The development of the Russian revolution shows us this on every point. The German workers and the workers of other countries must learn from this experience. They have to build up a socialist economic system in their organizations, which steps in the place of the capitalist system. If they do not do this and a political revolution breaks out, then the revolution will remain only political. For this reason they should begin with it immediately. The workers have to organize themselves into consumers' unions or create unions which on the day after the revolution are capable of taking consumption into their hands. Such organizations are the "Bourse du Travail" (labor exchanges), or "Arbeiterboerse," as the Germans call them. Without such organizations they will commit the same errors as the Russian workers did, and capitalism, which they had thrown out through one door and thought they had conquered because its political representative has been made powerless, comes into evidence again from all corners and crevices and overgrows the socialist beginnings, until the workers are able to make it superfluous through their own new-formed economic organizations. Bu\t it is a fatal error to put this new economic system into the hands of the state.
We left the Russian revolution at the stage where the workers took possession of the factories and, partly at their own expense, produced for themselves without attacking the capitalist system of consumption. This is by some German social-democratic theoreticians, among them Kautsky, being described as "syndicalism." There is nothing more false than such a statement, which they either make out of ignorance or intentional deceit. A glance at the declaration of principles of the syndicalists is sufficient in order to convince any one of this. A thorough refutation of this error or deception is, however, beyond the scope of this book.
That the Russian workers undertook nothing else and were in no position to do anything else is traceable to the circumstance that they had no organization for the purpose. They lacked the unions which as the embryonic cells of the new socialist economic system develop the required abilities and organize for the tasks which enable the workers to crowd out the capitalist economic system with a socialist system.
The Russian unions date back only from the year 1905. After the victory of the reaction they were again dissolved and had mostly to lead an underground existence. After 1910 they started to develop once more, but during the years of the war they were again fought most strenuously by the czarist government and suppressed.
After the overthrow of czarism in March 1917 the unions began to push forward in a powerful manner, so that, when in July a conference of the unions took place in Petrograd (the third conference), already 1,475,425 members were represented by 220 delegates. At this conference it became apparent of what character the Russian unions were. Two different tendencies were represented; one left and one right. The left wing took the stand that the unions should repudiate every thought of class conciliation and of the possibility of co-operation with the bourgeoisie. But this left wing lacked about 15-20 votes of a majority and its propositions did not carry. But resolutions were adopted calling for a greater taxation of the owning classes, for the introduction of maximum prices o<n the most important products, for control of production, for direct participation in the affairs of the state by the most important branches of production, for rigid bank control, for compulsory syndicating and trustification, for reorganization of the organs of state control. At the same time a declaration was made that the process of control were too difficult for the proletariat to take over, alone or in preponderance.