To be sure, Russia had entered
the capitalistic stage as her Marxians had predicted, but nevertheless
her capitalists were found to be lacking the indomitable will to power
which makes a ruling class.
The weakness of the capitalists in the fight on behalf of private
property may be explained in part by their want of allies in the other
classes in the community. The Russian peasant, reared in the atmosphere
of communal land ownership, was far from being a fanatical defender of
private property. No Thiers could have rallied a Russian peasant army
for the suppression of a communistic industrial wage-earning class by an
appeal to their property instinct. To make matters worse for the
capitalists, the peasant's strongest craving was for more land, all the
land, without compensation! This the capitalists, being capitalists,
were unable to grant. Yet it was the only sort of currency which the
peasant would accept in payment for his political support. In November,
1917, when the Bolsheviki seized the government, one of their first acts
was to satisfy the peasant's land hunger by turning over to his use all
the land.
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