Page:Nikolai Bukharin - Soviets or Parliament.djvu/8

 factory committee can in this way take part in the common work of building up new forms of life.

In the capitalist republic the position of the State improves as the activities of the masses are restricted, for the interests of the masses are in conflict with the capitalist State. The Soviet Republic, which embodies the dictatorship of the popular masses, could not subsist for a single instant without their support. On the contrary its strength grows as the masses become more conscious, and as they become more active in every direction: in the factory and the workshop, and in every town and village.

Before the October revolution the organisations of workers and peasants were simply the instruments of the class war against the ruling and possessing capitalists. The organisations fought capital for higher wages and shorter working days, and in the villages they fought for the expropriation of the land. Now that the power is in the hands of the workers and peasants, they have become the wheels of the governmental mechanism. The industrial unions are not merely fighting capitalism. As an organic and integral part of the Workers'