Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/19

Rh imperative requirements of the new revolutionary epoch.

The proletarian revolution in Russia marks a recovery from the great collapse of Socialism upon the declaration of war in 1914, and during the war; but at the same time it emphasizes that collapse. Moderate Socialism, which during the war betrayed the proletariat and Socialism by accepting the policy of imperialistic governments, developed into a counter-revolutionary force; and it acted against and betrayed the proletarian revolution in Russia by rejecting the call to action of revolutionary Russia. After having overcome moderate, petty bourgeois Socialism in its own councils, the proletarian revolution in RussaRussia [sic] had to struggle, must struggle against moderate Socialism throughout the world.

And by "moderate Socialism" is meant not simply the Socialism of the "right" which accepted the war, but equally the Socialism of the "centre," which either opposed the war from the start or adopted an oppositional attitude after preliminary acceptance. It was not simply the Socialism of the "right," of Plekhanov and the other social-patriots, but equally the Socialism of the "centre," of Cheidse and Tseretelli, that the revolution in Russia had to overcome. This moderate Socialism in other belligerent nations refused to act in solidarity with the revolutionary proletariat of Russia, or else camouflaged its petty bourgeois soul by means of honeyed words, while refusing to accept the struggle for deeds. The collapse of the "centre" is particularly emphasized,—that Socialism which is neither fish, flesh nor yet fowl; expressing an atrophied Marxism, which is neither revolutionary nor of Marx; in the attitude of which the phrase surpasses the substance; and which, precisely because it uses Marxist and revolutionary phrases in its criticism of the "right," is particularly dangerous. Plekhanov was not much of a problem to the Russian revolutionary proletariat: he was ignominiously cast aside; but it required much more initiative and energy to cast aside Tseretelli and Cheidse. When the proletariat of Germany acts, it will unceremoniously cast aside the Scheidemanns and the Cunows; but it may be directed into the swamps of compromise by the Kautskys and and the Haases. The proletarian revolution must discard the miserable masters of the phrase and the poltroons in action.

The proletarian revolution in Russia, accordingly, in its dominant Bolshevist phase, initiates not alone a new revolutionary epoch in the proletarian struggle, but equally a new epoch in Socialism, makes mandatory the reconstruction of Socialism in accord with the policy and practice of the proletarian revolution in Russia.