Building Up Socialism/Chapter 4

by Nikolai Bukharin

Chapter IV.

CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA

The criticism of Bolshevism expressed itself in similar forms on the question of the maturity of international capitalism, on the maturity of world economy. Bolshevism itself on this question was united and monolithic: on this question, on the question of immaturity of the capitalist relations, of world economy there have never been any differences in our Party. None of the shades of opinion, none of the tendencies within our Party expressed any scepticism on this question, not a single Bolshevik ever disputed the postulate of the ripeness of capitalism for the Socialist revolution on an international scale, primarily in the so-called advanced countries of Europe.

The situation is quite different, however, if we take up another question, namely, the question of the ripeness of capitalist relations in Russia: the answers to this question sound differently not only when we take the differences between the Bolsheviks and the Social-Democrats, the Socialist Revolutionaries and other compromising parties; this question was presented in various ways and received various solutions even within our own Party. Even now it is being presented in different ways; for the question of the possibility of constructing Socialism in our country is nothing more or less than the question of the character of our revolution. It has been formulated in this way more than once.

Here, too, it will not be without interest and not without utility to hear the opinion of the opponents in the Social-Democratic camp.

The pioneer in the fight against Bolshevism, around the question of the character of our revolution, was the well-known high priest of Social-Democracy, Karl Kautsky, who first came out mildly, then as a renegade and finally as an out and out counter-revolutionary. In his earlier pamphlets he wrote relatively mildly. In the pamphlet to which Lenin replied, Kautsky still kept within the bounds of decency, but even then he objectively served in the role of the subservient ideological hack of the bourgeoisie.^[1] In his works Kautsky presented the question of the character of our revolution fairly preciselу, clearly and definitely. In a bulky book bearing the title "The Proletarian Revolution and its Programme," he states directly that our revolution has the typical features of a bourgeois revolution. It could not be otherwise, he argues, because the revolution is taking place in a country, the capitalistic immaturity of which is generally admitted. Marx long ago said, stated this old bookman, that no new society can arise until the old society has exhausted all its productive possibilities. Consequently, Socialism is impossible if the previous stage of social development has not been completed, if the old society has not utterly exhausted itself. Thus armed, he commences a bold attack against the Bolsheviks who, from his point of view, have become absorbed in the role of midwife, but are performing it very clumsily, for they are trying to stimulate the mother to give birth long before she is supposed to, according to the laws of Nature. As a matter of fact, he argues, the Bolsheviks are not accoucheurs at all, but simply charlatan-quacks who advertised themselves as having undergone a course of training in the school of revolutionary midwifery, in the school of Marx. As a matter of fact they have no connection with the school of Marx, he cries. Mother Russia is not giving birth to Socialism at all; she is simply being experimented on by Bolshevik scoundrels.

In a word, capitalism in Russia is backward, immature and therefore it is no place to construct Socialism, is the precept contained in one of the works of the Pope of Social Compromise.^[2]

Simultaneously with that of Pope Kautsky we must examine the point of view held on this question by Otto Bauer who, to be fair, should be revered as a prelate of social-compromise. It must be said that this prelate has proved far more able and subtle than the Pope. The point of view of Otto Bauer is more cunning and clever than that of Kautsky.

He presents the question in the following manner. He does not in the least deny that the dictatorship of the working class exists in Russia. He does not in the least deny that our Party took power as the Party of the urban working class. He says that the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia exists, it is true in different forms than it would in Western Europe, but it is necessary and it exists. In Western Europe it would take the form of democracy, while in Russia it has acquired an altogether different form, the form of "proletarian despotism." Ours is a "Despotism" but it is proletarian for all that. But it cannot last long. Its historical task is by every possible means to rouse to cultural life the majority of the population in our country: and the majority of the represented by the moujik (peasant). In rousing the millions of the peasantry to cultural life the "Proletarian Despotism" (the proletarian dictatorship) by its own hands will rouse the political power which will overthrow it. As soon as dictatorship of the proletarian minority has sufficiently roused the peasantry, the latter will immediately say to the former: "Get out!" By that the historical mission of the proletarian despotism will have been fulfilled and our nation will have ripened into real democracy.

The two following quotations describe sufficiently the position held by Bauer. He writes: "In Russia, the proletariat represents only an insignificant minority of the nation and can establish its domination only temporarily. It must inevitably lose power again as soon as the peasant masses of the nation become sufficiently mature culturally to take power into their own hands."^[3] "The temporary domination of industrial Socialism in agrarian Russia is only a beacon calling to the proletariat of the industrial West to the fight. Only the capture of political power by the proletariat in the industrial West can guarantee the prolonged domination of industrial Socialism."^[4]

In addition to Kautsky and Bauer there is a certain interest in the position held by Parvus and Ströbel. The former's pamphlet "Labour Socialism and the World Revolution—a Letter to German Workers" contains so much slander about our revolution that it is difficult to conceive of a more contemptible production. The pearls of lies of Kautsky are nothing compared with the machinations of the agile Parvus. He even explains the position he held in 1905 in such a manner as to make it appear that he never spoke about the social-revolution, but merely about Labour democracy, after the style of—Australian democracy! It will be clear to everyone, of course, that this is but an attempt to crave the forgiveness of the public opinion of Europe for the sins he committed in his remote youth and for that purpose Parvus required the Australian cloak of repentance.

From the point of view of this contemptible renegade our revolution is nothing more or less than the "occupation of the country by a mob of soldier deserters."

"For the realisation of Socialism a definite stage of development of industry and maturity of the working class are required."^[5]

There is no trace of either one or the other, in Russia and, therefore, the realisation of the Socialist Revolution and Socialist construction are impossible. The historical mission of the Bolsheviks is to serve as a bridge by which a Cæsar, a Bonaparte, or someone similar will come to power. This is the slanderous summary of our revolution made by the wily carpet-bagger, Parvus, who more than once thought he would try his luck and dispose of his soiled goods on our political bazaar.

The second author we have mentioned, Ströbel, has attempted to develop his views on our revolution into a complete theoretical "system."

In a pamphlet bearing the characteristic title: "Not Violence but Organisation," Ströbel, arguing about the "quintessence of the Russian Revolution," declares that it is absolute nonsense to talk about the Communist proletarian revolution, for a fundamental fact of our revolution is the strengthening of peasant private property and the strengthening of peasant private property is the very thing that determines the character of the revolution. He who does not understand this is not a Marxist, is a "Komnarodnik,"^[6] to use a modern expression, etc. Finally, Ströbel reduces Bolshevism to a Bakuninism. "If the Bolsheviks imagined," writes Ströbel, "that the Russian peasants can by means of propaganda (Zureden) and coercion be won over to the side of real Communism and the Communist method of production they have only proved again that they are held in captivity by the typical ideas of the old Russian Revolutionaries which represent the specific features of Bakuninism."^[7]

"The peasantry … represented at least seven-eighths of the total population of Soviet Russia. Their number and their economic importance, in the final analysis, decides the fate of the revolution! How much fantasy, and what fantastic faith in miracles must one have under such conditions to believe that the Russian Revolution is a Communist revolution in its inherent character and its ultimate results?"^[8]

The Russian Bolsheviks are not building Socialism, but are preparing the ground for the rise of a new capitalist system—this is the summary of the analysis of our revolution made by international Social-Democracy. In Russia capitalist relations are unripe. Russia is a semi-Asiatic country in which class relations find their expression in the overwhelming numerical preponderance of the peasantry: the proletariat floats like a fly in the peasants' milk, and this proletarian fly confronted by the peasant elephant is totally incapable of making a Communist revolution. The weight of the peasantry is pulling us down with increasing force; this weight is deciding the question of the character of the Russian Revolution, and no matter what costumes the active men of the Russian Revolution may masquerade in, no matter what slogans they may put forward, in spite of all their inventions, in the end it will all amount to the same thing: the question will be decided by the peasantry. The sole idea of the whole revolution is the strengthening of peasant private property. The objective idea of the peasant revolution is nothing more or less than the emancipation of the peasantry from feudalism. This precisely determines the bourgeois character of the Russian Revolution. This is the "opinion" of international Social-Democracy.

Now it will not be superfluous to glance at our fellow countrymen, the Russian Mensheviks. They too argued approximately like their Western-European colleagues. We will take, for example, a classic Russian Menshevik like George Plekhanov, who was most consistent in his theories. Analysing the character of our revolution in his peculiar style, with his "bookish simplicity," he wrote:

 

"Marx directly stated that a given method of production cannot leave the historical stage of a given country as long as it does not serve as an obstacle and facilitates the development of its forces of production. The question now arises, how does it stand with capitalism in Russia? Have we grounds for asserting that its day is done, i.e., that it has reached that high stage of development at which it no longer facilitates the development of the forces of production of the country, but on the contrary hampers it? Russia suffers not only from the fact that capitalism exists here, but also from the fact that the capitalist method of production is insufficiently developed, and this indisputable truth has never been challenged by any Russians calling themselves Marxists."^[9]

 

And in an open letter to the Petrograd workers written on October 28th, 1917, Plekhanov brought forward other arguments. He wrote:

 

"In the population of our State the proletariat represents not the majority, but the minority. And yet it can practise its dictatorship only in the event of its representing the majority. No serious Socialist will dispute this."^[10]

 

Or take the opinion on this question of the already mentioned P. P. Maslov, who at the time was an orthodox Menshevik. He wrote"

 

"The working class of Russia cannot undertake the organisation of production because it represents a minority of the population of the country. Other classes predominate over it even numerically." (Maslov, op. cit. p. 143.)

 

Here is another passage:

 

"The revolution now taking place, being a bourgeois revolution, i.e., preserving all the principles of the capitalist system at the same time, may be—and inevitably will be—a Social Revolution, which will bring about a considerable change in economic relations, not in the sphere of the organisation of production but in the sphere of the distribution of the national income among the various classes" (i.e., the workers will receive a little more than they have been receiving and the peasants will be subject to a little less taxation, etc.). (Ibid: vol. 2, p. 246.)

 

This is what the pillars of Menshevism, the best Menshevik ideologists, wrote at the beginning of the revolution in describing that revolution as being necessarily and inevitably a bourgeois revolution.

From this it is clear that as events developed more and more to a climax as the power of the Bolsheviks became more and more stable as the vanguard of the proletarian dictatorship felt itself more and more firm, it was inevitable that at last the note should be heard—and indeed it began more and more persistently to be heard—of the inevitable degeneration of Bolshevism.

1. In this connection it is extremely interesting to quote the opinion of the well-known Dr. Paul Scheimann expressed in a pamphlet published by the General Secretariat for Studying and Combatting Bolshevism, and which bears the very specific title of "Asianising Europe." In this pamphlet, Dr. Paul Scheimann, commenting on Kautsky's pronouncements, says literally the following: "By far the best (in German he says: "das weitaus Beste") and most convincing of what has been written about Bolshevism from the socio-political point of view, is the pamphlet by Kautsky 'The Dictatorship of the Proletariat'."

   On Bolshevism he writes: "The spiritual death, the internal ossification of humanity which was peculiar to the peoples of Asia during course of thousands of years stands now like a spectre before the gates of Europe clothed in a mantle of rags of European ideas. These rags deceive those who have become blind in the cultured world. Bolshevism brings with it the Asianising of Europe." (Paul Scheimann, "Die Asiatisierung Europas, 1919, pp. 8–9.)

2. Karl Kautsky: "Die Proletarische Revolution und ihr Programm." Verlag Dietz. 2. Aufl. pp. 78–90.
3. Otto Bauer: "Bolschewismus oder Sozialdemokratie." 3 Aufl. Wien. 1921. p. 7.
4. Ibid. Here it is not difficult to observe the remarkable similarity between the position of Bauer and the views of comrade Trotsky. But about that later.
5. Parvus: "Der Arbeitersozialismus und die Weltrevolution—Briefe an die deutschen Arbeiter," Berlin, 1919, p. 15.
6. Communist-narodnik. A reference to the Narodniki, the early pre-Marxian Revolutionaries in Russia.
7. Heinrich Ströbel: "Nicht Gewalt, sondern Organisation," Berlin, 1921, Verlag "Der Firn," p. 12.
8. Ibid: p. 13.
9. G. Plekhanov" "A Year at Home." Complete Collection of Essays and Speeches, 1917–18. 2 vols., published by Povolodsky and Co., Paris, 1921. Vol. 1, p. 26.
10. Ibid: vol. 2, p. 346.