# The Russian Revolution (Foster)/Chapter 5

V.
THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT.
The present Government of Russia is what the Communists term a dictatorship of the proletariat. This means that the workers have become the ruling class in Russian society, and the intention is that they shall remain such until, through the operation of the new Communistic institutions, social class lines are wiped out by all the people physically fit becoming actual producers. The era of working class predominance, or dictatorship, is the period of transition from capitalism to Communism. That is what Russia is now passing through.
Hypocritical capitalistic writers profess to be shocked at the idea of social dictatorship by a single class. But they conveniently forget that in every country except Russia their own capitalist class, by its iron-bound control of the industries, the state, the press, the schools, etc., exercises the most rigid kind of a dictatorship. One difference between the system in Russia and those in other countries, however, is that the Communists, with their customary frankness, call theirs what it really is, a dictatorship; whereas the capitalists, with characteristic deceit, camouflage theirs under the high-sounding title of democracy. But the great difference is that the dictatorship of the proletariat is carried out for the purposes of lifting a great class out of slavery and to establish a free society, while the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is always created and used to degrade and exploit the masses of the people for the benefit of a few social parasites.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is a militant defense of the workers' interests by the Communist Party. It is likewise a suppression of counter-revolutionary tendencies wherever they manifest themselves, whether through the malignant activities of avowed reactionaries or through the stupidities of a working class just freeing itself from its capitalistic training. The capitalists, aristocrats, and their many hangers-on who exploited the workers in pre-revolutionary days are frankly considered enemies of the new society and a menace to the people generally. When they lost the ​industries and the control of the state they also lost the right to vote. They are not allowed to organize or to issue journals. Their principal political parties, the Cadets and the Right Social Revolutionists, are outlaws. For the benefit of these people there was created the famous Extraordinary Commission for fighting counter-revolution. Toward them the dictatorship is a drastic thing. But toward counter-revoluntionary tendencies among the masses or proletarian parties it is much milder. Thus the Left Social Revolutionists and Mensheviki, even though their program calls for the end of working class predominance and stands for calling back the capitalists to act as co-directors, politically and industrially, in the new society, are tolerated as political parties. But their right of assembly has been clipped somewhat and they are not permitted to publish journals. The same is true of the Anarchists, whose program, if put into practice, would destroy what little organization the revolutionists have been able to build and thus throw the country helpless before the first band of organized reactionaries that came along.
No one deplores more than the Communists this rigid suppression of the opposition, especially the honest working class opposition. But it is a supreme necessity of the revolution, something without which the latter could not survive. The Russian working-class is in a great fight, the most tremendous in the world's history. Its multitudinous enemies swarm within and without the country; incredible industrial problems are shrieking for solution. In such a crisis discipline and unity of action are absolutely essential. To allow the counter-revolutionary idea to sprout, no matter under what guise, would be folly. The situation is comparable to a great strike. In strikes, free speech, ​as it is commonly practiced in trade unions, virtually disappears and an iron discipline takes its place. Workers who venture to start movements among the striking rank and file which tend to destroy the strikes, and that is what the Menshevik and other programs mentioned do to the Russian revolution, soon find themselves in trouble. The difference being that in Russia the fight is incomparably greater and the need for discipline correspondingly keener than in any strike ever waged.
The rigors of the dictatorship have been grossly exaggerated. The fact is that there probably never has been so mild a government during a revolutionary crisis as the one now in control of Russia. It is true that many people have been executed—the Extraordinary Commission accounts for 10,000—but by far the most of them were spies, military deserters, speculators, bandits, and other types of common criminals—few were capitalists or nobles, the two deposed classes. Compared with the wholesale slaughter of workers by capitalists during periods of severe reaction—consider Finland, Hungary, and the Paris Commune—such a total is very small. As for the leaders of the opposition parties, the Mensheviki, Social Revolutionists, and Anarchists, they have come to grief only when they have taken rifles in their hands to assert their principles, or have encouraged others to do so. And then, as a rule, the worst punishment meted out to them was prison sentences. In different parts of the country the Menshevik party waged open war against the Soviet Government, yet its leaders admit that only eleven of of their active workers have been executed since the beginning of the revolution. The Bolsheviki deny having killed even one of them. In the Russian revolution the war parties has been much less bitter than it was during the French revolution.
Although the restrictions of free speech are very severe, as all agree, yet they are by no means as strict as we have been told. Organized opposition to the Government is forbidden, but individuals talk as freely as in any country in the world. A typical case in point: One day a group of us in Moscow were taking a trip ​on a street car when a fine looking fellow entered and spotted us as foreigners. He at once launched into an attack on the Soviet Government in Russian, which was duly translated to us. He was a technician and bitterly opposed to the whole new scheme of things. He had just got his ration for the week, and he unrolled it before us with the most sneering remarks about its black bread and horsemeat sausags, and the system of society that could not furnish the people better food. Some buildings along the street that had been stripped of their fittings for fuel the winter before furnished further grounds for attacks upon the Communist Party and the Government. We estimated that in the United States similar remarks about the American Government, no matter what the provocation, would have netted the speaker at least half a dozen years in jail. Yet all that happened to this fellow in Russia was that after he had raged on for some time a Communist worker in the rear of the car remonstrated with him and tried to explain the cause of the food and fuel shortages. Merely a wordy war developed. In Russia I heard people criticise their Government more freely than in any country I have ever been in.
Two more typical incidents from important congresses: The first from the recent congress in Moscow of the Moscow State Soviet, the largest in Russia. No sooner had this body gone into session than six Menshevik, Anarchist, and Social Revolutionist delegates, one after the other, mounted the platform and denounced the Government for its alleged harsh treatment of their party comrades taken prisoner during the Kronstad rebellion shortly before. I expected to see these protestors squelched immediately. But this did not happen. Although the arrested men had been caught with arms in their hands, and in many other countries under similar circumstances would have been shot forthwith, still the protest was taken seriously and a committee appointed, containing several of the protestors, to investigate the prisons complained of and to submit a full report back to the body as quickly as possible. I could not help but compare this fair recognition of the rebels with the brutal steamrollering outlaw strikers and other unwelcome minorities usually get in American trade union conventions. The second incident occurred at the congress of the Red Trade ​Union International, just passed. A foment was going on among the delegates about a number of Anarchists being in prison, and Bukharin made an explanation of the matter on behalf of the Government. During his talk he stated that the Government did not want to make an issue of the thing, and he requested several times that the congress pass on to the next order of business at the close of his speech. But no sooner had he finished than an Anarchist delegate heatedly demanded the floor to present his side of the question. And notwithstanding the contrary request of the Government and the fact that there were at least ten Communists to each Anarchist in the congress, the floor was granted him and the Soviet Government thereby virtually placed on trial. It seemed to me that in this instance, as in very many more, the dictatorship did not "dictate" very much.
The dictatorship of the proletariat, as expressed by the small, strongly organized Community Party, came into existence because of the general unripeness of the masses. Since the various social institutions, made up in the main of these unknowing elements, could not function spontaneously in a revolutionary manner, the Communist minorities in them were compelled to find a way, through organization, discipline, and militancy, to make them do so. The inevitable result of the situation was the Communist Party, with its elaborate system of control. Unquestionably any other class of revolutionaries than Communists trying to put through a profound revolutionary program under the circumstances, would have had to form an organization similar to the Communist Party, no matter what name they might have given it.
The Red Army furnishes a typical instance of the need for the dictatorship. The enormous mass of the soldiers were ignorant and non-revolutionary, and most of the officers were straightout counter-revolutionary. Such an institution, if left to its own devices, could not possibly function in the sense of the revolution. It would be bound to flounder around in a morass of stupidity and eventually become used against the revotion. It simply had to be controlled, and the Communists did the job through their yatchaykas and military Commissars. And what was true of the Red Army was true, for equally valid reasons, of all the ​other social institutions. Even the purely working class bodies such as the trade unions, being made up of ignorant workers still thinking largely in terms of their capitalistic training, were in the same need for control. The initiative of the masses was not sufficient; it was the task of the revolutionary elements among them to take the lead and to blaze the way.
By the same token, if ignorance and general social backwardness was the cause of the dictatorship, education will be its cure. In the measure that the masses are progressively educated, through the reorganization of society, propaganda, etc., to the point where they function naturally along revolutionary lines so must the dictatorship gradually disappear. We see this working out in the Red Army, as well as everywhere else. To begin with its officers were counter-revolutionary and had to be watched; the Commissar system was a life and death necessity for the revolution. But now most of the officers are Communists and consequently the Commissar system is fast becoming obsolete: for there is no sense or utility in keeping one set of Communist officials to watch over another set. With similar "Communization" taking place in all the institutions the Party's watchfulness over them is bound to relax, whether it wills it or not. Little by little these institutions, as they begin to function automatically in a Communist sense, will take on more and more automony. By the tremendous campaign of social education and re-organization now being carried on in Russia, which will fit the masses for the new society, the dictatorship of the proletariat will be gradually dissolved and the ultimate Communist goal of a non-government society arrived at.
* ↑ An important factor in limiting the freedom of the press is the acute paper shortage. Before the war a large percentage of Russia's paper supply was imported. The blockade cut that off. Then, with the collapse of industry generally, domestic production of paper fell to less than 20 per cant of normal. The consequence was a great dearth. The elaborate school program of the Government is sadly crippled for want of books and writing paper; and the newspapers can issue only a fraction of what they should. In such circumstances, with the Government possessing only a tithe of what it needs, naturally the opposition’s chances of getting some of the prescious paper are very slim.
* ↑ Henry Noel Brailsford, "The Russian Workers’ Republic," P. 142.