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| Title | What has become of the Russian Revolution |
| Creator (LCNAF) |
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| Contributor (Local) |
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| Publisher | International Review |
| Date | 1937 |
| Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
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| Subject.Topical (Local) |
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| Subject.Geographic (TGN) |
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| Genre (AAT) |
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| Language | English |
| Type (DCMI) |
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| Original Item Extent | 63 pages; 22 cm |
| Original Item Location | HN523.Y8613 1937 |
| Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8304536~S11 |
| Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
| Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
| Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
| Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
| Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
| Use and Reproduction | In Copyright |
| File Name | index.cpd |
| Title | Image 65 |
| Format (IMT) |
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| File Name | uhlib_2209396_064.jpg |
| Transcript | do not appear to come under the definition of a ruling class that is laid down by Marxism.8 There are classes in the USSR: a privileged class and an exploited class, a ruling class and a ruled class. Between the two there is a wide difference in the standard of living. The "classes" in the railway trains correspond exactly to the existing social classes. The same is true about Soviet boats, restaurants, theatres, stores. For the comfort of some people palaces rise on pleasant sites. For others, wooden barracks are boarded together in the vicinity of warehouses and smelly factories. The same people and their children always occupy the palaces; the same people continue to live in the barracks. There is no private ownership in the USSR. There is only State ownership. But the State no more represents the interests of all the citizens than the previous regimes. A small number enjoy this State property. The great number of people support it, produce it, respect it, and are separated from it by a huge police apparatus of repression, which is by far larger than the one that formerly separated the people from private property. As always, education, knowledge, worth-while experience form the heirloom left by the privileged set to their offspring. Energy and ambition are the appanage of the masters, of the well- groomed, healthy people, who enjoy homes full of light and gayety and are free from material care. The mind of the new slave, on the other hand, is absorbed by the daily struggle for a living. His character is moulded by the obedience that he must show at every moment of his life. The "social function," which is the justification of the new privileged class, is a worthy heir to the privilege of "blood," descent, claimed by the nobles of the past, and to the "money" privilege, held by the bourgeois. We have here a modern form of privilege that corresponds to the present degree of development of technique, science and consciousness. The old privileges no longer correspond to the services rendered. Society is preparing a renewal rather than a suppression of privilege. It is true that capitalist concentration brings a new class to possess itself of the means of production. But there is nothing to assure us that this new class will necessarily be the class of producers. Barring the way to the proletariat, the class of high functionaries rises on the road to power. The workers do not necessarily have a world to gain and their chains to lose. There are heavier chains they can forge for themselves. The end of capitalism can quite easily give birth to an economy that is directed by a new class living on profit. It does not necessarily have to lead to the free association of workers. Woe to the workers if, bred in the new religion of technique and science, in the idolatry of the possessors of technique and science, they hand themselves over to the new masters, yielding to an enthusiasm over giant constructions, as if their ideal were to be exploited more scientifically. 8 That is, what is retailed as Marxism by the Soviet professors and their Western brothers, who find it most suitable to their employer's interests to turn to the middle of the 19th century for an absolute model of capitalism.—Ed. 63 |