ABSTRACT
The Communist movement of 1919-20 existed in a world of its own, which later Communists would have had trouble recognizing. But from 1921 on the whole future development became clearly marked out, the road ahead visible, the signposts familiar. The Communists of 1919 believed piously in the principles of force and violence, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the world revolution. They put these principles into practice by propagating them on any and all occasions, and by propagating almost nothing else. For the newly converted Communists, immediate demands aided and abetted a revolutionary purpose. This became a peculiarly Communist combination—old reformist means adapted to new revolutionary ends. According to the credo of the historic Left, the working class was inherently revolutionary. If the workers did not always behave like revolutionaries, the corrupting influence of other classes was responsible. Straight revolutionary propaganda was the best cure for insidious bourgeois vices.
