Graham R (Ed.) - Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas Volume One - From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

296 / ANARCHISM
revolutionary means, and with that element ofimprovisation which springs from the
needs of each locality and which entails (a) the revolutionizing of the masses, (b) the
development oftheir activity and self-reliance, and (c) the strengthening of their fa ith
in their own creative powers.
IV. At that time the soviets were the best form of political organization that had
ever existed, because they afforded the opportunity at any time to recall, re-elect and
replace "deputies" by others who better expressed the will of their constituents, that
is, because they permitted the electors to control their elected representatives.
v. The soviets were a temporary transitional form between a representative parliamentary
system and fu ll popular rule.
Thus the soviets were a revolutionary force, alive, creative, active, alert-in a
word , progressive. And the forces defending them were also revolutionary and progressive.
Those fo rces (organizations, institutions, parties, groups, individuals)
which stood to the right of the soviets were defenders of the earlier forms of government
and of old institutions. They were hostile to the soviets, that is, counter-revolutionary,
reactionary. Therefore, when a life-and-death struggle was being
waged with these hostile forces we joined ranks temporarily with the soviets as the
most revolutionary fo rces; joined ranks because a defeat fo r the revolutionary segment
of democracy would have meant the defeat of the revolution itself; joined ranks
in the provinces because, even though the slogan "all power to the soviets" did not
satisfY us, it was nevertheless more progressive than the demands of right-wing democracy
and at least partly fu lfilled our demands for the decentralization, dispersal
and final elimination of authority and its replacement by autonomous and independcnt
organizational unjts.
As a result of the above, during the struggle between the two sides, we have
stood on the side of the revolutionary forces against the forces of reaction. We have
been guided by the slogan "march apart, strike together." But this must be our guiding
slogan only until such time as those with whom we are striking together become
a "real" force, an actual authority, that is, an element of stagnation, of compulsion-in
a word, of reaction. With the forces of revolution this happens immediately
after their victory, when their enemies are defeated and annihilated. It happens because
the throne on which the vanquished has sat, and on which the victors will now
sit, cannot be put at the top of the stairway of social progress but only one step
higher than under the fo rmer regime. In accordance with the inexorable laws of progress,
the moment the revolutionary force becomes a ruling power it loses its revolutionary
character, grows stagnant and calls into being a new force that is more