Chapter V.
THE DEGENERATE BOLSHEVIKS
At first they shouted about the inevitable failure and doom of the Bolsheviks; later, to the extent that the Bolsheviks consolidated their power, more and more loudly was heard another note: the Bolsheviks are holding on, but they are not the same Bolsheviks; the Bolsheviks are strengthening their position, but they are degenerating under the influence of the seething peasant tide. Nor could it be otherwise: those who regard our revolution as a bourgeois revolution, naturally, prior to the consolidation of the Soviets, would howl about the inevitable failure of a proletarian revolution and after the consolidation they would inevitably talk about degeneration.
This note was extraordinarily well expressed by David Dalin, one of the prominent Mensheviks in general, and one of the theoreticians of moribund Menshevism in particular. In his book, "After Wars and Revolutions," he wrote:
"One must understand the sense of events, one must tear off the masquerade clothing, one must wash off the paint and judge not by words, but by deeds, not by intentions, but by results. One must understand the objective meaning of the revolution."[1]
And this objective meaning of the revolution is as follows:
