How is that will expressed? What is the organization welded by adversity which, in this crisis, supersedes even the Soviet Constitution, and stands between this people and chaos?
It is a commonplace to say that Russia is ruled, driven if you like, cold, starving as she is, to effort after effort by the dictatorship of a party.It is a commonplace alike in the mouths of those who wish to make the continued existence of that organization impossible and in the mouths of the Communists themselves.At the second congress of the Third International, Trotsky remarked."A party as such, in the course of the development of a revolution, becomes identical with the revolution." Lenin, on the same occasion, replying to a critic who said that he differed from, the Communists in his understanding of what was meant by the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, said, "He says that we understand by the words 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat' what is actually the dictatorship of its determined and conscious minority.And that is the fact." Later he asked, "What is this minority?It may be called a party.If thisminority is actually conscious, if it is able to draw the masses after it, if it shows itself capable of replying to every question on the agenda list of the political day, it actually constitutes a party." And Trotsky again, on the same occasion, illustrated the relative positions of the Soviet Constitution and the Communist Party when he said, "And today, now that we have received an offer of peace from the Polish Government, who decides the question? Whither are the workers to turn? We have our Council of People's Commissaries, of course, but that, too, must be under a certain control.Whose control? The control of the working class as a formless chaotic mass? No.The Central Committee of the party is called together to discuss and decide the question.And when we have to wagewar, to form new divisions, to find the best elements for them-to whom do we turn? To the party, to the Central Committee.And it gives directives to the local committees, 'Send Communists to the front.' The case is precisely the same with the Agrarian question, with that of supply, and with all other questions whatsoever."No one denies these facts, but their mere statement is quite inadequate to explain what is being done in Russia and how it is being done.I do not think it would be a waste of time to set down as briefly as possible, without the comments of praise or blame that would be inevitable from one primarily interested in the problem from the Capitalist or Communist point of view what, from observation and inquiry, I believe to be the main framework of the organization whereby that dictatorship of the party works.
The Soviet Constitution is not so much moribund as in abeyance.The Executive Committee, for example, which used to meet once a week or even oftener, now meets on the rarest occasions.Criticism on this account was met with the reply that the members of the Executive Committee, for example, which used to meet once a week or even oftener, now meets on the rarest occasions.Criticism on this account was met with the reply that the members of the Executive Committee were busy on the front and in various parts of Russia.As a matter of fact, the work which that Committee used to do is now done by Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, so that the bulk of the 150 members ofthe Central Executive are actually free for other work, a saving of something like 130 men.This does not involve any very great change, but merely an economy in the use of men.In the old days, as I well remember, the opening of a session of the Executive Committee was invariably late, the reason being that the various parties composing it had not yet finished their preliminary and private discussions.There is now an overwhelming Communist majority in the Executive Committee, as elsewhere.I think it may be regarded as proved that these majorities are not always legitimately obtained.Non-Communist delegates do undoubtedly find every kind of difficulty put in their way by the rather Jesuitical adherents of the faith.But.no matter how these majorities areobtained, the result is that when the Communist Party has made up its mind on any subject, it is so certain of being able to carry its point that the calling together of the All-Russian Executive Committee is merely a theatrical demonstration of the fact that it can do what it likes.When it does meet, the Communists allow the microscopical opposition great liberty of speech, listen quietly, cheer ironically, and vote like one man, proving on every occasion that the meeting of the Executive Committee was the idlest of forms, intended rather to satisfy purists than for purposes of discussion, since the real discussion has all taken place beforehand among the Communists themselves.Something like this must happen with every representative assembly at which a single party has a great preponderance and a rigid internal discipline.The real interest is in the discussion inside the Party Committees.