Our Revolution: Essays on Working-Class and International Revolution, 1904-1917

The first conflict has already arisen around the question of the form of government. The Russian bourgeoisie needs a monarchy. In all the countries pursuing an imperialistic policy, we observe an unusual increase of personal power. The policy of world usurpations, secret treaties and open treachery requires independence from Parliamentary control and a guarantee against changes in policies caused by the change of Cabinets. Moreover, for the propertied classes the monarchy is the most secure ally in its struggle against the revolutionary onslaught of the proletariat.

In Russia both these causes are more effective than elsewhere. The Russian bourgeoisie finds it impossible to deny the people universal suffrage, well aware that this would arouse opposition against the Provisional Government among the masses, and give prevalence to the left, the more determined wing of the proletariat in the Revolution. Even that monarch of the reserve, Michael Alexandrovitch, understands that he cannot reach the throne without having promised "universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage." It is the more essential for the bourgeoisie to create right now a monarchic counterbalance against the deepest social-revolutionary demands of the working masses. Formally, in words, the bourgeoisie has agreed to leave the question of a form of government to the discretion of the Constituent Assembly. Practically, however, the Octobrist-Cadet Provisional Government will turn all the preparatory work for the Constituent Assembly into a campaign in favor of a monarchy against a Republic. The character of the Constituent Assembly will largely depend upon the character of those who convoke it. It is evident, therefore, that right now the revolutionary proletariat will have to set up its own organs, the Councils of Workingmen's Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, against the executive organs of the Provisional Government. In this struggle the proletariat ought to unite about itself the rising masses of the people, with one aim in view —to seize governmental power. Only a Revolutionary Labor Government will have the desire and ability to give the country a thorough democratic cleansing during the work preparatory to the Constituent Assembly, to reconstruct the army from top to bottom, to turn it into a revolutionary militia and to show the poorer peasants in practice that their only salvation is in a support of a revolutionary labor régime. A Constituent Assembly convoked after such preparatory work will truly reflect the revolutionary, creative forces of the country and become a powerful factor in the further development of the Revolution.

The second question that is bound to bring the internationally inclined Socialist proletariat in opposition to the imperialistic liberal bourgeoisie, is the question of war and peace.

(Published in New York, March 19, 1917.)

WAR OR PEACE?

The question of chief interest, now, to the governments and the peoples of the world is, What will be the influence of the Russian Revolution on the War? Will it bring peace nearer? Or will the revolutionary enthusiasm of the people swing towards a more vigorous prosecution of the war?

This is a great question. On its solution depends not only the outcome of the war, but the fate of the Revolution itself.

In 1905, Milukov, the present militant Minister of Foreign Affairs, called the Russo-Japanese war an adventure and demanded its immediate cessation. This was also the spirit of the liberal and radical press. The strongest industrial organizations favored immediate peace in spite of unequaled disasters. Why was it so? Because they expected internal reforms. The establishment of a Constitutional system, a parliamentary control over the budget and the state finances, a better school system and, especially, an increase in the land possessions of the peasants, would, they hoped, increase the prosperity of the population and create a vast internal market for Russian industry. It is true that even then, twelve years ago, the Russian bourgeoisie was ready to usurp land belonging to others. It hoped, however, that abolition of feudal relations in the village would create a more powerful market than the annexation of Manchuria or Corea.

The democratization of the country and liberation of the peasants, however, turned out to be a slow process. Neither the Tzar, nor the nobility, nor the bureaucracy were willing to yield any of their prerogatives. Liberal exhortations were not enough to make them give up the machinery of the state and their land possessions. A revolutionary onslaught of the masses was required. This the bourgeoisie did not want. The agrarian revolts of the peasants, the ever growing struggle of the proletariat and the spread of insurrections in the army caused the liberal bourgeoisie to fall back into the camp of the Tzarist bureaucracy and reactionary nobility. Their alliance was sealed by the coup d'état of June 3rd, 1907. Out of this coup d'état emerged the Third and the Fourth Dumas.

The peasants received no land. The administrative system changed only in name, not in substance. The development of an internal market consisting of prosperous farmers, after the American fashion, did not take place. The capitalist classes, reconciled with the régime of June 3rd, turned their attention to the usurpation of foreign markets. A new era of Russian imperialism ensues, an imperialism accompanied by a disorderly financial and military system and by insatiable appetites. Gutchkov, the present War Minister, was formerly a member of the Committee on National Defense, helping to make the army and the navy complete. Milukov, the present Minister of Foreign Affairs, worked out a program of world conquests which he advocated on his trips to Europe. Russian imperialism and his Octobrist and Cadet representatives bear a great part of the responsibility for the present war.

By the grace of the Revolution which they had not wanted and which they had fought, Gutchkov and Milukov are now in power. For the continuation of the war, for victory? Of course! They are the same persons who had dragged the country into the war for the sake of the interests of capital. All their opposition to Tzarism had its source in their unsatisfied imperialistic appetites. So long as the clique of Nicholas II. was in power, the interests of the dynasty and of the reactionary nobility were prevailing in Russian foreign affairs. This is why Berlin and Vienna had hoped to conclude a separate peace with Russia. Now, purely imperialistic interests have superseded the Tzarism interests; pure imperialism is written on the banner of the Provisional Government. "The government of the Tzar is gone," the Milukovs and Gutchkovs say to the people, "now you must shed your blood for the common interests of the entire nation." Those interests the imperialists understand as the reincorporation of Poland, the conquest of Galicia, Constantinople, Armenia, Persia.

This transition from an imperialism of the dynasty and the nobility to an imperialism of a purely bourgeois character, can never reconcile the Russian proletariat to the war. An international struggle against the world slaughter and imperialism are now our task more than ever. The last despatches which tell of an anti-militaristic propaganda in the streets of Petrograd show that our comrades are bravely doing their duty.

The imperialistic boasts of Milukov to crushGermany, Austria and Turkey are the most effective and most timely aid for the Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs… Milukov will now serve as a scare-crow in their hands. The liberal imperialistic government of Russia has not yet started reform in its own army, yet it is already helping the Hohenzollerns to raise the patriotic spirit and to mend the shattered "national unity" of the German people. Should the German proletariat be given a right to think that all the Russian people and the main force of the Russian Revolution, the proletariat, are behind the bourgeois government of Russia, it would be a terrific blow to the men of our trend of mind, the revolutionary Socialists of Germany. To turn the Russian proletariat into patriotic cannon food in the service of the Russian liberal bourgeoisie would mean to throw the German working masses into the camp of the chauvinists and for a long time to halt the progress of a revolution in Germany.

The prime duty of the revolutionary proletariat in Russia is to show that there is no power behind the evil imperialistic will of the liberal bourgeoisie. The Russian Revolution has to show the entire world its real face.

The further progress of the revolutionarystruggle in Russia and the creation of a Revolutionary Labor Government supported by the people will be a mortal blow to the Hohenzollerns because it will give a powerful stimulus to the revolutionary movement of the German proletariat and of the labor masses of all the other countries. If the first Russian Revolution of 1905 brought about revolutions in Asia – in Persia, Turkey, China – the Second Russian Revolution will be the beginning of a powerful social-revolutionary struggle in Europe. Only this struggle will bring real peace to the blood-drenched world.

No, the Russian proletariat will not allow itself to be harnessed to the chariot of Milukov imperialism. The banner of Russian Social-Democracy is now, more than ever before, glowing with bright slogans of inflexible Internationalism:

Away with imperialistic robbers!

Long live a Revolutionary Labor Government!

Long live Peace and the Brotherhood of Nations!

(Published in New York, March 20, 1917.)

TROTZKY ON THE PLATFORM IN PETROGRAD

(From a Russian paper)

Trotzky, always Trotzky.

Since I had seen him the last time, he has been advanced in rank: he has become the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. He has succeeded Tchcheidze, the wise, sober leader who has lost the confidence of the revolutionary masses. He holds the place of Lenin, the recognized leader of the left wing of Social-Democracy, whose absence from the capital is due to external, accidental causes.

It seems to me that Trotzky has become more nervous, more gloomy, and more restrained. Something like a freezing chill emanates from his deep and restless eyes; a cool, determined, ironical smile plays around his mobile Jewish lips, and there is a chill in his well-balanced, clear-cut words which he throws into his audience with a peculiar calmness.

He seems almost lonesome on the platform. Only a small group of followers applaud. The others protest against his words or cast angry, restless glances at him. He is in a hostile gathering. He is a stranger. Is he not also a stranger to those who applaud him and in whose name he speaks from this platform?

Calm and composed he looks at his adversaries, and you feel it is a peculiar joy for him to see the rage, the fear, the excitement his words provoke. He is a Mephisto who throws words like bombs to create a war of brothers at the bedside of their sick mother.

He knows in advance which words will have the greatest effect, which would provoke the most bitter resentment. And the more extreme, the more painful his words are, the firmer and stronger is his voice, the slower his speech, the more challenging his tone. He speaks a sentence, then he stops to wait till the storm is over, then he repeats his assertion, with sharper intonation and with more disdain in his tone. Only his eyes become more nervous, and a peculiar disquieting fire is blazing in them.

This time he does not speak; he reads a written declaration. He reads it with pauses, sometimes accentuating the words, sometimes passing over them quickly, but all the time he is aware of the effect and waits for a response.

His voice is the voice of a prophet, a preacher:

"Petrograd is in danger! The Revolution is in danger! The people are in danger!" …

He is a stranger on the platform, and yet – electric currents flow from him to his surroundings, creating sincere though primitive enthusiasm on one side, on the other anger and spite. He opens vast perspectives before the naïve faithful masses:

"Long live an immediate, honest, democratic peace!"

"All power to the Workmen's Councils! All the land to the people!"

notes

1

Karl Marx, Germany in 1848. (English edition, pp. 22-23.)

2

K. Kautsky, The American and the Russian Workingman.

3

D. Mendeleyer, Russian Realities, 1906, p. 10.