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Its chief opposition will be a ruling class so discredited by its
military incapacity and so demoralized by its own mistakes as to
be unable to offer serious resistance for some time to come. As in
the French and Russian revolutions, the
ancien regime
will sur–
prise everybody with the suddenness and completeness of its col–
lapse. Even in England, and certainly in this country, the actual
transfer of power need not offer Hitler any 'open door.' The real
revolutionary struggle will come considerably later, when the
counter-revolution has had time to organize itself. (This, by the
way, may also be expected to take place
abroad,
as in the French
and Russian experiences, with Hitler backing the counter-revolu–
tion
a
la
Pitt-Clemenceau.) The revolutionary cause, calling for
a more efficient, energetic and uncompromising fight against Hit–
ler, will immediately become the patriotic cause
par excellence.
Counter-revolutionaries would be open to the charge of treason
and by their very least acts would identify themselves with the
foreign enemy. As in the Great French Revolution, the fight
against the enemy within would only intensify the struggle against
the enemy without.
9.
There exists today no organized leadership for such a revolu–
tionary policy as we advocate. But, while this is a serious
lack, it is not a fatal one. New organizational forms must and
will be found.
We can learn valuable lessons, of course, from the Russian
revolution, but it is not the pattern for all revolutions. Many of
those who today deprecate most violently the practicability of a
successful revolution conceive of the socialist revolution exclu–
sively in terms of Bolshevism, arguing that since such a party is
necessary, and since no such party of any significance exists today,
therefore the prospect is hopeless. They are Leninists in reverse.
A tightly disciplined and trained organization was a neces–
sity in Russia because of the extremely low cultural level of the
masses. This backwardness was such as to require, as midwives of
the revolution, a 'general staff' of Bolshevist experts who had to
take every initiative themselves and were unable to delegate
responsibility or authority in a democratic way. Here in the West
it is quite otherwise. The technical competence and relatively
high cultural level of the individual worker would make for a
much wider distribution of initiative and authority, thus making
