The Russian Revolution

Front matter

LABOR HERALD LIBRARY No. 2

Drawn by Ellis

Organize! Join the Trade Union Educational League. This is an organization to carry on educational work in the trade union movement. It aims to infuse the mass with revolutionary understanding and spirit. It is working for the closer affiliation and solidification of our existing unions until they have been developed into industrial unions. Believing that all workers should stand together regardless of their opinions, it is opposed to the policy of radical and progressive-minded workers quitting the trade unions and starting rival organizations. That policy is one of the chief reasons why the American labor movement is not further advanced. Its principal effects are to destroy all radical organization in the old unions and to leave the reactionaries in undisputed control.

Introduction

INTRODUCTION.

This book is a result of a fourteen weeks' stay in Soviet Russia, as a correspondent for the Federated Press, during the Spring and Summer of 1921. It makes no pretensions to being a learned treatise on the Russian revolution: It is merely an effort to give the A. B. C.'s of the situation. What I have tried to do is to portray, simply and in workers' language, the broad outlines of the great upheaval: to answer the many mental queries of the toilers, who have little information on the subject, by describing in a general way the evolution, present status, achievements, and problems of the various important social institutions of the new society, such as the state, the political parties, the trade unions, the industries, the army, etc. It is a brief workers' history of the revolution.

Inasmuch as the social disorganization of Russia is very great and everything is changing with unbelievable rapidity, it is exceedingly difficult for even native investigators to get exact data on the situation. And naturally, for foreigners like myself who do not speak Russian, the difficulty is considerably increased, I was fortunate, however, in being able to talk French and German—after a fashion. This helped me greatly, because the Russians are wonderful linguists, and there are few of them of education who do not speak either or both of these languages in addition to their own. It was seldom that I ran across a leader, a man who was really doing something, with whom I was unable to converse. Many live rank and filers also speak English, French, or German. For contact with the masses and for my extensive reading of Russian revolutionary pamphlets, newspapers, etc., of course, I had to depend upon interpreters.

A favorite argument of counter-revolutionary writers against correspondents who come out of Russia in a friendly or even tolerant mood toward the Soviets is that these correspondents were taken under the wing of the Government, flattered and made much of, and assigned guides and interpreters who pumped them full of propaganda and were very careful to see to it that they learned nothing of the real conditions of the country. It is a plausible story, but it is ridiculous, as every honest correspondent who has visited Russia will admit. My own experience is typical. The Foreign Office assigned me to lodgings and then left me to my own devices. I went where I pleased and saw whomever I wished, without any restrictions that I could discover. I scrambled as best I could for news and information. No regular interpreters were assigned me. I picked up my own as occasion offered. During my stay I had several of them, of every political shade from rigid Communists to avowed counter-revolutionaries. One who went with me a great deal and who was very anxious to give me his ideas (and I was just as eager to get them) was an outspoken Menshevik. Another was an Anarchist. The latter was especially fearful that I was being "stuffed" by the Communists, and he lost no occasion to explain to me the seediest sides of the revolution. From what I could learn, once a correspondent gets into Russia he is free to do pretty much as he pleases, unless he dabbles in politics. The Russian revolution is too busy solving its great problems to pay much attention to his petty activities. The tales of the "stuffing" of foreigners with propaganda is a joke among Russians.

To me the Russian revolution did not seem difficult to understand. It is only our own labor movement carried to its logical conclusion. Our trade unions pit their organized intelligence and power against the employers and wrest from them every concession they are able to take, regardless of how profound they may be. The Russian political and industrial organizations, working upon identical principles, but with infinitely better understanding, determination, discipline and power than our unions as yet possess, have finally and completely defeated their exploiter opponents. Hence, instead of having to content themselves with petty conquests as we now must, they have been able to go the whole way and have made the masters yield all their privileges at one blow. Notwithstanding the disclaimers of our respectable trade union leaders, the Russian and American labor movements are blood brothers in method and goal. The only differences between them are those of understanding and development.

I am not astonished or discouraged that the workers are making a poor job of establishing the new society in Russia—I have had too much practical experience with the masses to expect anything else. Have I not organized as many as three or four thousand packing house or steel workers in a single local union and then searched in vain among them for even one skilled or adaptable enough to keep the simple financial accounts of the organization or to conduct its meetings? What, then, could I expect from the even less experienced Russian workers with the enormous tasks of the Russian revolution suddenly thrust upon them? Nothing more than the shrieking incompetence and indifference of the masses that I found—with a few live wires doing all the real work. Nor am I appalled at the terrible suffering of the people. I do not attempt to ignore it, but I know very well that it is only through starvation and all-round misery that the workers can make progress. Every great strike teaches that lesson. And the Russian revolution is only a strike raised to the nth degree.

The revolution is a bitter struggle, but I do not despair of the outcome. By their heroic and wonderful achievements in the past the Russian workers breed confidence for their future. Although all the world said it could not be done, they solved the political problem of organizing and controlling the Government in the face of great odds, and they solved the military problem by building a vast army and beating back their many foes. And they will solve the tremendous industrial problem also. In my judgment the Russian revolution will live and accomplish its great task of setting up the world's first free commonwealth.

WM. Z. FOSTER.

Chicago, November 1, 1921.

Chapter I: History of the Revolution

I.

HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION.

The Russian revolution is one of the very greatest events in all human history. What has happened is that the oppressed masses of Russian workers and peasants have risen against their masters, overthrown them, and destroyed the whole political and industrial structure of the old regime. They have taken control of the land, the industries, and the state, and are operating them in their own interest, paying no tribute to exploiters of any sort. The world has never seen such a profound social upheaval.

To make the kindly, docile, peaceful Russian toilers desperate and to drive them into such a sweeping revolution could only be accomplished by the bitterest hardship and oppression. And this the old ruling class was foolish enough to inflict upon them in boundless measure. The story of pre-revolutionary Russia is one of the darkest in civilization's annals. Liberty was dead and brutal autocracy reigned supreme. Politically and industrially, the workers and peasants were destitute of right and justice. They were mercilessly abused and robbed at the whims of their heartless masters. But the day of reckoning finally came: with a mighty effort the downtrodden slaves turned against their tormentors and finished with them.

Never has human history been made so rapidly as during the tremendous Russian revolutionary drama. Great event has followed great event with bewildering speed. In this brief chapter all I can do is to give the barest indication of their general course. For this purpose it will be convenient to consider the revolution under three of its great historical phases—political, industrial, and military, in the order named:

The first great attempt of the Russian workers to get rid of their masters came in 1905. It is true that long before that time many heroic militants had fought the oppressor with pistol and bomb, and thousands of them died or were exiled in consequence. But the masses never became really aroused until the days of the Russian-Japanese war. The war was going badly for the Czar, and the workers, taking advantage of the situation, began to organize industrially and politically. But the terrified Government met them with fire and sword. In the famous Bloody Sunday demonstration of January, 1905, hundreds of workers, led by the police spy Father Gapon, were killed in cold blood. This outrage stirred the people as never before. Trade unions multiplied themselves everywhere, and the first Soviet of workers and peasants was organized in October of that year. But the Czar defeated the spreading rebellion by a double policy of conciliation and terrorism. He conceded the Duma to the people, and at the same time shot down the workers en masse. The uprising was drowned in blood: 15,000 workers were executed and 100,000 more exiled. Bitterness sank deep into the hearts of the revolutionary proletariat.

After 1905 there ensued a long period of black reaction, the crowning infamy of which was the forcing of Russia into the world war. The Russian worker and peasant soldiers, practically unarmed, half-starved, and often betrayed by their own officers, were thrown against the splendidly equipped German and Austrian armies and slaughtered by millions—Russia lost more men in the war than all the other powers, allied and enemy, combined. And while the soldiers at the front were being murdered and driven desperate; the people at home, abused and terrorized, were coerced into a like revolutionary frame of mind.

Finally human endurance could stand it no longer and the break came. On February 22, 1917 (old style), the workers in the big Putilof factories in Petrograd demonstrated in protest against the food shortage. The employers retaliated by a lockout. This roused the workers and they declared a strike in other plants. During the next few days the trouble rapidly developed, and food riots and mass strikes spread all over the city. The Government was incapable of handling the situation. Finally the troops joined hands with the people and, together, they smashed the weak resistance of the police and other defenders of the Czar's regime. Shortly after, the terrified Czar, overtaken by his outraged people at last, abdicated, and thus political autocracy came to an end in Russia. This was the "February" revolution; it was virtually bloodless.

Immediately upon the Czar’s fall there developed a bitter strugge between the various political groups over what kind of a society the new Russia should be. Each tried to warp the revolution according to its political interests and conceptions. The Cadets (Constitutional Democrats), a typical capitalist party, wanted a bourgeois democracy. The Mensheviki, moderate, right-wing Socialists, advocated political and industrial reforms for the workers and a share for them in a bourgeois democracy. The Social Revolutionists, a peasants' party, stood for land reform and petty bourgeois Socialism in general. The Bolsheviki, who were Communists, demanded a complete proletarian revolution. The first three parties proposed, in varying degrees, social reform, the collaboration of classes, and the preservation of the democratic state. The last, the Bolsheviki, differing fundamentally from the others, declared for the immediate abolition of capitalism and the democratic state, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the delegation of all power to the Soviets. In practice, however much the first three quarrelled among themselves over details of their programs, they were always united against their arch enemy, the Bolsheviki.

In the political turmoil that followed the February revolution each of the important groups had a taste of power and an opportunity to test out its program. The first were the Cadets. Being the only recognized opposition party under the Czar's regime, they alone had any appreciable organization when the crash came. So, under the leadership of Milyukov, they took command of the political power and set up the Provisional Government. Then, true to their capitalistic interests, they prepared to continue Russia in the world war and to launch her forth in an imperialistic drive to capture Constantinople. But they little recked of the strength and character of the revolution. The people, massed in the Soviets and stirred by the Bolsheviki, demonstrated against them and forced Milyukov and several other ministers to resign. The Bolsheviki demanded the realization of the great slogan of the revolution, "Peace, Bread, and Liberty." The next to come to the political helm was a coalition Government of bourgeois and Socialists. But it fared no better than its predecessor, and had to make way for a new Coalition Gov- ernment with the Social Revolutionist, Alexander Kerensky, at its head.

Kerensky, a typical right-wing Socialist reformer, played the capitalistic game of his predecessors and disregarded the revolutionary mood of the people. They demanded peace, and he organized a great military offensive against the Central Powers; they demanded bread, and he arrested the peasants who attempted to confiscate the nobles' land, and he helped the employers to defeat the city workers' trade unions; they demanded liberty, and he tried to crush the Soviets, persecuted the Bolsheviki, and kept the capitalists in his coalition Government. But the revolution finally overcame him. His military offensive, built out of wind, went to smash, and the Germans poured into the country. The people, enraged by his all-round betrayal of the revolution, stormed against him and his Government; and he, sensing the inevitable collapse, fled from Petrograd on October 24, 1917. The next day the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, controlled by the Bolsheviki, took over the government of the country, with little resistance save in Moscow and one or two other places. This was the "October" revolution. And thus was all power delegated to the Soviets and the present dictatorship of the proletariat inaugurated.

The Bolsheviki, later known as the Communists, are a party of action, and immediately they achieved power they set about satisfying the people. The people demanded peace, and the Bolsheviki at once opened the peace negotiations that ended in the Brest-Litovsk treaty a few months later; the people demanded bread; and the Bolsheviki nationalized the land the very day they took hold of the Government and they nationalized the industries shortly afterward; the people demanded liberty, and the Bolsheviki destroyed every semblance of bourgeois government and gave all power to the proletarian Soviets. It was this speedy and fundamental action of the Bolsheviki that laid the basis of their future wonderful power. By meeting the great issues of the revolution squarely, they won the hearts of the masses of workers, peasants, and soldiers, and detroyed the foundations of all other important political parties. They had little difficulty later on in consolidating their power by completely capturing the trade unions, the peasants' organizations, the army, etc. When the Constituent Assembly, the cherished hope of the bourgeoisie, met in January, 1918, all the Bolsheviki had to do was to withdraw from it and the whole business collapsed. One lone sailor dispersed the remaining delegates and closed the hall. Thus perished the last remnant of the capitalist government. The Soviets stood supreme.

While these stirring events were happening in the political field the class war reigned also in the realm of industry. The February revolution merely did away with the political autocracy of Czardom. It did not end private property in the industries. On the contrary, the employers thought it was the beginning of a new era of prosperity for them, one in which they could soar to fresh heights of capitalistic exploitation, unhampered by the feudalistic hindrances of Czarism. But they soon saw their mistake: they found themselves confronted by a militant industrial proletariat determined to win economic emancipation.

Before the February revolution the workers had few trade unions (see chapter on Trade Unions for more complete history), but immediately thereafter they began to organize them rapidly. Especially speedy was the development of the shop committees. It was a very simple operation for all the workers in a given plant to meet and pick out their shop committee, which then took up the cudgels for them with the company. Such shop committees took shape in nearly every industrial concern in Russia in the first few weeks of the revolution. The trade unions, being a more elaborate form of organization, grew somewhat slower.

Immediately the workers achieved some degree of organization they went into an offensive against the employers. They demanded the right to organize, the eight-hour day, increases in wages, the right of control over the hiring and discharging of workers, the right of the shop committees to examine the books and general business affairs of the companies, and various other important measures. The employers, with a strong organization dating from before the revolution, met this attack with desperate resistance. They were an untamed lot, accustomed under Czarism to treat their workers like dogs, and they were resolved not to lose any of their prerogatives. As the Spring and Summer of 1917 wore on the fight grew hotter and hotter. Great strikes raged in all the industrial centers. At first the workers, having a fair field, got the best of it; but about July, the Kerensky Government coming more and more to the assistance of the employers, the tide of battle turned gradually in the latter's favor and they entered into a huge campaign of lockouts and sabotage, calculated to bring the industries to a standstill and to starve the workers into submission.

Driven to extremes by these and other attacks, the workers, through their Soviets, upset the Kerensky Government (the October revolution) and seized political control themselves. Then, patterning after their erstwhile masters, they used the state power in their own behalf. This gave them definite ascendency over the employers. Lossovsky thus describes the situation:

"The October revolution made the workers the ruling class and the employers the subject class. It reversed the relations between employers and employees, and put the trade unions in the face of new tasks. Immediately after the October Revolution the strikes ceased. Thenceforth, the worker develops his grievances, presents them to the trade union and if it sanctions them they are put into force by the power of the state. In case an employer refuses, the worker has at his service the prison and all the other methods of persuasion prepared by the bourgeoisie. For the first time in the history of humanity the state takes part in strikes for the benefit of the worker, arrests the employer for refusing to grant the demands of the toilers establishes by decree wage scales fixed by the unions, an confiscates the factories of the recalcitrant employers."

Although the workers nationalized the land and turned it over to the peasants the very day they overthrew the Kerensky Government, they intended to proceed only gradually with the nationalization of the complicated industries. To begin with they did nothing more than to install a strong "workers' control." This meant that the employers should still own the plants and also manage them—subject to a stringent super- vision by the workers. It was hoped that by this arrangement the actual producers should acquire the technical skill of management indispensible for them when the industries should be taken over by the state later on.

But the employers upset this program. They were careful to see to it that the workers learned none of the precious industrial knowledge from them. They redoubled their efforts to sabotage the industries and to paralyze the economic life of the nation. In this course they were seconded by the intellectuals, office workers, and other "white-collar" elements generally. This forced the workers into still more drastic action. First, the militant shop committees began to drive away the employers and to take charge of their plants. Then, the Government took a hand in the work of confiscation. To begin with it nationalized the banks and other credit institutions, as the heart of capitalism. After that the big basic industries followed in rapid succession, until, finally; about 90 per cent of the modernized industrial mechanism had become the property of the workers' state. The rule of the capitalists was broken in Russian industry.

Driven out of political and industrial control, the capitalists and other reactionaries promptly appealed to armed force. Immediately after the October revolution a series of bitter civil wars began which lasted over three years. The first counter-revolutionary attempt was by Kerensky just after his downfall, but the Red Guard had little trouble in breaking it up. Then began a whole group of uprisings, mostly in the border countries of Siberia, Ukraine, etc., and led by Alexeyev, Kornilov, Krassnov, Doutov and others. These lasted through the Fall and Winter of 1917. Most of them were furthered by the deposed Mensheviki and Social Revolutionists At one time 50 per cent of the trade union leaders were under arms. The factory workers, the famous Red Guard, rallied and beat them all down.

In the Spring of 1918 the counter-revolutionary forces returned to the struggle with renewed vigor, this time supported by international capitalism. The German troops captured the Ukraine, the English invaded the North, Krassnov and Doutov raged in the Cossack countries. The Checho-Slovaks overran large sections of Siberia and the Volga Valley, Kolchak's White Guards occupied enormous stretches of the East. It was indeed a critical period for the Soviet Republic. Its territory was reduced to only one-tenth of pre-war Russia, and even this small area was seething with counter-revolutionary uprisings. The Workers' Government lost control of the great oil, coal, cotton and grain districts. But one thing it retained, even more precious than all these, that was the loyalty and confidence of the Russian people. This is was that saved it.

In the crisis of 1918 the Red Army was organized. It was vastly superior in methods and organization to the old Red Guard. Little by little, and in the face of unheard of difficulties, it was built up. As soon as it began to take shape the military situation improved. Everywhere the workers' foes were checked, and, in several instances, routed. Kolchak in Siberia, Krasnov in the South, Petlura and Skoropadsky in the Ukraine—all were defeated before the year was out. Throughout 1919 the war raged on many fronts, at times going very badly for the Soviets and threatening to overwhelm them. But by heroic efforts, by the Communists and other workers recklessly sacrificing themselves, the situation was saved, and the armies of Kolchak, Denekin, Yudenitch and others were either demolished or driven out of action before the Winter set in. The British and American troops were held in check. The year 1920 was marked by bitter struggles against Poland in the North and West, and Wrangel in the South. The Soviet troops emerged victorious; peace was established with Poland, and Wrangel was smashed completely.

Thus ended, ingloriously, all of international capitalism's military efforts against Soviet Russa. Before the militant proletarian soldiers, the whole capitalist world had to retreat. Today the great Russian country, three times as large as the United States, is entirely free from armed opposition to the workers' republic. The Soviet Government stands firm, the undisputed victor over all its powerful and treacherous enemies. It has gloriously won the right to peaceful development.

Chapter II: The Soviet Government

II.

THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT.

The present Russian Government is revolutionary in aim and effect. It proposes to, and actually is wiping out every semblance of capitalism and exploitation of the workers through the wages system. Its eventual purpose is to set up a purely Communist, or Socialist, commonwealth in which industrial justice shall reign. This is expressed in the following section of the national Constitution:

"The principal object of the Constitution of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic consists of the establishment (by means of a strong Soviet Government) of the dictatorship of the urban and rural workers, combined with the poorer peasantry, to secure the complete destruction of capitalism, the ending of exploitation of man by man, and the bringing about of Socialism, under which class divisions, and the state coercion arising therefrom, will no longer exist."

Following out these principles, Russia is a real workers' republic. Work is the standard by which it establishes the status of all its people. The nation's official motto, also written into the Constitution, is, "He who does not work, neither shall he eat." Only the workers—including the peasants and soldiers—who are over the age of eighteen have the right to vote or to hold office. No distinction is made because of sex. Capitalists and others who live by exploiting labor are disfranchised and denied all participation in the Government.

Some American labor leaders affect to be horrified by this latter arrangement. They demand "a square deal" and the right to vote for the capitalists and other social parasites. They conveniently forget that these same exploiters, fully conscious that they are engaged in a fight with the workers, seek everywhere to disfranchise them politically as much they can. And their efforts are thoroughly successful. In all the so-called democratic countries they have, through their control of the press and the schools, and by setting up all sorts of sex, residence, property and other voting qualifications, practically cancelled the working class politically and denied it any real say in its own government. Now the revolutionary Russian workers have no illusions about these matters. They face the facts squarely, even if some of our American leaders lack the courage or intelligence to do so. They have taken the measure of the capitalists and know them for what they are: greedy exploiters who perform no useful social service, and who will stop at nothing, not even the systematic poisoning of the people's minds and the causing of frightful wars, in their pursuit of limitless gain and power. Hence, they condemn these anti-social elements and outlaw them. For the Russian workers to admit the capitalists to full citizenship in their republic would be just as stupid and illogical as for American workers to accept employers into their trade unions.

The whole Russian governmental system is founded upon the local Soviets. These exist in all the cities, towns, and villages. They are made up of representatives of the three great branches of the Russian working class: industrial workers, peasants, and soldiers. There are no general elections as we understand the term. The workers elect their Soviet representatives directly at their work-places, the peasants theirs in the village meeting halls, and the soldiers theirs in the barracks. Trade unions, co-operatives, and other working class organizations are also allowed a certain representation directly. Officials of and delegates to the Soviets are always on their good behavior and may be recalled at any time by those who elected them.

The work of the local Soviets is to organize and supervise the social, political, and industrial activities of the people within their respective jurisdictions, bearing in mind, of course, the superior authority of higher governmental organs and the functions of technical, military, and other bodies. Their scope of activity ranges from the simple work of a village Soviet to the complex tasks of running a great metropolis. In Moscow, for instance, the Soviet consists of 21 departments, as follows: Justice; Finance; Military; Postal; Industry; Fuel; Food (securing of supplies); Land; Compulsory Labor; Public Service (water, light, street cars, etc.); Education; Labor; Health; Social Welfare; General Management (police, prisons, marriages, births, deaths, etc.); Statistical; Workers' and Peasants' Control (supervisory); Transportation; Building; Food (distribution); Extraordinary Commis- sion (prevention of counter-revolutionary activities, etc.). All these departments are divided into bureaus which specialize in the thousand and one activities that go to make up the life of a big, modern city.

Above the urban and rural Soviets there is an elaborate governmental structure built upon similar principles which secure organization and homogenity of the workers and their institutions to correspond with the industrial and political divisions of the country. Thus there are Soviets in the ascending territorial scale of volosts, districts, governments, and provinces: which roughly correspond to our townships, counties, congressional districts and states. Each of these Soviets functions as the Government in its particular sphere, naturally not infringing on the work of the Soviets in the spheres above and below it in authority. In every case the higher Soviet is built up of delegates coming from the lower Soviets in its jurisdiction. Thus a district Soviet consists of representatives of all the volost Soviets in its territory, etc., up to the highest forms. At all stages of the Soviet organization the delegates may be recalled at any time by their constituents.

The general Soviet pyramid comes to its apex in the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. This is the supreme Governmental body of the Russian Republic. It meets approximately every six months. Between its sessions the social control of the country is supervised by the Central Executive Committee. This committee is composed of 200 members, selected from among the assembled delegation of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets.

Next to the Central Executive Committee, and chosen from its ranks, stands the Council of People's Commissars. This body is really the Cabinet of Russia and actually superintends the carrying out of all important policies. It also has considerable legislative power between Congresses. There are 17 Commissars, one for each of the following Departments: Foreign Affairs; War; Marine; Interior; Justice; Labor; Social Insurance; Education; Posts, Telegraphs and Telephones; Nationality Affairs (Russia being a federation of many nationalities), Finance; Transportation; Agriculture; Food; Workers' and Peasants' Control; Supreme Economic Council; and Public Hygiene. The work of the Council of Peoples' Commissars is subject to the veto of the Central Executive Committee, and both of these bodies are responsible to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets.