Page:Samuel Gompers - Out of Their Own Mouths (1921).djvu/132

106 tion is developing but where the proletarian makes up the minority of the population and the majority is made up of petty-bourgeois elements. In such a country the proletariat must lead the transition of these petty property holders into collective and communist labor. This is theoretically beyond any dispute, and on this we based a number of our legislative acts.

The feature which is peculiar to Russia in the highest degree is that we have here a proletariat making up the minority and a considerable minority at that, of the population, while the overwhelming majority consists of the peasantry.

That is, the class-struggle still continues in the shape of a class-war between the industrial proletariat and the agricultural population or peasants, regarded as petty bourgeois. The proletariat are the victors in this war in so far as they have conquered the peasants and captured the government. But the war continues because the peasant subjects of the proletariat are the over-whelming majority. These peasants must continue to be excluded from all power, but they must be handed down such economic advantages as are consistent with a continued proletarian dictatorship. And in the meanwhile they must be terrorized by frightful punishments against attempting to set up a régime of self-government as Chapter IV amply demonstrates.

The agriculturists are so few in the Communist Party that they are not usually even listed in the Party statistics. The figures quoted above will show that they do not number more than two or three per cent of that party, that is, not one agriculturist in 10,000 is represented in the organization that governs Russia!

Having counted out the agriculturist majority com-