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Title: Beware the Bolsheviks
Author: Damian Lawlor
Date: January 1998
Language: en
Topics: anti-Bolshevism, Russian Revolution, Workers Solidarity
Source: http://struggle.ws/ws98/ws53_bolshevik.html
Notes: This article is from Workers Solidarity No 53

Damian Lawlor

Beware the Bolsheviks

IN 1922, after seeing the product of the Russian revolution first hand,

the anarchist Emma Goldman described how "Soviet Russia had become the

modern socialist Lourdes". Eighty years after the revolution in Russia a

reflection on that period has more than just historical value. Many left

wing organisations still hold up this era as the model for future

revolution. In order to challenge this Bolshevik conception of

organisation and revolution we look at what the consequences of this

model were.

The Bolsheviks organised as a vanguard party, which intended to lead the

revolution. This structure led to particular outcomes and a look at the

'hidden' history of the Russian Revolution illustrates this. Lenin, in

his book 'State and Revolution', talks of a society where every cook

shall govern.

But in reality the Party, in its capacity of leader of the revolution,

was governing. By November 9th 1917 a soviet (committee of elected

workers' delegates) in the Peoples Commissariat of Posts & Telegraphs

had already been abolished by decree. Even earlier than this, the

revolution having barely liberated the workers from virtual slavery,

Bolshevik leaders were telling workers that "the best way to support

Soviet Government is to carry on with one's job".

Lenin, in March 1918, wrote (Collected Works, Vol. 27 page 270) that the

Party relates to workers by leading "them along the true path of labour

discipline, along the task of coordinating 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".

So much for every cook governing.

These are not just isolated incidents. The Party soon began to

institutionalise its dominance, for instance factory committees, instead

of being allowed to form federations across the industries, had to

report to undemocratic bodies which were hand picked by the Party. It is

in this context that Daniel Guerin argued that "In fact the power of the

soviets only lasted a few months, from October 1917 to the spring of

1918."

How did the Bolsheviks go about 'securing' the revolution? Trotsky, as

leader of the Red Army, reintroduced regular army discipline, not only

including executions for desertion but also all the petty regulations

like saluting that gave officers special positions. He abolished

election of officers, writing "the elective basis is politically

pointless and technically inexpedient and has already been set aside by

decree".

The White Terror was responded to with collective punishments,

categorical punishments, torture, hostage taking and random punishments.

These were not just directed at known 'Whites' but also at their friends

and families. On 3rd September 1918, the Bolshevik newspaper 'Ivestia'

announced that over 500 hostages had been shot by the Petrograd Cheka,

not because they had committed a crime but because they were unlucky

enough to come from the wrong background.

Some will argue that this terror was legitimised by the White Terror.

But by April of 1918 the terror was to be used against political groups

that supported the revolution but opposed Bolshevik rule. Over two days

in April 1918, 40 anarchists were killed or wounded and around 500 put

in prison in a series of attacks in Moscow and Petrograd.

All the major anarchist publications were banned in May 1918. This

despite the fact that anarchists had fought for the revolution in

October, four anarchists being on the Military Revolutionary Committee

which co- ordinated the rising. Over the next four years, hundreds then

thousands of anarchists were to be arrested, jailed, tortured, exiled

and executed. Other pro-revolution left parties suffered a similar fate

and by 1919 so did workers who acted independently against the regime.

Bolshevik modes of organisation have particular outcomes, the

centralisation of power. This sort of organisation means that 'Stalin

didn't fall from the moon' but was the inheritor of this undemocratic

organisation. This is in opposition to 'Socialism from Below' and the

motto of the First International, "the emancipation of the toilers must

be the work of the toilers themselves" and not the work of some

'vanguard' party.