peaccenicked
29th March 2002, 13:46
''If it had not been for democratic organisations which existed already before the revolution, there is little doubt that the Russian revolution would have been starved to its knees long before this time. The ordinary commercial machinery of distribution had been completely smashed. Only the consumers' co—operative societies managed to feed the people, and their system has since been adopted by the municipalities, and even by the government. Before the revolution there were more than twelve million members of the co—operative societies of Russia. It is a very natural way for Russians to combine, because of its resemblance to the primitive co—operation of Russian village life for centuries. In the Putilov factory, where more than 40,000 workers are employed, the co—operative society fed, housed and even clothed more than 100,000 people — sending all the way to England for clothing.
It is this quality in the Russians that is forgotten by people who think that Russia can have no government, because there is no central force; and whose mental picture of Russia is a servile committee in Moscow, bossed by Lenin and Trotsky, and maintained by Red Guard mercenaries. Quite the contrary is true. The organisations which I have described are reproduced in almost every community in Russia. And if any considerable part of Russia were seriously opposed to the Soviet government, the Soviets could not last an hour.''
It is this quality in the Russians that is forgotten by people who think that Russia can have no government, because there is no central force; and whose mental picture of Russia is a servile committee in Moscow, bossed by Lenin and Trotsky, and maintained by Red Guard mercenaries. Quite the contrary is true. The organisations which I have described are reproduced in almost every community in Russia. And if any considerable part of Russia were seriously opposed to the Soviet government, the Soviets could not last an hour.''