Page:Nikolai Bukharin - Programme of the World Revolution (1920).djvu/89

 not for the sake of mutilating and ravaging foreign countries, but for the purpose of aiding the international Communist Revolution.

It is needless to say that this army must be built on different principles to the old one. Tin- lied Army, we have said, must represent an armed people alongside a disarmed bourgeoisie. It must be a class army of the proletariat and the poorest peasantry. It is essentially directed against the bourgeoisie of the whole world, including its own. This is the reason why it cannot include armed representatives of the bourgeoisie. To admit the bourgeoisie, into the army would be equal to arming it: it would mean creating a White Guard within the Red Army which might easily disorganise the whole concern, becoming a centre of treason and revolt, and go over into the camp of the imperialist troops of the enemy. Our object is not to arm the bourgeoisie, but to disarm it, depriving it of its last browning.

Our second, and not less important task, is to prepare a proletarian officer corps. The working class has to defend itself against enemies who are attacking it from all sides. War has been imposed upon it by the imperialist rascals: and modern warfare requires well-trained specialists. The Tzar and Kerensky had such men at their disposal, but the working class and the peasantry have not. Specialists have to be trained. For this purpose we must utilise the knowledge of the old ones; they must be compelled to instruct the proletariat. Then the Socialist Soviet Fatherland will have its own officers and its own officer corps. And just as in the Revolution, the more experienced and active working class leads after it the poor peasantry, so in the war against the imperialist robbers, the worker-officers will lead the whole mass of the Red Peasant Army.

The Red Army must be created on the basis of universal training of the workers and the poorest elements of the peasantry.

This is most urgent and important. Not a minute, not a second should be lost.

Every workman and every peasant must be trained and must be taught how to use arms. Only fools can argue that: "They are a long way off yet; until they come we shall have time to get ready." Russian sluggards often reason like that. All the world knows that the favourite Russian saying is ("avos") "perhaps" or "maybe"; "avos we shall manage."