Distracted "Demos,"

 And the Dogma of "Dictatorship,"

What is Happening in Russia.

NOT DEMOCRACY, BUT MILITARY DICTATORSHIP.

THE " PREDOMINANCE " OF ALLEGED "PROLETARIANS."

The Vote of one City Dweller Equal to the Votes of Five Poor Peasants.

What Happens to the Soviets that are " Declared Bogus " or "Counter Revolutionary."

What sort of Government has been set up In Soviet Russia? Is it a democracy? Very many people think that it is. Yet the truth is that it is not a system of government in which the people rule, but one in which a political party which is backed by a large and efficient army has installed itself as a dictatorship. If the governments of the world would not only withdraw all their troops from Russia, but also stop the blockade of that country, and facilitate the spread of knowledge (from the Bolsheviks themselves as well as from their enemies) as to what the Bolshevik dictators are actually doing, as well as saying, there would not long be much sympathy for Bolshevism, either in or out of Russia. Bolshevism is

MAINTAINED AND STRENGTHENED

by the fact that other nations are invading and blockading Russia. A similar course of action maintained in Revolutionary France, in 1793, the Jacobin Government, which declared that "Terror is the order of the day," and kept itself in power by the ruthless slaughter of its political enemies.
Democracy is rule by the people. Where the people cannot rule by direct means. (as they do in some small communities in the United States and Switzerland), they rule by means of representatives.  These should, at least, represent the majority of the people. The Russian Bolshevik system of government, however, is not a democracy; it is, the Bolsheviks themselves say, a dictatorship. A dictatorship is a condition of things in which

ABSOLUTE OR SUPREME POWER

is possessed by a person, or by persons. The Bolsheviks say that their system of government is a "dictatorship of the proletariat." Their exact words were recently published in what was called the "Programme of the Moscow (Communist) International. Draft Proposals for re-construction of the International Socialist Bureau. The Guiding Lines of the Communist International. (Adopted at the Congress of too Communist International, from the 2nd to the 6th March, 1919.)" Here is what it says about the "hegemony"

AND "PRIVILEGED POSITION"

of the "Industrial proletariat": —
The industrial proletariat enjoys under this system a privileged position, since it is the most advanced, the best organised, and politically the ripest class, under whose hegemony the semi-proletariat and the small peasant of the countryside are to be gradually raised to a higher level. These temporary privileges of the industrial proletariat must be made use of in order to withdraw the poorer lower middle-class masses of the countryside from under the  influence of the large farmers and bourgeoisie, and to organise and educate them as co-workers in the task of communist reconstruction.
"Hegemony" means leadership with preponderant authority. The "industrial proletariat" that is thus given preponderant authority over the "semi-proletariat and the small peasant" is, in Russia, a very small class. The estimated population of Russia in 1915 was, according to "The Statesman's Year Book." 132,000,000. It is probable that what is now Soviet Russia may have a population of 600.000,000. In 1915 the report of the Ministry of Finance showed that there were 1,960,800 work-people employed in "industrial establishments under the inspectors of factories" in European Russia and Caucasus, excluding  Poland.
Without going further into figures, the well-known fact maybe stated that, those whom the Bolsheviks call "the industrial proletariat" in Russia are enormously outnumbered by the peasants, over whom the so-called "proletariat" is

TO HAVE "HEGEMONY."

Under the Bolshevik system of government, only those councils (the Russian word for which is "Soviet") elected in accordance with the Constitution of Soviet Russia, have any right to say or do anything in connection with government. These councils elect higher councils, and' these again still higher councils, until the Government (called Commissaries) itself is elected. The constitution deliberately provides, however, that in the most Important Soviet, the vote of five provincials shall only count as equal to the vote of one city-dweller. This is thus admitted in "The Structure of the Soviet State" by Mr. John Reed, who says :—
At least twice a year delegates are elected from all over Russia to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. Theoretically, these delegates are chosen by direct popular election, from the provinces, one for each one hundred and twenty-five thousand voters— from the cities; one for each twenty-five thousand; practically, however, they are all usually chosen by the provincial and the urban Soviets.
The basis of representation thus stated by Mr. Reed, is precisely laid down in the Bolshevik Constitution. This was published in full in New York "Current History" for September, 1918, and in Mr. Maurice Blackburn's pamphlet entitled "Bolshevism," which is published in Melbourne.
There is an extraordinary  rule mentioned by Mr. John Reed which would greatly please manipulators of

PARTY POLITICAL MACHINES

in this or any other country. This is thus stated on page 7 of "The Structure of the Soviet State":— It is designated by the central committees of the political parties, which can replace them by other party members.
Imagine the executives of the political parties of Australia given such a power as this! "Dictatorship"! We should think "so!
The Soviet Constitution disfranchises and disqualifies for office a considerable number of persons, such as employers of labor for "an increase of profits," merchants and trade intermediaries, persons living on interest or rent, employees of religious communities, persons formerly connected with the police or gendarmerie, persons who are not members of "trades associations," and numerous others. The intention is to disfranchise and disqualify the "bourgeoisie," and all suspected of being, by the nature of their vocations, likely to sympathise with that class. Much, depends, of course, upon, the interpretation of this provision. Some writers declare that it disfranchises medical practitioners and many other members of

THE PROFESSIONAL CLASSES.

The Constituent Assembly which the Bolshevik military forces overthrew was a thoroughly democratic body (with an overwhelmingly large majority of Socialist Revolutionists). It had been elected by equal, secret, adult suffrage. The Soviet authorities, however, only exist where people are willing to elect the local councils upon which the Government of Soviet Russia is based. Where there is no Soviet, the Bolshevik authority appoints a "commisary." As to a Soviet consisting of Socialists who do not approve of Bolshevism, the Bolshevik Government  declares it "counter-revolutionary," and may shoot its leaders. Mr. John Spargo is a well-known American Socialist, who does not approve of Bolshevism, and this is what he says about the

FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES

of Soviets under the Bolshevik Government :—
No one ever pretended that the Soviets represented all the workers of Russia — including peasants in that term — or even a majority of them.  No one ever pretended that the Soviet, as such, was a stable and constant factor. New Soviets were always springing up and others dying out. Many existed only in name, on paper. There never has been an accurate list of the Soviets, existing in Russia. Many lists have been made, but always by the time they could be tabulated and published there have been many changes.
At Kazan, where Lenine went to school, the Soviet was dissolved because it was controlled by Socialist Revolutionists of the Left, former Allies, now hostile to the Bolsheviki. Here are two paragraphs from "Izvestya." one of the Bolshevist official organs: —
"Kazan, July 26.—As the important offices in the Soviet were occupied by Socialist Revolutionists of the Left, the Extraordinary Commission has dissolved the Provisional Soviet. The Governmental power is now represented by a Revolutionary Committee. (Izvestya, July 28, 1918.) "Kazan, August 1. — The state of mind  of the workmen is revolutionary. If the Mensheviki dare to carry on their propaganda,

DEATH MENACES THEM.

(Idem, August 3;)"
And here is confirmation from another official organ of the Bolsheviki, "Pravda":—
"Kazan, August 4. — The Provisional Congress of the Soviets of the Peasants has been dissolved because of the absence from it of poor peasants and because its state of mind is obviously counter-revolutionary. (Pravda, August 6, 1918.)"
As early as April, 1918, the Soviet at Jaroslav was dissolved by the Bolshevik authorities and new elections ordered.  In these elections the Mensheviki and the Socialist-Revolutionists everywhere gained an absolute majority.  The population here wanted the Constituent Assembly; and they wanted Russia to fight on with the Allies. Attempts to suppress this majority led to insurrection, which the Bolsheviki crushed in the most brutal manner, and when the people, overpowered and helpless, sought to make peace, the Bolsheviki only

INCREASED THE ARTILLERY FIRE!

Here is an "Official Bulletin," published in "Izvestya," July 21, 1918:—
"At Jaroslav  the adversary, gripped in the iron ring of our troops, has tried to enter into negotiations. The reply has been given under the form of redoubled artillery fire."
As we have stated, the rule of the Bolsheviks is based upon the existence of a large, well-trained and well-paid army. This army is officered by some of the most efficient of those who officered the Czar's army.  Without the army, the Bolsheviks would probably lose their power.
The theory of the seizure of political power by a minority for the purpose of establishing a Communist State is not a new one. The famous French conspirator, Blanqui, repeatedly tried this, and the great insurrection in Paris in June, 1848, and that in March, 1871, were largely the outcome of Blanqui's conspiracies. Karl Marx himself was attracted by the idea of the insurrectionary

SEIZURE OF POWER

at the time when he and Engels drew up the Communist Manifesto (a little before the French Revolution of February, 1848); After witnessing the failures of 1848 and 1871, however, both Marx and Engels saw that an attempt by a minority of proletarians to seize political power, by means of it, to inaugurate Communism, was economically unsound, This was stated by Frederick Engels, as follows, in his 1895 preface to Marx's "Civil War In France":—
History proved that we were wrong — we and those who like us, in 1848, awaited the speedy success of the proletariat. It became perfectly clear that economic conditions all over the Continent, were by no means as yet sufficiently matured for superseding the capitalist organisation for production. This was proved by the economic revolution which commenced on the Continent of Europe after 1848 and developed in France, Austria-Hungary, Poland, and, recently, also in Russia, and made Germany into an Industrial state of the first rank— all on a capitalist basis, which shows that in 1848 the prevailing conditions were still capable of expansion. And to-day we have a huge international army of Socialists. . . If this mighty proletarian army has not yet reached its goal, if it is destined to gain its ends only in a

LONG DRAWN OUT STRUGGLE,

making headway but slowly, step by step, this only proves how impossible it was in 1848 to change social conditions by forcible means . . . the time for small minorities to place themselves at the head of the ignorant masses and resort to force in order to bring about revolutions is gone. A complete change in the organisation of Society can be brought about only the conscious co-operation of the masses; they must be alive to the aim in view; they must know what they want. The history of the last 50 years has taught us that.
New York "Current History," for May of this year, quotes from the "London Times" the statement that "quite recently the Bolsheviki have set up in the streets of Petrograd a statue of Blanqui, on which is inscribed Blanqui's famous motto, "Ni Dieu, ni Maitre." This motto means, "Neither God nor Master." The "London Times" adds to its information as to the erection of the statue of Blanqui the following comment "To present-day Russia, the words are pitifully inappropriate, Bolshevist Russia has a master, and in his secret heart every Bolshevist knows it."

Truth (Brisbane, Qld. : 1900 - 1954), Sunday 19 October 1919, page 9