[33]
The phrase "harbinger of the abolition of every form of authority" would
seem to indicate that Lenine's ideal is that of the old Nihilists--or of
Anarchists of the Bakuninist school. That is very far from the truth. The
phrase in question is merely a rhetorical flourish. No man has more
caustically criticized and ridiculed the Anarchists for their dream of
organization without authority than Nikolai Lenine. Moreover, his
conception of Soviet government provides for a very strong central
authority. It is a new kind of state, but a state, nevertheless, and, as we
shall discover, far more powerful than the political state with which we
are familiar, exercising far greater control over the life of the
individual. It is not to be a democratic state, but a very despotic one, a
dictatorship by a small but powerful ruling class. It was not the word
"democracy" which Lenine felt to be a "shackle upon the revolutionary
nation," but democracy itself.
The manner in which they betrayed the Constituent Assembly will prove the
complete hostility of the Bolsheviki to democratic government. In order to
excuse and justify the Bolsheviki's actions in this regard, their
supporters in this country have assiduously circulated two statements.
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