Page:Building Up Socialism - Nikolai Bukharin (1926).pdf/51

 Rh use of dreaming about constructing Socialism? Attempts in this direction are doomed to failure; they must inevitably develop into their very opposite. Obstinacy in this direction will merely lead to the degeneration of the new regime into a regime of irresponsible bureaucracy, official pressure, political terror, isolation from the masses and finally to the decay of the Party itself. In a word nothing good will come of the Bolshevik attempt to construct Socialism 'in a single country,' but any amount of bad may result: perhaps it may even result in the 'Asiafication and ossification' mentioned by the German bourgeois, Scheimann, to whom we have already referred!"

Now it will not be out of place to draw certain conclusions.

First of all the comparison made between all the points of view examined above, of the European Social-Democrats, Bogdanov-Bazarov, the Russian Mensheviks, Trotsky and Kamenev-Zinoviev, reveals that in principle they completely coincide; on the question of the relation of the inherent forces of the Russian Revolution, on the question of the maturity of the economic structure of Russia from the point of view of the possibility of definite Socialist achievements, without the slightest exaggeration we may speak on the close similarity and identity in principle of all the positions enumerated. Of course, in pointing out the similarity in the position from which the various groups start out, we do not suggest that the conclusions which each of them draws from these positions are the same. On the contrary, the conclusions drawn vary; some of these groups became heroes of the revolution, others fought against the revolution, while others shamefully dragged at its tail. Fairness demands that it should be stated that