Page:Karl Radek - The Development of Socialism from Science to Action.djvu/31

 enough for the proletariat to assure itself that the majority of the people is behind it. Nowhere do the highly exploited young men and women workers enjoy full rights. If they did, the bourgeoisie would sooner turn out the Parliament, long before the workers reached a point where they could perform the will of the people by peaceful means. But it is really silly to imagine that one could, by peaceful means, through agitation only, without Revolution, overcome the lack of confidence which the masses have in their own power. Only in the Revolution can the front ranks of the workers carry the masses along with them.

But a Revolution means that one class dictates its will to the other class. The conditions which Kautsky and Co. set for a Revolution, are these: the Revolution, to be sure, has the right to dictate its will to the bourgeoisie, but it is its duty, at the same time, to give the bourgeoisie the possibility, by means of the freedom of the press, and from the vantage of the Constituent Assembly of airing its accusations. This intellectual demand of a professional kicker, who is not so much concerned with gaining his point as with registering his kick, could be abstractly complied with without harming the Revolution; but the RovolutionRevolution [sic] is a civil war, and classes, who fight each ether with cannon and machine guns forego the Homeric battle of words. The Revolution does not argue with its enemies, it crushes them, the counter-revolution does the same, and both of them will know how to bear the reproach of not having followed the order of business of the German Reichstag.

The harsh face which the Russian Revolution shows to the international proletariat, is the same face which, blackened with powder, the international proletariat will itself proudly wear in the near future. He who is frightened at this face or turns away from it, as from a Medusa's head, will turn away from the proletarian revolution, and away from Socialism. But