"There Is No Communism in 'Soviet' Russia"

Emma Goldman (1935)

Communism is now on everybody's lips. Some talk of it with
the exaggerated enthusiasm of a new convert, others fear and
condemn it as a social menace. But I venture to say that
neither its admirers--the great majority of them--nor those
who denounce it have a very clear idea of what Bolshevik
Communism really is.Speaking generally, Communism is the ideal of human equality
and brotherhood. It considers the exploitation of man by man
as the source of all slavery and oppression. It holds that
economic inequality leads to social injustice and is the
enemy of moral and intellectual progress. Communism aims at
a society where classes have been abolished as a result of
common ownership of the means of production and
distribution. It teaches that only in a classless, solidaric
commonwealth can man enjoy liberty, peace and well-being.

My purpose is to compare Communism with its application in
Soviet Russia, but on closer examination I find it an
impossible task. As a matter of fact, there is no Communism
in the U.S.S.R. Not a single Communist principle, not a
single item of its teaching is being applied by the
Communist party there.

To some this statement may appear as entirely false; others
may think it vastly exaggerated. Yet I feel sure that an
objective examination of conditions in present-day Russia
will convince the unprejudiced reader that I speak with
entire truth.

It is necessary to consider here, first of all, the
fundamental idea underlying the alleged Communism of the
Bolsheviki. It is admittedly of a centralized, authoritarian
kind. That is, it is based almost exclusively on
governmental coercion, on violence. It is not the Communism
of voluntary association. It is compulsory State Communism.
This must be kept in mind in order to understand the method
applied by the Soviet state to carry out such of its plans
as may seem to be Communistic.

The first requirement of Communism is the socialization of
the land and of the machinery of production and
distribution. Socialized land and machinery belong to the
people, to be settled upon and used by individuals or groups
according to their needs. In Russia land and machinery are
not socialized but _nationalized_. The term is a misnomer,
of course. In fact, it is entirely devoid of content. In
reality there is no such thing as national wealth. A nation
is too  abstract a term to "own" anything. Ownership may be
by an individual, or by a group of individuals; in any case
by some quantitatively defined reality. When a certain thing
does not belong to an individual or group, it is either
nationalized or socialized. If it is nationalized, it
belongs to the state; that is, the government has control of
it and may dispose of it according to its wishes and views.
But when a thing is socialized, every individual has free
access to it and use it without interference from anyone.

In Russia there is no socialization either of land or of
production and distribution. Everything is nationalized; it
belongs to the government, exactly as does the post-office
in America or the railroad in Germany and other European
countries. There is nothing of Communism about it.

No more Communistic than the land and means of production is
any other phase of the Soviet economic structure. All
sources of existence are owned by the central government;
foreign trade is its absolute monopoly; the printing presses
belong to the state, and every book and paper issued is a
government publication. In short, the entire country and
everything in it is the property of the state, as in ancient
days it used to be the property of the crown. The few things
not yet nationalized, as some old ramshackle houses in
Moscow, for instance, or some dingy little stores with a
pitiful stock of cosmetics, exist on sufferance only, with
the government having the undisputed right to confiscate
them at any moment by simple decree.

Such a condition of affairs may be called state capitalism,
but it would be fantastic to consider it in any sense
Communistic.

II.

Let us now turn to production and consumption, the levers of
all existence. Maybe in them we shall find a degree of
Communism that will justify us in calling life in Russia
Communistic, to some extent at least.

I have already pointed out that the land and the machinery
of production are owned by the state. The methods of
production and the amounts to be manufactured by every
industry in each and every mill, shop and factory are
determined by the state, by the central government--by
Moscow--through its various organs.

Now, Russia is a country of vast extent, covering about one
sixth of the earth's surface. It is peopled by a mixed
population of 165,000,000. It consists of a number of large
republics, of various races and nationalities, each region
having its own particular interests and needs. No doubt,
industrial and economic planning is vitally necessary for
the well-being of a community. True Communism--economic
equality as between man and man and between
communities--requires the best and most efficient planning
by each community, based upon its local requirements and
possibilies. The basis of such planning must be the complete
freedom of each community to produce according to its needs
and to dispose of its products according to its judgment: to
change its surplus with other similarly independent
communities without let or hindrance by any external
authority.

That is the essential politico-economic nature of Communism.
It is neither workable nor possible on any other
basis. It is necessarily libertarian, Anarchistic.

There is no trace of such Communism--that is to say, of any
Communism--in Soviet Russia. In fact, the mere suggestion of
such a system is considered criminal there, and any attempt
to carry it out is punished by death.

Industrial planning and all the processes of production and
distribution are in the hands of the central government.
Supreme Economic Council is subject only to the authority of
the Communist Party. It is entirely independent of the will
or wishes of the people comprising the Union of Socialist
Soviet Republics. Its work is directed by the pollicies and
decisions of the Kremlin. This explains why Soviet Russia
exported vast amounts of wheat and other grain while wide
regions in the south and southeast of Russia were stricken
with famine, so that more than two million of its people
died of starvation (1932-1933).

There were "reasons of state" for it. The euphonious has
from time immemorial masked tyranny, exploitation and the
determination of every ruler to prolong and perpetuate his
rule. Incidentally, I may mention that--in spite of
country-wide hunger and lack of the most elemental
necessities of life in Russia--the entire First Five-Year
Plan aimed at developing that branch of heavy industry which
serves, or can be made to serve, _military_ purposes.

As with production, so with distribution and every other
form of activity. Not only individual cities and towns, but
the constituent parts of the Soviet Union are entirely
deprived of independent existence. Politically mere vassals
of Moscow, their whole economic, social and cultural
activity is planned, cut out for them and ruthlessly
controlled by the "proletarian dictatorship" in Moscow.
More: the life of every locality, of every individual even,
in the so-called "Socialist" republics is managed in the
very last detail by the "general line" laid down by the
"center." In other words, by the Central Committee and
Politbureau of the Party, both of them controlled absolutely
by one man, Stalin. To call such a dictatorship, this
personal autocracy more powerful and absolute than any
Czar's, by the name of Communism seems to me the acme of
imbecility.

III.

Let us see now how Bolshevik "Communism" affects the lives
of the masses and of the individual.

There are naive people who believe that at least some
features of Communism have been introduced into the lives of
the Russian people. I wish it were true, for that would be a
hopeful sign, a promise of potential development along that
line. But the truth is that in no phase of Soviet life, no
more in the social than in individual relations, has there
ever been any attempt to apply Communist principles in any
shape or form. As I have pointed out before, the very
suggestion of free, voluntary Communism is taboo in Russia
and is regarded as counter-revolutionary and high treason
against the infallible Stalin and the holy "Communist"
Party.

And here I do not speak of the libertarian, Anarchist
Communism. What I assert is that there is not the least sign
us glance at the actual facts of everyday life there.

The essence of Communism, even of the coercive kind, is the
absence of social classes. The introduction of economic
equality is its first step. This has been the basis of all
Communist philosophies, however they may have differed in
other respects. The purpose common to all of them was to
secure social justice; and all of them agreed that it was
not possible without establishing economic equality. Even
Plato, in spite of the intellectual and moral strata in his
Republic, provided for absolute economic equality, since the
ruling classes were not to enjoy greater rights or
privileges than the lowest social unit.

Even at the risk of condemnation for telling the whole
truth, I must state unequivocally and unconditionally that
the very opposite is the case in Soviet Russia. Bolshevism
has not abolished the classes in Russia: it has merely
reversed their former relationship. As a matter of fact, it
has multiplied the social divisions which existed before the
Revolution.

When I arrived in Soviet Russia in January, 1920, I found
innumerable economic categories, based on the food rations
received from the government. The sailor was getting the
best ration, superior in quality, quantity and variety to
the food issued to the rest of the population. He was the
aristocrat of the Revolution: economically and socially he
was universally considered to belong to the new privileged
classes. After him came the soldier, the Red Army man, who
received a much smaller ration, even less bread. Below the
soldier in the scale was the worker in the military
industries; then came other workers, subdivided into the
skilled, the artisan, the laborer, etc. Each category
received a little less bread, fats, sugar, tobacco, and
other products (whenever they were to be had at all).
Members of the former bourgeoisie, officially abolished as a
class and expropriated, were in the last economic category
and received practically nothing. Most of them could secure
neither work nor lodgings, and it was no one's business how
they were to exist, to keep from stealing or from joining
the counter-revolutionary armies and robber bands.

The possession of a red card, proving membership in the
Communist Party, placed one above all these categories. It
entitled its owner to a special ration, enabled him to eat
in the Party stolovaya (mess-room) and produced,
particularly if supported by recommendations from party
members higher up, warm underwear, leather boots, a fur
coat, or other valuable articles. Prominent party men had
their own dining-rooms, to which the ordinary members had no
access. In the Smolny, for instance, then the headquarters
of the Petrograd government, there were two different
dining-rooms, one for Communists in high position, the other
for the lesser lights. Zinoviev, then chairman of the
Petrograd Soviet and virtual autocrat of the Northern
District, and other government heads took their meals at
home in the Astoria, formerly the best hotel in the city,
turned into the first Soviet House, where they lived with
their families.

Later on I found the same situation in Moscow, Kharkov,
Kiev, Odessa--everywhere in Soviet Russia.

It was the Bolshevik system of "Communism." What dire
effects it had in causing dissatisfaction, resentment and
antagonism throughout the country, resulting in industrial
and agrarian sabotage, in strikes and revolts--of this
further on. It is said that man does not live by bread
alone. True, but he cannot live at all without it. To the
average man, to the masses in Russia, the different rations
established in the country for the liberation of which they
had bled, was the symbol of the new regime. It signified to
them the great lie of Bolshevism, the broken promises of
freedom, for freedom meant to them social justice, economic
equality. The instinct of the masses seldom goes wrong; in
this case it proved prophetic. What wonder, then, that the
universal enthusiasm over the Revolution soon turned into
disillusionment and bitterness, to opposition and hatred.
How often Russian workers complained to me: "We don't mind
working hard and going hungry. It's the injustice which we
mind. If the country is poor, if there is little bread, then
let us all share that little, but let us share equally. As
things are now, it's the same as it used to be; some get
more, others less, and some get nothing at all."

The Bolshevik system of privilege and inequality was not
long in producing its inevitable results. It created and
fostered social antagonisms; it alienated the masses from
the Revolution, paralysed their interest in it and their
energies, and thus defeated all the purposes of the
Revolution.

The same system of privilege and inequality, strengthened
and perfected, is in force today.

The Russian Revolution was in the deepest sense a social
upheaval: its fundamental tendency was libertarian, its
essential aim economic and social equality. Long before the
October-November days (1917) the city proletariat began
taking possession of the mills, shops and factories, while
the peasants expropriated the big estates and turned the
land to communal use. The continued development of the
Revolution in its Communist direction depended on the unity
of the revolutionary forces and the direct, creative
initiative of the laboring masses. The people were
enthusiastic in the great object before them; they eagerly
applied their energies to the work of social reconstruction.
Only they who had for centuries borne the heaviest burdens
could, through free and systematic effort, find the road to
a new, regenerated society.

But Bolshevik dogmas and "Communist" statism proved a fatal
handicap to the creative activities of the people. The
fundamental characteristic of Bolshevik psychology is
distrust of the masses. Their Marxist theories, centering
all power in the exclusive hands of their party, quickly
resulted in the destruction of revolutionary cooperation, in
the arbitrary and ruthless suppression of all other
political parties and movements. Bolshevik tactics
encompassed the systematic eradication of every sign of
dissatisfaction, stifled all criticism and crushed
independent opinion, popular initiative and effort.
Communist dictatorship, with its extreme mechanical
centralization, frustrated the economic and industrial
activities of the country. The great masses were deprived of
the opportunity to shape the policies of the Revolution or
to take part in the administration of their own affairs. The
labor unions were governmentalized and turned into mere
transmitters of the orders of the state. The people's
cooperatives--that vital nerve of active solidarity and
mutual help between city and country--were liquidated. The
Soviets of peasants and workers were castrated and
transformed into obedient committees. The government
monopolized every phase of life. A bureaucratic machine was
created, appalling in its inefficiency, corruption,
brutality. The Revolution was divorced from the people and
thus doomed to perish; and over all hung the dreaded sword
of Bolshevik terrorism.

That was the "Communism" of the Bolsheviki in the first
stages of the Revolution. Everyone knows that it brought the
complete paralysis of industry, agriculture and transport.
It was the period of "military Communism," of agrarian and
industrial conscription, of the razing of peasant villages
by Bolshevik artillery--those "constructive" social and
economic policies of Bolshevik Communism which resulted in
the fearful famine in 1921.

IV.

And today? Has that "Communism" changed its nature? Is it
actually different from the "Communism" of 1921? To my
regret I must state that, in spite of all widely advertised
changes and new economic policies, Bolshevik "Communism" is
essentially the same as it was in 1921. Today the peasantry
in Soviet Russia is entirely dispossessed of the land. The
_sovkhozi_ are government farms on which the peasant works
as a hired man, just as the man in the factory. This is
known as "industrialization" of agriculture, "transforming
the peasant into a proletarian." In the _kolkhoz_ the land
only nominally belongs to the villaoe. Actually it is owned
by the government. The latter can at any moment--and often
does--commandeer the _kolkhoz_ members for work in other
parts of the country or exile whole villages for
disobedience. The _kolkhozi_ are worked collectively, but
the government control of them amounts to expropriation. It
taxes them at its own will; it sets whatever price it
chooses to pay for grain and other products, and neither the
individual peasant nor the village Soviet has any
say in the matter. Under the mask of numerous levies and
compulsory government loans, it appropriates the products of
the _kolkhoii_, and for some actual or pretended offenses
punishes them by taking away all their grain.

The fearful famine of 1921 was admittedly due chiefly to the
_razverstka_, the ruthless expropriation practiced at the
time. It was because of it, and of the rebellion that
resulted, that Lenin decided to introduce the NEP--the New
Economic Policy which limited state expropriation and
enabled the peasant to dispose of some of his surplus for
his own benefit. The NEP immediately improved economic
conditions throughout the land. The famine of 1932-1933 was
due to similar "Communist" methods of the Bolsheviki: to
enforced collectivization.

The same result as in 1921 followed. It compelled Stalin to
revise his policy somewhat. He realised that the welfare of
a country, particularly of one predominantly agricultural as
Russia is, depends primarily on the peasantry. The motto was
proclaimed: the peasant must be given opportunity togreater
"well-being." This "new" policy is admittedly only a
breathing spell for the peasant. It has no more of Communism
in it than the previous agrarian policies. From the
beginning of Bolshevik rule to this day, it has been nothing
but expropriation in one form or another, now and then
differing in degree but always the same in kind--a
continuous process of state robbery of the peasantry, of
prohibitions, violence, chicanery and reprisals, exactly as
in the worst days of Czarism and the World War. The present
policy is but a variation of the "military Communism" of
1920-1921, with more of the military and less of the
Communist element in it. Its "equality" is that of a
penitentiary; its "freedom" that of a chain gang. No wonder
the Bolsheviki declare that liberty is a bourgeois
prejudice.

Soviet apologists insist that the old "military Communism"
was justified in the initial period of the Revolution in the
days of the blockade and military fronts. But more than
sixteen years have passed since. There are no more
blockades, no more fighting fronts, no more
counter-revolution. Soviet Russia has secured the
recognition of all the great governments of the world. It
emphasizes its good will toward the bourgeois states,
solicits their cooperation and is doing a large business
with them. In fact, the Soviet government is on terms of
friendship even with Mussolini and Hitler, those famous
champions of liberty. It is helping capitalism to weather
its economic storms by buying millions of dollars' worth of
products and opening new markets to it.

This is, in the main, what Soviet Russia has accomplished
during seventeen years since the Revolution. But as to
Communism--that is another matter. In this regard, the
Bolshevik government has followed exactly the same course as
before, and worse. It has made some superficial changes
politically and economically, but fundamentally it has
remained exactly the same state, based on the same principle
of violence and coercion and using the same methods of tenor
and compulsion as in the period of 1920-1921.

There are more classes in Soviet Russia today than in 1917,
more than in most other countries in the world. The
Bolsheviki have created a vast Soviet bureaucracy, enjoying
special privileges and almost unlimited authority over the
masses, industrial and agricultural. Above that bureaucracy
is the still more privileged class of "responsible
comrades," the new Soviet aristocracy. The industrial class
is divided and subdivided into numerous gradations. There
are the _udarniki_, the shock troops of labor, entitled to
various privileges; the "specialists," the artisans, the
ordinary workers and laborers. There are the factory
"cells," the shop committees, the pioneers, the
?komsomoltsi_, the party members, all enjoying material
advantages and authority. There is the large class of
_lishentsi_, persons deprived of civil rights, the greater
number of them also of chance to work, of the right to live
in certain places, practically cut off from all means of
existence. The notorious "pale" of the Czarist times, which
forbade Jews to live in certain parts of the country, has
been revived for the entire population by the introduction
of the new Soviet passport system. Over and above all these
classes is the dreaded G.P.U., secret, powerful and
arbitrary, a government within the government. The G.P.U.,
in its turn, has its own class divisions. It has its own
armed forces, its own commercial and industrial
establishments, its own laws and regulations, and a vast
slave army of convict labor. Aye, even in the Soviet prisons
and concentration camps there are various classes with
special privileges.

In the field of industry the same kind of "Communism"
prevails as in agriculture. A sovietized Taylor system is in
vogue throughout Russia, combining a minimum standard of
production and piece work--the highest degree of
exploitation and human degradation, involving also endless
differences in wages and salaries. Payment is made in money,
in rations, in reduced charges for rent, lighting, etc., not
to speak of the special rewards and premiums for _udarniki_.
In short, it is the _wage system_ which is in operation in
Russia.

Need I emphasize that an economic arrangement based on the
wage system cannot be considered as in any way related to
Communism? It is its antithesis.

V.

All these features are to be found in the present Soviet
system. It is unpardonable naivete, or still more
unpardonable hypocrisy, to pretend--as the Bolshevik
apologists do--that the compulsory labor service in Russia
is "the self-organization of the masses for purposes of
production."

Strange to say, I have met seemingly intelligent persons who
claim that by such methods the Bolsheviki "are building
Communism." Apparently they believe that building consists
in ruthless destruction, physically and morally, of the best
values of mankind. There are others who pretend to think
that the road to freedom and cooperation leads through labor
slavery and intellectual suppression. According to them, to
instill the poison of hatred and envy, of universal
espionage and terror, is the best preparation for manhood
and the fraternal spirit of Communism.

I do not think so. I think that there is nothing more
pernicious than to degrade a human being into a cog of a
soulless machine, turn him into a serf, into a spy or the
victim of a spy. There is nothing more corrupting than
slavery and despotism.

There is a psychology of political absolutism and
dictatorship, common to all forms: the means and methods
used to achieve a certain end in the course of time
themselves become the end. The ideal of Communism, of
Socialism, has long ago ceased to inspire the Bolshevik
leaders as a class. Power and the strengthening of power has
become their sole object. But abject subjection,
exploitation and degradation are developing a new psychology
in the great mass of the people also.

The young generation in Russia is the product of Bolshevik
principles and methods. It is the result of sixteen years of
official opinions, the only opinions permitted in the land.
Having grown up under the deadly monopoly of ideas and
values, the youth in the U.S.S.R. knows hardly anything
about Russia itself. Much less does it know of the world
outside. It consists of blind fanatics, narrow and
intolerant, it lacks all ethical perception, it is devoid of
the sense of justice and fairness. To this element is added
a class of climbers and careerists, of self-seekers reared
on the Bolshevik dogma: "The end justifies the means." Yet
it were wrong to deny the exceptions in the ranks of
Russia's youth. There are a goodly number who are deeply
sincere, heroic, idealistic. They see and feel the force of
the loudly professed party ideals. They realize the betrayal
of the masses. They suffer deeply under the cynicism and
callousness towards every human emotion. The presence of
_komsomolszi_ in the Soviet political prisons, concentration
camps and exile, and the escapes under most harrowing
difficulties prove that the young generation does not
consist entirely of cringing adherents. No, not all of
Russia's youth has been turned into puppets, obsessed
bigots, or worshippers at Stalin's shrine and Lenin's tomb.

Already the dictatorship has become an absolute necessity
for the continuation of the regime. For where there are
classes and social inequality, there the state must resort
to force and suppression. The ruthlessness of such a
situation is always in proportion to the bitterness and
resentment imbuing the masses. That is why there is more
governmental terrorism in Soviet Russia than anywhere else
in the civilized world today, for Stalin has to conquer and
enslave a stubborn peasantry of a hundred millions. It is
popular hatred of the regime which explains the stupendous
industrial sabotage in Russia, the disorganization of the
transport after sixteen years of virtual military
management; the terrific famine in the South and Southeast,
notwithstanding favorable natural conditions and in spite of
the severest measures to compel the peasants to sow and
reap, in spite even of wholesale extermination and of the
deportation of more than a million peasants to forced labor
camps.

Bolshevik dictatorship is an absolutism which must
constantly be made more relentless in order to survive,
calling for the complete suppression of independent opinion
and criticism within the party, within even its highest and
most exclusive circles. It is a significant feature of this
situation that official Bolshevism and its paid and unpaid
agents are constantly assuring the world that "all is well
in Soviet Russia and getting better." It is of the same
quality as Hitler's constant emphasis of how greatly he
loves peace while he is feverishly increasing his military
strength.

Far from getting better the dictatorship is daily growing
more relentless. The latest decree against so-called
counter-revolutionists, or traitors to the Soviet State,
should convince even some of the most ardent apologists of
the wonders performed in Russia. The decree adds strength to
the already existing laws against everyone who cannot or
will not reverence the infallibility of the holy trinity,
Marx, Lenin and Stalin. And it is more drastic and cruel in
its effect upon every one deemed a culprit. To be sure,
hostages are nothing new in the U.S.S.R. They were already
part of the terror when I came to Russia. Peter Kropotkin
and Vera Figner had protested in vain against this black
spot on the escutcheon of the Russian Revolution. Now, after
seventeen years of Bolshevik rule, a new decree was thought
necessary. It not only revives the taking of hostages; it
even aims at cruel punishment for every adult member of the
real or imaginary offender's family. The new decree defines
treason to the state as

"any acts committed by citizens of the U.S.S.R. detrimental
to the military forces of the U.S.S.R., its independence or
the inviolability of its territory, such as espionage,
betrayal of military or state secrets, going over to the
side of the enemy, fleeing to a foreign country or flight
[this time the word used means airplane flight] to a foreign
country."

Traitors have, of course, always been shot. What makes the
new decree more terrifying is the remorseless punishment it
demands for everyone living with or supporting the hapless
victim, whether he knows of the crime or not. He may be
imprisoned, or exiled, or even shot. He may lose his civil
rights, and he may forfeit everything he owns. In other
words, the new decree sets a premium on informers who, to
save their own skins, will ingratiate themselves with the
G.P.U., will readily turn over the unfortunate kin of the
offenders to the Soviet henchmen.

This new decree must forever put to rest any remaining
doubts as to the existence of true Communism in Russia. It
departs from even the pretense of internationalism and
proletarian class interest. The old tune is now changed to a
paean song of the Fatherland, with the ever servile Soviet
press loudest in the chorus:

"Defense of the Fatherland is the supreme law of life, and
he who raises his hand against the Fatherland, who betrays
it, must be destroyed."

Soviet Russia, it must now be obvious, is an absolute
despotism politically and the crassest form of state
capitalism economically.

This essay was first published in H.L.
Mencken's journal _American Mercury_, volume XXXIV, April
1935.