Lest the point be missed it is necessary to call to the readers' attention, that the principal point which the author has sought to show is that the Soviet government has failed not alone in the sphere of production, but also- in the field of distribution. Thus it is that the Soviet government allows a certain amount of latitude to the labor unions as producing organs, but it liquidates entirely into the state the once powerful co-operative societies which were an integral part of the Russian national life. These co-operative societies flourishing and alive under their former mode of operation, in becoming state organs for distribution, and henceforth bureaucratically managed have withered like a cut flower and become lifeless. Free trade inaugurated in the spring of 1921 is an indication of this decay.
Some of the features of bolshevik rule described in this book have now disappeared due to the rapid changes that are being made in the policy of the bolsheviks, but each such feature should be recorded and rescued from oblivion. The failures and the mistakes of the bolsheviks are the red danger lanterns along our own road and will save us in the future from running into the same obstacle, just as the red lanterns hung out by street pavers and sewer workers save us from running into holes or piles of debris. The author of this book hangs out these danger lanterns where everybody can see them. The information the author gathered in 1920 will never be out of date as long as we ourselves have not achieved the great social transformation in this country.
Together with the publishing of this book in America comes the news of a speech made by Lenin on October 17, 1921, in which the prophetic writings of this book are verified. Lenin says in the speech :
"Our new economic policy consists essentially in this, that we in this respect have been thoroughly defeated and have started to undertake a strategic retreat; before we are completely defeated, let us retreat, and DO EVERY- THING OVER AGAIN, but more steady. Communists can not have the slightest doubt that we on the economic front have suffered an economic defeat, and a very serious defeat at that."
He also says, in connection with the former policy of food requisition, the following:
"On the economic front we have, with the attempt to go over to a communist society, suffered a defeat in the spring of 1921, more serious than any previous defeat suffered at the hands of Denekin, Kolchak or Pilsudsky, a defeat which has taken expression in the fact that our economic policy in its superstructure has proven to be cut off from the substructure and did not create the stimulation of the productive powers, which in our party program is recognized as the fundamental and immediate problem. "The requisition system in the country and the communist method of solving the organization problem in the cities, these are the policies that prevented the increase in the productive powers and proved to be the main cause of the deep-, going economic and political crisis with which we collided in the spring of 1921.
"There you have the cause of what has happened, which, from the viewpoint of our general policy, cannot be called anything else than a thorough defeat and a retreat."
But the defeat that Lenin admits and which he terms "our defeat" should not be construed to mean a defeat of all revolutionary principles. It is wholly, and only, a defeat of the political theory of revolution.
Bukharin is perhaps the frankest of all when he says in an article entitled, "The Soviets' New Policy":
"When the state apparatus is in our hands we can guide it in any desired direction. But unless we are at the helm we can give no direction at all.
"Consequently we must seize power and keep it and make no political concessions. But we may make many economic concessions. But the fact of the matter is we are making economic concessions in order to avoid making political concessions.
"We shall agree to no coalition government or anything like it, not even equal rights to peasants and workers. We cannot do that."