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On  the characteristics of the October Revolution

This article is the first part of the report that I read in the MK in front of agitators-propagandists. This part is of independent importance, since in the second part, according to the theses of the Central Committee, the achievements of the revolution were listed, which in essence are known to everyone.

A. L.

The October Revolution did not come unexpectedly for us communists. Already the revolution of 1905 posed point-blank those questions which were later put before us for the second time and practically in 1917. Generally speaking, our revolution in Russia has been awaited for decades and has been prepared for since the beginning of the 19th century. But only as this upheaval approached, as the revolution approached, did its completely special and unprecedented in the history of mankind possibilities begin to emerge. In 1905, these possibilities, unprecedented in the history of mankind, already showed themselves quite clearly, although even the Bolsheviks further clarified their expectations from the revolution, when the second revolution, the genuine, victorious revolution, was already before us.

In 1905, the question was drawn like this: what kind of revolution will be in Russia, will it be bourgeois, or will the revolution be proletarian? You know that Plekhanov, the father of the idea of a workers' revolution in the name of which the RSDLP developed, in essence, has not yet clearly defined what character this revolution will have. Everyone knows his famous phrase that the revolution in Russia will take place like a workers' revolution, or it will not happen at all. Delving deeper into this phrase, we understand what Plekhanov wanted to say with this. The revolutions that had taken place before—the English, the French, the revolutions of 1848—were not proletarian revolutions, but bourgeois ones: why not expect a bourgeois revolution in Russia, why think that it will necessarily be a workers' revolution? But as the bourgeois revolutions moved from West to East, they turned out to be more and more indecisive, turned out to be historical miscarriages. The reason for this, one of the main reasons, was precisely that with every step of the bourgeois revolution, the proletarian raid, the proletarian flavor, became stronger and stronger. Of course, in the English revolution of the 17th century there were communist sects, communist associations, something of a light proletarian coloring, the Levellers, for example, etc., but this did not matter much, these people did not reach power. The great French revolution already has a different character. True, its communists (Babeuf) also did not reach power. But not far from them stood the extreme petty-bourgeois revolutionaries, who carried out their own revolution in the name of the poor, and in doing so, it was accompanied by a significant destruction of the bourgeois foundations of property, a significant assault against wealth. This was a petty-bourgeois, plebeian, as Marx put it, revolution that left a deep mark, and Marx could say that the French revolutionaries set an example for the proletariat how to make a revolution, with their tactics at the time of the seizure of power by the extreme left groups of the Convention. But all the same, this revolution was bourgeois, albeit petty-bourgeois, since the proletariat, as such, could not yet reveal itself otherwise than as separate small groups. In the revolutions of 1848 things are different.

The Chartist movement emerges as definitely socialist in its mass manifestations; the February French Revolution in a few months leads the bourgeoisie to the necessity of defending itself against the proletariat with arms in hand. True, the proletariat was crushed, but at the cost of certain sacrifices, in any case, he shook the bourgeoisie decently. But Marx, publishing his New Rhine Gazette in Cologne, considers it the organ of the proletarian revolution, and although he does not find any serious support for himself, in any case, the fact that he can unfold this newspaper, like a kind of red banner, throughout Germany, shows that some proletarian elements around already existed. And so we see that the revolution of 1848 in Germany and Austria is already taking place under the sign of a clearly expressed fear of the proletariat, i.e., the bourgeoisie is consciously giving up its positions, and not only the big bourgeoisie—it would not be surprising—and into the French revolution it was indecisive, but also the petty bourgeoisie.

Democracy in the German revolution of 1948 turned out to be completely rubbish, operetta, devoid of any political energy. Why? Mainly because the development of the revolution to the end seemed dangerous to the leaders of the bourgeois revolution in Germany, in view of the possibility of unleashing a workers' and peasants' revolution.

If we take an isolated episode of the French Commune, we will see here another proof of what I have been talking about. Essentially speaking, the Commune was also preceded by a bourgeois revolution. The regime of Napoleon III was an imperialist, tyrannical regime, based on the stock exchange, on the top of the bourgeoisie at the end of its existence, at least. And when, after the defeat of the French army, the bourgeoisie brushed off Napoleon III, because they considered his regime to be compromising the country, when Napoleon III fell mechanically as a result of the defeat, the bourgeois republic came to the fore. It was a revolution, it is true, disgusting, highly pathetic in its slogans, highly outrageous in personalities, these people hated by Marx (Favre, Thiers), outrageous in the human rubbish that it brought to the surface.

But if this revolution in itself was caused more by the war than by the protest of the bourgeoisie, if it really deserved every kind of ridicule, then, on the other hand, the proletarian revolution in its depths grew so much that it was able to give the Commune, that is, the first, although short-term, only in Paris dominated, but the first glimpse of something in the nature of the dictatorship of the proletariat. If you like, the Commune, now we can say it, was the first glimpse of Soviet power, it is very close in its character to what we call Soviet power. Its idea—the creation of communes and a federation of communes throughout France—shows how correctly the proletariat and the urban poor groped for their revolutionary paths.

So that's precisely why Plekhanov quite rightly concluded that the Russian bourgeoisie would never make its own revolution. It will put up with the autocracy as much as possible, it will make all sorts of concessions towards it. Although capitalism, the very element of the development of industry and trade, will go beyond the framework of autocracy, although the framework of autocracy will cripple capitalism, the capitalists will put up with this captivity, will sleep peacefully in the clutches of the old political order, because they will be afraid, having destroyed this order, to become the face of to face a new wave of revolutionary movement, which may be stronger than them.

Of course, it is unlikely that even one bourgeois thinker or figure, or capitalist, would admit, at the same time, the idea that the proletariat would be able to win and establish a socialist system. But they thought with horror of the approaching times of "plunder", they thought that the proletariat would cause an enormous repetition of the Commune, which had horrified the entire bourgeoisie. Approaching the Russian bourgeoisie from this point of view, one could predict that the Russian revolution would be terribly late. Those classes that, according to the laws of development, were predicted to make a revolution against the Russian autocracy, they had to renounce it. They had to reach the very last limits of opportunism. It is clear that under such conditions the task of carrying out this bourgeois revolution should have fallen on the shoulders of the proletariat.

But is it good that the proletariat had to fulfill someone else's task, the task of the political revolution? The question is all the more poignant in that it was already raised at a time when the Narodniks were approaching its solution. The Narodniks also raised this question and debated it endlessly, without taking the proletariat into account at all.

What kind of revolution should take place in Russia? Political, in other words - liberal, bourgeois, parliamentary, or social - which they understood as muzhik-socialist? But this social revolution, the muzhik-socialist revolution, was, in general, a utopia. Such a revolution could not happen. There are no peasant revolutions as such, especially victorious ones. The peasantry always follows this or that class organizer and either renders support to the bourgeoisie, to one or another of its sections, or to the proletariat. In any case, Plekhanov had to respond to an already mature doctrine. We in Russia do not need a political revolution. A political revolution is a striving for a constitution, a bourgeois republic, which the rotten West has splendidly shown us, the Narodniks said, is a fraud. (This is what we now subscribe to when we talk about Western European democracy. We do not need such a revolution.) The revolution must be social, it must do away with private property and bring to the fore the artel-communal character. Plekhanov knew very well that such an artel-communal character could not be promoted. The peasantry cannot be independent. Therefore, it was necessary to adopt a different point of view, that a liberal, bourgeois revolution would take place in Russia. Plekhanov does not give a direct answer, and understandably, time has not yet given the opportunity to find such a categorical answer. He said: yes, we need a political revolution, we need a parliament, we need a republic, we need exactly what Europe already has, we need to become Europeanised. We Marxists differ from you in that we do not think that Russia will follow its own special, peculiar paths.
Russia will follow the same road that other countries have followed. It will also pass through a period of political upheaval, after which a certain power of the bourgeoisie will be established. But here's the thing. The bourgeoisie does not undertake this, it is afraid. Therefore, the proletariat will have to push on this matter, it will have to support it in this matter, it will have to complete its revolution. And the proletariat will do it not in the name of the interests of the bourgeoisie, but in the name of its own interests, i.e., during this shake-up, when Russia will turn from an autocratic landlord, bureaucratic country into a bourgeois country, the proletariat will win for itself as much space as possible under the sun. . This was originally a doctrine for us, and for the Mensheviks, and for the entire RSDLP. Only the further development of events in Russia posed the question in a completely different way, in a way that Plekhanov might not have imagined.

Vladimir Ilyich groped for his new solution both before the revolution of 1905 and during the revolution of 1905, a solution which Plekhanov rejected. When, if I am not mistaken, at the Stockholm Congress V. I., if I am not mistaken, in a report on the agrarian question or on the general political question, he developed his picture of the revolution, which I will dwell on below, Plekhanov said: "I hear old times in your newness." He took this doctrine of Vladimir Ilyich for the Socialist-Revolutionary. He mistook it for the surrender of the Social Democratic positions to the Socialist-Revolutionaries. What happened here? What was the difference? As the revolution began to mature, two currents emerged in our socialist society. - democracies: Menshevik and Bolshevik. At first, when the split occurred, no one knew yet why it had happened, no one could say with accuracy of what tremendous importance the watershed divided the entire Russian intelligentsia and that part of the advanced proletariat that was already drawn into the party, in general, then quite small in number. What was the matter here? Let us leave aside that petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, which, of course, continued to hope for a populist revolution all the time, looked in the direction of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, tinted by various Chernovs, etc. But a significant part of the petty bourgeoisie could not ignore the doctrine of Marx, because Marxism a real solid support for both revolutionary hopes and actions. Marxism said: the development of capitalism would bring the revolution, and the development of capitalism in Russia went on and on intensively. The bearer of this revolution will be the proletariat, said Marx. The proletariat is that “people” on which one can really rely, it is the people boiled down in a factory boiler, which was an extremely fertile soil for the sowing of the revolution. Of course, that petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, which, having accepted this decision, gave its strength to the proletariat, subjectively very often understood the matter in this way: I am going to serve the proletariat and its ideals. But objectively, for a general observer, this meant: I am going to shift the bourgeois revolution onto the shoulders of the proletarians, who are a real force, while I have no real force. The Mensheviks were a petty-bourgeois party, masquerading consciously or unconsciously as Marxism and going to the workers in order to use them in the spirit of the bourgeois revolution.

Hence the understanding that Plekhanov came up with, an understanding of this kind: Russia is facing a revolution, undoubtedly a bourgeois one, but our bourgeoisie lacks political courage. This is a political undergrowth, the bourgeoisie is a frightened class, one cannot count on it, and therefore the proletariat must strongly support and push the bourgeoisie. The essence of the doctrine of the Mensheviks is this: the proletariat itself will offer the bourgeoisie to play second fiddle to it, the proletariat must push and support the bourgeoisie, and since the bourgeoisie is most shy before the proletariat, shy before the proletariat unfurls its Red Banner, the slogan follows from this: - do not intimidate the bourgeoisie. Do not demand anything from the bourgeoisie, otherwise it will not make a revolution. "Be a good boy, be modest and neat, be a real Marxist-evolutionist. We Marxists, we understand, after all, that the economy in Russia has not matured, and where are we before the socialist revolution, and we will explain to the workers that their day has not come, their day will come after a long time, and now their business is to support the bourgeois revolution, which will give them political freedom , which will give them the opportunity to establish the German order, to have their Bebels in the Russian, of course, the Reichstag. In general, in Germany the bourgeoisie is not bad, and the proletariat is not so offended. Here we Mensheviks propose such a compromise between the two forces of the revolutionary proletariat and the opposition bourgeoisie." To what limits are we going? limit. But, of course, the trouble is that there is a disgusting "Marxo-like" breed of Bolshevik Blanquists, who do not want to take anything into account, they do not want to follow reason and do not allow the bourgeoisie to make a revolution. In general, they do not understand anything. They step on the heels of the bourgeoisie, promise in advance to cut its throat, frighten it and spoil the workers. These are the Bakuninists-Blanquists, who are not at all Marxists, for whom everything boils down to a desire to offend the bourgeoisie, thereby weakening the common front against the autocracy.

How does all this characterize the Mensheviks, their class background, which they themselves are sometimes unaware of? What does it mean: to enter the German paths and then go farther and farther? Where do Ebertism and Scheidemannism go further? Indeed, even now the 2nd International continues to say: the time has not come yet, it will take another 50-100 years, but in the meantime it is necessary to support the bourgeoisie, it is necessary to give capitalism the opportunity to recover after the war, etc. In other words, all this petty-bourgeois environment of the worker wants to lead the class along such a line in order to leave the proletariat like a grumbling but faithful dog to the bourgeoisie - this is their task, their inner aspiration, and on this they play, on this they get a very comfortable place in the sun, on this the bourgeoisie gradually learns to count Mensheviks with their agents, an important part of their apparatus. The Mensheviks have this ability—long ago they were agents of the bourgeoisie, but inwardly they regard themselves as workers' leaders. This is convenient for the bourgeoisie and the Mensheviks, but bad for the workers. The Russian Mensheviks had already shown what kind of birds they were. For them, in fact, the task was not to conquer the paths and stages of the Western European character, but to settle down successfully, following the example of the Social Democrats in Western Europe, hence the malicious accusations of Ilyich of Bakuninism and Socialist-Revolutionaries.

And then the Bolsheviks suddenly declared that Russia really had its own paths, different from those that the countries of the West followed. Maybe they returned to the Socialist-Revolutionaries? Were patriots and science fiction? No, they proceeded from completely objective Marxist data. They were based on the fact that the proletariat was beginning to rapidly mature revolutionary, that it had its own party, and for Vladimir Ilyich the party meant an organization that aspired to power. What did Vladimir Ilyich teach when he was building the party? Why did he fight the economists who preceded Menshevism - pseudo-Marxism? He fought them because even then their tendency was this: a purely working-class movement—and, for God's sake, no revolutionary germs, no influence of the petty-bourgeois Blanquists. The pure working-class movement will develop into trade unionism, into some vague labor party like the English one, and up there the bourgeoisie will be able to carry out their higher policy. Vladimir Ilyich insisted that the working class makes its own policy, puts it in the foreground, fights for hegemony, and it is our business to help it, the business of professional revolutionaries. It is precisely a developed proletarian vanguard force that must save the workers from mistakes and preserve their independence. If the influence of the Bolshevik section were not preserved, i.e., if our vanguard were wholly Menshevik, there would be a great misfortune. It would be better if there were no socialist movement than there would be Menshevism, but the fact that the left wing of the Bolsheviks survived and grew is precisely the merit of Ilyich. This made it possible for the working class to take up the cause on its own. If the workers' party is independent, it strives to win the sympathy of the masses and to become the head of the proletariat.

Lev Davydovich Trotsky in 1905 was inclined to the idea that the proletariat should be isolated and should not support the bourgeoisie, since this would be opportunism, but it is very difficult for the proletariat alone to carry out a revolution, because in those days the proletariat was 7–8% of everything. population, and you can’t fight with such a small cadre. Then Lev Davydovich decided that the proletariat should support the permanent revolution in Russia, i.e., fight for the greatest possible results, until the firebrands from this fire blow up the entire world gunpowder storehouse. Vladimir Ilyich had a different system, and indeed quite Marxist thought out, as a result of which his forecast turned out to be a complete coincidence with what actually happened. Namely, this vanguard of the proletariat, in his opinion, had to rely not only on the working class, but also on the peasantry. This is the little word that changes everything. Is the peasantry in Russia revolutionary or not? It is revolutionary in the sense that it wants land and wants to smash the landowners, it wants it with bestial, internal, spontaneous desires—and for this it does not need any special class self-consciousness. This is a completely spontaneous given. What will the bourgeoisie do, what will the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries do when they are in power? They will try to fool the peasantry and not give them land, while they themselves will strive to preserve the position of the privileged classes.

The proletariat, however, could go hand in hand with the peasants, as far as it liked: complete expropriation of the land without any redemption, with pogroms, if necessary, against the landowners, with the destruction of all the privileges of the landowners. In a word, we are not afraid of the peasant revolution. In what case can a peasant revolution be frightening to us? And in the event that the kulak had settled on it, in the sense that the peasant revolution, having taken place, would lead to the stratification of the rural population and would advance the class most adapted to organization - the kulaks. Then, instead of the noble landowners, the landowners from the peasantry will turn out to be, and the end of the matter. This means that the peasant revolution in its radicalism does not frighten us, but in its striving for the kulakism it frightens us, therefore the proletariat must master this element in order to prevent it from turning into a bourgeois revolution, therefore a lasting alliance must be concluded between the proletariat and the peasantry. For the first time, this alliance will take place precisely under the sign of the transfer of land to the peasantry, and then we will see that Vladimir Ilyich did not at all become a Socialist-Revolutionary and did not sin against Marxism (this is evident from the fact that Kautsky, who was still a decent person at that time, with agreed with him). He declared that this was true, whatever the Mensheviks might say, there is no such law of nature that the revolution in Russia should be bourgeois. No, the proletariat can take power into its own hands at the moment of the overthrow of the old order, but not alone, but relying on the peasants; the peasantry will be able to support the proletariat. Kautsky said that in such a case, if the proletarian government creates such economic conditions under which the peasants can sell grain at a sufficiently high, expensive price, and deliver cheap urban goods to the peasants, if this is done, then the peasants will support the proletariat more willingly than supported the bourgeoisie. Therefore, the whole question, says Kautsky, on the day after the workers' and peasants' revolution will lie in trade. Even then Kautsky said definitely that the whole question lies in the organization of the exchange of goods between town and country. In 1905 this was the case.

When we came to 1917, the same positions were instantly filled with the same ones. What is the first revolution of 1917? What is the nature of this revolution? Of course, this is an attempt to create a purely bourgeois revolution on the basis of a huge popular uprising. The Mensheviks, as if by music, are doing what they predetermined for themselves in their theoretical considerations: to keep the popular masses from such a revolution as would spoil the correct development of political stratifications. The time of the bourgeoisie reigns. We must support the bourgeoisie because if the bourgeoisie is broken at this stage, nothing good will come of it, there will only be a huge leap forward over the abyss and, in the end, a return back with terrible sacrifices. But this theory is Menshevik, but the real class background of this theory lies in the fact that the Menshevik, as a representative of the middle and small intelligentsia, concludes an alliance with the bourgeoisie and says to the bourgeoisie: “You will establish such a regime under which we intellectuals will play alongside you the first role, and we intellectuals will give you our years of hard labor, our Marxist education, our political prestige so that you can defend yourself against the pressure of the masses.

It was pleasing to historical fate that this be done with complete clarity, as in some kind of laboratory experiment. When the Milyukov bourgeoisie took power into their own hands, they became convinced that the masses of the people were still shaking, and the damned Bolsheviks did not miss a single hour in order to further shake the masses of the people and give the movement more organization, in order to direct its blow directly against the government positions. . Then they came to the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries and told them: "Go to the government." They say: "We do not want, why should we compromise ourselves." "No, please, because we understand very well that we can't manage without you, give us enough of your socialism to paint our cheeks pink, be a pink screen between us and the people, if you please, as a fire brigade, fill the flaring fire of the revolution protect us, for without you we will not be able to hold on." And they went to this, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, in order to practically not carry out even a single tiny socialist slogan, so that they would do nothing even on the main question of the war and find themselves in the ranks of the army of the masters of this war - the imperialists, although the thirst for peace was the main the cause of the spontaneous shift that took place among the masses. Nothing was done in this respect, only Marxist and Socialist-Revolutionary phrases, only tricks, only fireworks, which were to divert the attention of the people and convince them that everything would go well if the capitalist ministers were left to govern and prepare the ground for the further strengthening of their mode.

When in the July days the proletarian and soldier forces of Kronstadt and Petrograd marched under the slogan "Down with the capitalist ministers!", then it still meant: "Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, take power!", because then the power of the soviets meant the power of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries; and that's when Dan went to the podium and said his famous phrase: "We'd rather die than go for it," i.e., we'd rather die than betray the capitalists, the bourgeoisie. What a selfless chain dog! And he felt this way because he was not at all a lost worker, but a real bourgeois, of a slightly different caliber, a slightly different type, who understood perfectly well inwardly that he must defend his class, his culture, including his group of intellectuals, intelligent clerks of the bourgeoisie from the proletariat.

What tactics did the Bolsheviks follow at that time? They perfectly understood Vl. Il. more than anyone else and before anyone else—others may have fallen temporarily into a certain error, but he never—they understood perfectly well that a bourgeois revolution had taken place, and that if the bourgeois revolution gained strength, it would turn out that, despite favorable conditions, the proletarian revolution will be postponed for a long time. Meanwhile, favorable conditions were available, and the wave of proletarian revolutions overtook and overtook the wave of bourgeois revolution in Russia. Russia lived to see the bourgeois revolution, but in the meantime the bourgeoisie had grown smaller, and the working class had already grown, and at this point the social revolution overwhelmed the bourgeois revolution half a year later. This is what Vladimir Ilyich foresaw. But under what conditions in Russia, a non-capitalist country, could a social revolution overwhelm a bourgeois revolution? On condition that the proletariat is supported by the peasantry, on this one condition alone. That is why Vladimir Ilyich issues this slogan: The peasant congress has worked out its own peasant program, which is heretical Marxist, but we will support it! Why? Because we are changing our view on the agrarian question? No! Because we are concluding an alliance with the peasants, and since we have concluded an alliance with the peasantry, it means that we had to resolve the issue in the city in a worker's way, and in the countryside in a peasant way, and then we will figure out what will happen next.

But Vladimir Ilyich knew perfectly well what would come next, he understood perfectly well that if the problem was resolved in the countryside like a peasant, then this is still very guesswork from a socialist point of view, because a peasant is different, a peasant is a hard worker and a peasant is a merchant, a peasant - a horseless poor man and a peasant - a rural bourgeois. That is why the first preliminary measure, which the Communist Party, again under the influence of Vl. Il., spends, is to revolt the poor peasant against the kulak, because if we do not rebel the poor peasant against the kulak, then the village will very soon come out of all friendship with us, from all desire to follow us. From this it was clear that when we had killed the landlords, we had to start a big persecution against the kulak in order to disorganize the dangerous element.

This is what was done. But at the same time, we were obliged to embark on the path of war communism. The path of war communism is by no means what we all wanted and expected when we prepared the proletarian revolution. How did Kautsky, at one time a very good theorist of the proletarian revolution (and V.I. agreed with him in many respects), how did he picture this proletarian revolution not only in a country like Russia, but in general everywhere? How is war communism? He spoke in general about the dictatorship of the proletariat, understanding by it the organization of the power of the proletarian classes over other classes. Since the peasantry in Russia was in league with us, this meant dictatorship over the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie. This is the kind of dictatorship we envisioned. But such a dictatorship does not mean the defeat of the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie. We know that in the early days of the revolution, V. I. discussed how to put the question in such a way that the middle and small capitalists, remaining under our controlling heavy proletarian hand, would still be able to continue working, for it was clear to all of us what we should take we cannot take all production, all trade into our own hands, because in Russia production and trade were carried on mainly by the work of the middle and petty bourgeoisie, and communism could unite only trusted large-scale industry in the state. That is why the Mensheviks said: what if you took the banks, socialism will not come out of this, because it is clear to every Marxist who thinks in the slightest that socialism can unite only that part of industry that is ripe for socialization , and in Russia this part of the industry was small. What to do with the rest? And I remember how V.I. scratched his smart head and said, "Oh, we nationalized directly, the devil knows how much!". And indeed, we nationalized everything, and then we hung locks on small factories, nationalized trade, down to petty, etc.

What was that mistake? Madness? V. I. once said that war communism was a mistake, but he said this in order to push us to decisive action as soon as possible, and then he himself said that he was in vain to say "mistake", but he said this only because he wanted to agitate as soon as possible to raise those people who got bogged down in war communism and could not get out of it even when it had already become a mistake.

After a certain period of time, war communism became a mistake, and we got used to it, almost fell in love with it. And so, when it was necessary to understand that it was necessary to discard it, to embark on a new path, we pondered and stomped on the spot. However, in fact, at the time when this imaginary mistake was being made, it was impossible not to make it. Why? Is it because we all wanted to hit the pogrom - rob the loot! - did you think that it was necessary to give free rein to the bareness? No, the party had to fight against such manifestations, and we did just that: when there was some kind of senseless defeat, the party tried to restrain. But the fact is that the bourgeoisie did not accept a compromise, it was proposed to it: "produce, trade, of course, under the rule of the proletariat, deprived of political rights, and so on." And the bourgeoisie responded to this with a counter-revolution both inside and outside. She imagined that in two months we would be hung up on lanterns - why did she have to compromise? She declared war on us. And once it declared war, it was no longer possible to discuss how to protect some factory or plant. When a city is bombarded in a war, they don't ask what dishes will be broken. We had to break up the bourgeoisie, destroy all property in its hands, because it turned all property into a weapon against us. That is why the policy of general nationalization was inevitable. But this is one side of the matter, and accordingly there was another, which was also of tremendous importance.

Well, all right, we nationalized everything that belonged to the bourgeoisie, down to the last factory, we took over all production and all trade. And then we felt that production was beginning to fade, trade was halting, and the country was wasting away. We felt this result. But what was to be done? To give the bourgeoisie the power to carry out their procedures, at that time it would mean to sprinkle the half-corpse of their enemy with living water, this could not be done. We strangled the bourgeoisie as a class. But the trouble is that it resonated throughout the country; temporarily the country still required the services of a private trader, a private manufacturer. Our food policy has also reacted terribly hard on the peasantry. Why? Is it because from the very beginning we among the peasantry wanted to introduce communism by force? No. From the very beginning the Party warned against introducing Communism into the countryside with a stick. But the point was that without the monopoly of the grain trade, without the surplus appropriation, we could not feed ourselves. The situation in the country at that time was such that it was necessary to maintain an army that grew and grew to 8 million, it was necessary to dress it, it was necessary to arm it. It was necessary that the railroads, which were barely crawling, did not stop completely. It was necessary to ensure the cities from complete disarray in the villages, it was necessary, at all costs, to save the centers so that the country would not turn into a heap of sand.

That's when the first question arose, where to get the bread? V. I. explained to us: “persuade the peasants to give bread, persuade them to give it for free, because now we can’t give anything in return, firstly, we have few commodity stocks, and even less in production, and, secondly , we cannot bring goods to them." We also had to convince them to give without justice, because we could not take in justice, we could not bring bread from afar. We had to take a sufficient amount of grain from the little fertile provinces, right there, where the front was, where the centers lay, otherwise we would not have brought the grain. And since it was necessary to take the poor from the peasants, this meant destroying their economy, this meant taking a piece of their body. And if you do not take it, then the revolution will perish, and with it all the prospects won by the revolution. So V.I. asked us to convince, and if persuasion does not work,

Of course, he did not say this with a light heart, he did not see with a light heart how the food detachments began to open through the ground where the peasants had bread and take this bread from them. The peasantry was shattered. But when both we and Denikin's troops recruited our armies among the peasants, every time a white broom passed, the peasants said: "A red comb is better; it is true that she cuts her hair short, but it is still easier with her brother." Therefore, the peasantry, where it fell under the white oppression, nevertheless believed that it was necessary to support the Reds.

It was good, but still we knew that in the Ukraine, and in Siberia, and near our Moscow itself, in the Tambov Antonov region, and near Leningrad in Kronstadt, symptoms of extreme dissatisfaction of the peasants with war communism had erupted.

What was wrong again? No, not a mistake. We had to do it, but it was not at all what we planned for ourselves at first. What Kautsky says in his pamphlet on the proletarian revolution, V. I. knew all this very well, first of all, a link with the peasantry is needed, trade must be established, the peasants must be given the opportunity to freely trade in the grain that they produce, only then will they begin to develop its production. The tax on bread should be as low as possible. It is impossible to take all the grain from the peasants, but the leftovers must be sold, so that the peasant can exchange grain for urban products and at the same time at a low price.

That is why, when we recaptured Poland and defeated Wrangel, when the front calmed down and at the same time it came to Kronstadt, V. I. simultaneously issued two slogans: a new economic policy and a bond with the peasant. Communist, learn to trade! Until now you have been at war, and now learn to trade in order to satisfy the needs of the peasantry. And this was quite rightly proposed, because the Bolshevik Party, when it approached the revolution and began to lead it, was to become a worker-peasant force. And this is the only correct way in which the dictatorship of the proletariat can be carried out in Russia.

This means that the NEP was not essentially a reversal or a concession in relation to the bourgeoisie. Or rather, it was a concession. V. I. was right when he said: one must be able to yield in order to then jump forward, but it was not an unexpected concession, this does not mean that we were defeated, but it means that the struggle was waged in the most difficult way, threatening to break with peasantry, and once the civil war was over, the new economic policy helped to carry out the program of the dictatorship of the proletariat under more or less normal conditions. This policy marked a new era, which opens up new paths for us to the future communist society.

A. Lunacharsky.