In consequence of the backwardness of the
nation from the point of view of industrial development, the bourgeoisie
was correspondingly backward and weak. Never in any country had a class so
weak and uninfluential essayed the role of the ruling class. To believe
that a class which at the most did not exceed six per cent. of the
population could assert and maintain its rule over a nation of one hundred
and eighty millions of people, when these had been stirred by years of
revolutionary agitation, was at once pedantic and absurd.
The industrial proletariat was as backward and as relatively weak as the
bourgeoisie. Except by armed force and tyranny of the worst kind, this
class could not rule Russia. Its fitness and right to rule are not
appreciably greater than the fitness and right of the bourgeoisie. It
cannot even be said on its behalf that it had waged the revolutionary
struggle of the working class, for in truth its share in the Russian
revolutionary movement had been relatively small, far less than that of the
peasant organizations. With more than one hundred and thirty-five millions
of peasants, from whose discontent and struggle the revolutionary movement
had drawn its main strength, neither the bourgeoisie nor the
class-conscious section of the industrial proletariat could set up its rule
without angry protest and attacks which, soon or late, must overturn it.
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