Page:Nikolai Bukharin - Programme of the World Revolution (1920).djvu/84

 capital will be of any avail. And that is what the right honourable bourgeoisie is afraid of.

Culture for the bourgeoisie, spiritual subjection for the poor—these are the capitalists' war cries. Culture for all, liberation of the mind from the yoke of capital—this is the watchword of the party of the working class, the party of the Communists.

 

"The best guarantee, the best security for freedom, is a bayonet in the hands of the workers." These were the words of one of the creators of scientific Communism, Frederick Engels. Now we can actually see how true this saying is: it has been completely confirmed by the experience of the great Revolution of 1917.

Quite a short time ago even some of our more radical comrades raised the cry of "disarmament." This is what they said: The bourgeoisie is everywhere building a monstrous, colossal fleet—submarine, marine and aerial; huge armies are growing. Fortresses are being built, colossal cannon and such organs of destruction as armoured cars and tanks. All this terrible system of violence must be destroyed. We must demand general disarmament.

But the Bolsheviks argued otherwise. We said: Our war cry is disarmament of the bourgeoisie and unconditional and universal arming of the working class. And indeed, it would be ridiculous to attempt to persuade the bourgeoisie to surrender its most powerful weapon—its armed forces (composed by the way, of deceived workmen and poor peasants). This violent death-dealing machine can only be destroyed by means of violence. Arms are surrendered only by the compulsion of the superior armed force of the other side; and in this fact lies the significance of the armed resistance against the bourgeoisie.

For the bourgeoisie the army is a weapon in the struggle for the division of the world on the one hand, and a weapon in the struggle against the working class on the other. The Tsar and Kerensky dreamed of conquering Constantinople as well as the Dardanelles, Galicia. and many another spicy bit by the