This is
doubly true of the railways. And just this transition from one
political problem to another, which in appearance has no
resemblance to the first, constitutes the peculiarity of the
present period. The Revolution has just broken the oldest, the
strongest, and the heaviest chains to which the masses were
compelled to submit. So it was yesterday. And to-day, the same
Revolution (and indeed in the interest of Socialism) demands the
_absolute submission_ of the masses to the _single will_ of those
who direct the labor process. It is self-evident that it can be
realized only after great upheavals, crises, returns to the old;
only through the greatest strain of the energy of the proletarian
vanguard which is leading the people to the new order....
To the extent to which the principal problem of the Soviet rule
changes from military suppression to administration, suppression
and compulsion will, _as a rule, be manifested in trials, and not
in shooting on the spot_. And in this respect the revolutionary
masses have taken, after November 7, 1918, the right road and have
proved the vitality of the Revolution, when they started to
organize their own workmen's and peasants' tribunals, before any
decrees were issued dismissing the bourgeois-democratic judicial
apparatus.
Pages:
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441