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Title: Russian Counter-Revolution Author: Grigori Petrovitch Maximov Date: 1935 Language: en Topics: Russia, Russian Revolution Source: Retrieved on 19 January 2011 from http://www.anarchosyndicalism.net/newswire/display_any/227 Notes: From Vanguard Vol. 11, No. 5 Oct.- Nov. 1935 (New York,New York). Reprinted in Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library
Cynicism about the possibility of change, of creating a revolution in
our everyday lives is common now and one of the biggest obstacles that
anarchists have to fight. The State Communist bureaucracy in the Soviet
Union destroyed the possibility of true freedom and liberty and we would
do well to remind ourselves just how perceptive anarchist criticisms of
this monolith were. Maximoff’s article is pungent and precise in its
critique with his final paragraph sadly not yet realised. 63 years on
and still a lot to do!
Until recently it was held that the Great French Revolution of 1789–93
gave us a classical example of revolution and counter-revolution. Even
now many are of the opinion that the period of the Jacobin rule was a
revolutionary period, notwithstanding the series of counter-
revolutionary measures adopted by the Convent, and that the fall of the
Jacobins signified the beginning of the counter- revolution. Hence, it
is inferred that there can be no counter-revolution as long as the party
brought forward by the revolution is still in power. Counter-revolution
sets in, we are told, with the downfall of the party and the class
leading the revolution, with the triumph of a more moderate party, with
the liquidation of the revolutionary conquests. And the latter is
generally associated with the downfall of the ruling party such as the
overthrow of the Jacobin rule.
This outdated yardstick is still being applied to the evaluation of the
trends and tendencies of Russian life. The state socialists, the
“learned” liberal professors and just plain “educated” people, though
sharply opposed to bolshevism, hold that a revolution is still taking
place in Soviet Russia. Thinking by mere analogy with the French
Revolution, they do not want to admit the idea that a revolutionary
party can be transformed into a counter-revolutionary one. They believe
that the so-called “excesses of the bolshevik policies” are due to the
difficulties incidental in the building up of socialism, that in the
long run they may slow down the tempo of the revolution but not stop it
altogether. It is this fallacy that is being exposed so rapidly by the
march of events in Soviet Russia that very soon only simple minded
people will adhere to it.
For, what is a revolution? A revolution is the overthrow of the existing
political and economic order based upon exploitation. It means the
building up of a new order which raises to the highest level the welfare
of the great masses of people, which gives the utmost extension of human
rights and freedom, which substitutes for the master morality of the
church and state one that is based upon freedom, equality and
solidarity.
The Russian Revolution at its beginning was a revolution in that sense.
In the year 1917–18 Russia was the freest country in the world. Freedom
of speech, press, assembly, propaganda, freedom in the field of
scientific research, education, individual self-assertion- there was
unlimited freedom in almost every domain of life. Spontaneous activity
and free initiative took the place of law; local self-government
flourished in the form of Soviets, the state as represented by appointed
officialdom was vanishing like smoke.
Economic slavery was toppling down: capitalism was being destroyed,
being gradually replaced by the organisation of industry in the
interests of consumers. Workers became active participants of the
industrial process; economic life, represented by factory committees and
similar organisations, was shaping itself along the line of free
industrial federations, along the lines of a national commune of
producers and consumers.
Such were the great undying conquests of that genuinely revolutionary
period. But what is counter-revolution?
Is it just the attempt to bring the country back to the pre-
revolutionary state, to restore the privileges of the old classes and
parties? Such is the classical definition of counter-revolution, but it
is not a full or precise definition since in Soviet Russia we have no
revolution against revolution, no restoration of the power of former
classes and parties. And nevertheless we have there a real counter-
revolution.
In Soviet Russia all liberties have been wiped out. The defenders of
freedom are being exiled, imprisoned and even executed. Local self-
government has been done away with. The arbitrary rule of the
“bureaucrat” is again restored to life. What of the passport system
introduced by way of copying the old system of police rule and
regimentation? What of the ban placed upon any sort of political
activity digressing from “the general line” of the dictator, the
dissolution of the Society of Old Bolsheviks, the imprisonment of
outstanding members of the party for the slightest manifestation of
independence of thought? Isn’t that counter-revolution in the real sense
of the word?
In no other country is the death penalty applied as widely as in Soviet
Russia: larceny, embezzlement, graft, thuggery — ordinary crimes are
punished with medieval cruelty. Even children are not exempt from the
application of the highest penalty. Isn’t that counter-revolution in its
most naked form?
In Soviet Russia industrial democracy gave way to a hierarchy modelled
on the type of capitalist organisations. A new privileged ruling class
came to life- a bureaucracy which, not having property of its own, has
the unchecked control of management in its hands.
All that is the very essence of counter-revolution, although it hardly
fits the classical definition thereof. We have here a new feature: a
revolutionary party crystallising into a bureaucratic class. While
paying lip service to revolutionary slogans, the newly formed class
gradually entrenches its class functions, its rule and privileges.
All that is not just a mere incident in the march of the revolution.
Such distortions of the revolution, producing as they did in Soviet
Russia a vicious form of counter-revolution, are not rooted in “historic
necessity”, but in the very concept of state socialism, and especially
of dictatorial marxism. To uphold dictatorship is to be against
revolution, against freedom, against human progress.
The process of disillusionment in respect to Soviet Russia, so much in
evidence on the part of many an honest revolutionist, is but in its
beginnings. Soon it will grow into a powerful tide directed toward new
aims and objectives. Those will be the aims of libertarian communism,
the aims of a new movement, reviving the hopes of the international
proletariat and leading to a resolute struggle against dictatorships of
all variety- red, black or brown — and for the fullest freedom based on
economic equality.