Page:Karl Radek - Proletarian Dictatorship and Terrorism - tr. Patrick Lavin (1921).djvu/53

46 thus conceded into bastions to be used later against the workers' revolution. The Left Communists on the other hand quite agreed with Lenin in his endeavor to create as favorable conditions as possible for intellectual workers-engineers, technicians, etc—in order to gain the cooperation of these not necessarily counter-revolutionary elements. History (which crowned Lenin's foreign policy—the policy of evasion rather than a direct collision with German Imperialism with success) showed that his attempt to promote production by attracting capitalists to it, was at that time impracticable. The breathing space which his foreign policy gained for the revolution allowed it to organize itself, was also a breathing-space for the counter-revolution, which, under the shield of German Imperialism in the Ukraine and under the protection of the Entente in Siberia, organized more energetic attacks on Soviet Russia. Instead of effecting compromises with the matadors of Capitalism for the improvement of industry the proletariat State had to fight the Terror with all available means in order to protect the power of the working class—the fundamental condition for any kind of Socialization. But even then the hard facts and stern necessities had to be reckoned with in considering methods of socialization, quite independently of abstract combinations. During the war Soviet Russia was cut off from the ore and coal of the Donetz basin and of the Caucasus, from the naptha of Baku, and since the Czecho-Slovakian revolt, from the metals of the Urals, and from the wool of Taskent. This situation necessitated the collecting of every available atom of raw material. It necessitated the closing of factories which could not be worked full time, and the handing over of their machines and supplies of raw material to those which could. It necessitated the suspension of production of articles not actually necessary, and even of many indispensible things, and the placing of industry at the service of the defense of the Revolution. All large industry had to be vigorously centralized in the hands of the proletarian State. "Complete Socialization"—exclusive of handicrafts, etc.—was not the result of