Arthur Feiler - The Experiment of Bolshevism

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ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: EARLY WESTERN RESPONSES TO SOVIET RUSSIA

Volume 6

THE EXPERIMENT OF BOLSHEVISM

THE EXPERIMENT OF BOLSHEVISM

ARTHUR FEILER

First published in German in 1929 under the title Experiment des Bolshchewismus
First published in Great Britain in 1930 by George Allen & Unwin Ltd

This edition first published in 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

1930 English Translation George Allen & Unwin Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-138-04993-2 (Set)
ISBN: 978-1-315-11072-1 (Set) (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-08522-0 (Volume 6) (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-11140-7 (Volume 6) (ebk)

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer
The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

THE EXPERIMENT OF BOLSHEVISM

By ARTHUR FEILER

TRANSLATED BY
H. J. STENNING

LONDON

GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD

MUSEUM STREET

The German original, Experiment des Bolschewismus, was first published in 1929

FIRST PUBLISHED IN GREAT BRITAIN IN 1930

All rights reserved

The experiment of Bolshevism has to-day reached a crucial stage. The consequences of the war and of the civil war have been practically overcome. The experiment has now to be tested.

Much time has elapsed. Twelve years of revolution after three years of warin such a state of violent and continuous tension has a people of 150 millions lived since August 1914. A new generation, remoulded from top to toe, is growing up. The gigantic task of reconstruction has yet to be undertaken.

Whether the nation and whether the rest of the world will give the rgime time to attempt it is doubtful. At any rate, the lines upon which this attempt is to be made are now sufficiently perceptible. For the protracted struggle within Bolshevism itself is again settled for the time being. Trotskyism is overthrown. The opposition from the Right is momentarily silenced. The course is set. The five-year plan is its expression. The new agrarian communism now being ushered in reflects it in the first stage of its application, as do the methods, now emphasized more clearly, of industrial, political, and labour policy, and of Bolshevist aims generally. Perhaps it is now possible to see daylight through all the chaotic medley of this colossal episode, and from a comprehension of the economic, the political, and the intellectual bases and aims, to frame a diagnosis.

In this spirit I have tried to understand Bolshevist Russia during a three-monthsjourney of investigation, lasting from March to June 1929. I owe thanks to many for information, for advice and assistance. To my wife, who accompanied me, this book will serve as a reminder of the impressive and stupendous things which we saw there.

A F.

FRANKFORT-ON-MAIN,
September 1929

CONTENTS

THE EXPERIMENT OF BOLSHEVISM

Whowhom? These two words, frequently used in the Russian controversy, sum up, in fact, the fateful question of every revolution. Who subdues whom? Who destroys whom? Who rules whom? Who triumphs over whom?

Whowhom? Everything is contained in these two words. Everything pertaining to the present, that is to say. And only in a future, for which this present has already become the past, is the form of the question changed. For then it no longer runs: Who triumphed? but simply, What was achieved? instead of Who won? What won? But the answer to this question as to what, instead of as to whom, is not supplied by history until the revolution is ended and the struggle is over, or rather until the revolution has lost its combative character, and given place to the more peaceful clash of minds. For the struggle itself never ends. This perpetual striving is the eternal task of the human race, for whom every achievement is but a step towards an ever-beckoning and ever-receding goal.

But even when it misses or misconceives or outstrips its object, the revolutionI mean, every real revolutionis a seven-leagued leap in world-history. Whatever may be the watchwords at its outset, what finally counts is its result; but what it destroys is thereby proved ripe for destruction. What it accomplishes is thereby proved ripe for achievement. However much the actual outcome may ultimately diverge from what was contemplated by those who started the revolution, a simple return to the past is out of the question. A real revolution can never be eradicated from the hearts and minds of nations. Its proper features are always burned into their very souls. The revolution is inextinguishable; in this higher sense there is no such thing as an unsuccessful revolution. And the fact of the revolution itself proves its historical necessity, as it indicates that the pressure of the old system had become intolerable. It releases the forces of the new order, which, too long suppressed, now destroy everything around them with an elementary explosion, bursting the iron walls which had imprisoned them. Political wisdom which designs to avert the destruction of the revolution must forestall it by timely concessions. Revolutions are averted only by reforms which are voluntary concessions to the necessities of the hour. Conversely: We did not make the Revolution, the Revolution made us, as Danton says in Georg Bchners illuminating drama.

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