Bolshevism Part 15

On the third day, scenes of brutal violence toward the people's representatives took place at the palace. Peasants were the unfortunate victims of this violence.

When the delegates had ended their session and all that remained was the affixing of the signatures to the minutes, sailors forced their way into the hall; these were headed by a Bolshevik officer, _a former commander of the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul_.

The commander demanded that the delegates disband. In reply it was stated that the delegates would disband after they had finished their business. Then at the order of the commander the sailors took the delegate Ilyan, elected by the peasants of the Province of Tambov, by the arm and dragged him to the exit. After Ilyan, the sailors dragged out the peasant delegate from the Province of Moscow, Bikov; then the sailors approached Maltzev, a peasant delegate from the Province of Kostroma. He, however, shouted out that he would rather be shot than to submit to such violence. His courage appealed to the sailors and they stopped.

Now all the halls in the Tavrichesky Palace are locked and it is impossible to meet there. The delegates who come to the Tavrichesky Palace cannot even gather in the lobby, for as soon as a group gathers, the armed hirelings of Lenine and Trotzky disperse them. Thus, in former times, behaved the servants of the Czar and the enemies of the people, policemen and gendarmes.

This is not the testimony of correspondents of bourgeois journals; it is from a statement prepared at the time and signed by more than a hundred Socialists, members of the oldest and largest Socialist party in Russia, many of them men whose long and honorable service has endeared them to their comrades in all lands. It is not testimony that can be impeached or controverted. It forms part of the report of these well-known and trusted Socialists to their comrades in Russia and elsewhere. The claim that the elections to the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly were held on the basis of an obsolete register, before the people had a chance to become acquainted with the Bolshevist program, and that so long a time had elapsed since the elections that the delegates could not be regarded as true representatives of the people, was first put forward by the Bolsheviki when the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly was finally convened, on January 18th. It was an absurd claim for the Bolsheviki to make, for one of the very earliest acts of the Bolshevik government, after the overthrow of Kerensky, was to issue a decree ordering that the elections be held as arranged. By that act they a.s.sumed responsibility for the elections, and could not fairly and honorably enter the plea, later on, that the elections were not valid.

Here is the story of the struggle for the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, briefly summarized. The first Provisional Government issued a Manifesto on March 20, 1917, promising to convoke the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly "as soon as possible." This promise was repeated by the Provisional Government when it was reorganized after the resignation of Miliukov and Guchkov in the middle of May. That the promise was sincere there can be no reasonable doubt, for the Provisional Government at once set about creating a commission to work out the necessary machinery and was for the election by popular vote of delegates to the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly. Russia was not like a country which had ample electoral machinery already existing; new machinery had to be devised for the purpose. This commission was opened on June 7, 1917; its work was undertaken with great earnestness, and completed in a remarkably short time, with the result that on July 22d the Provisional Government--Kerensky at its head--announced that the elections to the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly would be held on September 30th, and the convocation of the a.s.sembly itself on the 12th of December. It was soon found, however, that it would be physically impossible for the local authorities all to be prepared to hold the election on the date set--it was necessary, among other things, to first elect the local authorities which were to arrange for the election of the delegates to the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly--and so, on August 22d, Kerensky signed the following decree, making _the one and only postponement_ of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, so far as the Provisional Government was concerned:

Desiring to a.s.sure the convocation of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly as soon as possible, the Provisional Government designated the 30th of September as election-day, in which case the whole burden of making up the election lists must fall on the munic.i.p.alities and the newly elected zemstvos. _The enormous labor of holding the elections for the local inst.i.tution has taken time_. At present, in view of the date of establishment of the local inst.i.tutions, on the basis decreed by the government--direct, general, equal, and secret suffrage--the Provisional Government has decided:

To set aside as the day for the elections to the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly the 25th of November, of the year 1917, and as the date for the convocation of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly the 12th of December, of the year 1917.

Notwithstanding this clear and honorable record, we find Trotzky, at a Conference of Northern Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, on October 25th, when he well knew that arrangements for holding the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly elections were in full swing, charging that Kerensky was engaged in preventing the convocation of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly! He demanded at that time that all power should be taken from the Provisional Government and transferred to the Soviets. These, he said, would convoke the a.s.sembly on the date that had been a.s.signed, December 12th.

The Bolshevik _coup d'etat_ took place, as already noted, less than three weeks before the date set for the elections, for which every preparation had been made by the government and the local authorities. It was at the beginning of the campaign, and the Bolsheviki had their own candidates in the field in many places. It was a foregone conclusion that the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly brought into being by the universal suffrage would be dominated by Socialists. There was never the slightest fear that it would be dominated by the bourgeois parties. What followed is best told in the exact language of a protest to the International Socialist Bureau by Inna Rakitnikov, representative of the Revolutionary Socialist party, which was, be it remembered, the largest and the oldest of the Russian Socialist parties:

The _coup d'etat_ was followed by various other manifestations of Bolshevist activity--arrests, searches, confiscation of newspapers, ban on meetings. Bands of soldiers looted the country houses in the suburbs of the city; a school for the children of the people and the buildings of the Children's Holiday Settlement were also pillaged. Bands of soldiers were forthwith sent into the country to cause trouble there.... The bands of soldiers who were sent into the country used not only persuasion, but also violence, _trying to force the peasants to give their votes for the Bolshevik candidates at the time of the elections to the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly; they tore up the bulletins of the Socialist-Revolutionists, overturned the ballot-boxes, etc_....

The inhabitants of the country proved themselves in all that concerned the elections wide awake to the highest degree. There were hardly any abstentions; _90 per cent. of the population took part in the voting_. The day of the voting was kept as a solemn feast; the priest said ma.s.s; the peasants dressed in their best clothes; they believed that the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly would give them order, laws, the land. In the Government of Saratov, out of fourteen deputies elected, there were twelve Socialist-Revolutionists. There were others (such as the Government of Pensa, for example) that elected only Socialist-Revolutionists. The Bolsheviki had the majority only in Petrograd and Moscow and in certain units of the army. To violence and conquest of power by force of arms the population answered by the elections to the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, the people sent to this a.s.sembly, not the Bolsheviki, but, by an overwhelming majority, Socialist-Revolutionists.

Of course, this is the testimony of one who is confessedly anti-Bolshevist, one who has suffered deep injury at the hands of the Bolsheviki of whom she writes. For all that, her testimony cannot be ignored or laughed aside. It has been indorsed by E. Roubanovitch, a member of the International Socialist Bureau, and a man of the highest integrity, in the following words: "I affirm that her sincere and matured testimony cannot be suspected of partizans.h.i.+p or of dogmatic partiality against the Bolsheviki." What is more important, however, is that the subsequent conduct of the Bolsheviki in all matters relating to the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly was such as to confirm belief in her statements.

No Bolshevik spokesman has ever yet challenged the accuracy of the statement that an overwhelming majority of the deputies elected to the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly were representatives of the Revolutionary Socialist party. As a matter of fact, the Bolsheviki elected less than one-third of the deputies. In the announcement of their withdrawal from the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly when it a.s.sembled in January the Bolshevik members admitted that the Socialist-Revolutionists had "obtained a majority of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly."

The att.i.tude of the Bolsheviki toward the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly changed as their electoral prospects changed. At first, believing that, as a result of their successful _coup_, they would have the support of the great ma.s.s of the peasants and city workers, they were vigorous in their support of the a.s.sembly. In the first of their "decrees" after the overthrow of the Kerensky Cabinet, the Bolshevik "Commissaries of the People" announced that they were to exercise complete power "until the meeting of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly," which was nothing less than a pledge that they would regard the latter body as the supreme, ultimate authority. Three days after the revolt Lenine, as president of the People's Commissaries, published this decree:

In the name of the Government of the Republic, elected by the All-Russian Congress of Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers'

Delegates, with the partic.i.p.ation of the Peasants' Delegates, the Council of the People's Commissaries decrees:

1. That the elections to the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly shall be held on November 25th, the day set aside for this purpose.

2. All electoral committees, all local organizations, the Councils of Workmen's, Soldiers' and Peasants' Delegates and the soldiers'

organizations at the front are to bend every effort toward safeguarding the freedom of the voters and fair play at the elections to the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, which will be held on the appointed date.

If this att.i.tude had been maintained throughout, and had the Bolsheviki loyally accepted the verdict of the electorate when it was given, there could have been no complaint. But the evidence shows that their early att.i.tude was not maintained. Later on, as reports received from the interior of the country showed that the ma.s.ses were not flocking to their banners, they began to a.s.sume a critical att.i.tude toward the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly. The leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionary party were warning their followers that the Bolsheviki would try to wreck the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, for which they were bitterly denounced in organs like _Pravda_ and _Izvestya_. Very soon, however, these Bolshevist organs began to discuss the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly in a very critical spirit. It was possible, they pointed out, that it would have a bourgeois majority, treating the Socialist-Revolutionists and the Cadets as being on the same level, equally servants of the bourgeoisie. Then appeared editorials to show that it would not be possible to place the destinies of Russia in the hands of such people, even though they were elected by the "unthinking ma.s.ses." Finally, when it was clear that the Socialist-Revolutionary party had elected a majority of the members, _Pravda_ and _Izvestya_ took the position that _the victorious people did not need a Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly_; that a new instrument had been created which made the old democratic method obsolete.[35] The "new instrument" was, of course, the Bolshevist Soviet.

IV

For the moment we are not concerned with the merits or the failings of the Soviet considered as an instrument of government. We are concerned only with democracy and the relation of the Bolshevist method to democracy. From this point of view, then, let us consider the facts. The Soviet was not something new, as so many of our American drawing-room champions of Bolshevism seem to think. The Soviet was the type of organization common to Russia. There were Soviets of peasants, of soldiers, of teachers, of industrial workers, of officers, of professional men, and so on. Every cla.s.s and every group in the cla.s.ses had its own Soviet. The Soviet in its simplest form is a delegate body consisting of representatives of a particular group--a peasants' Soviet, for example. Another type, more important, roughly corresponds to the Central Labor Union in an American city, in that it is composed of representatives of workers of all kinds.

These delegates are, in the main, chosen by the workers in the shops and factories and in the meetings of the unions. The anti-Bolshevist Socialists, such as the Mensheviki and the Socialist-Revolutionists, were not opposed to Soviets as working-cla.s.s organizations. On the contrary, they approved of them, supported them, and, generally, belonged to them.

They were opposed only to the theory that these Soviets, recruited in a more or less haphazard manner, as such organizations must necessarily be, were better adapted to the governing of a great country like Russia than a legal body which received its mandate in elections based upon universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage. No one ever pretended that the Soviets represented all the workers of Russia--including peasants in that term--or even a majority of them. No one ever pretended that the Soviet, as such, was a stable and constant factor. New Soviets were always springing up and others dying out. Many existed only in name, on paper. _There never has been an accurate list of the Soviets existing in Russia_. Many lists have been made, but always by the time they could be tabulated and published there have been many changes. For these and other reasons which will suggest themselves to the mind of any thoughtful reader, many of the leaders of the revolutionary movement in Russia have doubted the value of the Soviet as a _unit of government, while highly valuing it as a unit of working-cla.s.s organization and struggle_.

Back of all the strife between the Bolsheviki centered around the Soviets and the Socialist-Revolutionists and Mensheviki, centered around the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, was a greater fact than any we have been discussing, however. The Bolsheviki with their doctrinaire Marxism had carried the doctrine of the cla.s.s struggle to such extreme lengths that they virtually placed the great ma.s.s of the peasants with the bourgeoisie. The Revolution must be controlled by the proletariat, they argued. The control of the government and of industry by the people, which was the slogan of the old democracy, will not do, for the term "the people" includes bourgeois elements. Even if it is narrowed by excluding the great capitalists and landowners, still it embraces the lesser capitalists, small landowners, shopkeepers, and the petty bourgeoisie in general. These elements weaken the militancy of the proletariat. What is needed is the dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat. Now, only a very small part of the peasantry, the very poor peasants, can be safely linked to the proletariat--and even these must be carefully watched. It was a phase of the old and familiar conflict between agrarian and industrial groups in the Socialist movement. It is not very many years since the Socialist party of America was convulsed by a similar discussion. Could the farmer ever be a genuine and sincere and trustworthy Socialist? The question was asked in the party papers in all seriousness, and in one or two state organizations measures were taken to limit the number of farmers entering the party, so that at all times there might be the certainty of a preponderance of proletarian over farmer votes.

Similar distrust, only upon a much bigger scale, explains the fight for and against the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly. Lenine and his followers distrusted the peasants as a cla.s.s whose interests were akin to the cla.s.s of small property-owners. He would only unite with the poor, propertyless peasants.

The leaders of the peasantry, on the other hand, supported by the more liberal Marxians, would expand the meaning of the term "working cla.s.s" and embrace within its meaning all the peasants as well as all city workers, most of the professional cla.s.ses, and so on. We can get some idea of this strife from a criticism which Lenine directs against the Mensheviki:

In its cla.s.s composition this party is not Socialist at all. It does not represent the toiling ma.s.ses. It represents fairly prosperous peasants and working-men, petty traders, many small and some even fairly large capitalists, and a certain number of real but gullible proletarians who have been caught in the bourgeois net.[36]

It is clear from this criticism that Lenine does not believe that a genuine Socialist party--and, presumably, therefore, the same must apply to a Socialist government--can represent "fairly prosperous peasants and working-men." We now know how to appraise the Soviet government. The const.i.tution of Russia under the rule of the Bolsheviki is required by law to be posted in all public places in Russia. In Article II, Chapter V, paragraph 9, of this doc.u.ment it is set forth that "the Const.i.tution of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic involves, in view of the present transition period, the establishment of a dictators.h.i.+p of the urban and rural proletariat and the poorest peasantry in the form of a powerful All-Russian Soviet authority." Attention is called to this pa.s.sage here, not for the sake of pointing out the obvious need for some exact definition of the loose expression, "the poorest peasantry," nor for the sake of any captious criticism, but solely to point out the important fact that Lenine only admits a part of the peasantry--the poorest--to share in the dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat.

Turning to another part of the same important doc.u.ment--Article III, Chapter VI, Section A, paragraph 25--we find the basis of representation in the All-Russian Congress of Soviets stated. There are representatives of town Soviets and representatives of provincial congresses of Soviets. The former represent the industrial workers; the latter represent the peasants almost exclusively. It is important, therefore, to note that there is one delegate for every twenty-five thousand city voters and one for every one hundred and twenty-five thousand peasant voters! In Section B of the same Article, Chapter X, paragraph 53, we find the same discrimination: it takes five peasants' votes to equal the vote of one city voter; it was this general att.i.tude of the Bolsheviki toward the peasants, dividing them into cla.s.ses and treating the great majority of them as petty, rural bourgeoisie, which roused the resentment of the peasants' leaders. They naturally insisted that the peasants const.i.tuted a distinct cla.s.s, co-operating with the proletariat, not to be ruled by it. Even Marie Spiridonova, who at first joined with the Bolsheviki, was compelled, later on, to a.s.sert this point of view.

It is easy to understand the distrust of the Bolsheviki by the Socialist parties and groups which represented the peasants. The latter cla.s.s const.i.tuted more than 85 per cent. of the population. Moreover, it had furnished the great majority of the fighters in the revolutionary movement.

Its leaders and spokesmen resented the idea that they were to be dictated to and controlled by a minority, which was, as Lenine himself admitted, not materially more numerous than the old ruling cla.s.s of landowners had been.

They wanted a democratic governmental system, free from cla.s.s rule, while the Bolsheviki wanted cla.s.s rule. Generalizations are proverbially perilous, and should be very cautiously made and applied to great currents of thought and of life. But in a broad sense we may fairly say that the Socialism of the Socialist-Revolutionists and the Mensheviki, the Socialism of Kerensky and the men who were the majority of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, was the product of Russian life and Russian economic development, while the Socialism that the Bolsheviki tried by force of arms to impose upon Russia was as un-Russian as it could be. The Bolshevist conception of Socialism had its origin in Marxian theory. Both Marx and Engels freely predicted the setting up of "a dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat"--the phrase which the Bolsheviki have made their own.

Yet, the Bolsheviki are not Marxians. Their Socialism is as little Marxian as Russian. When Marx and Engels forecasted the establishment of proletarian dictators.h.i.+p it was part of their theorem that economic evolution would have reduced practically all the ma.s.ses to a proletarian state; that industrial and commercial concentration would have reached such a stage of development that there would be on the one side a small cla.s.s of owners, and, on the other side, the proletariat. There would be, they believed, no middle cla.s.s. The disappearance of the middle cla.s.s was, for them and for their followers, a development absolutely certain to take place. They saw the same process going on with the same result in agriculture. It might be less rapid in its progress, but not one whit less certain. It was only as the inevitable climax to this evolution that they believed the "dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat" would be achieved. In other words, the proletariat would be composed of the overwhelming majority of the body politic and social. That is very different from the Bolshevist attempt to set up the dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat in a land where more than 85 per cent, of the people are peasants; where industrial development is behind the rest of the world, and where dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat means the domination of more than one hundred and eighty millions of people by two hundred thousand "proletarians and the poorest peasants," according to Lenine's statement, or by six per cent. of the population _if we a.s.sume the entire proletariat to be united in the dictators.h.i.+p!_

V

At the time of the disturbances which took place in Petrograd in December, over the delay in holding the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, the Bolshevik government announced that the Const.i.tuante would be permitted to convene on January 18th, provided that not less than four hundred delegates were in attendance. Accordingly, the defenders of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly arranged for a great demonstration to take place on that day in honor of the event.

It was also intended to be a warning to the Bolsheviki not to try to further interfere with the Const.i.tuante. An earnest but entirely peaceful ma.s.s of people paraded with flags and banners and signs containing such inscriptions as "Proletarians of All Countries, Unite!" "Land and Liberty,"

"Long Live the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly," and many others. They set out from different parts of the city to unite at the Field of Mars and march to the Taurida Palace to protest against any interference with the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly. As they neared the Taurida Palace they were confronted by Red Guards, who, without any preliminary warning or any effort at persuasion, fired into the crowd. Among the first victims was a member of the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants' Delegates, the Siberian peasant Logvinov, part of whose head was shot away by an explosive bullet. Another victim was the militant Socialist-Revolutionist Gorbatchevskaia. Several students and a number of workmen were also killed. Similar ma.s.sacres occurred at the same time in other parts of the city. Other processions wending their way toward the meeting-place were fired into. Altogether one hundred persons were either killed or very seriously wounded by the Red Guards, who said that they had received orders "not to spare the cartridges." Similar demonstrations were held in Moscow and other cities and were similarly treated by the Red Guards. In Moscow especially the loss of life was great. Yet the Bolshevist organs pa.s.sed these tragic events over in complete silence. They did not mention the ma.s.sacres, nor did they mention the great demonstration at the funeral of the victims, four days later.

When the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly was formally opened, on January 18th, it was well known on every hand that the Bolshevik government would use force to destroy it if the deputies refused to do exactly as they were told. The corridors were filled with armed soldiers and sailors, ready for action.

The Lenine-Trotzky Ministry had summoned an extraordinary Congress of Soviets to meet in Petrograd at the same time, and it was well understood that they were determined to erect this Soviet Congress into the supreme legislative power. If the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly would consent to this, so much the better, of course. In that case there would be a valuable legal sanction, the sanction of a democratically elected body expressly charged with the task of determining the form and manner of government for Free Russia. Should the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly not be willing, there was an opportunity for another _coup d'etat_.

In precisely the same way as the Ministry during the last years of Czarism would lay before the Duma certain doc.u.ments and demand that they be approved, so the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets--the Bolshevik power--demanded that the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly meekly a.s.sent to a doc.u.ment prepared for it in advance. It was at once a test and a challenge; if the a.s.sembly was willing to accept orders from the Soviet authority and content itself with rubber-stamping the decrees of the latter, as ordered, it could be permitted to go on--at least for a time. At the head of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, as president, the deputies elected Victor Chernov, who had been Minister of Agriculture under Kerensky. At the head of the Bolshevik faction was Sverdlov, chairman of the Executive Committee of the Soviets.

He it was who opened the fight, demanding that the following declaration be adopted by the Const.i.tuante as the basis of a Const.i.tution for Russia:

DECLARATION OF THE RIGHT'S OF THE TOILING AND EXPLOITED PEOPLE

I

1. Russia is to be declared a republic of the workers', soldiers'

and peasants' Soviets. All power in the cities and in the country belongs to the Soviets.

2. The Russian Soviet Republic is based on the free federation of free peoples, on the federation of national Soviet republics.

II

a.s.suming as its duty the destruction of all exploitation of the workers, the complete abolition of the cla.s.s system of society, and the placing of society upon a socialistic basis, and the ultimate bringing about of victory for Socialism in every country, the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly further decides:

1. That the socialization of land be realized, private owners.h.i.+p of land be abolished, all the land be proclaimed common property of the people and turned over to the toiling ma.s.ses without compensation on the basis of equal right to the use of land.

All forests, mines, and waters which are of social importance, as well as all living and other forms of property, and all agricultural enterprises, are declared national property.

2. To confirm the decree of the Soviets concerning the inspection of working conditions, the highest department of national economy, which is the first step in achieving the owners.h.i.+p by the Soviets of the factories, mines, railroads, and means of production and transportation.

3. To confirm the decree of the Soviets transferring all banks to the owners.h.i.+p of the Soviet Republic, as one of the steps in the freeing of the toiling ma.s.ses from the yoke of capitalism.

4. To enforce general compulsory labor, in order to destroy the cla.s.s of parasites, and to reorganize the economic life. In order to make the power of the toiling ma.s.ses secure and to prevent the restoration of the rule of the exploiters, the toiling ma.s.ses will be armed and a Red Guard composed of workers and peasants formed, and the exploiting cla.s.ses shall be disarmed.