existing Governments; it was not possible for the other side to oppose the war without implying a denial of the whole conception of the existing national State. As the division developed, its revolutionary implication became more and more manifest; the Zimmerwaldian organization of anti-war socialists, which had been founded as a temporary substitute for the collapsed Inter- national at a conference at Zimmerwald in Switzerland in 1915, gradually evolved from an organ of international peace and working-class solidarity into an organ of international revolution and working-class struggle.
It was the Russian revolution that finally brought this new division to a head. The Russian revolution forced into the realm of actual decision the old controversies of class war or class peace, working-class government or democracy. The party which pro- claimed its stand on the Marxian principles of class struggle and working-class government was the Russian Social Democratic party (Majority) or Bolsheviki. (From this title of Bolsheviki, meaning " Majority," derived from their holding the majority at the Brussels-London Conference of the Russian Social Demo- cratic party in 1903, has been formed the word " Bolshevism " as a current popular expression for communism and a loose journalistic term for all forms of extremism and violence.) Against the other socialist sections who maintained a coalition with the bourgeoisie, the Bolsheviki carried through the second revolution of Nov. 1917, and established a new form of govern- ment based on the Soviets or workers' councils. With this govern- ment they proclaimed the inauguration of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and maintained their power against a series of attacks from without and within. From thenceforward they became the natural leaders of the revolutionary working-class movement of the world. As the revolution spread to other countries, the divi- sion in the socialist world became more and more complete, and in 1919 the Third or Communist International was founded on the basis of the revolutionary working-class struggle. The old Marxian term communism was thus revived against the social democracy which Marx and Engels had always declared an un- suitable description for a movement which stood for the sup- pression both of the State and of democracy, and which the com- munists regarded as having been a cover for the betrayal of the socialist cause. At the Second Congress in 1920 a detailed state- ment of communist aims, policy and tactics was drawn up; and communism finally came into existence as a fully organized world force.
The Modern Communist Outlook. The First Manifesto of the new Communist International describes the modern communist outlook. It sees in the ruin of the World War and the peace that succeeded it the fulfilment of the Marxian prediction of the catastrophic destiny of. capitalism. Capitalism, it declares, torn by its own contradictions, has plunged into the agony of world war; "but war has brought no solution to its problems, just as peace has brought no relief. Hardly has the last war ended before the next war is being prepared; imperialist rivalry continues with more intensity than ever; economic disorganization spreads apace. There is no way out save the complete ending of the system of imperial capitalism that compels these results, and its replacement by the world organization of production on the basis of the workers. " This is the epoch of the decomposition and break-up of the world capitalist system, which will mean the break-up of European culture in general if capitalism with its irreconcilable antagonism is not destroyed." The war has brought the populations of the world face to face with the realities of capitalism : what was before the theory and speculation of a few has become the bitter experience of millions. " The contradic- tions of the capitalist system were converted by the war into degrading torments of hunger and cold, disease and savagery for all mankind." They have seen the vanity of the hopes of peaceful progress in face of the iron onward sweep to destruction of the existing system. " The catastrophe of imperialist war has with one swoop swept away all the gains of experts and of Parlia- mentary struggles." Not only the populations of Europe, but the colonial populations of Asia and Africa, have been dragged into the vortex, and are now finding their only chance of libera-
tion in the international communist revolution. In the midst of this world upheaval there is need of a strong revolutionary power that can alone form the coherent force to carry through the neces- sary change and establish the new system. Reaction solves nothing, and half-measures are fatal. " Only the proletarian dictatorship, which recognizes neither inherited privilege nor rights of property, can shorten the period of the present crisis, and for this purpose will mobilize all materials and forces, in- troduce the universal duty to labour, establish the regime of in- dustrial discipline, and in this way heal in the course of a few years the open wounds caused by the war and raise humanity to undreamt-of heights." It is the conditions of society that are producing chaos and revolution; it is the object of the communists to end those conditions by giving conscious direction to the instinctive forces of revolt, instead of vainly seeking to stem them. No error, in fact, could be greater than to suppose that the communists are out to " make " a revolution in order to impose their system upon mankind. " The Communist parties, far from conjuring up civil war artificially, rather seek to shorten its dura- tion." In the communist conception the alternative to prole- tarian dictatorship is not peace. It is war and blockade, famine and disease, blind revolts and the break-up of civilization.
Communism and Democracy. It is from this point of view that the controversy of communism and democracy should be approached if the communist position is to be understood. The communists do not reject the current conceptions of democracy because they believe in the superiority of the few, but because they believe that the phrases of democracy bear no relation to present realities. The divorce between the realities of power and the theory in modern democratic states has been noted by observ- ers of all schools; it is the special point of the communist to insist that this divorce is not due to accidental and remediable causes, but is inherent in the nature of capitalist democracy. Democracy, in fact, is held to be unrealizable in capitalist society because of the fundamental helplessness of the propertyless man; the parlia- mentary forms only serve to veil the reality of the " bourgeois dictatorship " by an appearance of popular consent which is rendered unreal by the capitalist control of the social structure; and even this veil is cast aside in moments of any stress by the open assumption of emergency dictatorial powers. The plea that this situation may be remedied by education and propaganda is met by the reply that all the large-scale organs of education and propaganda are under capitalist control.
On the other hand communism, while rejecting current democ- racy, differs from syndicalism and other revolutionary philoso- phies which proclaim the right of the " militant minority " to endeavour to change society. The glorification of the minority and of the coup d'etat really belongs to the Blanquist school, which was always vigorously opposed by Marxism. Marxism taught that the liberation of the workers could only be the act of the workers themselves, and that all the communists could do was to endeavour to guide the struggle of the workers into its realization in the dictatorship of the proletariat. In this way the Bolsheviki did not carry through their revolution of Nov. 1917 until they had gained the majority in the Soviets and the trade unions. Where the communists differ from other believers in the ultimate victory of the working class is that they do not believe that victory will be achieved until after a very much more severe struggle than is ordinarily contemplated. They believe that the ruling class will use every means, political, economic and military, to defend its privileges, and that the final decision will not be reached without open civil war. In support of this they quote ev- idence to show the readiness of the ruling class in many countries to fling constitutional considerations to the winds when their privileges are in danger. To mistake dislike of this prospect for evidence of its improbability they regard as a fatal policy, and they believe it necessary, therefore, to make preparations for the event, considering the best guarantee against the chaos of pro- longed social disorder (otherwise inevitable in the period of capitalist dissolution) to be the existence of a powerful revolution- ary party. It is this aspect of communism which has led to the current distinction between communism and other forms
