Page:Building Up Socialism - Nikolai Bukharin (1926).pdf/32

 24 There is no trace of either one or the other, in Russia and, therefore, the realisation of the Socialist Revolution and Socialist construction are impossible. The historical mission of the Bolsheviks is to serve as a bridge by which a Cæsar, a Bonaparte, or someone similar will come to power. This is the slanderous summary of our revolution made by the wily carpet-bagger, Parvus, who more than once thought he would try his luck and dispose of his soiled goods on our political bazaar.

The second author we have mentioned, Ströbel, has attempted to develop his views on our revolution into a complete theoretical "system."

In a pamphlet bearing the characteristic title: "Not Violence but Organisation," Ströbel, arguing about the "quintessence of the Russian Revolution," declares that it is absolute nonsense to talk about the Communist proletarian revolution, for a fundamental fact of our revolution is the strengthening of peasant private property and the strengthening of peasant private property is the very thing that determines the character of the revolution. He who does not understand this is not a Marxist, is a "Komnarodnik," to use a modern expression, etc. Finally, Ströbel reduces Bolshevism to a Bakuninism. "If the Bolsheviks imagined," writes Ströbel, "that the Russian peasants can by means of propaganda (Zureden) and coercion be won over to the side of real Communism and the Communist method of production they have only proved again that they are held in captivity by the typical ideas of the old Russian Revolutionaries which represent the specific features of Bakuninism."