Page:Karl Kautsky - Georgia - tr. Henry James Stenning (1921).pdf/77

 complaints, I could not become convinced of their justification.

But it is possible, and even probable, that many mistakes of this order were committed in the excitement of a revolutionary period, among the difficulties of an economic system which had suffered destruction and confusion through the war, and in view of the lack of resources essential to the needs of capitalist production, which it is not the business of any capitalist interest to provide. In the difficult task of harmonising the interests of the proletariat with the development of the productive forces under capitalist conditions, occasional mistakes on one side or the other could scarcely be avoided.

All the complaints and all the discontent in capitalist circles did not, however, crystallise in any important movement of political opposition. From this side the Social-Democratic Government had not the least to fear. The only chance of democratic opposition was that the capitalists might succeed in winning over the peasants to their side. But this is unthinkable.

The future of the Socialist regime, on the basis of democracy, depends upon the peasantry. This is the case not alone, in Georgia, but in all States where the proletariat docs not form the majority of the population. If democracy should be unfavourable to the proletariat, this is not due to the capitalists, whose numbers are relatively small, but to the peasants. If the peasants form the majority of the population, and are hostile to the proletariat, the latter cannot hope, to establish its rule under democratic conditions. This fact is certainly unpalatable. It is in no way altered by the Soviet system, which is also obliged to make terms with the peasants, and grant them Peasants' Councils.

The division into Workers' and Peasants' Councils makes the workers the masters of the towns and the peasants the masters of the countryside. Both classes may work together quite well so long as one does not interfere with the other, and each is permitted freedom