"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?"[1]
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
- ↑ Ibid: p. 13.
