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Core Argument¶
This chapter confronts the problem of revolutionary optimism, distinguishing between two distinct and dangerous forms. The first is the reckless exaggeration of strength, leading to adventurist tasks beyond the objective correlation of forces. The second, more insidious form is a self-limiting optimism that arbitrarily curtails the revolution’s scope by clinging to the sociological formula that the Russian revolution is “bourgeois” in its objective aims. The core argument is that this latter optimism is a fatal illusion: it closes its eyes to the fact that the proletariat is the chief actor in this bourgeois revolution and is being driven towards power by the entire logic of events.
The chapter advances a series of key claims, each dismantling a comforting assumption of the Menshevik or “realist” position. It argues that once the proletariat seizes power, it will not surrender it without desperate resistance, contrary to the hope that its rule would be a mere passing episode. It further contends that the immaturity of Russian social conditions for socialism is irrelevant, because the proletariat, by the very logic of its position upon taking power, will be compelled towards state management of industry. The general sociological category of “bourgeois revolution” is declared insufficient to solve the concrete politico-tactical problems thrown up by the mechanics of the actual revolution.
The historical context is drawn directly from the French Revolution, specifically the dictatorship of the sansculottes at the end of the eighteenth century. This example is used to demonstrate that even within a bourgeois revolution, a plebeian dictatorship was not a passing episode but left its impress on the entire ensuing century, despite being shattered against the barriers of that revolution. This historical precedent frames the central tactical question for the twentieth century: is the proletarian dictatorship inevitably doomed to be shattered against the same barriers, or does the new world-historical conditions open a prospect of breaking through them? The chapter poses this as a stark choice of tactics: should revolutionaries consciously work towards a working-class government, or regard political power as a misfortune to be avoided?
The polemic is sharp and directed against “realist philistines” and the cautious, self-defeating logic of figures like Vollmar, who infamously suggested the Paris Communards would have done better to go to sleep than take power. The chapter rejects this cowardly “realism” outright, insisting that the revolution’s own dynamic will force the proletariat to confront the question of power, and that to shrink from it is to betray the revolution itself.