IS THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT A SUCCESS?

...Any doubts such a person may still have will be dispelled by the frequency and vehemence with which foreign governments will continue to support counterrevolution, the willingness on the part of great powers to finance petty "Republics" in every attack on the new system, and the promptness and efficiency with which all such attempts will be frustrated by the Soviet Government...

...There are schools in which text-books are entirely lacking, in which sabotage by the bourgeois intellectual elements has prevented teachers' positions from being filled by any but amateur persons, in which there is not a single pen-point among 150 children...

...Alfons Goldschmidt, a German Communist who visited Russia in May 1920, wrote a book that some enterprising American publisher should print in English, in which interesting scenes recur—of bourgeois cavaliers and ladies sipping ices on the outer boulevards of Moscow, of dinner parties with great roasts and flowing wines, of intimate interiors with rouged faces, silk peignoirs and expensive stockings...

...The beneficiaries may be a feudal aristocracy, or a commercial bounderdom, or mixtures of the two in various proportions, but it has always been a case of a few privileged groups taking it out of the hides of the rest of the population, of the oppressed classes...

...Condemnation of the Rule by the Czar By JACOB WITTMER HARTMANN WHEN CZARISM still prevailed in Russia, criticisms of the autocracy were frequent in the literature of Europe and America, and no newspaper was too insignificant to voice its protest against "the rule of the knout," "the little white father," "Siberian exile," and the various other objects of the disapproval of the comfortable and vehement litterateurs...

...In the titanic conflict, those bourgeois elements that were unwilling to work with the Soviet Government have been driven into foreign camps, and are now open enemies, but enemies without, not enemies within—and, if the pun be permitted, enemies without any native proletariat to exploit...

...The new Government of Russia, the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, has also meant failure for certain classes...

...But this badly inked sheet of paper, with its almost unreadable type, will accept no advertisements for pay...

...he has recently (1918) formulated their teachings in very concise shape in his "The State and Revolution"—that the State, the engine by which one class has oppressed another (in present-day society, except in Russia, capitalism oppresse and exploits the proletariat), is seized by the uprising class in successful revolution, and is immediately used by the successful class for precisely the function which it discharged while in the possession of the other, now displaced class,—namely, in order to oppress the class not now in power...

...They now share in the exploitation of the proletariats of those nations who are united by their joint efforts at intervention...

...And in the school the child is taught—if not book-learning, which will come later—then at least the revolutionary spirit without which Russia's proletariat will get nothing, the spirit that will still be called upon to fight the blockade, as it has already successfully fought Kornilov, Kaledin, Kolchak, Denikin, Yudenich, Wrangel, and, indirectly, their imperialistic backers in Paris, Downing Street, and elsewhere...

...To the school come the children from many homes, while their parents are engaged in the productive toil on which the State is based...

...A successful school of the foreign type, with all its vestiges and traditions, its lack of inspiration and the resulting-indifference of the children, would not be a good thing in Soviet Russia, in spite of all its technical efficiency...

...unless their linotype machines were repaired...

...In the school the child will be told why it is that there is...

...From some standpoints, Czarist Russia was a success...

...When criticisms are against the Soviet Government on the ground that it is oppressive, the reader will therefore recall that it does not pretend to be otherwise...

...The essence of the bourgeoisie, or of the feudal nobility, is its exclusiveness: its continued existence depends on the presence of masses to exploit...

...Work in the Schools IN belittling the accomplishments of the Soviet Government, its enemies often make use of the fact that certain specific things are not done, and we may add that the official accounts of the Soviet leaders, as published by the Soviet Government itself, make mention frequently of deficiencies in many of its activities, that no other government would admit...

...e., non-exploiting rulers) at any time...

...that the very theory on which the Russian proletariat displaced the Russian bour-geosie and feudal aristcracy was that those classes would be oppressed out of existence, that is, denied the right to live except insofar as they might be willing to relinquish their pretensions to the right of exploitation, and to enter the new ruling class, the proletariat, by themselves assuming a part in the productive life of the community...

...Likewise, the great army of successful bureaucrats (engineers, military officers, the clergy, the university faculties, and similar groups), who were segregated by the old social system in Russia, as they till are in all other countries, for a life of indulgence, pleasure, and command, could not, in the full acceptance of their condition, an acceptance which was almost universal, regard the system that thus segregated them, as a bad one, although it no doubt endowed them with moral weaknesses that they have since had causes to regret...

...We could examine other institutions, as we have examined the school and the newspaper, and would find that in spite of many deficiencies—which the Soviet Government, in its eagerness to improve conditions, far from concealing them, actually proclaims—they operate with unusual success in attaining the great goal which is the reason why proletarian governments accept so many sacrifices—the pushing of the bourgeoisie and the privileged into the working-class, after which all oppression may cease and real civilization begin...

...not paper enough to go around for lessons, why there are not text-books and pen-points, what forces must be put down by the Red Army before freedom to trade with foreign nations, and—what is more important,—freedom to proceed undisturbed with the tasks of internal reconstruction may be secured...

...For the governing class in Czarist Russia, and for its numerous satellites, the old system was not bad, at any rate not SO bad as to arouse unfavorable reactions in any but a very sensitive portion of their number...

...The nearest thing to a strike that ever occurred in Soviet Russia was when the linotypers at the Moscow Government printing offices threatened last year to quit work, in the interest of the Revolution...

...No such organization can pay for enormous advertisements in Izvestya or Pravda, and demand as a condition for placing the advertising, the elimination of smaller announcements that might be of real use or interest to the poor reader...

...The Russian newspaper may not, therefore, be a paragon of efficiency, of the capitalist stamp, but it is not hindered in spreading the truth, in the manner in which capitalist newspapers are hindered...

...Their failure to find in the Russia of the Romanovs any traits which they regarded as favorable naturally led them to condemn that regime as bad...

...Newspapers of Russia MUCH has here been made of the fact that a school system that may seem to be a failure in the eyes of the Western World may yet be one of the vehicles by which the Soviet Government gains in increasing strength the affection of its citizens...

...All society has been, and is, CLASS society...

...The Russian newspapers should also receive a word of mention...

...But in Russia, the oppressed class has become the oppressing class, and the oppressors are being driven gradually into the proletariat...

...Steffeas is correct, and that only fifty percent of the powers formerly wielded by the bourgeoisie for exploitation have been abolished: this would yet not fully state the vastness of the change...

...During the class period of the world's history, in other words, in all of the history of the world of which our records hitherto have spoken, every new system of government—every system that was really new—has raised new classes into power and thrown out other classes...

...To Americans they look smudgy and badly printed: their type is small and the linotype machines are not all in good order, as the appearance of the printed lines easily shows...

...For, suceess is not an abstract thing: it means accomplishment—and accomplishment of a definite thing, the thing whose accomplishment was planned...

...To a lesser extent, it was a success for the merchant and industrial magnates...

...In their vain efforts to maintain the Russian bourgeoisie erect against the Russian proletariat, the bourgeoisie of all the rest of the world, which means the governments of the rest of the world—for all governments are instruments by which one class, in this case the bourgeoisie, holds down another—is exhausting its power by allowing its lifeblood (its money, its prestige over its own proletariat, its financial strength) to flow out through the wound by which the Russian bourgeoisie would otherwise have long ago bled to death...

...The Russian bourgeoisie has been dealt so serious a wound, that the bourgeoisie of all the world is bleeding through it...

...The reader should reflect what it means to have no "Russia First Publicity Organization," in the pay of internal counter-revolutionists and foreign governments, permitted to purchase space in Russian newspapers, and thus to distort and corrupt the minds of the Russian people...

...Of course, it is proper to consider this question quantitatively, and not only theoretically...

...they may, indeed they must, ultimately cease opposing the victorious proletariat, and then they actually enter its ranks as fellow-workers...

...In general, their sympathy was with the Russian oppressed, not with the Russian oppressor, and the reader may later see why this was the case...

...Russia Was a Failure THE old Russia was a success while it was in operation, for the classes administering the system, and the system operated satisfactorily only within those classes...

...Is it quantitatively true that the whole Russian bourgeoisie has been driven either abroad or into the proletariat...

...This oppressed class in the old Russia was the poor peasantry in the country and the industrial proletariat in the cities...

...Has the Soviet Government achieved its plan: the seizure of power by the proletariat, and the inauguration of what should promise to be a complete, successful, and final elimination of the former exploiting classes...

...Definite Plans Ahead THIS theoretical introduction is necessary when we attempt to answer the question: "Is the Soviet Government Successful...

...Lincoln Steffens, in a recent address, in evaluating the accomplishments of the Soviet Government, after arbitrarily fixing at fifty the number, of the various evil influences formerly at work in Russia, and assuming that only twenty of these fifty were economic in their nature, while the remaining thirty might include such vicious forces as personal vanity, self-seeking, neglect, cruelty, and the other characteristics that are found in abundant measure wherever man has settled down, proceeded definitely to assert that in Russia ten of the twenty had been eliminated, and though all the remaining forty be still operative, the change was so profound that the whole face of life in Russia had changed...

...Especially in countries having no extensive military establishments, the Czarist Government was condemned for the autocratic and arbitrary privileges granted to the military and bureaucratic classes, as well as for the powers the Government had to interfere in private business, even to eliminate private business entirely, for instance, by the practice of Government monopoly, in the manufacture of playing cards, spirits, and in other fields...

...Similar condemnation has since been extended to the Imperial Government of Germany, and also to other autocratic monarchies...

...A moment's reflection will show why an assumption of power by the bourgeiosie or the feudal nobility cannot hold out any such prospect to a vanquished proletariat...

...Unfavorable criticism of the system usually emanates from those not benefited by its operation...

...The Soviet Government is only a process: no one pretends that it is the final form of society in Russia or anywhere else, but that it has thus far been immensely successful in initiating the condition of a classless society, no serious-minded person can doubt...

...Every administrative system is a success for the class in whose interest the system is run, and a failure for those whose exploitation is the basis of the system...

...It was certainly a success from the standpoint of the Czar, for, while no individual Czar had created the vast administrative bur-aucratic organization of which he was the head, the whole system nevertheless was so completely revolving about him as a center, and at least so completely and permanently kept him in the spotlight, that, aside from prolonged periods of satiety and boredom, the Czars must have experienced frequent moments of very solid and convincing satisfaction...

...When "liberal' opinion in countries outside of Russia (no less than in Russia itself) condemned the system of government of that country, it must be that it was not judging conditions from the standpoint of the Russian governing class, while there is much evidence of later origin to show that the standpoint of the critics was that of the governing class of other nations...

...It has meant failure for all those classes of which we have spoken above as sharing in the "success" of the Czarist regime, for those classes have been cast out from society, have even, to a certain extent, been physically eliminated...

...it may continue in part to live as it lived when it was the legitimate power in the state, but the forces are actively working in Russia that will make such living seem dishonorable in a few years...

...For instance, reports of the educational situation in the provinces, of an appalling lack of supplies in the elementary schools, are often seen...

...For the half that is still left has been neutralized, disarmed: it may not use the press, the church, the schools, the theatres, the moving pictures, as vehicles to continue its former campaign of mystification and conclusion...

...In the school also, the child receives its warm meals, and its infrequent allotments of warm clothing...

...In the school the child is sheltered in warm rooms, warmer than those the State can as yet assign to the parents...

...No other country in Europe presents any essential differences from this picture, either before 1914 or after...

...Suppose Mr...

...No doubt it has meant failure for the Czar, for death would be included in any widely current definition of failure...

...Incidentally it may be observed, the proletariat is the only class that can ever voluntarily relinquish its oppression of the displaced classes, for the latter may become proletarians (i...

...Bourgeois critics have called attention to the fact that the great educational program of the Soviet Government is largely a paper one, and that often the schools are not used for regular instruction at all, the children being simply entertained in them for a few hours each day with the singing of revolutionary songs after which -they are sent back to their homes without having received any teaching in the conventional sense But it should he borne in mind that the school in Soviet Russia, even in those places in which it may not yet give regular instruction, is nev-theless a cultural center of the very highest importance...

...Furthermore, all the little school chores, the ordering of rooms, cleaning up, repairing clothing, tending the fires, are done by the children themselves, and thus, early in life—there is no degraded staff of cleaners and janitors, who are set aside for dirty work only—the child learns the necessity of collective work, is prepared to understand its later activities under the Code of Labor Laws of Soviet Russia, which impose upon every citizen the duty to work, and necessarily, as a corollary of this obligation, grant him the right to work: a right which seems precious indeed in seasons of unemployment, when capitalists may, in other countries, determine whether the worker has a right to work or not...

...The author of this article understands the last sentence as a prediction...

...For the peasant, the small trader, the city proletarian, Russia was a failure...

...It was the opinion of Marx and Engels—and Lenin has always shared their conviction on this subject...

...Bad for whom...

...These things have apparently not entirely passed away in Moscow...

...We still hear many tales of bourgeois persons living in luxury in Moscow, doing no work, and "earning" thousands—even millions—of rubles by "speculating": selling things the Soviet Government does not permit them to own, shifting from one hand to another properties the transfer of which is prohibited by the Soviet Government, hoarding great sums in depreciated ruble notes, in spite of the limits that the Soviet Government has set to the amounts that may be held by individuals...

...This view of the Soviet Russian school may therefore suggest that other institutions also, inefficient though they may appear to Western eyes, may nevertheless be Carrying on a work of solidification and con-struction that is unknown in other countries...

...But they are passing, and of all the things that are passing it is a characteristic trait that the passing of the exploitation on which these dubious privileges are based is the one fact that arouses indignation and rage all over that portion of the world that is so persistently and tenaciously designated as "civilized...

...It has done so...