Imagining
Other…
POWER AND PROTEST
- social movements in the 20th century.
Links:
Power
and Protest: Social Movements Contents Page
Bookmarks: see after Introduction.
The
Labour Movement, continued.
Chapter
2: The Russian Revolution – case-study.
Introduction:
This section deals with a specific event that
represents perhaps the high-water mark of the labour movement in the 20th
century: the Russian Revolution of 1917, which installed the first regime in
the world to call itself socialist. My choice
of this topic is not intended to show my support for the revolution or the
regime: I do not know precisely what position I would have taken up had I been
alive at the time (and all such questions are by definition hypothetical!).
However, for me personally the events represent a set
of high ideals that were sadly not achieved. In my view there was in Russia at
the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th, a
social movement by workers and ordinary citizens to gain more control over
their lives – but a mixture of personalities, circumstances and erroneous
ideologies led to a regime that in fact betrayed this ideal.
It is hoped that this discussion will raise such
questions as:
Was the revolution a genuine worker-led change of
power?
What factors contributed to the successful uprising?
Were there any features of the revolution that
contributed to the eventual loss of control by workers over the regime?
The
Russian revolution was, of course, an event that changed the world and shaped
the 20th century.
It
is also the most dramatic instance, almost certainly, of the power of the
labour movement. Consequently it seems a good example to take in order to throw
light on how the labour movement evolved, and the problems and issues it faced.
Bookmarks:
RSDLP Bolsheviks Lenin Trotsky Trotskyism desertions
Notes:
1
Summary: events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917.
1.
2.
There
was no industrialisation in
3.
There
had been peasant uprisings (from the 17th century) and a number of
attempted military coups which had failed, all of which had been suppressed
savagely.
4.
The
influence of western intellectual ideas split opinion among the intelligentsia
(between “slavophiles” and “westerners”).
5.
The
population at large felt insecure, and was suffering from heavy taxation for
arms.
6.
There
was little security at work: especially in agriculture, since there was a
rapidly growing population & at the end of the 19th century a
rapidly growing working-class.
7.
There
were only limited responses by the regime to any demands for democracy – zemstva (regional
assemblies) were set up but without real power; 1861 saw the “emancipation” of
the peasantry, which led to the growth of a kulak
(rich peasants) [sub-]class.
8.
Since
the state remained authoritarian (and was backed by the Church), strikes were
de facto political.
9.
Students
and the “intelligentsia” (intellectual elite) formed the main ideological
opposition to the state. Since there was no democracy, protest became radical
e.g. the narodniks
(populists), and there were other revolutionary groups, which did not shrink
from violence. In 1881 Tsar Aleksander II was
assassinated.
10.
Secret
workers’ unions were forming. There were demonstrations, war with
11.
The
main political parties were:
-
Marxist:
Social Democrat (from 1880s);
-
the
Social Revolutionaries (SR), who were largely peasant-based
-
the
Constitutional Democrats (Kadets), who were liberal in political outlook.
12.
Workers
set up soviets – with their own social and cultural institutions.
13.
Defeat
by
14.
1906:
Duma (national
assembly) set up, but with very limited powers.
15.
1911
Prime Minister Stolypin is assassinated. From 1914 many strikes occur. The Bolsheviks’
influence was growing (the party was formed after a split in the Social
Democrats)
16.
First
World War – supported widely in the country, but not by Lenin (who was in
exile)
17.
War
going badly, war-production leading to hunger and discontent. Soldiers “vote
with their feet”.
18.
1917:
Strikes having an effect – mutinies/desertions among soldiers, Tsar abdicates.
Provisional Government set up (February), under Kerensky
– but he wanted to continue the war and refused agricultural reform.
19.
Situation
of “dual power” – the Government and the workers’ soviets vying for control
over the towns. Peasants begin seizing land. Factory committees urge workers’
control. Lenin returns from exile (April) National Congress of Soviets (June).
20.
October
Revolution – Lenin promises peace, land and freedom, and a Constituent Assembly
to draw up a constitution. This was disbanded after the Bolsheviks failed to
secure a majority in the elections.
2 More Detail on
this history: (Main sources: Service 1991, Seton-Watson
1967; for other sources, see booklist.)
Through out its
history,
Britain and
Europe had, by the 18th century, achieved a state of political
stability, and the industrial revolution (partly driven by the non-conformist
work ethic, and thanks to easily available resources such as coal and iron) had
transformed life: success in agricultural production enabled people to move
into the towns; a new merchant class arose, as well as a new proletarian class.
Russia, in contrast, did not have these advantages: it is a vast country (even
when trains were developed it takes a week to cross!), it had not produced an
agricultural surplus, resources such as coal and iron were geographically very
far apart, there was no independent trading or merchant class, as well as no
democracy. These geopolitical
factors were highly significant. Consequently industrialisation did not occur
until very late: towards the end of the 19th century in fact.
So there were,
before the 19th century, two broad social groupings: the aristocracy, allied to the (Russian
Orthodox) church, and the peasantry.
A small but significant intellectual
class emerged later, but the country was polarised (and intellectuals, as we
shall see, were divided in their loyalties).
In contrast, the English had reached an accommodation with the monarchy
in the 18thc. (
In
However, Russia
(unlike China) was not cut off from Europe: aristocrats spoke French at court,
rather than Russian, and there was a strong interest in European ideas and
technology – the best illustration being that of Tsar Peter the Great, who
visited the dockyards in Europe, around 1700, and took back ship-building
techniques to improve the Russian fleet. Later on in the 18th
century, Catherine the Great had contact with European philosophers of the
Enlightenment, in particular Voltaire. A highly significant influence on
Russian history came through the spread
of “western” ideas: liberalism,
with its emphasis on individual rights and democracy, scientific reasoning etc
(all of which, of course, conflicted with the state of affairs in Russia); and
later Marxism, which provided a
radical explanation of the class divide in Russia, and which began
to motivate critics of the regime to work out a strategy for change. Bakunin translated the Communist manifesto
into Russian in 1869, and Capital was translated into Russian not long after.
Intellectuals in
Most of the
Tsars, however, held on to their autocratic powers: ironically, the occasional
attempt at liberalisation only encouraged the critics and radicals, who then
made further demands that led to another crack-down and more authoritarianism.
By the end of the 19th century,
Russia was feeling insecure, externally and internally: there were wars in
Europe that threatened their borders, or which could have drawn them in (the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870, the wars of unification of Germany; conflict in
the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the Balkans) and Russia itself was at war with
Japan in 1905, a war it was to lose (see below).
Internally there
was the problem of holding together the peoples of such a vast land mass. Russia at this time was, you might say, an empire, since it included very
different populations in the Caucasus, Asia, the Ukraine, Siberia, the Baltic;
as well as groups of other nationalities e.g. Poles. It is worth stressing that
Russians comprised only 4/5 of the population. The autocratic powers of the
state were used to impose heavy taxation
to keep up the arms industry, and there was growing anger at the tax burden
among the peasantry.
Industrialisation began in the 19th century, under Tsars Aleksander III (1845 – 1894) and Nikolai II (1868 –
1918). The state provided financial
support to industry, but also encouraged western businesses to move in, until
only one-ninth of industrial capital stock was state-owned, whereas
47 % of
securities were foreign-owned. The one advantage Russia had in industrialising
after other countries was that she could import modern technology and knowledge - Trotsky was to argue this speeded
up proletarianisation: factories were large, (by
1914, two out of every five workers were in large plants which employed over
1,000) and workers were thrust abruptly into modern working conditions.
Extensive railways were constructed
to improve communication across the country, (this, too, required large-scale industrial
processes). Sergei Witte - later advisor to Tsar
Nicholas II - took on this work from 1870 onwards.
Progress in industry was rapid: by 1914
These changes
brought about problems of course: some areas of production were weak, (like
hot-house plants grown too rapidly), and all were vulnerable to world economic
cycles. The working-class grew rapidly
to 15 million in 1914, four times what was in 1860. More schools were
established by the state, so that the workers could gain in literacy, and by
1918 literacy rates were 66%. Factory workers were poor, and work was
dangerous. Hours were long, and housing was poor. A ban on trade unions was maintained: strikes became frequent, but not as widespread as might have been
had unions been legal (in other parts of
The regime needed
to accommodate growing demands for
democracy, but its response was, typically, very limited. In 1809 a Council of Ministers was set up, on the advice of Michael Speransky, a trusted advisor to the Tsar (Seton-Watson,
1967, p 104). He also proposed other changes, including the setting up of
several levels of duma but any law passed by the
State Duma would have to be confirmed by the Tsar.
These reforms were not carried through.
The Church supported the state; there was
widespread nepotism and corruption. Some enlightened labour laws were passed,
but the army was used to quell any
strikes – the consequence of all this was that industrial conflict became
political.
In 1861 the serfs were “emancipated” (set free) – in other words, the feudal conditions in
Russia were overturned (the end of feudalism had occurred in Europe hundreds of
years earlier - although in America slavery
was not abolished until a few years later than the Russian emancipation of the
serfs). A telling anecdote that shows how close to our times this all was: Khruschev (General Secretary of the Communist Party in the
post-World War II war period) used to say that his grandparents were serfs, who
had once been exchanged between landowners for a pair of hunting dogs. However
the first effect of this emancipation was to leave the peasants poorer than
before, as most of the land remained in the hands of landlords – much of it
having been given to them as compensation for freeing the serfs! Later, some landlords
abandoned their land, and peasants took it over. Other landlords became
successful capitalist farmers. The peasants grew resentful of having to rent
from gentry landowners; and those peasants who did become richer (kulaks) were also resented.
The regime also
antagonised university students:
deans were appointed, appointed by the government, students had to wear
uniforms, and grants were niggardly (similar conditions led to an uprising in
France in 1968, but the current worsening of students’ conditions in Britain
and elsewhere doesn’t seem likely to produce the same degree of anger…). Students were also frustrated by the fact
that getting a degree did not guarantee a job. The state was a major employer,
but the system was highly bureaucratic.
As mentioned
already, a significant sector of society – the intelligentsia – was growing, especially from the 1860s. Given the repressive conditions,
organisations had often to be clandestine. The first radical or revolutionary groups in Russia were oriented to
“the people” – such groups were called “narodniks” (populists, in other words), and
there were movements in which intellectuals and students would go “to the
people” to get support – Alexander Herzen was the
first to call on students to go to the people, and later some of these
“movements” were led by the anarchist Bakunin. The largest narodnik
organisations were Zemlia i
Volia (Land and Freedom), and a group that split from
it called Narodnaia Volia
(People’s Will). Some of these resorted to violence, and in 1881, the Tsar Aleksander II was assassinated by members of Narodnaia
Volia, and the group was destroyed in the reaction by
the government. By the end of the 19th
century, revolutionary groups in
With the spread of
Marxist ideas, an organised socialist party was established (in the 1890s). Key members were Lenin and Martov. The party was called the
Russian Social
Democratic Labour Party (RSDRP) – the fact that they called themselves
social-democrats must not lead to confusion with later movements of the same
name, as these were Marxist revolutionaries. One of the earliest and most
prominent Marxists was Plekhanov, who – together with others such as Axelrod and Zasulich – had formed
the Group for the Emancipation of Labour, in 1883. (This was actually a split from the Land and
Freedom group over the use of terrorism).
At the end of the 19th century the social democrats numbered
around 10,000.
The other radical
political party that grew and became influential was: the Socialist Revolutionaries (or SRs), whose
power base was largely among the peasants, but whose ideology was revolutionary
socialism. There were also parties representing liberal and conservative
politics – the liberals were called Constitutional
Democrats (Kadets), the conservatives were Octobrists.
In 1903 the
Second Congress of the RSDLP was held, in
Eventually the
Mensheviks would disagree with the Bolsheviks over the stages that
The 1905 Revolution:
At the beginning
of the 20th century a number of events took place which helped to
move the country towards a revolutionary situation: the Japanese captured Port
Arthur, which created a “mood of depression” (Seton-Watson op cit p 598); in 1905 there was a peaceful demonstration,
which was supporting a group of workers (representing the Assembly of Russian Factory
Workers, set up in 1903, with the permission of the authorities, by a priest
named Gapon) – the workers wanted to petition the
Tsar, but the demonstration was fired on
by the army: more than 100 people were killed and several hundred were
wounded. This came to be known as “bloody
Sunday”, and the outrage it caused led to strikes and demonstrations.
There was a
mutiny of sailors on the battleship Potemkin, in June
1905, and in October a rail strike that affected the whole of
In addition, the
(1905) war with
During this
period, factory workers began to set up soviets – workers’ committees or
councils. The Petrograd Soviet,
which was to play an important part in events leading up to the 1917
Revolution, was set up in 1905 by Trotsky and the Mensheviks. In these soviets,
it is important to remember, (especially in the light of what happened under
Lenin), workers of various political views were all represented. Their prime
purpose, at first, was to co-ordinate strike activity. Given that in
In other words,
in various ways the autocracy was being
weakened. Various moves were made to
bring about a more democratic constitution – such as in July 1905, when a joint
congress of zemstvo and city representatives was
held, and it adopted a draft constitution. Meanwhile the government proposed
purely consultative bodies: this was “completely unacceptable to any political
group except the conservatives” (Seton-Watson op cit p 599). As Seton-Watson
puts it, the government was both weak and politically inept.
There was
widespread discontent among the peasants,
the workers, and in the armed forces. In June, Lenin wrote a pamphlet (Two
Tactics of Social Democracy in the Bourgeois-Democratic Revolution) setting out
his view that the workers, allied to the peasants, and under the leadership of
the Bolsheviks, should be the ones to change the state but he still saw the
coming revolution as a bourgeois one. The Mensheviks wanted to collaborate with
the bourgeoisie in this revolution, rather than the peasantry. Also in June the
Kronstadt sailors mutinied: we shall hear more about
them later.
In October there
was a rail strike, followed by general strikes in several cities. Trotsky returned from exile in
In February 1906
the Tsar set up a state duma. The duma
had a mixture of appointed and elected members, and represented the entire
spectrum of political views from extreme left to extreme right. But in
practice, the duma had very limited powers, was only
advisory, and the Tsar could disband it if he wished. Even the liberals
(Constitutional Democrats) wanted more (a constitution, for a start!). In fact the first duma
didn’t last long before it was dissolved.
When Witte
proposed reforms (free speech, freedom of assembly etc, and laws to be agreed
by the duma),
these were rejected as inadequate by the Petersburg Soviet. The Tsar saw these
proposals as a major concession (as he saw it, giving the duma
powers over the law would amount to a new constitution) – though the opposition
saw it as nothing of the sort. There was therefore an ongoing conflict between
the views of, on the one hand, people like Witte, who was a liberal, and the
more conservative ministers, and on the other hand the Tsar himself who opposed
liberalisation. Witte was in fact forced to resign in 1906.
In December 1905,
Marxists in the
In short, there
was political and industrial turmoil by now, and whatever the government did
was rejected by the opposition. When a second duma was set up, Stolypin (the
Prime Minister) changed the rules to make sure that landowners were in the
majority, and this meant that in the third duma the dominant group was
reform-minded conservatives, (Octobrists). In all
there were four dumas
before the 1917 revolution.
Cutting a long
story short, in 1911 the PM, Stolypin was
assassinated. The state could not agree on any measures to appease the
peasants or the workers. The Tsar’s circle and the government gained a
reputation for corruption – the fact that a “mad monk” Rasputin was highly influential over the Tsar’s family was seen as
evidence that they were out of touch with reality. (Rasputin would end up
murdered in 1916). A conservative State Council was set up – nationalistic and
anti-semitic views, supported by the state, were
growing.
From 1912 on, there were yet more strikes.
In the factories workers were subject to “scientific management”. This was an
American management approach, devised by
By 1914 there were not only many more
strikes, but also growing political and economic demands: for a democratic republic, an 8-hour day, for
land to be taken from the gentry. These demands squared with the
Bolsheviks’ programme – but they had grown up without the Bolsheviks
necessarily having influenced them.
The “breaking
point” was the First World War (1914
-18). Very briefly,
The war was at
first supported by all sections of the population, even by many revolutionaries
(though ex-minister Witte opposed it). A notable exception was Lenin who
advocated what he called “revolutionary
defeatism” – i.e. if
Given this long
build-up of circumstances, it is clearly wrong to suggest that a powerful
revolutionary, Lenin, brought the revolution about by fooling or hijacking the
mass of workers, soldiers and peasants, who naively followed him: rather, all
the latter groups were suffering from the regime and its handling of the war
and the economy. Clearly the economic situation of the country was very bad:
war-production meant shortages of goods for consumption; trains were carrying
arms and soldiers, not goods or food; there was hunger in the towns, but the
price of grain was so low that the peasants were naturally unwilling to sell. A mass movement – though not a homogenous
one – was building up.
By 1915, the middle classes were disaffected too,
and there were more strikes this year and in 1916. In 1915
The Tsar still
did not allow the duma to have any meaningful power,
in fact he treated it with contempt. For example, when Marxist members of 4th
duma criticised the war they were arrested. On the other hand, at last the
non-revolutionary parties were getting together: Kadets,
Octobrists and Progressists.
The February Revolution:
Workers however
remained the vanguard of the opposition.
In February 1917 there were strikes at the Putilov
factory, and a mutiny in the
It is worth
noting at this point that this was the first of two revolutions that took place
in 1917 – so much has been said and written about the second (October)
Revolution that the first (February) is sometimes forgotten!
The Provisional
government promised elections to a
Constituent Assembly (i.e. a body that would draw up a new constitution),
and it decreed freedom of speech, assembly etc.
However, the government wanted to continue
the war, and it refused to undertake agrarian reform. Kerensky
also moved to outlaw the Bolsheviks, (who were opposed to the Provisional
Government and its policies) and Lenin had to go into hiding in
There followed a
period of “dual power”: on the one hand there was the Provisional Government, but on the
other the soviets, especially the
Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers’ Deputies. The soviets, since they
comprised the workers, could take practical steps to prevent the “official”
government from operating effectively (they could and did stop the trains
running for instance). What this shows
is that many workers seemed to want to give the Provisional Government a
chance. But the government was under the thumb of the property owners, so there
was a conflict. It had to be careful not to antagonise the soviets, but the
aims of the Government and the workers
differed: the workers were prepared at first to accept a purely
defensive war, but what they also wanted was to redress the balance of power vis-á-vis the employers/managers (they wanted an end to
humiliation!!). In the army, too, the soldiers wanted a defensive war,
a negotiated peace, and a Constituent Assembly. The peasants were less patient, and began taking land.
The Provisional
Government did manage to get the Mensheviks
and the SRs on its side (which meant that the
Petrograd Soviet supported it). This meant that these two parties had to put
aside some of their differences: the Mensheviks
held to the traditional Marxist view that before a country could transform
itself into a socialist economy it needed
to go through a period of “bourgeois” or capitalist development; they also
believed that the proletariat
(workers) would be the agent of change, when the time came. By 1917, Lenin had
decided (most commentators say that this was a distortion of Marxism) that the
time was right for revolution. The SRs, on the other
hand, were more populist, and
supported small-scale and decentralised
organisation; as populists they fought for (and had the support of) the peasantry as well as the workers.
Later, the “Left SRs” did support Lenin however in
the revolutionary takeover.
But, as Service
puts it, this was “a sub-plot to the main drama”, which was one of industrial
hardship, acceleration of inflation, land seizures, strikes and more militant
demands from workers for control of their own factories. It has to be stressed that these demands for
power to the factory committees, and for workers’ control, also the land
seizures of the peasantry, arose “without much prodding from the Bolsheviks”,
and even went further than the Bolsheviks wanted.
Lenin had been in
exile for some time, because of his revolutionary activities. In April he
published his April Theses urging revolution
and using the slogan “all power to the
soviets.”
In the April
Theses he argued, in effect, for a modification to the accepted Marxist theory
of the transition from advanced capitalism to socialism: in
Gregory Maximoff (1979) argued that Lenin deliberately gave the appearance of supporting such radical
demands, in order to ensure that he kept the support of the people at large:
once in power he returned to the more “orthodox” Marxism of the Communist
Manifesto, with its emphasis on centralised state power.
As mentioned
already, Lenin after the October revolution also tried to implement “one-man
management” in the factories, using the same people who had been managing the
factories before the revolution, and urging on the use of Taylorism
and other western capitalist management techniques. These issues, and the
question of free expression, were at the root of opposition to Lenin, after the
Revolution, from the Workers’ Opposition and the anarchists. (See also Brinton 2004)
Also in April the
first government (which had been led by Prince Lvov) resigned and was replaced
by one consisting largely of Mensheviks and SRs. Alexander Kerensky
was the Minister of War, and later became Prime Minister. Under Kerensky the Provisional Government did move somewhat to
the left, as it contained more of the moderate socialists and fewer Kadets. However, he wanted to expand the war, which went
against popular opinion, and was opposed by the Bolsheviks. In fact, in July there were demonstrations
against the war – these were put down, and many were killed and injured in the
“July Days”. The Bolsheviks were blamed for the violence, their paper was
banned, and Trotsky was arrested.
Meanwhile, in
June 1917 a national congress of soviets
was held, and we can see the gradual spread of soviets throughout Russia,
together with a steady increase in their powers. They had control over food
production and distribution, and over cultural activities etc. The soviets were
also thoroughly democratic: deputies
to a soviet could be recalled by those sending them if they did not stick to
the line they had been given - i.e. they were delegates, not merely representatives. Decisions were taken in open
mass meetings, and so on.
The Bolsheviks
showed determination and always took a hard line with those who disagreed with
them, even (or especially, given the Freudian theory of the narcissism of small
differences!) when their position was close to his. (See also Brown, A. on
Lenin). Thanks to this stance, the Bolshevik Party’s supporters grew in number,
and they increased their influence in the factory
committees and the soviets – though still the other parties were
well-represented (SRs, Mensheviks and KDs, and some anarchists). The Bolsheviks were the only
party that was unconditionally hostile to the Provisional Government, and they
wanted peace immediately. (The
Provisional Government had shown not only that it wanted conquest, but that it
was not capable of succeeding in this!). The Bolsheviks also promised elections
to a Constituent Assembly (i.e. an
assembly that would draw up a new constitution).
In September, the
Commander in Chief of the army, General Kornilov (a
right-wing opponent of the Provisional Government), attempted to march on the
government. Kerensky was unable to do anything, but
the Bolsheviks stepped in to prevent a coup. This damaged Kerensky’s
reputation and enhanced that of the Bolsheviks of course, who were gaining more
influence in the soviets..
The soviets had
set up a Military Revolutionary
Committee, and now were challenging Kerensky
directly. The situation was ripe for revolution.
In October 1917 the Bolshevik Red Guards took over key
places in Petrograd – railway stations, bridges, banks, post offices, telegraph
offices etc - and eventually they entered the
After the
Revolution Kerensky in turn tried to lead a military
attack on the new government, but the soldiers refused to fight. Kerensky fled to
3. Conclusion: Different Attitudes To, and
Interpretations Of, the Russian Revolution:
Note: the Russian revolution was
one of those events about which it is very difficult to be objective. Most
accounts will inevitably bring out the political position of the writer. In
these notes I have not made much secret of my own position, which is similar to
that of Alexander Berkman (see below).
However, it might be worth giving a very brief overview of the main
different perspectives:
1. A conservative
or reactionary view would be that what was done in October (and presumably even
February) 1917 was illegal. There are (believe it or not!) still those who
believe in the “divine right” of rulers: there are also many who feel it was
wrong to execute the royal family. At the extreme, this view meant that one
could only argue for the return of the Romanov family
as the rightful rulers of
2. The official
Russian view, and that of pro-soviet Communist Parties is that Lenin and the
Bolsheviks led the masses in a justified overthrow of a regime that was failing
(i.e. both the Tsarist and the Provisional Governments). There are, of course,
differences among communists as to the nature of Stalinism: some would want to
draw a line between Lenin (who presumably could do no wrong) and Stalin. Others
see Stalin as the true heir to Lenin, and would underplay the extent of the
damage he (Stalin) did to the soviet regime and its citizens.
3. There are
those, and they might be liberal or conservative, who would argue that the
February Revolution was legitimate and the Kerensky
regime should have been allowed to survive. To hold to this view one would have
to say that the chaos in the period after February was not that serious.
4. An influential
view on the left is characterised as Trotskyist.
Using Marxist theory, Trotsky argued that the revolution was incomplete: the
economic base was changed, but the political superstructure was captured by a
Stalinist bureaucracy. A further (political and social) revolution was needed
to hand power over to the workers. There are various explanations as to why the
revolution was not complete: many argue that external factors prevented the
Bolsheviks from completing their work (the country was after all invaded by
anti-Bolshevik forces, and the Bolsheviks had to fight them off at the same
time as dealing with the opposition within the country). Others argue that the
revolution was in a sense premature, in that the peasantry were still numerous,
and the proletariat small in number: again, following Marxism, this situation
could not bring about socialism (however,
There has been a
bitter – if somewhat arcane – dispute amongst some on the left as to the true
character of the
5. Finally,
representing a smaller tendency still than any of the above, there is the
libertarian socialist or anarchist position: this argues, as I pretty much
argued above, that the build up to the revolution, and the revolution itself,
was the work of the masses; the Bolsheviks took advantage of the unrest to put
themselves in a “vanguard” position, and soon after betrayed the interests of
the workers. Since it is closest to my own view, I give here a brief summary of
the argument presented by Alexander Berkman in 1922,
in a pamphlet called The Russian Tragedy (see the booklist below).
Berkman was deported from the
- we can see from their actions that
the Bolsheviks never trusted the ordinary people, and especially the peasants
(they not given a fair representation at the various all-Russian congresses,
and they were dismissed as petty bosses and bourgeois); [I would add that when,
in 1905, Lenin allied his party with the peasantry it was, as Seton-Watson
says, to lead them into a bourgeois revolution; Marxism has never favoured the
peasantry, and this is one of its disagreements with anarchism]
- when they seized power the
Bolsheviks promised elections to a Constituent Assembly; when they found they
did not have a majority after the elections they disbanded the Assembly by
force [the Bolshevik argument was that the parties that had the majority would
have reversed the gains of the revolution]
- they gave control over Finland,
White Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraina, Bessarabia, to the Germans (Trotsky and Radek
opposed this, as did the left SRs and the anarchists)
and when the left SRs urged the formation of military
detachments to support these peoples against the Germans, Trotsky sent Russian
troops to stop them
- other left groups were attacked,
their presses seized, they were declared illegal etc [again, defenders of Lenin
– such as the SWP – argue that these groups, e.g. the anarchists, were a threat
to the revolution!]
- workers’ co-operatives were
abolished, and “one man management” established in factories [see the comments
above about Taylorism, and see also Brinton 2004, pp 293 – 378: The Bolsheviks and Workers’
Control]
- the Bolsheviks kept in place much of
the apparatus of the Tsarist state, such as the secret police, known as the Cheka (later the NKVD); the governmental bureaucratic
machine was allowed to grow as well. [Although Lenin, when he was ill and had
not long to live, spoke out against the bureaucracy, his only solution was to
set up a committee to control/prevent the growth of the bureaucracy!]
- soon after the revolution, grain was
subject to military requisitioning, and peasants who obstructed the
requisitioning were whipped and their villages razed with artillery
- the sailors of the Kronstadt fortress rose up in 1921, demanding that the
original promises of the revolution be kept to: the uprising was put down by
force, [and attempts were made to blacken the reputation of the sailors, e.g.
allegations were soon to surface of a Jewish conspiracy!!]
(see also: Brinton op cit p 75)
- the Ukrainians under the leadership
of the anarchist Makhno, who supported the
Bolsheviks, were attacked
- in 1921 Lenin establishes a New
Economic Policy (NEP), based on private ownership, free trade, and “the best
communist is he who drives the best bargain.” [see also Maximoff
1979]
References:
There are, of
course, many books on the subject. I have used – or would recommend – the
following (for a start!):
Berkman, A. (1986): The Russian Tragedy, Phoenix Press
(written 1922)
Brinton, M. (1970): The Bolsheviks and Workers’ Control,
Solidarity
also in: (2004): ed. David Goodway: For Workers’ Power, AK Press
Brown, A.: A
Fresh Look at Lenin (Solidarity pamphlet): www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/solidarity_lenin.html
Carr E. H.
(1966): The Bolshevik Revolution, Penguin (first published 1950)
Lawrence, J.
(1962): A History of
Maximoff, G. P. (1979): The Guillotine at work, Cienfuegos Press (first published 1940)
Pares Sir B.
(1962): A History of
Schapiro, L. (1977): The Government and Politics of the
Service, R.
(1991): The Russian Revolution 1900 - 1927, Macmillan (2nd ed.)
Seton-Watson, H.
(1967): The Russian Empire 1801 – 1917,
Wood, A. (1993):
The Origins of the Russian Revolution 1861 – 1917, Routledge
(2nd ed.)
On Stalin:
Martin Amis…
Simon Sebag Montefiore: Stalin: The
Court of the Red Tsar (Weidenfeld)
Postscript:
The country has
changed enormously since Gorbachev tried to bring in ‘perestroika’
(re-structuring) and ‘glaznost’ (openness). I have
not tried to keep up with all this, but there was a very good piece by Evgeny Lebedev in G2, 09.10.12
describing his life, and the impact of these upheavals:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/08/evgeny-lebedev-my-soviet-childhood?INTCMP=SRCH
He refers to another book – ‘one of the best books on Russia
to come out in recent years’: Molotov’s Magic lantern by Rachel Polonsky.