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CHAPTER IITHESTATE1. The October Revolution: Party and SovietIN 1917 tsarism collapsed and the October Revolutionproclaimed a wholly new basis and form of society andgovernment. Four years of revolutionary upheaval andcivil war and then the second, Stalinist revolution ofplanned industrialization and collectivization have madea new Russia—the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.The contrast between the new and the old, both inspirit and institutions, could not fee greater. And yetthere are certain very general features which are commonto the soviet and the tsarist regimes: great centralizationof power, enormous range of state action, massivebureaucracy, extreme emphasis on the army, drasticuse of force and the secret police, semi-deification of theleader or sovereign.The resemblances are to be explained by four mainreasons: the problem of governing an immense area anda multitude of peoples with relatively low material andcultural standards; the problem of defence; the impossibilityof a complete break with past customs,attitudes of mind and feeling, and ways of doing things;and, fourthly, the communist view of the state.The Soviet Union is a socialist state, made possibleby the seizure of power by "a Government of the armedworkers" and the establishment of the dictatorship ofthe proletariat. With socialism two principles arerealized, "from each according to his ability, to eachaccording to his work," and "he who does not workrteither shall he eat." The transition to a communistsociety remains to be achieved, and with it the principleof "from each according to his ability, to each accordingto his needs." This can only be realized "when peoplehave become accustomed to observe the fundamentalprinciples of social life, and their labour is so productive,that they will voluntarily work according to their abilities ":until then the state will not "wither away," but on the57