Marx, as is well known,
taught that history is a struggle between classes, in which the landed
aristocracy, the capitalist class, and the wage earning class are raised
successively to rulership as, with the progress of society's technical
equipment, first one and then another class can operate it with the
maximum efficiency. Marx assumed that when the time has arrived for a
given economic class to take the helm, that class will be found in full
possession of all the psychological attributes of a ruling class,
namely, an indomitable will to power, no less than the more vulgar
desire for the emoluments that come with power. Apparently, Marx took
for granted that economic evolution is inevitably accompanied by a
corresponding development of an effective will to power in the class
destined to rule. Yet, whatever may be the case in the countries of the
West, in Russia the ruling classes, the gentry and the capitalists,
clearly failed in the psychological test at the critical time. This
failure is amply attested by the manner in which they submitted
practically without a fight after the Bolshevist coup _d'?tat_.
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