Why Socialism Will Eventually Be Triumphant

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Why Socialism Will Eventually Be Triumphant
By Herb Kaye

In this period after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the setbacks to
socialism in Eastern Europe, the academic pundits and other defenders of the 
status
quo keep declaring that "this is the best of all possible worlds."


This encompasses the idea that the U.S. political and economic systems are 
superior to
those of a socialist society. These concepts are of course, not new, and it is
interesting to note how they were dealt with in a conversation that was held in 
1918
between Lenin and Raymond Robins, the head of the Red Cross Mission in Russia 
at the
time.

Russia in 1918 was in a most critical situation with armies of several 
capitalist
nations occupying its territory, White armies of counterrevolutionaries 
attacking from
several directions, the economy of the country broken down, and a blockade and 
boycott
of its ports by allied powers.

It was against this backdrop that Lenin spoke to Robins about the outlook for 
the
future of socialism. "We may be overthrown in Russia by the backwardness of the
Russian people", said Lenin, "or by a foreign power, but the Idea in the Russian
Revolution will break and wreck every political social control in the world. Our
method of social control must dominate the future. Political social control 
will die.
The Russian Revolution will kill it-everywhere."

"But" said Robin,"my government is a democratic government. Do you really mean 
that
the idea in the Russian Revolution will destroy the democratic idea in the 
government
of the United States?" "The American government,"answered Lenin,"is corrupt." 
"That is
not so," answered Robins."Our national government and local governments are 
elected by
the people. Most of the elections are honest and fair, and the men elected are 
the
true choice of the voters. You can not call the American government a bought
government".

"Ah,Colonel Robins", replied Lenin,?" you do not understand. I should not have 
used
the word corrupt. I do not mean that your government is corrupt through money
(ed.note:Lenin would undoubtedly revise that comment today), I mean that it is 
decayed
in thought. It is living in the age of Thomas Jefferson. It is not living in the
present economic age. It is therefore, lacking in intellectual integrity." "Do 
you
know what our system is?" asked Lenin? "Not very well as yet," said 
Robins."You've
just started." "You will say that your republic is a citizens' republic," said 
Lenin."
Very well. I say that the man as producer is more important than the man as 
citizen.

"This system is stronger than yours because it fits in with reality. It seeks 
out the
sources of daily human work-value and, out of those sources, directly, it 
creates the
social control of the state. Our government will be an economic social control 
for an
economic age. It will triumph because it speaks the spirit, and releases and 
uses the
spirit of the age that now is.

"Therefore,Colonel Robins, we look with confidence to the future. You may 
destroy us
in Russia. You may destroy the Russian Revolution in Russia. You may overthrow 
me. It
will make no difference. A hundred years ago the monarchies of Britain, Prussia,
Austria,Russia overthrew the government of Revolutionary France. They restored a
monarch, who was called a legitimate monarch, to power in Paris. But they could 
not
stop the middle class political revolution, the revolution of middle clas 
democracy,
which had been started in Paris by the men of the French Reolution in 1789. 
They could
not save feudalism.

"Every system of feudal aristocratic social control in Europe was destined to be
destroyed by the political democratic social control worked out by the French
Revolution. Every system of political democratic social control in the world 
today is
destined now to be destroyed by the economic producers' social control worked 
out by
the Russian Revolution.

"Colonel Robins, you do not believe it. I have to await for events to convince 
you.
You may see foreign bayonets parading across Russia. You may see the Soviets, 
and all
the leaders of the Soviets,killed. You may see Russia dark again as it was dark
before. But the lightning out of that darkness has destroyed political democracy
everywhere. It has destroyed it not by physically striking it but simply by one 
flash
of revealment of the future."

(The quotes above are from Lenin, The Man and His Work", by Rhys Williams, 
Scott and
Seltzer, 1919.)

In our present day, capitalism seems all-powerful and invincible - as did the 
empires
of Egypt, Rome, France under Napoleon, and the British in the time of Queen 
Victoria -
yet they all passed from the stage of history.

They disappeared because basically they could not provide the "economic social 
control
of the state " as Lenin said, and they were pushed aside by the forces of 
history that
could not function any longer under the systems then in force.

The insoluble contradictions of capitalist society represented primarily in the 
class
struggle between the two major classes in today's world, the working class and 
the
capitalist class, can and will only be resolved eventually with the 
establishment of
socialism. Under Socialism, the exploitation of man by man will be abolished,
democratic guarantees of the distribution of the wealth of society in 
accordance with
the principle "From each according to his ability, to each according to his 
work,"
will prevail.

Communists today, in the spirit of Lenin, "Look to the future with confidence."