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through the destruction of the bourgeois State. But every revolution is a form of violence against former rulers. The March revolution in Russia was force against the oppressors, landlords and the Czar. The October revolution was force of the workers, peasants and soldiers, against the bourgeoisie. And such force against those who have oppressed millions of the toiling masses is not wrong—it is sacred.
But the working class is compelled to use force against the bourgeoisie even after the bourgeoisie has been overthrown in an open revolutionary right. For, as a matter of fact, even after the working class has destroyed the government of the bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie does not cease to exist as a class. It does not vanish altogether. It continues to hope for a return to the old order, and is therefore ready to form an alliance with anyone, except the victorious working class.
The experience of the Russian revolution of 1917 fully confirms this. In October the working class excluded the bourgeoisie from the government. But, nevertheless, the bourgeoisie was not completely crushed: it acted against the workers, by mobilising all its forces to crush the proletariat again, and to achieve its own ends by hook or by crook. It organised sabotage; that is, counter-revolutionary officials, clerks, and civil servants who did not wish to be subjected to workmen and peasants, abandoned their posts en masse. It organised the armed forces of Dutoff, Kaledin, Korniloff; it is at present, whilst we are writing these lines, organising the bands of Esaul Semionoff for a campaign against the Serbian Soviets; and lastly it is calling to its aid the troops of the foreign bourgeoisie, German, Japanese, British, etc. Thus the experience of the Russian October revolution teaches us that the working class, even after its victory, is compelled to have to deal with the mightiest of external foes (the plundering capitalistic States) who are on their way to aid the overthrown bourgeoisie of Russia.
If we seriously consider the whole world at the present time, we shall see that it is only in Russia that the proletariat has succeeded in overthrowing the power of the bourgeois State. The remainder of the world still belongs to big-capital robbers. Soviet Russia, with its worker and peasant government, is a small island in the widst of a tempestuous capitalist ocean. And even if the victory of the Russian workers is to be followed by a victory of the workers of Austria and Germany, there will still
