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Ok, while I myself am not Trotsky's biggest fan, I think his writings most definitly have their use, by the way, in case you didn't know Trotsky was a leader of the Russian revolution alongside Lenin and Stalin, but, after Lenin's death Stalin exiled him to Mexico and later killed him. Here's a pamphlet on the Spanish revolution, because Trotsky's most invaluable works (in my opinion) are his works of history-

Leon Trotsky
The Revolution In Spain
(January 1931)
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1. Old Spain
The capitalist chain is again threatening to break at the weakest link: Spain is next in order. The revolutionary movement is developing in that country with such vigour that world reaction is deprived in advance of the possibility of believing in a speedy restoration of order on the Iberian peninsula.

Spain belongs unmistakably to the group of the most backward countries of Europe. But its backwardness has a singular character, weighed down by the great historic past of the country. While the Russia of the czars always remained far behind its western neighbours and advanced slowly under their pressure, Spain knew periods of great bloom, of superiority over the rest of Europe and of domination over South America. The mighty development of domestic and world commerce surmounted more and more the feudal dismemberment of the provinces and the particularism of the national parts of the country. The growth of the power and significance of the Spanish monarchy was inextricably bound up in those centuries with the centralizing role of mercantile capital, and with the gradual formation. of the Spanish nation.

The discovery of America, which at first enriched and elevated Spain, was subsequently directed against it. The great routes of commerce were diverted from the Iberian peninsula. Holland, which had grown rich, broke away from Spain. Following Holland, England rose to great heights over Europe, and for a long time. Beginning with the second half of the sixteenth century, Spain had already begun to decline. With the destruction of the Great Armada (158 cool , this decline assumed, so to speak, an official character. The condition which Marx called “inglorious and slow, decay” settled down upon feudal-bourgeois Spain.

The old and new ruling classes – the landed nobility, the Catholic clergy with its monarchy, the bourgeois classes with their intelligentsia – stubbornly attempted to preserve the old pretensions, but alas! without the old resources. In 1820, the South American colonies finally broke away. With the loss of Cuba in 1898, Spain was almost completely deprived of colonial possessions. The adventures in Morocco only ruined the country, adding fuel to the already deep dissatisfaction of the people.

The retardation of the economic development of Spain inevitably weakened the centralist tendencies inherent in capitalism. The decline of the commercial and industrial life in the cities and the economic ties between them, inevitably led to the decline in the dependence of individual provinces upon each other. This is the chief reason why bourgeois Spain has not succeeded to this day in eliminating the centrifugal tendencies of its historic provinces. The meagreness of the resources of national economy, and the feeling of indisposition in all parts of the country could only foster the separatist tendencies. Particularism appears In Spain with unusual force, especially alongside of neighbouring France, where the Great Revolution finally established the bourgeois nation, united and inseparable, over the old feudal provinces.

Not permitting the formation of a new bourgeois society, the economic stagnation also decomposed the old ruling classes. The proud nobleman often cloaked their haughtiness in rags. The church robbed the peasantry, but from time to time it was compelled to submit to robbery by the monarchy. The latter, in the words of Marx, had more features of resemblance to Asiatic despotism than to European absolutism. How is this thought to be construed? The comparison of czarism to Asiatic despotism, which has been made more than once, seems much more natural geographically and historically. But with regard to Spain, as well, this comparison retained all its force. The difference is only in the fact that czarism was constituted on the basis of an extremely slow development of the nobility and of the primitive urban centres. But the Spanish monarchy was constituted under the conditions of the decline of the country and the decay of the ruling classes. If European absolutism generally could rise only thanks to the struggle of the strengthened cities against the old privileged estates, then the Spanish monarchy, like Russian czarism, drew its relative strength from the impotence of the old estates and the cities. In this lies its indubitable proximity to Asiatic despotism.

The predominance of the centrifugal tendency over the centripetal in economy as well as in politics undermined the ground beneath Spanish parliamentarism. The pressure of the government upon the electorate had a decisive character: during the last century elections unfailingly gave the government a majority. Because the Cortes (the Spanish Assembly) found it self-dependent upon the alternating ministries, the ministries themselves naturally fell into dependence upon the monarchy. Madrid made the elections but the power appeared in the hands of the king. The monarchy was doubly necessary to the disconnected and decentralized ruling classes, incapable of governing the country in their own name. And this monarchy, reflecting the weakness of the whole state, was – between two overturns – strong enough to impose its will upon the country. In general the state system of Spain can be called degenerated absolutism, limited by periodic promunciamentos. [1] The figure of Alfonso XIII expresses the system very well: from the point of view of degeneracy and absolutist tendencies, and the point of view of fear of pronunciamentos. The king’s playing to wind. ward, his betrayals, his treason, and his victory over the temporary combinations hostile to him are not at all rooted in the character of Alfonso XIII himself, but in the character of the whole governmental system: under new circumstances, Alfonso XIII repeats the inglorious history of his great-grandfather, Ferdinand VII.

Alongside of the monarchy, and in union with it, the clergy still represents a centralized force. Catholicism, to this day, continues to remain a state religion, the clergy plays a big role In the life of the country, being the firmest axis of reaction. The state spends many tens of millions of pesetas annually for the support of the clergy. The religious orders are extremely numerous, they possess great wealth and still greater influence. The number of monks and nuns is close to 70,000, equalling the number of high school students and exceeding double the number of college students. Is it a wonder that under these conditions forty-five per cent of the population can neither read nor write? The main mass of illiterates is concentrated, it is understood, in the village.

If the peasantry in the epoch of Charles V (Carlos I) gained little from the might of the Spanish empire, it was subsequently burdened with the heaviest consequences of its decline. For centuries it led a miserable, and in many provinces, a famished existence. Making up even now more than seventy per cent of the population, the peasantry bears on its back the main burden of the state structure. The lack of land, the lack of water, high rants, antiquated implements, primitive tilling of the soil, high taxes, the requisitions of the church, high prices of industrial products, a surplus of rural population, a great number of tramps, paupers, friars – that is the picture of the Spanish village. The condition of the peasantry has for a long time made it a participant in the numerous uprisings. But these sanguinary outbursts proceeded not along national but along local radii, dyed in the most multi-colored, and most often reactionary, colors. Just as the Spanish revolutions as a whole were small revolutions, so the peasant uprisings assumed the form of small wars. Spain is a classic country of “guerilla warfare.”


2. The Spanish Army in Politics
Following the war with Napoleon, a new force was created in Spain – officers in politics, the younger generation of the ruling classes who inherited from their fathers the ruins of the once great empire and were in a considerable measure declassed. In the country of particularism and separatism, the army of necessity assumed great significance as a centralized force. It not only became a prop of the monarchy but also the vehicle of dissatisfaction of all the sections of the ruling classes, and primarily, of its own: like the bureaucracy, the officers are recruited from those elements, extremely numerous in Spain, which demand of the state first of all their means of livelihood. And as the appetites of the different groups of “cultured” society are far in excess of the state, parliamentary and other positions available, the dissatisfaction of those remaining unattached nurtures the republican party, which is just as unstable as all the other groupings in Spain. But insofar as genuine and sharp revolt is often concealed under this instability, the republican movement from time to time produces resolute and courageous revolutionary groups to whom the republic appears as a magic slogan of salvation.

The total number of the Spanish army is nearly 170,000. Over 13,000 of them are officers. 15,000 marines should be added to this. Being the weapon of the ruling classes of the country, the commanding staff also drags the ranks of the army into its plots. This creates the conditions for the independent movement of the soldiers. Already in the past, non-commissioned officers burst into politics, without their officers and against them. In 1836, the non-commissioned officers of the Madrid garrison, in an uprising, compelled the queen to promulgate a constitution. In 1866, the artillery sergeants, dissatisfied with the aristocratic orders in the army, rose in insurrection. Nevertheless, the leading role in the past has remained with the officers. The soldiers followed their dissatisfied commanders even though the dissatisfaction of the soldiers, politically helpless, was fostered by other, deeper social forces.

The contradictions in the army usually correspond to the branch of service. The more advanced the type of arms, that is, the more intelligence it requires on the part of the soldiers and officers, the more susceptible they are, generally speaking, to revolutionary ideas. While the cavalry is usually inclined to the monarchy, the artillerists furnish a big percentage of the republicans. No wonder that the fliers, piloting the modern type of war machine, appeared on the side of the revolution and brought into it elements of the individualist adventurism of their profession. The decisive word remains with the infantry.

The history of Spain is the history of continuous revolutionary convulsions. Pronunciamentos and palace revolutions follow one another. During the nineteenth and the first third of the twentieth century a continuous change of political regime occurred and within each one of them – a kaleidoscopic change of ministries. Not finding sufficiently stable support in any one of the propertied classes even though they were all in need of it – the Spanish monarchy more than once fell into dependence upon its own army. But the provincial dismemberment of Spain put its stamp on the character of the military plots. The petty rivalry of the juntas was only the external expression of the fact that the Spanish revolutions did not have a leading class. Precisely because of this the monarchy repeatedly triumphed over each new revolution. However, sometime after the triumph of order, the chronic crisis once more broke through with an acute revolt. Not one of the regimes that supplanted each other sank deep enough into the soil. Every one of them wore off quickly in the struggle with the difficulties growing out of the meagreness of the national income, which is incommensurate with the appetites and pretensions of the ruling classes. We saw in particular how shamefully the last military dictatorship came to the end of its days. The stern Primo de Rivera fell even without a new pronunciarnento: the air simply went out of him like out of a tyre that runs over a nail.

All the Spanish revolutions were the movement of a minority against another minority: the ruling and semi-ruling classes impatiently snatching the state pie out to each other’s bands.

If by the permanent revolution we are to understand the accumulation of social revolutions, transferring power into the hands of the most resolute class, which afterwards applies this power for the abolition of all classes, and subsequently the very possibility of new revolutions, we would then have to state that in spite of the “uninterruptedness” of the Spanish revolutions there is nothing in them that resembles the permanent revolution: they are rather the chronic convulsions in which is expressed the senile disease of a nation thrown backward.

It is true that the Left wing of the bourgeoisie, particularly personified by the young intellectuals, has long ago set itself the task of converting Spain into a republic. The Spanish students who, for the same general reasons as the officers, were recruited primarily from the dissatisfied youth, became accustomed to playing a role in the country altogether out of proportion to their numbers. The domination of the Catholic reaction fed the flames of the opposition in the universities, investing it with an anti-clerical character. However, students do not create a regime. In their leading summits, the Spanish republicans are distinguished by an extremely conservative social programme: they see their ideal in pre8ent.day reactionary France, calculating that along with the republic they will also acquire wealth; they do not at all expect, and are not even able, to march the road of the French Jacobins: their fear of the masses is greater than their hostility to the monarchy. If the cracks and gaps of bourgeois society are filled in Spain with declassed elements of the ruling classes, the numerous seekers of positions and income, then at the bottom, in the cracks of the foundation, this place is occupied by the numerous slum proletarians, declassed elements of the toiling classes. Loafers with cravats as wall as loafers in rags form the quicksands of society. They are all the more dangerous for the revo1ution the less it finds its genuine motive support and its political leadership.

Six years of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera levelled and compressed all the forms of dissatisfaction and rebellion. But the dictatorship bore within it the incurable vice of the Spanish monarchy: strong towards each of the separate classes, it remained .impotent in relation to the historic needs of the country. This brought about the wreck of the dictatorship cu the submarine reefs of financial and other difficulties before the first revolutionary wave had a chance to teach it. The fall of Prisno de Rivera aroused all the forms of dissatisfaction and all hopes. Thus, General Berenguer has become the gateman of the revolution.

3. The Spanish Proletariat and the New Revolution
In this new revolution, we meet at first view, the same elements we found in a series of previous revolutions: the perfidious monarchy; the split-up factions of the conservatives and liberals who despise the king and crawl on their bellies before him; the Right republicans, always ready to betray and the Left republicans, always ready for adventure; the plotting officers, some of whom want a republic and others of whom a promotion in position; the dissatisfied students, whom their fathers view with alarm; finally, the striking workers, scattered among the different organizations, and the peasants, stretching out their hands for pitchforks and even for guns.

It would, however, be a grave error to assume that the present crisis is unfolding according to and in the image of all those that preceded it. The last decades, particularly the years of the world war, produced important changes in the economy of the country and in the social structure of the nation. Of course« even today Spain remains at the tail-end of Europe« Nevertheless, the country has experienced the development of its own industry, on the one hand, extractive, on the other – light. During the war, coal mining, textile, the construction of hydro-electric stations, etc., were greatly developed. Industrial centres and regions sprouted all over the country. This creates a new relation of forces and opens up new perspectives.

The successes of industrialization did not at all mitigate the internal contradictions. On the contrary, the circumstance that the industry of Spain, as a neutral country, bloomed under the golden rain of the war, was transformed at the end of the war, when the increased foreign demand disappeared, into a source of new difficulties. Not only did the foreign markets disappear – the share of Spain in world commerce is now even smaller than it was prior to the war (1.1% as against 1.2%) – but the dictatorship was compelled, with the aid of the highest tariff walls in Europe, to defend its domestic market from the influx of foreign commodities. The high tariff led to high prices, which diminished the already low purchasing power of the people. That is why industry after the war does not rise out of its lethargy, which is expressed by chronic unemployment on the one hand, and the sharp outbursts of the class struggle on the other.

Now even less than in the nineteenth century, can the Spanish bourgeoisie lay claim to that historic role which the British or French bourgeoisie once played. Appearing too late, depending on foreign capital, the big industrial bourgeoisie of Spain, which has dug like a vampire into the body of the people, is incapable of coming forward as the leader of the “Nation” against the old estates even for a brief period« The magnates of Spanish industry face the people hostilely, forming one of the most reactionary groups in the bloc of bankers, the industrialists, the large landowners, the monarchy, its generals and its officials, corroded by internal antagonisms. It is sufficient to refer to the fact that the most important supporters of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera were the manufacturers of Catalonia.

But the industrial development raised to its feet and strengthened the proletariat. Out of a population of 23,000,000 – it would be considerably greater were it not for emigration – there are nearly 1,500,000 industrial, commercial and transportation workers. To them should be added an approximately equal number of agricultural workers. Social life in Spain was condemned to revolve in a vicious circle so long as there was no class capable of taking the solution of the revolutionary problem Into Its own hands. The appearance of the Spanish proletariat on the historic arena radically changes the situation and opens up new perspectives. In order to grasp this properly it must first be understood that the establishment of the economic dominance of the big bourgeoisie, and the growth of the political significance of the proletariat, definitely deprive the petty bourgeoisie of the possibility of occupying a leading position in the political life of the country.

The question of whether the present revolutionary convulsions can produce a genuine revolution, capable of reconstructing the very basis of national existence, is consequently reduced to whether the Spanish proletariat is capable of taking into its hands the leadership of the national life. There is no other claimant to this role in the composition of the Spanish nation. Moreover, the historic experience of Russia succeeded in showing with sufficient clarity the specific gravity of the proletariat, united by big industry in a country with a backward agriculture and enmeshed in a net of semi-feudal relations.

The Spanish workers, it is true, already took a militant part in the revolutions of the nineteenth century: but always on the leading string of the bourgeoisie, always in the, second rank, as a subsidiary force. The independent revolutionary role of the workers was reinforced in the first quarter of the twentieth century. The uprising in Barcelona in 1909 showed what power was pent up in the young proletariat of Catalonia. Numerous strikes, turning themselves into direct uprisings, broke out in other parts of the country too. In 1912, a strike of the railroad workers took place. The industrial regions became fields of valiant proletarian struggles. The Spanish workers revealed a complete emancipation from routine, an ability to respond quickly to events and to mobilize their ranks, and courage in the offensive.

The first post-war years, or more correctly, the first years after the Russian Revolution (1917-1920), were years of great battles for the Spanish proletariat. The year 1917 witnessed a general revolutionary strike. Its defeat, and the defeat of a number of subsequent movements, prepared the conditions for the dictatorship of Primo do Rivers. When the collapse of the latter once more posed in all its magnitude the further destiny of the Spanish people; when the cowardly search for old cliques and the impotent lamentations of the petty bourgeois radicals showed clearly that salvation cannot be expected from this source, the workers by a series of courageous strikes, cried out to the people We are here!

The “Left” European bourgeois journalists with pretensions to learning, and following them, the social democrats, philosophize on the theme that Spain is simply about to reproduce the Great French revolution, after a delay of almost 150 years. To expound revolution to these people is equivalent to arguing with a blind man about colors. With all its backwardness, Spain has passed far beyond France of the eighteenth century. Big industrial enterprises, 10,000 miles of railway, 30,000 miles of telegraph, represent a more important factor of revolution than historical reminiscences.

Endeavoring to take a step forward, a certain English weekly, The Economist, says with regard to the Spanish events: “We have the influence of Paris of ’48 and ’71 rather than the influence of Moscow of 1917. [2] But Paris of ’71 is a step from ’48 towards 1917. The comparison is an empty one.

L. Tarquin wrote last year in La Lutte de Classes infinitely more seriously and profoundly: “The proletariat (of Spain), supporting itself on the peasant masses, is the only force capable of seizing power.” The perspective in connection with this is depicted as follows: “The revolution must bring about the dictatorship of the proletariat which would carry out the bourgeois revolution and would courageously open the road to socialist transformation.” This is the way – the only way – the question can now be posed.


4. The Programme of the Revolution
The republic is now the official slogan of the struggle. However, the development of the revolution will not only drive the conservatives and liberals, but also the republican sections of the ruling classes under the banner of the monarchy. During the revolutionary events of 1854, Canovas del Castillo wrote: “We are striving for the preservation of the throne, but without a camarilla which will disgrace it.” Now this great idea is developed by Senores Romanones and others. As though a monarchy is even possible without camarillas, especially in Spain! ... A combination of circumstances is possible, to be sure, in which the possessing classes are compelled to sacrifice the monarchy in order to save themselves (example: Germany!). However it is quite likely that the Madrid monarchy, even though its eyes are blackened, will survive until the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The slogan of the republic is, it is understood, also the slogan of the proletariat. But for this, it is not merely a matter of replacing the king with a president, but of thoroughly purging the whole of society of fedual refuse: The first place here Is occupied by the agrarian question.

The relationships in the Spanish village present a picture of semi-feudal exploitation. The poverty of the peasants, particularly in Andalusia and Castille, the oppression of the land-owners, the authorities and the caciques [3] have already more than once driven the agricultural workers and the peasant poor to the road of open mutiny. Does this, however, mean that in Spain, even though through revolution, bourgeois relations can be purged of feudalism? No. This only means that, under the conditions of Spain, capitalism can exploit the peasantry in no other way than in the feudal form. To aim the weapon of the revolution against the remnants of the Spanish Middle Ages means to aim it against the very roots of bourgeois rule.

In order to break the peasantry away from localism and reactionary influences, the proletariat needs a clear revolutionary-democratic programme. The lack of land and waters the cabal of landlords, pose acutely the question of the confiscation of the privately owned land for the peasant poor. The burden of state finances, the unbearable government debt, bureaucratic pillage, and the African adventures, pose the problem of cheap government, which can be achieved not by the owners of large estates, not by bankers and industrialists, not by titled liberals, but by the toilers themselves.

The domination of the clergy and the wealth of the church put forward the democratic problem: to separate the church from the« state, and to disarm the former, transferring its wealth to the people. Even the most superstitious sections of the peasantry will support these decisive measures, when they are convinced that the budgetary sums which have up to now gone to the church, as well as the wealth of the church itself, will, as a result of secularization, go – not to the pockets of the free-thinking liberals – but for the cultivation of the exhausted peasant holdings.

The separatist tendencies pose before the revolution the democratic task of national self-determination. These tendencies were accentuated, to all appearances, during the period of the dictatorship. While the “separatism” of the Catalonian bourgeoisie is only a weapon in its play with the Madrid government against the Catalonian and Spanish people, the separatism of the workers and peasants is only the shell of their social rebellion. One must distinguish very rigidly between these two forms of separatism. However, precisely in order to draw the line between the nationally. oppressed workers and peasants and their bourgeoisie, the proletarian vanguard must occupy the boldest and sincerest position in the question of national self-determination. The workers will fully and completely defend the right of the Catalonians and Basques to lead an independent state life, in the event that the majority of these nationalities have expressed themselves for complete separation. But this does not, of course, mean that the advanced workers will push the Catalonians and Basques on the road of secession. On the contrary, the economic unity of the country with an extensive autonomy of national districts, would represent great advantages for the workers and peasants from the viewpoint of economy and culture.

The attempt of the monarchy to ward off the further development of the revolution with the aid of a new military dictatorship is not at all out of the question. But what is out of the question is the serious and durable success of such an attempt. The lesson of Primo de Rivera is still too fresh. The chains of the new dictatorship would have to be wound over the sores that have not yet healed from the old ones. Insofar as can be judged by the telegraphic news the king would like to try: he looks about nervously for a suitable candidate but finds nobody to volunteer. One thing is clear: the breakdown of a new military dictatorship would be very costly to the monarchy and its living bearer, and the revolution would acquire a mighty impulsion, Faites vos jeux, messieurs! [4] the workers can say to the ruling classes.

Can it be expected that the Spanish revolution will skip the period of parliamentarism? Theoretically, this is not excluded. It is conceivable that the revolutionary movement will, in a compatively short time, attain such strength that it will leave the ruling classes neither the time nor place for parlianentarism. Nevertheless, such a perspective is rather improbable. The Spanish proletariat, in spite of its first class qualities for struggle, has as yet not recognized revolutionary party, nor is it accustomed to Soviet organization. And besides this, there Is no unity in the not numerous Communist ranks. There is no clear programme of action visible to everybody. Nevertheless, the question of the Cortes is already on the order of the day. Under these conditions, it must be assumed that the revolution will have to pass through the stage of parliamentarism.

This does not at all exclude the tactic of a boycott of the fictitious Cortes of Berenguer, just as the Russian workers successfully boycotted Bulyqin’s Duma in 1905 and brought about its collapse. The specific tactical question of the boycott has to be decided on the basis of the relation of forces at the given stage of the revolution. But even while boycotting Berenguer’s Cortes, the advanced workers would have to set up against it the slogan of revolutionary constituent Cortes. We must relentlessly disclose the charlatan character of the slogan of the constituent Cortes in the mouth of the “Left”, bourgeoisie, which in reality, wants a conciliationist Cortes by the grace of the king and Berenguer, for a dicker with the old ruling and privileged cliques. A genuine constituent assembly can be convoked only by a revolutionary government, as a result of a victorious insurrection of the workers, soldiers and peasants. We can and must oppose the revolutionary Cortes to the conciliationist Cortes; but to our mind, it would he incorrect at the given stage to reject the slogan of the revolutionary Cortes. To oppose the course directed towards the dictatorship of the proletariat to the problems and slogans of revolutionary democracy (republic, agrarian overturn, the separation of church and state, the confiscation of church properties, national self-determination, revolutionary constituent assembly), would be the most sorry and lifeless doctrinarism. Before the masses can seize power, they mast unite around the leading proletarian party. The struggle for democratic representation, as well as for participation in the Cortes, at one or another stage of the revolution, may do an irreparable service towards the solution of this problem.

The slogan of arming the workers and peasants (the creation of a workers’ and peasants’ militia) must inevitably acquire an ever greater importance in the struggle. But at the given stage this slogan too must be closely connected with the questions of defending the workers’ and peasants’ organizations, the agrarian revolution, the assuring of free elections, and the safeguarding of the people from reactionary pronunciamentos.

A radical programme of social legislation, particularly unemployment insurance; the shifting of the burden of taxation to the wealthy classes; free popular education – all these and similar measures, which in themselves do not exceed the framework of bourgeois society, must be inscribed on the banner of the proletarian party.

Alongside of this, however, demands of a transitional character must be advanced even new: the nationalization of the railroads, which are completely private; in Spain the nationalization of mineral resources; the nationalization of banks; workers control of industry; and finally, state regulation of industry. All these demands are bound up with the transition from a bourgeois to a proletarian regime, they prepare this transition in order afterwards, following the nationalization of banks and industry, to be dissolved into a system of measures of planned economy, preparing the socialist society.

Only pedants can see contradictions in the combination of democratic slogans with transitional and purely socialist slogans. A programme combined in this manner, reflecting the contradictory construction of historic society, flows inevitably from the heterogeneity of the problems inherited from the past. To reduce all the contradictions and tasks to one coefficient – the dictatorship of the proletariat – is a necessary operation, but altogether insufficient. Even if one should run ahead and assume that the proletarian vanguard has grasped the idea that only the dictatorship of the proletariat can save Spain from further decay, the preparatory problem would nevertheless remain in full force: to weld around the vanguard the heterogeneous sections of the working class and the still more heterogeneous masses of the toilers of the village. To contrast the bare slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat to the historically conditioned tasks which are now impelling the masses towards the road of insurrection, would mean to replace the Marxian conception of social revolution by Bakunin’s. This would be the surest method of ruining the revolution.

It is needless to say that the democratic slogans under no circumstances have as their task to draw the proletariat closer to the republican bourgeoisie. On the contrary, they create the basis for a victorious struggle against the bourgeoisie of the Left, making it possible at every step to disclose its anti-democratic character. The more courageously, resolutely and implacably the proletarian vanguard fights for the democratic slogans, the sooner it will conquer the masses and undermine the ground beneath the feet of bourgeois republicans and socialist reformists, The more faithfully their best elements join us, the sooner the democratic republic will be identified in the mind of the masses with the workers’ republic.

For the correctly understood theoretical formula to be transformed into a living historic fact, it must be conveyed to the minds of the masses on the basis of their experiences their needs, their requirements. For this it is necessary not to lose oneself in details, so as not to diffuse the attention of the masses; the programme of the revolution must be changed in accordance with the dynamics of the struggle. This is precisely what revolutionary politics consists of.