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Title: Review: The Bolsheviks in Power Author: Anarcho Date: July 16, 2008 Language: en Topics: book review, bolshevism Source: Retrieved on 28th January 2021 from https://anarchism.pageabode.com/?p=106 Notes: Review of a new book on the first year of Bolshevik power. Documents the Bolshevik assault on soviet democracy and the opposition.
The Bolsheviks in Power: The First Year of Soviet Rule in Petrograd,
Alexander Rabinowitch, Indiana University Press, 2007, ISBN:
0-253-34943-5
This is an important book. It describes in great detail the evolution of
the Bolshevik regime over the first year of its existence. It recounts
how during that time it went from a relatively popular government to, in
effect, a party dictatorship (the revisions of the party ideology to
incorporate the reality of the regime came shortly after this period).
It makes good use of the archives which the fall of Stalinism has made
available to scholars across the world.
Rabinowitch continues his account of the Revolution started in Prelude
to Revolution (about the July Days revolt in 1917) and The Bolsheviks
Come to Power (about the October Revolution). These works helped expose
the myth that the Bolshevik Party actually operated on a “democratic
centralist” basis. In reality, it was relatively democratic and
decentralized, with a similar method of operation. Nor was it, at least
at the base, an organisation of professional revolutionaries – it had
open and mass character. All this is a striking contrast to the
traditional Leninist model so beloved by Leninist parties to this day.
It is a useful destroyer of the false notion that the October 1917 was
simply a coup by an unpopular minority. By the time the Bolsheviks
seized power, as Rabinowitch (and others) show, they did have popular
support in working class areas (particularly in Petrograd Moscow). If
the term does not seem too contradictory, the Bolshevik revolution can
be classed as a popular coup – the Bolsheviks, using their Petrograd
soviet majority as their basis, did conspire to seize power by
presenting the second all-Russian Congress of Soviets with a
fait-accompli. This was much against Lenin’s will, who preferred not to
tie Bolshevik assumption of power to a specific event (and a very public
and obvious one at that). Unsurprisingly, Rabinowitch starts his book
was a discussion of the activities of the Bolshevik moderates (who, at
this time included Zinoviev) in trying to forge some kind of joint, all
Soviet party, government.
So while the Bolshevik aim was always party power, initially this was
framed within a government elected by and accountable to the national
congress of democratically elected soviets. This framework, if not a
solely Bolshevik government, was a relatively common position in radical
circles at the time. Indeed, without the support of the Left-SRs for
such a system the Bolsheviks would not have had a majority at the Second
Congress! In addition, the Bolsheviks framed the new regime as
provisional, with the results of elections to the Constituent Assembly
determining the final regime. This position, initially, was a long term
position for Russian Social Democrats and Social Revolutionaries and one
the Bolsheviks supported throughout 1917, until such time as the
election results came in.
As Rabinowitch shows, this pattern of supporting institutions until such
time as they could not be utilised to secure Bolshevik power repeated
itself in 1918. This can be seen from the postponing of elections to the
Petrograd soviet until such time as it was gerrymandered to ensure their
majority. Before the election, the Bolshevik Soviet confirmed new
regulations “to help offset possible weaknesses” in their “electoral
strength in factories.” The “most significant change in the makeup of
the new soviet was that numerically decisive representation was given to
agencies in which the Bolsheviks had overwhelming strength, among them
the Petrograd Trade Union Council, individual trade unions, factory
committees in closed enterprises, district soviets, and district
nonparty workers’ conferences.” This ensured that “[o]nly 260 of roughly
700 deputies in the new soviet were to be elected in factories, which
guaranteed a large Bolshevik majority in advance.” The Bolsheviks
“contrived a majority” in the new Soviet long before gaining 127 of the
260 factory delegates and even here, the result “was highly suspect,
even on the shop floor.” (pp. 248–2)
Unsurprisingly, the same contempt was expressed at the fifth All-Russian
Soviet Congress in July 1918 when the Bolshevik gerrymandered it to
maintain their majority. They ensured their majority in the congress
and, so a Bolshevik government, by gerrymandering it has they had the
Petrograd soviet. Thus “electoral fraud gave the Bolsheviks a huge
majority of congress delegates.” In reality, “the number of legitimately
elected Left SR delegates was roughly equal to that of the Bolsheviks.”
The Left-SRs expected a majority but did not include “roughly 399
Bolsheviks delegates whose right to be seated was challenged by the Left
SR minority in the congress’s credentials commission.” Without these
dubious delegates, the Left SRs and SR Maximalists would have
outnumbered the Bolsheviks by around 30 delegates. This ensured “the
Bolshevik’s successful fabrication of a large majority in the Fifth
All-Russian Congress of Soviets.” (p. 396, p. 288, p. 442 and p. 308)
This provoked the Left-SR assassination of the German ambassador, which
Rabinowitch proves beyond doubt, was not an attempt to overthrow the
Bolsheviks. Of course, Lenin proclaimed it so, using it to destroy his
rivals. With the destruction of the Left-SRs, the Bolsheviks severed
their links to the countryside, with devastating impacts on the
revolution itself. In fact, the Left-SRs were the only influential
political party which could have ensured a democratic socialist regime
(anarchist influence was nowhere near as great). Their ideas were
genuinely socialist, unlike the Bolsheviks, and tailored to a revolution
in a predominantly peasant country. Hopefully Rabinowitch’s book will
provoke further research into them.
So within six weeks of the start of the civil war, all opposition
parties were banned from the soviets. It should be stressed that at this
stage the civil war was Bolsheviks against the SRs, who used the (easily
avoidable and Bolshevik provoked) rebellion by the Czech Legion to
create a government based on the Constituent Assembly (the democratic
counter-revolution). The Whites forces were marginal, and Kolchak’s coup
against the SRs occurred in November 1918. In terms of allied
intervention, Rabinowitch correctly notes that it numbers were
“relatively small.” In fact, British intervention was a mere 170 marines
who landed in Murmansk in early March, until and additional 600 were
added in the beginning of June. August was the real beginning of Allied
intervention, although “their forces were puny.” (p. 319)
Rabinowitch’s account is primarily how the Bolsheviks responded to
developments after they seized power, including significant losses of
support. In this he covers a substantial amount of ground and does so in
an accessible and well-written manner. It is predominantly a “political”
account, in that it concentrates on the ins-and-outs of the Bolshevik
regime rather than on what was going on in the workplaces,
neighbourhoods and barracks. These are not ignored, of course, and his
accounts of popular rebellions during the period are excellent. I think
anarchists will be particularly interested in these.
He discusses the Menshevik inspired, but independent, Extraordinary
Assembly of Delegates (EAD). “The emergence of the EAD”, he notes, “was
also stimulated by the widespread view that trade unions, factory
committees, and soviets ... were no longer representative,
democratically run working-class institutions; instead they had been
transformed into arbitrary, bureaucratic government agencies. There was
ample reason for this concern.” (p. 224) To counter the EAD, the
Bolsheviks and Left-SRs organised non-party conferences which, in
itself, provides evidence that the soviets had become as distant from
the masses as the opposition argued. District soviets “were deeply
concerned about their increasing isolation ... At the end of March ...
they resolved to convene successive nonparty workers’ conferences ... in
part to undercut the EAD by strengthening ties between district soviets
and workers ... Amid unmistakable signs of the widening rift between
Bolshevik-dominated political institutions and ordinary factory
workers.” (p. 232)
As an aside, it should be mentioned that Lenin pointed to the use of
similar conferences in 1920 in “Left-Wing Communism” as an example of
the techniques used by the Bolsheviks to better communicate with the
masses. The obvious implications of this admission did not impact on his
praise for the uniquely democratic nature of the soviets, but then his
defence for party rule in that pamphlet did not impact either!
Anarchists should be not too surprised that the turning of popular
organisations into parts of a state soon resulted in their growing
isolation from the masses. The state, with its centralised structures,
is simply not designed for mass participation – and this does doubly for
the highly centralised Leninist state. The EAD, argues Rabinowitch, was
an expression of the “growing disenchantment of Petrograd workers with
economic conditions and the evolving structure and operation of Soviet
political institutions.” (p. 231) Zinoviev, back in the Bolshevik
mainstream, considered “that existing Bolshevik-Left SR controlled
soviets had become isolated from their consistencies ... In Zinoviev’s
view, nonparty workers’ conferences ... composed of workers elected
directly in factories and red Army units could provide a means of
rebuilding grass-roots support for Bolshevik-dominated Soviet power.”
(p, 232) And Leninists to this day assert that this is the most
democratic state the world has known!
The rise of the EAD and the isolation of the state and party from the
masses were combined with a “free-fall of party membership.” (p. 397)
These factors were also reflected in the rise of state repression,
including the rise of the Cheka. Early May saw Red Guards shoot
protesting women in Kolpino, after which they fired on a meeting called
to protest this repression. This was no isolated event, as “violent
incidents against hungry workers and their family demanding bread
occurred with increasing regularity.” (p. 230) The EAD tried to control
the demands for a general strike, finally calling one for the beginning
of July. However, it was far too late and the state acted quickly to
repress it:
“Factories were admonished that if they participated in the general
strike they would face immediate shutdown, and individual strikers were
threatened with fines or loss of work. Agitators and members of strike
committees were subject to immediate arrest ... Beginning on 1 July,
printing plants suspected of opposition sympathies were sealed, the
offices of hostile trade unions were raided, martial law on lines in the
Petrograd rail hub was declared, and armed patrols with authority to
prevent work stoppages were formed and put on twenty-four hour duty at
key points around the city.” (p. 254)
Rabinowitch describes this as “the brutal suppression of the EAD’s
general strike.” (p. 259). He also recounts a revolt by sailors at the
end of September, demanding a “return to government by liberated,
democratic soviets — that is, 1917-type soviets.” (p. 352) As such, his
book adds valuable material on working class position to Bolshevik rule
and helps show that even in the face of difficult economic circumstances
workers could, and did, take collective action. As this action was
against the Bolsheviks, it was repressed so creating the “declassing”
and “atomisation” later used to rationalise and justify Bolshevik
authoritarianism.
It is the little details that stick in the mind. Like, for example, the
fact that the cholera out-break which finally happened in the spring1918
was delayed because the harsh winter meant that the piles of rubbish and
dead bodies were frozen and hidden in the snow. Or the fact that the
abolition of the death penalty did not deter Trotsky having the popular
Captain Aleksei Shchastny executed on extremely dubious grounds after an
equally dubious trial. In fact, Trotsky “single-handedly organised an
investigation, sham trial, and death sentence on the spurious charge of
attempting to overthrow” the regime. (p. 243) Rabinowitch recounts the
red terror promoted by the Bolsheviks against the bourgeoisie in the
wake of Lenin’s assassination ending up targeting doctors as well as
pro-Bolshevik intellectuals. Terror is indiscriminate, and is never
socialist in nature. Then there is the account of the celebrations for
the first anniversary of “soviet power” with which the book ends, which
were centrally planned! Nothing like state mandated fun and frolics to
create a sense of woe for those who think revolution is more than
changing who the boss is!
There are other interesting bits of information. For example, the
Kronstadt soviet was first disbanded by the Bolsheviks on July 9^(th),
1918, in the wake of the Left-SR “revolt.” As in 1921, the Left-SR and
Maximalist-SR controlled soviet was replaced by a Bolshevik
revolutionary committee (p. 302). In a strange parallel to the Stalinist
role in the Spanish Revolution, the Bolsheviks turned their attack on
the Left-SR controlled Pages School into the Left-SR occupying the
school as part of their plot to overthrow “Soviet Power” (in the May
Days, when the Communists portrayed their assault on the CNT controlled
telephone exchange into an anarchist attack on it). Rabinowitch also
puts the creation of the Cheka in a new light, as an attempt by the
Bolsheviks to create a new state police force outside of Left-SR
influence (the Bolsheviks were rightly concerned that the Left-SRs would
introduce moderation and a respect for the rights of the accused into
it). He also notes that its first headquarters was at Gorokhovaia 2,
which under the Tsar housed his notorious security service, the Okhrana.
The more things change…
While Rabinowitch has enriched our understanding of the Bolshevik regime
in his excellent books, there are a few areas which could be improved.
His early books on 1917 indicated the important role the anarchists
played in radicalising the revolution, often forcing the Bolsheviks to
move leftwards to retain influence. In this book they disappear. What
happened to them? What impact did the Cheka raids in April 1918, which
Rabinowitch sadly fails to mention, play in any decline in influence?
Then there is no discussion of vanguardism and how its privileged role
for the party impacted on Bolshevik actions. Surely the various
activities the Bolsheviks used to retain power, which Rabinowitch
documents so well, did not spring from nowhere? And more accounts and
discussion of working class protest would have been better.
Still, these are minor points. Rabinowitch’s book, like his early works,
enriches our understanding of the Russian Revolution. It adds to the
growing mountain of evidence which proves that a social revolution which
hands power to a Leninist power is doomed to utter failure.