Bolshevism: The Enemy of Political and Industrial DemocracySpargo, John
History
Bolshevism: The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy
Spargo, John
Communism -- Soviet Union; Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921
It was a dangerous game that Lenine was playing, and he knew it, but the
stakes were high and worth the great risk involved. It was not necessary
for Germany to buy the service he could render to her; that service would
be an unavoidable accompaniment of his mission. He argued that his work
could, at the worst, give only temporary advantage to Germany. So far as
there is any evidence to show, Lenine has been personally incorruptible.
Holding lightly what he scornfully derides as "bourgeois morality," unmoral
rather than immoral, willing to use any and all means to achieve ends which
he sincerely believes to be the very highest and noblest that ever inspired
mankind, he would, doubtless, take German money if he saw that it would
help him to achieve his purposes. He would do so, however, without any
thought of self-aggrandizement. It is probably safe and just to believe
that if Lenine ever took money from the Germans, either at that time or
subsequently, he did so in this spirit, believing that the net result of
his efforts would be equally disastrous to all the capitalist governments
concerned in the war. It must be remembered, moreover, that the
distinctions drawn by most thoughtful men between autocratic governments
like those which ruled Germany and Austria and the more democratic
governments of France, England, and America, have very little meaning or
value to men like Lenine. They regard the political form as relatively
unimportant; what matters is the fundamental economic class interest
represented by the governments. Capitalist governments are all equally
undesirable.
What Lenine's program was when he left Switzerland is easily learned. A few
days before he left Switzerland he delivered a lecture on "The Russian
Revolution," in which he made a careful statement of his position. It gives
a very good idea of Lenine's mental processes. It shows him as a Marxist of
the most dogmatic type--the type which caused Marx himself to rejoice that
he was not a "Marxist":
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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