"Mistakes are being made by our peasants who, at one stroke, in the night from October 25 to October 26 (Russian Calendar), 1917, did away with all private ownership of land, and are now struggling, from month to month, under the greatest difficulties, to correct their own mistakes, trying to solve in practice the most difficult problems of organizing a new social state, fighting, against profiteers to secure the possession of the land, for the workers instead of for the speculator, to carry on agricultural production under a system of communist farming on a large scale. > "Mistakes are being made by our workmen in their revolutionary activity, who, in a few short months, have placed practically all the large factories and workers under state ownership, and are now learning, from day to day, under the greatest difficulties, to conduct the management of entire industries, to reorganize industries already organized, to overcome the deadly resistance of laziness and middle-class reaction and egotism."
Los socialistas de los Estados Unidos y otros elementos radicales de nuestro país, después de la Guerra Mundial, comenzaron a alabar hasta los cielos a los sóviets rusos como la forma de gobierno más perfecta que el mundo jamás había visto. Se sostenía que superaban con creces a los parlamentos, congresos y otros cuerpos legislativos, y que eran los logros supremos de una forma democrática de gobierno. Los diputados de los sóviets,