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

The Russian Revolution / 3 11
pose their dictatorship, and consolidate themselves. Other false principles and
prejudices likewise remained.
The destruction which had preceded the revolution of 1917 was sufficient to
stop the war and modifY the fo rms of power and capitalism. But it was not sizeable
enough to destroy them in their very essence, to impel millions of men to abandon the
false modern social principles (State, politics, power, government, etc.) and act themselves
on completely new bases, and have done forever with capitalism and power, in
all their previous forms.
This insufficiency of destruction was, in my opinion, the fundamental cause which arrested
the Russian Revolution and led to its deformation by the Bolsheviki .
. ..[Tlhe Bolsheviki did not "push the Revolution as fa r as possible." Retaining
power, with all its forces and advantages, they, on the contrary, kept it down. And,
subsequently, having taken over the capitalist property, they succeeded, after a
fierce struggle against popular total revolution, in turning it to their own advantage,
restoring under another form the capitalist exploitation of the masses ...
The historical evolution of humanity has reached a stage where continuity of
progress requires free labour, exempt from all submission, from all constraint, from
all exploitation of man by man. Economically, technically, socially, and even morally,
such labour is, from now on, not only possible but historically indispensable. The "lever" of
this vast social transformation (of which, through several decades, we have been experiencing
the tragic convulsions) is the Revolution. To be truly progressive and "j ustified"
that revolution must necessarily lead to a system in which human labour will
be effectively and totally emancipated.
In order that the labouring masses may pass from slave labour to free labour,
they must, from the beginning of the Revolution, carry it out themselves, in full freedom,
in complete independence. Only on this condition can they, concretely and immediately,
take in hand the task which is now imposed upon them by history-the
building of a society based on emancipated labour.
All modern revolutions which are not carried out by the masses themselves will
not lead to the historically indicated result. So they will be neither progressive nor
"justified" but perverted, turned from their true course, and finally lost. Led by new
masters and guardians, again kept from all initiative and from all essentially free responsible
activity, and compelled as in the past to follow docilely this '''chief' or that
"guide" who has imposed himself on them, the labouring masses will revert to their
time-honoured habit of "following" and will remain an "amorphous herd," submissive
and shorn. And the true revolution simply will not be accomplished.