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fortresses of capitalism. Their expropriation, that is to say, their seizure by the working class and the Workers' Government, marks the end of capitalism and the beginning of Socialism. The means of production, that principal basis of human existence, is thereby taken out of the hands of a small number of exploiters and transferred into the hands of the working class and the Workers' and Peasants' Government.
The Mensheviks and the Right Wing Socialist Revolutionaries, who do not wish to deviate one step from capitalism, and who are going hand in hand with the bourgeoisie, are opposed to any kind of nationalisation by the Soviet Government. That is because they are fully aware, as well as the bourgeoisie, that by nationalisation a severe blow is dealt into the very heart of the capitalist order, so dear to them. They deliberately deceive the workers with tales of our "immaturity" for Socialism, of our industry being in a backward state, of it being quite impossible to organise, and so on.
We have already seen that this is not the case at all. The backwardness of Russia is not in the small number of large enterprises—on the contrary, we have quite a number of such. Its backwardness consists in the fact that the whole of our industry occupies too little place in comparison with the vast areas of our rural districts. But in spite of this we must not belittle the importance of our industry, for it is a significant fact that the working class is carrying all the vital elements of the Revolution along with it.
There is another curious circumstance to be noted. All the time when the Government was in the hands of the bourgeoisie, Mensheviks and Right Wing Socialist Revolutionaries, these latter drew up a programme of Government regulation of industry. They did not then lament over the backwardness of our country. At that time they considered it possible to organise industry. What is the reason for such change in opinion? It is simple enough. The Mensheviks and Right Wing Socialist Revolutionaries hold it necessary for the bourgeois State to organise production (in Western Europe this would be agreed to by Wilhelm, George and President Wilson); the party of the Communists, on the contrary, wants production to be organised by a proletarian Government. The thing is indeed simplicity itself. It is the same story all over again. The Mcnsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries want to revert to capitalism; the Communists are going ahead to Socialism and Communism, and the
