Page:Karl Kautsky - Georgia - tr. Henry James Stenning (1921).pdf/111

 and that of the great French Revolution must not blind us to the differences between the two events. In the eighteenth century France was the most progressive State of the European continent. To-day Russia is still the most backward amongst the great States of Europe. Although the French Bonapartism constituted a strong reaction from the Republic, its policy of expansion brought many improvements to the rest of Europe. The present Moscow Bonapartism is not only reactionary in relation to the proletarian revolution of Russia, out of which it arose, but even more so in comparison with the proletarian movements of the rest of Europe, which it seeks to fetter.

A further distinction exists between the old Bonapartism of Paris and the new one of Moscow.

No class-conscious proletariat existed at the time of the great French Revolution. The proletarian sections formed a tail to the small middle class, an extremely divided and unreliable class, which constantly swayed between obstinate resistance and cowardly submission, between anti-capitalist discontent and capitalist covetousness.

At the time of the Revolution this class was without the slightest political experience. However wild its conduct had been during the Reign of Terror, it was an easy matter for the Empire to paralyse this class. The Empire was confronted with no other serious opponents than the old legitimate foreign dynasties, which could not forget the revolutionary origin of the new Emperor. For Continental Europe at that time there were two alternatives, either Bonapartism or the Holy Alliance.

To-day we are far removed from this. The revolutionary struggle is conducted, not by the small middle-class, but by the proletariat, a class which, in contrast to the former, is of a homogeneous character, and pursues a single object. It will not make terms with capitalism, and much less will it permit any restrictions on its liberty of movement. The workers are not