not only participated in the deliberations on this decree, but had practically received a determining voice, for parts of the decree which met determined opposition from these institutions were rejected.  Secondly and essentially, the compromise consists in the rejection by the Soviet authority of the principle of free admission to the co-operatives (the only consistent principle from the proletarian standpoint), and that the whole population of a given locality should be united in a single co-operative.  The defection from this, the only Socialist principle, which is in accord with the problem of doing away with classes, allows the existence of working-class co-operatives (which in this case call themselves working-class co-operatives only because they submit to the class interests of the bourgeoisie).  Lastly, the proposition of the Soviet government completely to exclude the bourgeoisie from the administration of the co-operatives was also considerably weakened, and only owners of capitalistic commercial and industrial enterprises are excluded from the administration.

* * * * *

If the proletariat, acting through the Soviets, should successfully establish accounting and control on a national scale, there would be no need for such compromise.  Through the Food Departments of the Soviets, through their organs of supply, we would unite the population in one co-operative directed by the proletariat, without the assistance from bourgeois co-operatives, without concessions to the purely bourgeois principle which compels the labor co-operatives to remain side by side with the bourgeois co-operatives instead of wholly subjecting these bourgeois co-operatives, fusing both?[69]

V

It is no mood of captious, unfriendly criticism that attention is specially directed to these compromises.  Only political charlatans, ineffective quacks, and irresponsible soap-box orators see crime against the revolutionary program of the masses in a wise and honest opportunism.  History will not condemn the Bolsheviki for the give-and-take, compromise-where-necessary policy outlined in the foregoing paragraphs.  Its condemnation will be directed rather against their failure to act in that spirit from the moment the first Provisional Government arose.  Had they joined with the other Socialists and established a strong Coalition Government, predominantly Socialist, but including representatives of the most liberal and democratic elements of the bourgeoisie, it would have been possible to bring the problems of labor organization and labor discipline under democratic direction.  It would not have been possible to establish complete industrial democracy, fully developed Socialism, nor will it be possible to do this for many years to come.