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

The Russian Revolution /317
ordinated to the needs of the Socialist State; indeed, exploited to further the security of
the newly acquired governmental power. "Reasons of State," masked as the "interests of
the Revolution and of the People," became the sole criterion of action, even offeeling. Violence,
the tragic inevitability of revolutionary upheavals, became an established custom,
a habit, and was presently enthroned as the most powerful and "ideal"
institution ...
This perversion of the ethical values soon crystallized into the all-dominating
slogan ofthe Communist Party: THE END JUSTIFIES ALL MEANS .. .In the wake ofthis
slogan followed lying, deceit, hypocrisy and treachery, murder, open and secret ...
There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing,
while methods and tactics are another. This conception is a potent menace to social
regeneration. All human experience teaches that methods and means cannot be separated
from the ultimate aim. The means employed become, through individual
habit and social practice, part and parcel ofthe final purpose; they influence it, modify
it, and presently the aims and means become identical. From the day of my arrival
in Russia [ felt it, at first vaguely, then ever more consciously and clearly. The great
and inspiring aims of the Revolution became so clouded with and obscured by the
methods used by the ruling political power that it was hard to distinguish what was
temporary means and what final purpose. Psychologically and socially the means
necessarily influence and alter the aims. The whole history of man is continuous
proof of the maxim that to divest one's methods of ethical concepts means to sink
into the depths of utter demoralization. In that lies the real tragedy of the Bolshevik
philosophy as applied to the Russian Revolution. May this lesson not be in vain.
No revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the MEANS used
to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the PURPOSES to be achieved.
Revolution is the negation of the existing, a violent protest against man's inhumanity
to man with all the thousand and one slaveries it involves. It is the destroyer of dominant
values upon which a complex system of injustice, oppression, and wrong has
been built up by ignorance and brutality. It is the herald of NEW VALUES, ushering in
a transformation ofthe basic relations of man to man, and of man to society. It is not
a mere reformer, patching up some social evils; not a mere changer offorms and institutions;
not only a re-distributor of social well-being. It is all that, yet more, much
more. It is, first and fo remost, the TRANSVALUATOR, the bearer of new values. It is
the great TEACHER ofthe NEW ETHICS, inspiring man with a new concept oflife and
its manifestations in social relationships. It is the mental and spiritual regenerator.
Its first ethical precept is the identity of means used and aims sought. The ultimate
end of all revolutionary social change is to establish the sanctity of human life,