First published in 1920, this article has Lenin return to the debates enjoined around the 1905 Revolution to speak to the then current literary war with Kautsky, and others, over the concrete question of ‘dictatorship’ inherent in the situation of the Russian Revolution.

‘A Contribution to the History of the Question of Dictatorship’ (1920) by V.I. Lenin from Selected Works. Vol. 7. International Publishers, New York, 1937.

THE question of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the fundamental question of the modern working class movement in all capitalist countries without exception. For the complete elucidation of this question, a knowledge of its history is necessary. On an international scale the history of the doctrine of revolutionary dictatorship in general and of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular coincides with the history of revolutionary Socialism and especially with the history of Marxism. Moreover—and this, of course, is the most important thing—the history of all revolutions of the oppressed and exploited classes against the exploiters constitutes the principal material and source of our knowledge on the question of dictatorship. Those who have not understood the necessity of the dictatorship of any revolutionary class for its victory have failed to understand anything of the history of revolution, or else do not want to know anything about it.

As far as Russia is concerned, of especial significance, if we are to speak of theory, is the programme of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, drafted in 1902-03 by the editorial board of Zarya and Iskra, or rather by G.V. Plekhanov, and edited, amended and endorsed by this editorial board. In this programme the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat is presented clearly and definitely, and it is presented precisely in connection with the struggle against Bernstein, against opportunism. But of the greatest significance, of course, is the experience of revolution, i.e. in Russia, the experience of the year 1905.

The last three months of that year—October, November and December—constituted a period of a remarkably strong, broad, revolutionary mass struggle, a period of the combination of the two most powerful weapons of this struggle: the political mass strike and the armed uprising. (We will observe in parenthesis that already in May 1905, the Bolshevik congress, the “Third Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party,” recognised “the task of organising the proletariat for the direct struggle against the autocracy by means of an armed uprising” as “one of the principal and urgent tasks of the Party,” and instructed all the Party units to “explain the role of political mass strikes, which may be of great importance at the beginning of and during the uprising.”)

For the first time in history the revolutionary struggle attained such a high stage of development and such strength that the armed uprising was combined with the mass strike, this specifically proletarian weapon. Clearly, this experience is of world-wide significance for all proletarian revolutions. And the Bolsheviks studied this experience with the greatest attention and zeal from its political as well as from its economic aspect. I shall mention an analysis of monthly statistics of economic and political strikes of 1905, of the forms of connection between the two, of the high stage of development of the strike struggle then attained for the first time in world history. I presented this analysis in the journal Prosveshchenie in 1910 and 1911, and a brief summary of it was reprinted in the Bolshevik literature published abroad in that period.

Mass strikes and armed uprisings automatically placed on the order of the day the question of revolutionary power and of dictatorship, for these methods of struggle inevitably gave rise—at first on a local scale—to the expulsion of the old government authorities, to the seizure of power by the proletariat and the revolutionary classes, to the expulsion of the landlords, sometimes to the seizure of factories, etc., etc. The revolutionary mass struggle of that period called into being organisations previously unknown in history, such as the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, and then the Soviets of Soldiers’ Deputies, Peasants’ Committees, and so on. Thus, the fundamental questions (the Soviet power and the dictatorship of the proletariat) which are now engaging the minds of class conscious workers all over the world were raised in a practical way at the end of 1905. While outstanding representatives of the revolutionary proletariat and of unadulterated Marxism like Rosa Luxemburg at once appreciated the significance of this practical experience and made a critical analysis of it at meetings and in the press, the overwhelming majority of the official representatives of the official Social-Democratic and Socialist parties—among them both reformists and the future “Kautskyans,” “Longuetists,” followers of Hillquit in America, etc., proved absolutely incapable of grasping the significance of this experience and of carrying out their duty as revolutionaries, i.e., of setting to work to study and to propagate the lessons of this experience.

In Russia, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, immediately after the defeat of the armed uprising of December 1905, began to sum up this experience; and this work was particularly accelerated by the fact that in April 1906 the so-called “Unity Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party” took place in Stockholm, at which the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks were represented and formally united. Preparations for this congress were carried on most energetically by both these factions. Prior to the congress, at the beginning of 1906, both factions published drafts of their resolutions on all the most important questions. These draft resolutions— reprinted in my pamphlet Report on the Unity Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Letter to the St. Petersburg Workers) , Moscow, 1906 (110 pages, of which almost half are taken up with the texts of the draft resolutions of both factions and with the resolutions finally adopted by the congress)—constitute the most important material for a study of the question as it stood at that time.

Already at that time disputes as to the significance of the Soviets were linked up with the question of the dictatorship. Even prior to the October Revolution of 1905, the Bolsheviks had raised the question of the dictatorship (see my pamphlet The Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution, Geneva, July 1905; reprinted in the volume of collected articles, Twelve Years). The Mensheviks were opposed to the slogan of “dictatorship.” The Bolsheviks emphasised that the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies were actually “embryos of a revolutionary power,” as it was literally worded in the draft of the Bolshevik resolution (p. 95 of my Report). The Mensheviks recognised the significance of the Soviets, they were in favour of “helping to organise them,” etc., but did not regard them as embryos of revolutionary power, in general did not say anything about a “new revolutionary power” of this or a similar type and flatly rejected the slogan of dictatorship. It is not difficult to see that all the present disagreements with the Mensheviks already existed in embryo in the presentation of the question at that time. It is also not difficult to see that in their presentation of this question the Mensheviks (both Russian and non-Russian, such as the Kautskyans, Longuetists, and the like) have been behaving as reformists or opportunists, who recognise the proletarian revolution in words, but in reality reject what is most essential and fundamental in the concept “revolution.”

Even before the Revolution of 1905 I analysed in the aforementioned pamphlet, Two Tactics, the arguments of the Mensheviks, who accused me of having “imperceptibly interchanged the concepts: ‘revolution’ and ‘dictatorship’” (Twelve Years, p. 459). I showed in detail that by this very accusation the Mensheviks revealed their opportunism, their true political nature as henchmen of the liberal bourgeoisie, as the vehicles of its influence in the ranks of the proletariat. When the revolution becomes an undisputed force, I said, even its opponents begin to “recognise the revolution”; and I pointed (in the summer of 1905) to the example of the Russian liberals, who had remained constitutional monarchists. Now, in 1920, one may add that in Germany and Italy the liberal bourgeois—or at least the most educated and agile of them—are ready to “recognise the revolution.” But by “recognising” the revolution and at the same time refusing to recognise the dictatorship of a definite class (or of definite classes), the Russian liberals and Mensheviks of that time, and the present-day German and Italian liberals, the Turati-ists and the Kautskyans, reveal their own reformism, their absolute unfitness as revolutionaries.

Because, when the revolution has already become an undisputed force, when even the liberals “recognise” it, when the ruling classes not only see but also feel the invincible might of the oppressed masses, the whole question—both for theoreticians and for practical leaders of policy—reduces itself to an exact class definition of the term “revolution.” Without the concept “dictatorship” it is impossible to give such a precise class definition. Without preparing for the dictatorship one cannot be a real revolutionary. This truth was not understood by the Mensheviks in 1905; in 1920 it is not understood by the Italian, German, French and other Socialists who are afraid of the strict “conditions” of the Communist International. Only those who are capable of recognising the dictatorship in words but who are incapable of preparing for it in deeds can be afraid of these conditions. Hence, it will not be out of place if I quote at length the explanation of Marx’s views which I published in July 1905 in opposition to the Russian Mensheviks, but which is equally applicable to the West European Mensheviks of 1920. (Instead of giving titles of newspapers, etc., I shall merely indicate whether Mensheviks or Bolsheviks are referred to.)

“Mehring tells us in the notes to his edition of Marx’s articles from the Neue Rheinische Zeitung of 1848 that incidentally the following reproach was hurled at this newspaper in the bourgeois publications. The Neue Rheinische Zeitung was alleged to have demanded ‘the immediate introduction of a dictatorship as the only means of achieving democracy.’ (Marx, Nachlass, Vol. III, p. 53.) From the vulgar-bourgeois standpoint the concepts dictatorship and democracy mutually exclude each other. Not understanding the theory of class struggle and accustomed to seeing in the political arena only a petty squabble of various bourgeois circles and coteries, the bourgeois conceives the dictatorship to be the annulment of all liberties, of all guarantees of democracy, tyranny of every kind, and all possible abuses of power in the personal interests of the dictator. In effect, it is precisely this vulgar-bourgeois viewpoint that permeates the writings of our Mensheviks, who attribute the partiality of the Bolsheviks for the slogan dictatorship to Lenin’s ‘being obsessed by a passionate desire to try his luck.’ (Iskra, No. 103, p. 3, column 2.) In order to explain to the Mensheviks the concept of class dictatorship as distinguished from personal dictatorship and the tasks of democratic dictatorship as distinguished from socialist dictatorship, it would be useful to dwell on the views of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung.

“On September 14, 1848, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung wrote:

‘After a revolution, every provisional organisation of the state requires a dictatorship, and an energetic dictatorship at that. From the very beginning we have reproached Camphauscn’ (the head of the Ministry after March 18, 1848) ‘for not acting dictatorially, for not having immediately smashed up and eliminated the remnants of old institutions. And while Mr. Camphausen was rocking himself in constitutional dreams, the defeated party (i.e. the party of reaction) strengthened its positions in the bureaucracy and in the army and here and there even began to venture upon open struggle.’

“These few words, Mehring justly remarks, sum up in a few propositions all that was propounded in detail in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in long articles on Camphausen’s Ministry. What do these words of Marx imply? That the provisional revolutionary government must act dictatorially (a proposition which the Mensheviks, who were fighting shy of the slogan dictatorship, were totally unable to grasp), that the task of such a dictatorship is to destroy the remnants of old institutions (precisely what was clearly indicated in the resolution of the Third Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party [Bolsheviks] on the struggle against the counter-revolution, and what, as we have indicated above, was omitted in the Mensheviks’ resolution). Thirdly, and finally, it follows from these words that Marx castigated the bourgeois democrats for entertaining ‘constitutional dreams’ in an epoch of revolution and open civil war. The meaning of these words becomes particularly obvious from the article in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung of June 6, 1848. Marx wrote:

‘The Constituent National Assembly must first of all be an active, revolutionary-active assembly. But the Frankfort Assembly is busying itself with school exercises in parliamentarism while allowing the government to act. Let us assume that this learned assembly succeeded after mature consideration in working out the best agenda and the best constitution. But what would be the use of the best agenda and of the best constitution if the pate government had already in the meantime placed the bayonet on the agenda?’

“Such is the meaning of the slogan dictatorship…”

“Great questions in the life of nations are settled only by force. The reactionary classes are usually themselves the first to resort to violence, to civil war; they are the first to ‘place the bayonet on the agenda,’ as Russian autocracy has been doing systematically, consistently, everywhere, all over the country, ever since January 22 [9]. And since such a situation has arisen, since the bayonet has really taken first place on the political agenda, since the uprising has become necessary and urgent—the constitutional dreams and school exercises in parliamentarism are becoming only a screen for the bourgeois betrayal of the revolution, a screen for the bourgeoisie as they ‘recoil’ from the revolution. The genuinely revolutionary class must, then, advance precisely the slogan of dictatorship.”

This is the way the Bolsheviks argued about the dictatorship before the October Revolution of 1905.

After the experiences of this revolution, I made a detailed study of the question of the dictatorship in the pamphlet The Victory of the Cadets and the Tasks of the Workers’ Party, St. Petersburg, 1906 (the pamphlet is dated April 10 [March 28], 1906). From this pamphlet I shall quote all the most essential arguments, but I shall substitute for a number of proper names a mere indication as to whether the reference is to the Cadets or to the Mensheviks. In general, this pamphlet was directed against the Cadets, but in part it was directed also against the non-party liberals, semi-Cadets and semi-Mensheviks. In essence, everything that is said about the dictatorship applies precisely to the Mensheviks, who were constantly slipping over to the side of the Cadets on this question.

“At the very time when the shooting was dying down in Moscow, when the military-police dictatorship was celebrating its wild orgies, when executions and mass tortures were taking place throughout Russia, voices were raised in the Cadet press against violence from the Left, against the strike committees set up by the revolutionary parties. The Cadet professors, trading their science with the Dubasovs, went so far as to translate the word ‘dictatorship’ as ‘reinforced guard.’ The ‘men of science’ even distorted their school Latin in order to belittle the revolutionary struggle. Dictatorship means—note this once and for all, honourable Cadets—unlimited power, based on force and not on law. During civil war the victorious power can only assume the form of a dictatorship. The point is, however, that there is a dictatorship of the minority over the majority, of a small body of police over the people, and there is also a dictatorship of the overwhelming majority of the people over a small group of oppressors, plunderers, and usurpers of the power of the people. By their vulgar distortion of the scientific concept of dictatorship, by their howls against violence from the Left at a time when the most lawless and most despicable acts of violence were being committed by the Right in a regular orgy of debauchery, the honourable Cadets clearly revealed the position of the ‘compromisers’ in the acute revolutionary struggle. A ‘compromiser’ hides like a coward whenever the struggle flares up. When the revolutionary people is victorious (October 30 [17]) the ‘compromiser’ crawls out of his hole, struts about vaingloriously, boasts and shouts until he is hoarse: that was a ‘glorious’ political strike! But when the counter-revolution is victorious, the ‘compromiser’ begins to shower hypocritical admonitions and edifying advice upon the defeated. A victorious strike is ‘glorious.’ Lost strikes are criminal, wild, senseless, anarchistic. An unsuccessful uprising is madness, the raging of the elements, barbarism, folly. In a word, the political conscience and the political intellect of the ‘compromiser’ are expressed by his cringing before whoever happens to be the stronger at the time, by getting in the way of the combatants and hindering now one and now the other side, by blunting the struggle and by blunting the revolutionary consciousness of the people, which is waging a desperate struggle for freedom.”

To proceed. It will now be exceptionally opportune to quote the explanations on the question of dictatorship that were directed against Mr. R. Blank. In 1906, this R. Blank, in a newspaper which was in reality Menshevik, though formally non-party, expounded the views of the Mensheviks and extolled their “efforts to direct the Russian Social-Democratic movement along that path along which international Social-Democracy is moving with the great Social-Democratic Party of Germany at its head.”

In other words, like the Cadets, R. Blank characterised the Bolsheviks as unreasonable, non-Marxian, riotous revolutionaries, in contrast to the “reasonable” Mensheviks, and put the German Social-Democratic Party also in the Menshevik category. This is the usual method of the international trend of social-liberals, pacifists, etc., who in all countries extol the reformists, opportunists, Kautskyans and Longuetists as “reasonable” Socialists in contradistinction to the “unreasonable” Bolsheviks.

In the above-mentioned pamphlet I replied to R. Blank as follows:

“Mr. Blank draws a comparison between two periods of the Russian revolution. The first covers approximately the period from October to December 1905. This was the period of revolutionary whirlwind. The second is the present period, which, of course, we may rightly describe as the period of Cadet victories in the Duma elections, or—if we take the risk of anticipating—the period of the Cadet Duma.

“Concerning this period Mr. Blank says that the turn of sense and reason had now come again and that it was possible to turn to intelligent, planned, systematic activity. The first period, however, Mr. Blank characterises as a period of divergence between theory and practice. All Social-Democratic principles and ideas disappeared, the tactics which had always been advocated by the founders of Russian Social-Democracy were forgotten, and even the very pillars of the Social-Democratic world outlook were torn from their foundations.

“Mr. Blank’s main assertion is of a purely factual character. The whole theory of Marxism, according to him, was at variance with ‘practice’ in the period of revolutionary whirlwind.

“Is that the case? What is the first and principal ‘pillar’ of Marxian theory? The thesis that the proletariat is the only thoroughly consistent revolutionary class in modern society and, consequently, is the vanguard class in every revolution. It may be asked: did not the revolutionary whirlwind tear this ‘pillar’ of the Social-Democratic world outlook from its foundations? No! On the contrary, the whirlwind brilliantly proved its firmness. It was the proletariat that was the principal fighter in this period and almost the only fighter in the beginning of the period. Almost for the first time in history a bourgeois revolution was marked by the employment of a purely proletarian weapon, viz., the mass political strike, to an extent unprecedented even in advanced capitalist countries. The proletariat took up the directly revolutionary struggle at a time when the honourable Cadets and honourable Blanks were calling upon the people to elect representatives to the Bulygin Duma, when the Cadet professors were calling upon the students to keep to their studies.** The proletariat with its proletarian weapon of struggle gained for Russia the whole of the ‘constitution’—if one may call it that—which since then has been only spoiled, curtailed, and shorn. In October 1905, the proletariat applied the tactics of struggle that were indicated six months previously in the resolution of the Bolshevik Third Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, which directed particular attention to the importance of combining the political mass strike with insurrection—and it is precisely the combination of the two that characterises the whole period of ‘revolutionary whirlwind,’ the whole of the last quarter of 1905. Thus, our petty-bourgeois ideologist distorted the facts in the most shameful, most crying manner. He did not point to a single fact that could testify to a divergence between Marxian theory and the practical experience of the ‘revolutionary whirlwind.’ He tried to obscure the fundamental feature of this whirlwind which most brilliantly confirmed ‘all Social-Democratic principles and ideas,’ ‘all the pillars of the Social-Democratic world outlook.’

“What, however, is the real reason that caused Mr. Blank to arrive at the monstrously erroneous opinion that all Marxian principles and ideas disappeared in the period of ‘whirlwind’? An investigation of this circumstance proves to be most interesting; it reveals to us once again the true nature of philistinism in politics.

“What was the main difference between the period of ‘revolutionary whirlwind’ and the present ‘Cadet’ period, from the point of view of the various methods of political activity, from the point of view of the various methods of the people’s historical creativeness? The first and principal difference was the fact that in the period of ‘whirlwind’ several special methods of this creativeness were employed which are alien to other periods of political life. The most essential of these methods were: 1) ‘seizure’ of political liberty by the people–the exercise of this liberty without any rights and laws and without any restriction (freedom of assembly, even in universities, freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom to convene congresses, etc.); 2) the creation of new organs of revolutionary government—Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, Railway Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, new village and town authorities, etc., etc. These organs were created exclusively by the revolutionary strata of the population, without laws or norms, in an entirely revolutionary manner, as the product of the inborn creativeness of the people, as an expression of the initiative of the people, which had freed itself or was freeing itself from the old police shackles. These were precisely organs of power, notwithstanding their embryonic, spontaneous, informal and diffusive character as regards composition and method of functioning. They functioned as organs of government; for example, when they seized the printing shops (in St. Petersburg), arrested police officials who hindered the revolutionary people in exercising their rights (instances of such acts occurred also in St. Petersburg, where the new organ of power was weakest and the old power strongest). They acted as a government when they called upon the people not to give money to the old government. They confiscated the money of the old government (the railwaymen’s strike committees in the South) and used it for the needs of the new government, the people’s government. Yes, these were undoubtedly embryos of a new, of a people’s government, or—if you will—of a revolutionary government. In its social-political character it was, in embryo, the dictatorship of the revolutionary elements of the people. You are surprised, Mr. Blank and Mr. Kiesewetter? You do not see the ‘reinforced guard,’ which for the bourgeoisie is synonymous with dictatorship? We have already told you that you do not in the least understand the scientific concept dictatorship. We will explain it to you in a minute, but first we shall point to the third ‘method’ of action in the epoch of ‘revolutionary whirlwind’: the employment of violence by the people against those who used violence against the people.

“The organs of power we have described were the embryo of dictatorship, for this government recognised no other power, no law, no norm, no matter from what source. Unrestricted power, beyond the law, resting on force in the strictest sense of the word—this is dictatorship. But the force upon which this new power rested and desired to rest was not the force of the bayonet seized by a handful of militarists, not the force of the ‘police station,’ not the force of money, or of any of the old, established institutions. Nothing of the sort. The new organs of the new power possessed neither weapons, nor money, nor old institutions. Their force—can you imagine it, Mr. Blank and Mr. Kiesewetter?—was totally unlike the old instruments of force, totally unlike a ‘reinforced guard,’ if we leave out of account the reinforced guard of the people against oppression by the police and other organs of the old government.

“On what did this force rest? It rested on the masses of the people. This is the fundamental distinction between this new power and all the former organs of the old power. The latter were organs of power of the minority over the people, over the masses of workers and peasants. The former were organs of power of the people, of the workers and peasants, over the minority, over a handful of police thugs, over a small group of privileged nobles and officials. That is the distinction between a dictatorship over the people and a dictatorship of the revolutionary people. Keep this well in mind, Mr. Blank and Mr. Kiesewetter! The old power, as a dictatorship of the minority, could maintain itself only by the aid of police stratagems, only by preventing and diverting the masses from participating in the government, from controlling the government. The old power persistently distrusted the masses, feared the light, maintained itself by means of deception. The new power, as a dictatorship of the overwhelming majority, could and did maintain itself only by winning the confidence of the great masses, only by drawing, in the freest, broadest, and most energetic manner, all the masses into the work of government. Nothing hidden, nothing secret, no regulations, no formalities. You are a workingman? You wish to fight to liberate Russia from a handful of police thugs? Then you are our comrade. Choose your delegate at once, immediately. Choose as you think best. We shall willingly and gladly accept him as a full member of our Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, of our Peasants’ Committee, of our Soviet of Soldiers’ Deputies, etc., etc. It is a power that is open to all, that does everything in sight of the masses, that is accessible to the masses, that springs directly from the masses; it is the direct organ of the masses and of their will. Such was the new power, or rather its embryo, for the victory of the old power very soon trampled upon the tender shoots of this new plant.

“Perhaps, Mr. Blank or Mr. Kiesewetter, you will ask: Why ‘dictatorship,’ why ‘violence’? Need an enormous mass use force against a mere handful? Can tens and hundreds of millions be dictators over thousands, over tens of thousands?

“These questions are usually put by those who see the term ‘dictatorship’ employed in a way that is new to them. These people are accustomed only to police rule and only to police dictatorship. The idea that there can be power without police, that there can be a non-police dictatorship seems strange to them. You say that millions need not use force against thousands, but you are mistaken, precisely because you do not observe this phenomenon in its process of development. You forget that the new power does not fall from heaven, but springs up and grows side by side with the old power, in opposition to the old power, in conflict with it. Without the employment of violence against the users of violence who possess the weapons and organs of power, it is impossible to liberate the people from these oppressors.

“Here is a very simple example for you, Mr. Blank and Mr. Kiesewetter, which will help you to understand this piece of wisdom, which is so incomprehensible and so ‘head-breaking’ for the Cadet mind. Imagine that Avramov is mutilating and torturing Spiridonova. On Spiridonova’s side, let us suppose, there were scores and hundreds of unarmed people; on Avramov’s side, a handful of Cossacks. What would the people have done if Spiridonova had been tortured, not in a dungeon, but in a more accessible place? They would have employed force against Avramov and his men. Perhaps they. would have sacrificed several of their fighters, who would have been shot down by Avramov, but nevertheless, they would have forcibly disarmed Avramov and his Cossacks, in the course of which, probably, several of these men—if one may call them that—would have been killed on the spot, while the rest would have been put into some prison, in order to prevent them from perpetrating further outrages and to turn them over to a people’s court.

“You see, Mr. Blank and Mr. Kiesewetter: when Avramov and his Cossacks torture Spiridonova, that is a military-police dictatorship over the people. When the revolutionary people (who are capable of fighting the oppressors and not merely of uttering exhortations, admonitions, expressions of regret or condemnation, of whining and grieving, who are not narrow-mindedly petty-bourgeois, but revolutionary) employ force against Avramov and his like—that is a dictatorship of the revolutionary people. It is a dictatorship, for it is the power of the people over the Avramovs, a power unrestricted by laws. (A petty bourgeois would, perhaps, be opposed to forcibly wresting Spiridonova from the clutches of Avramov. That would not be ‘according to law,’ he would say: is there a ‘law’ which permits the killing of Avramov? Have not certain ideologists of the petty bourgeoisie created the theory of resist not evil by violence?) The scientific concept ‘dictatorship’ means nothing more nor less than unrestricted power, absolutely unimpeded by laws or regulations and resting directly upon force. This is the meaning of the concept ‘dictatorship’ and nothing else. Keep this well in mind, honourable Cadets! Further, in the example we have given we see a dictatorship precisely of the people, because the people, the mass of the population, having in an unorganised way, ‘casually’ gathered at a given spot, come on the scene themselves, administer justice themselves, exercise authority and create a new, revolutionary law. Finally, it is a dictatorship of the revolutionary people. Why only of the revolutionary and not of all the people? Because among all the people, who are suffering constantly and most cruelly from the exploits of the Avramovs, there are some who are physically wrecked and intimidated, some who are morally wrecked, for example, by the theory of resist not evil by violence, or wrecked, not by theory, but by prejudices, habits and routine, indifferent people, the so-called man in the street, the philistine, who is more inclined to avoid a sharp struggle, to pass on the other side, or even to hide from it (so as not to get into trouble!). That is why the dictatorship is not exercised by the whole people, but only by the revolutionary people, who, however, do not in the least fear the whole people, and disclose to them the reasons for their actions and for all the constituent parts of these actions, gladly draw all the people, not only into the work of ‘administering’ the state, but also into power, into the work of building up the state.

“Thus, the simple example we have taken contains all the elements of the scientific concept ‘dictatorship of the revolutionary people’ as well as of the concept ‘military-police dictatorship.’ From this simple example, which even a learned Cadet professor can understand, we can pass on to more complicated phenomena of social life.

“Revolution—in the narrow, direct sense of the word—is precisely that period in the life of a people in which the century-old anger against the exploits of the Avramovs bursts forth in action, not in words; in the action of vast masses, not of single individuals. The people wake up and rise to liberate themselves from the Avramovs. The people free the countless Spiridonovas of Russian life from the Avramovs, employ force against the Avramovs, seize power over the Avramovs. This, of course, does not happen so simply and so ‘suddenly’ as in the example we gave, which we simplified for the benefit of Professor Kiesewetter. The people’s struggle against the Avramovs, the struggle in the narrow, direct sense, this throwing-off of the Avramovs by the people drags on for months and years of ‘revolutionary whirlwind.’ This throwing-off of the Avramovs by the people is the real content of what is called the great Russian revolution. Examined from the standpoint of the methods of historical creativeness, this throwing-off takes place in the forms which we described when we spoke about the revolutionary whirlwind, namely: seizure of political liberty by the people, i.e., liberty that the Avramovs have prevented the people from enjoying; the creation by the people of a new, revolutionary power, a power over the Avramovs, a power over the old, oppressive police regime; the employment of violence by the people against the Avramovs in order to remove, disarm, and render harmless all these mad dogs, all these Avramovs, Durnovos, Dubasovs, Mins, etc., etc.

“Is it good that the people use such illegal, irregular, planless, and unsystematic methods of struggle as the seizure of liberty, the creation of a new revolutionary power that is not formally recognised by anyone, that they employ force against the oppressors of the people? Yes, it is very good. It is the highest manifestation of the people’s struggle for freedom. It marks the great times when the dreams of liberty of the best people of Russia are transformed into action, the action of the masses themselves, and not of individual heroes. This is as good as the crowd liberating (in our example) Spiridonova from the clutches of Avramov, forcibly disarming him and rendering him harmless.

“But this brings us to the central point of the secret thoughts and fears of the Cadets. The Cadets are the ideologists of philistines because in their views on politics, on the emancipation of all the people, on revolution, they adopt the point of view of the man in the street who, in our example of the torture of Spiridonova by Avramov, would have restrained the crowd, would have advised them not to break the law, not to hurry in liberating the victim from the hands of the executioner who was acting in the name of the legal authorities. Of course, in our example such a man in the street would be a downright moral pervert, but as applied to the whole of social life, the moral perversion of the petty bourgeois, is, we repeat, by no means an individual but a social quality, conditioned, perhaps, by the prejudices of the bourgeois-philistine science of law which is firmly entrenched in his brain.

“Why does Mr. Blank take for granted that all Marxian principles were forgotten in the period of the ‘whirlwind’? Because he transforms Marxism into Brentano-ism and regards such ‘principles’ as the seizure of freedom, as the creation of a revolutionary power, as the employment of force by the people as non-Marxian. This viewpoint runs like a thread through the whole of Mr. Blank’s article, and not only through Mr. Blank’s writings but through those of all the Cadets, of all those who are now extolling Plekhanov for his love for the Cadets, of all the writers of the liberal and radical camp, including the Bernsteinian editors of Bez Zaglaviya, Prokopovich, Kuskova, and tutti quanti.

“Let us see how this viewpoint arose, and why it had to arise.

“It arose directly out of the Bernsteinian or, speaking in broader terms, the opportunist conception of West European Social-Democracy. Those errors of this conception which the ‘orthodox’ in the West have been systematically exposing all along the line are now being transferred to Russia ‘under cover,’ in another guise and on a different occasion. The Bernsteinians have been accepting Marxism without its directly revolutionary side. They regarded the parliamentary struggle, not as one of the means of struggle that was particularly appropriate in certain historical periods, but as the main and almost exclusive form of struggle, which made ‘violence,’ ‘usurpation’ and ‘dictatorship’ unnecessary. This vulgar, petty-bourgeois distortion of Marxism is now being brought to Russia by the Blanks and other liberal extollers of Plekhanov. They have become so accustomed to this distortion that they take it for granted that Marxian principles and ideas are forgotten in the period of revolutionary whirlwind.

“Why should such a viewpoint have arisen? Because it corresponds in the most fundamental way to the class position and interests of the petty bourgeoisie. The ideologist of ‘purified’ bourgeois society recognises all the methods of struggle employed by Social-Democracy except those which the revolutionary people employ in the period of ‘whirlwind,’ and the employment of which revolutionary Social-Democracy approves and aids. The interests of the bourgeoisie require the participation of the proletariat in the struggle against the autocracy, but only such participation as will not lead to the supremacy of the proletariat and the peasantry, only such participation as will not entirely abolish the old autocratic, feudal and police organs of power. The bourgeoisie wants to preserve these organs, but it wants to subject them to its own direct control. It needs them to use against the proletariat, whose proletarian struggle would be too greatly facilitated by the complete abolition of these organs. That is why the interests of the bourgeoisie as a class demand both a monarchy and an Upper Chamber, that is why they must prevent the establishment of the dictatorship of the revolutionary people. Fight the autocracy!—the bourgeoisie says to the proletariat—but do not touch the old organs of power, for I need them. Fight in a ‘parliamentary way,’ i.e., within the limits I shall prescribe to you in agreement with the monarchy; fight with the aid of organisations, not with organisations like general strike committees, Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, etc., but with such as are recognised, restricted, and rendered harmless for capital by the laws promulgated by me in agreement with the monarchy.

“Hence it is clear why the bourgeoisie speaks about the period of ‘whirlwind’ with scorn, contempt, rage and hatred, and why it speaks about the period of constitutionalism upheld by Dubasov with ecstasy, rapture, with infinite philistine infatuation…for reaction. The constant and immutable quality of the Cadets is a striving to gain the support of the people and fear of their revolutionary activity.

“It is clear also why the bourgeoisie fears a repetition of the ‘whirlwind’ worse than the plague, why it ignores and hushes up the elements of the new revolutionary crisis, why it supports constitutional illusions and spreads them among the people.

“Now we have fully explained why Mr. Blank and his ilk declare that all Marxian principles and ideas were forgotten in the period of ‘whirlwind.’ Like all petty bourgeois, Mr. Blank recognises Marxism without its revolutionary side, he recognises Social-Democratic methods of struggle without the most revolutionary and directly revolutionary methods.

“Mr. Blank’s attitude to the period of the ‘whirlwind’ is extremely characteristic as an illustration of bourgeois lack of understanding of proletarian movements, of bourgeois fear of sharp and determined fighting, of bourgeois hatred for all manifestations of sharp, revolutionary—in the strict sense of the term of solving social-historical questions—methods which break up the old institutions. Mr. Blank has betrayed himself, he has betrayed all his bourgeois narrow-mindedness at one stroke. He heard and read that the Social-Democrats had made ‘mistakes’ in the period of whirlwind and he hastened to conclude from this and to declare with an aplomb brooking no appeal, but without any proof, that all the ‘principles’ of Marxism (about which he hasn’t the slightest conception) had been forgotten. In regard to these ‘mistakes’ we would ask: has there ever been a period in the development of the working class movement, in the development of Social-Democracy, in which mistakes of one sort or another have not been made, in which there has not been some deviation or other either to the Right or to the Left? Is not the history of the parliamentary period of the struggle of German Social-Democracy—the period which all the narrowminded bourgeois throughout the world regard as the impassable limit—full of such mistakes? If Mr. Blank were not such an absolute ignoramus on questions of socialism, he would easily recall the cases of Miihlberger, Dithring, the question of the Dampjfersubvention, the ‘Young’ Socialists, Bernstein and many, many others. But Mr. Blank does not think that a study of the real course of development of Social-Democracy is important. All he wants to do is to belittle the sweep of the proletarian struggle in order to exalt the bourgeois poverty of his own Cadet Party.

“Indeed, if we examine the matter from the point of view of the deviation of Social-Democracy from its usual ‘normal’ course, we shall see that in this respect, too, the period of ‘revolutionary whirlwind’ exhibits not a lesser, but greater consolidation and ideological unity of Social-Democracy, compared with other periods. The tactics in the epoch of the ‘whirlwind’ did not separate the two wings of Social-Democracy, but brought them closer to one another. Instead of the former disagreements there was unanimity of views on the question of the armed uprising. Social-Democrats of both factions worked in the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, in these peculiar organs of the embryonic revolutionary power; they drew the soldiers and peasants into these Soviets and issued revolutionary manifestoes in conjunction with the petty-bourgeois revolutionary parties. The former disputes of the prerevolutionary epoch were replaced by solidarity on practical questions. The upsurge of the revolutionary wave thrust disagreements aside, compelled acceptance of fighting tactics, thrust aside the Duma question, put the question of insurrection on the order of the day, brought Social-Democracy and revolutionary bourgeois democracy closer together for direct and immediate work. In Severny Golos, the Mensheviks jointly with the Bolsheviks called for a strike and insurrection, called upon the workers to continue the struggle until they had captured power. The revolutionary situation itself suggested the practical slogans. Disputes arose only over details in the appraisal of events. Nachalo, for example, regarded the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies as organs of revolutionary self-government; Novaya Zhizn regarded them as embryonic organs of revolutionary power which united the proletariat and revolutionary democracy. Nachalo inclined toward the standpoint of the dictatorship of the proletariat; Novaya Zhizn took the standpoint of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. But have there not been similar differences of opinion in the ranks of Social-Democracy in every period of development of every European Socialist party?

“Mr. Blank’s distortion of the question, his glaring mutilation of the history of the recent past is explained by his smug, bourgeois vulgarity which makes him regard the periods of revolutionary whirlwind as madness (‘all principles are forgotten,’ ‘sense and common reason almost disappear’), while periods of suppression of revolution and of philistine ‘progress’ (protected by the Dubasovs) are epochs of sensible, intelligent and planned activity. This comparative appraisal of the two periods (the period of ‘whirlwind’ and the Cadet period) runs like a thread through the whole of Mr. Blank’s article. When the history of humanity moves forward at the speed of a locomotive, he calls it a ‘whirlwind,’ a ‘deluge,’ the ‘disappearance’ of all ‘principles and ideas.’ When history moves at the speed of a horse and cart he calls it reason, system. When the masses themselves, with all their virgin primitiveness, their simple, rough determination, begin to make history and to apply ‘principles and theories’ directly and immediately, the bourgeoisie takes fright and wails that ‘reason is thrust into the background.’ (Is not the very opposite the case, you philistine heroes? Is it not precisely in such moments of history that the reason of the masses is displayed rather than the reason of single individuals? Is it not precisely at such times that the reason of the masses becomes a living, active force, and not an armchair force?) When direct action by the masses is crushed by shootings, executions, floggings, unemployment and famine, when the bugs of professorial science, subsidised by Dubasov, crawl out of the cracks and begin to speak on behalf of the people, in the name of the masses, and sell and betray the interests of the latter to a privileged few—the knights of philistinism imagine that an epoch of peace and of calm progress has set in, that ‘the turn of sense and reason has now come again.’ The bourgeois always and everywhere remains true to himself: whether you take the Polyarnaya Zvezda or Nasha Zhizn, whether you read Struve or Blank—it is all the same; everywhere you find this narrow-minded, professorial, pedantic, bureaucratic, lifeless appraisal of revolutionary and reformist periods. The former are periods of madness, tolle Jahre periods, when sense and reason disappear. The latter are pains of ‘intelligent, systematic’ activity.

“Do not misconstrue my words. Do not say that I am speaking about Mr. Blank and Co. preferring this or that period. It is not a matter of preference; our subjective preference does not determine the order of historical periods. The point is that in their analysis of the characteristics of this or that period (irrespective of our preferences or our sympathies) Mr. Blank and Co. unscrupulously distort the truth. The point is that it is precisely the revolutionary periods that are distinguished for their greater breadth, greater wealth, greater intelligence, greater and more systematic activity, greater audacity and vividness of historical creativeness compared with periods of philistine, Cadet, reformist progress. But Mr. Blank and Co. picture it the other way about. They pass off poverty as historical-creative wealth. They regard the inactivity of the suppressed, downtrodden masses as the triumph of the ‘systematic’ activity of the bureaucrats and the bourgeoisie. They shout about the disappearance of sense and reason, when the picking to pieces of parliamentary bills by all sorts of bureaucrats and liberal ‘penny-a-liners’ gives way to a period of direct political activity by the ‘common people,’ who in their simple way directly and immediately destroy the organs of oppression of the people, seize power, appropriate for themselves what was considered to be the property of all sorts of plunderers of the people—in a word, precisely when the sense and reason of millions of downtrodden people is awakening, not only for reading books, but for action, for living human action, for historical creativeness.”

***

Such was the controversy around the question of the dictatorship in the years 1905 and 1906 in Russia.

Messieurs the Dittmanns, Kautskys, Crispiens, and Hilferdings in Germany, Longuet and Co. in France, Turati and his friends in Italy, MacDonald and Snowden in England, etc., in effect argue about the dictatorship in exactly the same way as Mr. R. Blank and the Cadets did in Russia in 1905. They do not understand what dictatorship is, do not know how to prepare for it, and are incapable of understanding and achieving it.

October 20, 1920

International Publishers was formed in 1923 for the purpose of translating and disseminating international Marxist texts and headed by Alexander Trachtenberg. It quickly outgrew that mission to be the main book publisher, while Workers Library continued to be the pamphlet publisher of the Communist Party.

PDF of full book: https://archive.org/download/selected-works-vol.-7/Selected%20Works%20-%20Vol.%207.pdf