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."[1] "The temporary
- ↑ Otto Bauer: "Bolschewismus oder Sozialdemokratie." 3 Aufl. Wien. 1921. p. 7.
