The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism · Chapter
V: Communism and the Soviet Constitution explained
Russell examines the Soviet political system, finding that the Soviet constitution is a facade; real power lies with the Communist Party, not the elected soviets.
What happens
Russell examines the Soviet political system, finding that the Soviet constitution is a facade; real power lies with the Communist Party, not the elected soviets. He describes the mechanisms of control—show-of-hands voting, state control of printing and meeting halls, and the use of the Extraordinary Commission—that ensure Communist dominance. He also categorizes the bureaucracy into three classes: old revolutionists, arrivistes, and non-Communist patriots, and notes the Bolsheviks' success in enlisting able administrators without permitting private wealth.
Themes in this chapter
Power and Dictatorship
Russell details how the Communist Party, numbering only 600,000 out of 120 million, controls all levers of power through manipulation of elections, suppression of free speech, and the terror of the Extraordinary Commission.
Individual vs. State
The chapter highlights the complete subordination of individual rights to the state: no free press, no free assembly, and the constant threat of arrest by the Cheka for any perceived opposition.
Methods of Transition to Socialism
Russell observes the Bolsheviks' use of harsh discipline, state control of industry, and the enlistment of able administrators without private wealth as methods for building socialism, while noting the gap between theory and practice.
Characters to notice
- Kamenev
President of the Moscow Soviet; informed Russell about the frequent use of the recall and its reasons.
Key passages
“All real power is in the hands of the Communist Party, who number about 600,000 in a population of about 120 millions.”
The Communist Party, a tiny minority of half a million in a nation of 120 million, holds all actual authority.
Russell emphasizes the vast disproportion between the Party's size and its absolute control.
“It is said—and all I saw confirmed the assertion—that the peasants are better off than they ever were before. I saw no one—man, woman, or child—who looked underfed in the villages.”
According to reports and my own observations, the peasants are materially better off than under the Tsar; I saw no signs of hunger in the countryside.
Russell notes the paradox that peasants are better fed yet still resent the Bolshevik government.
“The Bolsheviks are industrialists in all their aims; they love everything in modern industry except the excessive rewards of the capitalists.”
The Bolsheviks embrace modern industry wholeheartedly, rejecting only the high profits that capitalists take.
Russell captures the Bolsheviks' pro-industrial, anti-capitalist stance.