Page:Boris Zakharovich Shumyatsky - The Aims of the Bolsheviki (1919).djvu/17

 country and the form of its proletarian dictatorship should arouse general interest.

There was a general agreement that Russia must be a republic, even on the part of many capitalists and landowners who had previously always backed the monarchy, but who had come to the conclusion that on no account would the Russian people tolerate the re-establishment of the Czarist power. For this reason the capitalists have directed all their efforts towards making the Russian Republic as near as possible a replica of the Czarist régime. Such a sham republic, as many examples in other countries prove, could have easily been transferred again into a monarchy. They therefore wished to preserve the bureaucracy which dominated the people, and the police force and standing army, which stood separate from the people, and which were commanded by non-elected generals and officers—for the generals and officers, if not elected, will always belong to the capitalist and landowning class.

That is why the Bolshevik party, which is the party of the class-conscious workers and poorest peasants, is endeavouring to establish a different kind of republic. It wants a republic where there will be no police force like the old one, lording it over the people; where all functionaries, from the lowest to the highest, will be subject to election and recall at any time, according to the will of the people—their pay not to be higher than that of a good workman; where all army authorities will also be elected and the old standing army, officered by members of the bourgeois class, replaced by a citizen army or people's militia. The whole state power in such a republic must belong to the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Delegates. The workers and peasants form the majority of the population, and therefore all administrative power must belong to their Councils and not to the bureaucrats.