H. W. Lee

“ It is for the workers themselves to see that their trade unions shall be the means of securing something more than higher wages or even shorter hours of labour. War conditions have shown what a will-o'-the-wisp are mere increases of pay; and short hours of labour such as could easily be arranged under collective organisation of industry, with all the economies of effort which co-operation would effect, cannot be secured under capitalism. That surely should be obvious to all who call themselves Socialists and who have even a passing acquaintance with economics ”

“ That sort of action, when undertaken by an autocracy, is usually described as an act of imperialist aggression in order to divert attention from internal difficulties; and Bolshevism in Russia is an autocracy—a dictatorship not of the proletariat, but over the proletariat. It cannot possibly be anything else. ”

“ Impatience with the mass—however the Mass may be worshipped—is at the bottom of the idea of the "dictatorship of the proletariat." They must be emancipated in spite of themselves. Liberty and democracy can come afterwards when the Socialist dictators have transformed capitalist society into the Socialist State. During that transformation the mass must obey the minority which has seized power ”

“ But as the means for the overthrow of the capitalist system and the establishment of the Socialist Republic it is useless. Those who rely upon the general strike as the means for the realisation of Social-Democracy are like the ancient Gauls, of whom it is said that they shook all States and founded none. ”

“ Let them be what they may, the trade unions are the only form of working-class organisation to-day which can secure for the workers a decent standard of existence under capitalist conditions of industry. Anything which tends to weaken them and reduce their influence, whether in the interests of the employers or for the supposed advancement of r-r-r-revolutionary proletarian principles, whatever they may be, will be harmful to the workers. ”

“ That a similar train of thought should have entered the minds of Russian refugees, driven from a land where political democracy in any form appeared almost hopeless of achievement, is only natural, and equally natural that it should have been pursued to its abstract logical conclusion, inasmuch as, unlike ourselves, they were not working actually amongst the people day in and day out to understand how impossible of realisation such a wish must be. ”

“ In Russia "Bolshevik" means majority, and "Menshevik" minority. Their real significance was purely an internal one for the Russian Social-Democratic Party. It is important to make this point clear, for now and again we come across British supporters of and sympathisers with the Russian Bolsheviks who take the name as a proof that the Government of Lenin and Trotzky actually represents the majority of the Russian people! Nothing is more contrary to the fact. The Bolshevist "coup de rue" of November, 1917, was as complete a usurpation of power as that of Louis Napoleon in 1851. ”

“ If conditions generally in the countries of Europe under capitalism to-day were like what they were here a century ago, coupled with an absolute monarchical tyranny such as that which existed until recently in Russia, then there might be something to be said for the destruction of bourgeois society by any means that would bring it down. ”

“ Whatever Bolshevist undercurrents there are in the present reckless strike movements in Glasgow, Belfast and elsewhere are therefore due in great part to the Governments of Mr. Lloyd George. Nevertheless it behoves the working class of these islands to take cognisance of the facts concerning Russia, for they will enable them to realise clearly the grave mischief that these "unauthorised" strikes are doing, more to their own class and the country generally than to the capitalists against whom the efforts of the majority of the strikers are directed. ”

“ Revolution—there was practically no class able to take over the administration in the interests of the Revolution as with the French; and if that was so when certain bourgeois elements were with the Revolution, how much less of administrative knowledge would there be in a Bolshevist Government over millions of ignorant workers and peasants accustomed only to a despotic régime, whose "Commissaries" are mainly refugees, most of whom have lost all real touch with Russian internal affairs? ”

“ Given this idea, there is every reason for a popular agitation to prevent anything being done by the British Government and its allies to hamper that Socialist Republic in the early stages of its development. Unfortunately, the utter incapacity of the recent and present Coalition to come to any definite policy regarding Russia, and the inclination of some of its members to back the reactionists, while standing aloof from the real democratic forces in Russia which support the Constituent Assembly, play completely into the hands of the Bolsheviks of Russia and their sympathisers here. ”

“ The downfall of the Soldiers' and Workmen's Councils has been the consequence of their giving Lenin and his thirty companions full freedom to spread their anarchical creed and the wiping out of duly elected Assemblies.
The leading men of the Bolshevik movement in this country are out for the overthrow of things as they are by physical force as soon as they feel confident that they have a good number of the rank and file of the wage-earners behind them. ”

“ I want to warn the wage-earners—men and women of my own class—against being associated with such people, because I know that their tactics cannot remedy the economic and industrial injustices under which the industrial workers are suffering. They can be rectified by Social-Democratic education, scientific organisation in the trade union movement, and by using political powers to that end. ”

“ That is the dividing line between the Bolsheviks and their Social-Democratic opponents, the Mensheviks, and their far more numerous and powerful antagonists, the Social Revolutionaries, who obtained an overwhelming majority in the Constituent Assembly which the Bolsheviks dissolved by force. The Social Revolutionaries seek the emancipation of the peasants and workers by democratic means—the only safe and sure way—though they were quite ready to use force for the overthrow of Tsardom, happily effected in March, 1917. ”

“ And yet there are supporters of the Bolsheviks in Britain who profess to be Marxists—more Marxist than Marx, in fact—and who can countenance such a logical outrage on the "materialist conception of history"! ”

“ They are anti-Socialist because they are anarchical. They may pull down, but they cannot build up. Socialism and Socialists have suffered enough during the war because of the freaks and cranks that the war discovered among us, and the greater number of the same genus who now profess to be Socialists without understanding much, if anything, about the Socialist movement. We do not want further prejudice raised against us by attempts to connect us with anarchical violence, hooliganism and looting. Nothing for the benefit of the people can possibly come out of what is now going on. ”

“ All it will do is to help reaction, and make even the majority of the working class ready to acquiesce in a mild military dictatorship as a lesser evil than Bolshevist tyranny and violence. And there are some British Generals who are popular, and who are not merely militarists! ”

“ Socialist policy towards the trade unions should be, in short, not their capture for political purposes, nor their upset for Bolshevist phantasies, but one of educating the trade unionists. It is only along that line that the Social-Democratic movement can make real and steady progress.
The policy of the strike for anything and everything is not only anti-social; it is anti-Socialist. Writing on the strike outbreak of [15] 1911, [2] I said: "The mass strike is rarely effective, save in a negative fashion. ”

“ Socialist Parties in Europe "specifically Russian methods" which aim directly at creating troubles and divisions, and branding without any distinction "nearly all the known and respected bodies of International Social-Democracy as traitors and deserters stranded in the bourgeois camp, treating these comrades, whose international conscience and sentiments are above all suspicion, as National Liberals, chauvinists, philistines, traitors, etc." ”

“ The so-called 'Committees of the Poor' are drawn from the small number of peasants who sought employment in the factories during the war and have now returned to the country. The only supporters of the Bolsheviks, apart from the Letts and the Chinese, are those belonging to their own official caste. The European Press has rather understated than exaggerated the Red Terror."
As regards food conditions, [1] the Bolshevist Administration seems to be thorough and precise in the issue of food-cards of all descriptions, according to the four categories into which the population is divided. ”

“ Nothing under such conditions could be worse for the mass of the people. But with the destruction of the State in these islands would go the trade unions built up by years of solid labour and sacrifice, the co-operative societies, just now beginning to take a wider outlook on things than mere "divi." hunting, and the democratic political institutions of which the people can make far more use than they do when they choose to exercise their intelligence and bestir their energies. Then the increasingly complicated nature of production, distribution and exchange has also to be considered. ”

“ It is successful mostly when used against some particular object or for some definite purpose of the moment. It can be used to break an objectionable agreement; it may prevent the putting into force of an unpopular law, or the passing of some tyrannical measure; it may check an attempt to suppress popular liberties, such as they are; and it may prove the best possible means of preventing war between two countries, if action in that direction be taken equally in both countries. ”

“ If they succeed in this direction they will set to work to undermine the trade union movement of this country, and upset, instead of making use of, the means we at present possess for improving our economic conditions. ”

“ I hope the pamphlet will have a wide circulation in all the large industrial centres, because I feel convinced that the majority of the rank and file of the wage-earners do not and cannot know what it is that our Bolshevists are striving for. They have not the faintest idea in what direction some of them are being led. The Bolshevists in certain industrial centres want to impose their own authority on the rank and file of the workers, using catch-words for that purpose. ”

“ Are these not precisely the principles on which Lenin and Trotzky are striving to create this "Socialist Republic of a very high order"? And are they not revealed in the attempts of a small minority to impose their will on the majority during our own strike influenza? Often is it observable that those who most vehemently denounce the slightest [14] exercise of power in others have not the faintest objection to using it ruthlessly themselves. ”

“ Being "wars of defence, just wars," the people would obviously be justified in taking part in them from Lenin's point of view. Now let us see where the logic of this contention will land us. Morocco, possibly because what capitalism is there is foreign, may justly wage war against France; but if France fights a war of defence against an aggressive attack by Germany, she is engaged in an "imperialist war." Similarly, if India rises against Britain, the [7] people will be fighting a just war ”

“ For that purpose strikes are to be brought about as frequently as possible on no matter what pretext, provided that pretext calls out enough "hands" to paralyse capitalist industry. It may be increased wages one day, shorter hours the next, shop conditions the day after, anything that will cause men to "down tools." ”

“ In Russia it has a very definite and often striking meaning, as many anti-Bolsheviks have known and are learning to their cost. Elsewhere it has a wider, if looser, significance, and is frequently employed to express or describe a number of things to which one objects. ”

“ The methods adopted by the unauthorised shop stewards movement in the different parts of the country must be rigorously suppressed, and properly appointed shop stewards and works committees in all factories and workshops must be elected instead. By that method industrial and economic improvements can be brought about with the greatest benefit and the least harm to all. ”

“ The co-operative societies in Siberia, representing two million affiliated families, a population of about ten millions, have been the backbone of the opposition to the Bolshevist Government east of the Urals. ”