Page:Karl Kautsky - Georgia - tr. Henry James Stenning (1921).pdf/39

 this class to proletarian modes of thought. Add to this the fact that the Social-Democracy carried on a powerful agitation for the expropriation of the large estates. Thus the industrial wage earners have shown themselves the best champions of the small peasants. The Socialists would not have gained their dominating influence over the minds of the revolutionary peasantry if they had been divided. They were only able to prevail by means of democracy, and without terrorism, because they were united, and formed an overwhelming Menshevist majority. In this respect Georgia was fundamentally different from Russia.

Even the Russian Socialists could have dominated the minds of the peasants and governed by means of democracy, if they had been united, or if the Bolshevists could have resolved to form a coalition government with the Menshevists and the entire party of the Social Revolutionaries.

It was not to hold down the capitalists that they needed to abrogate all the democratic rights of the masses of the people, but to hold down the other Socialists. In order to hide the real state of affairs, the Bolshevists have promptly labelled the Menshevists and Social Revolutionaries of the right as lackeys of the bourgeoisie and counter-revolutionists.

Thus the Bolshevist régime has been based on a lie from the commencement, and that has become decisive in determining the direction of its further policy.

Quite different conditions and quite: another policy in Georgia have permitted the small minority of the industrial wage workers, on the basis of democracy, and without exercising any terrorism, to capture the political power of the country, and successfully to maintain their government without any serious internal opposition until February of this year.