This was adopting a policy of desperation, but it is the most important event since the Bolshevist coup d’état in November, 1917. For it is a repudiation of the fundamental plank of the Communist platform, the first principle of which is the complete suppression of all free trading, private business initiative, and individual enterprise. There is no limit to the possibilities opened up by this tragic necessity—as it must seem to the Communists. But having taken it, however reluctantly, why do they not release their opponents from prison and invite their cooperation—those opponents whose chief protest was against the stupidity of the Bolshevist food system?
The explanation is that with the Bolshevist leaders the welfare of the workers and peasants, and of humanity in general, is completely subordinate to the interest of the Communist Party. And this attitude is inspired not so much by selfish motives as by an amazingly bigoted conviction that the Bolshevist interpretation of Marxian dogma is the only formula that will ultimately lead to what they regard as the “emancipation of all workers.” Astonishing as it may seem in these days, when the better elements of mankind are struggling to temper prejudice with reason, theory is all in all to the Bolsheviks, while facts are only to be recognized when they threaten the dictatorship of the party. Thus the concession of freedom of trade to the peasantry does not imply any yielding of principle, but merely adaptation to adverse conditions, a step “backward,” which must be “rectified” the moment circumstances permit. That is why, since Lenin’s announcement, Bolshevist sophists have been talking themselves blue in the endeavour to prove to home and foreign followers that the chameleon does not and never will change its colour. “Free trading,” they say, “is only a temporary unavoidable evil.” Temporary? But can anyone who believes in human nature conceive of a possible return to the system Lenin has discarded?
One day there occurred in Petrograd a startling event that would have made foreign protagonists of proletarian dictatorship, had they been present, sit bolt upright and diligently scratch their heads.
A re-registration of the party took place, the object being to purge its ranks of what were referred to as “undesirable elements” and “radishes,” the latter being a happy epithet invented by Trotsky to designate those who were red only on the outside. A stringent condition of reentry was that every member should be guaranteed by two others for his political reliability, not only upon admission but in perpetuity. Such were the fear and suspicion prevailing even within the ranks of the party. The result was that, besides those who were expelled for misdemeanours, many Communists, disquieted by the introduction of so stringent a disciplinary measure, profited by the re-registration to retire, and the membership was reduced by more than fifty percent. A total of less than 4,000 was left out of a population of 800,000.
Immediately after the purge there were districts of the “metropolis of the world revolution” where scarcely a Communist was left. The central committee had been prepared to purge the party of a certain number of undesirables, but the sudden reduction by over one half was a totally unexpected blow. Its bitterness was enhanced by the fact that only three weeks earlier, by means of threats, bribes, trickery, and violence, the Communists had secured over 1,100 out of 1,390 seats at the elections to the Petrograd Soviet, which result they were holding up to the outside world as indicative of the spreading influence of Bolshevism.
The problem of how to increase the party membership became vitally urgent. With this end in view a novel and ingenious idea was suddenly conceived. It was resolved to make an appeal for party recruits among the workers! Amazing though it may seem, the Communist leaders, according to their own accounts, thought of this course only as a last resort. To the outsider this is almost incredible. Even in Russia it seemed so at first, but on second thoughts it appeared less strange. Forever since the murder in 1918 of the Jewish commissars Volodarsky and Uritsky, the former by unknown workmen and the latter by a Socialist-Revolutionary Jew, the Communists had come to regard the workers in general as an unreliable element, strongly under Menshevist and Socialist-Revolutionary influence. The small section that joined the Bolsheviks were elevated to posts of responsibility, and thus became detached from the masses. But a larger section, openly adhering to anti-Bolshevist parties, was left, whose spokesmen were constantly subjected to persecution which only enhanced their prestige in the workers’ eyes.
Of whom, then, had the Communist Party consisted for the first two years of the Red regime? The question is not easy to answer, for the systems of admission have varied as much as the composition of the party itself. The backbone of the rank and file was originally formed by the sailors, whom I heard Trotsky describe during the riots of July, 1917, as “the pride and glory of the revolution.” But a year or so later there was a good sprinkling of that type of workman who, when he is not a Communist, is described by the Communists as “workman bourgeois.” Though these latter were often self-seekers and were regarded by the workers in general as snobs, they were a better element than the sailors, who with few exceptions were ruffians. Further recruits were drawn from amongst people of most varied and indefinite types—yard-keepers, servant girls, ex-policemen, prison warders, tradesmen, and the petty bourgeoisie. In rare instances one might find students and teachers, generally women of the soft, dreamy, mentally weak type, but perfectly sincere and disinterested. Most women Communists of the lower ranks resembled ogresses.
In the early days membership of the party, which rapidly came to resemble a political aristocracy, was regarded as an inestimable privilege worth great trouble and cost to obtain.
