Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Russian Revolution (1921).pdf/28



The Russian revolution is a standing marvel to the bourgeois world. In the first place, by all the rules of "legitimate" economics, it should not have occured at all; because, for a country to have such a proletarian revolution it would seem to be absolutely necessary that it possess a highly-developed industrial system and an educated working class; whereas Russia is 85 per cent agricultural and her workers are notoriously lacking in industrial training. But the revolution did occur, nevertheless. And then, in the second place, according to the orthodox economists, seeing that the workers did manage in some way to get control, they should have long since been overthrown by the series of terrible civil wars, armed invasions, plagues, famines, and industrial breakdowns to which their "unscientific" society has been constantly exposed. But the workers were not overthrown. On the contrary, they have already conquered a mountain of difficulties and are going right on extending and consolidating their power in the face of strings of "impossibilities." To the average bourgeois mind the Russian revolution is a sort of social miracle.

But if the revolution is a miracle the miracle-worker is not far to seek: it is the Russian Communist Party. This organization is one of the most remarkable in human annals. Some have called it the brains of the revolution. It is all that and much more: it is the brains and nerves and heart and soul. It is the organized intelligence, driving force, courage, and idealism—the very seat of life of the revolution. Without it the whole movement would have collapsed long, long ago; if, indeed, it had ever taken shape at all.

The Russian Communist Party is more than a political party in the accepted sense of the term. It is really a scientific system of social control: an organization which makes every institution of society function in the spirit of the revolution. It is political, legislative, judicial, military, educational, social, industrial. As Zinoviev has said, "The Communist Party is an