Title: Articles on the Russian revolution.

Author: Various (Workers Solidarity Movement)

Date: 1991 - 1993

Description: A collection of articles and talks 
that discuss the Russian revolution and the 
anarchist opposition to Leninism.  We also look 
at one Leninist attempt to answer this criticism.

In three parts: part 1

Keywords: Russia, 1917, Soviets, Mhakno, 
Kronsdadt, Lenin, Bolshevik, Factory Committees.

Related material: See booklist at end.

     Talk by Andrew Flood to the
       WSM public meeting in 
     Dublin on Anarchism and
      the Russian Revolution

I want to talk about the Russian revolution of 
1917. This has been a subject of key importance 
to anarchists for 70 years now, for two reasons.  
The first reason is that for the first time in 
history a working class revolution succeeded in 
ousting the old ruling classes.   The second 
reason is that after the old ruling class was 
ousted a new class came to power.  Those of us 
who want to make a revolution to-day must 
understand where the successes and failures of 
the past came from.

The Russian revolution demonstrated that it was 
possible for the working class to take over the 
running of the economy and to bring down their 
old rulers, not once but twice in a single year. 
After the February revolution of 1917 the workers 
entered into a period of almost constant struggle 
with the state and the bosses. At the start of 
this period many workers supported the Kerensky 
government.   This struggle changed their 
attitudes on a mass basis and gave them the 
confidence to try to overturn all the old order 
and privilege. Committees sprung up in the 
factories and the armed forces. In the run up to 
October the workers had already taken control of 
the factories, for the most part. The purpose of 
the October revolution was to smash the state, 
destroying the power of the bosses to use armed 
force to recover their property.

There were several organisations arguing for a 
workers revolution in this period. This included 
many anarchists particularly in Kronstadt. They 
were however much fewer in number than the 
Bolshevik party which came to claim the 
revolution as its legacy alone. During the 1905 
revolution the anarchists had raised the slogan 
"All power to the soviets", at the time this was 
opposed by what became the Bolshevik party but in 
1917 they used this slogan to gain mass support.  
Other Marxists at the time were, incorrectly to 
accuse the Bolsheviks as having abandoned Marxism 
for Anarchism but as events were to show they had 
done no such thing. 

 The revolution was made by no single 
organisation, but rather was the work of the 
working class of Russia. During the October 
revolution 4 anarchists were members of the 
Revolutionary military committee that co-
ordinated the military side of the revolution.. 
An Anarchist sailor from Kronstadt led the 
delegation which dissolved the constituent 
assembly. 

After October the working class of the Russia set 
about the process of building the new society on 
the ruins of the old. If they had succeeded there 
would be little need for this meeting to-night. 
Within a few short years however the revolution 
had collapsed. The old bosses never came back as 
a class although many individuals returned. 
Instead a new class of rulers arose, one which 
successfully incorporated many of the 
revolutionaries of 1917.  Too socialists to-day 
there is no more pressing task than understanding 
not only why the revolution failed but also why 
it failed in such a manner. The fact the patient 
died is now obvious, the question to-night is 
what it died of.

Many Socialists have tried to explain this 
degeneration of the revolution as a product of a 
unique set of circumstances, comprising the 
backwards state of the USSR and the heavy toll 
inflicted by three years of civil war and western 
intervention.  According to this theory the 
Bolsheviks were forced to take dictatorial 
measures in order to preserve the revolution. 
These were intended as emergency measures only 
and would have been repealed later if not for 
Stalin's rise to power in the 20's. This 
interpretation of history presents the Bolsheviks 
as helpless victims of circumstances.

This is not a view we would accept as most of you 
are no doubt aware. It is a view that falls 
beneath even a casual look at what occurred in 
the USSR between 1917 and 1921. It also collapses 
when you look at what Leninist ideology had stood 
for before and after the revolution. We instead 
lay the blame at the feet of Lenin and the 
Bolshevik party. The degeneration was part and 
parcel of the policies of the Bolsheviks.  

What actually happened in this period was the 
replacement of all the organs of workers 
democracy and self-management with Bolshevik 
imposed state rule. One example of many is given 
by the factory committees. These 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 in order 
to prevent the individual bosses from sabotaging 
equipment.  They quickly attempted to 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, power and to take 
their products on to the next stage of production 
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" only 25% of 
the delegates coming from the factory committees. 
In this way the creative energy of Russian 
workers which would have resulted in a co-
ordinating centre not under Bolshevik control was 
blocked in favour of an organisation the party 
could control. This body was in itself still 
born, it only met once. In any case it was soon 
absorbed by the Supreme Economic Council set up 
in November 1917 which was attached to the 
Council of Peoples Commissars, itself entirely 
made up of Bolshevik party members.

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 showed 
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, the factory committees 
wanted the factories to be owned and managed by 
the workers. One Bolshevik described the factory 
committees attitude as " We found a process which 
recalled the anarchist dreams of autonomous 
productive communes".  

There were many anarchists involved in the 
factory committee movement at the time, mainly 
through the K.A.S., the Confederation of Anarcho-
Syndicalists.  In some areas they were the 
dominant influence in the factories. From this 
stage on the influence of the KAS was to grow 
rapidly in the Unions to the point where the 
Bolsheviks started to physically suppress its 
activists in 1918.  At the first all Russian 
council of trade unions the anarcho-syndicalists 
had delegates representing 75,000 workers. Their 
resolution calling for real workers control and 
not state workers control was defeated by an 
alliance of the Bolshevik, Menshevik and Social-
Revolutionary delegates. By the end of 1918 
Workers Control was replaced with individual 
management of the Factories (by Bolshevik decree) 
and the KAS had been weakened by armed Cheka 
raids and the closing down of its national 
publication  in April and May 1918.

All this occurred before the Civil war and the 
allied intervention attempted to smash the 
revolution. The civil war was to reap an enormous 
harvest on the Soviet union as the combined 
forces of White generals and 17 foreign armies 
captured up to 60% of the land area and 
threatened to capture Petrograd.  It also 
provided the excuse the Bolsheviks were to use 
for the suppression of workers control but as we 
have seen this was a process that was already 
under way.  It did however mean that most of the 
non-Bolshevik revolutionaries temporarily sunk 
their differences with the Bolsheviks in order to 
defeat the whites.

The civil war greatly weakened the ability of the 
working class to resist the further undermining 
of the gains they had made in 1917. During the 
civil war emphasis was placed on the need for 
unity to defeat the whites. After the civil war a 
much weakened working class found itself faced 
with a complete state structure armed with all 
the repression apparatus of the modern state. 
Many of the activists had been jailed or executed 
by the Bolsheviks. In 1921 at the end of the 
civil war only a fresh revolution could have set 
the USSR back on the path towards socialism.

Those of you who have read Workers Solidarity 
will be aware of these arguments in more detail. 
The major point I want to make to-night is that 
the repression of workers democracy by the 
Bolsheviks was as a result of Bolshevik ideology 
rather then due to character flaws in the 
Bolshevik leadership. Lenin had a very limited 
view of what socialism was, seeing it as little 
more then an extension of state capitalism. 
"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". 
The introduction of Taylorism and one man 
management in the factories in 1918 and 1919 
displays a similar fixation with efficiency and 
productivity.

Lenin also believed that ordianary workers could 
not run society. A party of intellectuals was 
necessary to do this. He thought that workers 
were unable to go beyond having a "trade union 
consciousness" because of the fact they had no 
time to study socialism.
"there are many...who are not enlightened 
socialists and cannot be such because they have 
to slave in the factories and they have neither 
the time nor the opportunity to become 
socialists". 
Briefly in 1917 Lenin was forced to acknowledge 
this to be wrong when he admitted that the 
workers were 100 times ahead of the party from 
February to October.

This was the justification behind the 
dictatorship of the party. In a modern sense it 
is the justification behind putting the party 
before all else. Leninists today will happily 
argue that a socialist should have no principles 
beyond building the party and that even scabbing 
is excusable if it is in the parties interests. 
Leninist organisations tend to look at struggles 
purely in terms of recruitment, remaining 
involved just long enough to pick up any 
activists then heading on for the next one.  For 
the Leninists the chance of a revolution being 
successful is mainly determined by the size of 
their party at the time.

Anarchists have a different view of what 
socialism is and how people become socialists.  
We do not think it is something that comes from 
reading books or engaging in debates. The basic 
ideas of socialism are produced whenever workers 
come into conflict with the bosses. it is at this 
time that large numbers of people activey ask who 
runs the factories, what is the role of the 
state, etc. The purpose of a anarchist 
organisation is not simply to grow by grabbing 
activists out of campaigns. Its function is to 
get involved with such struggles using its 
reservoir of experience and theory to win them. 
It's function is to link up many individual 
struggles into a widespread anti-capitalist 
movement. Its function is to agitate for the 
smashing of the state and it's replacement with a 
society based on communism and workers self-
management.

We do not see the number of people in our 
organisation as being the most important factor 
behind the success or failure of a revolution. 
Rather we look at the level of confidence in the 
class, and the level of understanding about what 
needs to be built as well as what must be 
destroyed. Although we want our ideas to be taken 
up and used on a mass basis we have no wish to 
get become leaders in order for this to happen.

The Bolsheviks saw their party as comprising all 
the advanced revolutionaries (vanguard). They saw 
socialism as something best implemented by a 
professional leadership of intellectuals. So when 
they talked of dictatorship of the proletariat 
they did not mean the working class as a whole 
exercising control of society. They meant the 
party holding power on behalf of the working 
class and in practise the leadership of the party 
being the ones making all the important policy 
decisions. 

They believed the party, because of its unique 
position was always right and therefore it had 
the right to rule over all the class.  Therefore 
while the Soviets had been useful to the 
Bolsheviks up to the October revolution after the 
revolution they became a threat.  They could and 
did decide policy which would contradict the 
party line. Most of them were not under 
sufficiently under the control of the party as 
they contained many other revolutionaries also. 
So the Bolsheviks proceeded to turn them into 
organs which rubberstamped party decisions.  

By 1918 this process had been completed to the 
extent that the decisions to sign the treaty of 
Brest-Livtosk which surrendered a huge area of 
the revolutionary Ukraine to Germany and the 
Austro-Hungarian empire was made at a party 
Central Committee meeting. Indeed  the central 
committee was split, the decision going through 
only by one vote, yet the Soviets had no role at 
all in this decision making. This was again long 
before the Civil war and the famine was to 
provide an excuse for such manoeuvres.

The success and failure throws up all the 
questions that still separate anarchism from all 
other socialist theories.  Where do revolutionary 
ideas come from.  Lenin was quite clear on this 
in what is to be done 
"History in all countries attests that, on it's 
own, the working class cannot go beyond the level 
of trade union consciousness, the realisation 
that they must combine into trade unions, fight 
against the employers, force the governments to 
pass such laws as benefit the conditions of the 
workers...As for the socialist doctrine, it was 
constructed out of the philosophical, historical 
and economic theories elaborated by educated 
members of the ruling class by intellectuals".

Anarchists on the other hand point to the 
creative energy of the working class, the 
creation of Soviets in 1905 and of the Hungarian 
Workers Councils in 1956 for instance were 
spontaneous events, unguided by any organisation. 
Revolutionary organisations are created by 
sections of the working class although it is 
certainly true that as the ruling class dominate 
education it may well be ex-members of this class 
that write down and formularise these ideas. 

The Leninists also see their party as 
representing the working class.  This was the 
justification of the suppression of all rivals in 
1918 for the Bolsheviks and for the closing down 
of factions in the party from 1918 to 1921. 
Trotsky even more then Stalin or Lenin was the 
most prominent supporter of what was called the 
parties historical birthright. In the early 20's 
he was to repeatedly use this idea of the parties 
birthright against minority groups and 
individuals in the Bolshevik party. The most 
astounding part of this however was the 
willingness of the same groups and individuals to 
accept this silencing in the name of the party. 
By the 30's this whole process was to reach its 
logical conclusion with Stalins show trials of 
many of the old Bolshevik leadership.

 The right of the party to dictate over the class 
was clearly expressed in 1921 by Trotsky at the 
10th party congress.  In attacking a faction 
within the Bolshevik party he said of them 
"They have come out with dangerous slogans. They 
have made a fetish of democratic principles. They 
have placed the workers right to elect 
representatives above the party. As if the party 
were not entitled to assert its dictatorship even 
if that dictatorship temporarily clashed with the 
passing moods of the workers' democracy!"  
Here we have one of the clearest statements of 
the ideology behind Bolshevik practise in these 
years.  This is the road many of to-days 
revolutionaries would like to lead us on to.

We have an entirely different project of how 
capitalism is to be overthrown and what is to 
replace it.  We don't think Workers democracy is 
icing on the cake or a step towards a workers 
state. We have no illusions in the neutrality of 
the state, no matter in whose hands power may 
lie.  We wish to take part in the building of a 
workers movement not only capable of tearing down 
existing society but also of building a new 
society free of exploitation on its ruins. 

             How Lenin led to Stalin 
          From Workers Solidarity No. 33

FOR THE LENINIST far left the collapse of the 
USSR has thrown up more questions then it 
answered.  If the Soviet Union really was a 
'workers state' why were the workers unwilling to 
defend it?  Why did they in fact welcome the 
changes?  

What happened to Trotskys "political revolution 
or bloody counter revolution"?  Those Leninist 
organisations which no longer see the Soviet 
Union as a workers state do not escape the 
contradictions either.  If Stalin was the source 
of the problem why do so many Russian workers 
blame Lenin and the other Bolshevik leaders too.

The mythology of "Lenin, creator and sustainer of 
the Russian revolution" is now dying.  With it 
will go all the Leninist groups for as the Soviet 
archives are increasingly opened it will become 
increasingly difficult to defend Lenin's legacy.  
The Left in the west has dodged and falsified the 
Lenin debate for 60 years now.  Now however there 
is a proliferation of articles and meetings by 
the various Trotskyist groups trying to convince 
workers that Lenin did not lead to Stalin.  
Unfortunately much of this debate is still based 
on the slander and falsifications of history that 
has been symptomatic of Bolshevism since 1918.  
The key questions of what comprises Stalinism and 
when did "Stalinism" first come into practice are 
dodged in favour of rhetoric and historical 
falsehood.

 Stalinism is defined by many features and indeed 
some of these are more difficult then others to 
lay at the feet of Lenin.  The guiding points of 
Stalin's foreign policy for instance was the idea 
of peaceful co-existence with the West while 
building socialism in the USSR ("socialism in one 
country").  Lenin is often presented as the 
opposite extreme, being willing to risk all in 
the cause of international revolution.  This 
story like many others however is not all it 
seems. Other points that many would consider 
characteristic of Stalinism include, the creation 
of a one party state, no control by the working 
class of the economy, the dictatorial rule of 
individuals over the mass of society, the brutal 
crushing of all workers' action and the use of 
slander and historical distortion against other 
left groups.

 SOCIALISM IN ONE COUNTRY

The treaty of Brest-Livtosk of 1918, which pulled 
Russia out of World War I, also surrendered a 
very large amount of the Ukraine to the Austro-
Hungarians.  Obviously, there was no potential of 
continuing a conventional war (especially as the 
Bolsheviks had used the slogan "peace, bread, 
land" to win mass support).  Yet, the presence of 
the Makhnovist movement in the Ukraine, clearly 
demonstrated a vast revolutionary potential among 
the Ukrainian peasants and workers.  No attempt 
was made to supply or sustain those forces which 
did seek to fight a revolutionary war against the 
Austro-Hungarians.  They were sacrificed in order 
to gain a respite to build "socialism" in Russia. 
	
The second point worth considering about Lenin's 
internationalism is his insistence from 1918 
onwards, that the task was to build "state 
capitalism, as "If we introduced state capitalism 
in approximately 6 months' time we would achieve 
a great success..".1  He was also to say 
"Socialism is nothing but state capitalist 
monopoly made to benefit the whole people". 2  
This calls into question Lenin's concept of 
socialism. 

ONE PARTY STATE

Another key feature many would associate with 
Stalinism was the creation of a one party state, 
and the silencing of all opposition currents 
within the party.  Many Trotskyists will still 
try to tell you that the Bolsheviks encouraged 
workers to take up and debate the points of the 
day, both inside and outside the party.  The 
reality is very different for the Bolsheviks 
rapidly clamped down on the revolutionary forces 
outside the party, and then on those inside that 
failed to toe the line . 

In April 1918 the Bolshevik secret police (The 
Cheka) raided 26 Anarchist centres in Moscow.  40 
Anarchists were killed or injured and over 500 
imprisoned 3.  In May the leading Anarchist 
publications were closed down4.  Both of these 
events occurred before the excuse of the outbreak 
of the Civil War could be used as a 
'justification'.  These raids occurred because 
the Bolsheviks were beginning to lose the 
arguments about the running of Russian industry.

In 1918 also a faction of the Bolshevik party 
critical of the party's introduction of 
'Talyorism' (the use of piece work and time & 
motion studies to measure the output of each 
worker, essentially the science of sweat 
extraction) around the journal Kommunist were 
forced out of Leningrad when the majority of the 
Leningrad party conference supported Lenin's 
demand "that the adherents of Kommunist cease 
their separate organisational existence". 5 

The paper was last published in May, silenced"Not 
by  discussion, persuasion or compromise, but by 
a high pressure campaign in the Party 
organisations, backed by a barrage of violent 
invective in the party press...". 6  So much for 
encouraging debate!!

A further example of the Bolsheviks 'encouraging 
debate' was seen in their treatment of the 
Makhnovist in the Ukranine.  This partisan army 
which fought against both the Ukrainian 
nationalists and the White generals at one time 
liberated over 7 million people.  It was led by 
the anarchist Nestor Mhakno and anarchism played 
the major part in the ideology of the movement.  
The liberated zone was ran by a democratic soviet 
of workers and peasants and many collectives were 
set up. 

ECHOS OF SPAIN

The Makhnovists entered into treaties with the 
Bolsheviks three times in order to maintain a 
stronger united front against the Whites and 
nationalists.  Despite this they were betrayed by 
the Bolsheviks three times, and the third time 
they were destroyed after the Bolsheviks arrested 
and executed all the delegates sent to a joint 
military council.  This was under the 
instructions of Trotsky!  Daniel Guerin's 
description of Trotskys dealings with the 
Makhnovists is instructive "He refused to give 
arms to Makhno's partisans, failing in his duty 
of assisting them, and subsequently accused them 
of betrayal and of allowing themselves to be 
beaten by white troops.  The same procedure was 
followed 18 years later by the Spanish Stalinists 
against the anarchist brigades" 7 

The final lid was put on political life outside 
or inside the party in 1921.  The 1921 party 
congress banned all factions in the communist 
party itself.  Trotsky made a speech denouncing 
one such faction, the Workers Opposition as 
having  "placed the workers right to elect 
representatives above the party.  As if the party 
were not entitled to assert its dictatorship even 
if that dictatorship temporarily clashed with the 
passing moods of the workers democracy". 8 

Shortly afterwards the Kronstadt rising was used 
as an excuse to exile, imprison and execute the 
last of the anarchists.  Long before Lenins death 
the political legacy now blamed on Stalin had 
been completed.  Dissent had been silenced inside 
and outside the party. The one party state 
existed as of 1921.  Stalin may have been the 
first to execute party members on a large scale 
but with the execution of those revolutionaries 
outside the party and the silencing of dissidents 
within it from 1918 the logic for these purges 
was clearly in place.

