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On March 12, 1925, Mr. Baldwin, the Prime Minister of England and leader of the Conservative Party, delivered a long speech on the destinies of England before a Conservative audience at Leeds. This speech, like many other expressions on the part of Mr. Baldwin, was filled with nervous apprehension. We consider this apprehension to be well founded from the point of view of Mr. Baldwin’s party, while we ourselves approach these questions from a somewhat different angle. Mr. Baldwin is afraid of socialism and in his proofs of the dangers and difficulties attending the path to socialism, he makes a somewhat unexpected attempt to invoke the authority of the author of these lines. This gives us, we hope, a right to answer Mr. Baldwin without the risk of being accused of interference in the internal affairs of Great Britain.

Baldwin considers—and not without reason—that the greatest danger to the system supported by him is the growth of the Labor Party. It appears that Mr. Baldwin hopes for victory, for “our (Conservative) principles are in closer accord with the character and traditions of our people than any traditions or any principles of violent change.” Nevertheless, the Conservative leader reminds his listeners that the verdict of the last election was by no means a final one. Baldwin, of course, is certain that socialism cannot be carried out. But since he is in a state of nervous confusion, and since, furthermore, he is speaking to an audience already convinced of the impossibility of socialism, Mr. Baldwin’s proofs in this connection are not characterized by great originality. He reminds the Conservative audience that people are not born free or equal or brothers. Appealing to each mother who is present, he asks: Were her children born equal? His answer is a modest and contented laughter from his audience. To be sure, the masses of the English people had already heard such reasoning from Mr. Baldwin’s great-grandparents in answer to their demand for the right to enjoy freedom of religion and to construct churches of their own. The same evidence was advanced later against the demand of equality before the law; still later, not so long ago, against the right of universal suffrage. People are not born equal, Mr. Baldwin; then why should they answer before the same courts and be judged by the same laws? We might also point out to Mr. Baldwin that though people are not born absolutely alike, mothers nevertheless usually feed their unlike children at the same table and make every effort in their power to see to it that each of them is provided with a pair of shoes. Of course, a wicked stepmother might act differently.

We might also explain to Mr. Baldwin that socialism is not at all proposing for itself the task of creating complete anatomical, physiological and mental equality, but merely to assure all human beings of uniform material conditions of existence. We shall not, however, burden our readers by expounding any further these rudimentary notions. Mr. Baldwin himself, if he is interested, may turn to the proper sources and, since he is—by reason of his general view of life—more inclined to old and purely British authors, we may recommend to him Robert Owen, who, though having absolutely no idea of the class dynamics of capitalist society, nevertheless provides extremely valuable general information as to the advantages of socialism.

But the socialist goal, however objectionable it may be, does not frighten Mr. Baldwin so much as the use of violence in order to attain that goal. Mr. Baldwin discerns two tendencies in the Labor Party. One of these, according to his words, is represented by Mr. Sidney Webb, who has recognized the “inevitability of gradualness”. But there also exists another type of leader, like Cook or Wheatley, particularly after the latter left his post in the Ministry, who believe in violence. In general, Mr. Baldwin says, the responsibilities of government have always exerted a redeeming influence over the leaders of the Labor Party and have induced them, like the Webbs, to recognize the undesirability of revolutionary methods and the advantage of gradual changes. At this point, Mr. Baldwin made a number of mental incursions into Russian affairs in order to reinforce his rather meager arsenal of evidence against British socialism.

We shall now quote literally from the Times report of his speech.

“The Prime Minister quoted Trotsky, who, he said, had discovered in the last few years and written that ‘the more easily the Russian proletariat pass through the revolutionary crisis, the harder becomes now its constructive work.’ Trotsky had also said what no leader of the extremists had yet said in England: ‘We must learn to work more efficiently.’ ‘I should like to know,’ said Mr. Baldwin, ‘how many votes would be given for revolution in England if people were told that the only (!?) result would be that they would have to work more efficiently. (Laughter and cheers.) Trotsky said, in his book, “In Russia before and after the Revolution, there existed and still exists unchanged Russian human nature (?!).” Trotsky, the man of action, studied realities. He had slowly and reluctantly discovered what Mr. Webb discovered two years ago, the inevitability of gradualness (laughter and applause).’ ”

It is indeed very flattering to be recommended to the Conservative audience at Leeds: mortal man could not ask for more. It is almost equally flattering to be mentioned in the same breath with Mr. Sidney Webb, the prophet of gradualness. Yet, before accepting this distinction, we should not be averse to receiving from Mr. Baldwin a number of authoritative explanations.

It has never occurred, either to my teachers or to myself, even before the experience “of the last few years”, to deny the fact of “gradualness” in nature or in human society, in its economy, politics, or morals. But we should wish to have greater clearness as to the nature of these gradual changes. Thus, to take an example which lies close to Mr. Baldwin, as a Protectionist, we are perfectly ready to admit that Germany, gradually entering into the field of world competition during the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, was becoming England’s most dangerous rival. As is well known, this was the path that led to war. Does Mr. Baldwin consider war to be an expression of gradual, evolutionary methods? During the war, the Conservative Party demanded the “destruction of the Huns” and the overthrow of the German Kaiser with the force of the British sword. Those who advocate the theory of gradual changes should—I suppose—have rather depended on a general softening of the German nature and a gradual improvement of the mutual relations between Germany and England. Yet Mr. Baldwin, in the years 1914-1918, as far as we remember, categorically rejected the application of the method of gradual changes to Anglo-German relations, and made every effort to solve the question with the aid of the greatest possible quantity of explosive materials. We submit that dynamite and lignite may hardly be considered instruments of a conservative-evolutionary mode of action.

Pre-war Germany, in turn, had not emerged one fine morning in shining armor from the sea-foam. Germany had developed gradually out of its former economic insignificance. This gradual process had not been without its interruptions: thus, we have the wars waged by Prussia against Denmark in 1864, against Austria in 1866, against France in 1870, which played a tremendous rôle in enhancing its power, and afforded it the possibility of successful competition with England on a world-wide scale.

Wealth, the result of human labor, is doubtless accumulated with a certain gradualness. But perhaps Mr. Baldwin will join us in admitting that the growth of the wealth of the United States in the years of the War presents immense leaps and bounds. The gradual nature of the accumulation was sharply interrupted by the catastrophe of war which reduced Europe to poverty and led to a mad expansion of wealth in America.

Mr. Baldwin himself has told, in a Parliamentary speech devoted to the trade unions, of the leaps and bounds in his own private life. When a young man, Mr. Baldwin managed a factory, which was handed down from generation to generation, in which workers were born and died, and which therefore is a perfect example of the rule of the principle of a patriarchal gradualness. But there came a coal-miners’ strike, the factory could not work because of the lack of coal, and Mr. Baldwin was obliged to shut it down and to turn out on the street a thousand of “his” workers. To be sure, Baldwin will blame this on the ill will of the miners, who obliged him to abandon this time-honored conservative principle. The miners will probably blame the ill will of their employers, who obliged them to undertake a great strike, which constituted an interruption in the monotonous process of exploitation. Yet, in the last analysis, subjective motives are not very important in a given case: it is sufficient for us to note that gradual changes in various domains of life proceed side by side with catastrophic changes, explosions, sudden leaps, upward or downward. The long process of jealousy between two governments gradually prepares war; the discontent of the exploited workers gradually prepares a strike; the poor management of a bank gradually prepares bankruptcy.

The honored Conservative leader may, to be sure, reply that such interruptions of the gradual process as war and bankruptcy, the impoverishment of Europe and the enrichment of America at Europe’s expense, are very tragic and that we should make every effort to fight such sudden changes, generally speaking. We can reply to this only by pointing out the fact that the history of nations is in large measure the history of wars and that the history of economic growth is embellished with bankruptcy statistics. Mr. Baldwin would probably answer that such are the properties of human nature. This we should admit. But it is equivalent to saying that human “nature” evidently includes gradual evolution and catastrophic changes.

However, the history of man is not only the history of wars, but also the history of revolutions. Feudal rights, which prevailed for centuries and under which the economic advancement was held up for further centuries, were wiped out in France by the single blow of August 4, 1789. The German Revolution, on November 9, 1918, destroyed German absolutism, which had been undermined by the struggle of the proletariat and demoralized by the military successes of the Allies. We have already pointed out that one of the war slogans of the British Government, of which Mr. Baldwin was then a member, was: “War to the complete destruction of German militarism!” Does not Mr. Baldwin think that the military catastrophe, brought about by Mr. Baldwin’s aid, prepared a revolutionary catastrophe in Germany, and that both these events were somewhat of a disturbance in the process of gradual historical changes? One might raise the objection that German militarism is to be blamed for all these, with the evil ambitions of the Kaiser to boot. We are ready to believe that if Mr. Baldwin were creating the world he would people it with the most benevolent Kaisers and the most good-natured militarisms. But that was not the condition facing the English Prime Minister; furthermore, we have heard him say that people—including the Kaiser—are not born equal, or good, or brothers. We must take the world as it is. Furthermore: if the destruction of German militarism is a good thing, we must admit that the German Revolution was a good thing, for it crowned the accomplishment of the military defeat; therefore the catastrophe, which suddenly overthrew the thing which had been formed by a gradual process, was a good catastrophe.

Mr. Baldwin may indeed answer that all this has no direct bearing on England, and that only in this chosen country has the principle of gradual change found its complete expression. But if such were the case, Mr. Baldwin had no reason to refer to my words, which dealt with Russia, and thereby assign to this principle of gradual changes a general, universal, absolute character. My political experience does not support this observation. I recall three revolutions in Russia: that of 1905; that of March, 1917; and that of November, 1917. As for the March Revolution, Mr. Baldwin’s not undistinguished ambassador, Buchanan, afforded a certain modest assistance to that Revolution, for he apparently considered, and not without the knowledge of his Government, that at the moment a little revolutionary catastrophe in Petrograd would be more useful to the affairs of Great Britain than Rasputin’s gradual methods.

But is it entirely true that the “character and history of the English people” are so decisively and unconditionally filled with the Conservative traditions of gradual change? Is it true that the English people is so hostile to “changes by force”? As a whole, the history of England is a history of violent changes, introduced by the British ruling class into the lives—of other nations. For example, it would be interesting to know whether the conquest of India or of Egypt was advanced with the aid of the principle of gradualness. The policy of the possessing class in Great Britain with regard to India was expressed most frankly in the words of Lord Salisbury, “India must be bled!” It may be appropriate here to recall that Salisbury was the leader of the same party that is now led by Mr. Baldwin. Parenthetically, we might also add that, by reason of an excellently organized conspiracy of the bourgeois press, the English people actually know nothing of what is going on in India (and this is called a democracy). Perhaps it might be well to point out the history of unhappy Ireland, which is particularly rich in manifestations of the peaceful actions of the British ruling classes. As far as we know, the subjugation of southern Africa did not meet with any protest on the part of Mr. Baldwin, and yet the troops of General Roberts, when they broke through the defensive front of the Boer farmers, were hardly considered by the latter as a very convincing evidence of gradualness. To be sure, all these examples are taken from the external history of England. But it is nevertheless strange that the principle of evolutionary and gradual change recommended to us as a general principle should not apply outside of England’s boundaries, for instance, within the boundaries of China, when it is necessary to resort to war to make the Chinese buy opium; or in Turkey, when Mosul must be taken away from her; or in Persia or Afghanistan, when they must be made to debase themselves before England. ... May we not conclude from these examples that England has succeeded the better in realizing “gradualness” within its own boundaries, since it has resorted to the use of force on other peoples? Such is precisely the case; for three centuries England has waged an unbroken chain of wars, aiming at an expansion, by the methods of piracy and force against other nations, of its theater of exploitation, seizing the wealth of others, killing foreign commercial competition, destroying foreign naval forces, and thus enriching the British ruling classes. A serious study of the facts and of their internal relations will lead inevitably to the conclusion that the English ruling classes have succeeded all the better in escaping revolutionary upheavals within their country, by reason of their greater success in increasing their material powers by means of wars and all kinds of disturbances in other countries, thus enabling them, by mean and sordid temporary concessions, to restrain the revolutionary ardor of the masses. But this conclusion, irrefutable as it is, shows precisely the opposite condition from that which Mr. Baldwin tries to prove, for all the history of England as a matter of fact bears witness that this “peaceful development” can only be assured with the aid of a series of wars, of colonial oppression, and bloody upheavals. This does not look much like graduality.

Gibbins, in his outline of modern English history, writes: “In general—though, of course, there are exceptions to this rule—the guiding principle of English foreign policy has been the support of political freedom and constitutional government.” This is truly a noteworthy sentence: it is a profoundly semi-official, “national”, traditional view which is here expressed; it leaves no room for the hypocritical doctrine of non-interference in the affairs of other nations; it likewise bears witness to the fact that England has supported the constitutional movement in other countries only insofar as this has been of advantage to her own trading and other interests; where such support has not been to her advantage, the words of the inimitable Gibbins apply: “There are exceptions to this rule.” For the information of her own people, the entire past history of England, in spite of the doctrine of non-interference, is represented as a holy war of the British Government for freedom all over the world. Each new act of treachery and violence—the war with China on the opium question, the enslavement of Egypt, the Boer War, the intervention in support of Tsarist generals—is interpreted as a mere accidental exception to the rule. In general, we thus find that there are remarkable breaks and gaps in the process of “gradualness”, both on the side of “freedom” and on the side of despotism.

It is possible to go so far as to say that violence in international relations is admissible and even inevitable, while in the relations between classes it is quite reprehensible. But then why speak of the natural law of gradualness, which is represented as dominating in the development not only of nature but also of society? Why not simply say: the oppressed class must support the oppressing class of its nation, when the latter is applying force in pursuit of its objective; but the oppressed class has not the right to make use of force in order to secure for itself a better situation in a society based on oppression. This would not be a “law of nature”, but a law in the bourgeois criminal code.

However, even in the internal history of Great Britain, the principle of peaceful and gradual evolution is by no means so prevalent as is stated by some Conservative philosophers. In the last analysis, all of modern England grew up out of the Revolution in the Seventeenth Century. The Great Civil War of that period gave birth to Tories and Whigs, who have alternately imposed their stamp on the history of England for nearly three centuries. When Mr. Baldwin appeals to the conservative traditions of English history, we must take the liberty to remind him that the tradition of the Conservative Party itself is based on this Revolution in the middle of the Seventeenth Century. Likewise, this reference to the “character of the English people” makes us recall that this character was forged by the hammer of the Civil War between Roundheads and Cavaliers. The character of the Independents, who were petty bourgeois merchants, artisans, free farmers, owners of small feudal estates; busy, honorable, respectable, frugal, hard-working, enterprising—came into sharp conflict with the character of the idle, dissipated, arrogant ruling classes of old England, the courtiers, the titled officialdom and the higher clergy. Yet all these men were Englishmen! With the heavy hammer of military force, Oliver Cromwell forged, on the anvil of civil war, this same national character, which in the course of two and a half centuries has secured the gigantic advantages of the English bourgeoisie in the struggle for world supremacy, in order later, at the end of the Nineteenth Century, to reveal itself as too conservative even from the point of view of capitalist development. Of course, the struggle of the Long Parliament with the autocracy of Charles I, and Cromwell’s severe dictatorship, were prepared by the previous history of England. But this simply means that revolutions cannot be made when you want them, but are an organic product of the conditions of social evolution, being stages in the development of the relations between the classes of the same nation which are as inevitable as are wars in the relations between organized nations. Does Mr. Baldwin find, perhaps, some theoretical solace in the gradual nature of these preparations?

Old conservative ladies—such as Mrs. Snowden, who recently disclosed that the royal family is the most hard-working class of society—must of course wake up in terror at night when they recall the execution of Charles I. Yet even Macaulay, a fairly reactionary writer, had a pretty good understanding of this situation. “Those who had him in their grip,” says Macaulay, “were not midnight stabbers. What they did they did in order that it might be a spectacle to heaven and earth, and that it might be held in everlasting remembrance. They enjoyed keenly the very scandal which they gave. That the ancient constitution and the public opinion of England were directly opposed to regicide made regicide seem strangely fascinating to a party bent on effecting a complete political and social revolution. In order to accomplish their purpose, it was necessary that they should first break in pieces every part of the machinery of the government; and this necessity was rather agreeable than painful to them.... A revolutionary tribunal was created. That tribunal pronounced Charles a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy; and his head was severed from his shoulders before thousands of spectators in front of the banqueting hall of his own palace” (Macaulay, History of England, New York, Harper and Brothers, vol. i, pp. 126-127). From the point of view of the Puritan effort to smash all the parts of the old Government machine, it was quite a secondary matter that Charles Stuart was a hare-brained, lying, cowardly cad. The Puritans dealt the deathblow not only to Charles I but to royal absolutism as such, and the preachers of parliamentary and gradual changes are enjoying the fruits of their act to this day.

The rôle of revolution in the political—and in general, the social—development of England is not exhausted by the Seventeenth Century. In fact, it may be said—though this may sound paradoxical—that the entire recent evolution of England has taken place on the shoulders of European revolutions. We shall give here only an outline of the most important factors, which may be of advantage not only to Mr. Baldwin.

The great French Revolution imparted a powerful stimulus to the growth of democratic tendencies in England, and particularly to the labor movement, which had been driven underground by the repressive laws of 1799. The war against revolutionary France was popular only among the ruling classes of England; the masses of the people sympathized with the French Revolution and were indignant with Pitt’s Government. The creation of the English trade unions was to a considerable extent the result of the influences of the French Revolution on the working masses of England. The victory of reaction on the Continent strengthened the position of the landlords and led in 1815 to the restoration of the Bourbons in France and to the introduction of the Corn Laws in England.

The July Revolution of 1830, in France, was the moving force behind the first Election Reform Bill, in England, in 1831; the bourgeois revolution on the Continent brought forth a bourgeois reform in the island kingdom.

The radical reorganization of the administration of Canada, involving much wider autonomy for the latter, was carried out after the uprisings of 1837-38 in Canada.

The revolutionary movement of Chartism led in 1844-47 to the introduction of the ten-hour working day, and in 1846 to the abolition of the Corn Laws. The downfall of the revolutionary movement of 1848 on the Continent meant not only the downfall of the Chartist movement, but also retarded for a long time the democratization of England’s Parliament.

The Election Reform of 1868 was preceded by the Civil War in the United States. When the war between the North and the South broke out in 1861, the English workers gave voice to their sympathy with the Northern States, while the sympathies of the ruling classes were entirely on the side of the slaveholders. Naturally, the Liberal Palmerston, the so-called “firebrand” lord, and many of his colleagues, including the illustrious Gladstone, sympathized with the South and hastened to recognize the Southern States not as mutineers but as a belligerent party. English shipyards built warships for the Southerners. Yet, the North came out victorious, and this revolutionary victory on American territory gave the right of suffrage to a portion of the English working class (Law of 1867). In England itself, the Election Reform was accompanied literally by a stormy movement leading to the “July Days” of 1868, when serious disorders lasted for two days and nights.

The defeat of the Revolution of 1848 weakened the English workers; the Russian Revolution of 1905 suddenly strengthened them. As a result of the general elections of 1906, the Labor Party for the first time constituted an important fraction of Parliament, having forty-two members; this was unquestionably due to the Russian Revolution of 1905.

In 1918, even before the end of the War, a new Election Reform was carried out in England, which considerably increased the number of workers entitled to the suffrage and for the first time admitted women to the polls. Surely Mr. Baldwin will not deny that the Russian Revolution of 1917 was the chief incentive for the introduction of this reform. The English bourgeoisie considered that it would thus be possible to escape revolution. Consequently, the principle of gradualness is not sufficient of itself to bring about reform measures; a real threat of revolution is needed.

If we regard the history of England during the last half century from the point of view of European and world development, it will appear that England has utilized other countries not only economically but also politically, in order to lessen its own “expenditures” at the expense of the civil wars of the peoples of Europe and America.

What is the meaning of the two questions quoted by Mr. Baldwin from my book, and alleged by him to be in opposition to the policy of the revolutionary representatives of the English proletariat? It is not hard to show that the clear and obvious sense of my words was precisely the opposite of what Mr. Baldwin needed. The easier it was for the Russian proletariat to seize power, the greater are the obstacles encountered by it in the path of its socialist construction. I did say that; I repeat it now. Our old ruling classes were economically and politically insignificant. We had practically no parliamentary or democratic traditions. This made it easier for us to free the masses from the influence of the bourgeoisie and to overthrow the latter’s rule. But for the very reason that our bourgeoisie had come into the field late and had accomplished little, our inheritance was a poor one. We are now obliged to build roads, construct bridges and schools, teach adults to read and write, etc., i.e., to carry out most of the economic and cultural tasks which had already been carried out by the bourgeois system in the older capitalist countries. That is what I meant by saying that the more easily we disposed of our bourgeoisie, the more difficult was it for us to accomplish our socialist construction. But this plain political theorem implies also its converse: the more wealthy and civilized a country is, the older its Parliamentary-democratic traditions, the more difficult will it be for the Communist Party to seize power; but also, the more swift and successful will be the progress of the work of socialist construction after the seizure of power. To put the thing more concretely: to overthrow the rule of the English bourgeoisie is not an easy task; it requires an inevitable “gradual” process, i.e., serious preparatory activity; but, after having seized the power, the land, the industrial, commercial and banking mechanism, the English proletariat will be able to put through its reorganization of the capitalist economy into a socialist economy with much smaller sacrifices, with much more success, and with much greater speed. This, the converse of my theorem, which it never for a moment occurred to me to expound or explain, is directly connected with the question that interests Mr. Baldwin.

However, that is not all. When I spoke of the difficulties of the work of socialist construction, I had in mind not only the backwardness of our country, but also the enormous opposition from the outside. Mr. Baldwin surely knows that the British Government of which he was a member expended about one hundred million pounds on military intervention and on the blockade against Soviet Russia. The aim of these expensive operations—we might point out—was the overthrow of the Soviet power; the English Conservatives and also the Liberals—at least at that period—decisively rejected the principle of “gradualness” with regard to the Workers’ and Peasants’ Republic, and made every effort to solve this question of history by the catastrophic method. A mere reminder of this situation should be sufficient to show that the entire philosophy of gradual change was at that moment very much like the morality of the monks in Heine’s poem, who advise their flocks to drink water, but drink wine themselves.^[3]

However that may be, the Russian worker, since he was the first to seize power, had against him at first Germany, later all the Allied countries led by England and France. The English proletariat, after it has seized power, will find itself opposed neither by the Russian Tsar nor the Russian bourgeoisie. On the contrary, it can depend on the immense material and human resources of our Soviet Union, for—we do not conceal this fact from Mr. Baldwin—the cause of the English proletariat is at least as much our own as the cause of the Russian bourgeoisie was and still is that of the English Conservatives.

My words concerning the difficulties of our work of socialist construction are interpreted by the British Premier as equivalent to my saying that the game was not worth the candle. Yet my thought was precisely the opposite: our difficulties arise from an international situation that is unfavorable to us because we are the pioneers of socialism; in conquering these difficulties, we are altering this circumstance to the advantage of the proletariat of other countries; thus, in the international balance of power, not a single one of our revolutionary efforts has been wasted or is being wasted.

There is no doubt that we are aiming—as Mr. Baldwin points out—at a higher productivity of labor. In no other way is it possible to increase the prosperity and culture of our people, and of course this constitutes the fundamental task of communism. But the Russian worker is now working for himself. Having taken possession of the country’s economic life, which had been disorganized first by the imperialist war, then by the civil war, then by the intervention and the blockade, the Russian workers have nevertheless been able to bring their industries—which almost perished in 1920-21—to a productivity amounting to sixty per cent. of the pre-war figure. This accomplishment, modest though it be when measured by our ultimate aims, is an unquestionable and important advance. If the one hundred million pounds thrown away by England on attempts to bring about catastrophic seizures of power had been invested in Soviet industry in the form of loans, or of capital in concessions, in order gradually to build up our industry, we should doubtless by this time have exceeded our pre-war level, paid a high percentage on the English capital advanced, and most important, would already constitute a wide and ever-increasing market for England. It is not our fault that Mr. Baldwin violated the principle of gradualness precisely where it should not have been done. But even at the present—still very low—level of our industry, the position of the workers has been much improved as compared with a few years ago. When we reach our pre-war level—a matter of the next two or three years—the position of our workers will be incomparably superior to what it was before the war. It is for this reason, and only for this reason, that we feel we have a right to call upon the proletariat of Russia to increase the productivity of labor. It is one thing to work in machine-shops, factories, shipyards, mines, that belong to capitalists; it is quite another thing to work in one’s own factories, mines, etc. That is a great distinction, Mr. Baldwin! And when the English workers have taken control of the mighty instruments of production created by them and their predecessors, they will make every effort to increase the productivity of labor. English industry is greatly in need of such an increase, for, in spite of its great accomplishments, it is too much obstructed by the meshes of its own past. Baldwin knows this very well; at least he says in the speech mentioned above: “We owe our position and our place in the world largely to the fact that we were the first nation to endure the pangs which brought the industrial age into the world; but we are also paying the price for this privileged priority, and the price in part is our badly-planned and congested towns, our back-to-back houses, our ugly factories and our smoke-laden atmosphere.” Add to this the fact that English industry is scattered, that it is technically conservative, that its organization lacks elasticity—this is why English industry is now receding before German and American industry. English industry needs, to redeem it, a broad and bold reorganization. The soil and subsoil of England must be regarded as the basis of a single economic system; only this attitude will make it possible to reconstruct the coal-mining industry on a healthy basis. The electrical industry of England is distinguished by its extremely scattered and backward nature; all efforts to render it more rational encounter the opposition of private interests at every step. Not only were the English cities, by reason of their historical origin, planned very badly, but the entire English industry, “gradually” accumulating its resources, is without system or plan. It will be possible to infuse fresh blood into it only if it is approached as a single unit. But such an attitude is inconceivable if private property in the means of production be retained. The chief aim of socialism is to raise the economic power of the people; only thus is it possible to create a more civilized, more harmonious, more happy human society. If Mr. Baldwin, with all his sympathies for the old English industry, is forced to recognize that the new capitalist form—the trusts and combines—represent a forward step, it is our opinion that the socialist combination of industry in turn constitutes a gigantic step forward as compared with the capitalist trusts. But this program cannot be carried out without handing over all the instruments of production to the working class, i.e., without expropriating the bourgeoisie. Baldwin himself recalls the “titanic powers liberated by the industrial revolution of the Eighteenth Century, which changed the face of the country and all the earmarks of its national life.” Why does Baldwin in this case speak of revolution, and not of a gradual development? Because, at the end of the Eighteenth Century, a radical alteration took place in a short period of time, leading particularly to the expropriation of small-scale industrial enterprises. Any man who is seeking an explanation of the internal logic of the historical process certainly must understand that the industrial revolution of the Eighteenth Century, which re-created Great Britain from top to bottom, would have been impossible without the political revolution in the Seventeenth Century. Without the revolution for bourgeois rights and bourgeois enterprise—against aristocratic privileges and court idlers—the great spirit of technical inventions would never have been awakened, and no one would have been able to apply them for economic purposes. The political revolution of the Seventeenth Century, which grew up on the basis of the entire previous development, prepared the industrial revolution of the Eighteenth Century. Now England, like all the other capitalist countries, needs an economic revolution, far exceeding in its historical significance the industrial revolution of the Eighteenth Century. But this new economic revolution, a reconstruction of the entire economy according to a single socialist plan—cannot be put through without a preceding political revolution. Private property in the means of production is now a much greater obstacle in the path of economic progress than were the guild privileges in their day, also a form of petty bourgeois property. As the bourgeoisie will under no circumstances relinquish its property rights, it will be necessary to set in motion the use of an outright revolutionary force. History has not yet devised any other method. England will be no exception.

As for the second quotation, which Mr. Baldwin says he takes from me, I must admit I am completely at sea. I absolutely deny that I ever, anywhere, could have said that there exists a certain unalterable character of the Russian in the presence of which the revolution is powerless. Where is this quotation taken from? Long experience has taught me that not all persons, not even Prime Ministers, quote correctly. Quite accidentally, I have come upon a passage in my book, Problems of Cultural Work, which is wholly and completely concerned with the question we are now discussing, and which I shall therefore quote in full.

“What is the basis for our hopes of victory? Our first reason is that the masses of the people have been awakened to criticism and activity. By means of the Revolution, our people have cut for themselves a window facing Europe—meaning by ‘Europe’ civilization—just as some two hundred years before, Peter’s Russia cut not a window but a peephole into Europe for the topmost part of the aristocratic state. Those passive qualities of humility and modesty which idiotic ideologists have declared to be the specific, immutable and sanctified qualities of the Russian people, were in reality only the expression of its slavish oppression and cultural isolation, unhappy and shameful properties, which finally received their deathblow in November, 1917. Of course, this does not mean that we do not still carry with us much of the heritage of the past. But the great turning point has been rounded, not only in a material but also in a cultural sense. No one would now dare recommend to the Russian people to build their destinies on a basis of modesty, obedience and long-suffering. No, the virtues which now have sunk far deeper in the consciousness of the people are criticism, energy, collective creative activity. It is on this immense achievement in the national character that the hope of success for all our work is ultimately based.”

Of course, we at once see how little this resembles the statement ascribed to me by Mr. Baldwin. In justification of Mr. Baldwin, I must say that the British Constitution does not impose upon the Prime Minister the duty of precision in his quotations. As far as precedents go—and precedents go very far in British life,—I might say there is no lack of them: the example of William Pitt alone is worth a whole lot in the matter of false quotations.

It may be objected: What is the sense of discussing revolution with a Tory leader? Of what importance is the historical philosophy of a Conservative Prime Minister to the working class? The fact of the matter is this: the philosophy of MacDonald, Snowden, Webb, and the other leaders of the Labor Party is merely a repetition of Baldwin’s historical theory, as we shall show later, with all the necessary ... gradualness.

[3]

As we do not wish to transcend the bounds of modesty, we do not ask, for example, whether forged documents ascribed to a foreign government and exploited for election purposes may be considered an instrument of “graduality” in the evolution of the so-called Christian morality of civilized society. But while we do not wish to touch upon this delicate question, we can nevertheless not refrain from recalling that Napoleon long ago declared that forged diplomatic documents were nowhere used so extensively as by English diplomacy. No doubt technical methods have been much improved since then!