Emil Lederer’s Review of Max Hirschberg’s Bolschewismus (1919)

Emil Lederer’s review evaluates Hirschberg’s study as a much-needed analytical account of Bolshevism amid polemical and apologetic literature. Its central judgment distinguishes understanding a political doctrine from either endorsing it or establishing its practical success. Hirschberg’s achievement lies in reconstructing Bolshevism as a coherent system using official sources, aided by his apparent knowledge of Russian.

Es bezeichnet sich als eine kritische Untersuchung; die Kritik gibt sich hier aber nicht als Polemik, sondern (was viel fruchtbarer) als Analyse und als Versuch, die bolschewistische Frage klar zu erfassen.

English translation: It describes itself as a critical investigation; but the criticism here presents itself not as polemic, but (what is far more fruitful) as analysis and as an attempt to grasp the Bolshevik question clearly.

Lederer first follows Hirschberg’s derivation of Bolshevism from revolutionary Marxist socialism. Its distinctive move is to locate proletarian readiness for revolution in the advanced organization of key economic sectors and in popular refusal to endure capitalist suffering, rather than requiring a more comprehensive developmental maturity. Seizing political power, breaking bourgeois resistance, and destroying the bureaucratic apparatus follow from this premise. Proletarian dictatorship need not, on this account, entail terrorism. Lederer nevertheless challenges Hirschberg’s claim that this doctrine simply restores Marx and Engels: the treatment of dictatorship, developmental readiness, and political power makes that continuity disputable.

Den Hauptwert des Buches sehe ich in dem großen Ernst, mit dem die Ideengänge der bolschewistischen Lehre in ihrem Gesamtzusammenhange und als logisches System dargestellt werden.

English translation: I see the chief value of the book in the great seriousness with which the trains of thought of Bolshevik doctrine are presented in their total context and as a logical system.

This appreciation organizes Lederer’s account of the book’s structure. Its programmatic discussion covers the Soviet constitution, foreign policy, agriculture, economic and financial policy, and cultural development. Bolshevism shares syndicalism’s emphasis on revolutionary readiness but differs sharply through its centralism. Political and economic administration are interlinked; socialization is conceived on a broad, coordinated scale; abstract pacifism is rejected without economic transformation. Cultural policy promises workers and peasants extensive opportunities for intellectual and human development.

The second main part tests doctrine against implementation. Agrarian policy encounters peasant attachment to property, while unequal movements in industrial and agricultural prices make illicit trade a structural consequence of the provisioning crisis. Industrial conditions remain uneven, with fuel shortages and transport difficulties alongside recovery and reports of exceptional labor. Nationalization of money and credit appears comparatively smooth; the envisaged accounting system among nationalized industries helps explain the regime’s indifference to inflation. Lederer preserves the limits of this evidence: the economy is difficult to assess, but total collapse has not occurred.

The conceptual center of the critical discussion is Hirschberg’s relationship between democracy and dictatorship. Substantive democracy requires both political and economic equality; parliamentary institutions alone do not secure popular control over ministers or bureaucracy. Dictatorship, meanwhile, encompasses several arrangements, from pressure exerted within a surviving parliament to restricted council suffrage and terrorist rule.

Bei Uneinigkeit des Proletariats kommt es zur Diktatur über das Proletariat, indem eine Gruppe die Macht an sich reißt (München).

English translation: In the case of disunity of the proletariat it comes to a dictatorship over the proletariat, in that one group seizes power (Munich).

The distinction between dictatorship of and over the proletariat makes class unity decisive in Hirschberg’s analysis. Revolutionary authority cannot be understood solely through institutional labels: a group’s seizure of power may turn a claimed instrument of proletarian emancipation into domination of the proletariat itself.

Lederer then notes the concluding discussions of anarchism, Bakunin, syndicalism, and Bolshevism’s international ambitions. Hirschberg sees an epoch of revolutionary socialism and calls for its principles to be developed, without mechanically transferring Russian methods elsewhere. Lederer qualifies the contemporary evidence supporting that prognosis while endorsing the urgency of intellectually confronting the revolution’s tasks.

The review’s relevance lies in this combination of analytical openness and evidentiary restraint. Lederer identifies Hirschberg with the socialist left, praises his reserve, and values the questions he raises about state structure and economic organization. Yet the book’s interpretive strength must not be mistaken for reliable knowledge of current Russian conditions:

Freilich, auch dieses Buch vermag uns nicht zu sagen, wie es in Rußland heute steht; aber es gibt doch eine gute Vorstellung davon, von welchen geistigen Mächten und Ideen Rußland in den beiden letzten Jahren geleitet wurde.

English translation: To be sure, this book too is unable to tell us how matters stand in Russia today; but it does give a good idea of the intellectual forces and ideas by which Russia was guided in the last two years.