# Programme of the World Revolution/Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI.
A SOVIET GOVERNMENT OR A BOURGEOIS REPUBLIC?
Our attitude towards the necessity of dictatorship leads us, as an inevitable result, to struggle against an antiquated form of a parliamentary bourgeois republic (sometimes called "democratic"), and to our attempts at setting up instead a new form of State administration—a government of the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies.
The mensheviks and the right wing of the socialist revolutionaries are staunch supporters of the Constituent Assembly and a parliamentary republic. They loudly abuse the government of the Soviets. And why? First, because they are afraid of the power of the workers, and desire to retain all power in the hands of the bourgeoisie. But the communists who are striving to realise the communist (socialist) order must inevitably fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat and for the complete overthrow of the bourgeoisie. That is where the difference lies. And for this very reason the parties of mensheviks and socialist revolutionaries are at one with the party of the bourgeoisie.
What is the essential difference between a parliamentary republic and a republic of Soviets? It is, that in a soviet republic the non-working elements are deprived of the franchise and take no part in administrative affairs. The country is governed by Soviets, which are elected by the toilers in the places where they work, as factories, works, workshops, mines, and in villages and hamlets. The bourgeoisie, ex-landowners, bankers, speculating traders, merchants, shopkeepers, usurers, the Korniloff intellectuals, priests and bishops, in short the whole of the black host have no right to vote, no fundamental political rights. The foundation of a parliamentary republic is formed by the Constituent Assembly, while the supreme organ of the Soviet Republic is the Convention of Soviets. What is the principal difference between the Convention of Soviets and the Constituent Assembly? Anybody with the least intelligence ​can easily answer this question. Although the mensheviks and the right wing of the socialist revolutionaries do, as a matter of fact, try to muddle things by inventing various pompous names such us, for instance, "Master of the Russian Land," still truth will out. The Constituent Assembly differs from the Convention of Soviets in as much as into the former are elected not only the labourers, but also the bourgeoisie and all the bourgeoisie hangers-on. It consequently differs from the Convention of Soviets in the fact that in the Constituent Assembly may sit not only workers and peasants, but also bankers, landowners find capitalists; not only the labour party (the communists), not only the left wing of socialist revolutionaries, and even not only the socialist traitors such as the right wing of the socialist revolutionaries, but also the constitutional democrats (the party of traitors to the people), the Black Hundred and the Octobrists. This is the crowd for whom these honourable compromisers are demanding enfranchisement. When they clamour for the necessity of a "popular," "all-national" Constituent Assembly, they do not consider the Soviets as all-national, because the Russian bourgeoisie is lacking to complete the full representation of the Russian people. To supplement working-class representation with this crowd of parasites, to give these enemies of the people all rights, to give them seats next to themselves in parliament, to transform the class government of workers and peasants into a class government of the bourgeoisie under the pretext of admitting all sections—this is the task of the right wing of the socialist revolutionaries, of the mensheviks, of the constitutional democrats, in a word of big capital and its petty bourgeois agents. The experience of all countries shows that where the bourgeoisie enjoys all the rights, it invariably deceives the working class and the poorest peasantry.
By holding the press, newspapers and magazines firmly in its grasp, possessing as it does vast riches, bribing officials, exploiting the services of hundreds of thousands of their agents, threatening and intimidating the more downtrodden of their slaves, the bourgeois succeeds in preventing power from slipping from its hands. At first sight it appears as if the whole nation were voting, but in reality this screen is used by domineering financial capital, which arranges matters to suit itself, and even boasts of "allowing the people to vote" and of preserving all kinds of "democratic liberties." This is the reason why, in all countries where there is a bourgeois republic (take, ​for instance, France, Switzerland, and the United States of America), notwithstanding universal suffrage, the power is completely concentrated in the hands of the leading bankers. And so we see why the right wing of the socialist revolutionaries and the mensheviks are striving to overthrow the power of the Soviets and to summon the "Constituent Assembly." In granting votes to the bourgeoisie they intend to prepare for a transition to a similar order of things as exists in France and America. They consider that the Bussian workers are not "ripe" to hold the government in their own hands. But the party of the communist-bolsheviks, on the contrary, holds that dictatorship of the workers is essential at the present moment, and that there can be no talk whatever of any transfer of government. The bourgeoisie must be deprived of every possibility of deceiving the people. The bourgeoisie must be set aside and firmly prevented from taking any part in the government of the country, because the present is a time of acute struggle. We must strengthen and widen the dictatorship of the workers and the poorer elements of the peasantry. That is why the State government of Soviets is indispensable. Here we have no bourgeoisie whatever, and no landowners. Here the state is governed by the organisations of workers and peasants which have grown up together with the revolution and have borne the whole burden of the great struggle on their own shoulders.
But this is not enough. An ordinary republic does not only represent the power of the bourgeoisie. A republic of this kind can never, by reason of its composition, become inspired with the spirit of the workers' party. In a parliamentary republic every citizen hands in his vote once in every four or five years, and there his part in the matter ends. All the rest is left to deputies, ministers and presidents, who manage everything. There is no connection whatever with the masses. The masses of the labouring people are only tools exploited by the officials of the bourgeoisie, taking no real part in the government.
Quite a different matter is a Soviet republic, corresponding to a dictatorship of the workers. Here the whole administration is based on an entirely different principle. A Soviet government is not an organisation of officials independent of the masses and dependent on the bourgeoisie. The Soviet government and its organs are supported by general organisations of the working class and the peasantry. Trade unions, works and factories committees, local Soviets of workmen and peasants, soldiers' ​and sailors' organisations—all these support the central Soviet Government. From the Central Soviet Government thousands and millions of threads spread in all directions: first these threads go to district and provincial Soviets, then to the town Soviets, from these to the town-parish Soviets, from these again to the factories and works, uniting hundreds of thousands of workers. All the higher institutions of the Soviet Government are organised on the same lines. Take, for instance, the supreme council for public economy. It is composed of representatives of central committees of trade unions, of factories and works committees, and other organisations. Trade unions in their turn unite whole branches of production; they have branches in various towns and are supported by the organised masses at factories and works. To-day at every factory there is a factory and works committee, which is elected by the workers of that factory; these factory and works' committees being again united. And these, too, send their representatives to the Supreme Council for Public Economy, which draws up economic plans and directs production. Thus, here, too, the central organ of the control of industry is composed of representatives of workers, and is supported by mass organisations of the working class and of the poorest elements of the peasantry. This, then, is an entirely different plan from that of a bourgeois republic. The bourgeoisie is not only deprived of rights, and there is not only a question of the country being governed by representatives of workers and peasants. The great thing is that the Soviets govern the country, keeping in constant touch with the large unions of the workers and peasants, and thus the wide masses are all the time taking part in the administration of the Workers' and Peasants' Government. In this way each organised workman exercises his influence. He takes part in the government of the state not only by electing trusted representatives once a month or two. No. The trade unions, say, work out a plan for organising production; these plans are then considered by the Soviets or by the Council for Public Economy, and then, if they are practicable they obtain the full force of law, after being approved of by the Central Executive Committee of Soviets. Any given trade union, any works' and factories' committee, can in this way take a part in the general work of creating a new order of life. In a bourgeois republic the more indifferent the masses are, the happier is the government, because the interests of the masses are opposed to those of the capitalist state. If, for in​stance, the masses of the North American Republic should take matters into their own hands—that would mean the end of the supremacy of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeois State is based on the deception of the masses, keeping them half-awake, by the method of depriving them of any active part in the everyday work of the state, by summoning them once every few years "to vote," and by deceiving them with their own vote. It is an entirely different thing in a Soviet republic. The Soviet republic, embodying the dictatorship of the masses, cannot even for a minute tear itself away from these masses. Such a republic is the stronger in proportion to the greater activity and energy manifested by the masses and the more work accomplished at works and factories, in the towns and in the provinces. It is not a matter of mere chance, therefore, that the Soviet Government in issuing its decrees addresses the masses with the demand that the workers and poorest peasants themselves should carry these decrees into execution. That is why the significance of various workers' and peasants' organisations entirely changed after the October revolution. At first they were weapons of the class struggle against the governing capitalists and landowners. Take, for example, the professional unions and some small peasants' Soviets. At first they were compelled to carry on a struggle for higher pay and a shorter working day in the towns, and for depriving the landowners of the land in the rural districts. At the present time, when the government is in the hands of the workers and the peasants, these organisations are becoming wheels in the machine of state government. At present, the trade unions are not only fighting with the capitalists, but are taking an active part in the organisation of production, as organs of a labour government, as part of the Soviet State, in the administration of industry; and in the same way the village and peasants' Soviets not only have to carry on a war with village sharks or sweaters, with the capitalists and landowners, but are also working to establish a new land system; that is to say, they have the administration of the land in their hands as organs of a workers' and peasants' government; they are as screws and nuts in the huge machine of state administration, where the power is in the hands of the workmen and peasants.
In this way, through the workers' and peasants' organisations, the widest sections of the labouring masses have been gradually called to the work of government. There is nothing like this in ​any other country. Nowhere but in Russia has the victory of the working class and the establishment of a workers' government yet been achieved; no other country has yet a proletarian dictatorship, nor a Soviet Republic, nor a Soviet state.
It is very clearly understood that the Soviet Government, corresponding to the proletarian dictatorship, does not suit those groups of the population that are interested in a return to capitalist slavery, instead of going ahead to a communist order. It is also clear that they cannot possibly say frankly and openly, "we want the whip and the stick for the workers."
Here, too, a certain amount of deceit is required. Such deceit is the speciality of the right wing of the socialist revolutionaries and of the mensheviks who are shouting about "a struggle for a democratic republic," about the Constituent Assembly, which they declare will save us from all evils, and so on. But as a matter of fact the real question here is to transfer the government to the bourgeoisie. And in this fundamental question no agreement can possibly be arrived at between us, communists, and the various mensheviks, right wing socialist revolutionaries, the followers of the "Novaya Zhisn," and the rest of that fraternity. They, stand for capitalism, whilst we stand for a movement towards Communism. They—for a government of the bourgeoisie, we—for a dictatorship of the workers; they—for a parliamentary bourgeois republic, where capital will reign, we—for a Soviet Socialist Republic where all the power belongs to the workers and the poorest elements of the peasantry.
Until the present time, prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917, the dictatorship of the proletariat was only written about. But no one seemed to have quite a clear idea as to how this dictatorship was to be realised. The Russian Revolution evolved the actual form of the dictatorship—that of the Soviet Republic. And therefore, at the present moment, the best sections of the international proletariat are inscribing on their banners the motto of a Soviet republic and of a Soviet government. And therefore, too, our task now consists in strengthening the Soviet government by all the means in our power, and in clearing it of various undesirable elements, in attracting to the task of reconstruction a greater number of capable comrades, elected by the working and peasant masses. Only such a government, a government of the Soviets, a government of the workers and ​peasants, is what the workers and peasants can and should defend.
Should our workers and peasants suffer defeats, should the Constituent Assembly be really summoned, should the place of the Government of the Soviets be taken by an ordinary bourgeois republic after the manner of the French and American Republic, then the worker should not only not be under any obligation to defend it, but should make it the task of his life to overthrow such a republic. For it is his duty to defend the government of the workers and not the government of the bourgeoisie. With regard to the government of the bourgeoisie, he has but one obligation, and that is to overthrow it.