Yet in the turmoil of revolutionary activity the peasants are going to have
their say and may become the decisive factor, because they are voters and
are casting their votes for those leaders whose words they believe to
contain the greatest promise and the least menace of a general disruption
of their accustomed mode of life.
We are thus brought back, for the present at least, to the necessity of
recognizing that even the state of anarchy under which Russia is laboring,
even the rule of the renowned proletariat so much trumpeted about by Lenine
and Trotzky, is in reality the work of intellectuals, an answer of the
masses to the call of their leaders, a groping for principles beyond their
perception.
It suffices a very casual examination of the programs and resolutions of
various political parties to see the truth of this statement. They are
expressive of the opinions of the leaders, not of the masses; are couched
in the language of the educated Russian, not in that of the workman or
peasant and, except for the concluding slogans like "Peace, Bread, and
Land," are alien to the very spirit of the masses. In this respect all
parties are confronted with the same difficulty since all strive to get
the support of the masses, yet have to express principles evolved through
careful and extensive study of national, political, and economic problems,
strange to the uneducated mind.
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