Jan Kucharzewski

On communists

The future leaders of the red revolution came to Russia from the West, still as social democrats. Amidst the fighting which soon engulfed Russia, the democratic bit vanished. In the manifestos of the Second Congress of the Comintern – which took place in July and August 1920, first in St. Petersburg and then in Moscow – the break-up with democracy and parliamentarism was clearly articulated. During the inaugurating session in St. Petersburg Zinoviev said: “The idea of democracy faded before our very eyes. […] We must finish once and for all with the democratic tendency.” In the theses of Bukharin, accepted in a vote by a huge majority, parliamentarism was condemned. “Parliamentarism categorically cannot be the form of communist society. […] Parliamentarism also cannot be the form of proletarian rule in the period of transition from the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie to the dictatorship of the proletariat. In view of the fact that class struggle is intensifying and turning into civil war, it is inevitable that the proletariat should create its own state organization, in the form of a military organization from which representatives of the former ruling classes will be excluded. Any fiction of a national will is in fact harmful for the proletariat. […] Hence communism rejects parliamentarism as the form of the future; […] it sets itself the aim of overthrowing parliamentarism.” […]

While holding up the principle that the former ruling classes must be excluded from the communist state organization, the leaders of the Comintern regard it as natural that communists should have access to political life in bourgeois states. They announce that communists, taking active part in elections and parliamentary life, should aim not at legislative co-operation but at undermining and overthrowing the social and political constitution of the state which grants them these civil rights of active participation.

The communists not only reject democracy in the state which comes under their rule, but they also announce, with an honesty which puts the Jacobins to shame, that they never have been democratic believers. If they supported democracy in the past, the only reason for that was that it was in their class interest to do so and that they had not yet achieved enough power to divest the bourgeoisie of their rights. […]

In any case, the communists claim that democracy in bourgeois countries is just a smokescreen for the dictatorship of the capitalists. […]

The party attempted to take power with the sanction of the Constitutional Assembly, but when the Assembly did not concur, it was disbanded. […]

Russia does not look at the revolution in legal terms; the Russian people do not attach importance to legal and constitutional formalities. […]

In his book on socialism and government Ramsay MacDonald writes: “A nation bored with political freedom is asking to be chained in bondage”.

Thus we see the principles of democracy rejected, and replaced with an established dictatorship of the proletariat. Has the proletariat indeed become the ruling class that governs the country through its class institutions? “They tell us that the proletariat is unable to manage the state apparatus – wrote Lenin in the early days of the Red Revolution. – After the 1905 Revolution 130,000 landowners governed Russia, governed over 150 million people through extreme violence. […] And allegedly 240,000 members of the Bolshevik Party is unable to govern, govern in the interest of the poor against the rich”.

This is no longer about the rule of the proletariat, representing a minority of the nation, but about the rule of the party, representing a minority of the proletariat.

At the Second Congress of the Comintern the principle of the mastery of the communist party over the working class was established and developed in detail. Should the majority of the proletariat not subscribe to the policy of the communist party, the latter has an obligation to use all possible means in order to force its will on the proletariat. […]

Moreover, the soviets, bodies nominally representing the dictatorship of the proletariat, should subject themselves to the will of the communist party, the vanguard of the proletariat. […]

Thus one should rather speak of the dictatorship of the Party. However there is another proviso. “The party should be based on the foundation of firm proletarian centralism. […] The party must create in his ranks a firm wartime discipline”.

It is headed by the “ruling party center”. The ruling bodies of the Party are elected, but even that requirement is not absolute. […]

In practice, then, the dictatorship of the proletariat is reduced that of the center of power within the Communist Party. Proletariat should be regarded not as the collective ruler, but as a privileged class in the new system. We see here the old method of government: an absolute rule, based on a privileged class, with the privilege shifted from the upper to the lower class. The bourgeoisie, already brought down, is a pariah class, the source of class satisfaction for the privileged.

Ancient communists, guided by instinct, in periods of temporary success attempted to give their followers not only panem (bread), but also circenses (games), fulfilling the desire for class revenge. Spartacus, after vanquishing the Roman generals Lentulus and Gellius, organized a ceremony in honor of the killed brother in arms, Crixius. The ceremony is embellished with a demagogically conceived spectacle. Three hundred captive Roman citizens were made to fight each other, as gladiators, in front of escaped slaves and former gladiators, relishing in revenge.

Excerpts from Od białego caratu do czerwonego (“From the White to the Red Tsardom”),