MIA > Archive > Bukharin > Prog. of World Rev.
In every capitalist country small capital has practically vanished; of late it has been eaten up by the big sharks of capitalism. At first, a struggle went on between the individual capitalists for customers; at the present time when there are only a few of them left (as the small fry is absolutely ruined), the remaining ones have united, organised, and have it their own way in their country, just as in the olden times the barons had full power over their domains; a few American bankers own the whole of America, just as formerly a single capitalist owned his factory. A few French usurers have subjugated the whole French people; five of the biggest banks hold the fate of the German people in their hands. The same thing happens in other capitalist countries. It may therefore be said that the present capitalist States, or as they are called, “Fatherlands,” have become huge factories owned by an industrial combine, just as formerly a single capitalist owned his particular factory.
It is not surprising that such combines, unions of various capitalist countries, are now carrying on among themselves the same sort of struggle which was formerly carried on between individual capitalists; the English capitalist State is fighting the German capitalist State, just as formerly in England or in Germany respectively one individual manufacturer was struggling against another. Only now the State is a thousand times bigger, and the struggle for the increase of profits is being waged by means of human life and human blood.
In this struggle, which has spread over the whole globe, the first to perish were small weak countries. At the beginning it is always the small colonial people that perish. Weak, uncivilised tribes are dispossessed of their lands by the great plundering States. A struggle ensues for the division of the remaining “free” lands, i.e., lands not yet looted by the “civilised” States. Then begins a struggle for the re-division of that which has already been looted It is quite evident that the struggle for the re-division of the world must be bloody and furious as no war before it. It is conducted by monstrous giants, by the biggest States in the world, armed with perfected death-dealing machines.
The world war which broke out in the summer of 1914 was the first war for the final re-division of the world between the monsters of “civilised” robbery. It has drawn into its whirlpool four of the chief rival giants: England, Germany, America and Japan. And the struggle is being carried on to decide which of these plundering unions will put the world under the domination of its bloody iron heel.
This war has everywhere vastly deteriorated the position of the working class, which was bad enough as it was. Terrible calamities have fallen on the workers: millions of the best men were simply mown down on the battlefields; starvation was the fate of others. Those who dare to protest are menaced with severest punishments. Prisons are filled to overflowing; gendarmes with machine guns are held ready against the working classes. The rights of the workers have vanished even in the most “free” countries: the workers are even forbidden to strike; strikes are looked upon in the same light as treason. The Labour and Socialist Press is stifled. The best workers, the most loyal fighters for the revolution, are compelled to hide and build up their organisations secretly, just as we used to do in the time of the Czar, furtively hiding from crowds of spies and police. No wonder that all these consequences of the war have made the workers not only groan, but rise against their oppressors.
But now the bourgeois States which are responsible for the great slaughter are in their turn beginning to decay at the root and fall. The bourgeois States have “stuck,” so to speak, They have stuck in the bloody swamp they have created in their hunt after profit, and there is no way out. To go back, to return empty-handed is impossible after such great losses in money, goods and blood. To go on, encountering new terrible risks, is also practically impossible. The policy of the war has led them into a blind alley from which there is no exit. And that is why the war is still continuing without either coming to an end or achieving any definite result. For the same reason the decaying capitalist order is beginning to totter, and will sooner or later have to make way for a new order of things, under which the imbecility of the world war for the sake of gain will have become impossible.
The longer the war lasts the poorer the combatant countries are becoming. The flower of the working class has either perished or is lying eaten alive by lice in the trenches, busily at work in the cause of destruction. Everything has been demolished in the course of the war: even brass door handles have been confiscated for war requirements. Objects of primary necessity are lacking because the war, like the insatiable locust, has devoured everything. There is no one to manufacture useful articles any longer; what there is, is being gradually used up. For nearly four years factories that previously turned out useful things are manufacturing shells and shrapnel instead. And now, without men, without producing what is indispensable, all the countries have reached a state of decline where people are beginning to howl like wolves with cold, hunger, poverty, want and oppression.
In German villages, where formerly electricity was used, they now burn dried wood chips for lack of coals. Life is coming to a standstill with the general growth of poverty of the people. In such well-kept towns as Berlin and Vienna, the streets are not traversable at night because of the robberies that take place. The press is wailing over the insufficiency of police. They refuse to see that the growth of crime is the consequence of the growth of pauperism, despair and exasperation. Cripples returning from the front find sheer starvation at home; the number of hungry and homeless, notwithstanding the number of various relief organisations, is constantly growing, because there is nothing to eat, and all the while the war proceeds, demanding new sacrifices.
The harder the position of the warring States, the more friction, quarrels and misunderstandings arise between the different sections of the bourgeoisie, who formerly went hand in hand for the sake of their mutual aims. In Austria-Hungary, Bohemians, Ukrainians, Germans, Poles and others are fighting each other. In Germany, with the conquest of new provinces, the same bourgeoisie (Esthonian, Lettish, Ukrainian, Polish) which welcomed the German troops, are now quarrelling furiously with their liberators. In England, the English bourgeoisie is in mortal conflict with the enslaved Irish bourgeoisie. And in the midst of this tumult and general disorganisation is heard the voice of the labouring class, before which history has laid the problem of putting an end to war and of overthrowing the yoke of capitalism. Thus approaches the hour of the decay of capitalism and the communist revolution of the working class.
The first stone was laid by the Russian October Revolution. The reason why capitalism in Russia became disorganised before it did in any other country, was that the burden of the world war was heaviest for the young capitalist State of our country. We had not the monstrous organisation of the bourgeoisie which they have in England, Germany or America; and our bourgeoisie could not therefore cope with the demands laid on it by the war. Nor could they withstand the mighty onset of the Russian labouring class and of the poor elements of the peasantry who, in the October days, knocked the bourgeoisie out of their seats and put at the head of the Government the party of the working class – the Communist Bolsheviks.
Sooner or later the same fate will overtake the bourgeoisie of Western Europe, where the working class is joining more and more the ranks of the communists. Everywhere, organisations of native “bolsheviks” are growing; in Austria and America, in Germany and in Norway, in France and in Italy. The programme of the communist party is becoming the programme of the universal proletarian revolution.
Last updated on 7.8.2008