often the vehicle, the channel of the dictatorship of the revolutionary classes, 28

... that Soviet socialist democracy is not contradictory to individual management and dictatorship in any way; that the will of a class may sometimes be carried out by a dictator, who at times may do more alone and who is frequently more necessary.2

29

The relationship between ultimate political aims, meaning the establishment of communism, and the means used to achieve them were frankly stated. Communist morality, contrary to the ethics of other political systems, subordinated means to ends and approved the use of any means if they promote Communist objectives:

When people talk to us about morality we say: For the Communist, morality consists entirely of compact united discipline and conscious mass struggle against the exploiters. We do not believe in eternal morality, and we expose all the fables about morality.

... At the basis of Communist morality lies the struggle for the consolidation and consummation of communism. That also is the basis of Communist training, education and tuition.30

We say that our morality is entirely subordinated to the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat. Our morality is deduced from the class struggle of the proletariat.31

Advising Communists abroad (to penetrate trade unions), Lenin frankly stated his strategic principles:

. . It is necessary . . . to resort to all sorts of stratagems, manoeuvres and illegal methods, to evasion and subterfuges in order to penetrate the trade unions, to remain in them, and to carry on Communist work in them at all costs.32

Guided by their own special concept of morality, Communists viewed an act as evil if committed by its enemies, and the same act as good if carried out by itself. In foreign affairs, for example, the view was accepted that a treaty is only a formality and may be violated by the Soviet government if such a violation is advantageous:

. . In war you must never tie your hands with the considerations of formality. It is ridiculous not to know the history of war, not to know

"Lenin, "The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government" (March-April 1918), Selected Works (1943 ed.), vol. VII, p. 341.

Lenin, “Economic Development," Speech Delivered March 31, 1920 at the Ninth Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Selected Works (1943 ed.) vol. VIII, p. 222.

20

Lenin, "The Tasks of the Youth League," Speech Delivered October 2, 1920 at the Third All-Russian Congress of the Russian Young Communist League, Selected Works (1943 ed.), vol. IX, pp. 478, 479.

" Ibid.,

p.
475.

Lenin, ""Left-Wing' Communism, An Infantile Disorder" (April 27, 1920), Selected Works (1943 ed.), vol. X, p. 95.

that a treaty is a means of gaining strength. . . . the history of war shows as clearly as clear can be that the signing of a treaty after defeat is a means of gaining strength.33

Secret treaties concluded by the pre-Soviet governments of Russia were made public by Trotsky in his capacity of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs; every Soviet leader condemned "secret diplomacy" conducted "behind the backs of the people" and promised that never, under Soviet conditions, would secret diplomacy be revived.

The Soviet Government in a revolutionary manner has torn the veil of mystery from foreign politics. . . . in the present era . . . it is a question of life and death for tens of millions of people.3

The Seventh Congress of the Russian Communist Party (1918)3 gave the Central Committee authority to break treaties not only with Germany but with any "bourgeois" government. In a secret resolution, it said:

the Congress emphasizes that special authority is given the Central Committee at any time to annul all peace treaties with imperialist and bourgeois states as well as to declare war on them.36

In the summer of 1918, however, the first Soviet-German secret negotiations started, and secret agreements were concluded;" subsequently secret diplomacy was abundantly used.

Proceeding from the same principles, Communists did not condemn wars in general; in particular, it was said, wars are good when they are waged in the interests of the Communist movement:

... If war is waged by the exploiting class with the object of strengthening its class rule, such a war is a criminal war, and "defencism" in such a war is a base betrayal of socialism. If war is waged by the proletariat after it has conquered the bourgeoisie in its own country, and is waged with the object of strengthening and extending socialism, such a war is legitimate and "holy."

33

Lenin, "Speech in Reply to the Debate on the Report on War and Peace," Delivered March 8, 1918 at the Seventh Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Selected Works (1943 ed.), vol. VII, p. 309.

34

Lenin, "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky" (November 10, 1918), Selected Works (1943 ed.), vol. VII, pp. 133, 134.

35

This Bolshevik Congress, held in March 1918, renamed the party-Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik), usually abbreviated into RCP(B).

36

Lenin, "Dopolnenie k Rezolyutsii o Voine i Mire" (Addition to the Resolution on War and Peace), Introduced at the Seventh Congress of the All-Russian Communist Party, March 6-8, 1918, Sochineniya, vol. XXVII (1950), p. 99.

"See David J. Dallin, Russia and Postwar Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943), pp. 68, 69.

88

Lenin, "Left-Wing' Childishness and Petty-Bourgeois Mentality" (May 3-5, 1918), Selected Works (1943 ed.), vol. VII, p. 357.

It does not matter who the aggressor is: if a war is initiated by a Communist government it signifies progress and must be assisted. Therefore, the division of wars into aggressive and defensive ones must be rejected; the only correct division is between "revolutionary" wars, which are good, and "reactionary" wars, which are evil:

. The character of the war (whether reactionary or revolutionary) is not determined by who the aggressor was, or whose territory the "enemy" has occupied; it is determined by the class that is waging the war, and the politics of which this war is a continuation.39

The role of the Red Army as a means of socialist transformation became evident in the Soviet-Polish war of 1920. On Lenin's initiative, and against the advice of Trotsky and others, the Red Army, having first repelled the Polish forces, crossed into Poland and marched on Warsaw; a revolutionary committee of five Polish-Russian Communists was set up in Bialystok as a nucleus of the future Polish government.

... in Lenin's eyes Warsaw and, for that matter, all Poland, held a secondary place. The center of his interest was Germany. If Warsaw fell, Soviet troops would have reached the German border; a German Soviet Government would have been formed and kept in readiness, and Communist and semi-Communist forces inside Germany would have been able, in view of the widespread dissatisfaction with the terms of the Versailles Treaty-so it was reasoned in Moscow-to overthrow the weak government in power.40

Lenin announced that the basis of the Versailles Treaty had become shaky. He was looking forward to a Soviet-German military coalition with its own invincible Soviet-German Red Army. Said Zinoviev:

The future development of the world revolution will proceed at the same pace as the march of our Red Army. The Russian proletarian revolution has become the mightiest sovereign state in the world. Menacing the aristocratic white Warsaw, we by that very action tear to scraps the treaty of Versailles."1

In the end the Soviet campaign failed. The Red Army was thrown back from Warsaw and retreated into Soviet territory and the attempt at expanding the Soviet system by military means ended. It was not the last experiment of this kind, however; it was to be repeated the next year in Mongolia with a better success, and then, between 1939 and 1948 in Eastern and Central Europe.

"Lenin, "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky" (November 10, 1918), Selected Works (1943 ed.), vol. VII, p. 177.

"David J. Dallin, Russia and Postwar Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943), p. 54.

"Petrograd Pravda, August 13, 1920, p. 2.

3. The First Stages of the Social Upheaval

Civil war, ,42 which broke out in Russia in the summer of 1918, was accompanied and aggravated by a number of economic upheavals of which the most important was Lenin's offensive against the peasantry. This action became known as the drive of the Committees of the Poor against the well-to-do elements of the peasantry. At the root of this policy lay Lenin's mistrust, even fear, of the peasants as embodying the greatest support of private economy and of capitalism in a Soviet land. unfortunately, very, very much of small production still remains in the world, and small production engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously, daily, hourly, spontaneously and on a mass scale.“ Socialism means the abolition of classes.

In order to abolish classes one must, firstly, overthrow the landlords and capitalists. That part of our task has been accomplished, but it is only a part, and moreover, not the most difficult part. In order to abolish classes one must, secondly, abolish the difference between workingman and peasant, one must make them all workers. This cannot be done all

at once.

In order to solve the second and most difficult part of the problem, the proletariat, after having defeated the bourgeoisie, must unswervingly conduct its policy towards the peasantry along the following fundamental lines: the proletariat must separate, demarcate the peasant toiler from the peasant owner, the peasant worker from the peasant huckster, the peasant who labours from the peasant who profiteers. In this demarcation lies the whole essence of socialism.44

Lenin tried to discover a duality-pro-Communist and anti-Communist-in the peasant:

The peasant as a toiler gravitates towards socialism, and prefers the dictatorship of the workers [meaning Communist regime] to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The peasant as a seller of grain gravitates towards the bourgeoisie, to free trade, i.e., back to the "habitual" old "primordial” capitalism.15

By decree of June 11, 1918, Committees of the Poor were created all over the country; among their official tasks was the "distribution of food" and "confiscation" of food "surpluses" from the local "kulaks and rich." The idea was to carry the Soviet revolution into the villages and set up a "dictatorship of the poor peasants," who were assumed to sympathize with the Communists. Actually, of course,

❝ See ch. IV.

48

66 Lenin, ''Left-Wing' Communism, An Infantile Disorder" (May 12, 1920), Selected Works (1943 ed.), vol. X, p. 60.

"Lenin, "Economics and Politics in the Era of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat" (October 30, 1919), Selected Works (1943 ed.), vol. VIII, pp. 8, 9.

45

Lenin, "Privet Vengerskim Rabochim" (Greetings to the Hungarian Workers) (May 27, 1919), Sochineniya, vol. XXIX (1950), p. 359.

Little distinction was made among different social strata of the peasantry in carrying out the requisition policy. The response of the peasants to this type of forced confiscation was what might be expected. Peasants reduced their plantings to meet only their own consumption needs, did their utmost to conceal their reserves from the requisitioning authorities, and occasionally responded to seizures by violent attacks on the food collectors. The catastrophic decline in production caused severe food shortages in the cities as well as in many rural areas. Grumbling mounted as food became increasingly scarce, and the Bolsheviks stood in danger of completely alienating the countryside. The Kronstadt revolt in March 1921 and the peasant rising in Tambov and other provinces in the winter of 1920-21 marked the height of the crisis.46

Another economic measure of the same kind was the wholesale nationalization of all large industrial, trade, and banking units. The measure was contained in the decree of June 28, 1918, which gave a long list of enterprises taken over by the state. Carried out without preparation, it led immediately to a mass defection of owners, engineers, and part of the workers in defiance of the threat contained in the decree:

The entire employee, technical and working personnel of the enterprises, without exception, as well as the directors, members of the board of management and responsible administrators, are declared to be in the service of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and are to receive supplies according to the scales which prevailed before the nationalization of the enterprises, from the income and turnover capital of the enterprise.

In case members of the technical and administrative personnel of the nationalized enterprises leave their posts they are liable to prosecution before the court of the revolutionary tribunal in accordance with the stringency of the law.47

Industrial production dropped rapidly. By 1919 the Russian economy was almost completely paralyzed.

4. No Coexistence Possible

World events of that time did not justify the expectations or confirm the predictions of the Soviet leadership in regard to revolutionary developments outside of Russia. Lenin and his group, however, were reluctant to revise their views. In the first 3 years of the Soviet era Lenin repeatedly stated that the civil war in Russia marked the beginning of a worldwide social revolution; that Russia's new setup, representing an attempt to socialize one backward country, was doomed unless other nations joined Russia. Russia would cede her leading place to another

"Merle Fainsod, How Russia is Ruled (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953), p. 444.

""Dekret Soveta Narodnykh Komissarov" (Decree of the Soviet People's Commissars) (June 28, 1918), Istoriya Sovetskoi Konstitutsii p. 138.