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Red & Black Revolution
A magazine of libertarian communism
Issue 1 October 1994
Produced by Workers Solidarity Movement
Freedom & Revolution
In 1922 Emma Goldman complained "Soviet
Russia, had become the modern socialist
Lourdes, to which the blind and the lame,
the deaf and the dumb were flocking for
miraculous cures"(1). The Russian
Revolution was the first occasion where
decades of revolutionary ideas could be
applied to real life. What was theory was
now practice. The struggle between the two
concepts of revolution - the statist-
centralist and the libertarian federalist -
moved from the realm of the abstract to the
concrete.
The question thrown up by the October
revolution is fundamental. Once capitalism
has been defeated, how is communism to be
achieved? While there are certainly faults
to be found with aspects of the anarchist
movement, at least it cannot be criticised
for getting the basics wrong. Anarchists
have consistently argued that freedom and
democracy are not optional extras. Rather
they form part of the conditions necessary
for the growth of communism.
What is socialism?
How does one create a communist society?
The answer lies in our conception of
socialism. What is meant by 'socialism'?
The classic definition is that of society
run according to the dictum "from each
according to his/her ability, to each
according to his/her needs". To
anarchists, material equality is one
dimension to socialism, but there is
another of equal importance, that of
freedom.
The world has enough wealth to provide for
all our material comforts. Socialism seeks
to liberate people from the constant
worries about mortgages or landlords, the
rising cost of living and the numerous
other issues, trivial yet vital that grind
us down in our daily life. What's more,
socialism must also give us the power to
control our own lives, power to take
control of our own destinies.
For our entire lives, from school to the
workplace, we are forced to obey somebody
else's order, treated like children or bits
of machinery. Human beings have great
potential but for most of us, only in a
socialist society, will this potential be
realised.
So though socialism is about material
equality it is also about freedom.
Furthermore it is impossible to maintain
one without the other. As long as power is
distributed unequally, a section of society
will continue to have privileges leading to
material advantage. Ultimately society
will again be divided into classes, into
those who have and those who have not.
Furthermore the experience of those
attempts to manage the economy through an
undemocratic centralised state has also
shown that it is unfeasible to manage and
control a complex system without democracy
and accountability.
The revolution must achieve a number of
things. It must defeat the ruling class,
removing from them their economic and
political dominance. In place of the
bosses, the working class must in every
sphere of activity make the decisions that
ultimately affect them; in factories,
communities, schools, universities,
newspapers, television and film studios.
This is the sort of society that is worth
fighting for. However it not the sort of
society that can be achieved through the
dictatorship of a minority over the
majority. Even some Marxists such as Rosa
Luxembourg recognised this. She said,
"Socialist practice demands a total
spiritual transformation in the masses
degraded by centuries of bourgeois class
rule. Social instincts in place of
egoistic ones, mass initiative in place of
inertia, idealism which overcomes all
suffering, etc. etc.... The only way to a
rebirth is the school of public life
itself, the broadest and the most unlimited
democracy, and public opinion. It is rule
by terror which demoralises."1
The questions that face us are: what does
revolution mean? Once capitalism has been
overthrown how is society to be run? Who
will control the factories, how will
production be managed? How will the
population be fed, how will the economy be
organised? And finally, how will the
revolution be defended against opposition
and its survival ensured? If communism is
to become a reality, answers must be found.
1.Who's in charge?...running
the revolution.
On midnight 25/26th of October, the
Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC),
following the directions of the Petrograd
Soviet (workers council), started the
confused process of seizing the Winter
Palace where Kerensky's cabinet was in
session. The October Revolution had taken
place. In contrast to the dramatic
portrayal of the storming of the winter
place by the Soviet film maker Eisenstien,
there was practically no opposition to the
take-over and hardly any bloodshed. Sergei
Mstislavskii, a leader of the Left SR's
(peasant-based party which briefly entered
a coalition with the Bolsheviks) describes
being woken up on the morning of the 25th
by the "cheerful tapping of rifles....
'Gird up your loins boss. There's a smell
of gunpowder in the city..' Actually, the
city did not smell of gunpowder; power lay
in the gutter, anyone could pick it up.
One did not have to gird one's loins, one
needed only to stoop down and pick it
up"(2)
The Bolshevik Myth is that the Bolsheviks,
under the logical and scientific leadership
of Lenin, guided the revolution over hurdle
after hurdle. They argue that objective
circumstances forced them to make difficult
but ultimately correct decisions.
Descriptions of the revolution like the
following passage are frequently found:
"the bolsheviks..in the hour of crisis put
aside all their indignation at the
governmental persecutions and concentrated
on the task of saving the revolution. The
victory before the gates of Petrograd set
free the energies of the masses throughout
the country. Peasants revolted against
their landlords, and in far-away industrial
centres Soviets took power. The decisive
hour was approaching. Would there be a
force capable of directing the chaotic mass
movements into one channel towards the
correct aim?"(3)
Here it is implied that without the
Bolshevik leadership the revolution would
not have happened. The masses are
portrayed as incapable of running a new
society. The creative ability of the
working class to build a new society is not
present in the Leninist conception of a
working class capable of only 'trade union
consciousness'. The October Revolution was
"not really so much a bold stroke by the
Bolsheviks under Lenin as is it was a
culmination of months of progressive social
revolution throughout the country, The
ubiquitous growth of peasants and workers'
committees and soviets sapped the power
from the hands of Kerensky and the
bourgeois provincial government, which
surrendered without a fight as it's
capacity to govern had completely
dissolved"(4).
Bourgeois Democracy.
After the October Revolution, the Second
Congress of Soviets elected an interim
government (the Sovnarkom), pending the
holding of elections to the Constituent
Assembly. This provisional government on
the 3rd of March undertook in a solemn
declaration to summon a Constituent
Assembly. Following elections the SR's had
an overall majority, with the Bolsheviks
winning only 175 out of the 707 seats.
It is with the decision to call for
elections to the Constituent Assembly that
the anarchists first diverged from the
Bolsheviks. What lead them to take this
decision and why did anarchists oppose it?
The western model of parliamentary
democracy could more accurately be
characterised as a '4-year dictatorship'.
The crucial difference between
'representative' democracy and 'direct'
democracy is that under the former, voters
have no part in deciding policy and are
unable to recall their representatives.
Instead they have nothing more than the
illusion that by voting they are in some
way able to control the political process.
Once power lay in the hands of the Soviets,
the Constituent Assembly became a redundant
institution. Here was a country where
control had been finally wrenched from the
ruling class and was organised in the hands
of the workers. The Bolsheviks decision to
call for new elections was a step
backwards. In terms of fighting for
socialism, it made no sense to be
supporting the authority of the Constituent
Assembly over that of the masses. As
anarchists said shortly afterwards:
"To continue the Revolution and transform
it into a social revolution, the Anarchists
saw no utility in calling such an assembly,
an institution essentially political and
bourgeoisie, cumbersome and sterile, an
institution which, by its very nature,
placed itself 'above the social struggles'
and concerned itself only, by means of
dangerous compromises, with stopping the
revolution, and even suppressing it if
possible.....so the Anarchists tried to
make known to the masses the uselessness of
the Constituent Assembly, and the necessity
of going beyond it and replacing it at once
with economic and social organisations, if
they really wanted to begin a social
revolution
.........We believe, in fact, that in a
time of social revolution, what is
important for the workers is for them to
organise their new life themselves, from
the bottom, and with the help of their
immediate economic organisations, and not
from above, by means of an authoritarian
political centre"(5)
The party
One of the main differences between the
anarchist and the Leninist tendency is in
their differing attitudes to power and
control. While both agree that the
revolution should be made by the working
class, they disagree on who hold the reigns
of power afterwards. Leninists believe it
is the job of the party to exercise control
of society on behalf of the ruling class
and like a parent, the party interprets
what the best interests of the working
class are. In contrast, anarchists believe
that it is the working class who should run
society, making and implementing decisions
from the bottom up, through a system of
organisations similar to the factory
committees and the soviets.
Often Leninists will counter this argument
by saying, the party is made up of the
best elements, the vanguard, of the working
class. Although at the time of October the
Bolsheviks were the largest working class
party this was because of what they claimed
to stand for ("All power to the soviets"
etc.). There were still many advanced
workers outside the party, so even then the
'vanguard' and the party were not
identical. In the years that followed as
the party came to be increasingly composed
of bureaucrats, the advanced workers were
often as not in opposition. The mistake
the Leninists make is to assume October
froze the 'vanguard' in one organisation
for all time.
Leninists and anarchists agree that, unlike
most others in the working class, they have
both an analysis of how society works and
practical experience drawn from involvement
in struggles. These are the tools needed
to effect a complete transformation of
society. However anarchism and Leninism
diverge on the ability of the working class
to run society. They have differing
estimations of how aware the working class
are of their revolutionary potential.
Anarchists believe that it is possible to
convince the mass of the working class of
our ideas. In contrast, Lenin said that
most workers are capable only of "trade
union consciousness". Naturally therefore,
Leninists believe that since the working
class is sensible only to its short term
interests, it is vital that the Leninists
are in power, in order for the revolution
to suceed.
It was this line of thinking that led the
Bolsheviks to initially call for elections
to the Constituent Assembly and then, once
it had been held, to call for its
dissolution, as Alexander Berkman commented
in 1921;
"They (the Bolsheviks) had advocated the
Constituent Assembly, and only when they
were convinced they could not have a
majority there, and therefore not be able
to take state power into their own hands,
they suddenly decided on the dissolution of
the assembly"
Lenin, in a signed Pravda article published
on 22 December 1918, quoted approvingly
from Plekhanov's speech at the Second
RSDRP(6) Congress in 1903;
"If in a burst of enthusiasm the people
elected a very good parliament...then we
ought to make it a very long parliament and
if the elections have not proved a success,
then we should seek to disperse parliament
not after two years but, if possible, after
two weeks."(7)
Their opposition wasn't based, unlike the
anarchists, on the essentially anti-
democratic nature of the Constituent
Assembly, instead it was on whether or not
the Bolsheviks were the controlling force.
In a revolutionary situation the anarchists
are alone in arguing that society should be
organised from the bottom up, through a
freely federated system of workers'
councils. Decisions should be taken at the
lowest possible level. Delegates are
elected solely to represent the view of
those who elected them, receive no more pay
than the average worker, may act as a
delegate for only a fixed amount of time
and are recallable. If the working class
has the power to overthrow capitalism, it
certainly is capable of organising a
socialist society afterwards.
2. Fighting the
Counter Revolution
Once the capitalist power structure has
been dismantled, the next immediate issue
on the revolutionaries' agenda is to ensure
the defence of the revolution while also
fostering its growth. It is a mistake to
characterise revolutions as inherently
bloody. In the October Revolution itself
there were only 500 casualties. Many were
surprised by the speed and ease with which
the eastern European regimes fell in the
1980's. Similarly the dictatorship was
bloodlessly toppled in Portugal in 1974.
Bloodbaths, such as those which occurred
following the Paris Commune, Chile in 1973
or Indonesia in 1965(8), are products of
failed revolutions or more accurately,
successful counter revolutions.
There is likely to be violent opposition to
any attempt by the working classes to take
power from the bosses. After all, the
masses have everything to gain while the
minority ruling class have everything to
lose. The danger this poses depends on the
relative strength of the bosses' reaction.
However, whether the threat is large or
small, it will be necessary to physically
defend the revolution from opposition, both
internally and externally.
This raises a number of issues. The corner
stone of any justical system is access to
open and fair trials, a full appeal process
and sentence proportional to the gravity of
the crime. While these are easily
attainable in peace, in war, particularly
civil war, curtailment of rights and civil
liberties are more likely to occur. This
should not be glorified (as Lenin tended to
do), short term expediency is likely to
lead to long term damage. The questions
revolutionaries must ask is, are our
actions necessary and 'objectively
unavoidable' or can they be avoided?
Furthermore, what effect will they have on
the process of introducing socialism?
Again, the answer given will depend on what
socialism is considered to be.
The Secret Police
Only two months after the revolution (well
before the start of the civil war) a secret
police force known as the Cheka was
founded, initially to inherit the security
functions of the MRC(9). There were no
external controls on its operation. No
judicial process was involved in assessing
the guilt or innocence of any of its
prisoners. Punishments, including the
death penalty, were arbitrarily applied.The
Cheka was meant to be a temporary
organisation, at first it was an
administrative body designed to carry out
investigative functions. It was not
initially judicial and had no powers of
arrest, however it grew up quickly. Nine
days after its birth, it was granted the
power of arrest. In January 1918 it was
being assigned armed units, in February it
was granted the power of summary trials and
execution of sentences (which included the
death sentence). At the end of 1917 it had
23 personnel, by mid 1918 it had over
10,000.
The Cheka was a police force. The role of
a police force is to defend the interests
of a ruling minority. These days the
government will always defend the actions
of the police, seen for example in the
whitewashing of police involved in the
Birmingham Six case in England. The same
was true of the Bolshevik party's
relationship to the Cheka. This is Lenin
speaking to a rally of Chekists on 7th
November 1918.
"It is not at all surprising to hear the
Chekist's activities frequently attacked by
friends as well as enemies. We have taken a
hard job. When we took over the government
of the country, we naturally made many
mistakes, and it is only natural that the
mistakes of the Extraordinary Commissions
[the Cheka] strike the eye most. The
narrow-minded intellectual fastens on these
mistakes without trying to get to the root
of the matter. What does surprise me in
all these outcries about the Cheka's
mistakes is the manifest inability to put
the question on a broad footing. People
harp on individual mistakes the Chekas
made, and raise a hue and cry about them.
We, however, say that we learn from our
mistakes...When I consider its activities
and see how they are attacked, I say this
is all narrow minded and futile
talk....What is important for us is that
the Chekas are implementing the
dictatorship of the proletariat, and in
this respect their role is invaluable.
There is no other way to liberate the
masses except by crushing the exploiters by
violence."
The quote begs quite a few questions; what
are the mistakes being talked about? What
has been learnt from these mistakes? And
was the Cheka activity aimed solely at the
old ruling class?
Revolutionary Terror
The Bolshevik policy of Red Terror began
shortly after the beginning of the Civil
War in the summer of 1918, and was mirrored
by the White Terror. The policy promoted
the use of mass execution and fear as a
tactic to be implemented ruthlessly. Acts
of violence, rather than being viewed as
regrettable and destructive were glorified.
Latsis, the head of the Cheka on the
Eastern front, wrote "In civil war there
are no courts of law for the enemy. It is
a life or death struggle. If you do not
kill, you will be killed. Therefore kill,
that you may not be killed."(10) . The
paper of the Red Army wrote after an
assassination attempt against Lenin;
"Without mercy, without sparing, we will
kill our enemies in scores of hundreds.
Let them be thousands, let them drown
themselves in their own blood. For the
blood of Lenin and Uritskii...let there be
floods of blood of the bourgeois - more
blood, as much as possible."(11) It's hard
to see what this frenzied call for
destruction and retribution could
contribute to the task of building a new
and freer society.
Collective punishments, categorical
punishments, torture, hostage taking and
random punishments - aimed at providing
lessons - were all applied in the name of
the revolution. Categorical punishments
were punishments based not on what someone
actually did, but on what class or
political background they belonged to. On
the 3rd of September 1918, Ivestia
announced that over 500 hostages had been
shot by the Petrograd Cheka, these were
people convicted not because they had
committed a crime but because they were
unfortunate enough to come from the wrong
background.
There are two interpretations that may be
applied to the use of revolutionary terror;
on the one hand, it may be aimed against
counter-revolution, on the other it may be
used to compensate for the regimes
declining popularity. As Emma Goldman
wrote in 1922, "..an insignificant minority
bent on creating an absolute State is
necessarily driven to oppression and
terrorism"(12). The policy of
revolutionary terror is in direct
opposition to obtaining mass participation
in the running of the society. While these
tactics certainly consolidated the
Bolshevik's power base, they undermined the
socialism the revolution had been about in
the first palace.
In the countryside the Bolsheviks became
the 'occupying army' instead of the
'liberating army', alienating the very
population they should have been trying to
convince. Terror is a doubled edged sword,
it may be expedient but its use also
discredits any regimes claim to fairness.
Furthermore as Malatesta the Italian
anarchist wrote in 1919 "Even Bonaparte
helped defend the French Revolution against
the European reaction, but in defending it
he strangled it. Lenin, Trotsky and
comrades are certainly sincere
revolutionaries, and they will not betray
what they take as revolution, but they are
preparing the governmental apparatus which
will help those who follow them to profit
by the revolution and destroy it. They
will be the first victims of their methods,
and with them, I fear, the revolution will
collapse. History repeats itself, mutatis
mutandis: and the dictatorship of
Robespierre brought Robespierre to the
guillotine and prepared the way for
Napoleon."(13) Perhaps Trotsky should
have heeded Malatesta's words.
The Death Penalty
One of the first acts of the 2nd Congress
of Soviets in October was the repeal of the
death penalty that had been introduced by
Kerensky. This was restored on the 16th
June 1918. On 17th January 1920, The
Bolshevik government abolished the death
penalty except in districts where there
were military operations taking place. To
circumvent this order, the Cheka routinely
transferred prisoners to the military areas
for execution. In the following passage,
the Bolshevik Victor Serge, describes how
the Chekas reacted to the abolition of the
death penalty
"while the newspapers were printing the
decree, the Petrograd Chekas were
liquidating their stock! Cartload after
cartload of suspects had been driven
outside the city during the night, and then
shot, heap upon heap. How many? In
Petrograd between 150 and 200; in Moscow it
was said between 200 and 300."(14)
Neither of these actions can be justified
by the necessities of civil war as they
occurred well behind friendly lines. Nor
were these actions the product of random
events, they weren't mistakes, rather, as
explained above, they were part of the
policy of revolutionary terror
The Anarchists
On the 11th December Cheka and Lettish
troops surrounded 26 anarchist strongholds
in Moscow. The anarchists suffered 40
casualties and 500 were taken prisoner. On
the 26th April similar raids were carried
out in Petrograd. At this stage
Dzershinsky (head of the Cheka) justified
his action on the grounds that the
anarchists had been preparing an
insurrection and that in any event, most of
those arrested proved to be criminal riff
raff. He stressed that the Cheka had
neither the mandate nor the desire to wage
war on "ideological anarchists". Yet
documents(15) dating from the 13th June
outlined that the department for counter
revolution investigative section and
intelligence unit had sections allocated to
dealing with anarchists. The fact that
'ideological' Anarchists were under Cheka
surveillance gives lie to the Bolshevik
claim that they were only opposed to a
'criminal' element within the anarchist
movement rather than anarchism itself.
While Leon Trotsky was saying in July 1921
"We do not imprison real anarchists. Those
whom we hold in prison are not anarchists,
but criminals and bandits who cover
themselves up by claiming to be
anarchists"(16), 13 anarchists were on
hungerstrike in Moscow. Fortunately a
French Syndicalist trade union delegation
in the city heard of their plight and the
prisoners were released (all but three were
expelled from the USSR). Not so lucky was
Fanyan Baron, a young anarchist woman, shot
without trial, along with several others,
on trumped up charges of counterfeiting
Soviet bank notes (it was later proven that
the counterfeiting was done by the Cheka
itself). Unlucky also were the 30 or 40
anarchists living near Zhmirink who
according to the soviet press in 1921 had
been "discovered and liquidated". The last
great mobilisation of anarchists occurred
at the funeral of Kroptkin in February 1921
when 20,000 marched with placards and
banners demanding, among other things, the
release of anarchists from prison. From
then on the suppression of anarchists
became thorough and complete.
While there was opposition to the Cheka
abuses from within the Bolshevik party,
there was no institutional attempt to
change its mode of operation. In any
organisation, there is both a human and a
structural element. Perhaps it could be
argued that the abuses of Cheka were due to
individual mistakes. If individuals are
given unlimited power, including power over
life and death, with no accountability,
it's inevitable that a measure of excess
and corruption will occur. Where this
occurs it is up to the revolutionary
organisation to make changes to prevent the
same mistakes from being repeated. This is
not what the Bolshevik party did. They
continued to entrust individuals with
unchecked power. They did not make any
structural changes to the Cheka. Instead
they occasionally rooted out the rotten
human element, closing down certain
branches, while leaving the edifice that
engendered these abuses untouched.
Emma Goldman said, on escaping from Russia
in 1921, "I have never denied that violence
is inevitable, nor do I gainsay it now.
Yet it is one thing to employ violence in
combat as a means of defence. It is quite
another to make a principle of terrorism,
to institutionalise it, to assign it the
most vital place in the social struggle.
Such terrorism begets counter-revolution
and in turn becomes counter-
revolutionary."(17)
3. Defending the revolution
The other side to defending the revolution
is that of defending it from outside
military attack. Here there are two forms
of organisation open to the revolutionary;
employing either a conventional military
army or employing a militia. Again the
Russian Revolution provides a concrete
example, though initially a militia
structure was adopted, by 1918 the
conventional army structures had returned.
The difference between the two is not, as
is so often stated, one of efficiency or
organisation (with the army being
characterised as organised, while the
militia is characterised as chaotic). The
difference between the two is one of
democracy.
Following the Brest-Litovsk treaty, Trotsky
as Commissar of Military Affairs set about
reorganising the army. The death penalty
for disobedience under fire was
reintroduced, as was saluting officers,
special forms of address, separate living
quarters and privileges for officers.
Officers were no longer elected. Trotsky
wrote "The elective basis is politically
pointless and technically inexpedient and
has already been set aside by decree"(18).
Why did Bolsheviks feel there was a need to
reintroduce military discipline? Why then
was there a need for military discipline in
Russia 1917 but not in the anarchist front
lines in Spain in 1936?
The conventional army structure evolved
when feudal kings or capitalist governments
required the working class to fight its
wars for them. These had to be
authoritarian institutions, because
although propaganda and jingoism can play a
part initially in encouraging enlistment,
the horrors of war soon expose the futility
of nationalism. A large part of military
organisation is aimed at ensuring that
soldiers remain fighting for causes they do
not necessarily believe in. Military
discipline attempts to create an
unthinking, unquestioning body of soldiers,
as fearful of their own side as of the
other.
But, there is another way of organising
armies, that of the Militia. The only
difference between the two is that in
Militias, officers and generals are
elected, and soldiers fighting are fighting
out of choice rather than fear. This
structure removes the necessity for the
creation of a division between officers and
soldiers that is reinforced artificially by
measures such as saluting and differential
privileges. These measures are no longer
necessary because there is no need to
frighten or order soldiers to fight when
they believe in the cause they are about to
risk their lives for. There are many
examples of militias successfully
operating; the Boers fought with a
volunteer army against the British. During
the Spanish Revolution of 1936, militias in
Anarchist controlled areas fought Franco.
In 1936 the CNT declared:
"We cannot defend the existence of nor see
the need for, a regular army, uniformed and
conscripted. This army must be replaced by
the popular militias, by the People in
Arms, the only guarantee that freedom will
be defended with enthusiasm and that no new
conspiracies will be hatched from the
shadows"(19).
Over the four years 1918-1921 the anarchist
Makhno commanded militias who fought
against the forces of the Hetman, White
Generals Denikin and Wrangel, nationalists
like Petliura and Grigor'ev and, of course,
the Bolsheviks in the Ukraine. At its
height it had 30,000 volunteer combatants
under arms. Makhno and his commanders won
against odds of 30:1 and more, on occasion.
The insurgent army was a democratic
military formation. Its recruits were
volunteers drawn from peasants and workers.
Its officers were elected and codes of
discipline were worked out democratically.
Officers could be, and were, recalled by
their troops if they acted
undemocratically.
Those supporting conventional army
structures argue that they are necessary
because without them, in the heat of
battle, soldiers will turn and rout.
History has shown that people will give
their lives in defence of a cause if it is
great enough and if they believe in it.
Of course there are many more examples of
operation of conventional military armies
(W.W.I, W.W.II., Vietnam etc. etc.). These
were conflicts where it was not necessary
to obtain the consent of soldiers. The
role of military discipline is to prevent
conscripts from mutineering when faced with
the horror of wars in which they had no
interest in fighting. These were conflicts
where human life was lost in great numbers.
The generals directing the war effort were
able to make mistake after mistake, wasting
lives, with no accountability (see any
military history of the Battle of the
Somme, Galipoli, etc.). These many
examples give lie to the excuse that it is
more efficient and that it is necessary, to
organise along authoritarian lines. The
function of hierarchies of rank and
decision making is to ensure that the power
of an army is directed and controlled by a
minority.
4. Factories in Revolution
After the revolution there were two choices
available to those running the economy,
either to organise production in the hands
of the state or in the hands of the
workers. In order to achieve the former
the Bolsheviks had to move against the
latter. The factory committees were groups
of workers elected at most factories
before, during and after the October
revolution. The delegates to these
committees were mandatable and recallable.
They were elected initially to prevent the
individual bosses from sabotaging
equipment. They quickly expanded their
scope to cover the complete administration
of the workplace and displaced the
individual managers. As each workplace
relied on many others, to supply raw
materials, for energy and to transport
their products, the Factory Committees
tried to federate in November 1917.
They were prevented from doing so by the
Bolsheviks through the trade union
bureaucracy. The planned 'All Russian
Congress of Factory Committees' never took
place. Instead the Bolshevik party decided
to set up the 'All Russian Council of
Workers Control' with only 25% of the
delegates coming from the factory
committees. In this way the creative energy
of Russian workers, co-ordinated outside
Bolshevik control, was blocked in favour of
an organisation the party could control.
This body was in itself stillborn, it only
met once. It was soon absorbed by the
Supreme Economic Council set up in November
1917 which was attached to the Council of
Peoples Commissars, itself made up of
Bolshevik party members.
In November 1917 Golas Truada (the
official organ of the Union for Anarchist
Propaganda) warned:
"Once their power is consolidated and
'legalised', the Bolsheviks who are Social
Democrats, that is, men of centralist and
authoritarian action will begin to
rearrange the life of the country and of
the people by governmental and dictatorial
methods, imposed by the centre. Their seat
in Petrograd will dictate the will of the
party to all Russia, and command the whole
nation. Your Soviets and your other local
organisations will become little by little,
simply executive organs of the will of the
central government. In the place of
health, constructive work by the labouring
masses, in place of free unification from
the bottom, we will see the installation of
an authoritarian and statist apparatus
which would act from above and set about
wiping out everything that stood in its way
with an iron hand."
This is indeed what happened. The factory
committees were merged with the Bolshevik
controlled Trade Union movement. In a
decree in March 1918 workers' control was
supposed to return to the conception of
monitoring and inspection rather than
management, "in nationalised enterprises,
worker's control is exercised by submitting
all declarations or decisions of the
Factory or shop committee.. to the Economic
Administrative Council for approval....Not
more than half the members of the
administrative council should be workers or
employees." Also in March 1918, Lenin
began to campaign in favour of one-man
management of industry. In 1919, 10.8% of
enterprises were under one-man management,
by December 1920, 2,183 out of 2,483
factories were no longer under collective
management.
Control of the Economy
So within a few short months of October,
the Bolsheviks had taken control of the
economy out of the hands of the working
class and into the hands of the Bolshevik
party. This was before the civil war, at a
time when the workers had showen themselves
capable of making a revolution but
according to the Bolsheviks, incapable of
running the economy. The basis of the
Bolshevik attack on the factory committees
was simple, the Bolsheviks wanted the
factories to be owned and managed by the
state, whereas the factory committees
wanted the factories to be owned and
managed by the workers. One Bolshevik
described the factory committee's attitude:
"We found a process which recalled the
anarchist dreams of autonomous productive
communes".
Partly they did this to remove the threat
of any opposition to Bolshevik rule, but
partly, these decisions were a result of
the Bolshevik political perspective. These
policy decisions were not imposed on them
by external objective factors such as the
civil war. With or without the civil war
their strategic decisions would have been
the same, because they arise out of the
Leninist conception of what socialism is
and what workers control means. Their
understanding of what socialism means is
very different from the anarchist
definition. At the root of this difference
is the importance given to the "relations
of production". In other words the
importance of the relationship between
those who produce the wealth and those who
manage its production. In all class
societies, the producer is subordinate and
separate from those who manage production.
The workplace is divided into the boss and
the workers. The abolition of the division
in society between 'order-givers' and
'order-takers' is integral to the Anarchist
idea of socialism, but is unimportant to
the Leninist.
The phrase "workers control of the means of
production" is often used. Unfortunately
it represents different things to different
tendencies. To the anarchist it means that
workers must have complete control over
every aspect of production. There must be
workplace democracy. They must have the
power to make decisions affecting them and
their factory, including hours worked,
amount of goods manufactured, who to
exchange with. As Maurice Brinton, author
of "The Bolsheviks and Workers Control"
explains:
"Workers management of production -
implying as it does the total domination of
the producer over the productive process -
is not for us a marginal matter. It is the
core of our politics. It is the only means
whereby authoritarian (order-giving, order-
taking) relations in production can be
transcended, and a free, communist or
anarchist, society introduced. We also
hold that the means of production may
change hands (passing for instance from
private hands into those of a bureaucracy,
collectively owning them) without this
revolutionising the relations of
production. Under such circumstances - and
whatever the formal status of property -
the society is still a class society, for
production is still managed by an agency
other than the producers themselves"(20)
In contrast, the Leninist idea of socialism
has more to do with the nationalisation of
industry or State Capitalism than the
creation of a society in which workers have
control over their own labour power.
In "Can the Bolsheviks retain State Power?"
Lenin outlined his conception of 'workers
control':
"When we say workers control, always
associating that slogan to the dictatorship
of the proletariat, and always putting it
after the latter, we thereby make plain
what state we have in mind.. if it is a
proletarian state we are referring to (i.e.
dictatorship of the proletariat) then
workers control can become a national, all-
embracing, omnipresent, extremely precise
and extremely scrupulous accounting
(emphasis in the original) of the
production and distribution of goods." By
'accounting' Lenin meant the power to
oversee the books, to check the
implementation of decisions made by others,
rather than fundamental decision making.
The Bolsheviks saw only the necessity for
creating the objective conditions for
socialism. That is, without a certain
level of wealth in society, it is
impossible to introduce all those things
that socialism requires; free healthcare,
housing, education and the right to work.
Lenin said "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 "(21) or also "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 gaps"(22).
The introduction of Taylorism and one man
management in the factories in 1918 and
1919 displays a fixation with efficiency
and productivity at the expense of workers'
rights. They didn't see that without
control over your own working life, you
remain a cog in someone else's wheel.
Workers' democracy at the point of
production is as important as material
wellbeing is to the creation of a socialist
society.
However, there is yet another problem with
the Bolshevik vision of a planned economy.
The Bolsheviks thought centralising the
economy under state control would bring to
an end the chaos of capitalistic economies.
Unfortunately they didn't consider that
centralisation without free exchange of
information leads to its own disasters.
The bureaucratic mistakes of Stalin and Mao
are legendary. Under Mao, the sparrows of
China were brought to the brink of
extinction to prevent them from eating the
crops. Unfortunately this led to an
explosion in the insect population
(previously the sparrows ate the insects so
keeping the numbers down) and resultant
destruction of the harvest. In Russia huge
unusable nuts and bolts were manufactured
so quotas could be met. Industrial
democracy did not exist. Plans were
imposed on the population. It was not
possible to question or criticise. Any
opposition to the state was counter
revolutionary, no matter how stupid or
blind the state decisions were. Only with
workers democracy can there be free
exchange of ideas and information.
Planning an economy in ignorance is like
playing football blind, difficult if not
impossible to do successfully. In short,
it was bad politics, perhaps motivated by
wishful thinking, that led the Bolsheviks
to believe that holding the reins of state
power could possibly be a short cut to
socialism.
5. Learning the
lessons of history
What unites all Leninist traditions
(Stalinism, Maoism, Trotskyism) against the
anarchists is their defence of the
Bolsheviks in the period 1917-1921. It is
this Bolshevik blueprint which they seek to
recreate. The reasons variously given for
the collapse of the revolution are the
backwardness of Russia (either industrially
or socially), the Civil War and the
isolation of Russia. What Leninists argue
is that the fault didn't lie with the
politics of the Bolsheviks or with the
policies they implemented but rather with
conditions that were beyond their control.
Even those who were critical of the
Bolsheviks suppression of democracy, such
as Victor Serge and the Workers Opposition
group, ultimately defended the Bolsheviks'
position. Their argument is that without
the measures the Bolsheviks took, the
revolution would have fallen to a White
reaction and a return to the monarchy.
Our argument is that no matter what the
objective factors were or will be, the
Bolshevik route always and inevitably leads
to the death of the revolution. More than
this, defeat by revolutionaries is much
worse than defeat by the Whites, for it
brings the entire revolutionary project
into disrepute. For seventy years
socialism could easily be equated with
prison camps and dictatorship. The Soviet
Union became the threat of a bad example.
Socialists found themselves defending the
indefensible. Countless revolutions were
squandered and lost to Leninism and its
heir, Stalinism.
Freedom and utopia
In the following passage Engels outlines
how revolution will lead to mankind's
freedom;
"Proletarian Revolution - [is the] solution
of the contradictions [of capitalism]. The
proletariat seizes the public power, and by
means of this transforms the socialised
means of production, slipping from the
hands of the bourgeoisie, into public
property. By this act the proletariat
frees the means of production from the
character of capital they have thus far
borne and gives their socialist character
complete freedom to work itself out.
Socialised production upon a predetermined
plan becomes henceforth possible. The
development of production makes the
existence of different classes in society
henceforth an anachronism. In proportion
anarchy [chaos] in social production
vanishes, the political authority of the
state dies out. Man, at last the master of
his own form of organisation, becomes at
the same time lord over nature, his own
master - free".(23)
In power, the Bolsheviks followed this
program. They centralised production,
removing from it 'the character of
capital', yet the existence of different
classes did not die out. Bolshevik party
officials got better rations, accommodation
and privileges. In time they were able to
transfer their privileges to their
offspring, acting just as the ruling class
in the West. Chaos in social production
didn't vanish, chaos in Stalin's time led
to famine. The political authority of the
state did not die out and the soviet people
were not free.
The 'character of capital' is not the only
force underpinning the structure in
society. Power relations also have a part
to play, and contrary to Engel's
assumptions, power does not only come from
ownership of capital. The members of the
central committee may not have owned the
deeds to the factories per se but they were
in charge.
Freedom isn't just a goal, a noble end to
be achieved but rather a necessary part of
the process of creating socialism.
Anarchists are often accused of being
'utopian'. Beliefs are utopian if
subjective ideas are not grounded in
objective reality. Anarchists hold that
part of the subjective conditions required
before socialism can exist is the existence
of free exchange of ideas and democracy.
To believe that revolution is possible
without freedom, to believe those in power
can, through their best and genuine
intentions, impose socialism from above, as
the Bolsheviks did, is indeed utopian. As
Sam Faber puts it in Before Stalinism:
"determinism's characteristic and systemic
failure is to understand that what the
masses of people do and think politically
is as much part of the process determining
the outcome of history as are the objective
obstacles that most definitely limit
peoples' choices"(24)
The received wisdom is that there was no
alternative open to the Bolsheviks. The
Bolsheviks could have followed a more
democratic route, but they chose not to.
They were in the minority and their goal
was to have absolute power. Their failure
to understand that socialism and democracy
are part of the same process destroyed the
prospect for socialism in the Soviet Union.
Next time there are revolutionary upheavals
in society, it is to be hoped that the
revolutionary potential of the working
class will not be so squandered.
Leaving the last word to Alexander Berkman;
"No revolution has yet tried the true way
of liberty. None has had sufficient faith
in it. Force and suppression,
persecutionn, revenge, and terror have
characterised all revolutions in the past
and have thereby defeated their original
aims. The time has come to try new
methods, new ways. The social revolution
is to achieve the emancipation of man
through liberty, but if we have no faith in
the latter, revolution becomes a denial and
betrayal of itself."(25)
Footnotes
1 Rosa Luxemburg, The Russian Revolution,
(1918)
2 Sergei Mstislavskii, Five Days which
Transformed Russia, (1923)
3 Paul Frolich in his book Rosa Luxemburg ,
(1933)
4 Maurice Brinton, The Bolsheviks and
Workers Control, (1970)
5 Voline, The Unknown Revolution, (1953)
6 The RSDLP was the name of the party that
was to split into the Bolsheviks and the
Mensheviks.
7 George Leggett, The Cheka, Lenins
Political Police , (1981)
8 Where the US Government aided in the
massacre of over half a million Communist
Party supporters.
9 Military Revolutionary Committee. This
group was initially set up by the Executive
Committee of the Petrograd Soviet on the
12th Oct 1917 to organise for the October
revolution. After the revolution the newly
formed Second Congress of Soviets elected
two interim bodies; the Sovnarkom (the
government) composed only of Bolsheviks and
the VTsLK (a legislative body). The
Sovnarkom transferred the functions of the
MRC to the Cheka.
10 George Leggett, The Cheka, Lenins
Political Police , (1981)
11 George Leggett, The Cheka, Lenins
Political Police , (1981)
12 Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment with
Russia, (1922)
13 For Anarchism, edited by David Goodway,
(1989),pp73
14 Samuel Farber, Before Stalinism, the
rise and fall of Soviet democracy, (1990)
15 George Leggett, The Cheka, Lenins
Political Police , (1981) p40
16 quoted by Voline, The Unknown
Revolution, (1953)
17 Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment with
Russia, (1922)
18 Leon Trotsky, Work, Discipline, Order,
pp171-172
19 Vernon Richards, Lessons of the Soanish
Revolution, (1983)
20 Maurice Brinton, The Bolsheviks and
Workers Control, (1970)
21 Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25 page 358
22 Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24 page 259
23 Engles, Socialism - Utopian and
Scientific, (1880)
24 Sam Faber, Before Stalinism, pp198
25 Alexander Berkman, ABC of Anarchism,
(1929)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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