RUSSIAN UPRISING; SOCIAL REVOLUTION
Russian Uprising; Social Revolution Educator Explains it is not to be Classed with Series of Uprisings Which Resulted in Existing Order of Society. Aims to Sweep Chaotic Conditions Away The...
...If we look at Russia as a mob of 180,000,-000 people at the mercy day by day of tho particular bad man who makes the biggest noise, we can only arrive at confusion and despair...
...Under the Czar the masses of the Russian people had become more than anti-Czar...
...In the struggle, however, he had not only alienated most of the Russian rank and file, but he had proved too radical for the western diplomats to fasten to...
...Lenine was the accepted leader of the Bolsheviks...
...To them it was the Czar's war, and their only part in it was to fight or be shot...
...Beyond that their aims were different...
...That itself helped to stiffen up the Russian ranks...
...The diplomats of the Allies denied their request...
...Bolsheviks and Mensheviks united to put down that revolution...
...Separate Peace Not the Aim T'lE CZAR INTERPOSED his stupid tyranny and they deposed the Czar...
...He belonged to a small group whose aim it was to bring the two factions into harmony...
...Kerensky put a stop to that and personally led the first offensive...
...They do not believe the German people want to fight a Kaiser's war, any more than they wished to fight for the Czar...
...A New Family of Revolutions WHEN THE CZAR was overthrown, America applauded...
...And even while their representatives are In conference with the German envoys, they are bombarding Germany by air with appeals to rise against the Kaiser...
...It contradicts every proved scientific principle...
...There it was carried, and the Executive Committee, composed of Kerensky's main backers, automatically resigned...
...In Russia they don't believe that, and they don't believe that the capitalists of England and America be* lieved it...
...The Russian troops had been fraternizing with the Germans, trying to stir up revolution across the border...
...Just what reward did he receive...
...They put a man of their own in power with quite definite instructions as to what he should do...
...The Mensheviks were more patient, more opportunistic, more practical, but not less radical, in their acceptance of the complete Socialist ideal...
...From the time that Kerensky assumed command, the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies was the real governing body of Russia...
...The capitalists wanted freedom td extend business and trade...
...He was a student in Russia at the outbreak of the Japanese war, became a soldier, was decorated for bravery by the Government, and was later imprisoned for taking a prominent part in the revolution of 11)05...
...there must be no compromise with that...
...The Government which sent Root to Russia was first to deny passports to the elected Socialist delegates...
...There never was such a place and there never will be...
...That was the overthrow of the Czar...
...They had come to antagonize the whole system of exploitation, including the exploitation of the working class by those who happen to own the land and capital of the .world...
...They hope sincerely that the Germans will do this, and it must be remembered that they know more about what is going on in Germany than any other nation on earth...
...Thus he seemed to retain the support of the workers and soldiers, while distinctly not carrying out their programme...
...They have said so to Lenine...
...New Russia vs...
...These revolutionary parties had one interest in common with the more progressive capitalists of Russia...
...The Social Revolutionists concerned themselves mostly with the problems of the peasants, the land problem...
...Upon Kerensky, then, there fell a problem which would tax the resources of a superman...
...It does not seem possible to me that extended civil war can result from such a situation...
...Thesa revolutions, however, were not of the same family of revolutions as the one in Russia which began with the unseating of tho Czar...
...The United States then sent a "fraternal" commission to Russia...
...Socialist votes...
...Now they have given the same instructions to another group of representatives, and to all appearances these instructions are being carried out...
...This Council was the recognized voice of the mass of the Russian people, and it was expected to exercise the powers it did exercise until the Constituent Assembly was duly installed...
...The United States had just entered the war "to make the world safe for democracy...
...Kerensky, who had persistently postponed the calling of the Constituent Assembly, had never challenged the power of the Council...
...But the strong-man theory ot history was so deeply rooted in the American mind that this conflict of economic interests could not be grasped...
...The Constituent Assembly had not yet been elected and the organization of the Workers and Soldiers was the nation's only representative voice...
...It was assumed throughout Russia that this action carried with it the downfall of the Kerensky Government...
...Americans, as a rule, do not grasp the meaning of theso Russian uprisings—in the first place, because there has been such a successful effort to keep the explanation from them, ang In the second place because Americans are so commonly committed to tho assumption that history is made by "great men...
...The only fighting opposition so far has not come from any democratic groups...
...So they organized their Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies, who made demands upon the Provisional Government to demand from the Allies a statement of war aims and to initiate a movement for a general, negotiative peace...
...They had not entered the war, as America did, by representative deliberation...
...Where Kerensky Failed THE STOCKHOLM COXFEREXCE was said to bo a German trick...
...And the democratic countries upon whom the Russian revolutionists had banked tho most were always the first to oppose their revolutionary moves...
...Was it certain that they did not have imperialistic or capitalistic designs...
...Their first elections showed that the Russian mind was overwhelmingly Socialist...
...It was during that revolution that he first met Trotzky, who was then Vice President of the first Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Delegates.—Xote of Editor...
...Scene Is Changed •yHEN SUDDENLY we became aware that the * "bad man," the "German spy," had overthrown Kerensky...
...Leon Trotzky was neither...
...Cause and effect still hold sway in Russia...
...For exactly the siftne reason the subsequent overthrow of Kerensky could not be understood, for the same forces which placed Kerensky in command took that command away, and they are forces which have never functioned in history before...
...The Russian people represented by the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, do not want a German peace...
...One of this country's chief boasts was that she had no Czar and that act of revolution seemed neither anarchistic nor insane...
...And the very day this counterrevolution was launched it was hailed by the press in England and America as the solution of the Russian problem...
...We sent Elihu Root...
...They said so to Kerensky...
...They said so to Miliukoff...
...Kerentky's despairing Interview, given out a few days before the Bolshevik uprising, tells the story...
...So far, however, the Russian Government had accomplished nothing to this end, and the representative of the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies who was sent to France to participate in the Allied Conference was not permitted to take his seat...
...Alexander...
...If the Russian Revolution is to be understood, it must be classified not with the series of revolutions which resulted in the existing order of society but as the first of a new series whose aim it is to sweep that order away...
...The Allied Governments dissented...
...or, at best, the French Revolution— the political change which occurred in the transition from feudalism to capitalism...
...The progressive capitalists 60uglit to set up a limited monarchy in his place, and they overthrew the Government which made the attempt...
...They have fraternized for months with the German troops, and they believe that the German people are ripe for revolution...
...Kerensky still trained with the Allied diplomats, but no doubt was expressed as to his aims...
...and it will do no one any good to assume that there Is...
...Even when Americans began to accept Kerensky they did not appreciate this fundamental reason for his selection...
...Was it the case of a villain entering to bedevil the situation...
...As far as the Socialist factions led by Lenine and Kerensky are concerned, it is a battle of ideas and not a conflict of interests, while the parties who do represent interests in opposition to the working class are too small numerically to wage successful war...
...It had been the intention of the workers and soldiers to let these gentlemen run the Government, only making sure that a Socialist, Kerensky, had charge of the Department of Justice, so that their political prisoners would be freed and their life and liberty secured...
...It was neither...
...All we are permitted to get here is the occasional despatch telling of mutiny in the German Navy or some overwhelming Socialist election like that in Leipzig, where tho Independent Socialists, the Liebknecht group, polled 64 per cent, of the 78 per cent...
...Supposed Kerensky Would Resign SO LEON TROTZKY introduced a resolution In the Petrograd Council urging upon the Government to take immediate, aggressive action toward bringing about a general peace...
...It has come from the Cossacks, whose heritage it has always been to keep down the revolution...
...There was no fundamental opposition between the two, nor between the two factions of the latter party, the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks...
...Now the Czar had been overthrown, and while they would fight"a people's war, if necessary, they would have to know just what they were fighting for...
...The Social Democratic Labor' Party concerned itself mostly with the problems of the industrial workers...
...He is a graduate of Trinity College and Yale University...
...Americans shuddered and wept while the melodrama went on, but they seemed to be convinced that it wasn't real and that the villain would be punished in the last act...
...Trotzky has given this message to the world and was only voicing the consistently stated will of the Russian people when he announced that, if the German Government stands in the way of a democratic peace, as promulgated by the Revolutionary Democracy of Russia, the Russian people will prosecute the war against the Imperial Government as it prosecuted the revolution...
...It designated that faction of the party which was seemingly most impatient to put through the whole Socialist programme...
...They have wanted a general peace, and have held the belief that a temporary armistice would make it possible...
...Trotzky carried it to the whole Council, comprising 2,000 members...
...So the new Government, acting upon the mandate of the Council, appealed to all the Allies to restate their war aims—to come to a general agreement as to acceptable terms of peace...
...Suspicion of the aims of the Allied Governments grew apace...
...Such a view gets us nowhere...
...For although the working people did most of the fighting in these revolutions, they were not, strictly speaking, working class revolutions...
...The general explanation given for his support was that he was the "strong man" needed in the particular crisis which Russia faced...
...in something the same way, perhaps, the villain usually does such things ou Broadway, by telling dirty lies about the hero to all the "good" people in the company;—those good people, by the way, always being so dense and unsuspecting that they never fail to let him get away with it...
...Aims to Sweep Chaotic Conditions Away The following article, reprinted from the New York World, is an interpretation of the Russian situation from the peculiar standpoint of a Russian revolutionist, a close acquaintance of Leon Trotzky, who, although not a "Bolshevik;' sympathizes in every way with the present Provisional Government's attitude toicard tear and peace...
...Trachtcnberg, the writer is now director of the Bureau of Research in the Rand School of Social Science in Ncto York, and the school's lecturer on the labor movement and labor legislation...
...From that body alone he had his real credentials...
...Russia's worst enemy seemed to be German militarism...
...It was easier to look upon Kerensky as a "strong man" and Lenine as a "bad man," and let it go at that...
...Old Diplomacy BOLSHEVIK does not mean bad man...
...They didn't want to be hampered by stupid feudalism, but they were generally in favor of what is called an imperialistic programme, and accepted the war as theirs...
...Korniloff, who stood for capital punishment, the return of the hated discipline in the Russian Army and the abolition of the soldiers' committees...
...But the Russians have been getting first-hand information...
...The parties of the working classes had no interest in the imperialistic programme...
...But Miliukoff and Lvoff soon demonstrated that they had nothing in common with this voice of the masses, so the Council forced them to resign and placed the Socialist at the helm...
...They wanted a general peace, and they wanted Russia to take the initiative in bringing it about...
...America had never thought of unseating her Miliukoffs, and the act could not be understood...
...but they did not want a separate peace...
...BY ALEXANDER TRACHTEXBERG IT IS THE PROPER THING today in America to refer to the situation in Russia as an infinite bedlam...
...There was no war and comparatively little disorder...
...The American idea of revolution is the American Revolution...
...Was it a case ot sudden conversion of the masses to the economic theories of Lenine...
...Nono of tho revolutions or the counter-revolutions which have happened there are any less intelligible than our American Revolution or our Civil War...
...But if we conceive of this as not merely a political revolution, but as one hitting at the very structure of modern economic and social life and paving the way to an entirely new order, the events take their place in most logical sequence...
...They think, rightly or wrongly, that international capitalism opposed such a conference, not for fear it would be a fizzle, but for fear it would be a success...
...The Russian people wanted peace...
...The Korniloff counter-revolution...
...It is a place, we are told, which has suddenly become detached from the natural laws that govern the evolution of nations, a country where disorder seems to be looked upon as the supreme virtue, and where revolutions may henceforth be expected daily, not because of any particular political aim to bo attained, but because of some evil impulse to revolute...
...But with each new development which I have recounted, the ranks of the Bolsheviks grew and the ranks of the Kerensky followers dwindled...
...One thing Is certain...
...Miliukoff and Prince Lvoff ignored these demands...
...This resolution was defeated in the Executive Committee of the Council...
...Council Represented Whole Nation NOW AS TO THAT BOLSHEVIK UPRISING, what was it...
...The facts are not hard to understand...
...But he did not resign, and so another Provisional Government was installed...
...The interests which were supporting Kerensky in his controversies with the Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies.were never under this delusion...
...Failing to get any statement of war aims from the diplomats, the Council called for an international Socialist conference in Stockholm...
...To them Kerensky was merely the choice of two evils, and they deserted him at the first faint chance to turn Russia over to more conservative rule...
...Such prestige might lead to social revolution in other countries, including Germany, and they would rather have the Kaiser keep his tlirone than to have him lose it to the Socialists...
...It was a charge that the Allies had failed Russia and that Russia could do no more...
...By due process of election, a new committee favoring Lenine's and Trotzky's attitude toward peace was installed...
...But how about the other countries...
...They formed tho rank and file of the soldiers, who had not even been consulted about the war and didn't know why it was being fought...
...I was a Menshevik...
...Ho was a tried Socialist, a tried revolutionist...
...The Socialists of the world agreed...
...It is the diagnosis of the dark ages, the verdict of superstition, the ipse dixit of those who either cannot or will not look the facts squarely in the face...
...He failed to do it and they deposed him...
...a vast territory, with 189,000,000 once human beings, possessed of the devil and given over to the unreasoning rule of hysteria and chaos...
...Kerensky ruled by permission of the Council...
...But the will of the Russian people is not and never has been to make a separate peace...
...It explains nothing...
...But when Miliukoff was unseated a few weeks later America gasped...
...If he had an ambition to be dictator, it was for no personal aggrandizement...
...Just how he did it we never took the pains to ascertain...
...Russia is not that kind of a place...
...Kerensky had worked like a superman to keep up the war until such time as New Russia could come to complete agreement with her allies...
...They had their differences in regard to tactics, but they ' were one in their ultimate aims...
...They didn't want the Socialists to have the prestige of bringing about peace, was the Russian conclusion...
Vol. 10 • January 1918 • No. 1
