Page:Karl Kautsky - Georgia - tr. Henry James Stenning (1921).pdf/86

 Only under democratic conditions, and not under a Dictatorship, is it possible to enlist the interest of the peasants in a State that is ruled by the proletariat.

In Georgia, the relation between the proletariat and the peasants is the best possible. They worked together cordially in the building up of a new economy. The peasants were inspired by the greatest confidence in the proletarian leadership, and the latter did all that is possible to further the interests of the country alongside with its own class interests. This end is achieved by keeping in the foreground the necessity for increasing the productive forces of the country in which both classes are equally interested.

The co-operation of the classes, was assisted by the fact that they are often brought together in personal association. Many industrial workers possess small plots of land, and many peasants are still obliged to perform temporary wage-labour. The co-operation of the two classes is not less rendered easier by the consumers' co-operative societies, which unite town workers and peasants, than by the fact that the priests as well as the nobles have lost all influence over the peasantry. The historical moment, the tradition, which plays such a big part with the conservative peasant, is in Georgia associated with the Social-Democracy, as it was the latter which, from the commencement led the struggle for the peasants' emancipation from the Russian bureaucracy and Absolutism, and from native serfdom. Add to this a further motive. As soon as the peasant emerges from his revolutionary period and becomes the undisputed owner of his land, he supports the readiest that government which not only respects his property, but also protects it from devastation through foreign invasion and civil war. This explains the support given by the French peasants to the victorious Napoleonic Empire, and their hostility to the urban revolutionaries as soon as the latter appeared to be the instigators of civil war.

The Social-Democratic Government of Georgia has