The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism

by Bertrand Russell

Based on his 1920 visit to Soviet Russia, Bertrand Russell's The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism offers a firsthand account of the Bolshevik regime and an analysis of its ideological foundations. Russell examines the realities of daily life, the Soviet political system, and the economic conditions under Communist rule, while also engaging with the theoretical claims of Marxism-Leninism.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, History, Nonfiction, Russia, Economics, Political Science

122 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS, was a Welsh philosopher, historian, logician, mathematician, advocate for social reform, pacifist, and prominent rationalist. Although he was usually regarded as English, as he spent the majority of his life in England, he was born in Wales, where he also died.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought."

Reviews

[Jamie Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The principles of the Sermon on the Mount are admirable, but their effect upon average human nature was very different from what was intended. Those who followed Christ did not learn to love their enemies or to turn the other cheek. They learned instead to use the Inquisition and the stake, to subject the human intellect to the yoke of an ignorant and intolerant priesthood, to degrade art and extinguish science for a thousand years. These were the inevitable results, not of the teaching, but of fanatical belief in the teaching. The hopes which inspire Communism are, in the main, as admirable as those instilled by the Sermon on the Mount, but they are held as fanatically, and are likely to do as much harm.”
– Bertrand Russell
The Practice and Theory of Bolshvism


Note to future revolutionary governments: do not allow philosophers to tour your country asking questions and talking to ordinary citizens. They will give credit for the positive changes they see, but will also mercilessly scrutinize your failings. They will show how the practical implementation of your theory of government diverges from what you tell the world you are doing, and then they will use their knowledge of history, philosophy, and human nature to show that the theory you hold so dear is illogical and inconsistent, that things will never turn out the way you promise and in the end the people will have suffered terribly just to replace one set of despotic rulers with another.

As Kurt Vonnegut would say, “And so it goes….”

Bertrand Russell was a liberal democrat before the Great War, but his experiences with the feckless incompetence of the politicians and the corruption and exploitation of the industrialists made him a pacifist (for which he was jailed), and a fervent Socialist. He welcomed the revolution in Russia and supported its efforts to transform humankind. Then he spent a month in Russia in 1920 as part of a British delegation and saw what was actually going on. “I went to Russia a Communist; but contact with those who have no doubts has intensified a thousandfold my own doubts, not as to Communism itself, but as to the wisdom of holding a creed so firmly that for its sake men are willing to inflict widespread misery.”

Russell’s group was wined and dined and traveled on a special train. He had a private hour long conversation with Lenin, who spoke passable English, and he saw Trotsky but did not speak to him individually. However, Russell also managed to slip away from his state minders and talk to people on the street, and on train trips he paid close attention to what he saw of the farms and factories he passed. By the time he returned to England he was thoroughly disillusioned with Russia’s grand experiment. He could see it was going to end badly, and in 1921 produced this short book, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism.

It is less than 90 pages long, but is an amazing work. Written in a clear, non-polemical style, it is the best short introduction to communism in theory and practice that I have ever read. Russell will make an observation, describe its significance to the building of the new state, use history and an understanding of Marxist theory to explain what led to it and what will be its likely results, and then extrapolate from there to its long term effects on politics, the economy, education, or international relations. Russell was a philosopher, and reading this book reminded me of Plato, where each assertion leads to discussion, concurrence, and further discussion, as the reader is swept up and carried deeper and deeper into the conversation.

Russell remained a Communist after his visit to Russia, but he stopped being a Bolshevik. He made a distinction between Communism as a philosophy of justice, equality, and world peace, and Bolshevism, the specifically Leninist application of Communism in Russia. He recognized that circumstances had forced the Bolsheviks to centralize power and behave ruthlessly; they had taken over a starving, defeated country, the economy was a shambles, civil war was raging, hostile countries had troops on their soil, and the vast majority of the Russian people were opposed to them. This was not a time for halfway measures, but he knew that once men get a taste for power and its emoluments they do not willingly give them up.

If Communism were more complete, it would not necessarily mean more freedom; there would still be certain officials in control of the food supply, and these officials could govern as they pleased so long as they retained the support of the soldiers. This is not mere theory: it is the patent lesson of the present condition of Russia. The Bolshevik theory is that a small minority are to seize power, and are to hold it until Communism is accepted practically universally, which, they admit, may take a long time. But power is sweet, and few men surrender it voluntarily. It is especially sweet to those who have the habit of it, and the habit becomes most ingrained in those who have governed by bayonets, without popular support. Is it not almost inevitable that men placed as the Bolsheviks are placed in Russia, and as they maintain that the Communists must place themselves wherever the social revolution succeeds, will be loath to relinquish their monopoly of power, and will find reasons for remaining until some new revolution ousts them?

War and revolutions make men hard, but the uncompromising ruthlessness of the Bolsheviks appalled and disgusted him. “Violence is in itself delightful to most really vigorous revolutionaries, and they feel no interest in the problem of avoiding it as far as possible. Hatred of enemies is easier and more intense than love of friends. But from men who are more anxious to injure opponents than to benefit the world at large no great good is to be expected.”

Russell could see where this was leading. “The ultimate source of the whole train of evil lies in the Bolshevik outlook on life: in its dogmatism of hatred and its belief that human nature can be completely transformed by force.” The revolutionaries saw themselves as chosen men, unbound by the rules of civilization and answerable only to their end goals. Russell recognized that once this power was unleashed, it could not be restrained, and would have terrible results. “The same motives, however, which make him austere make him also ruthless. Marx has taught that Communism is fatally predestined to come about; this fits in with the Oriental traits in the Russian character, and produces a state of mind not unlike that of the early successors of Mahomet. Opposition is crushed without mercy.

Power corrupts. “The system created by violence and the forcible rule of a minority must necessarily allow of tyranny and exploitation; and if human nature is what Marxians assert it to be, why should the rulers neglect such opportunities of selfish advantage?” The Bolshevik model attracted men and women to the struggle for noble and selfless reasons but then they were corrupted by it, degraded by the violence they inflicted and seduced by the power and privilege they got in return.

The corruption is not just moral but intellectual as well. Communism, like religion, demands absolute submission to its beliefs. Questioning those beliefs marks one as unreliable, dangerous, and perhaps an enemy of the people. “The necessity of inculcating Communism produces a hot-house condition, where every breath of fresh air must be excluded: people are to be taught to think in a certain way, and all free intelligence becomes taboo. The country come to resemble an immensely magnified Jesuit College. Every kind of liberty is banned as being 'bourgeois'; but it remains a fact that intelligence languishes where thought is not free.”

The more deeply they embrace Communism, the deeper they descend into absolute, unquestioning belief. “Those who accept Bolshevism become impervious to scientific evidence, and commit intellectual suicide. Even if all the doctrines of Bolshevism were true, this would still be the case, since no unbiased examination of them is tolerated. One who believes, as I do, that the free intellect is the chief engine of human progress, cannot but be fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism, as much as to the Church of Rome.”

Russell then examines the fundamental assumptions of Marxism and questions their legitimacy. “Advocacy of Communism by those who believe in Bolshevik methods rests on the assumption that there is no slavery except economic slavery, and that when all goods are held in common there must be perfect liberty. I fear this is a delusion.”

He then suggests an alternative to the economic interpretation of history. “Bolshevik theory seems to me to err by concentrating its attention upon one evil, namely inequality of wealth, which it believes to be at the bottom of all others. I do not believe any one evil can be thus isolated, but if I had to select one as the greatest of political evils, I should select inequality of power. And I should deny that this is likely to be cured by the class-war and the dictatorship of the Communist party. Only peace and a long period of gradual improvement can bring it about.”

He decides that it can never be a viable alternative for a better future. “I am compelled to reject Bolshevism for two reasons: First, because the price mankind must pay to achieve Communism by Bolshevik methods is too terrible; and secondly because, even after paying the price, I do not believe the result would be what the Bolsheviks profess to desire.”

After examining Bolshevism in Russia, he then considers how a more humane system of Communism might be implemented in the West. He does not believe that, short of war and societal breakdown, it could ever be achieved by the means Lenin was using. “The majority which Bolsheviks regard as unattainable is chiefly prevented by the ruthlessness of their own tactics.”

The Communists know they are unpopular in Russia, and would expect the same reaction from the majorities in other countries, so they would have to resort to manipulating the system in order to stay in power.

No conceivable system of free election would give majorities to the Communists, either in town or country. Various methods are therefore adopted for giving the victory to the Government candidates. In the first place, the voting is by a show of hands, so that all who vote against the Government are marked men. In the second place, no candidate who is not a Communist can have any printing done, the printing works being in the hands of the State. In the third place, he cannot address any meetings, because the halls all belong to the State.

Russell is especially wary of those true believers who would do anything for the revolution, because “anything” opens the door to the abyss. Those willing to destroy society to build up a new one may find that they have destroyed the means of creating anything new.

Abandonment of law, when it becomes widespread, lets loose the wild beast, and gives a free rein to the primitive lusts and egoisms which civilization in some degree curbs. Every student of mediaeval thought must have been struck by the extraordinarily high value placed upon law in this period. The reason was that, in countries infested by robber barons, law was the first requisite of progress. We, in the modern world, take it for granted that most people will be law-abiding, and we hardly recognize what centuries of effort have gone to making such an assumption possible. We forget how many of the good things that we unquestionably expect would disappear out of life if murder, rape, and robbery with violence became common.

He looks for a different path. “I believe that the West is capable of adopting less painful and more certain methods of reaching Socialism than those that have seemed necessary in Russia. And I believe that while some forms of Socialism are immeasurably better than capitalism, other are even worse. Among those that are worse I reckon the form which is being achieved in Russia, not only in itself, but as a more insuperable barrier to further progress.”

The path to success in the West cannot be through violent revolution. “In a democratic and politically educated country, armed revolution in favour of Communism would have no chance of succeeding unless it were supported by a larger majority than would be required for the election of a Communist Government by constitutional methods.”

He believes that the path to success will be through a form of syndicalism, where the workers gradually and peacefully take over the means of production and distribute profits equitably. With economic power will come political power, which will help democratize society more generally. “The grave evils of the capitalist system all arise from its uneven distribution of power. The possessors of capital wield an influence quite out of proportion to their numbers or their services to the community. They control almost the whole of education and the press; they decide what the average man shall know or not know.”

Russell’s vision is an appealing one of harmony and justice. To date, Socialism has not been a great success where it has been tried, leading to much greater inefficiencies than bottom-line focused capitalism, but he should not be criticized for what he could not foresee. Better to hold to a vision of what is possible than sink into despair and expect nothing but a future even worse than the present.

Good relations between individuals, freedom from hatred and violence and oppression, general diffusion of education, leisure rationally employed, the progress of art and science – these seem to me among the most important ends that a political theory ought to have in view. I do not believe that they can be furthered, except very rarely, by revolution and war; and I am convinced that at the present moment they can only be promoted by a diminution in the spirit of ruthlessness generated by the war. For these reasons, while admitting the necessity and even utility of Bolshevism in Russia, I do not wish to see it spread, or to encourage the adoption of its philosophy by advanced parties in the Western nations.

And then, amazingly, he intuits a future which we see before us today in the corrosive effects of ever increasing inequality. “Wherever, as in barbarous or semi-civilized countries, labour is too weak or too disorganized to protect itself, appalling cruelties are practiced for private profit. Economic and political organizations become more and more vast, leaving less and less room for individual development and initiative. It is this sacrifice of the individual to the machine that is the fundamental evil of the modern world.”

This book is available for free at Gutenberg.org. It is clear and insightful in way that few other books of political theory ever approach. Russell understood what was wrong with Bolshevism, and where it would eventually lead, but he remained ever hopeful that a system based on social justice, human dignity, equality, and peace would someday be possible.

[hayatem · Rating 5 out of 5]

"أنا مضطر لرفض البلشفية لسببين: أولاً، لأن الثمن الذي ينبغي على الجنس البشري دفعه لتحقيق الشيوعية عبر الأساليب البلشفية ثمنٌ مُرعب للغاية. وثانياً، حتى بعد دفع الثمن، لا أعتقد أن النتيجة ستكون ما يريده البلاشفة." —برتراند راسل.

كتاب يقدم من خلاله رسل دراسة عن البلشفية في بداية عهدها في السنوات الأوائل التي تلت ثورة أكتوبر عام 1917 التي عرفت باسم الثورة البلشفية، وذلك بزيارة قام بها راسل إلى روسيا في عام 1920 حتى يدرس أفكار هذه الحركة من أرض الواقع وبين أهلها؛ بحيث تتمركز الدراسة بالأساس على الاقتصاد والبنى المجتمعية. وهو مفتاح فهم هذه الحركة . التقى في الزيارة عديد من شخصيات الحركة الأوائل من بينهم لينين وتروتسكي وغوركي، كما اهتم بزيارة الريف والتعرف أكثر على أهلها والفوارق بينها وبين أهل المدينة، و أثر هذه الحركة( البلشفية) على الطبقة الكادحة (البروليتاريا) في ظل الحكم الاشتراكي، بهدف تسليط الضوء على الحركة العمالية الروسية ودراسة وضعها، مع تناول الدوافع السياسية التي خلقت «البروليتاريا المتمردة على البلاشفة بعد ثورة أكتوبر 1917» منها : " التفرقة الحكومية بين الفقراء والأغنياء المفضية إلى أعمال العنف." المدفوعة بمطالب اجتماعية واقتصادية وسياسية لطبقة البروليتاريا، ورغبة البروليتاريا في تعزيز قدرتهم في التأثير على سياسة الحكومة التي نظمها السوفيات. لاسيما في مجال الاقتصاد والإدارة العمالية الذاتية. " المرحلة الانتقالية بين الرأسمالية والاشتراكية ."
فالعلاقة بين البلاشفة والعمال معقدة سادها التوتر والصدامات التي أفضت إلى قتل بعضهم البعض في مرحلة ما بعد الثورة .

كما اهتم رسل بدراسة الجانب النفسي السياسي للبلاشفة، والنظرية المادية في التاريخ ونقدها" وكان واضحاً أنّ علاقةً ملتبسة تقوم بين الاقتصاديّ والفلسفيّ، ومَيل للتّركيز على «الماديّ». " كما تناول بالدراسة نقد الشيوعية للديمقراطية وأوجه الخلاف بين هذه الأيديولوجيات ( الشيوعية مقابل الاشتراكية)، وأسباب إخفاق الشيوعية، وشروط نجاحها.

"قد يتم الدفاع عن البلشفية، ربما بصفتها نظامًا رهيبًا تتحول بواسطته دولة متخلفة للصناعة بسرعة، ولكن كتجربة في الشيوعية فإنها قد فشلت."—برتراند راسل.

كتاب رائع للمهتمين بتاريخ الثورة الروسية. قدمه راسل بحس فلسفي ونقدي اجتماعي.

[postmodern putin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This brief but illuminating study draws from Russell's firsthand observations during his 1920 visit to the Soviet Union in its infancy. He provides vivid accounts of meetings with prominent Bolshevik leaders - including Lenin, Trotsky, Sverdlov, and the writer Maxim Gorky - as well as conversations with a variety of everyday workers and peasants.

While Russell remains sympathetic to the Bolsheviks' desire for genuine social transformation, he concludes that their efforts have only worsened conditions compared to the Tsarist regime. He argues that their singular focus on wealth inequality is misguided, and that their dogmatic adherence to Marxist doctrine has fostered an alarming indifference to human suffering. Russell warns that similar revolutions in Western countries would prove even more catastrophic, given their lack of domestic agricultural self-sufficiency to withstand the inevitable economic blockades imposed from external capitalist nations.

Russell's critique is remarkably sober, especially considering his own socialist convictions. He offers the classic gradualist socialist position: favoring incremental reform over violent revolution as the path to a socialist society.

As someone who isn't a socialist myself, I still find many socialist critiques of capitalism - including Russell's - well-founded and valuable. However, current Western conditions are far from conducive to implementing such systems. The increased racial and religious diversity Russell himself notes as powerful motivating forces beyond economics have surely complicated prospects for the social cohesion that collective systems require.

Despite these reservations, this remains a valuable and unique firsthand account of one of history's most audacious social experiments.

[Clif · Rating 5 out of 5]

Desire is part of being human. We all know the power of sexual desire which almost everyone feels at some point in life. Another desire is strongly present in only a fraction of our species, the love of power.

Americans complain, rightly, that political parties become powerful and then stop answering to the voters. Congress has been captured by capital and responds to the needs of lobbies before that of the people. When someone is running for president, is it out of a desire to be the top public servant or to be "the decider" as George W. Bush put it?

The trick of the few holding power over the many is, in a democracy, the ability to maintain appearances, to give the impression that the many are important even when it is the interests of the few that find expression in legislative action (remember Glass-Steagall?). Inaction is also important as seen in America when the "banksters" who brought on the housing collapse in 2008 were protected from prosecution by President Obama, a man who rode to power on the image of hope.

This brings me to the important case of the Russian Bolsheviks and Bertrand Russell's penetrating analysis of their position of power in 1920. This book is a joy to read as Russell's keen mind is put to examining the immediate aftermath of revolution during a visit to Russia that even included an hour of conversation with Lenin. As usual, Russell wants his readers to gain understanding so he writes with clarity and simplicity, taking topics by chapter, who are the leading personalities? What is the philosophy behind Bolshevism? What is the state of industry in the country?

Russell states that he went on the visit as a confirmed communist, but left realizing that Bolshevism had little to do with communism and everything to do with holding power. He was confirmed in his belief that for communism to succeed it had to win approval in a democracy where it was the will of the majority expressed through uncoerced voting. Only so would capitalism be dethroned. As we know, this has never happened and after the bleak example of the USSR, never will. Though no fan of the gross maldistribution of wealth under capitalism, Russell preferred it to anything that communism could achieve through violence.

And violence through terror was the freely admitted basis of control under Bolshevism. Russell is quick to admit that under the chaos produced by being a loser in the Great War followed by civil war, establishing order was the top priority. That demanded harsh methods that did not respect individual rights but required compliance in getting the new system on its feet.

But violence was clearly endemic with Bolshevism and the one hour interview with Lenin confirmed to Russell that the Bolsheviks saw violent revolution as the one and only way that communism could come to the other countries of Europe. I recall a wonderful quip from The Economist magazine years ago. It stated that the Nazis said, "we are better than you" while the Soviets said, "we know better than you."

All leaders can easily feel they know best, but in the case of Bolshevism, the people were conceived as the material upon which the right thinking and practice had to be forced without apology. If things should be shared, then just go out and confiscate the crops of the peasants. If industry was needed then people would be assigned to make it work. If things did not work out as planned then it could only be the fault of the people, not the unrealistic goals assigned them. Because ideology could not be wrong, people could be terrorized and then blamed when plans failed. Russell notes that at no time was communism the choice of the Russian people, but the philosophy of a small minority who held power.

One can't say that the USSR was devoid of real accomplishments. It did bring full literacy to an almost entirely illiterate population in a matter of decades. It did achieve impressive industrialization. It was blind to sexual discrimination except at the top level of political power. But in keeping with the foundation in terror, Stalin perpetrated a horror that stands out in all of history and the life of the Soviet citizen was, apart from individual social relationships, one of drudgery and obedience to authority.

While the title of this book is off-putting, raising the expectation of a dull, overly long technical dissertation, the name Russell upon it should let anyone know to expect an informative read. The man has done it again with this relatively short work, bringing what most would call a high-brow topic down to earth.

[P.J. Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1920, Russia was a disaster scene. Hunger and misery were widespread. It was a police state blockaded by the outside world. Is it fair, Russell asks, to judge Bolshevism in this context? Bolshevism was not entirely responsible for Russia's misery.

But Russell is critical of Bolshevism for its superficial understanding of human nature and human motivations, and for its ruthlessness. He concedes that its ideals were good, but its methods departed from its ideals. Nevertheless, he concludes that it was the right government for Russia at the time "because the possible alternatives are worse. If Russia were governed democratically, according to the will of the majority, the inhabitants of Moscow and Petrograd would die of starvation." With food in very short supply, peasants were reluctant to part with it for worthless paper money. Peasants, the vast majority of the population, would have abandoned the cities under a democratic system.

Bolshevism has the attributes of a religion, Russell decides. It entertains dogmatic beliefs and closes people's minds to scientific enquiry. Russell was not favorably impressed by Vladimir Lenin, calling him "an embodied theory." He likens him to Oliver Cromwell. He recommends that capitalist injustices be resisted non-violently and gradually, focussing on power at first, not money, and on "propaganda to make the necessity of the transition obvious to the great majority of wage earners."

Russell wrote this book in 1920. When he revised it in 1948 he found little need for change. Many of his predictions have come true. Despite its abstract topic, this book is a quick and easy read.

[T · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and informative discussion of his visit to communist Russia. Excellent critique of the materialistic conception of history, Bolshevism, and the Marxism that inspired it. His conditions for the success of communism, however, were vague and simplistic.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

برتراند راسل کتاب حاضر را در پی سفر به شوروی در سال 1920 نگاشته و منتشر نموده است. راسل که به همراه اعضای برجسته حزب کارگر بریتانیا به شوروی سفر کرده بود، در طول سفر با چهره‌های برجسته سیاسی من‌جمله لنین و کامنف و همچنین عده‌ی زیادی از روشنفکران، کارگران و دهقانان شوروی به گفتگو نشسته تا تصویر دست اولی از اوضاع شوروی پس از انقلاب اکتبر بدست آورد. راسل علاوه بر شرح اوضاع شوروی، تئوری بلشویسم – که بعدها به مارکسیسم لنینیسم شهرت یافت – را هم موشکافانه مورد بررسی قرار می‌دهد و استدلال می‌کند که شیوه بلشویک‌ها در نیل به کمونیسم شکست خواهد خورد و این شیوه در دیگر کشورهای پیشرفته غربی هم مثمر ثمر نخواهد بود. راسل گزینه‌های پیش‌روی شوروی را روی آوردن به صلح و تجارت و یا تبدیل شدن به حکومت خودکامه استعمارگر می‌بیند و عنوان می‌کند که با توجه به سیر امور، شق دوم محتمل‌تر است – که چنین نیز شد.

شاید پیش‌بینی‌های صحیح و زودهنگام راسل از اوضاع پیش‌رو حیرت‌انگیز نماید ولی شگفت‌تر آن است که این سطور را کسی نگاشته است که دل در گرو آرمان‌‌های سوسیالیستی داشته، آن هم در زمانه‌ای که اکثر متفکران غربی هم‌دل با بلشویک‌ها یا به جنبه‌های منفی انقلاب توجهی نمی‌کردند و یا به آن‌ها به دیده اغماض می‌نگریستند.

[Caligula · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book Russell manages to be sympathetic and understanding with the Bolsheviks (who, according to him, "deserve the gratitude and admiration of all the progressive part of mankind") but also critical (sometimes very harsh) at the same time.

Emma Goldman wrote on her account of her years in Soviet Russia: "Soon the [British Labour] Mission arrived [...] The most outstanding figure among them was Bertrand Russell, who quickly demonstrated his independence and determination to be free to investigate and learn at first hand."

One has to admire Russell's passion for knowledge, meticulous analysis and the precise yet simple and direct language that makes his books a delight to read. I have the feeling that even if he would write about the harvesting of potatoes his texts would still be insightful and absorbing.

A worthwhile read.

[Luke Echo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting little book written by Bertrand Russell after he made a brief visit to the USSR in 1920 a few years after the Bolshevik revolution.

Russell was quite the socialist but even in 1920 it seems it was clear that the Russian situation was not producing the desired outcome - even to marxists and socialists.

[Tom Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a very cool look into the early days of the Russian revolution seen by one of the West's greatest philosophers and adherent to the communist idea. Many of the problems that he predicts happening, do in fact come true much later. After living in China, you can see very similar ways of governing that can be startling to read about from a man who spent just a short time in the early days of Soviet Russia.

This was not just a story about the problems however, the author was very sympathetic and was able to help explain a lot of the thought and theory behind what was going on, despite this not being a large book.

[Avesta · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to be a critic or supporter of the late USSR, you have to read this book - as Russell provides personal accounts of his travels across the the early Russian SFSR, then provides detailed analyses and critiques of the failures of the incumbent Bolshevik regime.

Will hopefully publish a review of this to an actual journal, and will add the link to this review.

Favourite/notable excerpts:

Bolshevism is internally aristocratic and externally militant. The Communists in many ways resemble the British public-school type: they have all the good and bad traits of an aristocracy which is young and vital. They are courageous, energetic, capable of command, always ready to serve the State; on the other hand, they are dictatorial, lacking in ordinary consideration for the plebs. They are practically the sole possessors of power, and they enjoy innumerable advantages in consequence. Most of them, though far from luxurious, have better food than other people. Only people of some political importance can obtain motor-cars or telephones. Permits for railway journeys, for making purchases at the Soviet stores (where prices are about one-fiftieth of what they are in the market), for going to the theatre, and so on, are, of course, easier to obtain for the friends of those in power than for ordinary mortals. In a thousand ways, the Communists have a life which is happier than that of the rest of the community. Above all, they are less exposed to the unwelcome attentions of the police and the extraordinary commission.

Russia is, at the moment, the protagonist of the social revolution, and, as such, valuable to the world, but Lenin would sacrifice Russia rather than the revolution, if the alternative should ever arise. This is the orthodox attitude, and is no doubt genuine in many of the leaders. But nationalism is natural and instinctive; through pride in the revolution, it grows again even in the breasts of Communists. Through the Polish war, the Bolsheviks have acquired the support of national feeling, and their position in the country has been immensely strengthened.


Lenin's room is very bare; it contains a big desk, some maps on the walls, two book-cases, and one comfortable chair for visitors in addition to two or three hard chairs. It is obvious that he has no love of luxury or even comfort. He is very friendly, and apparently simple, entirely without a trace of hauteur. If one met him without knowing who he was, one would not guess that he is possessed of great power or even that he is in any way eminent. I have never met a personage so destitute of self-importance. He looks at his visitors very closely, and screws up one eye, which seems to increase alarmingly the penetrating power of the other. He laughs a great deal; at first his laugh seems merely friendly and jolly, but gradually I came to feel it rather grim. He is dictatorial, calm, incapable of fear, extraordinarily devoid of self-seeking, an embodied theory. The materialist conception of history, one feels, is his life-blood.

Among religions, Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of this world. Their founders would not have resisted the third of the temptations in the wilderness. What Mohammedanism did for the Arabs, Bolshevism may do for the Russians.


Apart from all arguments of detail, there are two broad objections to violent revolution in a democratic community. The first is that, when once the principle of respecting majorities as expressed at the ballot-box is abandoned, there is no reason to suppose that victory will be secured by the particular minority to which one happens to belong. There are many minorities besides Communists: religious minorities, teetota! minorities, militarist minorities, capitalist minorities. Any one of these could adopt the method of obtaining power advocated by the Bolsheviks, and any one would be just as likely to succeed as they are. What restrains these minorities, more or less, at present, is respect for the law and the constitution. Bolsheviks tacitly assume that every other party will preserve this respect while they themselves, unhindered, prepare the revolution.


But if their philosophy of violence becomes popular, there is not the slightest reason to suppose that they will be its beneficiaries. They believe that Communism is for the good of the majority; they ought to believe that they can persuade the majority on this question, and to have the patience to set about the task of winning by propaganda. The second argument of principle against the method of minority violence is that abandonment of law, when it becomes widespread, lets loose the wild beast, and gives a free rein to the primitive lusts and egoisms which civilization in some degree curbs. Every student of mediæval thought must have been struck by the extraordinarily high value placed upon law in that period. The reason was that, in countries infested by robber barons, law was the first requisite of progress. We, in the modern world, take it for granted that most people will be law-abiding, and we hardly realize what centuries of effort have gone to making such an assumption possible. We forget how many of the good things that we unquestionably expect would disappear out of life if murder, rape, and robbery with violence became common. And we forget even more how very easily this might happen.



Capitalists, we are assured, will stick at nothing in defence of their privileges. It is the nature of man, in so far as he is politically conscious, to fight for the interests of his class so long as classes exist. When the conflict is not pushed to extremes, methods of conciliation and political deception may be preferable to actual physical warfare; but as soon as the proletariat make a really vital attack upon the capitalists, they will be met by guns and bayonets. This being certain and inevitable, it is as well to be prepared for it, and to conduct propaganda accordingly.
Those who pretend that pacific methods can lead to the realization of Communism are false friends to the wage-earners; intentionally or unintentionally, they are covert allies of the bourgeoisie.


It is a gross libel to say that the Communists, or even the leading People's Commissaries, live luxurious lives according to our standards; but it is a fact that they are not exposed, like their subjects, to acute hunger and the weakening of energy that accompanies it. No one can blame them for this, since the work of government must be carried on; but it is one of the ways in which class distinctions have reappeared where it was intended that they should be banished. I talked to an obviously hungry working man in Moscow, who pointed to the Kremlin and remarked: "In there they have enough to eat." He was expressing a widespread feeling which is fatal to the idealistic appeal that Communism attempts to make.

At the same time the internal and external peril has necessitated the creation of a vast army recruited by conscription, except as regards a Communist nucleus, from among a population utterly weary of war, who put the Bolsheviks in power because they alone promised peace. Militarism has produced its inevitable result in the way of a harsh and dictatorial spirit: the men in power go through their day's work with the consciousness that they command three million armed men, and that civilian opposition to their will can be easily crushed.

Out of all this has grown a system painfully like the old government of the Tsar-a system which is Asiatic in its centralized bureaucracy, its secret service, its atmosphere of governmental mystery and submissive terror. In many ways it resembles our Government of India. Like that Government, it stands for civilization, for education, sanitation, and Western ideas of progress; it is composed in the main of honest and hardworking men, who despise those whom they govern, but believe themselves possessed of something valuable which they must communicate to the population, however little it may be desired. Like our Government in India, they live in terror of popular risings, and are compelled to resort to cruel repressions in order to preserve their power. Like it, they represent an alien philosophy of life, which cannot be forced upon the people without a change of instinct, habit, and tradition so profound as to dry up the vital springs of action, producing listlessness and despair among the ignorant victims of militant enlightenment.


It may be that Russia needs sternness and discipline more than anything else; it may be that a revival of Peter the Great's methods is essential to progress.



Even under present conditions in Russia, it is possible still to feel the inspiration of the essential spirit of Communism, the spirit of creative hope, seeking to sweep away the incumbrances of injustice and tyranny and rapacity which obstruct the growth of the human spirit, to replace individual competition by collective action, the relation of master and slave by free co-operation. This hope has helped the best of the Communists to bear the harsh years through which Russia has been passing, and has become an inspiration to the world. The hope is not chimerical, but it can only be realized through a more patient labour, a more objective study of facts, and above all a longer propaganda, to make the necessity of the transition obvious to the great majority of wage-earners. Russian Communism may fail and go under, but Socialism itself will not die. And if hope rather than hatred inspires its advocates, it can be brought about without the universal cataclysm preached by Moscow. The war and its sequel have proved the destructiveness of capitalism; let us see to it that the next epoch does not prove the still greater destructiveness of Communism, but rather the power of Socialism to heal the wounds which the old evil system has inflicted upon the human spirit.

[Gowtham · Rating 5 out of 5]

BOOK REVIEW
1917 இல் நடந்த ரஷ்ய புரட்சி தான் பல நாடுகள் சோசியலிச பாதையை தேர்ந்தெடுக்க முக்கிய காரணியாக இருந்தது, போல்ஷிவிக்குகளால்(Bolshevik) நடத்த பட்ட இந்த புரட்சி வெற்றிபெற்ற பின்னர்ரஷ்யா எத்தகைய மாற்றங்களை அடைந்தது? அவர்களின் லட்சியங்களை செயல்படுத்த முடிந்ததா? மக்கள் எத்தகைய நன்மைகளை அடைந்தார்கள்? கலை, அறிவியல், கல்வி, தொழில் துறை போன்றவை எல்லாம் எத்தகைய மாற்றத்தை சந்தித்தன? போன்ற கேள்விகளுக்கெல்லாம் பதிலளிக்கும் வகையில் Bertrand Russell எழுதிய புத்தகம் தான்”The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism”.
1920 களில் ரஷ்யாவுக்கு பயணம் மேற்கொண்ட Russell அங்கு நடந்த அரசியல் பொருளாதார சமூக மாற்றங்களை பதிவுசெய்துள்ளார், மேலும் Lenin, Trotsky, gorky போன்ற மார்க்சிய சிந்தனையாளர்களுடனும் தலைவர்களுடன் இவர் நிகழ்த்திய உரையாடலையும் அது சார்ந்த அனுபவங்களையும் பதிவு செய்துள்ளார். போர், வெறுப்பு, வன்மம் போன்ற மனிதகுல விரோத செயல்களுக்கு எதிரானவர் Russell, முதல் உலக போரை எதிர்த்தமைக்காக(arrested for being a pacifist) பிரிட்டிஷ் அரசாங்கத்தால் சிறையில் அடைக்கப்பட்டார், இவரின் அணுகுமுறைகள் தத்துவம் எல்லாம் அதை அடிப்படையாக கொண்டவையாக தான் இருக்கும்.
புரட்சி முடிந்து ரஷ்யா எப்படி இருந்தது? வறுமை ,பசி எல்லாம் பெரிய அளவில் சரிசெய்யபடவில்லை, அங்குள்ள விவாசியிகள் எல்லாம் அரசின் நடவடிக்கைகளுக்கு எதிரானவர்களாக தான் இருந்தார்கள், காரணம் அவர்கள் சுதந்திர வர்த்தகம்(free-trade) முறையை விரும்பினார்கள். ஆனால் எல்லாம் மையப்படுத்தப்பட்டதால் (centralized system) அரசே அனைத்தையும் கொள்முதல் செய்துகொள்ளும், மேலும் இவர்களுக்கு பெரியளவில் வாழ்வாதார முன்னேற்றமும் இல்லை. 1920 களில் ரஷ்யா ஒரு விவசாய நாடு தான், 17% தான் தொழில் துறை சார்ந்து இயங்கியது, அதிலும் பொருளாதார தடையால் தொழில்துறையும் முடங்கி போய் தான் கிடந்தது.
மேலும் அனைத்து தரப்பு மக்களும் கம்யூனிசத்தை விரும்பி ஏற்றுக்கொள்ள வில்லை, ஜார்(Tsar Nicholas) மன்னர் ஆட்சி,முதலாம் உலக போர் , வறுமை என மக்கள் தொடர் இன்னல்களால் தவித்த போது ரஷ்ய புரட்சி ஒரு வித ஆசுவாசத்தை கொடுத்தது, ஆனால் அதற்கு பின்னாலும் மக்களின் வாழ்வாதாரத்தில் பெரிய அளவிலான முன்னேற்ற்றங்கள் ஏற்படவில்லை. மேலும் கம்யூனிசத்திற்கு எதிரான புரட்சி மனோநிலையை தடுக்கும் வகையில் அடக்குமுறை மற்றும் ராணுவ சர்வாதிகாரம் பெரியளவில் இருந்தது. கலை ஒரு தேக்க நிலையை சந்தித்தது, அல்லது பழமையை நோக்கி உழன்று கொன்றிருந்தது, கல்வி பாடத்திட்டமும் பெரியளவில் தணிக்கை செய்யப்பட்டு தான் கற்பிக்கப்பட்டது.
நகரம்-கிராமங்களிடையே வேறுபாடுகள் அதிக அளவில் இருந்தன, வெளியுறவு கொள்கையில் ஒரு தீர்க்கமான முடிவை எடுக்காமல் நிலையற்ற(unstable) தன்மை தான் நிலவியது.வெளி வர்த்தக போக்குவரத்திற்கு(External Trade relations) இவர்களின் கம்யூனிச கொள்கை பெரும்தடையாக இருந்தது. பிற நாடுகளிலும் கம்யூனிச அரசை ஏற்படுத்தவேண்டும் என்ற நிர்பந்தமும் இவர்களுக்கு அதிகமாக இருந்தது. இந்த விசயங்களை பற்றி எல்லாம் விரிவாக பேசியுள்ளார்.
புத்தகத்தில் இரண்டாம் பகுதி போல்ஷிவிசம்(Bolshevism) பற்றியும் அதன் கொள்கைகள் கோட்பாடுகள் பற்றியும் அதில் உள்ள நிறை குறைகள் பற்றியும் கம்யூனிசத்தின் போதாமைகள் பற்றியும் விரிவாக பேசியுள்ளார்.
மார்க்சியத்தின் தத்துவத்திலே பெரிய பிழை இருக்கத்தான் செய்கிறது, அது வரலாறை வெறும் வர்க்க மோதல்களாக தான் அணுகுகிறது, இதற்கு அவர்கள் கொண்ட இயங்கியல் பொருள்முதல்வாத(Dialectical materialism ) தத்துவம் ஒரு காரணம், இந்த தத்துவத்தில் உள்ள குறைபாடுகள் பற்றியும் விளக்கமாக பேசியுள்ளார்.
பொருளாதார சுரண்டலுக்கும்(economic inequalities) சமத்துவமின்மைக்கும் எதிராக பேசும் கம்யூனிஸ்டுகள், அதிகார ஏற்றத்தாழ்வுகளை(power inequalities) பெரியளவில் கண்டுகொள்வதில்லை, அந்த மையப்படுத்தப்பட்ட அதிகாரம்(centralized organisation) அனைத்துவகையான செயல்பாடுகளையும் முடக்கிப்போட்டதுடன் அவர்களின் லட்சியத்திற்க்கே எதிரான ஒன்றாக இருக்கிறது.
முதலாளித்துவத்திற்கு எதிரான உலகளவிலான ஒரு கம்யூனிச அரசை நிறுவுவதென்பது சாத்தியமில்லாத ஒன்று என்பதை அந்த சமயத்தில் நிலவிய அரசியல் சூழலை வைத்து விளக்கியுள்ளார், மேலும் கம்யூனிசம் வெற்றியடைய தேவைப்படும் சில பரிந்துரைகளை(conditions & recommendations) வழங்கியும்யுள்ளார். ரஸ்சியாவில் கம்யூனிட்டுகள் நிகழ்த்தி காட்டியது அசாத்தியமான ஒன்று தான்,ஆனால் அந்த முறையே பிற நாடுகளில் கடைபிடிக்கப்பட்டால் அதனால் வரும் விளைவு மோசமானதாக(chaos) தான் இருக்கும் என்று கூறி நிறைவு செய்கிறார் .
//Russell முதலாளித்துவத்திற்கு ஆதரவானவர் எல்லாம் இல்லை, அவரின் பொருளாதாரம் பற்றிய பார்வை வேறானது, சுரண்டலுக்கு எதிரானவர் தான், அதனால் அவரின் அடையாளத்தை ஆராய்வதை விடுத்தது அவர் கூற வரும் கருத்துக்களை விவாதிப்போம்.//
அனைவரும் அவசியம் வாசிக்கவும்.
BOOK: The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism
AUTHOR: Bertrand Russell

[Tyler Hill · Rating 1 out of 5]

First, I think it is great to look at existing communism with a critical eye to see what can be learned. I do not think the Soviet Union and the Bolsheviks can be above criticism, but that has to be fair criticism.

Russell makes valid points and criticisms at times, but he viciously straw mans Marx, Lenin, and the Bolsheviks in general. He makes sweeping generalizations about Marx and historical materialism, and while admitting the harsh conditions of the revolution and civil war, makes a premature statement of failure during the midst of these conditions.

Most importantly to me, he comes off as incredibly chauvinistic and racist towards the east and Asia in general, to Russia, and is hard to read.

He also shares his ideas for communism, which is nothing more than revisionism and reformism, and telling working people of the world to simply be patient and suffer longer. I’m not going to rehash that argument as it has been done.

Finally, his lack of consideration of colonialism and colonized people is a huge blind spot that makes him sound even worse. He can't be taken seriously.

Read for some consideration, but don’t read it for a fair account.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most important books Ive ever read. I love Russell although his fierce mathematical reductionism and disdain for the mystical vexes me to the core. Still he was like an uncle you never got along with but loved massively. What made it so powerful for me was that Russell was a socialist & so his critique has even more demolition power than if it had come from a laissez faire capitalist. He utterly demolishes the Bolshevik regime in this masterpiece with an exhaustive first hand account of his travels to Russia and his experiences meeting all the personages we read about in history books. yes. FIRST HAND Lenin. FIRST HAND with Trotsky. And others I cannot recall at the moment. History as its given to us is written by the winners, not by the truth-tellers. Although this book is ostensibly political, its cosmic in scope. If you are intelligent, it will be an absolute gold mine to you...

[Mahdii · Rating 4 out of 5]

بلشویسم نشان داد که نابرابری قدرت به نفع اقلیتی خاص باعث دیکتاتوری و مفاسدی میشود که تمدن را سالها به عقب برمی گرداند.

ای کاش این جملات و پیش بینی ها و نقد ها بر روی مارکسیست لنیسیست های انقلاب ایران همانند گلسرخی ها (آنهایی که در وصیت قبل از اعدامشان از "مولا علی" و "هم صدایی با گروه های اسلامی" گفتند)اثر میگذاشت که نه تنها به باور پوچ مبارزه خودشان پی ببرند بلکه با امید بستن به اسلام موجبات نابودی ایران رو فراهم نکنند.

[Bruce Cline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Huge disappointment.

[John Engelman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bertrand Russell wrote The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism after he visited the Soviet Union shortly following the Russian Revolution. He was a socialist who wanted to like what he saw. He did not, and had the integrity to describe what he saw and to explain his disapproval.

He expected to see a new kind of democracy, one not corrupted by the power the capitalists had over democracy in the West. He saw a new kind of dictatorship, one that combined aspects of the French Revolution with the Islamic religion during the life of Muhammad.

The Bolsheviks claimed to have created “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Many socialists in the West claimed that the Soviet government was not really a dictatorship, but that it was governed by the proletariat (i.e. the working class). Russell claimed that it really was a dictatorship, and that the Bolsheviks defined “proletariat” as any Russian who agreed with the dictator, Vladimir Lenin. Lenin had never been a factory worker in his life.

Russell claimed to be a Communist. The meaning of words often changes over time. Today we would recognize him as a democratic socialist, or even a social democrat. He defined his ideal this way, “In place of palaces and hovels, futile vice, and useless misery there [should be] wholesome work, enough but not too much, all of it useful, performed by men and women who have no time for pessimism and no occasion for despair.”

Russell did not believe that his ideal could be achieved under capitalism. He believed it could be achieved under socialism. However, he believed that the socialism being developed in the Soviet Union was worse than the capitalism that existed in Western Europe and the United States.

Russell comes close to agreeing with the Bolshevik criticism of democracy in capitalist countries. Political campaigns are expensive. Capitalists have far more money to contribute to pro capitalist parties than socialists have to contribute to pro socialist parties. In addition, the mass media is owned by capitalists who hire journalists who will present positive images of capitalism. Corporate advertising exerts more pressure to fire any journalist who favors socialism.

This was truer then than it is now. In the United States many journalists can freely criticize capitalism, capitalists, and the corporate establishment without jeopardizing their careers.

Current taboos restrict criticism of political correctness.

Since the publication of The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism in 1920 capitalist countries have evolved in ways Russell advocated. They have developed expanded domestic sectors of the economy paid for by progressive taxation.

Although there were elections in the Soviet Union, Russell pointed out that there were even more restrictions against those who opposed Bolshevism than there were in capitalist countries against those who criticized capitalism. Anti Bolshevik candidates were denied the ability to campaign effectively. There was no secret ballot, so those voting against Bolshevik candidates made themselves vulnerable to government persecution.

Bolsheviks including Lenin told Russell that although they could not win an electoral majority in a capitalist country they could somehow attract enough people to overthrow a capitalist government by violence. Russell argued that this was unlikely unless Communists won the support of most in the military and the police. He argued further that this was unlikely unless a capitalist country had suffered a major defeat in war.

Russell argued that if a capitalist democracy is overthrown by a well armed, well organized minority, there is no guarantee that the minority would be Communist. He wrote The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism in 1920. This was before the seizure of power by the Fascists in Italy and the Nazis in Germany. Those seizures graphically illustrate his point.

The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism is remiss in that Russell did not describe how the practice of Bolshevism differed from the theory of Karl Marx. Marx believed that capitalism was good at creating wealth but bad at distributing it. Over time successful businessmen would drive unsuccessful businessmen out of business. These former employers would become angry employees who would join the Communist movement. With fewer employers, employees would find it more difficult to bargain for better wages.

Eventually there would be a vast and fairly poor class of employees and a very small but fabulously rich class of employers. The socialist revolution would be a popular revolution, with the vast majority on one side and a tiny minority on the other side. The new socialist government would not need to be tyrannical. It would have the enjoyable, easy, and popular task of spreading the wealth around.

Karl Marx described this time in Das Kapital, Volume One, Chapter 32 by writing, "The expropriators are expropriated."

In Russia there was no wealth to spread. Even before the First World War Russia was a poor country. After the devastation of the First World War and the Russian Civil War that followed it Russia was vastly poorer.

The socialist revolution in capitalist countries predicted by Marx would not necessarily be violent. Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto in 1847. Back then the only country where factory workers were allowed to vote was the United States. Even in the United States voting rights were restricted to white men. In The Communist Manifesto Marx thought violence would be necessary to replace capitalism. During his life voting rights were extended to factory workers in many capitalist countries. Toward the end of his life Marx began to think that it might be possible to achieve socialism peacefully.

In The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism Bertrand Russell pointed out that the Bolsheviks could not have come close to winning a fair election. Eighty five percent of the population was peasants. They opposed Bolshevism. Many would have approved of a return to Czarist rule. Many, perhaps most, factory workers also opposed the Bolsheviks.

The Russian Revolution was not the popular revolution envisioned by Marx at all. It was a coup by a well organized, well armed group of fanatics. It had succeeded under conditions unlikely to be reproduced in capitalist countries. The dictatorship created by the Russian Revolution was using methods incapable of establishing the ideals Bolsheviks professed to honor.

[T · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Even under present conditions in Russia, it is still possible to feel the inspiration of the essential spirit of Communism, the spirit of creative hope, seeking to sweep away the incumbrances of injustice and tyranny and rapacity which obstruct the growth of the human spirit, to replace individual competition by collective action, the relation of master and slave by free co-operation. This hope has helped the best of the Communists to bear the harsh years through which Russia has been passing, and has become an inspiration to the world. The hope is not chimerical, but it can only be realized through a more patient
labour, a more objective study of facts, and above all a longer propaganda, to make the necessity of the transition obvious to the great majority of wage-earners. Russian Communism may fail and go under, but Communism itself will not die. And if hope rather than hatred inspires its advocates, it can be brought about without the universal cataclysm preached by Moscow. The war and its sequel have proved the destructiveness of capitalism; let us see to it that the next epoch does not prove the still greater destructiveness of Communism, but rather its power to heal the wounds which the old evil system has inflicted upon the human spirit."

Prescient and definitely one of the more objective analyses of Soviet Russia.

[Narek Yeranyan · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's another 1-star book I would recommend to everyone. Bertrand Russell is a valuable eyewitness and his testimony contains a lot of useful information. What follows is a long and angry conversation with some of his assertions. If I were a talented multi-instrumentalist, I would have recorded this as a raw black metal album instead.

"It seems evident, from the attitude of the capitalist world to Soviet Russia, of the Entente to the Central Empires, and of England to Ireland and India, that there is no depth of cruelty, perfidy or brutality from which the present holders of power will shrink when they feel themselves threatened. If, in order to oust them, nothing short of religious fanaticism will serve, it is they who are the prime sources of the resultant evil. And it is permissible to hope that, when they have been dispossessed, fanaticism will fade, as other fanaticisms have faded in the past."

An example of the many passages in this book where I agree with Mr. Russell. Yet it also turns out that:

"...fanaticism is a camouflage for cruelty. Fanatics are seldom genuinely humane…"

Are you humane if you only moderately dislike the murder of children? What about the easily preventable death of children? Shouldn’t the appropriate response to such evil be fanatical hatred?

"...the conviction upon which English life has been based ever since 1688, that kindliness and tolerance are worth all the creeds in the world—a view which, it is true, we do not apply to other nations or to subject races.”

”We forget how many of the good things that we unquestionably expect would disappear out of life if murder, rape, and robbery with violence became common. And we forget even more how very easily this might happen. The universal class-war foreshadowed by the Third International, following upon the loosening of restraints produced by the late war, and combined with a deliberate inculcation of disrespect for law and constitutional government, might, and I believe would, produce a state of affairs in which it would be habitual to murder men for a crust of bread, and in which women would only be safe while armed men protected them. The civilized nations have accepted democratic government as a method of settling internal disputes without violence. Democratic government may have all the faults attributed to it, but it has the one great merit that people are, on the whole, willing to accept it as a substitute for civil war in political disputes. Whoever sets to work to weaken this acceptance, whether in Ulster or in Moscow, is taking a fearful responsibility. Civilization is not so stable that it cannot be broken up; and a condition of lawless violence is not one out of which any good thing is likely to emerge. For this reason, if for no other, revolutionary violence in a democracy is infinitely dangerous."

"In a democratic and politically educated country, armed revolution in favour of Communism would have no chance of succeeding unless it were supported by a larger majority than would be required for the election of a Communist Government by constitutional methods."

"...once the principle of respecting majorities as expressed at the ballot-box is abandoned, there is no reason to suppose that victory will be secured by the particular minority to which one happens to belong."

"The second argument of principle against the method of minority violence is that abandonment of law, when it becomes widespread, lets loose the wild beast, and gives a free rein to the primitive lusts and egoisms."

"Behave!" is what Bertrand Russell tries to communicate.
The law is good; minority violence is bad. If the “educated” majority rejected your communism at the ballot-box, then there is nothing else to do. Let Jim Crow be the law. Let your fellow Israelis democratically genocide some lesser people, as long as they don’t use violence for settling internal disputes (with you). People of subject races die in Bengal, but your fellow Englishmen are still kind and tolerant towards you. You personally have a low chance of being raped for the next four years. Is this a bad deal? Do you prefer lawless violence endangering you to the neat, congress-approved kind confined to other neighborhoods? Anyway, since you had no chance of succeeding to begin with, you are absolved of any possible guilt for your inaction. Also, if you disobey, others might also abandon the law, and who knows who will secure the victory? It could even be some racist prick.

"Lenin told me that he hopes to see a Labour Government in England, and would wish his supporters to work for it, but solely in order that the futility of Parliamentarism may be conclusively demonstrated to the British working man. Nothing will do any real good except the arming of the proletariat and the disarming of the bourgeoisie. Those who preach anything else are social traitors or deluded fools."

It is safe to say now that Lenin was correct, and the best we can hope for Mr. Russell is that he was a deluded fool.

"When I suggested that whatever is possible in England can be achieved without bloodshed, he [Lenin] waved aside the suggestion as fantastic."

And fantastic it was.

"In many ways it [the Soviet government] resembles our Government of India. Like that Government, it stands for civilization, for education, sanitation, and Western ideas of progress; it is composed in the main of honest and hard-working men, who despise those whom they govern, but believe themselves possessed of something valuable which they must communicate to the population, however little it may be desired."

They resemble each other only insofar as in both cases there are people with some ideas coming to your village. It is not so similar when you consider that in one case, the slave master is there to exploit you to death under the pretense of bringing civilization—and in the other, a Communist is making your life temporarily worse so that the life expectancy of your children will be twice yours.

"Hatred of enemies is easier and more intense than love of friends. But from men who are more anxious to injure opponents than to benefit the world at large no great good is to be expected.”

”In the principles of Bolshevism there is more desire to destroy ancient evils than to build up new goods; it is for this reason that success in destruction has been so much greater than in construction. The desire to destroy is inspired by hatred, which is not a constructive principle."

Even if the Bolsheviks had zero desire to build anything at all, the destruction of ancient evils is still a worthy cause. Actually, destroying evil is far more important. You can build as many hospitals as you want in Gaza, but considering how easily your efforts can be nullified, you had better fight the Israeli fascists instead.

"I think these elements of failure are less attributable to faults of detail than to an impatient philosophy, which aims at creating a new world without sufficient preparation in the opinions and feelings of ordinary men and women.”

”If a more just economic system were only attainable by closing men's minds against free inquiry, and plunging them back into the intellectual prison of the middle ages, I should consider the price too high."

Indeed, you seem to be in no hurry when patiently considering the price of the lives and deaths of the oppressed.

"The Bolshevik outlook is the outcome of the cruelty of the Tsarist regime and the ferocity of the years of the Great War, operating upon a ruined and starving nation maddened into universal hatred. If a different mentality is needed for the establishment of a successful Communism, then a quite different conjuncture must see its inauguration; men must be persuaded to the attempt by hope, not driven to it by despair.”

”The exhaustion and misery caused by unsuccessful war were necessary to the success of the Bolsheviks; a prosperous population will not embark by such methods upon a fundamental economic reconstruction.”

”Consequently, by this method, Communism will only be inaugurated where the conditions of life are difficult, where demoralization and disorganization make success almost impossible, and where men are in a mood of fierce despair very inimical to industrial construction. If Communism is to have a fair chance, it must be inaugurated in a prosperous country.”

”It is necessary, in appealing to a prosperous country, to lay stress on hope rather than despair, and to show how the transition can be effected without a calamitous loss of prosperity.”

”A short war, in which Communism won a rapid and easy victory, would do little harm. It is long, bitter and doubtful wars that must be avoided if anything of what makes Communism desirable is to survive.”

”The war here prophesied, if it ever takes place, will be one compared to which the late war will come to seem a mere affair of outposts. Those who realize the destructiveness of the late war, the devastation and impoverishment, the lowering of the level of civilization throughout vast areas, the general increase of hatred and savagery, the letting loose of bestial instincts which had been curbed during peace—those who realize all this will hesitate to incur inconceivably greater horrors, even if they believe firmly that Communism in itself is much to be desired.”

”What would happen if a Communist revolution were to occur in England tomorrow? Immediately America would place an embargo on all trade with us. The cotton industry would collapse, leaving about five million of the most productive portion of the population idle. The food supply would become inadequate, and would fail disastrously if, as is to be expected, the Navy were hostile or disorganized by the sabotage of the officers. The result would be that, unless there were a counter-revolution, about half the population would die within the first twelve months. On such a basis it would evidently be impossible to erect a successful Communist State."

I agree. Desperate people exhausted by war did the October Revolution—and not because they were outraged by the conditions of colonial subjects in India or Jews in the Russian Empire, but for a loaf of bread for themselves.


I agree. The revolution should have happened in a prosperous country. Not because it's less painful. Not to make it more prosperous. Not to improve the living conditions of the revolutionaries. Not because Marx says the productive forces have reached the correct stage—but because the status quo has caused the death of a child and the prosperous country is the guardian of that status quo.


According to Mr. Russell, the only revolution worth doing is a short, painless one. The kind where you notify the well-fed people in advance that they will only need to skip one meal. Certainly no blockades, no civil war, and no need to punch your next-door nazi. Because if a fine restaurant closes for a week, and if America stops shipping slave-grown cotton—what is Communism then worth?


I say the very "prosperity" and “level of civilization” Bertrand Russell is so afraid of losing should not be permitted to exist. No museums, no stadiums, no theaters. No one should be able to enjoy a nice evening while there is one hungry child anywhere in the world. And only after you have a planned economy on a world scale that satisfies the basic needs of everyone with minimal harm to the planet can you discuss allocating some resources to subsidize a poem.


You don’t need to reach communism. A fully automated world of abundance is great, but it isn’t a prerequisite for decency. Even if the most advanced technology we had were shovels, we could still decide to organize society without exploitation.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting read considering Russell was a socialist and he wanted the Communist to succeed. He provided some interesting analysis of how Marxism will and will not work.

[Ollie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a special book to me because it combines two things I really love: Soviet history (particularly the early era) and Bertrand Russell (who is the world’s main man). I tried prepping for this book by reading Bruce Lincoln’s book about the Civil War to have the events fresher in my mind, and this helped immensely. Not that it’s a requirement for anyone reading The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism, but historical knowledge of where the Bolsheviks were when Russell’s accounts take place is important.

Bertrand Russell is in the unique position of having visited the Soviet Union in 1920 and seeing accounts there firsthand. The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism is a summary of what Russell saw in his visits and how he views the new society that the Bolsheviks are trying to create. He even met Lenin and Trotsky and talks about them in this book.

Russell first admits that the Bolsheviks are still in the throes of a Civil War and that this contributes to the scarcity and misery that is life for the common person in Russia but that they were treated with the greatest courtesy and respect by the authorities while they were there and that this might have influenced what they were able to see or experience. However, it seems like the main reason that the Bolsheviks have been unable to truly overcome their problems is their dogmatic adherence to Marx. They believed that the solutions to all their problems lied in Marx’s teachings and that he would never err in any circumstance. This, of course, is absolutely crazy, but when Lenin and Trotsky are supporting this kind of orthodoxy there is very little wiggle room or real freedom of the mind to try and solve the very dire circumstances facing Soviet Russia, “binding the free intellect and destroying initiative.” The reality in Russia right now is that the majority of the population lives in absolute misery while those in the government have a much happier lifestyle. Those in charge have no problem inflicting widespread misery in order to uphold the virtues of Marx. And free elections are not allowed so the population has little choice in their own destiny. By proclaiming themselves sole friend of the working class, the Communists have been able to establish an iron discipline that not even the most capitalist country would be able to.
Russell finds the idea of Marxism being only capable in a country that has been defeated by war the main problem as to why Communism will fail, because if things are going well in a country, the population will never resort to a revolution that will things completely upside down. In the end Russell rejects Bolshevism claiming the price to pay would be too high, and that it would never achieve what it claims to be achieving anyway.

Russell says he went into Soviet Russia a communist, but after thinking about what he saw, that might not be the case anymore. This is a short but incredibly informative and sobering book. It’s well-written, easy to understand and contains a message is powerful message.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note the order of precedence: First the practice, then the theory. Bertrand Russell set out in 1920 from England to find the soul of Bolshevik Russia. A brief stay, no more than months, convinced him he had been over to the future, and it failed. Russell finds daily life in Moscow under Communist rule "drab, monotonous and regimented". Soviet democracy? The workers and soldiers councils created by the Revolution, following Lenin's slogan of "all power to the Soviets!" have been emptied of all content. Elections feature only pro-Bolshevik slates, although the sneaky Mensheviks did manage to win in one factory by stealth, and the Soviets themselves meet only a few days a year to confirm previously enacted government policies. A short talk with Lenin convinces Russell this decay of the 1917 Revolution starts at the top. The Bolshevik leader is, "an intellectual aristocrat, whose whole life is dedicated to historical materialism. He loves to show others where they are wrong". During a trip outside of Moscow to the rural provinces, by permission of Lenin himself, Russell is startled to encounter, "hardly any Communists; The local officials are not Bolsheviks but have pledged their loyalty to the Soviet state". Russell is too honest a man and philosopher, the two categories are not synonymous, to ignore the political and economic conditions that forced the Bolsheviks into a siege mentality. "The civil war, economic blockade, including by England, and ruling over a peasant nations where the peasantry has no stake in feeding the cities" all provide cause and excuse for a dictatorship. But, Marxist theory is too blame too. "Historical materialism ignores the psychological factors in history. If the Bolsheviks stay in power, it will be by rousing the masses through nationalism and expansion into Asia". Nice call, Bertie, and a perfect prediction of the Stalinist terror to come, for which Russell, already burnt by his experience in Russia, never attempted to excuse, unlike many Western intellectuals who went ga-ga over Uncle Joe. This brief book is a political landmark in European thinking towards the world's first Communist state.

[Eric Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1920, when this book first appeared, there were not very many critics of the new Soviet government on the Left (outside of Russia). Anarchists including Emma Goldman visited Russia and came away disenchanted. Rosa Luxemburg famously wrote up a critique of the first months of Bolshevik rule, but went on to found the German Communist Party. Karl Kautsky stood nearly alone among orthodox Marxists in his relentless attacks on his former pupil Lenin.

Many of the socialists and trade unionists who visited Russia came away as supporters of the Bolsheviks, deeply impressed with their achievements — or at least pretending to be so. But as British philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote, “I cannot enter into the conspiracy of concealment which many Western Socialists who have visited Russia consider necessary.”

Russell visited Russia in 1920 as part of a British Labour Party delegation. He travelled extensively and even had an hour alone with Lenin. Russell shared his impressions in this short book — and he was unsparing in his criticism of the Communist regime. Here, for example, is how he described the treatment of workers in the world’s first “workers’ state”:

“A sweated wage, long hours, industrial conscription, prohibition of strikes, prison for slackers, diminution of the already insufficient rations in factories where the production falls below what the authorities expect, an army of spies ready to report any tendency to political disaffection and to procure imprisonment for its promoters — this is the reality of a system which still professes to govern in the name of the proletariat.”

Russell suggested several possible futures for the young state. In one of them, Russia would see “the establishment of a bureaucratic aristocracy, concentrating power in its own hands, and creating a régime just as oppressive and cruel as that of capitalism.” He could not have been more right.

The book ends on a positive note. “Russian Communism may fail and go under,” he wrote, “but Socialism itself will not die.” I hope he was right.

[Matthew Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

An astoundingly prescient work; written in Russell's magnificently well-sculpted English, one could easily imagine being at a lecture at which this book could be read out as a script. The carefully plotted logical paths he weaves through his impressions of Bolshevik Russia, the promise of Communism, the actuality of a Communist Russia and the possibilities for socialism & communism in the wider world are compelling and rich.

Points of great importance, to my mind, include that he sees rather hideous and tough oppression all around even in this early stage of the USSR, which plays against a general suggestion that "Lenin's Communism" was betrayed and perverted by "Stalin's Communism". He also very toughly (and one can clearly see this book's influence on Orwell, who satirises the style of it perfectly in 1984) penetrates some of the hypocrisies of dogmatic utopianism, comparing it accurately to the effect of religion.

One note of his that I feel is given a bit too much weight in the early 21st century is his comparison of Bolshevism to Islam; there is not some great "forewarning" of future Islamist terrorism here, just a very simple sociological observation that in Bolshevism's "earthy" focus, with its script of human motivation and sociological development, creates a kind of societal blueprint -one easy for the fanatical to demand of, and enforce on, others - akin to fundamentalist views of Islam's Koran being not only a theological work, but a binding guidebook to living a 'good' life.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE FAMED PHILOSOPHER EXPLAINS HIS REJECTION OF BOLSHEVISM

Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872-1970) was an influential British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and political activist. In 1950, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, in recognition of his many books.

He wrote in his Prefatory Note to this Second (1948) Edition of the book, “Although this book was written in 1920, it is being reprinted without change, except in two respects… I have omitted a chapter of which I was not the author… I have found it necessary… to alter the word ‘Communism’ to ‘Socialism’ in many places. In 1920, there was not yet the sharp distinction between the two words that now exists, and a wrong impression would be made but for this change. If I were writing now, some things would be differently said, but in all major respects I adhere to the view of Russian Communism which I took in 1920, and its subsequent development has been not unlike what I expected.”

He explains at the end of the original Preface, “The present work is the outcome of a visit to Russia, supplemented by much reading and discussion both before and after. I have thought it best to record what I saw separately from theoretical considerations, and I have endeavored to state my impressions without any bias for or against the Bolsheviks. I received at their hands the greatest kindness and courtesy, and I owe them a debt of gratitude for the perfect freedom which they allowed me in my investigations. I am conscious that I was too short a time in Russia to be able to form really reliable judgments… I feel that Bolshevism is a matter of such importance that it is necessary, for almost every political question, to define one’s attitude in regard to it…”

He observes, “Life in modern Russia, as in Puritan England, is in many ways contrary to instinct. And if the Bolsheviks ultimately fall, it will be for the reason for which the Puritans fell: because there comes a point at which men feel that amusement and ease are worth more than all other goods put together.” (Pg. 28)

He says ironically, “Before I went to Russia I imagined that I was going to see an interesting experiment in a new form of representative government. I did see an interesting experiment, but not in representative government.” (Pg. 38)

He asserts, “Bolshevism as a social phenomenon is to be reckoned as a religion, not as an ordinary political movement… By a religion I mean a set of beliefs held as dogmas, dominating the conduct of life, going beyond or contrary to evidence, and inculcated by methods which are emotional or authoritarian, not intellectual. By this definition, Bolshevism is a religion; that its dogmas go beyond or contrary to evidence, I shall try to prove in what follows. Those who accept Bolshevism become impervious to scientific evidence and commit intellectual suicide… One who believes, as I do, that the free intellect is the chief engine of human progress, cannot but be fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism, as much as to the Church of Rome.” (Pg. 70)

He continues, “Bolshevism may go under in Russia, but even if it does it will spring up again elsewhere, since it is ideally suited to a industrial population in distress. What is evil in it is mainly due to the fact that it has it origin in distress; the problem is to disentangle the good from the evil and induce the adoption of the good in countries not goaded into ferocity by despair.” (Pg. 71)

He argues, “the Marxian interpretation of history… tacitly assumes that acquisitiveness is the source of all political actions. It is clear that many men willingly forego wealth for the sake of power and glory, and that nations habitually sacrifice riches to rivalry with other nations. The desire for some form of superiority is common to almost all energetic men. No social system which attempts to thwart it can be stable, since the lazy majority will never be a match for the energetic minority.” (Pg. 83)

He notes, “This whole Bolshevik theory of revolution by a minority is own which might just conceivably have succeeded as a secret plot, but becomes impossible as soon as it is openly avowed and advocated.” (Pg. 89)

He summarizes, “I am compelled to reject Bolshevism for two reasons: first, because the price mankind must pay to achieve communism by Bolshevik methods of too terrible; and secondly, because even after paying the price I do not believe the result would be what the Bolsheviks profess to desire.” (Pg. 101)

He explains, “What are the chief evils of the present system? I do not think that mere inequality of wealth, in itself, is a very grave evil. If everybody had enough, the fact that some have more than enough would be unimportant… The graver evils of the capitalist system all arise from the uneven distribution of power. The possessors of capital wield an influence quite out of proportion to their number of their services to the community. They control almost the whole of education and the press; they decide what the average man shall know or not know…

"Very little of the intelligence of the world is really free; most of it is, directly or indirectly, in the pay of business enterprises or wealthy philanthropists… Economic and political organizations become more and more vast, leaving less and less room for individual development and initiative. It is this sacrifice of the individual to the machine that is the fundamental evil of the modern world.” (Pg. 103-104)

He proposes, “Self-government in industry is, I believe, the road by which England can best approach socialism. I do not doubt that the railways and the mines, after a little practice, could be run more efficiently by the workers, from the point of view of production, than they are at present by the capitalists.” (Pg. 120)

Though more than 100 years old, this book is still a very pertinent analysis and critique of socialism, that will be of great interest to anyone interested in Russell’s political thought, or discussions of socialism.

[albin james · Rating 5 out of 5]

Long live the Pravda....prof. Russell has done a careful study of both the situation in Russia within a few years after the revolution and essential aspects of Bolshevik theory (as suggested by the title). He has put in the effort to be dialectical and often admits his own inability to come up with alternate solutions. His analysis could sound a bit aristocratic and privileged on occasions.

He is also aware that it may be too early for evaluations and considers several logical possibilities for the evolution. However, I felt that he overestimates non-economic factors psychological factors. Overall, he is disappointed with the implementation as well as the theoretical underpinnings of Bolshevism (which he considers somewhat unrefined, and may be rightfully so). He thinks the idea of Communism should live on and his views have evolved over time (as some reviews here indicate).

[Onur Kerimoglu · Rating 5 out of 5]

An honest attempt to objectively assess the Soviet experience as of 1920s, as well as it's founding principles. The author explains how the communism remained only as an ideal in the soviets, as the system could never develop beyond the proletarian dictatatorship. But as he points out, the Bolshevik leadership cannot be blamed for that either solely, as the constant hostility by literally the rest of the world, in the Form of blockade and constant state of war, did not leave room for options other than the dictatorship. The author seems to think that the hostility is at the first place, triggered by the Bolshevik aim of spreading the revolution to the rest of the world , I wonder whether this not rather a chicken and egg problem.

[Marcin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible account of Russell's visit to the newly created Soviet Union. Includes commentary on the attitudes of various sections of the Russian population, profiles of prominent Soviet political figures, and some critical and sympathetic reflections on what and how things went wrong in the Soviet Union. The most valuable part of the book is Russell's statement on how the Communist dream can be salvaged from the aberration created by the Bolsheviks.

[Paige McLoughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A summary of Russell's trip to Russia in 1920. The country was still under civil war at the time, and Russell, although a Fabian socialist, was not very impressed with the Bolsheviks. He viewed them a fanatical authoritarians and their ideology as anti-democratic. Under War Communism and the siege from Western countries, I guess anybody might have a bunker mentality. This did not let up during the Cold War.

[Jacob Fiala · Rating 1 out of 5]

So that’s where all these talking points came from!Pretty cool to see the revolution was so inspiring that even the pearl clutchers had to pretend to support it in principle, back then.

Kinda weird Russell forgot to mention imperialism and colonialism even once in his screed for gradualism and syndicalism, don’t ya think?