FIRST YEAR POWER

nickname introduced from the United States. But Sir Desmond Heap,_ president of Britain's Law Society, has told officers of the law that they should not be ashamed of this title.

• At a recent Society conference he sang the praises of 'these splendid people, the policemen'. In the case of British lawmen, he said, pig stood for Pride, Integrity and Guts.

Heap was chief assistant solicitor for Leeds and the Leeds assistant town clerk. Presumably this was when he developed this glamorous view of the force, which has been twice subjected to Home Office investigations in the past 20 years for corruption and low morale. ship Company, didn't know what he was letting himself in for when he wrote recently to "The Seamen' newspaper.

In lyrical terms he described the magnificent life on the ocean waves, the tremendous team spirit of the chaps as they hoist the mainsail and keelhaul the mate. Back wrote Joseph Rourke, boatswain on the MV "Tua'.

By your own admission, Bowrings have been shipowners since 1818. Sir, one does not need to have attended the LSE to know how you have accumulated the vast amount of capital to have diversed and invested, eventually to control so many industries distinct from shipping.

'You made it over the backs of British merchart seamen during the last 150 years. I hasten to say that you are not alone: many of your compatriots also enjoy great wealth and power via the same route.

'We also helped to create that wealth, not by investing our money, but by investing our health, limbs and in many cases our lives. One thing 1 have become aware of-shipowners and Bootle bookmakers have one thing in common; they both, all the time, cry poverty' Over to you, Master Rooper.

The 'Morning Star' delegation Victor Serge, former anarchist, supporter of the Russian Revolution after the event, one-time Left Oppositionist, but a firm opponent of the Fourth International, first published this book in France in 1930, three years before Stalin deported him to central Asia.

It lacks the incisive insight of Trotsky's monumental 'History of the Russian Revolution', nor does it have the advantage of being an eye-witness account -Serge did not arrive Russia until January, 1919.

Nevertheless, it is a valuable and detailed review of a key period in Soviet history. It deals with all the internal problems which the dictatorship of the proletariat was called upon to resolve-the creation of a proletarian state and proletarian army, the organization of defence, the re-establishment of production and distribution.

The condition of a country exhausted and ruined by war was graphically revealed in Petrograd—when the Bolsheviks took power there was ten days' food supply in the city.

Bourgeois newspapers confidently announced the imminent arrival of Kerensky with forces which would 'restore law and order'.

The Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries-screaming of 'anarchy', 'premature socialism', 'Bolshevik hysteria' and civil war'-were preparing counterrevolution. Together with the bourgeois Kadet Party they set up a 'Committee of Safety for Fatherland and Revolution' within the Petrograd Municipal Duma.

Plekhanov called for Bolshevism to be 'drowned in blood'.

The Socialist Revolutionaries' 'Military Section' (i.e. its terrorist corps) openly collaborated with the Junker officer class.

Cossack offensive under General Krasnov within 20 kilometres ovot Petrograd before being halted by the and foment strikes Moscow's 16,000 municipal employees went on strike for four months. The old administrators, petty-bourgeois and union leadership developments. some sections of the trade could to halt Officials of the Ministry of Food struck. So did the staff of the State Bank. In every government department func. tionaries disappearéd, taking with them the funds and vital files. The operators .of the fused to transmit anynot the Central Telegraph despatches of the Commissars. The anti-revolutionaries at the head of the railway union refused to col laborate in restoring the transport system.

The Bolsheviks also had to fight the backwardness of the masses themselves. Machine. gun guards were placed at the wine-cellars. Hastily-assembled workers tribunals dealt not only with saboteurs, bourgeois and officers, but with looters, thieves, hooligans and drunkards.

In these conditions, Lenin called for 'miracles proletarian And these were achieved. Compared with the - required ay westen decade Democracy to legislate • even the most minor boom-time reforms the Bolsheviks achieve. ments were monumental.

The Decree on Land was issued on October 26. Clause 1 declared: 'The landowners right of ownership over the soil 1S abolished forthwith without compensation Two days later, to deal with the problem of homelessness in the cities all municipalities were empowered to requisition and confiscate properties. passed on tober peace was The decree on the rights of national minorities-including the right to self-determination and the abolition of all national and religious privileges - was issued on November 11.

In less than three months the entire civil service hierarchy was abolished, supplies were requisitioned for the army, the old regime ambassadors and diplomats were sacked, Supreme Economic Council was established, the state drive against counter-revolution and sabotalks began Decrees were passed institut. ing workers' control in industry and making banking a state monopoly.

The eight-hour day was enforced on the railways, education was taken out of the hands of the church ranks in the army Were abolished, the major electrical companies were confiscated as were the Putilov works and the huge Russo-Belgian Metal Company. Civil marriage and divorce were instituted, a code for the revolutionary courts was decreed, payment of interest on dividends and bonds was stopped, Russian spelling was simplified The Institute for the Protection of Muthers and Children was formed, the Russian Federation of Soviet Republics was proclaimed and a decree •WAr issued for the organization of the Red Army on until a sailor walked to the rostrum and declared 'The guards are tired-please leave the hall'.

The following day the Constituent Assembly was dissolved. This created a sensation abroad, but was hardly noticed in Russia-where the issue was clearly understood: either the Assembly or the revolution had to go.

In April, 1918, the revolution had to disarm the anarchists— adventurers, criminals and counter-revolutionaries — who had formed an armed body called the 'Black General Staff'.

The Allied Wars of Intervention had to be defeated. Their plan was to organize a Czech rising in the Urals and Volga regions and in Siberia to coincide with counterrevolutionary coups in the towns near Moscow while the Japanese landed at Vladivostok and the British at Archangel.

But within the Bolshevik Party itself there was indecision. Some of its leading members leaned towards government of 'a broad-based coalition of social democrats' in which the Bolsheviks would hold only half the places and from which Lenin and Trotsky would be excluded.

The non-Bolshevik elements within such government would have sabotaged every revolutionary measure and the consequent mass disillusionment would have weakened Bolshevism and opened the door to counter-revolution.

Nevertheless, at one stage Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov, and Milyutin resigned from the Central Committee on the issue.

The Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations produced an even more severe split which threatened to tear the Party apart between the 'peace action' of Lenin and the ultra-left Revolutionary War' position. Lenin won when he persuaded Trotsky to abandor his position of dragging out the negotiations in anticipation of a German revolution.

But after this crisis, a more direct and personal threat was posed. The Bolshevik leaders had always been exposed to counter - revolutionary terror. On the Brest-Litovsk question the Left Socialist Revolutionaries broke finally with the Bolsheviks and their trained assassination squads made Lenin and Trotsky their prime targets.

Serge claims that at one time an anti-Bolshevik terrorist was employed as Lenin's chauffeur. And Lenin was, of course, wounded by the SR terrorist Fanny Kaplan.

But the revolution and its leadership survived these dangers, due to the revolutionary will of the Bolshevik Party and Its training in Marxist and practice.

Year One of the Revolution ended as the German revolution appeared on the scene. But here the leadership-and hence the outcome - were different.

Tomorrow a special article will discuss the connection between the anti-communist International Socialism group and Victor Sergean avowed opponent of the Fourth International.