THE DEFENCE OF TERRORISM.* Ix issuing a defence of murder

for political ends by Trotsky, the Russian Jew who is the mainspring of the Red Terror, the Labour Publishing Company—which, we take it, represents the Labour Party—has doubtless pleased both the Communist section and the Moderate Socialist section of its directors. The Communists were glad to gain publicity for characteristic propaganda, introduced by Mr. Brailsford, one of the leading English apologists of the Bolsheviks. On the other hand, the Moderates probably hoped that Trotsky's book, revealing as it does the ruthless and despotic temper of the man, would strengthen the reaction against Bolshevism among all decent trade unionists in this country. For our part we regard the treatise as valuable evidence of the mental condition of the Moscow tyrants, whom the " will to power " has deprived of any moral sense. Trotsky scores an easy dialectical victory over Kautsky, who professes himself the true disciple of Marx, but who will not follow his evil teaching to its logical conclusions. But the exposure of Kautsky's sophistry is a fresh confirmation of the suspicions with which sober men have always regarded Socialism. When once you have set morality at defiance and have cut younielf loose from sound tradition, there is no stopping at the Kautsky stage of evolution or degradation. What we see in Russia to-day is the inevitable result of Socialist doctrine enforced by fanatics with an iron hand.

" Is there still theoretical necessity to justify revolutionary terrorism ? " asks Trotsky, and he answers, " Unfortunately, yes." The masses, he says, are " still dominated by the preju- dices of parliamentarianism and compromise "—or, as we should say, by Christianity and common sense. Therefore they must be dragooned into obeying the infinitesimal minority of Com- munists who profess to know what the masses want better than the masses do for themselves. Trotsky has a certain respect, mingled with fear, of Conservatism, but he despises and ridicules democracy, and he pours out a torrent of abuse on the unlucky Kautsky and all other moderate Socialists, including

• The Defame of Terrorism (Terrorins and Coosnsustion) : a RWy to Hart Rautsky. By L. Trotsky. With a Preface by H. N. Brallatord. Lob= Pub- *thing Co. and G. Allen and Unwin. Oa. Bd. nog

the veteran Longuet and, of course, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Mr. Henderson, and their colleagues, His argument for terrorism is simple enough. He assumes that the Socialists cannot any- where secure a majority by ordinary constitutional means :-

" While the theoretical possibility has not been realized, the Socialist minority must submit to the bourgeois majority. This fetishism of the parliamentary majority represents a brutal repudiation not only of the dictatorship of the proletariat but of Marxism and of the revolution altogether. If in principle we are to subordinate Socialist policy to the parliamentary mystery of majority and minority, it follows that in countries where formal democracy prevails there is no place at all for the revolutionary struggle."

Again :—

" Who aims at the end cannot reject the means. The struggle must be carried on in such intensity as actually to guarantee the supremacy of the proletariat. If the Socialist revolution requires a dictatorship—the sole form in which the proletariat can achieve control of the State—it follows that the dictatorship must be guaranteed at all costs."

Further :—

" The man who repudiates terrorism in principle—i.e., repu- diates measures of suppression and intimidation towards deter- mined and armed counter-revolution—must reject all idea of the political supremacy of the working class and its revolutionary dictatorship. The man who repudiates the dictatorship of the proletariat repudiates the Socialist revolution and digs the grave of Socialism."

Trotsky, unlike many of his sympathizers in this country who' with Mr. Gandhi, profess a horror of violence, is quite frank in his exposition of what Communism means :— " The problem of revolution, as of war, consists in breaking the will of the foe, forcing him to capitulate and to accept the conditions of the conqueror." " The question as to who is to rule the country--i.e. of the life or death of the bourgeoisie—will be decided on either side, not by references to thephs of the constitution, but by the employment of all forms of violence.. . . The more ferocious and dangerous is the resistance of the class enemy who have been overthrown, the more inevitably does the system of repression take the form of a system of terror." -

" The question of the form of repression, or of its degree, of course, is not one of principle.' It is a question of expedi- ency. In a revolutionary period, the party which have been thrown from power, which does not reconcile itself in the stability of the ruling class, and which proves this by its desperate struggle against the latter, cannot be terrorized by the threat of imprison- ment as it does not believe in its duration. It is just this simple but decisive fact that explains the widespread recourse to shooting in a civil war."

As Pym said in advocating the execution of Strafford, " Stone. dead hath no fellow." At this point Trotsky seems to feel called upon to explain the curious resemblance between his methods and those of other tyrants :— " ' But in that case in what do your tactics differ from the tactics of Tsarism 1 ' we are asked by the high priests of Liberalism and Kautskianism You do not understand this, holy men ? We shall explain to you The terror of Tsarism was directed against the proletariat. The gendarmerie of Tsarism throttled the workers who were fighting for the Socialist order. Our Extraordinary Commissions shoot landlords, capitalists and generals who are striving to restore the capitalist order. Do you grasp this . . . distinction t Yes ? For us Communists it is quite sufficient.' "

What, then, is the " proletariat " ? So far as we can see, it means that small section of the working class in the towns which accepts Trotsky's leadership, with some of the poorest peasants. Now and again he professes zeal for the interests of the " labour- ing masses," and he is angry with Kauteky for suggesting that " the demarcation of the bourgeois from the worker can never be actually drawn." But on the whole he regards the vast majority of the population as helpless things to be driven this way and that by the small minority of his own party, which in turn is rigidly controlled by its Central Committee. The vast majority are to be forced to labour at such tasks as may be set them, and at such wages as their Communist masters may fix. The peasants—" by a series of lessons, some of which were very severe "—had been compelled, Trotsky wrote in May, 1920, to recognize that they must grow corn for the Bolsheviks, with or without compensation. The educated " bourgeois " who had escaped death must serve the dictators. Trotsky's views on the necessity of increased production are sensible enough, though his proposed methods of attaining his end are ridiculous. The course of events since the book was written proves an apt com- mentary on its crazy and evil dogmas. Seventeen months ago Trotsky was shooting thousands of innocent men because they were said to be " striving to restore the capitalist order." Now he and his accomplices are themselves striving for the same end, and are tempting foreigners with illusory concessions in order to find work for the many thousands of idle and famished work- men. Seventeen months ago Trotsky was about to deliver the attack which was to result in " the destruction of bourgeois Poland by the Red Army." His ambitions were foiled by the brave resistance of the Poles, though he received all possible help from the British Labour Party. At the same time he was boasting of the marvels that the " Red Labour Army " was about to achieve in restoring agriculture and industry. To-day the famine in some of the most fertile provinces of Russia illus- trates the hopeless incompetence of Bolshevik rule. The " dictatorship of the proletariat " still maintains its hold over the docile Russian masses, and therefore excites the admiration

of Mr. Brailsford. He says of the Bolsheviks that :— -

" Their survival amid invasion, famine, blockade and economic collapse has been from first to last a triumph of the unflinching will and the fanatical faith. They have spurred a lazy and demoralized people to notable feats of arms and to still more astonishing feats of endurance. To hypnotise a nation in this fashion is perhaps the most remarkable feat of the human will in modern times."

One might say as much about Tamerlane or Genghis Khan or any other great destroyers of the past. No sane historian holds them up to us as models worthy of imitation. But Mr. Brailsford, while asking " whether the peculiar temperament of the Bolshe- viks has led them to over-estimate the importance of political power, to under-estimate the inert resistance of the majority and to risk too much for the illusion of dictating," is careful not to distress his Bolshevik friends by admitting that, as all the world knows, they have failed horribly.