Karl Kautsky

“ There is also no capitalist class of any importance. The nucleus of an energetic and independent capitalist class has always been bound up with industrial capital. This condition has almost completely been wanting in Georgia. Money and trading capital is found to be represented there more strongly, but this is mostly in the hands of foreigners, and cannot therefore enter directly into the struggle of parties.
Thus the proletariat remains as the only class which is capable of conducting an independent and leading policy. ”

“ Apart from their professional interests, they always become the champions of the interests of another class, which appear to them to be synonymous with general social progress. Some attach themselves to the landowners, others to the capitalists, and again others to the Proletariat. And it is the same with the peasants and lower middle-class. The attempt to, create special parties of the peasants or the small middle-class have always ended by such parties becoming subservient to alien class interests. ”

“ Between these three classes there are intermediate sections, which are not capable of following any class policy; partly because the conditions of work isolate their members too much from each other and from the seat of politics, which is especially the case with the peasants; partly because their intermediate position touches various class interests at the same time, as is the case with the small handicraftsmen and likewise with the peasants. They live from the labour of their hands, like the wage workers, and yet receive an income from their property, like the capitalist or the landowner. ”

“ The great majority of the wage workers of Georgia, numbering about 100,000, of whom 73,000 are employed in large undertakings, are consequently organised in Trade Unions. The Trade Unions are neutral, but 95 per cent, of their members belong to the Social-Democratic Party. This party itself has a higher membership (80,000) than the Trade Unions, an unusual circumstance, as, in addition to the Trade Unionists, peasants and intellectuals are represented. ”

“ In the towns they received seventy-two per cent, on a total poll of only fifty-two per cent. The heavy peasant vote for the Social-Democrats is partly explained by the system of small holdings which prevails in Georgia. Most of the peasants cannot live from agriculture alone; many of them must seek to supplement their scanty income by casual labour. It was not difficult to accustom this class to proletarian modes of thought. ”

“ Thus the industrial wage earners have shown themselves the best champions of the small peasants. The Socialists would not have gained their dominating influence over the minds of the revolutionary peasantry if they had been divided. They were only able to prevail by means of democracy, and without terrorism, because they were united, and formed an overwhelming Menshevist majority. In this respect Georgia was fundamentally different from Russia. ”

“ Among the one hundred and two members of the Social-Democratic Party in the Constituent Assembly are thirty-two workers, the rest being intellectuals; twenty teachers, fourteen journalists, thirteen lawyers, seven doctors, three engineers and thirteen officials.
Nearly all of them are elected by peasants, who form over eighty per cent. of the population. The Social-Democratic deputies are nearly eighty per cent. ”

“ They are neither mere workers nor mere capitalists or landowners, and at times they feel with the one class and at other times with the other classes.
As the third of these intermediate sections, we have to mention the Intellectuals, composed of such diverse elements that at the most they can only feel professional interests, such as those of doctors, lawyers, professors, engineers, but never a common class interest. ”

“ Being possessed of no implements of production, and often without any technical training, they earn their scanty bread mostly as carriers. Corn, wood, vegetables, and other products of the country are transported to the towns in oxen-spanned waggons and on the backs of asses. Within the town the means of transport are mostly the backs of men. ”

“ To increase production is the most urgent need. Under these circumstances, the Trade Unions consider piece-work and the system of bonuses to be permissible. On their proposal, a Board of Wages was formed as part of the Ministry of Labour, to which workers and masters each nominate ten members. ”

“ The Trade Unions are organised on an industrial basis, and not on vocational lines. Yet this principle is not rigidly applied. In Tiflis they own their own premises, and a theatre and meeting place, the Plechanoff House, which the workers have lately built for themselves, at great sacrifice. The railwaymen own a special building for their union. The tendencies and institutions of the Trade Unions are quite those of Western Europe, but they seemed to me to> suffer somewhat from divisions. But a movement which is only three years old would not be perfect. ”

“ This enables them; to exercise an influence on the best sections of the numerous intellectuals, such as teachers, doctor, engineers, artists;—Tiflis is a very artistic town—lawyers, etc. The revolutionary section of the intellectuals was inclined to Socialism during the struggle against Czarism. ”