Page:Nikolai Bukharin - Programme of the World Revolution (1920).djvu/30

 the war cry of our party. And the programme of our party is the programme of proletarian dictatorship.

 

Our attitude towards the necessity of dictatorship leads us, as an inevitable result, to struggle against an antiquated form of a parliamentary bourgeois republic (sometimes called "democratic"), and to our attempts at setting up instead a new form of State administration—a government of the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies.

The mensheviks and the right wing of the socialist revolutionaries are staunch supporters of the Constituent Assembly and a parliamentary republic. They loudly abuse the government of the Soviets. And why? First, because they are afraid of the power of the workers, and desire to retain all power in the hands of the bourgeoisie. But the communists who are striving to realise the communist (socialist) order must inevitably fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat and for the complete overthrow of the bourgeoisie. That is where the difference lies. And for this very reason the parties of mensheviks and socialist revolutionaries are at one with the party of the bourgeoisie.

What is the essential difference between a parliamentary republic and a republic of Soviets? It is, that in a soviet republic the non-working elements are deprived of the franchise and take no part in administrative affairs. The country is governed by Soviets, which are elected by the toilers in the places where they work, as factories, works, workshops, mines, and in villages and hamlets. The bourgeoisie, ex-landowners, bankers, speculating traders, merchants, shopkeepers, usurers, the Korniloff intellectuals, priests and bishops, in short the whole of the black host have no right to vote, no fundamental political rights. The foundation of a parliamentary republic is formed by the Constituent Assembly, while the supreme organ of the Soviet Republic is the Convention of Soviets. What is the principal difference between the Convention of Soviets and the Constituent Assembly? Anybody with the least intelligence