that
they decided to change their party name. They had been Social Democrats, a
part of the Social Democratic party of Russia. Now ever since Bronterre
O'Brien first used the terms "Social Democrat" and "Social Democracy," in
1839, their meaning has been pretty well established. A Social Democrat is
one who aims to base government and industry upon democracy. Certainly,
this cannot be said to be an accurate description of the position of men
who believe in the rule of a nation of one hundred and eighty millions by a
small party of two hundred thousand or less--or even by an entire class
representing not more than six per cent. of the population--and Lenine and
his friends, recognizing the fact, decided to change the name of their
group to the _Communist party_, by which name they are now known in Russia.
Lenine frankly admits that it would be a mistake to speak of this party as
a party of democracy. He says:

The word "democracy" cannot be scientifically applied to the
Communist party. Since March, 1917, the word democracy is simply a
shackle fastened upon the revolutionary nation and preventing it
from establishing boldly, freely, and regardless of all obstacles
a new form of power; the Council of Workmen's, Soldiers' and
Peasants' Deputies, harbinger of the abolition of every form of
authority.[33]

The phrase "harbinger of the abolition of every form of authority" would
seem to indicate that Lenine's ideal is that of the old Nihilists--or of
Anarchists of the Bakuninist school. That is very far from the truth. The
phrase in question is merely a rhetorical flourish. No man has more
caustically criticized and ridiculed the Anarchists for their dream of
organization without authority than Nikolai Lenine. Moreover, his
conception of Soviet government provides for a very strong central
authority. It is a new kind of state, but a state, nevertheless, and, as we
shall discover, far more powerful than the political state with which we
are familiar, exercising far greater control over the life of the
individual. It is not to be a democratic state, but a very despotic one, a
dictatorship by a small but powerful ruling class. It was not the word
"democracy" which Lenine felt to be a "shackle upon the revolutionary
nation," but democracy itself.

The manner in which they betrayed the Constituent Assembly will prove the
complete hostility of the Bolsheviki to democratic government. In order to
excu