in Russia during the last five years [written in 1922, N.B.] from the very beginning, was, and has remained to the end a bourgeois revolution." (Ibid: p. 7).
The question arises why is such a summary given of a Communist revolution?
And the answer is:
"Because the interests of the peasantry determined the fate of the whole policy." (Ibid : p. 13)
In this connection the position taken up by Lieber, that diehard, Right Wing Menshevik, whom we have already quoted, is interesting. Generalising his ideas on the possibility of Socialism in Russia, Lieber in his pamphlet, wrote as follows:
"For us—Socialists who have not re-learned their Socialism—there is not the slightest doubt that Socialism first of all can be brought about in those countries which stand at the highest stage of economic development—Germany, England, America—in those countries in which, first of all, there are grounds for very important victories for the Socialist movement. [Just imagine, America is the country where "first of all" there are "grounds for very important victories for the Socialist movement"!—N.B.]. And yet for some time a theory of quite an opposite character has developed among us. This theory does not represent anything new to us old Russian Social-Democrats; this theory was developed by the Russian Narodniki in their fight against the early Marxists." (op. cit. p. 16.)
