The Perdurability of Bolshevism

Our anti-bolsheviks deny that the extant dictatorship in Russia possesses these justifications. They declare that the bolshevik dictatorship is the work of an inconsiderable minority of dogmatists and fanatics who, in the interests of narrow-minded partisan conceptions and a narrow partisan policy, desire by the brutal exercise of force to constrain the enormous majority of the Russian people to swallow the bolshevist prescriptions now and for the future. Whence do those who hold such views derive the certainty that the bolshevist policy is that of an inconsiderable minority of Russian workers and peasants? In my opinion, the number, the loudness, and the passion of the attacks on the coercive rule of the Bolsheviks should not make us overestimate the extent or the importance of serious hostility to the policy of the soviet government. It is an old experience, and one readily explicable, that, in the struggles of faction, minorities which are greatly outnumbered are apt to display peculiar violence. It is for them a natural need to convince the world that in spite of defeat they have power and are in the right.

Who will deny that many of the workers, numbers of the peasants, and above all most of the intelligentsia, neither share the views nor endorse the policy of the bolsheviks? None the less, a very large proportion, if not the majority, of those proletarians and peasants who take an active interest in political matters, support the bolsheviks, and the same is true of the social revolutionaries of the left. This opinion is confirmed by the fact that those who are, it is alleged, in an infinitesimal minority, though reproached with errors, deeds of violence, breaches of principle, and so on, have retained power for a considerably longer period than that for which the provisional governments of the two opening phases of the revolution hold sway. Moreover, this has taken place under conditions of almost unprecedented difficulty, throughout the terrible ordeal of the peace of Brest-Litovsk, and in face of the ever-present menace of famine. The anti-bolsheviks may say what they please, but the mere use of force cannot account for the perdurability of the soviet government - which has lasted far longer than is usual in time of revolution. No minority whose power rested only upon force could continue in such circumstances and for so long a time to sit on bayonets.

The persistence of soviet rule, which, the confident prophets assured us, could not possibly last more than a few weeks, enables us to infer with certainty that this government is supported by the broad masses of the Russian people. The bolsheviks, and the left social revolutionaries who co-operate with them, constitute the stalwart framework of the Russian revolutionary army. Through their readiness for action, through their capacity, they inspire confidence in the masses and rally the masses to their support. The need for dictatorship shows us, indeed, that the number and importance of the opponents of the soviet government must by no means be underestimated. Power must he used to repress power. Our hope is that the dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry will maintain itself long enough to abolish itself when it has fulfilled its function and reached its goal. For whereas during the two opening periods of the revolution the path of the governments led from the fine ideal of democracy to the harsh and cruel reality of dictatorship, the path of the soviet dominion will lead from the harsh and cruel reality of dictatorship to the beautiful and realised dream of democracy.