Thrust back from direct participation in the constructive work of the Revolution, harassed at every step, the victim of constant supervision and control by the Party, the proletariat became accustomed to consider the Revolution and its further fortunes as the personal affair of the Com- munists. In vain did the Bolsheviki point to the world war as the cause of Russia's economic breakdown; in vain did they ascribe it to the blockade and the attacks of armed counter^ revolution. Not in them was the real source of the collapse and debacle.
No blockade, no wars with foreign reaction could dismay or conquer the revolutionary people whose unexampled heroism, self-sacrifice, and perseverance defeated all its external enemies. On the contrary, civil war really helped the Bolsheviki. It served to keep alive popular enthusiasm and nurtured the hope that, with the end of war, the ruling Party will make effective the new revolutionary principles and secure the people in the enjoyment of the fruits of 24 25 24 25 the Revolution. The masses looked forward to the yearned'for opportunity for social and economic liberty. Paradoxical as it may sound, the Communist dictatorship had no better ally, in the sense of strengthening and prolonging its life, than the reactionary forces which fought against it, It was only the termination of the wars which permitted a full view of the economic and psychologic demoralisation to which the blindly despotic policy of the dictatorship brought Russia. Then it became evident that the most formidable danger to the Revolution was not outside, but within the country: a danger resulting from the very nature of the social and economic arrangements which characterise the system of Bolshevism.
Its distinctive features — inherent social anta- gonisms — are abolished only formally in the Soviet Republic, In reality those antagonisms exist and are very deep-seated. The exploitation of labor, the enslavement of the worker and peasant, the cancellation of the citizen as a human being, as a personality, and his transformation into a microscopic part of the universal economic mechanism owned by the government; the creation of privileged groups favored by the State; the system of labor service and its punitive organs — these are the characteristics of Bolshevism.
Bolshevism, with its Party dictatorship and State Communism, is not and can never become the threshold of a free, non.authoritarian Communist society, because the very essence and nature of governmental, compulsory Communism excludes 26 such an evolution. Its economic and political centralisation, its governmentalisation and bureau' cratisation of every sphere of activity and effort, its inevitable militarisation and degradation of the human spirit mechanically destroy every germ of new life and extinguish the stimuli of creative, constructive work.
The historic struggle of the laboring masses for liberty necessarily and unavoidably proceeds outside the sphere of governmental influence. The struggle against oppression — political, economic, and social — against the exploitation of man by man, or of the individual by the government, is always simultane* ously also a struggle against government as such. The political State, whatever its form, and constructive revolutionary effort are irreconcilable. They are mutually exclusive. Every revolution in the course of its development faces this alternative: to build freely, independently and despite of the government, or to choose government with all the limitation and stagnation it involves. The path of the Social Revolution, of the constructive self-reliance of the organised, conscious masses, is in the direction of nongovernment; that is, of Anarchy. Not the State, not government, but systematic and coordinated social reconstruction by the toilers is necessary for the upbuilding of the new society. Not the State and its police methods, but the solidflric cooperation of all working elements — the proletariat, the peasantry, the revolutionary intelligentsia — mutually helping each other in their voluntary associations, will emancipate us from the State superstition and 27 27 bridge the passage between the abolished old civili- sation and Free Communism. Not by order of some central authority, but organically, from life itself, must grow up the closely knit federation of the united industrial, agrarian, and other associations; by the workers themselves must they be organised and managed, and then — and only then—will the great aspiration of labor for social regeneration have a sound, firm foundation. Only such an organisation of the commonwealth will make room for the really free, creative, new humanity, and will be the actual threshold of nongovernmental, Anarchist Com- munism.
We live on the eve of tremendous social changes. The old forms of life are breaking and falling apart. New elements are coming into being, seeking adequate expression. The pillars of present-day civilisation are being shattered. The principles of private ownership, the conception of human personality, of social life and liberty are being transvalued. Bolshevism came to the world as the revolutionary symbol, the promise of the better day. To millions of the disinherited and enslaved it became the new religion, the beacon of social salvation. But Bolshevism has failed, utterly and absolutely. As Christianity, once the hope of the submerged, has driven Christ and his spirit from the Church, so has Bolshevism crucified the Russian Revolution, betrayed the people, and is now seeking to dupe other millions with its Judas kiss.
28 28 It is imperative to unmask the great delusion, which otherwise might lead the Western workers to the same abyss as their brothers in Russia. It is incum- bent upon those who have seen through the myth to expose its true nature, to unveil the social menace that hides behind it — the red Jesuitism that would throw the world back to the dark ages and the Inquisition.
Bolshevism is of the past. The future belongs to man and his liberty.
THE END 29 THE BOLSHEVIK MVTH By ALEXANDER BERKMAN a DAy By DAy record of THE AUTHOR'S TWO yEARS STAy IN RUSSIA. A PICTURE OF THE LIFE AND REACTIONS OF THE PEOPLE IN THE MIDST OF THE REVOLUTION PRICE $ 3if, POSTPAID OKDER FROM M. E, FITZGERALD, 45 GROVE STREET NEW yORK CITy PRISON MEMOIRS OF AN ANARCHIST By ALEXANDER BERKMAN "In the book of his experience Berkman has given a record of horrors that come near being unsurpassed. We have here a picture of a hideous existence, hideous in its physical conditions, hideous in its moral degradation, hideous most of all in its madness. It is not in Siberia; it is in Pittsburgh". — The New York Times.
"A story of prison life by an author who spent fourteen years behind the bars gathering his material ought to have value as a human document When the writer, furthermore, wields his pen in the manner of the Slavic realists and is compared by critics with such men as Dosto- yevsky and Andreicff his work must possess a tremendous fascination as well as a social value. Whatever the defects of such an achievement and regardless of any prejudices against the author, its merits must be surpassing". — New York Tribune.
PRICE $ 2£1 POSTPAID OftDUR FROM M. E. FITZGERALD, 45 GROVE STREET NEW yORK CITy THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION SERIES By ALEXANDER BERKMAN No. 1 THE RUSSIAN TRAGEDY <A Review and An OuiIook> No. 2 THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY No, 3.
THE KRONSTADT REBELLION WITH MAP OF KRONSTADT AND FACSIMILE PAGE OF THE KRONSTADT IEVESTIA 15 c THE COPY Order from M, E. Fitzgerald; 45 Grove Street, New york City or Alexander Berfcman, Kopernikus Strasse 25, Berlin C34, Germany My DISILLUSIONMENT IN RUSSIA By EMMA GOLDMAN A MOST VIVID PICTURE OF RUSSIA UNDER BOLSHEVIST DOMINION PRICE, NET, $ 222 GARDEN CITy NEW yORK DOUBLEDAy, PAGE «) COMPANY 1923 MY FURTHER DISILLUSIONMENT IN RUSSIA By EMMA GOLDMAN BEING A CONTINUATION OF MISS GOLDMAN'S EXPERIENCES IN RUSSIA AS GIVEN IN "MY DISIL- LUSIONMENT IN RUSSIA" PRICE, NET, $ 129 GARDEN CITy NEW yORK DOUBLEDAy, PAGE <& COMPANy 1924 ANARCHISM AND OTHER ESSAyS By EMMA GOLDMAN INCLUDING A BIOGRAPHIC SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR AND TWELVE ESSAyS ON POLITICS, ECONOMICS, EDUCATION, AND SEX PRICE $ 200 POSTPAID ORDER FROM M, E, FIT2GERALD, 45 GROVE STREET NEW yORK CITy THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MODERN DRAMA By EMMA GOLDMAN A MOST INTERESTING INTERPRETATION OF THE MODERN DRAMA PRICE $ 2™ POSTPAID ORDER FROM M. E. FIT2GERALD, 45 GROVE STREET NEW yORK ciTy Printed by Maurer & Dimmick, Berlin