542
PARTISAN REVIEW
great bourgeois revolutionaries (Robespierre, Garibaldi, and others) ...who
roused tens of millions of people.. .in the struggle against feudalism."
Jacobin violence and repression, Lenin insisted, were the necessary
tools for a successful revolutionary movement.Why was it "monstrous and
criminal" for workers and peasants to use terror against the bourgeoisie, he
demanded. When the British bourgeoisie used terror in 1649 and when
the French bourgeoisie used it in 1793, it was considered "just and legit–
imate." If a bourgeois revolution like the one in France in 1793 had called
for a Jacobin-style purge, Lenin remarked, then surely a Russian-style
social revolution would require nothing less. "The dictatorship of the pro–
letariat is an absolutely meaningless expression," he noted, "without
Jacobin coercion." This ultimate goal could not be achieved without "the
smashing and annihilation" of their enemies. Lenin did not view
Jacobinism as a downward slide, but rather, as he wrote, "one of the high–
est pinnacles attained by the working class struggling for its emancipation."
Immediately after the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917, Lenin
briefly distanced himself from the French Revolution, expressing reluc–
tance to use repressive or violent Jacobin measures. "We are reproached
with using terror," he announced. "But such terror, as was used by the
French Revolutionaries who guillotined unarmed people, we do not use
and, I hope, shall not use." But Bolshevik theory called for the "one-party
state," a centralized party structure, and strong party discipline. Within
weeks Lenin decided that neither dissent nor pluralism could playa help–
ful role in the smashing of the old regime. Opposition would have to be
eliminated-by violence and terror if necessary. The Jacobins were back.
The splendid, glittering reception halls of the Smolny Institute in St.
Petersburg, once a finishing school for the daughters of the Russian aris–
tocracy, were the setting for the first open sessions in December 1917 of
the Central Executive Committee. There, during the revolution's earliest
days,!. N. Steinberg, the newly-appointed People's Commissar of Justice,
witnessed the creation and organization of terror. He listened with horror
as the revolution's leaders debated a decree demanding the arrest of the
Kadets, the moderate Constitutional Democratic party. A few days earlier,
the government had proclaimed them "enemies of the people." The
Kadets had fought against czarism and had held power briefly from
February to October 1917. But after the Bolshevik Revolution in
October, some of their leaders had allied themselves with counterrevolu–
tionary forces.
Would the new revolutionary parliament ratifY the decree for their
arrest? A victorious revolution, Steinberg protested, did not need to con–
demn its opponents with summary judgments. If an individual Kadet was
accused of conspiracy, he reasoned, he should be brought to trial and have
