Page:Building Up Socialism - Nikolai Bukharin (1926).pdf/52

 44 did not coincide even within the limits of a single group, for example, Plekhanov abandoned his friends, and (as is now known) was opposed to the attempt to smash the proletarian revolution, the "premature," but for all that proletarian revolution. Conclusions differed in other groups also: Trotsky in the October days drew certain conclusions, taking his place in the front ranks of the fighters; Kamenev and Zinoviev drew other conclusions. Trotsky reasoned this way: although due to inherent causes doom is inevitable, perhaps the State aid of the Western proletariat will come to our aid after all. Therefore, "Forward!" Kamenev and Zinoviev argued in this way: Precisely because doom is inevitable, owing to the inherent combination of forces, it is useless to hurry forward so quickly: therefore, "Retire!"

The conclusions, we repeat, were different, but the theoretical underlying principle (the estimation of the driving forces of the revolution, the approach to the estimation of the worker and peasant bloc, the estimation of the question of a combination of forces and of the possibility of a numerically small working class leading the enormous ponderous mass of the peasantry, the solution of the question of the inevitable conflicts between these two forces, the solution of the question of the character of the Russian revolution, i.e., of the possibility of Socialism in our country)—the underlying principle of this theory was the same among them all. And this "underlying principle" is so far removed from the Leninist presentation of the question, that even if it recalls the latter, it does so as its opposite and not as something similar to it. The Leninist presentation of the question of the maturity of capitalism in Russia is not so crudely simple as many of the wise critics of Lenin pretend.