10.09.1998

Maxim Gorky and the Bolsheviks

From 'The Call', paper of the British Socialist Party, September 12 1918

The following summary of some of Gorky’s views on the Revolution ... will prove interesting to our readers as coming from the pen of one of Russia’s greatest living writers ... from one who from the very beginning of the Revolution has criticised the Bolsheviks unceasingly.

On May 19, in the Novaya Zhizn’, after a description of the unbearable conditions reigning in the Russian army, Gorky says:

I do not write all this to defend the socialists in any way ... The terrible and impartial truth is ... that now history has placed on the socialists the responsibility for the giant’s task of healing and renovating Russia.

That we live badly, in fact that our mode of life is a disgrace, need not be repeated, but under the monarchy we lived even worse, even more disgracefully. Then we dreamed of freedom without seeing any signs of its vitalising power. Now the whole nation feels this power. It is true we are still enjoying it in an egoistic, brutal, animal manner, but it is time to appreciate the grandeur of the fact that a people that has so far lived in the most fearful slavery has at last become free from its chains ...

Now however, the whole Russian people are taking part in the making of Russian history - that is the most important fact ... True it is that the people are half starved, tired, exhausted; that they are committing many crimes ... But this unwieldy strength which has not yet been organised by reason is a splendid strength, capable of every kind of development, and contains an inexhaustible fund of wealth. Those who fight against the revolutionary democracy so frantically in order to snatch power from its hands ... forget this simple truth: the greater the number of people who work freely and with conscious aim, the more valuable is the work produced, so much the more quickly are higher and more perfect forms of social life developed ...

We must remember that the Revolution is not only made up of a series of cruelties and crimes, but also far more of a series of heroic deeds of courage, of honour, of self-forgetfulness, of generosity ...

Bolsheviks? Well, just think then - they too are human beings like all of us ... The best of them are remarkable people of whom Russian history will be rightly proud, whilst our children and grandchildren will wonder of their energy.

... I defend the Bolsheviks? No, I fight against them ... I know that they are making a terrible scientific experiment on the body of the Russian people ... They have made many and great mistakes ... But when one so desires one can say some good of the Bolsheviks too.

Without pretending to know what political result their activity will ultimately bring about, I maintain that from a psychological point of view the Bolsheviks have rendered a great service to the Russian people, in that they have called forth in the masses of the Russian people an interest and a desire to take part in present-day events, without which our country would have gone under.