Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/444

 intelligent, enterprising workers. I was always struck in modern history with the behavior of hereditary aristocracy. How little did the French aristocracy understand the signs of times, how little did the Austro Hungarian aristocracy learn from the political and social revolutions of modern days. I often think that modern bourgeoisie, the so-called big capital, follows in the footsteps of the old aristocracy. “Fate leads the willing and drags the unwilling.”

The problem of socialization requires very earnest and sincere thinking and good intelligence on the part of both wrorkingmen and capitalists. But I look on the task of socialization as being not merely an economic, but also a moral demand. I do not believe that it is based on pure materialism; and besides I have more patience with materialism of the hungry man than of the well-fed.

Do not expect from me a detailed program of socialization. That is the duty not only of the government, but also of the parliament and of the representatives of workers and bourgeoisie. But it is important that we should realize the tendency of the time and spirit from which social reforms must be born. Deputy Němec recently emphasized that during the brief term of our republic many valuable social reforms have been achieved bloodlessly. I believe that all parties will, with all sincerity, approve the platform of thorough social reforms without bloodshed.

In this connection I do not want to avoid the problem of so-called bolshevism, particularly Russian bolshevism, because it has special significance for us by the relation of our army to Russia. I went through the bolshevist revolution in Russia; I saw it very closely and watched it with great interest, and I think quite objectively. Lenine declares his communistic program to be true marxism, but he is wrong. Marx passed through several stages of his socialistic development and it is necessary to distinguish between two marxisms. There is the marxism of the revolutionary year 1848, of the communistic program, of the first volume of the “Kapital”; but in his second stage Marx gave up the revolutionary character of his young days and accepted evolutionary viewpoint, and finally Engels shortly before his death completely and expressly gave up the revolutionary program. Lenine and his followers thus appeal to marxism which Marx and Engels themselves gave up later. Lenine’s bolshevism is really far more revolutionary anarchism or perhaps syndicalism than socialism. Many recent pronouncements of Lenine leave no doubt of it in the minds of those who understand the subject. Lenine, however, has no right to appeal to marxism even in other respects. Marx, it is true, places the mass of workers in sharp contrast against the bourgeoisie, but from that Engels and the followers of Marx have properly deduced the democratic principle of majority. Lenine resorts to the dictatorship of the proletariat as the rule of minority. When speaking of the proletariat Marx and Engels postulated a worker who would be a disciple of Fichte and of the whole German philosophy and science, and this philosophical proletariat was to take over from the bourgeoisie the leadership of society. Marx expected from the final over turn and dictatorship of the proletariat a higher stage not only of cultural development, but also of culture. But Lenine and his followers represent the primitive political economy and culture of the illiterate Bussian peasant. Lenine committed a crime against the law of division of labor, he did not realize that the creation of new society demands new political, economic and social experts. In his addresses Lenine frequently admits that he and his followers have committed errors and that they learnt from errors; but the point is that those errors cost thousands upon thousands of human lives lost unnecessarily.

A conscientious social statesman learns from the experience of ages; he must derive lessons from history, he must understand the true tendency of development, especially of his own time, and on this experience he must build his new structure or repair the old one. Lenine’s tactics resembles too much the tactics of Ivan the Terrible. Russian bolshevism has not got over Russian czarism. I will admit, for I have met them, that among Russian bolsheviks are men with ideals, with theories who were, however, not up to their task. Present Russia, its desperate economic anarchy, general misery and general famine make Lenine’s bolshevism absurd. In short I do not see in Russian bolshevism true marxism, and as far as it is marxism, it is its refutation rather than its confirmation, just as all this war and its result are not, in my opinion, a verification of marxism, but its repudiation. Everybody has surely noticed that bolshevism in Russia sprang up after military defeat, just as in Germany and Hungary, in defeated countries. This is a very eloquent fact for the phychological understanding of bolshevism.

Among us bolshevism is sometimes condemned as non-Slavic and non-Russian. But I believe that Lenine is Russian and typically Russian, even though spoiled by German socialism.

Bolshevism in our land would be inorganic. It would be foolish to transplant to our soil Russian programs and methods which were derived from very special and quite abnormal conditions; our workers possess higher education, other experiences and tasks than Russian workingmen. Therefore they cannot imitate the Russian example. Besides, I look upon bolshevistic communism as impossible in principle.

It is,, [sic]however, quite a different matter of a political and tactical kind, whether we should favor intervention against bolshevism. I have been and still am against intervention in Russia