Page:Trade Unions in Soviet Russia - I.L.P. (1920).djvu/65



The execution of our task requires a unity of will, it requires that in every practical question we act as one man. Unity of will should not only remain a phrase, a symbol; we demand that unity shall become a matter of actual practice. In the war unity of will was expressed by the fact that whenever personal interests, the interests of villages or groups were placed before the common interests, the guilty man was branded for a coward and an egoist and was finally shot; and this execution was morally justified by the conscience of the working class that it must strive for victory. We spoke openly of these executions, we never denied this violence because we were fully aware that we can never free ourselves from the relics of old society without using force against the backward layers of the proletarian masses. And in this was expressed our unity of will. In practice this uniformity was realised in the repression directed against deserters, in every battle and in every crusade when the Communist Party formed the vanguard, setting an example of courage and self-sacrifice. Now we can make an attempt to apply this unity of will to industrial labour and to agriculture when we are in possession of a territory of thousands of miles and of a huge number of factories. You will clearly see that mere force of violence will not do here, you will understand the gigantic task with which we are confronted, you will grasp what unity of will really means. It is not a mere watchword, a fit subject for a pamphlet endorsed with the words "to be voted for." It is necessary to think and to ponder what this word demands from us in our every-day work. As an example take the year 1918; at that time there were no disputes in connection with this question, and I pointed out the necessity for single man management, the necessity of recognising the dictatorial authority of single individuals for the purpose of carrying out the Soviet idea; that therefore all these phrases regarding equality are sheer nonsense. The class struggle is not carried on on a basis of equality of rights. The possibility of the proletariat being victorious is based on the fact that they represent hundreds of disciplined men, expressing one single will; they are in a position to conquer the peasantry which is economically completely disorganised, a peasantry which has no common basis such as leads the proletariat to unite the closer at its factories and works.

The peasantry is completely disorganised; and in addition to this it represents partly owners, partly workers. Private ownership draws it to capitalism. "The higher the price the better. Should starvation appear—the better still; this will ensure the best possible prices." On the other hand the labouring peasant knows that he has been freed from the yoke of the landlord by the working class. There is a struggle here of two aspects of the soul, a struggle resulting from the economic position of the peasants. This has to be considered; our victory is possible only upon the condition: that we pursue a firm policy. Workers always remain workers in our eyes, and as to