Published: in The New Policies of Soviet Russia, a collection of essays by Bukharin, Lenin, and Rutgers, published by Charles H. Kerr & Company, apparently in late 1921. Rutgers's essay appears on pages 65-127. The essay also appeared in The Communist Review,vol. 2, no. 2, December 1921.
Transcription/Markup: Micah Muer, 2021.
Whilst the conquest of the power by the working class seemed a thing of the far future, the question of the difficulties which subsequently would arise was not much thought about. Most of us supposed it would all be plain sailing afterwards, and this for two reasons. In the first place, because it was taken for granted that, by the time of the capture of power by the proletariat, capitalistic society would have attained to a degree of technical and economic perfection that would ensure sufficiency to all. And in the second place because no doubt was felt about the attitude of the intellectuals; they were sure to adapt themselves to the new order and would prove the allies of the conquering proletariat since,–as was assumed–their chances, material and intellectual, would be better in a socialistic society than in the present one, weighed down by the ever increasing pressure of trust-capital. A serious disturbance in the apparatus of production need not be feared, we thought, the importance of the capitalist's role in the actual control of industry being on the wane, as it was, and there seemed no grave difficulties in the way of the reconstruction of society under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
It was, of course plain, that a fierce fight would have to be fought for the conquest of the power, but in this very fight the workers and their organs of class struggle would develop new energies, and thus contribute to the simplification of the problem.
This then, was the current conception of the matter. But Russia reality wears a very different aspect.
In the first place, the establishment of the workers' dictatorship was rendered possible and necessary in Russia–and this will in all probability hold good for further developments of the world-revolution also–as a consequence of the collapse of capitalistic society. Not in abundance but in misery the New Society is born.
Even before the world-war it was plain that Capitalism was past its creative period of still increasing technical perfection of the apparatus of production. Imperialism had no use for the overwhelming masses of the means of production it manufactured, and sought salvation in extension rather than in intensification by means of an improved technique. Likewise, the tendency to transfer industries to regions not yet opened up, where raw materials and labor are cheap, means a lowering of the average standard of technical power. And, in addition there set in an ever-increasing waste of capital in unproductive expenses, speculative enterprises, etc., culminating in the world-war, which in its turn, overshot the mark, and converted the process of capitalist development into the opposite direction.
Not only has capital proved incapable of further growth, and has it become a hindrance to the natural development of the productive forces, but it has, once more, revealed a sad truth, to-wit, that a class does not die, without defending itself to the very last, resorting to the utmost extremities of cruelty and corruption. From Denikin to Lloyd George, the leaders of reaction, have to a man, shown themselves absolutely devoid of human feeling; without pity or shame they have pushed on over hills of dead and through deserts of misery for the sole sake of putting off though even for a single day, the downfall of a system which history has doomed. The entire capitalist class is determined to drown society in blood and let civilization, material and intellectual, crash down into the bottomless abyss of universal ruin and chaos, rather than of its free will, concede to the proletariat one single position of power.
It is a consequence of the class-struggle which some of us have perhaps shrunk from facing in this, its fierce extreme, that classes in power maintain themselves as long as they have products at their disposal to bribe parts of the working classes, and materials to make weapons of for the destruction of rebels. We see this day in Russia, and we know both by theory and by practice, that Communist Society can arise only after a terrific struggle, which, in destroying the power of capital must at the same time damage, and, partly, destroy the possibilities of production. The sneering phrase of "the Socialism of hunger" expresses a terrible truth which may, possibly, prove more terrible to Western Europe than, even, to Russia.
And the attitude of the intellectuals as a group in the widest meaning of the word, is, in part at least, determined by this circumstance. Toward the Social Revolution the attitude of the intellectual as a social group has always been one of dislike, and the gulf between workers and intellectuals has gradually widened and deepened. This is pretty generally admitted even by men like, for instance, Dr. Max Adler, who, nevertheless expects great things for the Social Revolution from the intellectuals. In "Socialism and the Intellectuals" he writes (p. 23): "The very class-antagonism which, finally, by arousing its class-consciousness, compels the proletariat to further culture, drives the intellectuals into the camp which most strenuously opposes this craving for culture, the camp of the bourgeoisie".
The attitude of University undergraduates in the various countries likewise points towards an increasingly reactionary temper even amongst this flower of the intellectual flock.
In the capitalistic system the degree up to which middle-class intellectuals are able to achieve a relative independence in matters material and mental, is determined by the bourgeoisie's valuation of their services; and not only this, but their culture in itself is, moreover, necessarily culture of a bourgeois order. The environment and the education of the intellectual have this for their one aim. The idiotic school system, which all but absolutely bars general culture in order to waste time upon all kinds of irrelevant information which, if eventually needed, may be had from any handbook; the burden of lessons to be learned by rote and work to be done at home, which prevents future intellectuals from gathering any experience of life in their leisure hours; the promoting of an exaggerated and consequently senseless sport: all this, as a system of education, compares only with military drill which, of set purpose, day by day, for months at a time, in an all but absolutely stupefying manner, repeats a score of movements and exercises which the dullest might easily master within a few weeks, and this, avowedly, in order to deaden the intellect and enforce a habit of mechanical obedience. The little world of the University undergraduate, fenced off from real life, outwardly and seemingly "free" and the secluded circle, animated by an arrogant caste-spirit, in which army officers move, are means to one and the same end: the maintaining of exploitation. Even to workers the process of emancipation from bourgeois ways of thinking and bourgeois culture is the principal hindrance in their struggle for freedom; how much the more then must this be the case with bourgeois and semi-bourgeois intellectuals!
And in this respect, class antagonisms have not, of late years, lessened, but on the contrary, they have increased. Imperialist-nationalist ideology has conquered the whole bourgeois-intellectual world. This ideology was the promotor of the past war as it is the abetter of the war in the midst of which we now live and of the war which is bound to come.
The fact that it is precisely the intellectuals who generally speaking are the propagandists of Imperialism, is not a mere accident. Extension of the world-power of capital means extension of bourgeois culture over all the earth, and, therewith, extension of the possibilities, material and other, which favor the apostles of bourgeois culture and the adepts of bourgeois science. It opens perspectives which make one forget the deadly monotony of a drudge's existence, forget material and moral slavery. The more desperate the reality of bourgeois life, the more passionate, and utterly reckless the ardor with which the more energetic among them embraces this new ideal. Pioneers of science, engineers, ministers of religion, soldiers, politicians, and journalists leaving their study, sally forth to the conquest of the world, penetrating into the farthest recesses of Asia and Africa. And the home-stayers have a new task in keeping down by fraud and by force the tumultuous masses, the "enemies of culture". The means at their disposal are abundant, and, if they should prove insufficient for the purpose, promises are given the more readily. The process of corruption has penetrated deeply into the layers of skilled labor itself.
All this hardly makes it probable that intellectuals should prove helpful in the building up of Communist Society. It is contended that under Communism conditions of life will be better, for intellectuals as for others, than they are or possibly can be, under the present regime, for the overwhelming majority. This, however, seems exceedingly improbable for the transitional period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, with which the present generation has chiefly, if not exclusively, to reckon.
The Russian Revolution has demonstrated the fact that, on the whole, bourgeois intellectuals do not readily adapt themselves to the new order of things. The causes are obvious. As was inevitable in so great a general impoverishment, the preference accorded to the claims of the workers caused detriment to all the privileged classes. And this not only materially, as in the matter of food, clothes and housing, but also in many things which we are accustomed to consider as pertaining to the mental and moral privilege of bourgeois culture: a certain outward refinement, a sense of recognized superiority, the ready disposal of manifold resources of art and science.
As to the last-named point, it may perhaps be objected that the new Workers' Government in this very matter makes the utmost exertions to promote and render accessible to the generality both art and science. But it should, at the same time, not be forgotten that socializing a thing means restricting the rights of the few who formerly had the exclusive disposal of it. Partly, too, efforts take a different direction; and, as to important resources which cannot, without further preparation, be made accessible to the masses, these are reserved for the building up of the new life, and this, again, entails restrictions upon individual use. Lastly, to the intellectual prejudiced by bourgeois thought and habit of mind, the new surroundings are most depressive, so as to seriously impair his capacity for work.
It has been said: "the workers stand for a new culture, and this must draw the intellectuals to them".
But the culture of the intellectuals is not culture in the absolute sense, but bourgeois culture; and bourgeois culture is not only alien but even inimical to proletarian culture.
What is more: proletarian culture cannot exist but by conquering bourgeois culture; and this is one of the most radical processes of the proletarian revolution. Monopoly must be destroyed not in production only; not in material output only must bureaucratic leadership be replaced by the active co-operation of all and each, but the same thing must be achieved for science, art and all culture in general. Since then, intellect must be absorbed into the mass, the bourgeois intellectuals as a class must be destroyed, it is somewhat naive to count on the support of these very intellectuals.
If and in so far as bourgeois intellectuals obtain the lead in the proletarian revolution and the building up of the new society, and exert a preponderant influence upon the new system of production and the new culture, it will be to the harm of the Proletarian Revolution. For, as monopolists of bourgeois culture, the intellectuals must be the very last to be able to see and solve the new problems.
This sets the workers a difficult task, and it will be well to examine the manner in which these difficulties cropped up in Russia, and the degree in which they were or were not overcome.
As a preliminary remark, it will of course, be evident that the attitude and development of the intellectuals as a social group must be considered in the first place.
Single individuals of the bourgeois intellectual middle-class join the workers' class; it is plain they do so, and logical that they should; since they are members of a middle-class. These individuals of course, can do useful work, even though, as is probable, they should in many cases prove unable to keep up with the progress of the revolution, especially if that progress be a rapid one. These elements may even be said to constitute an indispensable factor in the transition from bourgeois to proletarian society. As it is necessary to take over and use the technical resources of capitalism for the building up of the new world, so it is necessary, and necessary in an even higher degree, to take over and use the results of science and experience, upon which this technique is based. It is true these are, partly, to be found in books; but these books too are as yet accessible only by the aid of specialists. And for the education of the new generation we still, in the main, must look to the bourgeois intellectual world for teachers. This co-operation of the old and the new renders, therefore, all the more necessary a lengthy period of proletarian dictatorship, in which the proletariat must acquire the mental qualities demanded by the new society. In this process members of the intellectual class who have broken with bourgeois culture form, of course, important elements. They, in a manner, betray the secrets of the power of their class to the enemy; small wonder if, as the struggle grows hotter, the full measure of the exploiters' hatred is poured out on them.
The number of these who thus change sides will, however, necessaily [sic], be relatively small; and an absolute breaking with the past, also in respect of matters of the mind, may and must be demanded. All the same, this refers to exceptional cases, which are not conclusive for our attitude towards the intellectuals as a social phenomenon.
As is well known, the generality of the intellectuals and of the technically educated in Russia after the October Revolution refused to serve under the proletarian Government and even attempted sabotage on a large scale, and systematic obstruction. This at once caused hesitation, even among certain groups of communists, and there were some who advocated a policy of concessions to the Mensheviki, in order to arrive at co-operation. These projects, however, were not realized and it certainly is one of the very greatest among the many great merits of Lenin, that, in this critical situation he, by his unflinching firmness and unconquerable optimism, restored courage and self-reliance to many quailing hearts.
Now that it is all past and over, this may perhaps seem to many of us the natural and logical acceptance of a principle professed from the outset and always adhered to. But when all circumstances and the personal feelings of those who played a part in the October Revolution become known, it will be realized what it means to act up to principles in a situation like this and claim all power for the workers.
Having refused the co-operation of the Mensheviki, the workers had to take upon their own shoulders the overwhelmingly huge task of administration and reconstruction. It was a thing that required an almost super-human courage to do as a worker did at the time of the formation of the first Council of People's Commissaries, to-wit, to take upon himself, having nothing to rely upon but the scanty experience earned in the administration of a local paper, and his Comminist [sic] conviction, to administer, conjointly with the trade-union concerned, the Postal Service; or, as another did,–although after a time he was compelled to solicit for a more practical task–to offer to take charge of the publications of the Secret Archives.
It is difficult to fully realize what it meant to assume the control of the banks, at a time when the counter-revolution and the system of sabotage had established their principal bases precisely in the banks. Who thinks of Trotzsky now, sees the well-ordered regiments of the Red Army march past with flying colors, but when, after the October days, this very man had, in his quality of president of the revolutionary military commission, to try and beat off an attack of Kerensky's troops on Petersburg, the task seemed a thing transcending all imagination. And yet, it was done. Of course, not owing to any military experience of Trotzky–which he could not possibly have at the time–but in the first place because numerous contingents of revolutionary soldiers proved willing to march against the enemy, and the adversary's troops were averse to meeting them in a serious fight.
What proved the most difficult thing at the time was to find a worker who dared to take upon himself the control of the totally disorganized food-distribution; but among Russian communists the rule is, that when the comrades declare a man fit he considers the question settled.
It is not to be wondered at, truly, that the bourgeoisie and the intellectuals were absolutely convinced that this condition could not last for a fortnight: our own friends had only the vaguest of ideas about how they were to manage. But the workers and peasants saw there was no other way out, and they went on, undaunted by temporary difficulties, temporary misery, undaunted even by the doubts that beset many who came into immediate touch with the all but insuperable organizational difficulties. Here, it was the masses that wrought the wonder, and the chief merit of the handful of intellectual leaders was certainly this, that they never allowed themselves to be discouraged, that they continued to trust in the triumph of methods which, judged by the standard of the bourgeois intellectual, seemed hopeless.
The prediction of a rapid and total collapse of bolshevism was not fulfilled. The much-wondering saboteurs were compelled to come back and beg for work, lest they should starve. But the distrust they had aroused among the workers for a long time still continued to make felt its salutary after-effects.
Compare with this the history of the Hungarian Soviet-Republic, fraternal co-operation between Social-patriots and Communists in a conquest of power at which no blood was shed; high-sounding declarations of engineers and intellectuals, who put themselves at the service of the Soviet-administration in order to co-operate in the reconstruction. Result: extensive corruption from the outset, an organization of industry in which the workers have practically no word, systematic treason committed, together with the old leaders of the trade-unions and the representatives of the Entente, and, in the end, surrender and the tolerating of a most bestial system of white terror.
We leave out of discussion the question whether the Hungarian Soviet Republic would, without the help of Russia, have been able to maintain itself as a purely proletarian organization against the united attacks of its enemies, under the leadership of the Western democracies; but the manner in which the Soviet-dictatorship arose and fell, is, in itself, most instructive.
And when now and again it is rumored that in Germany large groups of intellectuals are in favour of Soviets, that manufacturers are perfectly willing to continue business on a new basis, and even army officers are interested in Bolshevism, this is sign of a danger, that should not be underrated.
It had often been said: in the countries of Western Europe it is difficult for the workers to conquer the power over well-organized capital, but once they have the power, the construction of a new society will be a much easier thing. This verdict is mainly based upon the consideration that the great number of intellectuals and "educated" workers will strengthen the communistic organization. And this illusion is cherished, although we see, even now, that the best educated groups of workers are, and necessarily must be, the most reactionary and the most bourgeois, not to mention the intellectuals. For the reconstruction of a society based on new principles, men are looked to as leaders who at this moment, as chiefs of parties and as trade-union officials, sell and betray the workers.
It is, perhaps, unavoidable, that men like these should once more deceive the workers, that production should once more have to be based upon new bureaucratic foundations; but this much is evident, that the workers will weather these dangers the better, the less they suffer themselves to be deceived by illusions.
In Russia, both the inexorable policy of the party, unswervingly true to principle, and the attitude of the intellectuals themselves, threw back the workers upon their own resources; and this indubitably, accounts for the success of the Revolution. What, now, were the subsequent developments?
The intellectuals, as we saw, made haste to retrace their steps and proffer their services, which have been accepted. But their cooperation was far from being a cordial one, and covert opposition, or, at least, absolute deficiency of co-operation was a general phenomenon.
My work in Soviet Russia brought me into frequent contact with engineers in the employ of the Soviet organization for Public Works. Under this come all new construction, the building of roads and bridges, of new railway lines, canals, systems of irrigation, draining, etc., an immense field of labor, and in which a number of problems arose that could not fail to attract engineers at all interested in their work. Without going into details, this much may be said, that the radical alterations in the whole of the economic system brought new problems to the fore and gave to old problems a shape entirely new. It was, for instance, necessary to transfer industries, to exploit new resources, to solve the problems of communication and distribution according to a new and more rational point of view, or at least, to prepare a solution for the future, etc. Moreover, in the planning and the execution of new works everything had to be put upon a new basis. The cost of all raw materials, of machines and of human labor underwent, of course, a radical change, in their relation to one another, as in other respects; in consequence, in similar cases different materials and different methods had to be employed in order to obtain the best results. All this, one would expect, would have the attraction of pioneers' work. One would expect a certain enthusiasm if only for the sake of the technical importance of the thing–the enthusiasm of the engineer who has to execute a great work in a region not yet opened up.
But it did not appeal to the bourgeois engineers of Russia.
Although, as early as at the first General Congress of Economic Councils, the Communists proposed and discussed a number of new technical economic problems, no sign of interest was forthcoming from engineering circles, much less any partial solution of these vital problems. My experience was gathered more especially in the department for waterworks, where very little was done by a number of engineers of acknowledged practical ability, and who in matters of theory were in no way inferior to their Western colleagues. In the extensive Moscow bureaux old projects, approved in the main by the previous Government, were elaborated and discussed on the basis of the condition of the past. Of new points of view, resulting from the radical change in circumstances, but very little was to be seen.
And yet, it had repeatedly been pointed out, not only at congresses, but in the communist press, that a great number of problems would necessarily undergo great changes, because of the fact that, instead of private profit as hitherto, public interest was to be the basis of all enterprise. The iron industry, for instance, would in great part have to be centralized in localities where ore and coal are easily accessible; other industries, by systematic decentralization, would have to link up with agriculture; the entire problem of distribution assumed a new aspect. The means of transport were involved to a considerable extent. Not only was a rational railroad system an absolute necessity, as well as utilization to the full of the extremely favorable opportunities of an extensive system of transport by water, but in the new system, the rivalry between railroads and water-roads would be done away with, and they would become one another's complement. To confine myself to the waterways. Any one must see what an extraordinary development of possibilities arose now that the entire fleet of river and canal-boats was brought under one management, and the ceaseless conflicts of numerous private interests being done away with, a rational organization of the inland shipping-trade, such as of the railway service in other countries, was rendered possible.
Besides, for a number of general problems, the new conditions had to be decisive for all technical details. The choice of materials, of working methods, the determination of the order in which various works were to be executed, absolutely everything would have to be examined anew, according to the altered circumstances. To mention only the most important of these: ground-rent and interest on capital were no more, the output of labor had changed, the relation between machine labor and hand labor, between the direction and the execution of a work, had altered.
Of course, all these problems did not at once make themselves felt in their full significance; and, it need hardly be said, circumstances were, for the time being, most unfavorable for the execution of important works. But so absolute a lack of comprehension and of interest as was evinced by the engineers "of the old guard", is extremely significant. As in so many other provinces of mental activity, so in this, leaving aside, of course, a few favorable exceptions, listlessness and reluctance were the characteristics of bourgeois intellect. Plainly, the intellectual middle class, inasmuch as it failed to assimilate the communistic ideals, was of but very slight value for the establishing of the new society, that is founded on labor.
A comparison between the brisk and energetic life among the masses of the workers, where every problem aroused the keenest interest and raised endless discussions, and the torpid apathy prevalent in the engineers' offices, makes it evident that these latter were incapable of fulfilling any but a subordinate and more or less mechanical part in the building up of the new system of production.
And yet the Soviet took a great deal of trouble to meet the wishes of intellectuals and engineers. Technical and intellectual work was highly appreciated, and this appreciation, which was also expressed in the shape of high salaries, was transferred to the representatives of capitalistic intellect. But these gentlemen did not feel at home under a workers' dictatorship. For not only was the petty-bourgeois way of life which they loved, threatened–as must be the case especially in a transitional period when impoverishment is general–by such measures as house-distribution, and by the absence of all sort of comfort and luxury; but, a thing which they felt even deeper, the new system attacked their position as monopolists in the control of intellectual social life and the processes of production. Under this system, as a matter of fact, knowledge of the ancient kind, based as it is on an experience of things past and gone, becomes, practically, or in part at least, worthless. In consequence, the intellectual loses his self-reliance; the more because he sees that his individual case is becoming the general rule, and society as a whole is fast losing its faith in old-time customs, truths and traditions.
The workers demand that account be rendered to them; they demand an equal share of authority, they demand tangible results. And, naturally, they are as yet, lacking in the experience, the knowledge and the insight needed for the formation of a correct judgment in matters which often are exceedingly complicated. The intellectual, in consequence, imagines himself to be indispensable; he thinks he need but assume an attitude of waiting; that in one form or another former conditions are sure to return, and therewith, the importance of his role. Only, in the meantime, he feels superfluous and therefore is depressed.
An engineer who complained to me of the cold in the unheated bureau, and other inconveniences of the kind, grave enough certainly, added: "But the worst of all is–we are bored!" This enforced inactivity of course, did not prevent him from pocketing a salary higher than that of a People's Commissary, who works sixteen hours a day that he may, to the best of his ability, solve the new problems cropping up in all directions.
As we have stated, the intellectuals, generally speaking, offered their services to the Soviets for material considerations only, and this, as a rule, without any enthusiasm. In the central bureaux, where the general control is exercised, results, as we saw, were most unsatisfactory. Control by workers' committees is difficult, especially in cases where the necessary preparation is lacking. In the building works and in the factories conditions are, of course, better. The most urgent work at least is done, because the need of the day compels the doing of it, and a control by the workers is more feasible here.
From my inspecting-tours in the provinces I always returned in a hopeful mood. In the smaller units better work was done, there was more organization there, more enthusiasm, more sense of the new than among the generality of the officials in the great bureaux of Moscow. In Moscow too, it is true, endeavors were made to make workers take a part in bureau-work; but whilst discharging this unaccustomed task they, in many cases, soon grew subject to the influence of the surroundings, and the new bureaucratic elements are not less of a danger to the success of Soviet organization than the old were.
Those who foster exaggerated expectations about the substitution of new independent or even communistic leaders for the old bureaucratic trade-union officials, may take warning by the fact that in Russia as in Hungary corruption was rife among the new bureaucrats as among the old. These results are produced by the system, not by the individuals. And the chances are that this danger will increase.
As the stability of the Soviet regime grew more and more manifest, the number of bourgeois intellectuals who offered their services increased, and the bureaucratic element was strengthened. The submission of the intellect was greatly rejoiced over, and great expectations were cherished as to the results of this co-operation. But unless the workers ever and again break up this bureaucratic apparatus, pushing "from the bottom upwards', it is doomed to petrify, and to become a new instrument of oppression. Against this contingency even the Soviet-form offers no guarantee if it ceases to be a living organism, based upon the active will of the mass of the workers.
It is, therefore, a matter of the very greatest importance that the trade-union movement in the shape of industrial organization shall be kept intact, even after the proletarian revolution, as in this the proletarian character is preserved better than in the Soviet organization, which, on account of the participation of peasants, intellectuals and intermediate groups as well as by reason of its specific functions of general administration and control, is more exposed to the danger of bureaucratization. In Russia this danger has been very plainly revealed, and the Communists fight it to the uttermost. The special peril lies in the involuntary alliance of the old bureaucracy with the new, in consequence of which many originally sincere revolutionaries gradually degenerate into bourgeois.
This is what the workers' masses and the communists must, from the start, oppose with all their strength; always and everywhere they must demand the largest measure possible of control by the workers themselves. It is a question of self-reliance and courage, and of being prepared to temporarily sacrifice technical perfection and higher productivity rather than give up control. The more firmly resolved the workers show themselves to do without the help of bourgeois intellectuals, if necessary, the more eager the latter will be to proffer their services. For, when all is said, the decline of productive capacity under a consistent regime of workers' dictatorship in the first place affects those who are accustomed to a higher standard of living.
Here, however, we are confronted with one of those seemingly insuperable difficulties for which only a revolutionary development provides a solution. It is the same as with the productivity of industrial labor, which declines when food is insufficient, while an increase of the food-production is possible only when the productivity of industrial labor increases. Similarly, control of the intellectuals by the workers is necessary in the very first place; but for this a degree of culture is required the monopoly of which is provisionally, held by the intellectuals. For education too is, necessarily, in the hands of the intellectual bourgeois middle-class.
Small wonder the Workers' Republic should proclaim entirely novel principles in the province of education also, and that they should give the most assiduous attention to school matters and to the education of the new generation!
And, again, experience demonstrates, in Russia, that the workers cannot rely on bourgeois intellect in this matter. The Workers' Unity School suffers severely from the lack of sympathetic insight and co-operation among the old-time teachers. It is worthy of remark, too, that the higher the grade of these teachers, the more disappointing the results. Among the teachers of the elementary school for children of seven to fourteen, a certain number were found more or less able to cope with the new task; but the masters of the higher schools with few exceptions proved absolutely unfit; and in the matter of the reorganization of university teaching hardly anything has been effected, if one excepts the fact that the universities now are open to all–a thing of small moment in a revolutionary period, and to the workers who have better things to do than to listen to old-time learning.
But even for the lower grade of the workers' unity-school, the best teachers often prove to be workers trained in a course of a year, sometimes even of only half a year duration. At the Moscow training school for teachers, workers as well as teachers, were trained for teaching at the unity-school; and the results with the workers were more satisfactory. The teachers on the contrary for a long time continued to form an exceedingly reactionary group, and of the far-reaching plans for reorganization of the schools of the second grade, very little could be realized in everyday practice.
It is not only lack of sympathy and zeal that is at the bottom of this trouble in the matter of education as in others, but even more lack of understanding and imagination. Precisely because development has been along definite lines, a breaking with the past is exceedingly difficult. That is the reason why the new ideas and methods are elaborated and advocated in workers' periodicals and papers, and institutions often far removed from teaching circles, although of course they are vigorously supported by groups of communist teachers, which, during the revolution, gradually increased.
It is, for the rest, easy enough to understand, that just as an engineer tied to formulas and rusty experiences cannot adapt himself to the new life, so a dry formalistic, priggish and, in school, omnipotent school master feels miserable within the workers' system of education.
He is altogether helpless and at a loss when venturing upon even the very simplest and most primitive attempts in the direction of the new ideal. He knows nothing about handicraft and the different kinds of material. For direct work, in doing which the children are free to move about, and exercise a certain measure of initiative, is a very different thing from standing in front of a class where the children are nailed fast to the benches, half dazed with monotonous drudgery. If we desired a kind of systematic higher kindergarten-teaching according to a method set down in a convenient handbook. and aided with all manner of technically perfect appliances and silly models in glass cases,–well, that might at a pinch be put up with by the schoolmaster. But these workers want everything to link up with practical life: they want really useful things made, clothes and shoes repaired, objects mended that the children bring with them from home, the schoolroom and the furniture kept clean, help given with the laying of the wires for the supply of electric light, with the cooking of the food, etc., etc. And all this as a starting-point for the imparting of knowledge and ideas necessary in everyday life.
It really requires courage to select for this task out of all the elements inherited from oldtime society, precisely the most unpractical people, the teachers ever so far removed from real life. A "certificated" teacher in front of a class of the unity-school is as great a risk as a czarist officer at the head of a division of the red army. Both should be closely watched by the workers.
And so far we have considered the most primitive form of the labor unity-school only. But what must be the average schoolmaster's feelings in the model training-school of our enthusiastic comrade Levitine!
Writing, arithmetic, geography, history, all of the evil past. Throw the old litter and the old books on the scrap heap!
Here we are going to make something, never mind what, say a wooden spoon to eat our dinner with. In the school-garden we select a tree to fell. Not all trees are equally fit for the purpose! In felling the tree we have to consider several important questions, and the laws of equilibrium cannot be neglected with impunity. There, the monster lies prone; and having first seen to it that our tool is fit, which again causes many important question to arise, we begin sawing. That is great fun! Sawing by turns, two together, whilst the others sing or count. In the beginning it goes quickly, but the cut widens, and it gets to be quite a problem to make out whether every couple of sawers does an equal amount of work. Suddenly there is a stoppage. The strongest boys try their strength in vain. A clever fellow discovers what is the matter; the saw had got stuck, the tree bends with its own weight. Quite a series of new problems arises. What is to be done now? We will have to lift the tree, but we are not strong enough to do it. How strong would we have to be? And here we learn naturally the computation of cubic content, computation of weight, specific gravity of wood. We are measuring, weighing, ciphering, before we know, there is practical reason and use in what we learn. The youngest child can feel that.
Then comes the mystery of the lever, the wonder of success. In the meantime the teacher has found occasion to tell things worth knowing about the branches and the leaves and about other trees and other methods of working. And the children make sketches of all the tools, the axe, saw, etc. They note dimensions, qualities, differences in kind. They handle iron, stone, willow-wood, ash-wood. Of the different kinds of wood pieces of an equal size are weighed or pieces of an equal weight are measured, and calculation is set going once more.
To conclude, the older pupils send in a written report of all their experiences gathered during the work; the best descriptions are read out to the class and supplemented. And everything must be systematically arranged, and written out neatly and plainly, with sketches and calculations. How good the porridge will taste that is eaten with that spoon! what memories, what pleasure, what pride!
But the model-school offers a great many possibilities: there is the vegetable-garden and the flower-garden, the tree-nursery, ponds and water-supply, a loom, a printing plant, a carpenter's workshop, an engineer's workshop, a photograph studio, etc, Such is the equipment of a model school.
Still all these many appliances may very well be dispensed with. Every kind of work affords opportunities for teaching. Any sort of material will open up perspectives of geography, history, physical science. All occupations require counting, weighing, measuring, writing, singing. But a far greater amount of real knowledge than a teacher of the old stamp possesses is required for this. Moreover his old-time knowledge is practically of no value, and he has to begin over again.
For a working man of a certain degree of general culture and a modicum of imagination, the contrary is true. The new method is something like a revelation. He sees new perspectives opening, he is surprised and delighted to perceive what a multitude of meanings is revealed by the very simplest kind of work, once one develops a habit of inquiring into the connection of things, and of satisfying the natural craving for knowledge and insight instead of thwarting it. For him, the model-school is a true academy, an introduction into a new field of labor, not the completion of an earlier education. He will not be distressed at his pupils putting questions to him which he is not able to answer off-hand; not only the distinction between learning and working, but up to a certain degree the distinction between teacher and pupil by and by is obliterated for him. And where his own imagination might fail, the many-headed imagination of his class will prove an inexhaustible resource.
A certain degree of systematization will certainly be required in the long run, and this is what is being attempted, account being kept of the teachings of experience. It may lead to more rapid results in the direction of a culture as many-sided as may prove possible (polytechnic culture). But even in the absence of a strict system, relying solely on the haphazard of arbitrary selections out of the infinite riches of living reality, this method will lead to surprising results. Once a pupil has learned the art of tackling a problem, of gaining an insight into its meaning, of investigating and of conquering difficulties, he has gained all that is necessary to prepare him for life. For concrete knowledge is necessarily limited within narrow bounds; while in any special case it may be supplemented and extended without great difficulty.
However, the teachers of course must possess a certain degree of general culture and of imagination, besides possessing knowledge of the execution of work of certain kinds. For a bourgeois intellectual this is not a simple matter. Even the usual school-experiments attempted by our teachers in physical science, with the aid of an assistant and with perfect instruments, beautifully polished, often failed in the most miserable manner.
It is easy enough to prescribe that when in the process of some work a fire is needed, the class be shown in what way our ancestors used to make fire. But it is not so easy to manufacture the little contrivance, by which fire is made by friction, and to really make fire with it. But if this is achieved with the aid of simple appliances and not with model-instruments bought in a shop, it will not harm the class to learn by experience what a deal of painstaking and thought goes to the making of a real thing. The making of fire too requires considerable exertion. In the model-school it was done in this way. And it was a good object-lesson in history, geography, physical science and arithmetic, that ended in a calculation of the time and labor saved at present by the use of matches, by one person in a day, in a year, in a life-time; and, again, for all the town, all the country, all Europe in an hour, a day, a year.
It is true that for this one had to know the population figures of the country and of Europe, but as a matter of course one goes to a handbook for information of the kind, and the teacher need not be ashamed if he does so. Moreover the pupil who joins in similar experiments and calculations, and sends in a report, has a far better chance of remembering the figures than the victims of the present system, who learn by rote long series of figures for the next examination.
There may, possibly, be some use in plaguing our fourteen-year-old children with elaborate geometrical artificialities that have no conceivable relation to reality; it may be, as it is argued, that this is a form of gymnastics of the brain; but the mental agility attained by this method may be gained in a more pleasant manner by the solving of riddles and the telling of anecdotes. And as for the knowledge of geometry and surveying a great deal more will be gained by the measuring of buildings and sites, complemented by the determining of superficial contents and weight of objects and of position in respect to the sun and the stars.
But if one then thinks of the schoolmasters of this present day, the absolute unfitness of the bourgeois intellect for the new society, the necessity that this entire generation of intellectuals should disappear in the transitional process of the dictatorship of the proletariat, becomes evident. The annihilation must be definite, for the type cannot be tolerated even in a modified form. It is evident that the very notion of teacher, professor, etc., must be obliterated. The ideal can be approximated only if all co-operate towards "education", considering this as a natural part of their daily work.
Small wonder that the bourgeois intellectual proves unable to develop the new principles in education, and that the failure should be the more conspicuous the deeper the intellectual is incrusted in bourgeois culture. I have referred to the fiasco of Russian teachers in high schools.
High school education should link up with the real labor in factories and workshops, in offices and in the field, without the loss of its many-sided (polytechnic) character, that is, without dwindling into the one-sidedness of a specific technical education. The "pupils", too, should be allowed in a generous measure to share in control, freedom and initiative. The purpose to be effected is the complete dissolution of schools formerly planned for the age-limit of fourteen to eighteen, and the formation of free groups of juveniles, self-controlled as far as possible, temporarily conducted by teacher leaders, but developing into a vital part of the social body, and participating with a production of their own in the general process of labor, where the grown workers will have the leisure and the degree of culture necessary to influence youth by instruction and general mental and moral education.
The thing always to be kept in view is that culture should be general, many-sided, not subservient to production as to its purpose, but still promotive of production. Physical science, chemistry, mechanics, trigonometry, book-keeping, geography, history may be efficiently taught in this manner, not to mention writing, drawing and arithmetic. More manifold international intercourse by travel and migration complemented by reading, singing and listening to lectures, will open opportunities for foreign languages and literature, which for many reasons will exert a most favorable influence. Anyhow, old-time methods and old-time teachers may be dispensed with, in this province also.
For university education and science as such the change of course is even more radical. "Undergraduates" of eighteen to twenty-five or twenty-six will be unthinkable and impossible in a society based upon labor. Not only because an adult not performing useful work will not be tolerably safe as an exception only, but because in future every human being possessing sound brains will both learn and teach all his life, will both give and take. It is plain that this will revolutionize science. Science too will link up directly with labor, and in this way be released from its present state of seclusion.
Those wishing to study medicine and hygienics will gather knowledge in and by practice under proficient guidance, and in so doing will be brought into contact with a number of cognate sciences. A natural differentiation according to practical and spiritual character and bias automatically sets in. Those who, by experiment and investigation, are able to open up or to prepare for new points of view, or to apply to better purpose the knowledge gained, will find at their disposal the best resources, laboratories, appliances and materials; but discoveries will be the result of individual exertion much less than of an exchange of thought and of collective research, in which new perspectives appear as the strict delimitations between the many various provinces of science are done away with.
It will prove possible to find a common basis for branches of learning seemingly far apart, to reduce to unity the countless disciplines of our modern specialists, whose professional interest induces them to make things as intricate, and as incomprehensible to the outsider, as possible.
Bourgeois intellect is petrifying; it shares the fate of the capitalistic process of production in its entirety. What, in the beginning, was a motive power of unparalleled energy, the specialization and individualization of science and art as of labor, has already come to be a hindrance to further development. In industrial production finance capital tries to overcome difficulties by fusion of its masses into ever larger units, but with no other result than to cause the difficulties to develop into catastrophes which irremediably ruin the entire system. In art, science, culture, a wave of nationalism overwhelms the last hopes of real unity. For this means, not a bond, binding up into a larger unity the several mutually estranged special disciplines, but a fetter absolutely inimical to the genius and essence of science, or more exactly, a noose for the strangling of all.
Who is there does not think with reverence and pride of the initial period and the triumphant evolution of the natural sciences and philosophy, of the conquest of the world by steam and electricity, of biology, of bacteriology, and the investigation of the wonders of the skies? Who among the elder generation but remembers the war which so fiercely and for so long a time, raged around Darwinism; but remembers the beginnings of the emancipation from religious dogma as a paramount social force? What proud hopes seemed justified by the spectacle of this evolution in its vertiginous course! And how absolutely sterile it all has already proved!
Dogma reinstated and enthroned, but in a throne of cardboard and plaster instead of halo-encircled gold. Scientific and technical research intent, principally upon discoveries in matters of detail merely. No great ideas except in the last abstractions of mathematics and speculative philosophy; and a practice that dooms to sterility all important inventions.
Even technical science, Capitalisms' favorite child in the day of his power, is in the Imperialistic period valued as a factor of annihilation only, and for the rest is balked as much as possible in its creative energies, because under Monopoly, it is not intensity of production but the closed market that promises the greater profit. Great technical discoveries which in an ever augmenting degree, require the co-operation of many and vast material resources, become a menace to extant monopolies and the capital invested, real or fictitious, in them; and thus, they are, practically, rendered impossible. The engineer or intellectual who achieves practical results does so by dint of dogged perseverance in a monotonous and strictly specialized labor that precludes all contact with the fullness of life, all mutual inspiration resulting from interaction with other branches of science, art and philosophy.
The new communistic society strives after unity in production, unity in mental life, in science. In this direction too there are remarkable beginnings in Russia. With loving reverence I think of Professor Bogdanof and his work.
In the interest of the future of science, it is necessary that the system of the specialists be done away with; the bourgeois intellectual class and its mental monopoly must be annihilated. The fight of the workers against the bourgeois intellectuals as a class is, therefore, one that must be fought out to the bitter end. It is part, and, in fact the principal part and the most arduous of the struggle for the new communistic society.
It seems to me the most perilous form of opportunism if in their struggle and for the building up of the new society, the workers put their trust in the help of the bourgeois intellectuals. Just as the development of mass-action by which alone the war can be won, is impossible so long as the masses trust to the activity of the leaders, so the building up of the new life is impossible so long as the workers allow intellectuals and bureaucrats, even if they should have come out of their own ranks, to take the lead. It must result in a complete failure, if workers listen to advice such as is given by Karl Radek in his "Entwicklung der Welt-Revolution und die Taktik de [sic] K. P." (Development of the World-Revolution and the tactics of the Communist Party) November, 1919, to-wit, to so conduct their struggle as to win over large groups of intellectuals to their side: Radek writes:
"From this it follows, that the Communist Parties from now on must exert themselves to the utmost to win over to the cause of the proletariat the greatest contingents possible of intellectuals". He argues that circumstances are much more favorable in this respect in Western Europe than in Eastern, more especially than in Russia. Having conceded that, in Russia, the intellectuals as a class are "sworn enemies to the proletarian revolution" and that the workers must relentlessly beat down their opposition, Redak [sic] goes on to say: "The situation in the West is totally different". There, it would seem, intellect is disappointed in its expectations from imperialism and democracy, the low material status of the intellectuals drives them into Communism, etc.
It is doubtless a fact, that these and similar circumstances may impel a number of intellectuals into the proletarian ranks, more especially those who, by the economic development have already been proletarianized into mechanical adjuncts of the technical or bureaucratic apparatus.
These nethermost layers of the proletariat constitute, however, as any one may observe in practice, but unimportant and most unreliable auxiliary troops of the proletarian army. For the leadership, and for the building up of the new society, the men wanted are of course, precisely those intellectuals who have given proof of experience and self-reliance also in bourgeois society. It is plain, too, that this is what Radek means, when with a pathos most surprising in a man of his habit of mind, he exclaims, "We would have to despair of humanity if it could be doubted that the condition of European culture must drive the best elements among the intellectuals into the ranks of the world revolution".
That is why he demands that we should help the intellectuals to overcome their last prejudices and should make them our allies. For "the intellectual proletarians also belong to this people which is creating a new society". And, finally: "The proletarian dictatorship does not threaten the intellectuals. As long as they are part of the poor and suffering mass they can become a contingent of the proletariat organized as a ruling class. Whether they will, depends on themselves, but also on the work that we do amongst them".
This theory assumes the identity of the bourgeois intellect and intellect in the absolute sense, just as Kautsky assimilates bourgeois democracy and democracy, but is unwilling or unable to understand that another than the bourgeois form of democracy is conceivable. The mistake in the matter of bourgeois intellect is, however, even more fundamental and more dangerous than the mistake concerning bourgeois democracy, because the latter is only one of the peculiar forms under which bourgeois intellect attacks the workers. Proletarian revolution threatens annihilation to the (bourgeois) intellectuals as well as to bourgeois democracy.
But, says Radek, "we need the bourgeois intellectuals". Certainly, the experience and the knowledge of many generations and long centuries has accumulated in the heads of a small privileged group. And we cannot forgo this precious heritage. Material wealth too is in the hands of a small group and of this also we wish to save what save we may. Opportunists and social traitors lift up a voice of warning: no revolution, no civil war in which factories, mines, cities may be ruined. Gradual processes, compromise, re-establishment of capitalistic production by hard work, economy and submission to the capitalists to begin with, and subsequently only the realization of socialism by the action of parliamentary democracy and the superiority of our organizations and our leaders.
We know by rote the cant phrases and will not repeat them here. Communists who do not believe in this idyl, but are convinced that it is the power and the organizing capacity of the masses that are the decisive factors, are willing to poy [sic] the price, and know that it can be reduced in practice only by perseverance in the principle. As Bukharin expressed it: "The losses represent the cost of the revolution, caused by the change in the process of production, they are the direct material expenses of the civil war: without such losses the transition to a new society is unthinkable, and so, therefore, is the transition to the effective development of the forces of production unthinkable without these expenses".
But, like the material losses, the mental are inevitable, and a condition of higher development.
Naturally, we will not needlessly destroy cities and factories, and as little will we purposely waste intellectual values and energy. But the condition of success is that we do not recoil from sacrificing values if this be necessary in order to attain our end: the power and the leadership of the proletariat. The more resolute the action of the working class, the lesser the social and personal "losses" will be.
This holds good especially in the difficult matter of the mental leadership. Factories and tools can be expropriated, accumulated knowledge and experience cannot.
The bourgeois intellectuals therefore, must take part in the building up, and at the same time bourgeois intellect must be defeated. It is not to be wondered at that, all difficulties caused by the lack of intellectual helpers notwithstanding, the transition should begin at an earlier moment, and in a more fundamental manner in Russia than in Western Europe, where bourgeois culture has penetrated so deep into the entire fabric of social life.
The small group of intellectuals who have openly broken with bourgeois society and consciously even though, of course, imperfectly, adapted itself to the new conditions, naturally fulfills an important function in this process.
For the majority of the intellectuals, however, a greater or lesser degree of coercion is necessary, although of course, this cannot be of a material kind exclusively.
Let us, for an example, consider an extreme case: In the Red Army tens of thousands of old-regime officers are employed, and this especially in the higher ranks, in the general staff, etc. Of course treason is frequent, and the possibility of treason must always be kept in view. Together with every commanding officer therefore, a worker is appointed as "commissary" to exercise supervision. In case of attempted treason the most severe measures are, of course, taken, and the commissary then has a great responsibility. Apparently his task is hopeless. As he has no knowledge of strategy worth speaking of, the general-specialist finds himself free to do very much as he likes. And, as a matter of fact, contra-revolutionary plans succeed at times, and divisions of the Red Army are delivered over to the enemy by treason.
But, on the whole, the system has proved efficient, in an ever augmenting degree, for the protection of the Soviet Republic. If the commissaries possess sufficient self-reliance, sufficient "arrogance" to demand, again and again, explanations, and sufficient intelligence to combine data, they soon gather fundamental ideas and a working knowledge that can be extended by attending discussions, lectures, etc. In this manner a former hairdresser's assistant has risen to the command of three army divisions. This, however, is, for the time being, an exception. The majority of proletarian army commanders could not be made to understand that they had to take care of themselves, and one after another fell.
The chief peril is this, that men who educate themselves in this manner are prone to become, so to say, infected, and develop bourgeois-intellectual bureaucratic qualities. Therefore, control must be exercised not by individuals, but by boards, by committees for instance, that can be appointed, recalled and periodically renewed. In the army-organization this involves grave difficulties, and, even in Russia, reformers have recoiled from a consistent application of the principle. As, however, the army is only a temporary institution, and in any case a body extraneous to the workers'-state, this is perhaps comparatively unimportant.
Still the entire principle of the Soviet is based upon this general co-operation in execution and in control, with a many-sided system of committees, in permanent contact with the mass of the workers, who issue instructions and retain the power to recall the persons appointed. The difficulties of controlling the mental and technical direction do not in the process of production and in social life exceed the average worker's horizon so far as in the army, but the dangers in themselves are hardly less.
The form of a committee evidently is the one best adapted to the purpose; a committee numbering representatives of the different categories of workers in the building-trade is, of course, the proper body to control the actions of an engineer charged with the direction of a great building work. In a factory too it will often prove possible to have control exercised by committees without this arrangement degenerating into a farce. But the workers must feel very deeply that it is of the utmost importance they should not confide this control to single individuals. The temptation is great to leave it to a few of the ablest, most intelligent and most energetic among the workers to so educate themselves as to be fit to personally assume the direction; but this frequently ends in their being absorbed into the bourgeois intellectual class as were the leaders of the old social-democratic parties, and of the old trade-unions. Therefore, the temptation must be strenuously resisted.
When news reaches us from Russia that the intellectuals grow more and more reconciled to the Soviet regime and become enthusiastic co-operators in the new reconstruction, this certainly is to be rejoiced over, as a proof of the increasing power and stability of the Soviet Government. But, on the other hand, we must not overlook the danger of a new period of supremacy of the old and new bureaucracy, which in that case would again have to be defeated by the effort "from the bottom upwards" of the masses. Fortunately, we may rest assured, that very many of our Russian friends are aware of this peril and constantly on their guard against it, and that they will fight it, even though economic and technical reconstruction should have to suffer.
But in Western Europe, where the peril is so infinitely greater, the problem is, as yet, hardly discerned. Its effects made themselves felt in the shape of a distrust of a direction, a direction from headquarters, "from the top downwards", in a dislike of centralization, and above all, in a vigorous hatred of the officialdom of trade-unionism and the social-democracy. But in general this attitude is instinctive rather than conscious and systematic, and it hardly takes into account the real difficulties connected with the problem of the transition and the reconstruction, and with the comparative inevitability of the phenomenon.
Centralization is necessary in modern class-war as well as in modern production; in connection with this, it is not possible to avoid bureaucracy from the start, and it may even again and again become necessary to suffer it to regain the ascendant; this would be the case if only by such a course the continuation of the class-war or of production could, under certain circumstances, be rendered possible. But quite as necessary is an insight into the dangers of this policy, and into the imperative necessity of defeating bourgeois intellect of which specialization and development into a separate and independent existence as bureaucracy are forms of manifestation.
Class-war, nay life itself, sometimes forces us to compromises. But the communist is justified in his existence as such by his clearer and deeper insight into the truth that we must overcome these compromises, and it is his duty to discern clearly from the start the danger they involve, and the aim that lies beyond. The deeper our conviction of the inevitability of reverses and compromises in the great process of social growth, the more inexorable must be our exposure and our attack of them. For only if we clearly discern and thoroughly understand the compromise as a compromise, as a defeat, as a danger, then only shall we be able in a subsequent period to overcome it as completely as may prove possible.
In the matter of compromises with bourgeois culture, such as the accepting of bureaucratic forms of organization and direction, this attitude is even more necessary than in the matter of compromises with the material resources of the bourgeois state, because in the former case the dangers are so much more difficult to discern and the process of overcoming them more lengthy.
This, too, is what determines our attitude towards the intellectuals as the representatives of bourgeois culture. There must be no attempts by special propaganda and compromise to conquer the prejudice of these groups against Communism. The proletarian, anti-bourgeois, character of our struggle and of our victory must be emphasized in our dealings with them also. No endeavors must be made to gain a "support" that later on must prove unable to withstand the shock of reality. Only those individuals can be of real use who possess the strength to break in act, or at least in spirit, as completely as possible with extant conditions. Such will feel the remnants of their bourgeois culture as a hindrance, and will ask for a modest place in the ranks, and in the daily struggle will divest themselves by and by of their ancient impediments, and perhaps, someday may be able to render important services to the workers' class. But the danger of reaction exists all the same, and vigilance is always required on the part of the workers.
The best among the intellectuals certainly will not disapprove of such vigilance, but rather applaud it. The great majority of bourgeois intellectuals should be considered as our enemies until such time as they shall have given indubitable proof of the contrary. They will accomplish their part in the struggle and in the reconstruction the more readily in proportion as the working-class finds in itself the more energy for direction and control. The more the workers show a determination to sacrifice everything rather than remain dependent upon intellectual leaders and bureaucracy, the less the chances of a return to ancient forms.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is necessary for the transition to communistic society. It is necessary while the resources of the bourgeoisie are, as yet, unimpaired. But among these resources the mental weapons, the culture of the bourgeoisie, are the most difficult to break. Whilst economic and social reconstruction is dependent upon the cooperation of bourgeois intellectuals, the workers cannot do without weapons of their own even although [sic] it may prove possible to gradually soften the more rigorous forms of the dictatorship.
The duration of this historical period can be shortened only if the workers resist every compromise with bourgeois culture, and oppose as strenuously as possible all forms of bureaucracy. For it is not impossible that the social process may as yet be interrupted by new periods of exploitation, based upon a monopoly, not of material, but of mental possessions, of direction and intellect, in the form of a bureauracy [sic] which in economic, as in military organization, had achieved a position of power, which again necessitates a renewed and severe struggle of the masses.
The expropriation and socialization of capital, therefore, is insufficient, unless followed up by the socialization of intellect and culture. The former is the condition of the latter: but this too can be brought about by the class-war only, and the sooner, in proportion as the difficulties are the more clearly realized from the very beginning.
The titanic war we wage is one and indivisible. It is against monopoly, all monopoly, whether monopoly of money or monopoly of mind.