The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 9, 1925, Page 8

‘been thought to its conclusion. The Role of the City and rand Workers By NIKOLAI BUKHARIN, Editor, Rravada, (The Truth)-at Mos- cow, Official Organ of the Rus- sian Communist Party. ANY comrades in the foreign par- ties, and even in the best par- ties, believe that the peasant ques- tion is something of secondary im- portance. Altho it is now the fashion amongst us to declare oneself a Lenin- ist and of course to combat Trotsky- ism most energetically, nevertheless there are in reality many parties which pay insufficient attention to the peasant question, Amongst many comrades and many parties the opinion even prevails that the peasant question is important only for a backward country like Russia, and that this question could be as- signed a minor place in the more ad- vanced countries. Such a train of thought is entirely false and (by the way) rather Trotskyist. It is just Trotsky who developed the following ideas in his theory of the permanent revolution: In Russia the proletariat can only retain power after its victory with the aid of the state organs of the western proletariat, be- cause the population of our country is overwhelmingly agricultural, HIS statement is false; it is not only false, but the matter has not The victory of the international proletariat would then signify its world victory, the seizure of power all over the world—and then we should have tc ask ourselves: “What is the composi tion of the entire population of the earth?” When we put the question in this manner we immediately see that the proletariat is relatively and absolutely the minority of the total population of the earth as against the overwhelm- ing peasant majority. Can this question then be eliminat- ed? Can it be said that the world revolution and the world victory of the proletariat will solve the problem? By no means. On the contrary, with the victory of the world proletariat this problem will be reproduced on the widest pos- sible scale. Only a few figures to il- lustrate my idea: We know that the entire population of the earth is 1,700,- 000,000. “More than half of this num- ber live in Asia (approximately 900 millions). China alone has 436 mill- fons. HAT means that a quarter of the earth’s population live in China; and of these 436 millions—the statis- tics are, it is true, extremely poor— approximately 400 millions are peas- ants. In India this ratio of the peas- antry to the entire population ig 220 out of 320 millions; in the Union of Soviet Republics it is 111 out of 130 millions, The overwhelming majority of the colonial population consists of peasants, E all know that the colonial ques- tion will play a great role in the process of the world revolution. We know that from a certain standpoint the antagonism between capital in the highly developed metropolis and the backward colonies is one of the chief contradictions of capitalism, that these contradictions are nothing else but—figuratively ‘speaking—the con- tradiction between the world city, the centers of present industry and world economy, and the world village, that is the colonial periphery of the cen- ters. Almost all of the principal questions of our policy are connected in one way or another with the colonial problem. Even the question of the unity of the trade unions in connection with the . left course of the British proletariat is closely related to the problem of the colonies. And the problem of the col- onies is a specific form of the agrar- fan and peasant question. E is, therefore, no doubt that this problem is not a minor, sec- ondary, subordinate problem, but that is may be called one of the most fm- portant problems of our epoch. How- ever, this problem cannot be looked at exclusively from this standpoint, but must be considered from the standpoint of production and of the seizure of political power by the pro- Ietariat. If the peasantry is so large oe a percentage of the entire population, it is evident that they are of rather great weight economically speaking. The industrial proletariat of the high- ly developed countries often have a certain false opinion, an illusion that this problem is not of importance. But how are matters in reality? As for the economic situation, Great Brit- ain is in Asia, and France looked at economically is in Africa. It is evi- dent that the close attention now paid by the British working class to the colonial problem contains a presenti- ment of future problems. The simple British worker, seeing the disturb- ances in India, must ask himself, “H’m, if I do not support India now and then it separates from Great Britain, what will I have to eat after the conquest of political power?” The putting of the question in this light is, we see, already taking place in many circles of the highly devel- oped economically skilled proletariat. It is closely related to the circum- stance that the problem of the con- quest of political power by the prole- tariat has become one of the chief problems of our day. OW do matters look when we con- sider the peasant question from In France also, where the peasantry is not as reactionary as it is in Ger- many, the picture is, for all that, to say the least—frightful. Here, we have six or seven large peasant and agrarian organizations, and all of them without exception, are led by large landlords and large capitalists. The organizational structure of these organizations is similar in all countries, Their mainstay is a political party, or several political parties. In form, they represent a sort of agricultural trade union which organizes all classes from the large landowners to the dwarf peasants, and even the agricultural laborer. With- in these organizations, however, there is a sort of hierarchy at the top of which are the big capitalists. The cadres of these organizations are dis- tinctly hostile to the proletariat. In connection with these organiza- tions there are various co-operative societies, which economically, are bound up with the banks. I have quoted here only two ex- amples; that of the French and Ger- man, but such a situation prevails everywhere. Recently, a process of differentia- tion has’ been observed in these or- Local Russian Sheet Fighting Communism As seen by the Russian Communist Daily Novy Mir the standpoint of the distribution of social forces at the present moment? When we ask under whose influ- ence the peasantry stands, how its forces are divided among the different classes, we must reply that in the colonial and semi-colonial countries we have great influence upon the Peasantry, but that in the important industrial countries our influence is practically nil, a In Germany, a country where the economic depressions after the war with their various consequences raged most violently, we see that the “Reich- slandbund,” which is under the lead- ership of large landowners, has more than two million organized members. Half of the agricultural proletariat is in this organization. we consider the fact alone and then compare the number of mid- organizations. ° The social composition of the lead- and high officials. ganizations. This is an extremely im- portant and big process. But, when we examine the situation as a whole, when we draw the balance, excluding the colonies, we will see that our work is only in the preliminary stage. In a period when the revolutionary wave is rushing forward we are able to carry large sections of the prole- tariat with us and “infuse” the other sections of the people with our ideas. In the present period of stabilization (temporary it is true) we are faced with the danger of all these strata be- ing employed against the proletariat. *s 6-8 CISM, black reaction, has its great reserves in the rural dis- tricts. It is really a scandalous sit- uation when in Germany half of tho agricultural proletariat belongs to the enemy camp. It is very difficult to capture political power when the rela- tion of forces are so arranged. I can say here, quite bluntly, that from the standpoint of the revolution- ary proletariat, as well as from the standpoint of Leninism, that it is a revolutionary camp, and base their hopes upon the conservative char- acter of the peasantry. Naturally, comrades, we can say that the hopes of the bourgeoisie and of the landlords are very limited. The bourgeoisie and the agrarians fail to understand that conserv- atism under no circumstances is an eternal feature of the peasantry, that there have been epochs as the peasant revolts, in which the peasants have shown that they have nothing in common with conservatism. And even today, the capitalist system is shaken so profoundly that various features of peasant conservatism have partly dis- appeared. We know that in the early period of the rapid development of capitalism, particularly in those coun- tries which developed more rapidly certain strata of the proletariat be- came bourgeois. The more explicable - is it therefore, that various strata of the peasantry—for example those that own private property, individual farms, etc.—should to an even greater degree have inclinations towards the bourgeoisie camp. But this organic epoch of capitalism was a specific epoch, and we cannot mechanically transfer the specific character of this epoch to another epoch, particularly to the present epoch. In fact, we can establish a thesis that simultaneously with the disappearance of the bour- geois elements in the proletariat, the “de-bourgeoising” of the proletariat, if we may so describe it, a similar pro- -ess is going on among the peasantry. This process commences first among the semi-proletarian stratum of the peasaniry, the dwarf peasants, etc. Of course, this process will be much slower than that among the proleta- riat, and for that reason our task of bringing these strata of people under our influence, is much more difficult than winning that section of the pro- letariat, which has become bourgeois, and is influenced by social democracy. But the more energetically must we work in this field. We must bring numerous strata of the peasantry, the poor peasantry, the small. peasants, under our influence, o' ise, we . shall never achieve victory. se? OUGHLY speaking, the present period in the development of cap- italism, regarded from the social standpoint, is nothing else than a fight for the peasantry between the bour- geoisie and the proletariat, and I must say that the bourgeoisie under- stands this characteristic tendency much better than do the Communist Parties. Herein lies a great danger. We talk about united front tactics, we have spoken about the workers’ and peasants’ government, we have passed resolutions about the necessity for winning over the peasantry, etc. But we have done very little in this sphere. Whereas the bourgeoisie is conducting real united front tactics towards the peasantry, and have done a great deal in this respect. In many countries: Germany, France, England and partly also in America, a discussion is now going on in the bourgeois press over such ques- tions, for example as self-sufficing economy. Certain German econom- ists desire to see an economic system in which the industry and the agri- culture of the country can satisfy all the requirements of that country. This economic motive is accompanied by a military motive: “In war, we are at the mercy of the enemy because eco- nomically, we are dependent upon other countries.” And third, there is a class motive: “Strongly developed industry brings with it an increase in the urban proletariat, which is cor- Tt is no accident that this discussion is taking place at the present time, It 1s the expression of a still more anti-proletarian