are known and can be easily carried out

But, it will be asked, are not the measures of control things exceedingly complicated, difficult, untried and even quite unthought-of? Is not this the reason for the delays of the Government—that the statesmen of the Cadet party, of the commercial and industrial classes, the S.R. and Menshevist parties, have indeed been labouring for six months to discover, investigate and study these measures, but that the problem appears to be a terribly difficult one and not to be so settled so quickly?

Alas! this is how the poor ignorant resigned peasants are put on the wrong scent, as well as the public that does not penetrate to the essence of things and can be made to believe anything. In reality, Tsarism, the ancien régime itself, which created the "Committees for the War-Industries,"^[7] knew the fundamental measure, the chief means and essential method of control the organisation of the population by trades, by branches of industry, &c. But Tsarism was afraid of such organisation and, therefore, restricted it as much as possible, and artificially hindered the application of this known, easy, perfectly practicable method of control.

Crushed by the cost and the scourge of the war, more or less the prey to disorganisation and famine, each of the belligerent States has long since decided upon, experimented with and applied a whole series of measures of control which almost all involve the organisation of the population, the creation or encouragement of organisations of various kinds with the participation and supervision of the representatives of the Government. All these measures of control are of public notoriety, they have given rise to a flood of speeches and writings, and the laws on control published by the most advanced belligerent States have been translated into Russian or described in detail in our Press.

If our Government really wished practically and seriously to enforce control—if its institutions were not condemned to "complete inaction" for fear of displeasing the capitalists—the State has nothing more to do than borrow wholesale from the considerable number of measures of control already worked out and tried. The only obstacle in the way—an obstacle that the Cadets, the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks conceal from the eyes of the people—is that this control would expose the unbridled profiteering of the capitalists and would dry it up at the source.

To throw more light on this important question (which is nothing more nor less than the question of the programme of every revolutionary government that wants to save Russia from the war and from the famine) we are going to enumerate these chief measures of control and examine them separately.

We shall then see that for State control to be realised in the twinkling of an eye, a government—if it is to be called "revolutionary-democratic" otherwise than in derision—has only to decree, in the very first week of its existence, the application of the essential measures of control, to establish effective sanctions against the capitalists who attempt evasion, and to invite the population itself to supervise them and see to it that they are compelled to carry out the provisions of the law.

Here are the chief of these measures:—

(1) The merging of all banks into one, controlled by the State—the nationalisation of the banks, in other words.

(2) The nationalisation of the trusts; that is to say, of those very important capitalist groupings that exercise a monopoly (sugar, petroleum, coal, metals, &c.).^[8]

(3) The suppression of business secrecy.

(4) The obligation for all industrialists, merchants and employers to group themselves into trusts.

(5) Encouragement or enforcement of the organisation of the population in consumers' societies, under the control of the State.

Let us now see what would be the result of each of these measures, given that they are carried out in a really revolutionary and democratic way.

 

4.—The Nationalisation of the Banks

Everyone knows that the banks are the chief nerve centres of the whole present economic system, under the capitalist regime. To talk about the "regulation of economic life" and to leave out the nationalisation of the banks is either to display the crassest ignorance or to deceive the credulous public with big words and marvellous promises which one has absolutely no intention of keeping.

It is absurd to control and regulate the supply and distribution of cereals or of all products generally, without controlling and regulating the operations of the banks. It is to go hunting for a few doubtful kopeks while neglecting the millions of roubles close at hand. The banks at the present time are so closely connected with commerce (in cereals as in every product) and industry that without taking possession of the banks it is impossible for anything serious, "revolutionary," "democratic," to be done at all.

But is not this seizure of the banks by the State perhaps an extremely difficult and complicated operation? This is what the capitalists and their defenders try in their own interest to make the public believe, so as to frighten it.

In reality the nationalisation of the banks would not take a farthing from anyone, and it presents no technical or moral difficulties whatever; it is prevented only for base motives of personal interest, by a handful of plutocrats gorged with lucre. If the nationalisation of the banks is so often confounded with the confiscation of private property, the fault is with the bourgeois Press whose interest it is that the public should be deceived.

The ownership of the capital with which the banks operate and which is concentrated in these institutions is certified by printed or written slips called shares, bonds, Bills of Exchange, receipts, etc. … Not one of these slips is suppressed or altered by the nationalisation of the banks, by the merging, that is, of all the banks into a single State Bank. Whosoever has fifteen roubles in the Savings Bank retains his fifteen roubles after the nationalisation of the banks; and whosoever has fifteen millions keeps his fifteen millions also, in the form of shares, bonds, Bills of Exchange, warrants, notes, &c.

What then is the use of nationalising the banks?

To make control possible. In fact real control of private banks and their operations (even if business secrecy is abolished) is impracticable, for it is absolutely impossible to verify the mechanism of the extremely complex, subtle and artificial procedure employed in the preparation of balance-sheets, in the founding of fictitious enterprises and branch banks and in the use of men of straw, &c. … Only the merging of all banks in one—in no way modifying property relationships by this step and taking away from no one, we repeat, the tiniest portion of his property—makes effective control possible—on condition, of course, that all the other measures indicated above are put into force.

It is only by means of the nationalisation of the banks that the State will be able to find out whence come the millions and the milliards, where they go to and which way they pass. And only the control of the banks, on which the whole of capitalist circulation is pivoted, will allow us to realise, in fact and not in words merely, the control of the whole of economic life, of the production and distribution of the most important products, and so to organise "the regularisation of economic life" which otherwise will remain a mere ministerial phrase, only useful to dupe the people. Only the control of banking operations, conditioned as it is by their being concentrated in a single State Bank, will enable us, by using it to prevent any concealment of income and with the help of easily applied supplementary measures, to make effective the collection of the income-tax which at the present time, thanks to the possibility of concealing income, is no more than a fiction.

It would be enough to decree the nationalisation of the banks; the directors and officials themselves would be responsible for carrying it out. The State needs no special machinery, no special preparatory measures; nationalisation can be realised by decree, "at one stroke." The economic possibility of this measure has been created just by capitalism, which has put property into the form of Bills of Exchange, shares, bonds, &c. … It only remains to unify the book-keeping; and if a revolutionary democratic State were to command the immediate convocation of assemblies (in every town) and congresses (in every province and for the whole country) of directors and officials for the purpose of immediately merging all the banks into one State Bank, this reform could be accomplished in a few weeks. It goes without saying that the directors and higher officials would offer resistance and would attempt to deceive the State and cause delay, for these gentlemen would see themselves being deprived of their sinecures and would lose the opportunity for all sorts of specially profitable shady operations; for this reason, and only this, they would sabotage the measure.

But the fusion of the banks does not present the slightest technical difficulty; and a power which was revolutionary in more than words (that is to say, which would not be afraid to break away from inertia and routine) and democratic not in phrases only (which would act, that is, in the interests of the majority of the people and not of a handful of plutocrats)—such a power could realise this measure in the twinkling of an eye if it decreed that directors, administrators and big shareholders who tried to protract the business and to conceal documents and abstracts of accounts should be imprisoned and their property confiscated.

Nationalisation would have immense advantages, not so much for the workers (who rarely do business at a bank) as for the mass of peasants and small industrialists. It would mean a colossal saving in labour; and supposing that the State kept the same number of officials as there were before, it would result in a much larger number of people making use of the services of the banks, which could increase their branches, extend their operations, and make them more accessible to the mass of the public. Small proprietors and the peasants would have a better chance of obtaining credit. As for the State, it would be able, first, to have knowledge of all the big financial operations and to obtain an exact record of them; and then to regulate economic life; and finally in the big operations it undertakes itself the State would save millions and milliards by not having to pay fabulous "commissions" to the capitalists. It is because of this, and this alone, that all the capitalists, all the bourgeois economists, all the bourgeoisie and its valets, Plekhanov, Potressov and Co., are ready to fight furiously against nationalisation of the banks, to invent thousands of pretexts and bad arguments against this urgent and all-important measure; although even from the point of view of "national defence," that is from the military point of view, it would bring immense advantages and would increase the "military strength" of Russia.

But, it will be objected, why do such advanced States as Germany and the U.S.A. regulate their economic life quite well without ever dreaming of nationalising the banks?

Because these States, whether they be monarchical or republican are not merely capitalist, but also imperialist. As such, they carry through the necessary transformations in the reactionary bureaucratic way, and what we have in mind here is the revolutionary democratic way.

This "slight difference" is of primary importance. The words "democratic revolutionary" have almost become conventional expressions amongst us (particularly amongst the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks), just like the expression "Thank God!" that is used very often by people who are not so ignorant as to believe in a God; or like the phrase "honourable citizen" that is sometimes used in addressing contributors to Den and Edinstvo, although almost everyone knows that these periodicals were founded and are maintained by capitalists in the interests of capitalism and that it is far from being honourable for Socialists to contribute to these organs.

So it is we use the words "revolutionary democratic" as a conventional expression, a cliche; but if we reflect upon their meaning we see that to be democratic is to take into consideration the interests of the majority of the people and not of the minority, and that to be revolutionary is to crush pitilessly all that is harmful, all that has had its day.

No more in America than in Germany does the government and the ruling class lay claim, I am sure, to the title "revolutionary democratic," which our Mensheviks and S.R.'s have given themselves (and have prostituted).

In Germany there exist only four big private banks of national importance; in America only two. It is easier, more convenient and profitable for the lords of these banks to organise amongst themselves, secretly, in the reactionary and not the revolutionary manner, bureaucratically and not democratically by bribing State officials (the general rule in America and Germany), by keeping up the private character of the banks for the single purpose of maintaining the secrecy of their operations, so as to take millions upon millions of "surplus-value" from the State and guarantee the possibility of shady financial combinations.

America as well as Germany "regularises" its economic life in such a way as to make life a military prison for the workers (in part for the peasants), and a paradise for the bankers and capitalists. Their "regularisation" consists in leading the workers to hard labour and to … famine, and in guaranteeing to the capitalists (secretly, reactionarily and bureaucratically) profits even more gigantic than they made before the war.

Such a kind of "regularisation" is also perfectly possible in republican-imperialist Russia: moreover it is practised here at this very moment, not only by the Miliukovs and the Chingarevs, but by Kerensky himself, with the help of Terestchenko, Nekrassov, Bernatsky, Prokopovitch^[9] and Co., who defend, by their reactionary bureaucratic and bourgeois conduct, the "inviolability" of the banks and their sacred right to make the most monstrous profits. Let us speak the plain truth: in republican Russia there are people who want to "regularise" economic life by reactionary and bureaucratic methods, but who are prevented sometimes by the "Soviets " which have not succeeded in wiping out the first Kornilov but will spare no effort to smash another Kornilov.

That is the truth. And this simple and bitter truth is more useful for the education of the people than the lies with which it is deceived about "our great revolutionary democracy."

The nationalisation of the banks would facilitate considerably the nationalisation of insurance; that is to say, the merging of all insurance companies into a single one which would centralise their operations and would be controlled by the State. Here again, if the democratic-revolutionary State were to decree the fusion and order the directors, officials and big shareholders to proceed without delay, on their own personal responsibility, to carry it out, the congresses of officials would accomplish it at once and without the slightest difficulty. Hundreds of millions are invested in insurance by the capitalists and all the work is done by the employees. The fusion would lead to the lowering of the premium for insurance and would give a host of advantages and benefits to all the insured, whose number could be considerably increased without increasing the outlay of forces and resources at all. There is absolutely nothing—except the inertia, routine and cupidity of a handful of people occupying comfortable sinecures—to prevent the realisation of this reform, which would increase, moreover, the country's "capacity for defence" by economising the labour of the population and by opening out the widest possibilities for effective and not merely verbal "regularisation" of economic life.

 

5.—Nationalisation of the Trusts

Capitalism is distinguished from economic systems which have preceded it by the alliance and close interdependence which it has established between its different branches, and without which, it may be said in passing, no progress would be technically possible. Thanks in large part to the domination of the banks over production, contemporary capitalism has carried to its highest point this interdependence of the different branches of the economic system.

The banks and the most important branches of industry and commerce are in indissoluble alliance. The result of this is that on the one hand nationalisation of the banks implies necessarily the monopolisation by the State, and so nationalisation of the syndicates (rings and trusts), both commercial and industrial (sugar, coal, iron, petroleum trusts, &c.): on the other hand that the regularisation of economic life has for a sine qua non condition the simultaneous nationalisation of the banks and trusts.

Let us take for example the sugar trust. Formed under Tsarist rule, it developed into a gigantic capitalist union of magnificently equipped mills and factories; a union which, needless to say, was thoroughly impregnated with a reactionary and bureaucratic spirit, which secured scandalous profits on its capital and reduced workers and employees to a veritable slavery. The government then controlled and regulated production in favour of the capitalist magnates.

In this branch, all that remains to be done is to transform the reactionary bureaucratic organisation into a democratic revolutionary organisation by simple decrees requiring the convocation of congresses of employee, engineerss directors, and shareholders, the establishment of uniform book-keeping, the registration of workers' associations, &c. There is the simplest thing in the world, and yet it is not done! In our democratic republic, the organisation of the sugar industry remains bureaucratic and reactionary; it is the same exploitation of work, the same routine and the same stagnation, the same enriching of the Brobinskys^[10] and Terechtchenkos as under Tsarism. Invite the democracy and not the bureaucracy, the workers and the employees and not the "sugar kings," to display their initiative, that is what could and ought to be done in a few days, at a single stroke, if the S.R.'s and Mensheviks did not cloud the public conscience by plans of "coalition" precisely with these sugar kings, a coalition which renders inevitable the complete inaction of the government in the organisation of economic life.^[11]

Take the case of the oil industry. It is already nationalised on a vast scale (to a certain degree), by the development of capitalism. Two oil-kings, commanding millions and hundreds of millions, have only to tear off their dividend coupons to receive fabulous profits from their enterprise which is already technically and socially organised, and efficiently run, by hundreds and thousands of clerks and engineers, &c. … The nationalisation of the oil industry can be accomplished at one stroke: and it is obligatory upon a revolutionary democratic state, particularly when that State is passing through a frightful crisis and ought, at whatever cost, to economise the labour of the people and increase the output of fuel. Bureaucratic control, obviously, will yield no result in this case; it will change absolutely nothing: for the oil-kings will manipulate the Teretchenkos, the Kerenskys, the Avxentievs and the Skobelevs, as easily as they did the Tsarist ministers—making use for this purpose of delays, false statements, and direct or indirect corruption of the bourgeois Press (that is, the "public opinion" for which the Kerenskys and Avxentievs have such high esteem), as well as of the officials, whom Kerensky and Avxentiev have left at their posts in the old but still intact State apparatus.

If anything serious is to be done, we must pass—and pass in a revolutionary manner—from bureaucracy to democracy: that is, we must declare war on the "kings" and shareholders of the oil industry; they must be punished with confiscation of goods and with imprisonment if they try to delay nationalisation, make false statements of their income or of the accounts of their enterprises, if they sabotage production or refuse to take measures for increasing output. It is necessary to appeal directly to the initiative of the workers and clerks, to summon congresses of them at once, and offer them a definite percentage of the profits on condition that they exercise complete control and increase the output. If revolutionary democratic measures of this kind had been carried out from April, 1917, Russia, which is one of the world's richest oil-producing areas, could have taken advantage of river transport during the summer, to ensure a sufficient supply of fuel.

The bourgeois Government and the coalition Government (of the S.R.'s, the Mensheviks and the Cadets) have done absolutely nothing. They have carried out only a few purely bureaucratic reforms. They have not dared to take a single really revolutionary measure. Everything is as it was—there are the oil-kings still, the same rule-of-thumb methods in production, the same enmity towards the workers and the clerks; and in consequence there is the same disorganisation, the same plundering of labour, as there was under Tsarism. Nothing has been altered except the headings on the notepaper of these "republican " chancelleries.

In the coal industry—no less technically and morally "ready" for nationalisation, and no less impudently controlled by the coal kings—we meet with the fact of direct sabotage, destruction or suspension of production. Even the Menshevik organ, the Rabotchaïa Gazeta, has had to recognise these facts: yet absolutely nothing has been done—apart from setting up reactionary bureaucratic commissions where the brigands who control the coal trust have as many representatives as the workers.

No revolutionary democratic measure has been taken; there has not been the slightest attempt to establish the one real control—control from below, by the association of workers and clerks, wielding Terror against the industrial magnates who are holding up production and are leading the country to ruin. All the present rulers are in favour of coalition: if not with the Cadets, at least with commercial and industrial circles. Coalition demands that the power of the capitalist be left untouched; that they be left unpunished; that they be allowed to restrict production and to blame the workers for it, to increase the disorganisation and so pave the way for a new Kornilovist insurrection.

 

6.—The Suppresssion of Business Secrecy

Without the abolition of business secrecy, control of production and distribution is either a meaningless phrase which the Cadets use to dupe the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks, and the latter to dupe the working classes; or it is something that can only be carried out by reactionary and bureaucratic means. Although this is evident to any unprejudiced man, although the Pravda has insistently demanded the suppression of business secrecy (and has itself been suppressed, largely because of this, by the Kerensky Government that is always eager to please the capitalists) our republican government has not thought—no more than have the "organs of the revolutionary democracy"—of this primary means of control.

Here in fact is the key to all control. Here is the most sensitive spot of the Capital that plunders the people and sabotages production. Precisely for that reason the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks are afraid to touch it.

The usual argument of the capitalist, repeated thoughtlessly by the petite bourgeoisie, is that capitalist economy absolutely forbids the abolition of business secrecy, because private property in the means of production and the capitalist's individual relation to the market demand that business ledgers be "inviolable" and, consequently, that banking operations be kept secret.

Persons who use these and similar arguments have let themselves be deceived and in turn they deceive the people: for they refuse to see two cardinal and notorious facts in the economic life of to-day. The first is the existence of big capitalism; that is, the organisation sui generis of banks and trusts and huge factories, &c. … The second is the war.

It is just big capitalism of to-day that deprives business secrecy of the right to exist; that makes business secrecy nothing but hypocrisy—a means of concealing the financial combinations and the monstrous profits of big capital. Big-capitalist economy is, by its very nature, a collective economy: it works for millions of men; by its operations it binds together directly or indirectly hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of families.

It's a far cry from this economy to that of the small artisan or middle peasant, who usually keep no accounts and are therefore not affected by the suppression of business secrecy.

Moreover, the operations of big capitalism are known to hundreds of people and even more. In actual fact the law which protects business secrecy serves, not the needs of production or exchange, but speculation and the most brutal form of profit-making, the direct swindling that, as is well known, is particularly widespread in joint stock companies but is cleverly concealed by such manipulation of reports and balance-sheets as dupes the public.

If business secrecy is indispensable in petty economy, for the small peasants and artisans among whom production is not collective but scattered and separate: in the big capitalist economy the preservation of business secrecy means the maintenance of the privileges and profits of a handful of people against the interests of the whole people. This has already been partially recognised by the law for the publication of the balance-sheets of joint-stock companies: but the control which is in existence in Russia as in all the advanced countries, is just that reactionary bureaucratic control which does not open the eyes of the people and does not allow the whole truth to be known concerning the operations of the joint stock companies.

To act in a revolutionary and democratic manner it is necessary at once to decree a new law abolishing business secrecy, exacting complete statements from the big firms, and conferring on every group of citizens that reaches a certain size (e.g., 1,000 or 10,000 electors) the right to examine all the documents and books of any enterprise whatever. A simple decree is enough to realise such a measure easily and completely: only, it would give free play to popular initiation of control by the black-coat unions, the trade unions, and all the political parties; it would make control effective and democratic.

As we have said, the second fact that is forgotten is the war. The great majority of commercial and industrial undertakings work no longer for the free market but for the State, for the war. I have already written in Pravda that people who bring against us, in this connection, the objection that it is impossible to establish Socialism are shameless liars: what we have to do, I repeat, is not establish Socialism in a day, but expose the theft of public money.

The capitalist economy which works "for the war" and is directly or indirectly connected with the war supplies on which the capitalists make hundreds of millions of profit, is protected by the Cadets, just as it is also by the Mensheviks and the S.R.'s who oppose the suppression of business secrecy; who are therefore no more nor less than the accomplices of those who steal the public money.

The war now costs Russia fifty millions a day, and most of this is for military supplies. Of these fifty millions, five millions at least and probably ten and more represent the "legitimate profits" of the capitalists and of the officials with whom the former are more or less directly connected. The big firms and the important banks which finance the transactions in war supplies pocket enormous sums—speculating on the suffering of war, profiting by the death of hundreds of thousands and millions of men, in order to plunder the Treasury.

These scandalous profits on munitions, these "securities" faked by the banks, the names of those who are enriching themselves out of the rise in the cost of living—these are publicly notorious. In "Society" everyone talks about it with a smile on the lips. The bourgeois Press itself, whose principle it is to ignore unpleasant facts and evade "delicate" questions, nevertheless provides us with a certain amount of precise information. Everyone knows these things: yet nothing is done, all is tolerated, and a government which is able only to indulge in fine phrases about "control" and "regulations " still finds support.

If the revolutionary democrats really were revolutionaries and democrats, they would at once have published a law to suppress business secrecy; compel the merchants and war-contractors to hand over their accounts; forbid them to abandon their class of occupation without authority; punish them with confiscation of goods for concealing their profits and deceiving the people; organise the inspection from below, democratically, by the whole people itself, by the associations of clerks, workers, consumers, &c. …

Our S.R.'s and Mensheviks are quite rightly dubbed "frightened democrats"; for in reality they only repeat what all the frightened petty bourgeois say that the capitalist will "run away" if "too vigorous" measures are taken, that without them "we" cannot manage things, that the Anglo-French millionaires who "sustain" us will be "offended," &c. … One would believe, listening to these fellows, that the Bolsheviks propose something which has never yet been seen in history, which has never been tried—a pure Utopia: although in France, 150 years ago, men who were really "revolutionary democrats," who were really convinced of the just, defensive character of the war which they were waging, and whose power truly rested on the popular masses, were able to set up a revolutionary control over the rich and get results which compelled the admiration of the whole world.

Now, during the 150 years which have rolled away since then, the development of capitalism by the creation of banks and trusts and railroads has simplified and facilitated, to an indefinite extent, the means of real democratic control on the part of the workers and peasants, over the exploiters and the capitalists.

At bottom, the question of control is really the question: Who is it that exercises control: that is to say, what class controls and what class is controlled? Amongst us in republican Russia, it is the big landowners and the capitalists who have continued so far, with the connivance of the "competent organs" of the so-called revolutionary democracy, to play the part of the controllers.

The inevitable outcome is the capitalist venality which provokes general indignation amongst the people, as much as the disorganisation which the capitalists have artificially created.

It is necessary revolutionarily, unequivocally and fearlessly to break with the past and build up the structure of the future; to put into effect the control of the workers and peasants over the big landowners and the capitalists. It is of this that our S.R.'s and Mensheviks are most afraid.

 

8.—Compulsory Grouping into Trusts

In Germany the compulsory grouping into associations—of the industrialists, for instance—has long since been effected. There is nothing new in it. The S.R.'s and the Mensheviks are to be blamed for the complete stagnation which, in this matter as in others, prevails in republican Russia where we see these not too honourable parties in close embrace with the Cadets or the Boublikovs, or, for that matter, with the Teretchenkos and the Kerenskys.

The compulsory grouping into associations will on the one hand accelerate capitalist development which leads everywhere and always to the organisation of the class struggle, to the increase in the number, the variety and the importance of the Trusts. On the other hand, it is the indispensable preliminary condition for even the least serious control, and for all economy of national effort.

The German law, for example, compels the master tanners in a locality, or in a whole state, to join an association in the management of which a representative of the government participates, so as to control it. Of itself this law does not affect the property regime at all; it does not take a centime from anybody and does not determine in what spirit, reactionary and bureaucratic or revolutionary and democratic, control will be carried out. Such laws can and ought to be promulgated in Russia without a moment's delay; social circumstances can be left to determine, according to the needs of the situation, the forms of rapid application and the methods of controlling their application, etc. … The government needs no special machinery, no preliminary investigation, no preparatory work for the promulgation of these laws. All it requires is the firm decision to break with the private interests of a few capitalists who are not "accustomed" to such interference in their affairs and who do not want to lose the monstrous profits which are guaranteed to them by the absence of all control and by the running of their businesses on the old lines.

There is no need for any machinery, for any system of statistics (like that which Tchernov wishes to substitute for the revolutionary initiative of the worker and peasant masses) in order to promulgate this law; for the application of it ought to be entrusted to existing social forces, to the industrialists themselves, under compulsory control of the "lower classes"—of the oppressed and exploited classes who have always been, as history shows, infinitely superior to the exploiters in heroism,spirit of sacrifice and fraternal discipline.

If we had a really democratic and revolutionary government, it would decree that the manufacturers and industrialists in every branch, employing, let us say, at least two workers each, are obliged to group themselves immediately into districts and provincial associations. The responsibility for the complete execution of the law will fall in the first place on the manufacturers, the directors of the undertakings, the members of the boards of management, the big shareholders (for these are the real captains of modern industry, the real masters), and these would be considered deserters and punished as such if they refused to co-operate in putting the law into immediate operation and they would be collectively responsible up to the full extent of the value of their property. The responsibility would fall finally on the general body of clerks who would also be obliged to form a single association, and on the workers, all organised in their trade union. The object of compulsory organisation would be to establish a complete, rigorous and detailed system of book-keeping, and above all to centralise the operations of buying raw materials and selling manufactured products, as well as to economise resources and the energies of the people. This economy would, thanks to the merging of isolated enterprises into one Trust, attain gigantic proportions, as political economy teaches us, and as the example of all trusts, syndicates and cartels proves.

Besides, we must repeat, this grouping into a trust in no way changes the system of property. That fact should be specially emphasised, for the bourgeois Press does not cease to "frighten" the small and middle employers by representing that Socialists in general, and the Bolsheviks in particular, want to "expropriate" them that is a lie; for the Socialist, even in case of a completely Socialist revolution, does not want to expropriate the poor peasants, they cannot and will not expropriate them.

We are speaking solely of the indispensable and urgent measures that have already been realised in the West and which even the least consistent democratic government must apply if it is going to avert the approaching catastrophe.

The organisation into associations of the small employers would meet with considerable difficulties of a technical and cultural nature. But it is just these enterprises that could be excluded from the operation of the law (as we pointed out in the example given above) without being a serious obstacle, in spite of that, to the operation of the law; for although they may be excessively numerous they are responsible for only a very tiny fraction of the general mass of production; besides they are often dependent, directly or indirectly, on the big enterprises.

Only the latter are of decisive importance, and so far as they are concerned, the technical and intellectual conditions for their grouping already exists. Nothing is wanting except a firm and resolute revolutionary initiative, ruthless against the exploiters.

The poorer a country is in technicians and intellectuals, the more necessary and urgent it is to decree the compulsory fusion and to begin to apply it to the big enterprises; for it is just this fusion that will economise intellectual forces, by enabling them to be utilised to the full and rationally distributed. If it was possible for the Russian peasants to create all sorts of organisations in their villages after 1905, in spite of the innumerable obstacles created by the Tsarist regime: surely the fusion of the enterprises of big and middle industry and commerce can be brought about in a few months or even sooner, if it is commanded and compelled by a truly revolutionary and democratic government supported by the participation and interest of the "lower classes" of the democracy—that is, of the black-coats and the workers, to whom it would entrust the exercise of control.

 

8.—Regulation of Food Supplies.

The war obliged all the belligerent States and a certain number of neutral States to have recourse to the regulation of food supplies. The bread ticket made its appearance, became customary, and other kinds of tickets followed in its train. Russia also was forced to adopt it.

Better than any other example, this system allows us to compare bureaucratic and reactionary methods, which tend to limit economic and social transformations to a minimum, with revolutionary and democratic methods, which deserve this name only if their direct object is to break violently with the old circumscribed system, and to hasten as much as possible the movement of progress.

The bread ticket, which is the chief specimen of the regulation of food supplies (consumption) in contemporary capitalist states, has as its object (an object rarely attained) to share out the existing quantity of bread in such a way as to allow some to all. The maximum of consumption is far from being established for all products. It is only so for the chief—that is all. No attempt is made to go any farther. The proceeding is to gather statistics, by bureaucratic methods, of the existing stocks of bread; to divide the figures so obtained by the number of inhabitants; to fix a standard of consumption; to make it compulsory; and there to stop. Objects of luxury are not touched, for they are so dear that they are inaccessible to "the people."

That is why in all the belligerent countries, without exception, even in Germany, where the regulation of consumption is, without doubt, most careful, most vigorous and the least slipshod, you can see the rich continually avoiding the "rations." Of that everyone is aware, and of that everyone speaks with a smile on the lips: in the Socialist Press and also everywhere in the bourgeois Press, notes on the "menu" of the rich are to be seen, in spite of the rigour of the censor. In such and such a health resort, they receive white bread in quantity (these resorts are frequented by those who have the means, on the pretext of illness): they consume, instead of the simple products of the people, the most rare, the most "recherché" and the dearest of commodities.

A reactionary Capitalist State, which dreads the sapping of the foundations of Capitalism, the foundations of salaried slavery, the foundations of the economic domination of the rich, which fears the development of initiative on the part of the artisans and the workers in general; which is afraid of their covetousness flaring up and of their demands increasing, only needs to introduce the bread ticket. It loses sight not for one instant of its reactionary aims: to fortify capitalism, not to let it be undermined; to limit as much as possible the "regulation of economic life" in general, and of consumption in particular, only to take absolutely indispensable measures to make sure of the subsistence of the people, and to keep well on guard against really regulating consumption by exercising a control over the rich, by imposing on the rich, placed as they are, in the most comfortable circumstances, privileged and overfed in times of peace, greater burdens in time of war.

In every country, we repeat, even in Germany, and most clearly in Russia, there exist a whole lot of methods of avoiding the law: the people tighten up their belts, and the rich strut in the health resorts, supplementing the meagre pittance, called "national allowance," by every kind of means, and do not in any way allow themselves to be controlled.

In Russia, which has just effected its revolution against Tsarism in the name of liberty and equality; in Russia, which has just in one blow become a democratic republic, what comes immediately under one's notice, what particularly excites the discontent, irritation, indignation and fury of the masses, is the ease with which the rich evade the discipline of the bread-rationing. Nothing is more easy than for them to avoid the law. Secretly, and at particularly high prices, especially when one has "connections" (and only the rich have "connections "), one can find everything and in great quantity. The people suffer from hunger. The regulation of the food supply is confined within the strictest limits—limits most bureaucratically reactionary. The government is not in the least occupied with establishing this regulation on a truly democratic and revolutionary basis.

Everyone lines up in a queue before the shops, except the rich, who send their servants to line up for them, and often engage a special servant for this one purpose. After that, we talk of democracy!

A truly revolutionary and democratic policy, in the face of the unheard-of plight of the nation, would not limit itself to instituting bread-rationing cards in its struggle against the approaching catastrophe: it would, to begin with, decree the compulsory grouping of all the population into "social units of consumption," for without that it is impossible to obtain any control over consumption: in the second place, obligation to work for the rich, who should be compelled to give their services free in such societies, as secretaries or in some other employment: in the third place, the equal distribution of commodities amongst the people, so as to divide in an equitable manner the burdens of the war: in the fourth place, an organisation of control by means of which the control of consumption by the rich should be carried out by the poor.

A real democracy in this sphere of activity, a real revolution in the organisation of control by the least fortunate classes, would powerfully encourage the application of all the intellectual forces and the development of the revolutionary energies of the people.

Now, however, the ministers of Russia, republican and democratic-revolutionary, just like their brothers in the other imperialist countries, keep on uttering mere phrases about the "universal obligation to work," or "the application of all energies," but the people see and feel and testify to the hypocrisy beneath these words. The result is that there is no progress, and disorganisation is growing at an incredible speed, the catastrophe is approaching, for our government cannot institute a military prison for the workers, in the manner of Kornilov, Hindenburg and the imperialists in general: the traditions, the memories, the times, the habits and the institutions of the revolution are still too fresh in the minds of the people. But it is no longer possible to take serious measures in the democratic-revolutionary path, for it is impregnated to the very marrow with the bourgeois spirit, and it is bound by its coalition with the bourgeoisie on whom it is dependent with a whole mass of agreements and whose privileges it dare not touch.

 

9.—The Government's Destruction of the Work of Democratic Organisations

We have examined the different methods and means by which a struggle is made against the catastrophe of famine. We have seen everywhere the flagrant contradiction which appears between democracy and the government by the S.R. and Menshevik bloc, which supports it. To prove that this contradiction does not exist only in our imagination and that the demonstration that it is incapable of solution lies in the fact that the conflicts which are its results have a material significance, it is enough to recall two typical "schedules," two characteristic lessons of our half-year of revolution:

The History of the "Reign" of Polchinsky^[12] is the first lesson.

The second is the History of the "Reign" and the fall of Piecheckonov.

Fundamentally, the measures against the catastrophe and the famine, which we have described above, are intended to encourage by every means (even to the point of constraint) the grouping together of the people, and above all of the oppressed classes, the workers and the peasants, and particularly the poor peasants. And it is in this way that the people have agreed, spontaneously, to struggle against the burdens and the unheard-of scourges of the war. Tsarism thwarted by every means in its power the spontaneous association of the people. After its fall a multitude of democratic organisations arose and developed rapidly throughout Russia. The struggle against the catastrophe was carried on by democratic organisations, created spontaneously by the people, by all sorts of committees whose business was revictualling and the provision of the necessaries of life, fuel, &c.

What is more remarkable is that, during the six months of revolution, our government, which calls itself both republican and revolutionary, our government, which the Mensheviks and the S.R.'s support, has, under the name of "plenipotentiary organs of the revolutionary democracy," fought with great bitterness against democratic organisations and has just succeeded in triumphing over them.

Polchinsky has acquired a wretched notoriety in this struggle. He has acted behind the back of the government, without openly interfering (just like the "Cadets," who put the name of Tseretelli in front "for the people" and themselves silently carried out all affairs of importance). Polchinsky has effected the miscarriage of all the serious measures of the democratic organisations, created spontaneously by the people, for no serious measures could fail to do injury to the monstrous profits and to the aggrandisement of the sharks of commerce and of industry. Now, Polchinsky was and still is the defender and the faithful servant of these sharks. He has succeeded in annulling quite simply the decisions of these democratic organisations (a fact published in the newspapers)!

All the "reign" of Polchinsky, which has lasted several months (precisely those during which Tseretelli, Skobelev and Tchernov were ministers), is nothing but an abominable scandal, a complete denial of the will of the people, of the decisions of democracy, done to please the capitalists, to satisfy their base cupidity. The newspapers, naturally enough, have only published a very small part of the exploits of Polchinsky, and it is only when it has acquired power, and when it denounces Polchinsky and his fellows in the tribunals, that a truly democratic government will be able to make a complete inquiry into all the means employed by Polchinsky to hinder the struggle against the famine.

We shall be told that Polchinsky was an exception and that, besides, he is now deprived of power. The unfortunate part of it is that Polchinsky is not an exception, but he is the rule and his dismissal has not made things any better. His place has been filled by others of his own kind, who have left untouched the influence of of the capitalists and have continued the policy of their predecessor in favour of them—a decision which tends neither more nor less than to destroy the efficacy of any struggle whatever against the famine, for Kerensky and his acolytes are only a bulwark for the defence of capitalist interests.

The clearest proof of this is shown by the dismissal of Piecheckonov, Minister of Food. Piecheckonov, we know, is one of the most moderate of democrats. But, in the organisation for feeding the people, he wished to work conscientiously in strict combination with the democratic organisations. And nevertheless, it is a fact most highly significant, that this ultra-moderate "populist," this member of the socialist popular party, ready to make every compromise with the bourgeoisie, has had to give up his post. For, to please the capitalists, the Kerensky government has doubled the retail price of cereals.

This is how, in the edition of September 2 of the Svobodnaia Zizn; M. Smith gives approval of this step:—

"Some days before the taxes were increased, the following scene took place at a meeting of the All-Russia Food Committee. The representative of the Right, Rokhovitch, a bitter defender of the rights of private trading and an intractable enemy of the monopoly of cereals and of State interference in the economic life of the people, declared with a triumphant smile that, in accordance with his recommendations, the taxes on corn were immediately to be raised.

"The representative of the Soviet of the workers and soldiers declared then that, as far as he knew, there could be no question of such a measure as long as the revolution lasted; and that in any case the government had no power without consulting the competent organs of democracy, the Economic Council and the All-Russia Food Committee. The representative of the Soviet of peasant deputies associated himself with this declaration.

"But, alas! the facts gave them a flat contradiction: it was the representative of the sections of qualified electors and not those of the democracy who turned out to be right. He was perfectly informed about the attack which was being launched against the rights of democracy when our representatives indignantly repelled the very idea of it."

And so the workers' and the peasants' representatives clearly declare their opinion in the name of the immense majority of the people and the Kerensky government does exactly opposite to what they demand, obviously to please the capitalists.

Rokhovitch, the representative of the capitalists, has shown himself, so we see, better informed than the representatives of democracy. It is worthy of notice that it is always the bourgeois newspapers, the Reitch and the Birjovka, which have the best information on what is being done by the Kerensky government.

What remains to be said? The position is clear: the capitalists have entrance into the government and in fact exercise the power. Kerensky is only their hack, whom they order about when and how they please. The interests of the tens of millions of workers and of peasants are sacrificed to a handful of the rich.

How do our S.R.'s and Mensheviks justify this abominable violation of the people's rights? Perhaps they have addressed an appeal to the workers and the peasants declaring before all Russia that after such a scandal the place for Kerensky and his colleagues is no longer in the government, but in prison?

Not on your life! the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks, in the person of their "economic section," have merely limited themselves to adopting the threatening resolution mentioned above. They declared there that the rise in the price of cereals effected by the Kerensky government is a "fatal measure striking the most deadly blow at the measures for feeding the people as well as to economic life," and that the putting into force of this fatal measure is a direct violation of the law.

Such are the results of this policy of conciliation and compromise.

The government has violated the law to please the rich, the great landed proprietors and the capitalists, by taking a measure which ruins control, disorganises the machinery of feeding the people and wholly prevents the recovery of our financial stability: and the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks continue to extol their agreement with the commercial and the industrial classes, to hold conferences with Terechtchenko, to treat Kerensky gently, and they are content merely with writing a resolution of protest which the government coolly tosses into the waste-paper basket.

It can easily be made as clear as daylight that the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks have betrayed the people and the revolution, and that it is the Bolsheviks who are really the leaders of the masses, even of the S.R. and Menshevist masses. Only the acquisition of power by the proletariat, directed by the Bolshevik party, will make it possible to put an end to the scandalous state of affairs created by Kerensky and his consorts and to restore the work of democratic food organisations which Kerensky and his government have thwarted. Only the Bolsheviks interfere as true defenders of the national organisation for the distribution of food; only they truly represent the workers and the peasants in the face of the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks, whose policy, vacillating, irresolute and treacherous, has led the country to such a pass as that of the rise in the price of cereals.

 

10.—The Financial Crash and the Means of Preventing It

There is another aspect of this question of the increase in the retail price of cereals. This increase brings in its train fresh issues of paper money, and consequently a new epidemic of high prices and an aggravation of the financial chaos, leading us straight to bankruptcy. Everyone knows that inflation is the worst form of forced loan, that it especially aggravates the condition of the workers, of the poorer classes of the population, and that it is the principal obstacle in the way of financial recovery.

And the Kerensky government, supported by the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks, has recourse to this measure.

To make a serious attempt to combat financial disorder and to meet the inevitable crash, there is no other method than to break with the capitalist interests and to organise a really democratic control—i.e., by the workers—a control over the capitalists by the workers and the peasants, and this method we have advocated all along.

The unlimited issue of paper money encourages speculation, permits the capitalists to make millions profit and creates immense difficulties for the development, so necessary, of production; for the high cost of materials, of machines, and of every kind of product is making formidable leaps and bounds from day to day. How can the situation be remedied when the rich conceal the wealth they have acquired by speculation?

A progressive tax can be put on incomes with very high taxes on the more important incomes. Our government has already decided on this measure, in imitation of imperialist governments. But the tax has remained and still remains a dead letter, for the value of money depreciates by day, and in addition the falsification of income returns is all the greater as incomes arise from speculation and business secrets are kept more carefully.

To make the tax effective we must have a real control, not only a control on paper. This control is impossible if it remains bureaucratic, for bureaucracy itself is linked with the bourgeoisie by thousands of ties. This is why, in the Imperialist states of Western Europe, whether monarchies or republics, the stabilisation of finance is only secured at the price of "compulsory labour," which imposes a barrack-room discipline upon the workers. Reactionary bureaucratic control is the only method known to the imperialist governments, not excepting the "democratic " republics of France and America, for placing the burdens of the war upon the proletariat and the labouring classes.

The fundamental contradiction of our government consists in the fact that in order not to clash with the bourgeoisie, in order not to break the "coalition," it is obliged to instal a reactionary bureaucratic control, to call it "revolutionary-democratic," and thus, at each step, to deceive and irritate and exasperate the masses who have just over-thrown Tsarism.

Now revolutionary-democratic measures, i.e., the grouping into associations of the oppressed classes, of the workers and peasant masses, are exactly what is required to exercise the most effective control over the rich and to wage an efficacious struggle against the concealment of incomes.

It is necessary, in order to combat fiduciary inflation, to encourage the use of cheques. It is a step which in no way affects the poor, for they live from day to day and only establish their budget for their week; at the end of which they have given back to the capitalists the few pence which they have earned in working for them. But as far as the rich are concerned, the exclusive use of cheques would be of immense importance. It would allow the state—especially if accompanied by the nationalisation of banking and the suppression of business secrecy—to exercise a real control over the incomes of the capitalists, to really "democratise" the financial system and at the same time to regulate it.

The unfortunate thing about the present situation is that there is a fear of assailing the privileges of the bourgeoisie and of breaking the "coalition." For, without truly revolutionary measures, without some degree of coercion, the capitalists will not submit to any control, they will not reveal their balance-sheets, they will not present their stocks of paper money to be registered by the democratic state.

By nationalising the banks, by making the use of cheques compulsory for the rich, by suppressing secret balance-sheets, by punishing with the confiscation of all their goods all who make false returns of income—by these means a close alliance of the workers and peasants would be able, with the greatest ease, to institute an effective and universal control of the rich; and this control would take back from those who are holding it in their safes the paper money issued by the treasury—to which it would then return.

To do this, we need a revolutionary and democratic dictatorship, directed by the revolutionary proletariat—in other words, democracy must become effectively revolutionary.

But there's the rub. This is not what is desired by our S.R.'s and our mensheviks, who cover themselves with the flag of "revolutionary democracy," meanwhile upholding the reactionary and bureaucratic policy of the bourgeoisie, who, as usual, are now acting on the motto: "After us the deluge!"

In general, we do not even notice how far our thinking is encrusted with anti-democratic habits and the prejudice of the "inviolability" of bourgeois private property. When an engineering firm or a banker publishes data on the income and wages of a worker, on the productivity of his work—this is considered to be something perfectly legal and just. Nobody dreams of considering it as an assault on the "private life" of the worker and as an "act of spying" or of gathering illegal information on the part of the employer. Bourgeois society considers work and the payment of wages to be like an open book in which every bourgeois has the right to look at any time, which he can use as a basis to reveal the "luxury" of the workers, their "laziness," &c. …

But what about reversing control? If associations of officials, employees and servants were invited by the democratic State to verify the income and expenditure of the capitalists, to publish the figures concerning them, to help the government to combat the making of false income returns?

What a clamour of indignation would arise from the breasts of the bourgeoisie, who would howl about "spying " and "illegal information"! When the masters exercise control over their servants and the capitalists over "their" workers, that is all in the natural order of things. The private life of the workers and of the exploited classes is not considered as "inviolable." The capitalist class has the right to demand that each worker should render an account; they have always a right to reveal to the public the income and expenditure of the workers. But the bourgeoisie will never allow the oppressed to control the oppressor, to investigate his income and expenditure; to reveal his state of luxury—even during the war when this very state of luxury is provoking famine in the country and the death of soldiers at the front. The bourgeoisie will not allow this kind of control, for it is "spying" and "illegal information."

The question always comes back to the same point—the domination of the bourgeoisie is incompatible with truly revolutionary democracy. In the twentieth century, in a capitalist country, it is impossible for us to be revolutionary democrats if we are afraid to go forward to Socialism.

 

11.—Is it Possible to make a Forward Step if we are afraid to Advance to Socialism?

The preceding argument may easily arouse in the mind of the reader impregnated with the current opportunist ideas of the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks the objection that most of the measures we have just described are not democratic, but socialist.

This objection, which is current (in one form or another) in the bourgeois, Social-Revolutionary and Menshevik Press, is a reactionary excuse of backward capitalism, a defence on the model of Struve. We are not yet ripe, they say, for Socialism. Our revolution is a bourgeois revolution-that's why we must bow down and give way to the bourgeoisie (although the great French bourgeois revolutionaries, 125 years ago, made sure of the greatness of their revolution by the use of the Terror against all oppressors, of any kind whatever; landed seigneurs as well as capitalists).

The pseudo-Marxists (including the S.R.'s) who have become the servants of the bourgeoisie and who argue in this way do not understand the nature of imperialist monopoly, the nature of the State or of revolutionary democracy. For, if they understood it, they would be compelled to admit that a movement forward must be a step towards Socialism.

Everyone talks about imperialism. But imperialism is only monopolistic capitalism.

That capitalism has become monopolistic in Russia also is sufficiently shown by the existence of metal, sugar, coal and other combines. The sugar combine, moreover, gives us a typical example of the transformation of monopolist capitalism into State monopoly.

Now, what is the State? It is the organisation of the ruling class: for example, in Germany of the junkers and capitalists. Thus what the German Plekhanovs (Scheidemann, Leutsch and others) call "War Socialism" is really wartime state monopoly or, to put it more clearly and more simply, a military prison for the workers, a military defence for the capitalists.

Try to substitute for this capitalist State of the junkers (that is, the great landed proprietors) the State of the revolutionary democracy (that is, the State which destroys all privileges and which does not hesitate to attain by revolutionary means a true democracy) and you will see that, in the true state of revolutionary democracy, capitalist State monopoly marks inevitably a step towards Socialism.

For a great capitalist undertaking which has happened to secure a monopoly works for the whole population. If it become a State monopoly, as a result the State directs it (the State, that is, the armed organisation of the people and in the first place of the workers and peasants, on condition that revolutionary democracy has been achieved). But in whose interest does the State direct it?

Either in the interests of the great landowners and capitalists, in which case there is not a State of revolutionary democracy, but a State of reactionary bureaucracy, an imperialist republic, or else in the interests of the revolutionary democracy, in which case it is a step towards Socialism.

For Socialism is simply the next step after capitalist State monopoly. In other words, Socialism is the Monopolist State in the service of the people and thus ceasing to be a capitalist monopoly.

The trend of evolution is such that, from monopolies (the number, function and importance of which have been greatly increased by the war) it is impossible to advance without approaching Socialism. Therefore it is necessary to choose between:—

Either being truly a revolutionary democrat and therefore not fearing to take another step towards Socialism;

Or else dreading the approach of Socialism; condemning it, by suggesting as—the Piecheckonovs, the Dans and the Tchernovs suggest—that our revolution is a bourgeois revolution; and thus fatally slipping towards Kerensky, Miliukov and Kornilov (that is, the reactionary and bureaucratic repression of the "revolutionary democratic" aspirations of the workers and peasants).

There is no other alternative.

In this lies the fundamental contradiction of our revolution.

It is impossible usually—and above all in war-time—to stand still. We must go forward or back. In twentieth-century Russia, which has secured a republic and democratic rule by a revolution, it is impossible to go forward without approaching Socialism, without making one or more steps towards Socialism. (And these steps are conditioned by the level of our technique and of our culture; thus it is impossible in Russia to introduce machinery on a large scale into agriculture, although it is indispensable in sugar production.)

Those who fear to go forward must go back—this is what the Kerenskys do, applauded by the Miliukovs and the Plekhanovs and with the ignorant support of the Tseretellis and the Tchernovs.

The logic of history is such that the war has extraordinarily accelerated the transformation of monopoly capitalism into State capitalism and has, through this very fact, brought humanity considerably nearer to Socialism.

The imperialist war is on the eve of the social revolution. And that not only because, by its horror, the war leads to proletarian insurrection—for no insurrection will create Socialism if the economic conditions do not permit the establishment of it—but because monopolist State capitalism is the material preparation for Socialism, the vestibule to Socialism, the step of the historical ladder which is separated from the step called Socialism by no intervening step.

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Our S.R.'s and our Mensheviks approach the question of Socialism as doctrinaires, from the point of view of a doctrine which they have learnt by heart, but ill understood.

They picture Socialism as a thing of the distant future, dim and unknown.

Now Socialism is oozing through all the pores of contemporary capitalism; Socialism rises directly and practically from each great step in advance within capitalism.

What is general compulsory labour?

It is a step in advance on the basis of actual monopolist capitalism; a step towards the regularisation of the whole of economic life in a general scheme; a step towards the preservation of national work, insanely wasted by capitalism.

In Germany the junkers (the great landowners) and the capitalists established general compulsory labour and then this obligation became inevitably a military prison for the workers.

But take the same institution and consider the application it would have in a state of revolutionary democracy. The general obligation to work, established, regulated and directed by the Soviets of workers', peasants', and soldiers' deputies, is not Socialism yet, but it is already no longer capitalism. It is an immense step towards Socialism; a step after which—under a rule of true democracy—it would be impossible, without using unprecedented violence against the masses, to force a retreat to capitalism.

 

12.—The Struggle against Disorganisation and War

The question of the measures to take against the approaching catastrophe leads us to the discussion of another extremely important question: that of the relations between home and foreign policy or, in other words, between the imperialist war of conquest and the revolutionary, proletarian war, between the criminal war of plunder and the just democratic war.

All the measures that we have described would considerably strengthen, as we have already shown, the capacity for defence or, in other words, the military power of the country. On the other hand, it is impossible really to carry them out without changing the war of conquest into a just war, without making of the war carried on by the capitalists in their own interests a war carried on by the proletariat in the interests of all workers and of all exploited peoples.

The nationalisation of banks and trusts, accompanied by the suppression of business secrecy and by the establishment of workers' control over the capitalists, would not only lead to tremendous economy of the labour, strength and reserve of the population, but also to a great improvement in the conditions of the working masses, that is, of the majority of the population. In modern war, as is well known, economic organisation has a decisive importance. Russia has enough corn, coal, oil and iron; in this respect our situation is better than the other belligerent countries. Now, if the struggle against disorganisation was carried on by the methods shown above—by interesting the masses in the struggle, by improving their conditions, by nationalising the banks and combines—the government would actually utilise the revolution and the achievement of democratic rule and would carry the whole country to a level of economic organisation considerably higher than it possesses now.

If, instead of the "coalition" with the bourgeoisie, who hinder control and sabotage production, the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks had carried out the transference of power to the Soviets and had put forth all their strength, not to share in the ministry and to occupying at the side of the Cadets the posts of ministers, vice-ministers, &c., but to lead the workers and peasants in their control of the capitalists, Russia to-day would be in the midst of a great economic change, where the land would belong to the peasants and the bank would be nationalised, that is to say, it would be considerably in advance of all the other capitalist States.

The capacity for defence and the military strength of a country where the banks are nationalised is greater than that of a country where the banks remain in individual hands. The military power of an agricultural country where the land is in the hands of peasants' committees is greater than that of a country where great landowners rule.

The heroic patriotism and the prodigies of courage of the French in 1792–93 are constantly quoted. But the material historico-economic conditions which made these prodigies possible are forgotten. A ruthless revolutionary struggle against feudalism, the general adoption of better means of production, the free possession of the soil, combined with energy, efficiency and self-denial truly democratic and revolutionary—these were the material and economic conditions which saved France by transforming, by giving new life to its economic foundations.

The example of France proves one thing and one thing only: to make Russia capable of defence, to arouse "prodigies" of heroism in the masses, it is necessary to sweep away with "Jacobin" ruthlessness everything that has served its purpose and to new economic life into Russia. Now, it is impossible to do this in the twentieth century merely by the overthrow of Tsardom; France, 125 years ago, did not stop with the overthrow of royalty. It is also impossible to do it simply by the revolutionary destruction of great landed estates (even which we have not done, because the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks have betrayed the peasants) and by the transference of land to the peasants. For we live in the twentieth century and control of the land without control of the banks is powerless to restore the country.

The regeneration of production in France, at the end of the eighteenth century, was linked up with moral and political regeneration, with the dictatorship of the revolutionary democracy and of the revolutionary proletariat (from which democracy was not yet separated and with which it was almost identical), and with a ruthless struggle against every kind of reaction. The whole nation, and especially the oppressed classes, were uplifted by great revolutionary enthusiasm; everyone looked on the war as a just war, as a war of defence—which really it was. Revolutionary France was defending herself against the reactionary Europe of the kings. It was not in 1792–93, but later, after the triumph of reaction, that the counter-revolutionary dictatorship of Napoleon changed the war of defence into a war of conquest.

And in Russia? In Russia, we are continuing to wage an imperialist war in the interests of the capitalists, in alliance with the imperialists and bound by secret treaties that the Tsar concluded with the English and other capitalists and that promise to the Russian capitalists the plunder of other countries, Constantinople, Galicia, Armenia, &c. …

This war will be for Russia a reactionary and unjust war, a war of conquest, until our country proposes a just peace and breaks with imperialism. The social character of war and its historic significance are not determined by the position of the enemies' troops (as the S.R.'s and Mensheviks think, thus descending to the intellectual level of the most ignorant moujik) but by the policy which conducts the war. (For "War is the continuation of policy.") They depend on the class which makes war and on the end for which it is made.

It is ridiculous to lead the masses to a war of plunder based on secret treaties and then to expect their enthusiasm. The advanced class of revolutionary Russia, the proletariat, is seeing more and more clearly the criminal character of the war, despite the efforts of the bourgeoisie and their lacqueys to hoodwink them. The proletariat of the two capitals has become definitely international.

How could there be any question of enthusiasm?

Home policy is indissolubly knit up with foreign policy. It is impossible for the country to defend itself without the heroism of the people bringing about—doggedly and firmly—great economic changes. And it is impossible to arouse the heroism of the masses without breaking with imperialism; without proposing to all peoples a democratic peace; without transforming the criminal war of plunder and conquest into a just war of revolutionary defence.

The break with the capitalists in home and foreign policy can alone save our revolution and our country from the octopus of imperialism.

 

13.—Revolutionary Democracy and the Revolutionary Proletariat

To be truly revolutionary, democracy must go hand-in-hand with the proletariat and support it as the only class revolutionary through and through.

Such is the conclusion to which we are led by our examination of the remedies to use against the terrible catastrophe which is threatening us.

The war has brought on such a crisis; tried so severely the moral and material force of the people; struck such violent blows at the social structure that the human race must choose between perishing or entrusting its lot to the most revolutionary class which alone can carry it rapidly and thoroughly to more developed means of production.

Through special historical causes—the backward state of the country, the particularly crushing burdens of war, the decay of Tsardom, the persistence of the traditions of 1905—the Russian Revolution has preceded that of other countries. As a result, Russia has been carried in a few months to the level of the most advanced countries.

But that is not enough. The war is pitiless, ruthlessly it presents the alternative: to perish or else to overtake, and even to surpass the most advanced countries, even on economic grounds.

It is possible, for we have on our side the experience of many countries. We have moral support from the growing opposition to the war throughout Europe, from the atmosphere of the workers' revolution which is approaching all over the world. We have on our side, an extremely rare thing during an imperialist war, the liberty of revolutionary democracy, which urges us and drags us on.

We must perish or go forward. Thus does history present the alternative.

The attitude of the proletariat towards the peasants at this moment confirms our old Bolshevik policy: to free the peasants from bourgeois influence. In that alone is there safety for the revolution.

Now, the peasants compose the greatest part of the petit-bourgeois class.

Our S.R.'s and our Mensheviks have taken up a reactionary position by keeping the peasants under bourgeois influence, by making them enter into an alliance with the bourgeoisie and by preventing them from uniting with the proletariat.

The experience of revolution rapidly teaches the masses. The reactionary policy of the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks is bankrupt: they have been beaten in the soviets of the two capitals. The opposition of the "Left" increases steadily within the two democratic, petit-bourgeois parties. On September 10, 1917, the S.R. Conference at Petrograd gave a two-thirds majority to the left wing, which wants union with the proletariat and repels the coalition with the bourgeoisie.

The S.R.'s and the Mensheviks are repeating their favourite contrast: the bourgeoisie and democracy. But this contrast is as idiotic as to compare yards and pounds.

It is possible to have a democratic bourgeoisie; it is possible to have a bourgeois democracy; he who denies it has not the slightest knowledge of history or political economy.

The S.R's and Mensheviks want to hide the existence of the petite bourgeoisie between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The petite bourgeoisie, because of its social position, wavers everlastingly between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

The S.R.'s and the Mensheviks seek to bring the petite bourgeoisie into alliance with the bourgeoisie. This is the real cause of all their "coalitions," of all their participation in the ministries, of the whole policy of Kerensky, the typical semi-Cadet. But for six months of our revolution, this policy has completely failed.

The Cadets are happy: the revolution, they think, has become bankrupt, it cannot conquer in war or over disorganisation.

It is a lie. Those who have become bankrupt are the Cadets and the S.R.'s with the Mensheviks, for it is this coalition which for six months has ruled Russia, has increased the economic crisis and has made the military situation worse.

As the failure of the alliance of the bourgeoisie with the S.R.'s and the Mensheviks becomes more complete, so will the people learn quickly and will see ever more clearly the true solution of the situation: the alliance of the poor peasants with the proletariat.

 

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1. The pamphlet was written in the first part of September, 1917.
2. One knows that even the revolution of February had as its immediate cause, food supply difficulties.
3. During the war from 1915 on, there appeared "Special Committees"; for Defence, controlling metallurgical industries; for Food Supplies, Transport and Fuel, regulating the corresponding branches. Further, there were functioning central and local bureaux for sugar, leather and flour; and these can be considered substantially as the forerunners of the Soviet organs of 1918–1921.
4. The big industrialist of Moscow who uttered the famous phrase about "strangling the Revolution with the bony hand of famine."
5. A railway "expert" and Duma deputy, notorious for having imitated the Lamourette kiss of pretended reconciliation by embracing Tseretelli at the Moscow State Conference in August.
6. A big sugar factor of Kieff, before becoming Minister of Foreign Affairs in the coalition Government.
7. Organisations of industrialists formed during the war to regulate the distribution of orders from the State amongst the various enterprises; they were approved by the Duma on August 27, 1915. Their president was Goutchkov, Minister for War after the February Revolution.
8. Thus in 1912, the capitalist trust Prodameta sold 75 to 95 per cent. of the iron rails, axles, &c., that were sold in Russia; the trust Prodvagon executed 97 per cent. of the orders distributed in Russia; the same for coal.
9. Chingarev—Minister of Finance in the first coalition ministry, after Terestchenko: Bernatsky—Minister of Finance, and Prokopovitch—Minister for Food Supplies, in Kerensky's last ministry.
10. A landowner and sugar manufacturer of the province of Kiev.
11. These lines were already written when I read in the newspapers that the Kerensky government had instituted a sugar monopoly, and had instituted it, naturally, in a bureaucratic and reactionary fashion, without a workers' congress, without publicity, and without any check on capitalist avidity.—Author's Note.
12. Engineer and Man of Affairs, attached to the Ministry of Commerce, under Kerensky, he favoured the "sabotage" of the industrials.