Dictatorship vs. Democracy

, His School

of the Austrian forgery of Marxism. While the real teaching of Marx is the theoretical formula of action, of attack, of the development of revolutionary energy, and of the carrying of the class blow to its logical conclusion, the Austrian school was transformed into an academy of passivity and evasiveness, because of a vulgar historical and conservative school, and reduced its work to explaining and justifying, not guiding and overthrowing. It lowered

in the explanation of yesterday, and considerable daring in prophesying concerning to-morrow-but for to-day he never has a great thought or capacity for great action.

astful theory of passivity and capitulation. Naturally, it is not by accident that it was just in Austria, in that Babylon torn by fruitless national antagonisms, in that State whi

duality." On various questions they more than once did not see eye to eye. They

most revolutionary words. And, as both words and their combinations live, within certain limits, with their own independent life, Renner's articles awakened in the hearts of many workers a revolutionary fire which their author apparently never knew. The ti

onary pathos, into a comic-opera-Chancellor, who expresses his feelings of respect and thanks

ilation of the talented student of a University seminar. The most disgraceful actions of Austrian opportunism, the meanest servility before the power of the possessing classes on the part of the Austro-German Social-Democracy, found in Bauer their grave elucidator, who sometimes expressed himself with dignity against the form, but always agreed in the essence. If it ever occurred to Bauer to display anything like temperament and political energy, it was exclusively in the struggle against the revolutionar

Bauer is its sociologist. Max Adler is cramped in a world of three dimensions, although he had found a very comfortable place for himself with the framework of Viennese bourgeois Socialism and the Hapsburg State. The combination of the petty

ustle swiftly disappeared from his own nature. He soon became subjected to the mechanical rhythm of Berlin and the automatic spiritual life of the German Social-Democracy. He devoted his intellectual energy to the purely theoretical sphere, where he did not say a great deal, true-no Austro-Marxist has ever said a great deal in any sphere-but in which he did, at any rate, write a serious book. With this book on his back, like a porter with a heavy load, he entered the revolutionary epoch. But the most scien

cepticism finally to destroy the revolutionary foundations of his world outlook. The temperament inherited from his father more than once drove him into opposition to the school created by his father. At certain moments Friedrich Adler might seem the very revolu

of German militarism, went out to the Potsdamerplatz to call the oppressed masses to the open struggle, Friedrich Adler went into a bourgeois restaurant to assassinate there the Aus

itz, Leitner, etc.) hurled at Adler the terrorist all t

olden halo of the terrorist was transformed by the experienced counterfeiters of the party into the sounding coin of the demagogue. Friedrich Adler became a trusted surety for the Austerlitzes and Renners in face of the masses. Happily, th

clude the Soviet system in the Ebert-Noske Constitution, Hilferding gave voice not only to his own spirit but to the spirit of the whole Austro-Marxian school, which, with the approach of the revolutionary

laims them the apparatus of the Social Revolution. Max Adler, of course, is for a social revolution. But not for a stormy, barricad

tration of powers even an advantage, which allows the direct expression of the proletarian will. Max Adler is in favor of the direct expression of the proletarian will; but only not by means of the direct seizure of power through the Soviets. He proposes a more solid method. In each town, borough, and ward, the Workers' Councils must "control" the police and other o

n, however, was a little hindered by the unforeseen misunderstandings, lasting four years, between the Central Powers and the Entente-and all that followed. It was found necessary to reject the economical programme of a grad

e in the hands of the bourgeoisie and its assistants. But in the wards and the boroughs the Soviets control the policemen and their assistants. And, to console the working class and at the same time to centr

ictatorship of the Soviets-the Soviet system would acquire as large an influence as it could possibly have even in a Soviet republic. At the same time we should not have to pay for that influence by political storms and econ

of the shrine of Marxist orthodoxy, Kautsky from time to time would shake his head in disapproval of the more compromising outbursts of his Austrian school. And, following the example of the late

question of mass action in Germany itself put forward by the course of events, the more evasive became Kautsky's attitude. He marked time, retreated, lost his confidence; and the pedantic and scholastic features of his thought more and more became apparent. The imperialist war, which killed every form of vagueness and brought mankind face to face with the most fundamental questions, exposed all the political bankruptcy of Kautsky. He immediately became confused beyond all hope of extrication, in the most simpl

siological and social conditions which assisted the development of cruelty and humanity throughout the history of the human race. In a book devoted to Bolshevism, in which the whole question is examined in 234 pages, Kautsky describes in detail on what our most remote human ancestor fed, and hazards the guess that, while living mainly on vegetabl

kind. Is it not incredible, at first glance, that Kautsky should gather up the most contemptible stories about the Bolsheviks from the rich table of Havas, Reuter and Wolff, thereby displaying from under his

ors our savagery towards the bourgeoisie

with the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Me

SOVIET ECONOMY AS

he Russian working class as a whole, as a co

the preparations for a similar surrender of Petrograd; about its appeals to foreign armies-Czecho-Slovakian, German, Roumanian, British, Japanese, French, Arab and Negro-against the Russian workers and peasants; about its conspiracies and

f the party on the charge of espionage in favor of Hohenzollern Germany; about the participation of the Mensheviks and S.R.s in all the plots of the bourgeoisie; about their collaboration with the imperial generals and admirals, Kolchak, Denikin and Yudenich; ab

o the country, even at the cost of sacrifices and concessions, and that, in spite of this, we were obliged to carry on an intensive strugg

ng the future of world Socialism, the Russian proletariat is obliged to expend its principal energ

tente countries with the help of its Renaudels and the apathy of its Longuets, surrounded us with an iron blockade; seized all our ports; cut us off from the whole of the world; occupied, with

000 versts; that the Russian working class learned how to exchange its hammer for the sword, and created a mighty army; that for this army it mobilized its exhausted industry and, in spite of the ruin of the country, which the exec

ce is the fundamental, capital, principal lie-true, a passive lie, but more criminal and more repul

(to speak in Kautsky's language) tried their hand, and showed what they would and what they could. There are so many of these "shades" that it is difficult now to pass the blade of a knife between them. The very origin of these "shades" is not accidental: they represent, so to speak, different degrees in the adaptation of the pre-revolutionary Socialist parties and groups to the conditions of the greater revol