"Long live revolution!" And, hey presto! Socialism will float in all ready on a plate!
In actual fact, the political sense of this juggling with revolution is contained in the following moral: "Don't go forward, don't make revolution in a single country because you will fail anyhow"; or, translating this into the language of Schedrin:
"What is the use of you alone trying to build Socialism in a single street in Stupidtown?"
This is a narrow, national point of view.
"If you start a revolution in a single country, you will cease to be an internationalist," moralises Lieber.
This sort of "internationalism" is the reverse side of the social-treachery medal.
We repeat, the argument is about internal forces and not about the dangers coming from abroad. Consequently, the argument is about the character of our revolution.
When we speak about the construction of Socialism in a single country, by "single country" we have in mind our country (Russia). We cannot say that Socialism can be constructed in any country. If, for example, we were dealing with an absolutely backward country which did not possess the minimum of material pre-requisites for the construction of Socialism that we have, then we could not draw the conclusions that we draw in this case. Hence, the argument is about our country, with all its characteristic features, with its technique, its economy, its social-class relations, its proletariat, its peasantry and with the definite relations existing between the proletariat and the peasantry. This is how the question should be presented; the question of the possibility of constructing Social-
