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Title: Articles on the Russian revolution.
Author: Various (Workers Solidarity Movement)
Date: 1991 - 1993
Description: A collection of articles and talks
that discuss the Russian revolution and the
anarchist opposition to Leninism. We also look
at one Leninist attempt to answer this criticism.
In three parts: part 3
Keywords: Russia, 1917, Soviets, Mhakno,
Kronsdadt, Lenin, Bolshevik, Factory Committees.
Related material: See booklist at end.
THE WORKING CLASS UNDER LENIN
Another key area is the position of the working
class in the Stalinist society. No Trotskyist
would disagree that under Stalin workers had no
say in the running of their workplaces and
suffered atrocious conditions under threat of the
state's iron fist. Yet again these conditions
came in under Lenin and not Stalin. Immediately
after the revolution the Russian workers had
attempted to federate the factory committees in
order to maximise the distribution of resources.
This was blocked, with Bolshevik 'guidance', by
the trade unions.
By early 1918 the basis of the limited workers
control offered by the Bolsheviks (in reality
little more then accounting) became clear when
all decisions had to be approved by a higher body
of which no more than 50% could be workers.
Daniel Guerin describes the Bolshevik control of
the elections in the factories "elections to
factory committees continued to take place , but
a member of the Communist cell read out a list of
candidates drawn up in advance and voting was by
show of hands in the presence of armed
'Communist' guards. Anyone who declared his
opposition to the proposed candidates became
subject to wage cuts, etc." 9
On March 26th 1918 workers control was abolished
on the railways in a decree full of ominous
phrases stressing "iron labour discipline" and
individual management. At least, say the
Trotskyists, the railways ran on time. In April
Lenin published an article in Isvestiya which
included the introduction of a card system for
measuring each workers productivity. He said
"..we must organise in Russia the study and
teaching of the Talyor system". "Unquestioning
submission to a single will is absolutely
necessary for the success of the labour
process...the revolution demands, in the
interests of socialism, that the masses
unquestioningly obey the single will of the
leaders of the labour process" 10 Lenin declared
in 1918. This came before the civil war broke
out and makes nonsense of the claims that the
Bolsheviks were trying to maximise workers
control until the civil war prevented them from
doing so.
With the outbreak of the Civil War things became
much worse. In late May it was decreed that no
more than 1/3 of the management personnel of
industrial enterprises should be elected.11 A
few "highlights" of the following years are worth
pointing out. At the ninth party congress in
April of 1920 Trotsky made his infamous comments
on the militarization of labour "the working
class...must be thrown here and there, appointed,
commanded just like soldiers. Deserters from
labour ought to be formed into punitive
battalions or put into concentration camps"."12
The congress itself declared "no trade union
group should directly intervene in industrial
management". 13
ONE MAN MANAGEMENT
At the trade union congress that April, Lenin was
to boast how in 1918 he had "pointed out the
necessity of recognising the dictatorial
authority of single individuals for the purpose
of carrying out the soviet idea". 14 Trotsky
declared that "labour..obligatory for the whole
country, compulsory for every worker is the basis
of socialism"15 and that the militarisation of
labour was no emergency measure16. In War
Communism and Terrorism published by Trotsky that
year he said "The unions should discipline the
workers and teach them to place the interests of
production above their own needs and demands".
It is impossible to distinguish between these
policies and the labour policies of Stalin.
WORKERS REVOLTS
Perhaps the most telling condemnation of the
Stalinist regimes came from their crushing of
workers' revolts, both the well known ones of
East Berlin 1953, Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia
in 1968 and scores of smaller, less known
risings. The first such major revolt was to
happen at the height of Lenin's direction of the
party in 1921 at Kronstadt, a naval base and town
near Petrograd. The revolt essentially occurred
when Kronstadt attempted to democratically elect
a Soviet and issued a set of proclamations
calling for a return to democratic soviets and
freedom of press and speech for "the anarchists
and left socialist parties".17
This won the support of not only the mass of
workers and sailors at the base but of the rank
and file of the Bolshevik party there as well.
Lenin's response was brutal. The base was
stormed and many of the rebels who failed to
escape were executed. Kronstadt had been the
driving force for the revolution in 1917 and in
1921 the revolution died with it.
There are other commonly accepted characteristics
of Stalinism. One more that is worth looking at
is the way Stalinist organsiations have used
slander as a weapon against other left groups.
Another is the way that Stalin re-wrote history.
Yet again this is something which was a deep
strain within Leninism. Mhakno for example went
from being hailed by the Bolshevik newspapers as
the "Nemesis of the whites" 18 to being described
as a Kulak and a bandit .
SLANDER
Modern day Trotskyists are happy to repeat this
sort of slander along with describing Mhakno as
an anti-Semite. Yet the Jewish historian M.
Tchernikover says "It is undeniable that, of all
the armies, including the Red Army, the
Makhnovists behaved best with regard to the
civilian population in general and the Jewish
population in particular."19
The leadership of the Makhnovists contained Jews
and for those who wished to organise in this
manner there were specific Jewish detachments.
The part the Makhnovists played in defeating the
Whites has been written out of history by every
Trotskyist historian, some other historians
however consider they played a far more decisive
role then the Red Army in defeating Wrangel20.
Kronstadt provides another example of how Lenin
and Trotsky used slander against their political
opponents. Both attempted to paint the revolt as
being organised and lead by the whites. Pravda
on March 3rd, 1921 described it as "A new White
plot....expected and undoubtedly prepared by the
French counter-revolution". Lenin in his report
to the 10th party congress on March 8th said
"White generals, you all know it, played a great
part in this. This is fully proved". 21.
Yet even Isaac Deutscher, Trotskys biographer
said in 'The Prophet Armed' "The Bolsheviks
denounced the men of Kronstadt as counter-
revolutionary mutineers, led by a White general.
The denunciation appears to have been
groundless"22.
RE-WRITING HISTORY
Some modern day Trotskyists repeat such slanders,
others like Brian Pearce (historian of the
Socialist Labour League in Britain) try to deny
it ever occurred "No pretence was made that the
Kronstadt mutineers were White Guards"23 In
actual fact the only czarist general in the fort
had been put there as commander by Trotsky some
months earlier! Lets leave the last words on
this to the workers of Kronstadt "Comrades, don't
allow yourself to be misled. In Kronstadt, power
is in the hands of the sailors, the red soldiers
and of the revolutionary workers" 24
There is irony in the fact that these tactics of
slander and re-writing history as perfected by
the Bolsheviks under Lenin were later to be used
with such effect against the Trotskyists.
Trotsky and his followers were to be denounced as
"Fascists" and agents of international
imperialism. They were to be written and air-
brushed out of the history of the revolution.
Yet to-day his followers, the last surviving
Leninists use the same tactics against their
political opponents.
The intention of this article is to provoke a
much needed debate on the Irish left about the
nature of Leninism and where the Russian
revolution went bad. The collapse of the Eastern
European regimes makes it all the more urgent
that this debate goes beyond trotting out the
same old lies. If Leninism lies at the heart of
Stalinism then those organisations that follow
Lenin's teaching stand to make the same mistakes
again. Anybody in a Leninist organisation who
does not take this debate seriously is every bit
as blind and misled as all those Communist Party
members who thought the Soviet Union was a
socialist country until the day it collapsed.
Andrew Flood
1. V.I. Lenin "Left wing childishness and petty-
bourgeois mentality", 2. V.I. Lenin "The
threatening catastrophe and how to fight it", 3.
M. Brinton "The Bolsheviks and Workers Control"
page 38, 4. M. Brinton page 38, 5. Brinton,
page 39, 6. Brinton, page 40, 7. D. Guerin
"Anarchism", page 101, 8. Brinton, page 78, 9.
Guerin, page 91, 10. Brinton, page 41, 11.
Brinton, page 43, 12. Brinton, page 61, 13.
Brinton, page 63, 14. Brinton, page 65, 15.
Brinton, page 6 , 16. I. Deutscher, "The Prophet
Armed" pages 500-07, 17. Ida Mett,"The Kronstadt
Uprising", page 38, 18. A. Berkman, "Nestor
Makhno", page 25, 19. quoted by Voline "The
Unknown Revolution", page 572, 20. P. Berland,
"Mhakno", Le Temps, 28 Aug, 1934, 21. Lenin,
Selected Works, vol IX, p. 98, 22. Deutscher,
The Prophet Armed, page 511. 23. Labour Review,
vol V, No. 3. 24. I. Mett, page 51.
ON QUOTES AND MISQUOTES
The problem when writing an article covering this
period of history is where you select your
quotations from. Both Lenin and Trotsky changed
their positions many times in this period. Many
Leninists for example try to show Lenin's
opposition to Stalinism by quoting from State and
Revolution (1917). This is little more then
deception as Lenin made no attempt to put the
program outlined in this pamphlet into practise.
In any case it still contains his curious
conception of Workers control.
I have only used quotes from the October
revolution to 1921 and in every case these quotes
are either statements of policy, or what should
be policy at the time. As socialists are aware
governments in opposition may well say "Health
cuts hurt the old, the sick and the handicapped".
It is however in power that you see their real
programe exposed.
A fresh look at Lenin (From WS 31)
THE COLLAPSE of the regimes in Eastern Europe has
thrown up all sorts of questions about socialism.
So let's go back to the beginning. The Russian
revolu-tion of 1917 was, initially, a shot in the
arm for socialists everywhere. It was possible,
it existed and now it only remained to imitate it
everywhere else.
But as time passed it became obvious that
something had gone terribly wrong. Instead of
being the inspiring picture of our future, Russia
had turned into a squalid class-ridden
dictatorship.
As purge followed purge and the new rulers
allocated themselves the best of everything, the
socialist movement in the West floundered as it
sought explanations for what had gone wrong.
FLAT EARTH SOCIETY
There were those who found the idea of an
existing socialist society so attractive that
they refused to believe all the evidence to the
contrary. These were the people who wrote
glowing articles about the mechanisation of
agriculture while old Bolsheviks were being
tortured in the cellars of Stalin's secret
police.
With the upheavals in Eastern Europe most of
these Stalinists with rose-tinted spectacles have
had to start facing reality, albeit begrudgingly.
Those who still refuse to do so are no different
in attitude or degree of stupidity from the Flat
Earth Society or the fanatics of the Bermuda
Triangle.
Among those socialists who accept that something
went badly wrong (and not just in the last year
or two!), the debate continues. Why should a
revolution led by dedicated followers of Lenin
have produced an oppressive regime where workers
had no rights and bureaucrats had all the power
and privileges.
TROTSKY
Two explanations seem the most worthy of
consideration. The first, put forward by Trotsky
and his subsequent followers, comes down to this:
no amount of dedication on behalf of the
communists could offset the dreadful weight of
the material difficulties.
In such a backward country, beset by civil war on
all sides, with much of its working class
destroyed in battle, degeneration was avoidable.
Perhaps if Lenin had lived, or if Trotsky had
replaced him as the no.1 leader, things might
have been different - but it was not to be.
LENIN ...AND FATE
"Lenin certainly did not call for a dictatorship
of the party over the proletariat, even less for
that of a bureaucratised party over a decimated
proletariat. But fate - the desperate condition
of a backward country besieged by world
capitalism - led to precisely this". Tony Cliff,
Lenin, Vol.3, page 111.
"The proletariat of a backward country was fated
to accomplish the first socialist revolution.
For this historic privilege it must, according to
all the evidences, pay with a second
supplementary revolution against bureaucratic
absolutism" Trotsky, The Age of Permanent
Revolution: A Trotsky Anthology, page 278.
Thus according to the Trotskyists, it was hard
material factors such as backwardness and the
isolation of the young Bolshevik state which
resulted in the tragic degeneration of the
revolution. And don't forget "fate" - a most
unusual term for 'scientific socialists' to use.
ANARCHISTS
An alternative explanation of events in Russia is
provided by the anarchists, who see the prime
cause of the revolution's failure in the ideas of
the Bolsheviks. The anarchist argument has the
great advantage that it was not constructed to
explain events after they took place but was
formulated before and during the revolution.
Anarchists had always gone in for dire
predictions of what would happen if
revolutionaries attempted to take over the state
instead of smashing it at the first opportunity.
They understood two things: firstly, either the
working class has direct and absolute control or
some other class does; secondly, the state only
serves the needs of a minority class which seeks
to rule over the majority. No party could claim
the right to make decisions for the working
class, this would be the start of their progress
towards becoming a new ruling class.
TOLD YOU SO!!!
Forty five years before 1917, Michael Bakunin,
the leading anarchist in the International
Working Mens' Association, warned of just such a
prospect. He saw that the authoritarians would
interpret the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'
to mean their own dictatorship which "would be
the rule of scientific intellect, the most
autocratic, the most despotic, the most arrogant
and the most contemptuous of all regimes. They
will be a new class, a new hierarchy of sham
savants, and the world will be divided into a
dominant minority in the name of science, and an
immense ignorant majority" Paul Avrich, The
Russian Anarchists, page 93.
While a small minority of anarchists thought it
would be possible to co-operate with the
Bolsheviks, the majority were positive that,
though the Bolsheviks did not set out to create a
new class system, this was precisely what they
were achieving. The anarchist Sergven recorded
in 1918 that "The proletariat is being gradually
enserfed by the state. The people are being
transformed into servants over whom there has
arisen a new class of administrators - a new
class born mainly from the womb of the so-called
intelligentsia. Isn't this merely a new class
system looming on the revolutionary horizon".
Paul Avrich, The Anarchists in the Russian
Revolution, page 123
CENTRALISED POWER
And he could point a finger at the cause of this
enserfment. "We do not mean to say ...that the
Bolshevik party set out to create a new class
system But we do say that even the best
intentions and aspirations must inevitably be
smashed against the evils inherent in any system
of centralised power" Ibid page 124.
In other words, unless centralised state power is
immediately destroyed, the revolution is doomed
to create a new ruling class. Either the masses
have real power or the state does. For the
anarchists it was a case of either a federation
of workers' councils where the power came from
below or the authority of the party/state giving
orders to the masses. The two could not co-
exist.
"SCIENTIFIC" SOCIALISTS
Thus the two most plausible explanations for the
failure of the revolution are opposed to each
other. On the one hand we have the Trotskyists
who, being 'scientific socialists' see the cause
of the failure in 'material circumstances' such
as Russian backwardness, civil war and the
failure of the revolution to spread across
Europe. The Bolsheviks, had, it appears,
understood Marxism and applied it correctly and
yet were faced with events beyond their control
that conspired to defeat them. Consequently the
theory and party structure put forward by Lenin,
remain, according to this school of thought,
adequate today.
The Anarchists would agree that a revolution
can't survive for too long if isolated in the
middle of a sea of capitalism. They don't,
however, believe that this explains everything
that happened. What you end up with will be
related to what you seek and how you fight for
it. They argue that it was precisely the theory
and party structures of Bolshevism that led to
the bureaucratisation and death of the genuine
liberatory revolution.
BEING REALISTIC
Neither argument is entirely satisfying. It is
undoubtably true that the Bolsheviks had to face
very difficult conditions when they assumed
power. But according to their own mentor this
will always be the case. "...those who believe
that socialism will be built at a time of peace
and tranquillity are profoundly mistaken: it will
everywhere be built at a time of disruption, at a
time of famine. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.27
page 517.
This makes sense. Revolution, by its very
nature, involves some disruption and civil war
(though not necessarily famine). If a party
organised on Bolshevik lines cannot survive a
period of disruption without degenerating into a
bureaucratic monolith then clearly such a form of
organisation must be avoided at all costs.
GRUBBY HANDS
Some anarchists tend to oversimplify the problem
and see the Bolsheviks as setting out from day
one to become an elite of privileged rulers.
This is similarly unsatisfying. Are we really to
believe that the whole Bolshevik party were only
interested in making a revolution for the sole
purpose of getting their grubby hands on state
power so that they could make themselves into a
new ruling class?
The briefest look at what they suffered in the
Tsarist prisons, in Siberia, in exile and later
in Stalin's purges suggests that such a notion is
highly suspect! We must accept that most of them
were courageous men and women with high ideals.
WHAT POLITICS?
Nevertheless there is a great strength to the
anarchist case. It points to errors in the
theory and practice of Bolshevism itself. It
says that no matter how honest their intentions,
their politics still lead them to be objectively
opposed to the interests of the working class.
It turns our attention to the theories of those
who led Russia from workers' control to
Stalinism.
It is too often taken for granted among
socialists that we know what the Bolsheviks stood
for. Before we can understand why things went
wrong in Russia we need to know what exactly the
Bolsheviks proposed to do on coming to power,
what kind of structure they put forward, what
form they thought the revolution would take, and
what kind of society did they set out to create.
FROM LENIN'S MOUTH
It is particularly interesting to look at the
ideas of V.I.Lenin - he was the unquestioned
leader of the Bolsheviks and is still regarded as
the greatest ever socialist, after Marx, by the
vast majority of those who see themselves as
revolutionary socialists.
It can be a dangerous practice to pick quotations
for use in an article such as this. Who is to
say that they are not taken out of context. To
allow the reader to make up his/her own mind all
sources are provided so that the complete piece
can be read if desired. It is felt necessary to
use Lenin's own words lest there be an accusation
that words are being put in his mouth.
LENIN'S SOCIALISM
The starting point must be Lenin's conception of
'socialism': "When a big enterprise assumes
gigantic proportions, and, on the basis of an
exact computation of mass data, organises
according to plan the supply of raw materials to
the extent of two-thirds, or three fourths, of
all that is necessary for tens of millions of
people; when raw materials are transported in a
systematic and organised manner to the most
suitable places of production, sometimes situated
hundreds of thousands of miles from each other;
when a single centre directs all the consecutive
stages of processing the materials right up to
the manufacture of numerous varieties of finished
articles; when the products are distributed
according to a single plan among tens of millions
of customers.
"....then it becomes evident that we have
socialisation of production, and not mere
'interlocking'; that private economic and private
property relations constitute a shell which no
longer fits its contents, a shell which must
inevitably decay if its removal is artificially
delayed, a shell which may remain in a state of
decay for a fairly long period ...but which will
inevitably be removed" Lenin, Collected Works,
Vol.22, page 303.
SOCIALISM?
This is an important passage of Lenin's. What he
is describing here is the economic set-up which
he thought typical of both advanced monopoly
capitalism and socialism. Socialism was, for
Lenin, planned capitalism with the private
ownership removed.
"Capitalism has created an accounting apparatus
in the shape of the banks, syndicates, postal
service, consumers' societies, and office
employees unions. Without the big banks
socialism would be impossible.
The big banks are the "state apparatus" which we
need to bring about socialism, and which we take
ready made from capitalism; our task is merely to
lop off what characteristically mutilates this
excellent apparatus, to make it even bigger, even
more democratic, even more comprehensive.
Quantity will be transformed into quality.
"A single state bank, the biggest of the big,
with branches in every rural district, in every
factory, will constitute as much as nine-tenths
of the socialist apparatus. This will be
country-wide book-keeping, country-wide
accounting of the production and distribution of
goods, this will be, so to speak, something in
the nature of the skeleton of socialist society.
Lenin, Ibid, Vol.26 page 106.
HEY PRESTO!
This passage contains some amazing statements.
The banks have become nine-tenths of the
socialist apparatus. All we need to do is unify
them, make this single bank bigger, and "Hey
Presto", you now have your basic socialist
apparatus.
Quantity is to be transformed into quality. In
other words, as the bank gets bigger and more
powerful it changes from an instrument of
oppression into one of liberation. We are
further told that the bank will be made "even
more democratic". Not "made democratic" as we
might expect but made more so. This means that
the banks, as they exist under capitalism, are in
some way democratic. No doubt this is something
that workers in Bank of Ireland and AIB have been
unaware of.
For Lenin it was not only the banks which could
be transformed into a means for salvation.
"Socialism is merely the next step forward from
state capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words,
socialism is merely state capitalist monopoly
which is made to serve the interests of the whole
people and has to that extent ceased to be
capitalist monopoly" Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 25 page
358.
"State capitalism is a complete material
preparation for socialism, the threshold of
socialism, a rung on the ladder of history
between which and the rung called socialism there
are no immediate rungs". Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 24
page 259.
BUILDING CAPITALISM
This too is important. History is compared to a
ladder that has to be climbed. Each step is a
preparation for the next one. After state
capitalism there was only one way forward -
socialism. But it was equally true that until
capitalism had created the necessary framework,
socialism was impossible. Lenin and the
Bolshevik leadership saw their task as the
building of a state capitalist apparatus.
"...state capitalism would be a step forward as
compared with the present state of affairs in our
Soviet Republic. If in approximately six months
time state capitalism became established in our
Republic, this would be a great success and a
sure guarantee that within a year socialism will
have gained a permanently firm hold and will
become invincible in our country" Lenin, Ibid,
Vol. 27 page 294.
"While the revolution in Germany is still slow in
"coming forth", our task is to study the state
capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in
copying it and not shrink from adopting
dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of it"
Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 27 page 340.
WHAT DIFFERENCE?
The sole difference between state capitalism
under the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' and
the capitalism of other countries is that a
different class would be in control of the state,
according to Lenin's theory. But what, we are
entitled to ask, is the difference between the
two states if the working class does not control
the Soviet state, becomes in fact controlled by
it, and dictated to by it?
Anarchists have always held that the state, in
the real sense of the word, is the means by which
a minority justifies and enforces its control
over the majority.
Lenin underlined this point when in March 1918 he
told the Bolshevik Party that they must "...stand
at the head of the exhausted people who are
wearily seeking a way out and lead them along the
true path of labour discipline, along the task of
co-ordinating the task of arguing at mass
meetings about the conditions of work with the
task of unquestioningly obeying the will of the
Soviet leader, of the dictator during the work.
Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 27 page 270.
NO TIME FOR SOCIALISM!
Lenin could not accept that working class people
were more than capable of running their own
lives. He continually sought justifications for
the dictatorship of his party.
In June 1918 he informed the trade unions that
"there are many...who are not enlightened
socialists and cannot be such because they have
to slave in the factories and they have neither
the time nor the opportunity to become
socialists" Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 27 page 466.
The month previously he had written "Now power
has been siezed, retained and consolidated in the
hands of a single party, the party of the
proletariat...". Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 27 page 346.
Andrew Flood
anflood@macollamh.ucd.ie
Phone: 706(2389)