 Chapter 6 of the Practice and Theory of Bolshevism by Bertrand Russell. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Landon D.C. Elkind at the University of Iowa in Coralville, Iowa. The Failure of Russian Industry At first sight it is surprising that Russian industry should have collapsed as badly as it has done, and still more surprising that the efforts of the Communists have not been more successful in reviving it. As I believe that the continued efficiency of industry is the main condition for success in the transition to a Communist state, I shall endeavor to analyze the causes of the collapse with a view to the discovery of ways by which it can be avoided elsewhere. Of the fact of the collapse, there can be no doubt. The 9th Congress of the Communist Party, March-April 1920, speaks of, quote, the incredible catastrophes of public economy, end quote, and in connection with transport, which is one of the vital elements of the problem, it acknowledges, quote, the terrible collapse of the transport and the railway system, end quote, and urges the introduction of, quote, measures which cannot be delayed and which are to obviate the complete paralysis of the railway system and, together with this, the ruin of the Soviet Republic, end quote. Almost all those who have visited Russia would confirm this view of the gravity of the situation. In the factories in great works like those of Putolov and Sornovo, very little except war work is being done. Machinery stands idle and plant is becoming unusable. One sees hardly any new manufactured articles in Russia beyond a certain very inadequate quantity of clothes and boots, always accepting what is needed for the army. And the difficulty of obtaining food is conclusive evidence of the absence of goods such as are needed by the peasants. How has this state of affairs arisen and why does it continue? A great deal of disorganization occurred before the First Revolution and under Karensky. Russian industry was partly dependent on Poland. The war was conducted by methods of reckless extravagance, especially as regards rolling stock. Under Karensky, there was a tendency to universal holiday, under the impression that freedom had removed the necessity for work. But when all this is admitted to the full, it remains true that the state of industry under the Bolsheviks is much worse than even under Karensky. The first and most obvious reason for this is that Russia was quite unusually dependent upon foreign assistance. Not only did the machinery in the factories and the locomotives on the railways come from abroad, but the organizing and technical brains in industry were mainly foreign. When the Entente became hostile to Russia, the foreigners in Russian industry either left the country or assisted counter-revolution. Even those who were in fact loyal naturally became suspect and could not well be employed in responsible posts any more than Germans could in England during the war. The native Russians who had technical or business skill were little better. They almost all practiced sabotage in the first period of the Bolshevik regime. One hears amusing stories of common sailors frantically struggling with complicated accounts because no competent accountant would work for the Bolsheviks. But those days passed when the government was seen to be stable. A great many of those who had formerly sabotaged it became willing to accept posts under it and are now in fact so employed, often at quite exceptional salaries. Their importance is thoroughly realized. One resolution at the above mentioned Congress says, I quote verbally, the unedited document which was given to us in Moscow. Quote, being of opinion that without a scientific organization of industry even the widest application of compulsory labor service as the great labor heroism of the working class will not only fail to secure the establishment of a powerful socialist production but will also fail to assist the country to free itself from the clutches of poverty. The Congress considers it imperative to register all able specialists of the various departments of public economy and widely to utilize them for the purpose of industrial organization. The Congress considers the elucidation for the wide masses of the workers, of the tremendous character of the economic problems of the country to be one of the chief problems of industrial and general political agitation and propaganda and of equal importance to this, technical education and administrative and scientific technical experience. The Congress makes it obligatory on all the members of the party mercilessly to fight that particular obnoxious form the ignorant conceit which deems the working class capable of solving all problems without the assistance in the most responsible cases of specialists of the bourgeois school, the management. Demagogic elements who speculate on this kind of prejudice in the more backward section of our working class can have no place in the ranks of the party of scientific socialism. But Russia alone is unable to supply the amount of skill required and is very deficient in technical instructors as well as in skilled workmen. One was told over and over again that the first step in improvement would be the obtaining of spare parts for locomotives. It seems strange that these could not be manufactured in Russia. To some extent they can be and we were shown locomotives which had been repaired on communist Saturdays. But in the main the machinery for making spare parts is lacking and the skill required for its manufacture does not exist. This dependence on the outside world persists and the blockade continues to do its deadly work of spreading hunger, demoralization and despair. The food question is intimately bound up with the question of industry. There is a vicious circle for not only does the absence of manufactured goods cause a food shortage in the towns but the food shortage in turn diminishes the strength of the workers and makes them less able to produce goods. I cannot but think that there has been some mismanagement as regards the food question. For example in Petrograd many workers have allotments and often work in them for 8 hours after an 8 hours stay in their regular employment. But the food produced in the allotments is taken for general consumption not left to each individual producer. This is in accordance with communist theory but of course greatly diminishes the incentive to work and increases the red tape and administrative machinery. Lack of fuel has been another very grave source of trouble. Before the war coal came mostly from Poland and the Donets Basin. Poland is lost to Russia and the Donets Basin was in the hands of Denikin who so destroyed the mines before retreating that they are still not in working order. The result is a practically complete absence of coal. Oil which is equally important in Russia was also lacking until the recent recovery of Baku. All that I saw on the Volga made me believe that real efficiency has been shown in reorganizing the transport of oil and doubtless this will do something to revive industry. But the oil used to be worked very largely by Englishmen and English machinery is much needed for refining it. In the meantime Russia has had to depend upon wood which involves immense labor. Most of the houses are not warmed in winter so that people live in a temperature below freezing point. Another consequence of lack of fuel was the bursting of water pipes so that people in Petrograd for the most part have had to go down to the Neva to fetch their water a considerable addition to the labor of an already overworked day. I find it difficult to believe that if greater efficiency had existed in the government the food and fuel difficulties could not have been considerably alleviated. In spite of the needs of the army there are still many horses in Russia. I saw troops of thousands of horses on the Volga which apparently belonged to Kalmuk tribes. By the help of carts and sledges it ought to be possible without more labor than is warranted by the importance of the problem to bring food and timber into Moscow and Petrograd. It must be remembered that both cities are surrounded by forests and Moscow at least is surrounded by good agricultural land. The government has devoted all its best energies hitherto to the two tasks of war and propaganda while industry and the food problem have been left to a lesser degree of energy and intelligence. It is no doubt probable that if peace is secured the economic problems will receive more attention than hitherto. But the Russian character seems less adapted to steady work of an unexciting nature than to heroic efforts on great occasions. It has immense passive endurance but not much active tenacity. Whether with the menace of foreign invasion removed enough day-to-day detailed energy would exist for the reorganization of industry is a doubtful question as to which only time can decide. This leads to the conclusion which I think is adopted by most of the leading men in Russia that it will be very difficult indeed to save the revolution without outside economic assistance. Outside assistance from capitalist countries is dangerous to the principles of communism as well as precarious from the likelihood of fresh causes of quarrel. But the need of help is urgent and if the policy of promoting revolution elsewhere were to succeed it would probably render the nations concerned temporarily incapable of supplying Russian needs. It is therefore necessary for Russia to accept the risks and uncertainties involved in attempting to make peace with the entente and to trade with America. By continuing war Russia can do infinite damage to us especially in Asia but cannot hope for many years to achieve any degree of internal prosperity. The situation therefore is one in which even from the narrowest point of view peace is to the interest of both parties. It is difficult for an outsider with only superficial knowledge to judge of the efforts which have been made to reorganize industry without outside help. These efforts have chiefly taken the form of industrial conscription. Workers in towns seek to escape to the country in order to have enough to eat but this is illegal and severely punished. The same communist report from which I have already quoted speaks on this subject as follows quote labor desertion. Owing to the fact that a considerable part of the workers either in search of better food conditions or often for the purposes of speculation voluntarily leave their places of employment or change from place to place which inevitably harms production and deteriorates the general position of the working class. The Congress considers one of the most urgent problems of Soviet government and of the trade union organization to be established as the firm systematic and insistent struggle with labor desertion. The way to fight this is to publish a list of desertion fines, the creation of labor detachment of deserters under fine and finally interment in concentration camps end of quote. It is hoped to extend the system to the peasantry quote the defeat of the white armies and the problems of peaceful construction in connection with the incredible catastrophes of public economy demand an extraordinary effort of all the powers of the proletariat and the drafting into the process of public labor of the wide masses of the peasantry end of quote. On the vital subject of transport and a passage of which I've already quoted a fragment the Communist Party declares quote for the most immediate future transport remains the center of the attention and the efforts of the Soviet government. The improvement of transport is the indispensable basis upon which even the most moderate success in all other spheres of production and first of all in the provision question can be gained. The chief difficulty with regard to the improvement of transport is the weakness of the transport trade union which is due in the first case to the heterogeneity of the personnel of the railways amongst whom there are still a number of those who belong to the period of disorganization and secondly to the fact that the most class-conscious and best elements of the railway proletariat were at the various fronts of the Civil War. Considering why trade union assistance to the railway workers to be one of the principal tasks of the party and as the only condition under which transport can be raised to its height the Congress at the same time recognizes the inflexible necessity of employing exclusive and extraordinary measures, martial law and so forth. Such necessity is the result of the terrible collapse of the transport and the railroad system and is to introduce measures which cannot be delayed and which are to obviate the complete paralysis of the railway system and together with this the ruin of the Soviet Republic end of quote. The general attitude to the militarization of labor is stated in the resolution with which this section of the proceedings begins quote the ninth Congress approves of the decision of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party on the mobilization of the industrial proletariat compulsory labor service militarization of production and the application of military detachments to economic needs. In connection with the above the Congress decrees that the party organization should in every way assist the trade unions and the labor sections in registering all skilled workers with a view of employing them in the various branches of production with the same consistency and strictness as was done and is being carried out at the present time in relation to the commanding staff for army needs. Every skilled worker is to return to his particular trade exceptions that is the retention of the skilled worker in any other branch of Soviet service is allowed only with the sanction of the corresponding central and local authorities end of quote. It is of course evident that in these measures the Bolsheviks have been compelled to travel a long way from the ideals which originally inspired the revolution. But the situation is so desperate that they could not be blamed if their measures were successful. In a shipwreck all hands must turn to and it would be ridiculous to preys of individual liberty. The most distressing feature of the situation is that these stern laws seem to have produced so little effect. Perhaps in the course of years Russia might become self-supporting without help from the outside world but the suffering meantime would be terrible. The early losses of the revolution would fade more and more. Every failure of industry every tyrannous regulation brought about by the desperate situation is used by the Entente as a justification of its policy. If a man is deprived of food and drink he will grow weak lose his reason and finally die. This is not usually considered a good reason for inflicting death by starvation. But where nations are concerned the weakness and struggles are regarded as morally culpable and are held to justify further punishment. So at least it has been in the case of Russia. Nothing produced a doubt in our governing minds as to the rightness of our policy except the strength of the Red Army and the fear of revolution in Asia. Is it surprising that professions of humanitarian feeling on the part of the English people are somewhat coldly received in Russia? Chapter 7 Daily Life in Moscow Daily life in Moscow so far as I could discover has neither the horrors depicted by the North Cliff Press nor the delights imagined by the more ardent of our younger socialists. On the one hand there is no disorder, very little crime, not much insecurity for those who keep clear of politics. Everybody works hard, the educated people have by this time mostly found their way into government offices or teaching or some other administrative profession in which their education is useful. The theaters, the opera and the ballet continue as before and are quite admirable. Some of the seats are paid for, others are given free to members of trade unions. There is of course no drunkenness or at any rate so little that none of us ever saw a sign of it. There is very little prostitution, infinitely less than in any other capital. Women are safer from molestation than anywhere else in the world. The whole impression is one of virtuous, well-ordered activity. On the other hand, life is very hard for all except men in good posts. It is hard first of all owing to the food shortage. This is familiar to all who have interested themselves in Russia and it is unnecessary to dwell upon it. What is less realized is that most people work much longer hours than in this country. The eight-hour day was introduced with a flourish of trumpets, then owing to the pressure of the war it was extended to ten hours in certain trades. But no provision exists against extra work at other jobs and very many people do extra work because the official rates do not afford a living wage. This is not the fault of the government at any rate as regards the major part. It is due chiefly to war and blockade. When the day's work is over, a great deal of time has to be spent in fetching food and water and other necessaries of life. The sight of the workers going to and fro, shabbily clad with the inevitable bundle in one hand and tin can in the other through streets almost entirely empty of traffic produces the effect of life in some vast village rather than in an important capital city. Holidays such as are common throughout all but the very poorest class in this country are very difficult in Russia. A train journey requires a permit, which is only granted on good reasons being shown. With the present shortage of transport, this regulation is quite unavoidable. Railway queues are a common feature in Moscow. It often takes several days to get a permit. Then, when it has been obtained, it may take several more days to get a seat in a train. The ordinary trains are inconceivably crowded, far more so, though that seems impossible, than London trains at the busiest hour. On the shorter journeys, passengers are even known to ride on the roof and buffers or cling like flies to the sides of the wagons. People in Moscow travel to the country whenever they can afford the time and get a permit because in the country there is enough to eat. They go to stay with relations, most people in Moscow in all classes, but especially among manual workers, have relations in the country. One cannot, of course, go to a hotel as one would in other countries. Hotels have been taken over by the state and the rooms in them, when they are still used, are allocated by the police to people whose business is recognized as important by the authorities. Casual travel is therefore impossible, even on a holiday. Journeys have vexations in addition to the slowness and overcrowding of the trains. Police search the travelers for evidences of, quote, speculation, unquote, especially for food. The police play, altogether, a much greater part in daily life than they do in other countries, much greater than they did, for example, in Prussia 25 years ago, when there was a vigorous campaign against socialism. Everybody breaks the law almost daily and no one knows which among his acquaintances is a spy of the Extraordinary Commission. Even in the prisons among prisoners there are spies who are allowed certain privileges but not their liberty. Newspapers are not taken in except by very few people, but they are stuck up in public places, where passersby occasionally glance at them. The 9th Communist Congress, March to April 1920, says on this subject, quote, In view of the fact that the first condition of the success of the Soviet Republic in all departments, including the economic, is chiefly systematic printed agitation, the Congress draws the attention of the Soviet government to the deplorable state in which our paper and printing industries find themselves. The ever decreasing number of newspapers failed to reach not only the peasants, but even the workers, in addition to which our poor technical means render the papers hardly readable. The Congress strongly appeals to the Supreme Council of Public Economy, to the corresponding trade unions and other interested institutions, to apply all efforts to raise the quantity, to introduce general system and order in the printing business, and so secure for the worker and peasant in Russia a supply of socialist printed matter, end quote and a footnote one. There is very little to read, owing to paper shortage, books are rare and money to buy them is still rarer. One does not see people reading as one does here in the underground, for example. There is practically no social life, partly because of the food shortage, partly because when anybody is arrested, the police are apt to arrest everybody whom they find in his company or who comes to visit him. And once arrested, a man or woman, however innocent, may remain for months in prison without trial. While we were in Moscow, 40 social revolutionaries and anarchists were hunger striking to enforce their demand to be tried and to be allowed visits. I was told that on the eighth day of the strike, the government consented to try them, and that few could be proved guilty of any crime, but I had no means of verifying this. Industrial conscription is, of course, rigidly enforced. Every man and woman has to work, and slacking is severely punished by prison or a penal settlement. Strikes are illegal, though they sometimes occur. By proclaiming itself the friend of the proletarian, the government has been enabled to establish an iron discipline beyond the wildest dreams of the most autocratic American magnate. And by the same professions, the government has led socialists from other countries to abstain from reporting unpleasant features in what they have seen. The Tolstoyans, of whom I saw the leaders, are obliged by their creed to resist every form of conscription, though some have found ways of compromising. The law concerning conscientious objectors to military service is practically the same as ours, and its working depends upon the temper of the tribunal before which a man comes. Some conscientious objectors have been shot. On the other hand, some have obtained absolute exemption. Life in Moscow, as compared to life in London, is drab, monotonous, and depressed. I am not, of course, comparing life there with that of the rich here, but with that of the average working-class family. When it is realized that the highest wages are about 15 shillings a month, this is not surprising. I do not think that life could, under any system, be very cheerful in a country so exhausted by war as Russia, so I am not saying this as a criticism of the Bolsheviks. But I do think there might be less police interference, less vexatious regulation, and more freedom for spontaneous impulses towards harmless enjoyments. Religion is still very strong. I went into many churches where I saw obviously famished priests in gorgeous vestments, and a congregation enormously devout. Generally, more than half the congregation were men, and among the men, many were soldiers. This applies to the towns as well as to the country. In Moscow, I constantly saw people in the streets crossing themselves. There is a theory that the Moscow working man feels himself free from capitalist domination, and therefore bears hardships gladly. This is no doubt true of the minority who are active communists, but I do not think it has any truth for the others. The average working man, to judge by a rather hasty impression, feels himself the slave of the government, and has no sense, whatever, of having been liberated from a tyranny. I recognize to the full the reasons for the bad state of affairs in the past history of Russia and the recent policy of the Entente. But I have thought it better to record impressions, frankly, trusting the readers to remember that the Bolsheviks have only a very limited share of responsibility for the evils from which Russia is suffering. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism by Bertrand Russell This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Landon D.C. Elkind at the University of Iowa in Coralville, Iowa. Town and Country The problem of inducing the peasants to feed the towns is one which Russia shares with Central Europe. And from what one hears, Russia has been less unsuccessful than some other countries in dealing with this problem. For the Soviet government, the problem is mainly concentrated in Moscow and Petrograd. The other towns are not very large and are mostly in the center of rich agricultural districts. It is true that in the north, even the rural population normally depends upon food from more southerly districts. But the northern population is small. It is commonly said that the problem of feeding Moscow and Petrograd is a transport problem. But I think this is only partially true. There is of course a grave deficiency of rolling stock, especially of locomotives in good repair. But Moscow is surrounded by very good land. In the course of a day's motoring in the neighborhood, I saw enough cows to supply milk to the whole child population of Moscow. Although what I had come to see was children's sanatoria, not farms. All kinds of food can be bought in the market at high prices. I traveled over a considerable extent of Russian railways and saw a fair number of goods trains. For all these reasons, I feel convinced that the share of the transport problem in the food difficulties has been exaggerated. Of course, transport plays a larger part in the shortage in Petrograd than in Moscow because food comes mainly from south of Moscow. In Petrograd, most of the people one sees in the streets show obvious signs of underfeeding. In Moscow, the visible signs are much less frequent, but there is no doubt that underfeeding, though not actual starvation, is nearly universal. The government supplies rations to everyone who works in the towns at a very low fixed price. The official theory is that the government has a monopoly of the food and that the rations are sufficient to sustain life. The fact is that the rations are not sufficient and that they are only a portion of the food supply of Moscow. Moreover, people complain, I do not know how truly, that the rations are delivered irregularly. Some say about every other day. Under these circumstances, almost everybody, rich or poor, buys food in the market, where it costs about 50 times the fixed government price. A pound of butter costs about a month's wages. In order to be able to afford extra food, people adopt various expedients. Some do additional work, add extra rates, after their official day's work is over. For though there is supposed to be by law an 8 hours day, extended to 10 in certain vital industries, the wage paid for it is not a living wage. And there is nothing to prevent a man from undertaking other work in his spare time. But the usual resource is what is called, quote, speculation, unquote, that is, buying and selling. Some person, formerly rich, sells clothes or furniture or jewelry in return for food. The buyer sells again at an enhanced price, and so on through perhaps 20 hands, until a final purchaser is found in some well-to-do peasant or nouveau-ish speculator. Again, most people have relations in the country, whom they visit from time to time, bringing back with them great bags of flour. It is illegal for private persons to bring food into Moscow, and the trains are searched, but by corruption or cunning, experienced people can elude the search. The food market is illegal and is raided occasionally, but as a rule it is winked at. Thus, the attempt to suppress private commerce has resulted in an amount of unprofessional buying and selling, which far exceeds what happens in capitalist countries. It takes up a great deal of time that might be more profitably employed, and being illegal, it places practically the whole population of Moscow at the mercy of the police. Moreover, it depends largely upon the stores of goods, belonging to those who are formerly rich, and when these are expended, the whole system must collapse unless industry has meanwhile been re-established on a sound basis. It is clear that the state of affairs is unsatisfactory, but from the government's point of view, it is not easy to see what ought to be done. The urban and industrial population is mainly concerned in carrying on the work of government and supplying munitions to the army. These are very necessary tasks, the cost of which ought to be defrayed out of taxation. A moderate tax in kind on the peasants would easily feed Moscow and Petrograd, but the peasants take no interest in war or government. Russia is so vast that invasion of one part does not touch another part, and the peasants are too ignorant to have any national consciousness, such as one takes for granted in England or France or Germany. The peasants will not willingly part with a portion of their produce merely for purposes of national defense, but only for the goods they need, clothes, agricultural implements, and so on, which the government, owing to the war and the blockade, is not in a position to supply. When the food shortage was at its worst, the government antagonized the peasants by forced requisitions, carried out with great harshness by the Red Army. This method has been modified, but the peasants still part unwillingly with their food, as is natural in view of the uselessness of paper and the enormously higher prices offered by private buyers. The food problem is the main cause of popular opposition to the Bolsheviks, yet I cannot see how any popular policy could have been adopted. The Bolsheviks are disliked by the peasants because they take so much food. They are disliked in the towns because they take so little. What the peasants want is what is called free trade, that is, decontrol of agricultural produce. If this policy were adopted, the towns would be faced by utter starvation, not merely by hunger and hardship. It is an entire misconception to suppose that the peasants cherish any hostility to the entente. The daily news of July 13th in an otherwise excellent leading article speaks of, quote, the growing hatred of the Russian peasant who is neither a communist nor a Bolshevik for the Allies generally, and this country in particular, end of quote. The typical Russian peasant has never heard of the Allies or of this country. He does not know that there is a blockade. All he knows is that he used to have six cows, but the government reduced him to one for the sake of poorer peasants, and that it takes his corn, except what is needed for his own family, at a very low price. The reasons for these actions do not interest him, since his horizon is bounded by his own village. To a remarkable extent, each village is an independent unit. So long as the government obtains the food and soldiers that it requires, it does not interfere, and leave untouched the old village communism, which is extraordinarily unlike Bolshevism, and entirely dependent upon a very primitive stage of culture. The government represents the interests of the urban and industrial population and is, as it were, encamped amid a peasant nation, with whom its relations are rather diplomatic and military than governmental in the ordinary sense. The economic situation, as in Central Europe, is favorable to the country and unfavorable to the towns. If Russia were governed democratically, according to the will of the majority, the inhabitants of Moscow and Petrograd would die of starvation. As it is, Moscow and Petrograd just managed to live by having the whole civil and military power of the state devoted to their needs. Russia affords the curious spectacle of a vast and powerful empire, prosperous at the periphery, but faced with dire want at the center. Those who have least prosperity have most power, and it is only through their excess of power that they are enabled to live at all. The situation is due, at bottom, to two facts, that almost the whole industrial energies of the population have had to be devoted to war, and that the peasants do not appreciate the importance of the war or the fact of the blockade. It is futile to blame the Bolsheviks for an unpleasant and difficult situation which it has been impossible for them to avoid. Their problem is only soluble in one of two ways, by the cessation of the war and the blockade, which would enable them to supply the peasants with the goods they need in exchange for food, or by the gradual development of an independent Russian industry. This latter method would be slow and would involve terrible hardships, but some of the ablest men in the government believe it to be possible if peace cannot be achieved. If we force this method upon Russia, by the refusal of peace and trade, we shall forfeit the only inducement we can hold out for friendly relations. We shall render the Soviet state unassailable and completely free to pursue the policy of promoting revolution everywhere. But the industrial problem is a large subject which is better reserved for a separate chapter. End of chapter 8. Chapter 9 of The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism by Bertrand Russell This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Landon D.C. Elkind at the University of Iowa in Coralville, Iowa. International Policy In the course of these chapters, I have had occasion to mention disagreeable features of the Bolshevik regime. But it must always be remembered that these are chiefly due to the fact that the industrial life of Russia has been paralyzed except as ministering to the wants of the army. And that the government has had to wage a bitter and doubtful civil and external war involving the constant menace of domestic enemies. Harshness, espionage, and a curtailment of liberty result unavoidably from these difficulties. I have no doubt whatever that the sole cure for the evils from which Russia is suffering is peace and trade. Peace and trade would put an end to the hostility of the peasants and would at once enable the government to depend upon popularity rather than force. The character of the government would alter rapidly under such conditions. Industrial conscription which is now rigidly enforced would become unnecessary. Those who desire a more liberal spirit would be able to make their voices heard without the feeling they were assisting reaction and the national enemies. The food difficulties would cease and with them the need for an autocratic system in the towns. It must not be assumed, as is common with opponents of Bolshevism, that any other government could easily be established in Russia. I think everyone who has been in Russia recently is convinced that the existing government is stable. It may undergo internal developments and might easily, but for Lenin, become a Bonapartist military autocracy. But this would be a change from within, not perhaps a very great change and would probably do little to alter the economic system. From what I saw of the Russian character and of the opposition parties, I became persuaded that Russia is not ready for any form of democracy and needs a strong government. The Bolsheviks represent themselves as the allies of Western advanced socialism. And from this point of view they are open to grave criticism. For their international program there is, to my mind, nothing to be said. But as a national government stripped of their camouflage, regarded as the successors of Peter the Great, they are performing a necessary, though unamiable, task. They are introducing, as far as they can, American efficiency among a lazy and undisciplined population. They are preparing to develop the natural resources of their country by the methods of state socialism, for which in Russia there is much to be said. In the army they are abolishing illiteracy. And if they had peace, they would do great things for education everywhere. But if we continue to refuse peace and trade, I do not think the Bolsheviks will go under. Russia will endure great hardships in the years to come as before. But the Russians are enured to misery as no Western nation is. They can live and work under conditions which we should find intolerable. The government will be driven more and more from mere self-preservation into a policy of imperialism. The Entente has been doing everything to expose Germany to a Russian invasion of arms and leaflets by allowing Poland to engage in war and compelling Germany to disarm. All Asia lies open to Bolshevik ambitions. Almost the whole of the former Russian Empire in Asia is quite firmly in their grasp. Trains are running at a reasonable speed to Turkestan, and I saw cotton from there being loaded onto Volga steamers. In Persia and Turkey, revolts are taking place with Bolshevik support. It is only a question of a few years before India will be in touch with the Red Army. If we continue to antagonize the Bolsheviks, I do not see what force exists that can prevent them from acquiring the whole of Asia within 10 years. The Russian government is not yet definitely imperialistic in spirit and would still prefer peace to conquest. The country is weary of war and denuded of goods. But if the Western powers insist upon war, another spirit, which is already beginning to show itself, will become dominant. Conquest will be the only alternative to submission. Asiatic conquest will not be difficult. But for us, from the imperialistic standpoint, it will mean utter ruin. And for the continent, it will mean revolutions, civil wars, economic cataclysms. The policy of crushing Bolshevism by force was always foolish and criminal. It has now become impossible and fraught with disaster. Our own government, it would seem, have begun to realize the dangers. But apparently they do not realize them sufficiently to enforce their view against opposition. In the theses presented to the 2nd Congress of the 3rd International, July 1920, there is a very interesting article by Lenin called, quote, first sketch of the theses on national and colonial questions, and quote, theses pages 40 to 47. The following passages seemed to me particularly illuminating, quote, the present world situation in politics places on the order of the day, the dictatorship of the proletariat. And all the events of world politics are inevitably concentrated around one setter of gravity, the struggle of the international bourgeoisie against the Soviet Republic, which inevitably groups round it, on the one hand the sovietist movements of the advanced working men of all countries, on the other hand all the national movements of emancipation of colonies and oppressed nations, which have been convinced by bitter experience that there is no salvation for them, except in the victory of the Soviet government over world imperialism. We cannot therefore any longer confine ourselves to recognizing and proclaiming the union of the workers of all countries. It is henceforth necessary to pursue the realization of the strictest union of all the national and colonial movements of emancipation with Soviet Russia. By giving this union forms corresponding to the degree of evolution of the proletarian movement along the proletariat of each country, or of the democratic bourgeois movement of emancipation among the workers and peasants of backward countries or backward nationalities. The federal principle appears to us as a transitory form towards the complete unity of the workers of all countries, end of quote. This is the formula for cooperation with Sinn Féin or with Egyptian and Indian nationalism. It is further defined later. In regard to backward countries, Lenin says we must have in view, quote, the necessity of the cooperation of all communists in the democratic bourgeois movement of emancipation in those countries, end of quote. Again, quote, the communist international must conclude temporary alliances with the bourgeois democracy of backward countries, but must never fuse with it, end of quote. The class conscious proletariat must quote show itself particularly circumspect towards the survivals of national sentiment in countries long oppressed, end quote, and must quote consent to certain useful concessions, end of quote. The Asiatic policy of the Russian government was adopted as a move against the British Empire and as a method of inducing the British government to make peace. It plays a larger part in the schemes of the leading Bolsheviks than is realized by the Labour Party in this country. Its method is not for the present to preach communism, since the Persians and Hindus are considered scarcely right for the doctrines of Marx. It is nationalist movements that are supported by money and agitators from Moscow. The method of quasi-independent states under Bolshevik protection is well understood. It is obvious that this policy affords opportunities for imperialism under the cover of propaganda and there is no doubt that some among the Bolsheviks are fascinated by its imperialist aspect. The importance officially attached to the Eastern policy is illustrated by the fact that it was the subject of the concluding portion of Lenin's speech to the recent Congress of the Third International, July 1920. Bolshevism, like everything Russian, is partly Asiatic in character. One may distinguish two distinct trends developing into two distinct policies. On the one side are the practical men who wish to develop Russia industrially, to secure the gains of the revolution nationally, to trade with the West and gradually settle down into a more or less ordinary state. These men have on their side the fact that the economic exhaustion of Russia, the danger of ultimate revolt against Bolshevism, if life continues to be as painful as it is at present, and the natural sentiment of humanity that wishes to relieve the sufferings of the people. Also the fact that if revolutions elsewhere produce a similar collapse of industry, they will make it impossible for Russia to receive the outside help which is urgently needed. In the early days when the government was weak, they had unchallenged control of policy, but success has made their position less secure. On the other side there is a blend of two quite different aims. First, the desire to promote revolution in the Western nations, which is in line with communist theory, and is also thought to be the only way of obtaining a really secure peace. Secondly, the desire for Asiatic dominion, which is probably accompanied in the minds of some with dreams of sapphires and rubies and golden thrones and all the glories of their forefather Solomon. This desire produces an unwillingness to abandon the Eastern policy, although it is realized that, until it is abandoned, peace with capitalist England is impossible. I do not know whether there are some to whom the thought occurs that if England were to embark on revolution, we should become willing to abandon India to the Russians. But I am certain that the converse thought occurs, namely that if India could be taken from us, the blow to imperialist feeling might lead us to revolution. In either case, the two policies of revolution in the West, and conquest disguised as liberation of oppressed peoples in the East, work together and dovetail into a strongly coherent whole. Bolshevism as a social policy is to be reckoned as a religion, not as an ordinary political movement. The important and effective mental attitudes to the world may be broadly divided into the religious and the scientific. The scientific attitude is tentative and piecemeal, believing what it finds evidence for and no more. Since Galileo, the scientific attitude has proved itself increasingly capable of ascertaining important facts and laws, which are acknowledged by all competent people, regardless of temperament or self-interest or political pressure. Almost all the progress in the world, from the earliest times, is attributable to science and the scientific temper. Almost all the major ills are attributable to religion. By a religion, I mean a set of beliefs held as dogmas, dominating the conduct of life, going beyond or contrary to evidence, and inculcated by methods which are emotional or authoritarian, not intellectual. By this definition, Bolshevism is a religion. That its dogmas go beyond or contrary to evidence, I shall try to prove in what follows. Those who accept Bolshevism become impervious to scientific evidence and commit intellectual suicide. Even if all the doctrines of Bolshevism were true, this would still be the case, since no unbiased examination of them is tolerated. One who believes, as I do, that the free intellect is the chief engine of human progress cannot but be fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism, as much as to the Church of Rome. Among religions, Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of this world. Their founders would not have resisted the third of the temptations in the wilderness. What Mohammedanism did for the Arabs, Bolshevism may do for the Russians. As Ali went down before the politicians who only rallied to the Prophet after his success, so the genuine Communists may go down before those who are now rallying to the ranks of the Bolsheviks. If so, Asiatic Empire, with all its pumps and splendors, may well be the next stage of development, and Communism may seem in historical retrospect as small a part of Bolshevism as abstinence from alcohol is of Mohammedanism. It is true that as a world force, whether for revolution or for empire, Bolshevism must sooner or later be brought by success into a desperate conflict with America, and America is more solid and strong as yet than anything that Mohammed's followers had to face. But the doctrines of Communism are almost certain in the long run to make progress among American wage earners, and the opposition of America is therefore not likely to be eternal. Bolshevism may go under in Russia, but even if it does, it will spring up again elsewhere, since it is ideally suited to an industrial population in distress. What is evil in it is mainly due to the fact that it has its origin in distress. The problem is to disentangle the good from the evil, and induce the adoption of the good and countries not goaded into ferocity by despair. Russia is a backward country not yet ready for the methods of equal cooperation which the West is seeking to substitute for arbitrary power in politics and industry. In Russia, the methods of the Bolsheviks are probably more or less unavoidable. At any rate, I am not prepared to criticize them in their broad lines, but they are not the methods appropriate to more advanced countries. And our socialists will be unnecessarily retrograde if they allow the prestige of the Bolsheviks to lead them into slavish imitation. It will be a far less excusable error in our reactionaries if by their unteachableness they compel the adoption of violent methods. We have a heritage of civilization and mutual tolerance which is important to ourselves and to the world. Life in Russia has always been fierce and cruel to a far greater degree than with us, and out of the war has come a danger that this fierceness and cruelty may become universal. I have hopes that in England this may be avoided through the moderation of both sides, but it is essential to a happy issue that melodrama should no longer determine our views of the Bolsheviks. They are neither angels to be worshipped nor devils to be exterminated, but merely bold and able men attempting with great skill an almost impossible task. End of chapter 9 and end of part 1 of the Practice and Theory of Bolshevism. Chapter 10 of the Practice and Theory of Bolshevism by Bertrand Russell. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Landon D.C. Elkind at the University of Iowa in Coralville, Iowa. Part 2, Bolshevik Theory. Chapter 10, The Materialistic Theory of History. The materialistic conception of history, as it is called, is due to Marx and underlies the whole communist philosophy. I do not mean, of course, that a man could not be a communist without accepting it, but that in fact it is accepted by the Communist Party, and that it profoundly influences their views as to politics and tactics. The name does not convey at all accurately what is meant by the theory. It means that all the mass phenomena of history are determined by economic motives. This view has no essential connection with materialism in the philosophic sense. Materialism in the philosophic sense may be defined as the theory that all apparently mental occurrences either are really physical or at any rate have purely physical causes. Materialism in this sense was also preached by Marx and is accepted by all orthodox Marxians. The arguments for and against it are long and complicated and need not concern us, since in fact its truth or falsehood has little or no bearing on politics. In particular, philosophic materialism does not prove that economic causes are fundamental in politics. The view of Buckle, for example, according to which climate is one of the decisive factors, is equally compatible with materialism. So is the Freudian view, which traces everything to sex. There are innumerable ways of viewing history which are materialistic in the philosophic sense without being economic or falling within the Marxian formula. Thus the materialistic conception of history may be false even if materialism in the philosophic sense should be true. On the one hand economic causes might be at the bottom of all political events even if philosophic materialism were false. Economic causes operate through men's desires for possessions and would be supreme if this desire was supreme even if desire could not, from a philosophic point of view, be explained in materialistic terms. There is therefore no logical connection either way between philosophic materialism and what is called the materialistic conception of history. It is of some moment to realize such facts as this because otherwise political theories are both supported and opposed for quite irrelevant reasons. In arguments of theoretical philosophy are employed to determine questions which depend upon concrete facts of human nature. This mixture damages both philosophy and politics and is therefore important to avoid. For another reason also, the attempt to base a political theory upon a philosophical doctrine is undesirable. The philosophical doctrine of materialism, if true at all, is true everywhere and always. We cannot expect exceptions to it, say, in Buddhism or in the Hussite movement. And so it comes about that people whose politics are supposed to be a consequence of their metaphysics grow absolute and sweeping, unable to admit that a general theory of history is likely at best to be only true on the whole and in the main. The dogmatic character of Marxian Communism finds support in the supposed philosophic basis of the doctrine. It has the fixed certainty of Catholic theology, not the changing fluidity and skeptical practicality of modern science. Treated as a practical approximation, not as an exact metaphysical law, the materialistic conception of history has a very large measure of truth. Take as an instance of its truth the influence of industrialism upon ideas. It is industrialism rather than the arguments of Darwinian's and biblical critics that has led to the decay of religious belief in the urban working class. At the same time industrialism has revived religious belief among the rich. In the 18th century French aristocrats mostly became free thinkers, now their descendants are mostly Catholics, because it has become necessary for all the forces of reaction to unite against the revolutionary proletariat. Take again the emancipation of women. Plato, Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill produced admirable arguments, but influenced only a few impotent idealists. The war came leading to the employment of women in industry on a large scale, and instantly the arguments in favor of votes for women were seen to be irresistible. More than that, traditional sexual morality collapsed because its whole basis was the economic dependence of women upon their fathers and husbands. Changes in such a matter as sexual morality bring with them profound alterations in the thoughts and feelings of ordinary men and women. They modify law, literature, art, and all kinds of institutions that seem remote from economics. Such facts as these justify Marxians in speaking as they do of quote bourgeois ideology, meaning that kind of morality which has been imposed upon the world by the possessors of capital. Contentment with one's lot may be taken as typical of the virtues preached by the rich to the poor. They honestly believe it is a virtue at any rate they did formerly. The more religious among the poor also believed it, partly from the influence of authority, partly from an impulse to submission, what McDougall calls quote negative self-feeling, unquote, which is commoner than some people think. Similarly, men preached the virtue of female chastity and women usually accepted their teaching. Both really believed the doctrine, but its persistence was only possible through the economic power of men. This led erring women to punishment here on earth, which made further punishment hereafter seem probable. When the economic penalty ceased, the conviction of sinfulness gradually decayed. In such changes we see the collapse of quote bourgeois ideology, unquote. But in spite of the fundamental importance of economic facts in determining the politics and beliefs of an age or nation, I do not think that non-economic factors can be neglected without risks of errors which may be fatal in practice. The most obvious non-economic factor, and the one the neglect of which has led socialists most astray, is nationalism. Of course a nation once formed has economic interests which largely determine its politics. But it is not as a rule, economic motives that decide what group of human beings shall form a nation. Trieste before the war considered itself Italian, although its whole prosperity as a port. Depended upon its belonging to Russia. No economic motive can account for this opposition between Ulster and the rest of Ireland. In Eastern Europe the Balkanization produced by self-determination has been obviously disastrous from an economic point of view and was demanded for reasons which were in essence sentimental. Throughout the war, wage earners with only a few exceptions allowed themselves to be governed by nationalist feeling and ignored the traditional communist exhortation, quote, workers of the world unite, end quote. According to Marxian orthodoxy they were misled by cunning capitalists who made their profit out of this slaughter. But to anyone capable of observing psychological facts, it is obvious that this is largely a myth. Immense numbers of capitalists were ruined by the war, those who were young were just as liable to be killed as the proletarians were. No doubt commercial rivalry between England and Germany had a great deal to do with causing the war. But rivalry is a different thing from profit seeking. Probably by combination English and German capitalists could have made more than they did out of rivalry. But the rivalry was instinctive and its economic form was accidental. The capitalists were in the grip of nationalist instinct as much as their proletarian dupes. In both classes some have gained by the war, but the universal will to war was not produced by the hope of gain. It was produced by a different set of instincts and one which Marxian psychology fails to recognize adequately. The Marxian assumes that a man's herd from their point of view of herd instinct is his class and that he will combine with those whose economic class interest is the same as his. This is only very partially true in fact. Religion has been the most decisive factor in determining a man's herd throughout long periods of the world's history. Even now a Catholic working man will vote for a Catholic capitalist rather than for an unbelieving socialist. In America the divisions in local elections are mainly on religious lines. This is no doubt convenient for the capitalists and tends to make them religious men. But the capitalists alone could not produce the result. The result is produced by the fact that many working men prefer the advancement of their creed to the improvement of their livelihood. However deplorable such a state of mind may be it is not necessarily due to capitalist lies. All politics are governed by human desires. The materialist theory of history in the last analysis requires the assumption that every politically conscious person is governed by one single desire. The desire to increase his own share of commodities. And further that his method of achieving this desire will usually be to seek to increase the share of his class not only his own individual share. But this assumption is very far from the truth. Men desire power. They desire satisfactions for their pride and their self-respect. They desire victory over rivals so profoundly that they will invent a rivalry for the unconscious purpose of making a victory possible. All these motives cut across the pure economic motive in ways that are practically important. There is need of a treatment of political motives by the methods of psychoanalysis. In politics as in private life men invent myths to rationalize their conduct. If a man thinks that the only reasonable motive in politics is economic self advancement he will persuade himself that the things he wishes to do will make him rich. When he wants to fight the Germans he tells himself that their competition is ruining his trade. If on the other hand he is an idealist who holds that his politics should aim at the advancement of the human race he will tell himself that the crimes of the Germans demand their humiliation. The Marxian sees through this latter camouflage but not through the former. To desire one's own economic advancement is comparatively reasonable. To Marx who inherited 18th century rationalist psychology from the British Orthodox economists self enrichment seemed the natural aim of a man's political actions. But modern psychology has dived much deeper into the ocean of insanity upon which the little bark of human reason insecurely floats. The intellectual optimism of a bygone age is no longer possible to the modern student of human nature. Yet it lingers in Marxism making Marxians rigid and procrustian in their treatment of the life of instinct. Of this rigidity the materialistic conception of history is a prominent instance. In the next chapter I shall attempt to outline a political psychology which seems to me more nearly true than that of Marx. End of chapter 10. Chapter 11 of The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism by Bertrand Russell This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Landon D.C. Elkind at the University of Iowa in Coralville, Iowa. Deciding Forces in Politics The larger events in the political life of the world are determined by the interaction of material conditions and human passions. The operation of the passions on the material conditions is modified by intelligence. The passions themselves may be modified by alien intelligence guided by alien passions. So far such modification has been wholly unscientific but it may in time become as precise as engineering. The classification of the passions which is most convenient in political theory is somewhat different from that which would be adopted in psychology. We may begin with desires for the necessaries of life, food, drink, sex and, in cold climates, clothing and housing. When these are threatened there is no limit to the activity and violence that men will display. Planted upon these desires are a number of secondary desires. Love of property, of which the fundamental political importance is obvious, may be derived historically and psychologically from the hoarding instinct. Love of the good opinion of others, which we may call vanity, is a desire which man shares with many animals. It is perhaps derivable from courtship but has great survival value among gregarious animals in regard to others besides. Rivalry and love of power are perhaps developments of jealousy, they are kin but not identical. These four passions, acquisitiveness, vanity, rivalry and love of power are, after the basic instincts, the prime movers of almost all that happens in politics. Their operation is intensified and regularized by herd instinct but herd instinct by its very nature cannot be a prime mover since it merely causes the herd to act in unison without determining what the united action is to be. Among men, as among other gregarious animals, the united action, in any given circumstances, is determined partly by the common passions of the herd, partly by imitation of leaders. The art of politics consists in causing the latter to prevail over the former. Of the four passions we have enumerated, only one, namely acquisitiveness, is concerned at all directly with men's relations to their material conditions. The other three, vanity, rivalry and love of power, are concerned with social relations. I think this is the source of what is erroneous in the Marxian interpretation of history, which tacitly assumes that acquisitiveness is the source of all political actions. It is clear that many men willingly forgo wealth for the sake of power and glory, and that nations habitually sacrifice riches to rivalry with other nations. The desire for some form of superiority is common to almost all energetic men. No social system which attempts to thwart it can be stable, since the lazy majority will never be a match for the energetic minority. What is called virtue is an offshoot of vanity. It is the habit of acting in a manner which others praise. The operation of material conditions may be illustrated by the statement, Meyers' Dawn of History, that four of the greatest movements of conquest have been due to drought in Arabia, causing the nomads of that country to migrate into regions already inhabited. The last of these four movements was the rise of Islam. In these four cases, the primal need of food and drink was enough to set events in motion, but as this need could only be satisfied by conquest, the four secondary passions must have very soon come into play. In the conquests of modern industrialism, the secondary passions have been almost wholly dominant, since those who directed them had no need to fear, hunger or thirst. It is the potency of vanity and love of power that gives hope for the industrial future of Soviet Russia, since it enables the communist state to enlist in its service men whose abilities might give them vast wealth in a capitalistic society. Intelligence modifies profoundly the operation of material conditions. When America was first discovered, men only desired gold and silver. Consequently, the portions first settled were not those that are now most profitable. The Bessemer process created the German iron and steel industry. Inventions requiring oil have created a demand for that commodity which is one of the chief influences in international politics. The intelligence which has this profound effect on politics is not political, but scientific and technical. It is the kind of intelligence which discovers how to make nature minister to human passions. Tungsten had no value until it was found to be useful in the manufacture of shells and electric light. But now people will, if necessary, kill each other in order to acquire Tungsten. Scientific intelligence is the cause of this change. The progress or retroaggression of the world depends, broadly speaking, upon the balance between acquisitiveness and rivalry. The former makes for progress the latter for retroaggression. When intelligence provides improved methods of production, these may be employed to increase the general share of goods or to set apart more of the labor power of the community for the business of killing its rivals. Until 1914, acquisitiveness had prevailed, on the whole, since the fall of Napoleon. The past six years have seen a prevalence of the instinct of rivalry. Scientific intelligence makes it possible to indulge this instinct more fully than is possible for primitive peoples, since it sets free more men from the labor of producing necessaries. It is possible that scientific intelligence may, in time, reach the point when it will enable rivalry to exterminate the human race. This is the most hopeful method of bringing about an end of war. For those who do not like this method, there is another, the study of scientific psychology and physiology. The physiological causes of emotions have begun to be known through the studies of such men as Canon, bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear, and rage. In time it may become possible, by physiological means, to alter the whole emotional nature of a population. It will then depend upon the passions of the rulers how this power is used. Success will come to the state which discovers how to promote pugnacity to the extent required for external war, but not to the extent which would lead to domestic dissensions. There is no method by which it can be ensured that rulers shall desire the good of mankind, and therefore there is no reason to suppose that the power to modify men's emotional nature would cause progress. If men desired to diminish rivalry, there is an obvious method. Habits of power intensify the passion of rivalry. Therefore, a state in which power is concentrated will, other things being equal, be more bellicose than one in which power is diffused. For those who dislike wars, this is an additional argument against all forms of dictatorship, but dislike of war is far less common than we used to suppose, and those who like war can use the same argument to support dictatorship. End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism by Bertrand Russell This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Landon D.C. Elkind at the University of Iowa in Coralville, Iowa. Bolshevik Criticism of Democracy The Bolshevik argument against parliamentary democracy, as a method of achieving socialism, is a powerful one. My answer to it lies rather in pointing out what I believe to be fallacies in the Bolshevik method, from which I conclude that no swift method exists of establishing any desirable form of socialism. But let us first see what the Bolshevik argument is. In the first place, it assumes that those to whom it is addressed are absolutely certain that communism is desirable, so certain that they are willing, if necessary, to force it upon an unwilling population at the point of the bayonet. It then proceeds to argue that, while capitalism retains its hold over propaganda and its means of corruption, parliamentary methods are very unlikely to give a majority for communism in the House of Commons, or to lead to effective action by such a majority, even if it existed. Communists point out how the people are deceived and how their chosen leaders have again and again betrayed them. From this, they argue that the destruction of capitalism must be sudden and catastrophic, that it must be the work of a minority, and that it cannot be affected constitutionally or without violence. It is therefore, in their view, the duty of the Communist Party in a capitalist country to prepare for armed conflict and to take all possible measure for disarming the bourgeoisie and arming that part of the proletariat, which is willing to support the communists. There is an air of realism and disillusionment about this position, which makes it attractive to those idealists who wish to think themselves cynics. But I think there are various points in which it fails to be as realistic as it pretends. In the first place, it makes much of the treachery of labor leaders in constitutional movements, but does not consider the possibility of the treachery of communist leaders in a revolution. To this, the Marxian would reply that in constitutional movements men are bought, directly or indirectly, by the money of the capitalists, but that revolutionary communism would leave the capitalists no money, with which to attempt corruption. This has been achieved in Russia and could be achieved elsewhere. But selling oneself to the capitalists is not the only possible form of treachery. It is also possible, having acquired power, to use it for one's own ends instead of for the people. This is what I believe to be likely to happen in Russia. The establishment of a bureaucratic aristocracy concentrating authority in its own hands and creating a regime just as oppressive and cruel as that of capitalism. Marxians never sufficiently recognize that love of power is quite as strong a motive and quite as great a source of injustice as love of money. Yet this must be obvious to any unbiased student of politics. It is also obvious that the method of violent revolution, leading to a minority dictatorship, is one peculiarly calculated to create habits of despotism which would survive the crisis by which they were generated. Communist politicians are likely to become just like the politicians of other parties. A few will be honest, but the great majority will merely cultivate the art of telling a plausible tale with a view to tricking the people into entrusting them with power. The only possible way by which politicians as a class can be improved is the political and psychological education of the people, so that they may learn to detect a humbug. In England, men have reached the point of suspecting a good speaker, but if a man speaks badly, they think he must be honest. Unfortunately, virtue is not so widely diffused as this theory would imply. In the second place, it is assumed by the communist argument that, although capitalist propaganda can prevent the majority from becoming communists, yet capitalist laws and police forces cannot prevent the communists, while still a minority, from acquiring a supremacy of military power. It is thought that secret propaganda can undermine the Army and Navy, although it is admittedly impossible to get the majority to vote at elections for the program of the Bolsheviks. This view is based upon Russian experience, where the Army and Navy had suffered defeat and had been brutally ill-used by incompetent Tsarist authorities. The argument has no application to more efficient and successful states. Among the Germans, even in defeat, it was the civilian population that began the revolution. There is a further assumption in the Bolshevik argument, which seems to me quite unwarrantable. It is assumed that the capitalist governments will have learned nothing from the experience of Russia. Before the Russian Revolution, governments had not studied Bolshevik theory, and defeat in war created a revolutionary mood throughout Central and Eastern Europe. But now the holders of power are on their guard. There seems no reason whatever to suppose that they will supinely permit a preponderance of armed force to pass into the hands of those who wish to overthrow them. While, according to the Bolshevik theory, they are still sufficiently popular to be supported by a majority at the polls. Is it not as clear as noonday that in a democratic country it is more difficult for the proletariat to destroy the government by arms than to defeat it in a general election? Seeing the immense advantages of a government in dealing with rebels, it seems clear that rebellion would have little hope of success, unless a very large majority supported it. Of course, if the army and navy were specially revolutionary, they might affect an unpopular revolution. But this situation, though something like it occurred in Russia, is hardly to be expected in the western nations. This whole Bolshevik theory of revolution by a minority is one which might just conceivably have succeeded as a secret plot, but becomes impossible as soon as it is openly avowed and advocated. But perhaps it will be said that I am caricaturing the Bolshevik doctrine of revolution. It is urged by advocates of this doctrine quite truly that all political events are brought about by minorities, since the majority are indifferent to politics. But there is a difference between a minority in which the indifferent acquiesce and a minority so hated as to startle the indifferent into belated action. To make the Bolshevik doctrine reasonable, it is necessary to suppose that they believe the majority can be induced to acquiesce, at least temporarily, in the revolution made by the class-conscious minority. This, again, is based upon Russian experience. Desire for peace and a land led to a widespread support of the Bolsheviks in November 1917 on the part of people who have subsequently shown no love for communism. I think we come here to an essential part of Bolshevik philosophy. In the moment of revolution, communists are to have some popular cry by which they win more support than mere communism could win. Having thus acquired the state machine, they are to use it for their own ends. But this, again, is a method which can only be practiced successfully so long as it is not avowed. It is to some extent habitual in politics. The Unionists in 1900 won a majority in the Bayer War and used it to endow brewers and church schools. The Liberals in 1906 won a majority on Chinese labor and used it to cement the secret alliance with France and to make an alliance with Tsarist Russia. President Wilson in 1916 won his majority on neutrality and used it to come into the war. This method is part of the stock-in-trade of democracy. But its success depends upon repudiating it until the moment comes to practice it. Those who, like the Bolsheviks, have the honesty to proclaim in advance their intention of using power for other ends than those for which it was given them, are not likely to have a chance of carrying out their designs. What seems to me to emerge from these considerations is this. That in a democratic and politically educated country, armed revolution in favor of communism would have no chance of succeeding unless it were supported by a larger majority than would be required for the election of a communist government by constitutional methods. It is possible that if such a government came into existence and proceeded to carry out its program, it would be met by armed resistance on the part of capital, including a large proportion of the officers in the army and navy. But in subduing this resistance, it would have the support of that great body of opinion which believes in legality and upholds the constitution. Moreover, having, by hypothesis, converted a majority of the nation, a communist government could be sure of loyal help from immense numbers of workers and would not be forced, as the Bolsheviks are in Russia, to suspect treachery everywhere. Under these circumstances, I believe that the resistance of the capitalists could be quelled without much difficulty and would receive little support from moderate people. Whereas in a minority revolt of communists against a capitalist government, all moderate opinion would be on the side of capitalism. The contention that capitalist propaganda is what prevents the adoption of communism by wage earners is only very partially true. Capitalist propaganda has never been able to prevent the Irish from voting against the English, though it has been applied to this object with great vigor. It has proved itself powerless over and over again in opposing nationalist movements which had almost no moneyed support. It has been unable to cope with religious feeling, and those industrial populations which would most obviously benefit by socialism have in the main adopted it in spite of the opposition of employers. The plain truth is that socialism does not arouse the same passionate interest in the average citizen as is aroused by nationality and used to be aroused by religion. It is not unlikely that things may change in this respect. We may be approaching a period of economic civil wars comparable to that of the religious civil wars that followed the Reformation. In such a period, nationalism is submerged by party. British and German socialists or British and German capitalists will feel more kinship with each other than with compatriots of the opposite political camp. But when that day comes, there will be no difficulty in highly industrial countries in securing socialist majorities. If socialism is not then carried without bloodshed, it will be due to the unconstitutional action of the rich, not to the need of revolutionary violence, on the part of the advocates of the proletariat. Whether such a state of opinion grows up or not depends mainly upon the stubbornness or conciliatoriness of the possessing classes and conversely upon the moderation or violence of those who desire fundamental economic change. The majority, which Bolsheviks regard as unattainable, is chiefly prevented by the ruthlessness of their own tactics. Apart from all arguments of detail, there are two broad objections to violent revolution in a democratic community. The first is that when once the principle of respecting majorities as expressed at the ballot box is abandoned, there is no reason to suppose that victory will be secured by the particular minority to which one happens to belong. There are many minorities besides communists, religious minorities, teetotal minorities, militarist minorities, capitalist minorities. Any one of these could adopt the method of obtaining power advocated by the Bolsheviks, and any one would be just as likely to succeed as they are. What restrains these minorities, more or less, at present, is respect for the law and the constitution. Bolsheviks tacitly assume that every other party will preserve this respect while they themselves, unhindered, prepare the revolution. But if their philosophy of violence becomes popular, there is not the slightest reason to suppose that they will be its beneficiaries. They believe that communism is for the good of the majority. They ought to believe that they can persuade the majority on this question, and to have the patience to set about the task of winning by propaganda. The second argument of principle against the method of minority violence is that the abandonment of law, when it becomes widespread, lets loose the wild beast and gives a free reign to the primitive lusts and egoisms which civilization in some degree curbs. Every student of medieval thought must have been struck by the extraordinarily high value placed upon law in that period. The reason was that, in countries infested by robber barons, law was the first requisite of progress. We in the modern world take it for granted that most people will be law abiding, and we hardly realize that centuries of effort have gone to making such an assumption possible. We forget how many of the good things that we unquestionably expect would disappear out of life if murder, rape, and robbery with violence became common. And we forget even more how very easily this might happen. The universal class war foreshadowed by the Third International following upon the loosening of restraints produced by the late war, and combined with a deliberate inculcation of disrespect for law and constitutional government might, and I believe would, produce a state of affairs in which it would be habitual to murder men for a crust of bread, and in which women would only be safe while armed men protected them. The civilized nations have accepted democratic government as a method of settling internal disputes without violence. Democratic government may have all the faults attributed to it, but it has the one great merit that people are on the whole willing to accept it as a substitute for civil war in political disputes. Whoever sets to work to weaken this acceptance, whether in Ulster or in Moscow, is taking a fearful responsibility. Civilization is not so stable that it cannot be broken up, and a condition of lawless violence is not one out of which any good thing is likely to emerge. For this reason, if for no other, revolutionary violence in a democracy is infinitely dangerous. End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 of The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism by Bertrand Russell This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Landon D.C. Elkind at the University of Iowa in Coralville, Iowa. Revolution and Dictatorship The Bolsheviks have a very definite program for achieving communism, a program which has been set forth by Lenin repeatedly and quite recently in the reply of the Third International to the questionnaire submitted by the Independent Labor Party. Capitalists, we are assured, will stick at nothing in defense of their privileges. It is the nature of man, insofar as he is politically conscious, to fight for the interests of his class so long as classes exist. When the conflict is not pushed to extremes, methods of conciliation and political deception may be preferable to actual physical warfare. But as soon as the proletariat make a really vital attack upon the capitalists, they will be met by guns and bayonets. This being certain and inevitable, it is as well to be prepared for it, and to conduct propaganda accordingly. Those who pretend that pacific methods can lead to the realization of communism are false friends to the wage earners. Intentionally or unintentionally, they are covert allies of the bourgeoisie. There must then, according to Bolshevik theory, be armed conflict sooner or later, if the injustices of the present economic system are ever to be remedied. Not only do they assume armed conflict, they have a fairly definite conception of the way in which it is to be conducted. This conception has been carried out in Russia, and is to be carried out before very long, in every civilized country. The communists, who represent the class-conscious wage earners, wait for some propitious moment when events have caused a mood of revolutionary discontent with the existing government. They then put themselves at the head of the discontent, carry through a successful revolution, and in doing so acquire the arms, the railways, the state treasure, and all the other resources upon which the power of modern governments is built. They then confine political power to communists, however small a minority they may be of the whole nation. They set to work to increase their number by propaganda and the control of education, and meanwhile they introduce communism into every department of economic life as quickly as possible. Ultimately, after a longer or shorter period, according to circumstances, the nation will be converted to communism. The relics of capitalist institutions will have been obliterated, and it will be possible to restore freedom. But the political conflicts to which we are accustomed will not reappear. All the burning political questions of our time, according to the communists, are questions of class conflict, and will disappear when the division of classes disappears. Accordingly, the state will no longer be required since the state is essentially an engine of power designed to give the victory to one side in the class conflict. Ordinary states are designed to give the victory to the capitalists. The proletarian state, Soviet Russia, is designed to give the victory to the wage earners. As soon as the community contains only wage earners, the state will cease to have any functions. And so, through a period of dictatorship, we shall finally arrive at a condition very similar to that aimed at by anarchist communism. Three questions arise in regard to this method of reaching utopia. First, would the ultimate state foreshadowed by the Bolsheviks be desirable in itself? Secondly, would the conflict involved in achieving it by the Bolshevik method be so bitter and prolonged that its evils would outweigh the ultimate good? Thirdly, is this method likely to lead in the end to the state which the Bolsheviks desire, or will it fail at some point and arrive at a quite different result? If we are to be Bolsheviks, we must answer all these questions in a sense favorable to their program. As regards the first question, I have no hesitation in answering it in a manner favorable to communism. It is clear that the present inequalities of wealth are unjust. In part, they may be defended as affording an incentive to useful industry, but I do not think this defense will carry us very far. However, I have argued this question before in my book On Roads to Freedom, and I will not spend time upon it now. On this matter, I concede the Bolshevik case. It is the other two questions that I wish to discuss. Our second question was, is the ultimate good aimed at by the Bolsheviks sufficiently great to be worth the price that, according to their own theory, will have to be paid for achieving it? If anything human were absolutely certain, we might answer this question affirmatively with some confidence. The benefits of communism, if it were once achieved, might be expected to be lasting. We might legitimately hope that further change would be towards something still better, not towards a revival of ancient evils. But if we admit, as we must do, that the outcome of the communist revolution is in some degree uncertain, it becomes necessary to count the cost, for a great part of the cost is all but certain. Since the revolution of October 1917, the Soviet government has been at war with almost all the world, and has had at the same time to face civil war at home. This is not to be regarded as accidental, or as a misfortune which could not be foreseen. According to Marxian theory, what has happened was bound to happen. Indeed, Russia has been wonderfully fortunate in not having to face an even more desperate situation. First and foremost, the world was exhausted by the war, and in no mood for military adventures. Next, the Tsarist regime was the worst in Europe, and therefore rallied less support than would be secured by any other capitalist government. Again, Russia is vast and agricultural, making it capable of resisting both invasion and blockade better than Great Britain or France or Germany. The only other country that could have resisted with equal success is the United States, which is at present very far removed from a proletarian revolution, and likely long to remain the chief bulwark of the capitalist system. It is evident that Great Britain, attempting a similar revolution, would be forced by starvation to yield within a few months, provided America led a policy of blockade. The same is true, though in a less degree of continental countries. Therefore, unless and until an international communist revolution becomes possible, we must expect that any other nation following Russia's example will have to pay an even higher price than Russia has had to pay. Now the price that Russia is having to pay is very great. The almost universal poverty might be thought to be a small evil in comparison with the ultimate gain, but it brings with it other evils of which the magnitude would be acknowledged, even by those who have never known poverty and therefore make light of it. Hunger brings an absorption in the question of food, which to most people makes life almost purely animal. The general shortage makes people fierce and reacts upon the political atmosphere. The necessity of inculcating communism produces a hot house condition, where every breath of fresh air must be excluded. People are to be taught to think in a certain way, and all free intelligence becomes taboo. The country comes to resemble an immensely magnified Jesuit college. Every kind of liberty is banned as being bourgeois, but it remains a fact that intelligence languishes where thought is not free. All this, however, according to the leaders of the Third International, is only a small beginning of the struggle, which must become worldwide before it achieves victory. In their reply to the Independent Labour Party, they say, quote, It is probable that upon the throwing off of the chains of the capitalist governments, the revolutionary proletariat of Europe will meet the resistance of Anglo-Saxon capital in the persons of British and American capitalists who will attempt to blockade it. It is then possible that the revolutionary proletariat of Europe will rise in union with the peoples of the East and commence a revolutionary struggle, the scene of which will be the entire world to deal a final blow to British and American capitalism. The Times, July 30, 1920, end of quote. The war here prophesied, if it ever takes place, will be one compared to which the late war will come to seem a mere affair of outposts. Those who realize the destructiveness of the late war, the devastation and impoverishment, the lowering of the level of civilization throughout vast areas, the general increase of hatred and savagery, the letting loose of bestial instincts which had been curbed during peace, those who realize all this will hesitate to incur inconceivably greater horrors, even if they believe firmly that communism in itself is much to be desired. An economic system cannot be considered apart from the population which is to carry it out, and the population resulting from such a world war as Moscow calmly contemplates would be savage, bloodthirsty, and ruthless to an extent that must make any system a mere engine of oppression and cruelty. This brings us to our third question, is the system which communists regard as their goal likely to result from the adoption of their methods? This is really the most vital question of the three. Advocacy of communism by those who believe in Bolshevik methods rests upon the assumption that there is no slavery except economic slavery, and that when all goods are held in common there must be perfect liberty. I fear this is a delusion. There must be administration. There must be officials who control distribution. These men in a communist state are the repositories of power. So long as they control the army, they are able, as in Russia at this moment, to wield despotic power even if they are a small minority. The fact that there is communism to a certain extent does not mean that there is liberty. If the communism were more complete, it would not necessarily mean more freedom. There would still be certain officials in control of the food supply, and these officials could govern as they pleased so long as they retained the support of the soldiers. This is not mere theory. It is the patent lesson of the present condition of Russia. The Bolshevik theory is that a small minority are to seize power, and are to hold it until communism is accepted practically universally, which they admit may take a long time. But power is sweet, and few men surrender it voluntarily. It is especially sweet to those who have the habit of it, and the habit becomes most ingrained in those who have governed by bayonets without popular support. Is it not almost inevitable that men placed as the Bolsheviks are placed in Russia, and as they maintain that the communists must place themselves wherever the social revolution succeeds, will be loathed to relinquish their monopoly of power, and will find reasons for remaining until some new revolution ousts them? Would it not be fatally easy for them, without altering economic structure, to decree large salaries for high government officials, and so reintroduce the old inequalities of wealth? What motive would they have for not doing so? What motive is possible except idealism, love of mankind, non-economic motives of the sort that Bolsheviks decry? The system created by violence and the forcible rule of a minority must necessarily allow of tyranny and exploitation, and if human nature is what Marxians assert it to be, why should the rulers neglect such opportunities of selfish advantage? It is sheer nonsense to pretend that the rulers of a great empire, such as Soviet Russia, when they have become accustomed to power, retain the proletarian psychology, and feel that their class interest is the same as that of the ordinary working man. This is not the case in fact in Russia now, however the truth may be concealed by fine phrases. The government has a class consciousness and a class interest quite distinct from those of the genuine proletarian, who is not to be confounded with the paper proletarian of the Marxian Scheme. In a capitalist state, the government and the capitalists on the whole hang together and form one class. In Soviet Russia, the government has absorbed the capitalist mentality together with the governmental, and the fusion has given increased strength to the upper class. But I see no reason whatever to expect equality or freedom to result from such a system, except reasons derived from a false psychology and a mistaken analysis of the sources of political power. I am compelled to reject Bolshevism for two reasons. First, because the price mankind must pay to achieve communism by Bolshevik methods is too terrible. And secondly, because even after paying the price, I do not believe the result would be what the Bolsheviks profess to desire. But if their methods are rejected, how are we ever to arrive at a better economic system? This is not an easy question, and I shall treat it in a separate chapter. End of chapter 13