(a) The Middle Class Economic Revolution

IF Bolshevism puts the greatest stress upon the qualities of daring and ruthlessness, alike for the economic and the political revolution, this is partly due to its crude conceptions of the capitalist process of production, although not exclusively so. It is also a symptom of its preoccupation with the ideas of the Middle Class Revolution.

The latter is fundamentally distinguished from the Labour Revolution, on its political as well as on its economic side. This goes without saying so far as the economic aim of the Revolution is concerned. The Labour Revolution aims at abolishing that capitalism whose rapid and complete development was only made possible by the Middle Class Revolution. But the distinction between the two revolutions lies not merely in the aim but also in the methods.

The Middle Class Economic Revolution did not have to organize any new types of undertakings and communications. It had merely to liberate the types of undertakings which it found in existence from the feudal burdens and impediments which were imposed on them. Both before and after the Revolution, small businesses, and especially peasant undertakings, remained the preponderating type of business. Capitalist undertakings were still rare, and usually served to supply luxuries. The Revolution did indeed create the foundations which enabled the capitalist undertaking for the supply of popular needs to become the dominant form of production in society, but the establishment of such an undertaking was not one of the tasks of the Middle Class Revolution. The work of this revolution was, however, not exclusively negative, as it had to organize a new State and elaborate a new legal code. But its economic task was relatively easy and obvious: the abolition of feudal burdens and privileges. Neither the peasant nor the handicraftsman needed to change his mode of conducting business, which went on as before, if less onerously. The large undertaking of the feudal lord lost, at least, its labour-power, which had consisted of the peasants liable to statutory service. But nothing prevented the feudal lord from attracting the same peasant by paying him wages. Moreover, these large undertakings were insignificant and badly managed. If the landlord was not inclined to resort to wage labour, he was obliged to cut up his property and either sell or lease it to small peasants. This did not signify an economic innovation, but only an extension of the area of the peasant economy already in existence. The case was the same when the Revolution not merely abolished feudal burdens, but also confiscated the large estates, in order to cut them up into smaller holdings and sell them to individuals.

The feudal lord himself became quite superfluous. Nowhere did the feudal burdens constitute a social necessity. There was no reason why they should not be forthwith declared abolished for the whole area of the State, for all undertakings and branches of industry. Economic life would have derived an impetus rather than have suffered a check from this proceeding.

In defence of Bolshevism, it has been contended that in its initial phase the revolution must always create some confusion in the economic life and consequently a certain degree of privation. This is certainly true of the Middle Class Revolution, although only of its political side. It is carried out amid the forcible upheaval of the governmental power, unrest, and civil war, which always involve great economic damage. This is still further increased when civil war is accompanied by the war of the revolutionary State against reactionary powers. The collapse of the State power also involves a shrinkage of the revenue, and therefore the necessity of meeting the State’s needs by the issue of paper currency, which causes monetary depreciation and the greatest economic uncertainty.

Once these consequences of the political revolution have been overcome, the economic life quickly recovers. Small undertakings, especially peasant holdings, continue to be carried on during the revolution, except in those places which become the cockpit of the war and the civil war; they rapidly recover from the devastation which has been inflicted on them, thanks to the increased vitality which the removal of feudal burdens and hindrances imparts to them. After the termination of the civil war and of terrorism, production enters upon a rapid upward movement.

As we have shown, the temporary damage to production is caused by the consequences of the political revolution, not by the rapidity, the ruthlessness, and the uniformity of the economic revolution. The latter was implicit in the economic tasks of the Middle Class Revolution.

In the epoch of middle class revolutions, many Governments proceed to give effect in a spasmodic fashion to a number of the revolutionary economic demands, without the pressure of a political revolution, either out of fear of the revolution or out of fear of the economic collapse which would threaten the State, if the feudal vestiges were not cleared away. Thus the emancipation of the peasants, for example, could be effected in such States at one stroke, through reforms from above as well as through the method of revolution. The reformist method is not distinguished from the revolutionary method by the fact that the one proceeds slowly step by step, while the other accomplishes the entire transformation with one effort. Under certain circumstances, as in Russia in 1861, the emancipation of the peasants may be accomplished with a stroke of the pen by an absolutist Government, just as effectually as if it had been the work of a revolution, requiring several years for its consummation, as in the French Revolution.

The fundamental distinction between the reformist and the revolutionary method does not consist in rapidity and uniformity, but in ruthlessness.

The starting-point of reforms is not an alteration in the relative strength of classes. The feudal aristocracy, which derived benefits from the feudal burdens, retain their influence over the Government which carries out the reform. Consequently, the reform is accomplished in a manner that benefits instead of injuring the large estates. The peasant must pay for his freedom dearly, either with cash or with land which he surrenders to the feudal lord, whose property is thereby augmented. At the same time, the landowner receives cash payments, which enable him to purchase stock and pay wages, and thus create a modern large-scale undertaking. Unfortunately, he does not make sufficient use of these opportunities. It is more convenient to lease to the peasant the land which the latter has surrendered, and to dissipate the rents and the commutation money either in the capital of his country or abroad. Emancipation by means of reform imposed a heavy burden on the peasant, while emancipation by means of revolution effects an immediate improvement in his condition.

Again, reform does not have the effect of removing the antagonism between the peasants and the great landowners. This antagonism assumes new forms, which persist for decades. In Russia it was one of the strongest driving forces of the 1917 Revolution.