Measures of Military Necessity

The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the use of forcible measures against opponents, the declaration of the mass terror - these are bitter fruits of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. They must be regarded as measures of military necessity. “A la guerre comme la guerre.” (When you are making war, make war.) The bolshevist leaders of revolutionary Russia are engaged in a war of unparalleled significance. Here the moral and political standards of everyday life fail us. On this colossal stage, individual measures and individual phenomena are dwarfed into insignificance. The drama is one of overwhelming historic import, and it must be accepted or rejected as a whole. Who wills the ends must not shrink from the means. A proletarian revolution aiming at socialism cannot be effected without dictatorship. Above all is this true under existing conditions in Russia.