Bolshevism and the Strong Hand

The use of the strong hand is the essential characteristic of bolshevist activity. This is not ideal, but unavoidable. It may be contrary to the prescriptions of democracy, and yet it subserves the interests of democracy. If, for all who live in Russia, democracy is to become an energy-diffusing socialistic reality, the bolsheviks cannot escape the necessity of sacrificing, as a transient measure, the rights of certain individuals and of certain social groups. That this should happen is an inevitable feature of historic evolution. Democracy is of a twofold nature, being simultaneously means and end of historic evolution. As end or goal of historic evolution it may come into conflict with itself as means of historic evolution. The dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry in Russia bears the insignia of this contradiction. Plaintive voices from Russia, the criticisms uttered by the adversaries of “bolshevism” in other lands, assure us that since the bolsheviks attained to power they have everywhere infringed and sacrificed democratic principles. Democracy, we are told, has repeatedly been given the go-by: in the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly; in the deprivations of civil rights announced in the soviet constitution; and in the declaration of the mass terror. Doubtless! But without such infringements could the revolution have been saved, could it have been carried a stage further, could the revolutionists have continued to work for socialism, which alone guarantees democracy for all? This is the crucial question, and for me the answer is self-evident, considering the circumstances attendant upon the Russian revolution.