       Red & Black Revolution
 A magazine of libertarian communism

      Issue 1    October 1994

Produced by Workers Solidarity Movement

   Freedom & Revolution 

In 1922 Emma Goldman complained "Soviet 
Russia, had become the modern socialist 
Lourdes, to which the blind and the lame, 
the deaf and the dumb were flocking for 
miraculous cures"(1).  The Russian 
Revolution was the first occasion where 
decades of revolutionary ideas could be 
applied to real life.  What was theory was 
now practice.  The struggle between the two 
concepts of revolution -  the statist-
centralist and the libertarian federalist -  
moved from the realm of the abstract to the 
concrete.

The question thrown up by the October 
revolution is fundamental.  Once capitalism 
has been defeated, how is communism to be 
achieved?  While there are certainly faults 
to be found with aspects of the anarchist 
movement, at least it cannot be criticised 
for getting the basics wrong.  Anarchists 
have consistently argued that freedom and 
democracy are not optional extras.  Rather 
they form part of the conditions necessary 
for the growth of communism.

What is socialism?

How does one create a communist society?  
The answer lies in our conception of 
socialism.  What is meant by 'socialism'?  
The classic definition is that of society 
run according to the dictum "from each 
according to his/her ability, to each 
according to his/her needs".  To 
anarchists, material equality is one 
dimension to socialism, but there is 
another of equal importance, that of 
freedom.

The world has enough wealth to provide for 
all our material comforts.  Socialism seeks 
to liberate people from the constant 
worries about mortgages or landlords, the 
rising cost of living and the numerous 
other issues, trivial yet vital that grind 
us down in our daily life.  What's more, 
socialism must also give us the power to 
control our own lives, power to take 
control of our own destinies.

For our entire lives, from school to the 
workplace, we are forced to obey somebody 
else's order, treated like children or bits 
of machinery.  Human beings have great 
potential but for most of us, only in a 
socialist society, will this potential be 
realised.

So though socialism is about material 
equality it is also about freedom.  
Furthermore it is impossible to maintain 
one without the other.  As long as power is 
distributed unequally, a section of society 
will continue to have privileges leading to 
material advantage.  Ultimately society 
will again be divided into classes, into 
those who have and those who have not.  
Furthermore the experience of those 
attempts to manage the economy through an 
undemocratic centralised state has also 
shown that it is unfeasible to manage and 
control a complex system without democracy 
and accountability.

The revolution must achieve a number of 
things.  It must defeat the ruling class, 
removing from them their economic and 
political dominance.  In place of the 
bosses, the working class must in every 
sphere of activity make the decisions that 
ultimately affect them;  in factories, 
communities, schools, universities, 
newspapers, television and film studios.

This is the sort of society that is worth 
fighting for.  However it not the sort of 
society that can be achieved through the 
dictatorship of a minority over the 
majority.  Even some Marxists such as Rosa 
Luxembourg recognised this.  She said, 
"Socialist practice demands a total 
spiritual transformation in the masses 
degraded by centuries of bourgeois class 
rule.  Social instincts in place of 
egoistic ones, mass initiative in place of 
inertia, idealism which overcomes all 
suffering, etc. etc.... The only way to a 
rebirth is the school of public life 
itself, the broadest and the most unlimited 
democracy, and public opinion.  It is rule 
by terror which demoralises."1

The questions that face us are:  what does 
revolution mean?  Once capitalism has been 
overthrown how is society to be run?  Who 
will control the factories, how will 
production be managed?  How will the 
population be fed, how will the economy be 
organised?  And finally, how will the 
revolution be defended against opposition 
and its survival ensured?  If communism is 
to become a reality, answers must be found.



1.Who's in charge?...running

 the revolution.



On midnight 25/26th of October, the 
Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), 
following the directions of the Petrograd 
Soviet (workers council), started the 
confused process of seizing the Winter 
Palace where Kerensky's cabinet was in 
session.  The October Revolution had taken 
place.  In contrast to the dramatic 
portrayal of the storming of the winter 
place by the Soviet film maker Eisenstien, 
there was practically no opposition to the 
take-over and hardly any bloodshed.  Sergei 
Mstislavskii, a leader of the Left SR's 
(peasant-based party which briefly entered 
a coalition with the Bolsheviks) describes 
being woken up on the morning of the 25th 
by the "cheerful tapping of rifles.... 
'Gird up your loins boss.  There's a smell 
of gunpowder in the city..' Actually, the 
city did not smell of gunpowder;  power lay 
in the gutter, anyone could pick it up.  
One did not have to gird one's loins, one 
needed only to stoop down and pick it 
up"(2)

The Bolshevik Myth is that the Bolsheviks, 
under the logical and scientific leadership 
of Lenin, guided the revolution over hurdle 
after hurdle.  They argue that objective 
circumstances forced them to make difficult 
but ultimately correct decisions.   
Descriptions of the revolution like the 
following passage are frequently found:

"the bolsheviks..in the hour of crisis put 
aside all their indignation at the 
governmental persecutions and concentrated 
on the task of saving the revolution.  The 
victory before the gates of Petrograd set 
free the energies of the masses throughout 
the country.  Peasants revolted against 
their landlords, and in far-away industrial 
centres Soviets took power.  The decisive 
hour was approaching.  Would there be a 
force capable of directing the chaotic mass 
movements into one channel towards the 
correct aim?"(3)

Here it is implied that without the 
Bolshevik leadership the revolution would 
not have happened.  The masses are 
portrayed as incapable of running a new 
society.   The creative ability of the 
working class to build a new society is not 
present in the Leninist conception of a 
working class capable of only 'trade union 
consciousness'.  The October Revolution was 
"not really so much a bold stroke by the 
Bolsheviks under Lenin as is it was a 
culmination of months of progressive social 
revolution throughout the country,  The 
ubiquitous growth of peasants and workers' 
committees and soviets sapped the power 
from the hands of Kerensky and the 
bourgeois provincial government, which 
surrendered without a fight as it's 
capacity to govern had completely 
dissolved"(4).

Bourgeois Democracy.

After the October Revolution, the Second 
Congress of Soviets elected an interim 
government (the Sovnarkom), pending the 
holding of elections to the  Constituent 
Assembly.   This provisional government on 
the 3rd of March undertook in a solemn 
declaration to summon a Constituent 
Assembly.  Following elections the SR's had 
an overall majority, with the Bolsheviks 
winning only 175 out of the 707 seats. 

It is with the decision to call for 
elections to the Constituent Assembly that 
the anarchists first diverged from the 
Bolsheviks.  What lead them to take this 
decision and why did anarchists oppose it?

The western model of parliamentary 
democracy could more accurately be 
characterised as a '4-year dictatorship'.  
The crucial difference between 
'representative' democracy and 'direct' 
democracy is that under the former, voters 
have no part in deciding policy and are 
unable to recall their representatives.  
Instead they  have nothing more than the 
illusion that by voting they are in some 
way able to control the political process.

Once power lay in the hands of the Soviets, 
the Constituent Assembly became a redundant 
institution.  Here was a country where 
control had been finally wrenched from the 
ruling class and was organised in the hands 
of the workers. The Bolsheviks decision to 
call for new elections was a step 
backwards.  In terms of fighting for 
socialism, it made no sense to be 
supporting the authority of the Constituent 
Assembly over that of the masses.  As 
anarchists said shortly afterwards:

"To continue the Revolution and transform 
it into a social revolution, the Anarchists 
saw no utility in calling such an assembly, 
an institution essentially political and 
bourgeoisie, cumbersome and sterile, an 
institution which, by its very nature, 
placed itself  'above the social struggles' 
and concerned itself only, by means of 
dangerous compromises, with stopping the 
revolution, and even suppressing it if 
possible.....so the Anarchists tried to 
make known to the masses the uselessness of 
the Constituent Assembly, and the necessity 
of going beyond it and replacing it at once 
with economic and social organisations, if 
they really wanted to begin a social 
revolution

.........We believe, in fact, that in a 
time of social revolution, what is 
important for the workers is for them to 
organise their new life themselves, from 
the bottom, and with the help of their 
immediate economic organisations, and not 
from above, by means of an authoritarian 
political centre"(5)

The party

One of the main differences between the 
anarchist and the Leninist tendency is in 
their differing attitudes to power and 
control.  While both agree that the 
revolution should be made by the  working 
class, they disagree on who hold the reigns 
of power afterwards.  Leninists believe it 
is the job of the party to exercise control 
of society on behalf  of the ruling class 
and like a parent, the party interprets 
what the best interests of the working 
class are.  In contrast, anarchists believe 
that it is the working class who should run 
society, making and implementing decisions 
from the bottom up, through a system of 
organisations similar to the factory 
committees and the soviets.

Often Leninists will counter this argument 
by saying,  the party is made up of the 
best elements, the vanguard, of the working 
class.  Although at the time of October the 
Bolsheviks were the largest working class 
party this was because of what they claimed 
to stand for ("All power to the soviets" 
etc.).  There were still many advanced 
workers outside the party, so even then the 
'vanguard' and the party were not 
identical.  In the years that followed as 
the party came to be increasingly composed 
of bureaucrats, the advanced workers were 
often as not in opposition.  The mistake 
the Leninists make is to assume October 
froze the 'vanguard' in one organisation 
for all time.

Leninists and anarchists agree that, unlike 
most others in the working class, they have 
both an analysis of how society works and 
practical experience drawn from involvement 
in struggles.  These are the tools needed 
to effect a complete transformation of 
society.  However anarchism and Leninism 
diverge on the ability of the working class 
to run society.  They have differing 
estimations of how aware the working class 
are of their revolutionary potential.  
Anarchists believe that it is possible to 
convince the mass of the working class of 
our ideas.  In contrast, Lenin said that 
most workers are capable only of  "trade 
union consciousness".  Naturally therefore, 
Leninists believe that since the working 
class is sensible only to its short term 
interests, it is vital that the Leninists 
are in power, in order for the revolution 
to suceed.

It was this line of thinking that led the 
Bolsheviks to initially call for elections 
to the Constituent Assembly and then, once 
it had been held, to call for its 
dissolution, as Alexander Berkman commented 
in 1921;

"They (the Bolsheviks) had advocated the 
Constituent Assembly, and only when they 
were convinced they could not have a 
majority there, and therefore not be able 
to take state power into their own hands, 
they suddenly decided on the dissolution of 
the assembly"

Lenin, in a signed Pravda article published 
on 22 December 1918, quoted approvingly 
from Plekhanov's speech at the Second 
RSDRP(6) Congress in 1903;

"If in a burst of enthusiasm the people 
elected a very good parliament...then we 
ought to make it a very long parliament and 
if the elections have not proved a success, 
then we should seek to disperse parliament 
not after two years but, if possible, after 
two weeks."(7)

Their opposition wasn't based, unlike the 
anarchists, on the essentially anti-
democratic nature of the Constituent 
Assembly, instead it was on whether or not 
the Bolsheviks were the controlling force.

In a revolutionary situation the anarchists 
are alone in arguing that society should be 
organised from the bottom up, through a 
freely federated system of workers' 
councils.  Decisions should be taken at the 
lowest possible level.  Delegates are 
elected solely to represent the view of 
those who elected them, receive no more pay 
than the average worker, may act as a 
delegate for only a fixed amount of time 
and are recallable.  If the working class 
has the power to overthrow capitalism, it 
certainly is capable of organising a 
socialist society afterwards.





2.  Fighting the 

Counter Revolution



Once the capitalist power structure has 
been dismantled, the next immediate issue 
on the revolutionaries' agenda is to ensure 
the defence of the revolution while also 
fostering its growth.  It is a mistake to 
characterise revolutions as inherently 
bloody.  In the October Revolution itself 
there were only 500 casualties.  Many were 
surprised by the speed and ease with which 
the eastern European regimes fell in the 
1980's.  Similarly the dictatorship was 
bloodlessly toppled in Portugal in 1974.  
Bloodbaths, such as those which occurred 
following the Paris Commune, Chile in 1973 
or Indonesia in 1965(8), are products of 
failed revolutions or more accurately, 
successful counter revolutions.

There is likely to be violent opposition to 
any attempt by the working classes to take 
power from the bosses.  After all, the 
masses have everything to gain while the 
minority ruling class have everything to 
lose.  The danger this poses depends on the 
relative strength of the bosses' reaction.  
However, whether the threat is large or 
small, it will be necessary to physically 
defend the revolution from opposition, both 
internally and externally.

This raises a number of issues.  The corner 
stone of any justical system is access to 
open and fair trials, a full appeal process 
and sentence proportional to the gravity of 
the crime.  While these are easily 
attainable in peace, in war, particularly 
civil war, curtailment of rights and civil 
liberties are more likely to occur.  This 
should not be glorified (as Lenin tended to 
do), short term expediency is likely to 
lead to long term damage.  The questions 
revolutionaries must ask is, are our 
actions necessary and 'objectively 
unavoidable' or can they be avoided?  
Furthermore, what effect will they have on 
the process of introducing socialism?  
Again, the answer given will depend on what 
socialism is considered to be.

The Secret Police

Only two months after the revolution (well 
before the start of the civil war) a secret 
police force known as the Cheka was 
founded, initially to inherit the security 
functions of the MRC(9).  There were no 
external controls on its operation.  No 
judicial process was involved in assessing 
the guilt or innocence of any of its 
prisoners.  Punishments, including the 
death penalty, were arbitrarily applied.The 
Cheka was meant to be a temporary 
organisation, at first it was an 
administrative body designed to carry out 
investigative functions. It was not 
initially judicial and had no powers of 
arrest, however it grew up quickly.  Nine 
days after its birth, it was granted the 
power of arrest.  In January 1918 it was 
being assigned armed units, in February it 
was granted the power of summary trials and 
execution of sentences (which included the 
death sentence).  At the end of 1917 it had 
23 personnel, by mid 1918 it had over 
10,000.

The Cheka was a police force.  The role of 
a police force is to defend the interests 
of a ruling minority.  These days the 
government will always defend the actions 
of the police, seen for example in the 
whitewashing of police involved in the 
Birmingham Six case in England.  The same 
was true of the Bolshevik party's 
relationship to the Cheka.  This is Lenin 
speaking to a rally of Chekists on 7th 
November 1918.

"It is not at all surprising to hear the 
Chekist's activities frequently attacked by 
friends as well as enemies. We have taken a 
hard job.  When we took over the government 
of the country, we naturally made many 
mistakes, and it is only natural that the 
mistakes of the Extraordinary Commissions  
[the Cheka] strike the eye most.  The 
narrow-minded intellectual fastens on these 
mistakes without trying to get to the root 
of the matter.  What does surprise me in 
all these outcries about the Cheka's 
mistakes is the manifest inability to put 
the question on a broad footing.  People 
harp on individual mistakes the Chekas 
made, and raise a hue and cry about them.  
We, however, say that we learn from our 
mistakes...When I consider its activities 
and see how they are attacked, I say this 
is all narrow minded and futile 
talk....What is important for us is that 
the Chekas are implementing the 
dictatorship of the proletariat, and in 
this respect their role is invaluable.  
There is no other way to liberate the 
masses except by crushing the exploiters by 
violence."

The quote begs quite a few questions; what 
are the mistakes being talked about?  What 
has been learnt from these mistakes?  And 
was the Cheka activity aimed solely at the 
old ruling class?

Revolutionary Terror

The Bolshevik policy of Red Terror began 
shortly after the beginning of the Civil 
War in the summer of 1918, and was mirrored 
by the White Terror.  The policy promoted 
the use of mass execution and fear as a 
tactic to be implemented ruthlessly.  Acts 
of violence, rather than being viewed as 
regrettable and destructive were glorified.  
Latsis, the head of the Cheka on the 
Eastern front, wrote "In civil war there 
are no courts of law for the enemy.  It is 
a life or death struggle.  If you do not 
kill, you will be killed.  Therefore kill, 
that you may not be killed."(10) .  The 
paper of the Red Army wrote after an 
assassination attempt against Lenin;  
"Without mercy, without sparing, we will 
kill our enemies in scores of hundreds.  
Let them be thousands, let them drown 
themselves in their own blood.  For the 
blood of Lenin and Uritskii...let there be 
floods of blood of the bourgeois - more 
blood, as much as possible."(11)  It's hard 
to see what this frenzied call for 
destruction and retribution could 
contribute to the task of building a new 
and freer society.

Collective punishments, categorical 
punishments, torture, hostage taking and 
random punishments - aimed at providing 
lessons - were all applied in the name of 
the revolution.  Categorical punishments 
were punishments based not on what someone 
actually did, but on what class or 
political background they belonged to.  On 
the 3rd of September 1918, Ivestia 
announced that over 500 hostages had been 
shot by the Petrograd Cheka, these were 
people convicted not because they had 
committed a crime but because they were 
unfortunate enough to come from the wrong 
background.

There are two interpretations that may be 
applied to the use of revolutionary terror;  
on the one hand, it may be aimed against 
counter-revolution, on the other it may be 
used to compensate for the regimes 
declining popularity.  As Emma Goldman 
wrote in 1922, "..an insignificant minority 
bent on creating an absolute State is 
necessarily driven to oppression and 
terrorism"(12).  The policy of 
revolutionary terror is in direct 
opposition to obtaining mass participation 
in the running of the society.  While these 
tactics certainly consolidated the 
Bolshevik's power base, they undermined the 
socialism the revolution had been about in 
the first palace.

In the countryside the Bolsheviks became 
the 'occupying army' instead of the 
'liberating army', alienating the very 
population they should have been trying to 
convince.  Terror is a doubled edged sword, 
it may be expedient but its use also 
discredits any regimes claim to fairness.

Furthermore as Malatesta the Italian 
anarchist wrote in 1919 "Even Bonaparte 
helped defend the French Revolution against 
the European reaction, but in defending it 
he strangled it.  Lenin, Trotsky and 
comrades are certainly sincere 
revolutionaries, and they will not betray 
what they take as revolution, but they are 
preparing the governmental apparatus which 
will help those who follow them to profit 
by the revolution and destroy it.  They 
will be the first victims of their methods, 
and with them, I fear, the revolution will 
collapse.  History repeats itself, mutatis 
mutandis: and the dictatorship of 
Robespierre brought Robespierre to the 
guillotine and prepared the way for 
Napoleon."(13)   Perhaps Trotsky should 
have heeded Malatesta's words.

The Death Penalty

One of the first acts of the 2nd Congress 
of Soviets in October was the repeal of the 
death penalty that had been introduced by 
Kerensky.  This was restored on the 16th 
June 1918.  On 17th January 1920, The 
Bolshevik government abolished the death 
penalty except in districts where there 
were military operations taking place.  To 
circumvent this order, the Cheka routinely 
transferred prisoners to the military areas 
for execution.  In the following passage, 
the Bolshevik Victor Serge, describes how 
the Chekas reacted to the abolition of the 
death penalty

"while the newspapers were printing the 
decree, the Petrograd Chekas were 
liquidating their stock!  Cartload after 
cartload of suspects had been driven 
outside the city during the night, and then 
shot, heap upon heap.  How many?  In 
Petrograd between 150 and 200; in Moscow it 
was said between 200 and 300."(14)

Neither of these actions can be justified 
by the necessities of civil war as they 
occurred well behind friendly lines.  Nor 
were these actions the product of random 
events, they weren't mistakes, rather, as 
explained above, they were part of the 
policy of revolutionary terror

The Anarchists

On the 11th December Cheka and Lettish 
troops surrounded 26 anarchist strongholds 
in Moscow.  The anarchists suffered 40 
casualties and 500 were taken prisoner.  On 
the 26th April similar raids were carried 
out in Petrograd.  At this stage 
Dzershinsky (head of the Cheka) justified 
his action on the grounds that the 
anarchists had been preparing an 
insurrection and that in any event, most of 
those arrested proved to be criminal riff 
raff.  He stressed that the Cheka had 
neither the mandate nor the desire to wage 
war on "ideological anarchists". Yet 
documents(15)  dating from the 13th June 
outlined that the department for counter 
revolution investigative section and 
intelligence unit had sections allocated to 
dealing with anarchists.  The fact that 
'ideological' Anarchists were under Cheka 
surveillance gives lie to the Bolshevik 
claim that they were only opposed to a 
'criminal' element within the anarchist 
movement rather than anarchism itself.

While Leon Trotsky was saying in July 1921 
"We do not imprison real anarchists.  Those 
whom we hold in prison are not anarchists, 
but criminals and bandits who cover 
themselves up by claiming to be 
anarchists"(16), 13 anarchists were on 
hungerstrike in Moscow.  Fortunately a 
French Syndicalist trade union delegation 
in the city heard of their plight and the 
prisoners were released (all but three were 
expelled from the USSR).  Not so lucky was 
Fanyan Baron, a young anarchist woman, shot 
without trial, along with several others, 
on trumped up charges of counterfeiting 
Soviet bank notes (it was later proven that 
the counterfeiting was done by the Cheka 
itself).  Unlucky also were the 30 or 40 
anarchists living near Zhmirink who 
according to the soviet press in 1921 had 
been "discovered and liquidated".  The last 
great mobilisation of anarchists occurred 
at the funeral of Kroptkin in February 1921 
when 20,000 marched with placards and 
banners demanding, among other things, the 
release of anarchists from prison.  From 
then on the suppression of anarchists 
became thorough and complete.

While there was opposition to the Cheka 
abuses from within the Bolshevik party, 
there was no institutional attempt to 
change its mode of operation.  In any 
organisation, there is both a human and a 
structural element.  Perhaps it could be 
argued that the abuses of Cheka were due to 
individual mistakes.  If individuals are 
given unlimited power, including power over 
life and death, with no accountability, 
it's inevitable that a measure of excess 
and corruption will occur.  Where this 
occurs it is up to the revolutionary 
organisation to make changes to prevent the 
same mistakes from being repeated.  This is 
not what the Bolshevik party did. They 
continued to entrust individuals with 
unchecked power.  They did not make any 
structural changes to the Cheka.  Instead 
they occasionally rooted out the rotten 
human element, closing down certain 
branches, while leaving the edifice that 
engendered these abuses untouched. 

Emma Goldman said, on escaping from Russia 
in 1921, "I have never denied that violence 
is inevitable, nor do I gainsay it now.  
Yet it is one thing to employ violence in 
combat as a means of defence.  It is quite 
another to make a principle of terrorism, 
to institutionalise it, to assign it the 
most vital place in the social struggle.  
Such terrorism begets counter-revolution 
and in turn becomes counter-
revolutionary."(17)


3. Defending the revolution

The other side to defending the revolution 
is that of defending it from outside 
military attack.  Here there are two forms 
of organisation open to the revolutionary; 
employing either a conventional military 
army or employing a militia.  Again the 
Russian Revolution provides a concrete 
example, though initially a militia 
structure was adopted, by 1918 the 
conventional army structures had returned.  
The difference between the two is not, as 
is so often stated, one of efficiency or 
organisation (with the army being 
characterised as organised, while the 
militia is characterised as chaotic).  The 
difference between the two is one of 
democracy.

Following the Brest-Litovsk treaty, Trotsky 
as Commissar of Military Affairs set about 
reorganising the army.  The death penalty 
for disobedience under fire was 
reintroduced, as was saluting officers, 
special forms of address, separate living 
quarters and privileges for officers.  
Officers were no longer elected.  Trotsky 
wrote "The elective basis is politically 
pointless and technically inexpedient and 
has already been set aside by decree"(18).  
Why did Bolsheviks feel there was a need to 
reintroduce military discipline?  Why then 
was there a need for military discipline in 
Russia 1917 but not in the anarchist front 
lines in Spain in 1936?

The conventional army structure evolved 
when feudal kings or capitalist governments 
required the working class to fight its 
wars for them.  These had to be 
authoritarian institutions, because 
although propaganda and jingoism can play a 
part initially in encouraging enlistment, 
the horrors of war soon expose the futility 
of nationalism.  A large part of military 
organisation is aimed at ensuring that 
soldiers remain fighting for causes they do 
not necessarily believe in.  Military 
discipline attempts to create an 
unthinking, unquestioning body of soldiers, 
as fearful of their own side as of the 
other.

But, there is another way of organising 
armies, that of the Militia.  The only 
difference between the two is that in 
Militias, officers and generals are 
elected, and soldiers fighting are fighting 
out of choice rather than fear.  This 
structure removes the necessity for the 
creation of a division between officers and 
soldiers that is reinforced artificially by 
measures such as saluting and differential 
privileges.  These measures are no longer 
necessary because there is no need to 
frighten or order soldiers to fight when 
they believe in the cause they are about to 
risk their lives for.  There are many 
examples of militias successfully 
operating;  the Boers fought with a 
volunteer army against the British.  During 
the Spanish Revolution of 1936, militias in 
Anarchist controlled areas fought Franco.  
In 1936 the CNT declared:

 "We cannot defend the existence of nor see 
the need for, a regular army, uniformed and 
conscripted.  This army must be replaced by 
the popular militias, by the People in 
Arms, the only guarantee that freedom will 
be defended with enthusiasm and that no new 
conspiracies will be hatched from the 
shadows"(19).

Over the four years 1918-1921 the anarchist 
Makhno commanded militias who fought 
against the forces of the Hetman, White 
Generals Denikin and Wrangel, nationalists 
like Petliura and Grigor'ev and, of course, 
the Bolsheviks in the Ukraine.  At its 
height it had 30,000 volunteer combatants 
under arms.  Makhno and his commanders won 
against odds of 30:1 and more, on occasion.  
The insurgent army was a democratic 
military formation.  Its recruits were 
volunteers drawn from peasants and workers.  
Its officers were elected and codes of 
discipline were worked out democratically.  
Officers could be, and were, recalled by 
their troops if they acted 
undemocratically.

Those supporting conventional army 
structures argue that they are necessary 
because without them, in the heat of 
battle, soldiers will turn and rout.  
History has shown that people will give 
their lives in defence of a cause if it is 
great enough and if they believe in it.

Of course there are many more examples of 
operation of conventional military armies 
(W.W.I, W.W.II., Vietnam etc. etc.).  These 
were conflicts where it was not necessary 
to obtain the consent of soldiers.  The 
role of military discipline is to prevent 
conscripts from mutineering when faced with 
the horror of wars in which they had no 
interest in fighting.  These were conflicts 
where human life was lost in great numbers.  
The generals directing the war effort were 
able to make mistake after mistake, wasting 
lives, with no accountability (see any 
military history of the Battle of the 
Somme, Galipoli, etc.).  These many 
examples give lie to the excuse that it is 
more efficient and that it is necessary, to 
organise along authoritarian lines.  The 
function of hierarchies of rank and 
decision making is to ensure that the power 
of an army is directed and controlled by a 
minority.

4. Factories in Revolution



After the revolution there were two choices 
available to those running the economy, 
either to organise production in the hands 
of the state or in the hands of the 
workers.  In order to achieve the former 
the Bolsheviks had to move against the 
latter.  The factory committees 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 to prevent the 
individual bosses from sabotaging 
equipment.  They  quickly 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, for energy and to transport 
their products, 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' with only 25% of the 
delegates coming from the factory 
committees. In this way the creative energy 
of Russian workers, co-ordinated outside 
Bolshevik control, was blocked in favour of 
an organisation the party could control. 
This body was in itself stillborn, it only 
met once. It was soon absorbed by the 
Supreme Economic Council set up in November 
1917 which was attached to the Council of 
Peoples Commissars, itself  made up of 
Bolshevik party members.

In  November 1917 Golas Truada (the 
official organ of the Union for Anarchist 
Propaganda) warned:

"Once their power is consolidated and 
'legalised', the Bolsheviks who are Social 
Democrats, that is, men of centralist and 
authoritarian action will begin to 
rearrange the life of the country and of 
the people by governmental and dictatorial 
methods, imposed by the centre.  Their seat 
in Petrograd will dictate the will of  the 
party to all Russia, and command the whole 
nation.  Your Soviets and your other local 
organisations will become little by little, 
simply executive organs of the will of the 
central government.   In the place of 
health, constructive work by the labouring 
masses, in place of free unification from 
the bottom, we will see the installation of 
an authoritarian and statist apparatus 
which would act from above and set about 
wiping out everything that stood in its way 
with an iron hand."

This is indeed what happened.  The factory 
committees were merged with the Bolshevik 
controlled Trade Union movement.  In a 
decree in March 1918 workers' control was  
supposed to return to the conception of 
monitoring and inspection rather than 
management,  "in nationalised enterprises, 
worker's control is exercised by submitting 
all declarations or decisions of the 
Factory or shop committee.. to the Economic  
Administrative Council for approval....Not 
more than half the members of the 
administrative council should be workers or 
employees."  Also in March 1918, Lenin 
began to campaign in favour of one-man 
management of industry.  In 1919, 10.8% of 
enterprises were under one-man management, 
by December 1920, 2,183 out of 2,483 
factories were no longer under collective 
management.

Control of the Economy

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 showen 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, whereas the factory committees 
wanted the factories to be owned and 
managed by the workers.  One Bolshevik 
described the factory committee's attitude:  
"We found a process which recalled the 
anarchist dreams of autonomous productive 
communes".

Partly they did this to remove the threat 
of any opposition to Bolshevik rule, but 
partly, these decisions were a result of 
the Bolshevik political perspective.  These 
policy decisions were not imposed on them 
by external objective factors such as the 
civil war.  With or without the civil war 
their strategic decisions would have been 
the same, because they arise out of the 
Leninist conception of what socialism is 
and what workers control means.  Their 
understanding of what socialism means is 
very different from the anarchist 
definition.  At the root of this difference 
is the importance given to the "relations 
of production".  In other words the 
importance of the relationship between 
those who produce the wealth and those who 
manage its production.  In all class 
societies, the producer is subordinate and 
separate from those who manage production.  
The workplace is divided into the boss and 
the workers.  The abolition of the division 
in society between 'order-givers' and 
'order-takers' is integral to the Anarchist 
idea of socialism, but is unimportant to 
the Leninist.

The phrase "workers control of the means of 
production" is often used.  Unfortunately 
it represents different things to different 
tendencies.  To the anarchist it means that 
workers must have complete control over 
every aspect of production.  There must be 
workplace democracy.  They must have the 
power to make decisions affecting them and 
their factory, including hours worked, 
amount of goods manufactured, who to 
exchange with.  As Maurice Brinton, author 
of "The Bolsheviks and Workers Control" 
explains: 

 "Workers management of production - 
implying as it does the total domination of 
the producer over the productive process - 
is not for us a marginal matter.  It is the 
core of our politics.  It is the only means 
whereby authoritarian (order-giving, order-
taking) relations in production can be 
transcended, and a free, communist or 
anarchist, society introduced.  We also 
hold that the means of production may 
change hands (passing for  instance from 
private hands into those of a bureaucracy, 
collectively owning them) without this 
revolutionising the relations of 
production.  Under such circumstances - and 
whatever the formal status of property - 
the society is still a class society, for 
production is still managed by an agency 
other than the producers themselves"(20)

In contrast, the Leninist idea of socialism 
has more to do with the nationalisation of 
industry or State Capitalism than the 
creation of a society in which workers have 
control over their own labour power.  

In "Can the Bolsheviks retain State Power?"  
Lenin outlined his conception of 'workers 
control':

"When we say workers control, always 
associating that slogan to the dictatorship 
of the proletariat, and always putting it 
after the latter, we thereby make plain 
what state we have in mind.. if it is a 
proletarian state we are referring to (i.e. 
dictatorship of the proletariat) then 
workers control can become a national, all-
embracing, omnipresent, extremely precise 
and extremely  scrupulous accounting  
(emphasis in the original) of the 
production and distribution of goods."  By 
'accounting' Lenin meant the power to 
oversee the books, to check the 
implementation of decisions made by others, 
rather than fundamental decision making.

The Bolsheviks saw only the necessity for 
creating the objective conditions for 
socialism.  That is, without a certain 
level of wealth in society, it is 
impossible to introduce all those things 
that socialism requires; free healthcare, 
housing, education and the right to work.  
Lenin said "Socialism is merely the next 
step forward from state capitalist 
monopoly.  Or, in other words, socialism is 
merely state capitalist monopoly which is 
made to serve the interests of the whole 
people and has to that extent ceased to be 
capitalist monopoly "(21) or also "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"(22).

The introduction of Taylorism and one man 
management in the factories in 1918 and 
1919 displays a fixation with efficiency 
and productivity at the expense of workers' 
rights.  They didn't see that without 
control over your own working life, you 
remain a cog in someone else's wheel.  
Workers' democracy at the point of 
production is as important as material 
wellbeing is to the creation of a socialist 
society.

However, there is yet another problem with 
the Bolshevik vision of a planned economy.  
The Bolsheviks thought centralising the 
economy under state control would bring to 
an end the chaos of capitalistic economies.  
Unfortunately they didn't consider that 
centralisation without free exchange of 
information leads to its own disasters.  
The bureaucratic mistakes of Stalin and Mao 
are legendary.  Under Mao, the sparrows of 
China were brought to the brink of 
extinction to prevent them from eating the 
crops.  Unfortunately this led to an 
explosion in the insect population 
(previously the sparrows ate the insects so 
keeping the numbers down)  and resultant 
destruction of the harvest.  In Russia huge 
unusable nuts and bolts were manufactured 
so quotas could be met.  Industrial 
democracy did not exist.  Plans were 
imposed on the population.  It was not 
possible to question or criticise.  Any 
opposition to the state was counter 
revolutionary, no matter how stupid or 
blind the state decisions were.  Only with 
workers democracy can there be free 
exchange of ideas and information.  
Planning an economy in ignorance is like 
playing football blind, difficult if not 
impossible to do successfully.  In short, 
it was bad politics, perhaps motivated by 
wishful thinking, that led the Bolsheviks 
to believe that holding the reins of state 
power could possibly be a short cut to 
socialism.

5.  Learning the 

lessons of history



What unites all Leninist traditions 
(Stalinism, Maoism, Trotskyism) against the 
anarchists is their defence of the 
Bolsheviks in the period 1917-1921.  It is 
this Bolshevik blueprint which they seek to 
recreate.  The reasons variously given for 
the collapse of the revolution are the 
backwardness of Russia (either industrially 
or socially), the Civil War and the 
isolation of Russia.  What Leninists argue 
is that the fault didn't lie with the 
politics of the Bolsheviks or with the 
policies they implemented but rather with 
conditions that were beyond their control.  
Even those who were critical of the 
Bolsheviks suppression of democracy, such 
as Victor Serge and the Workers Opposition 
group, ultimately defended the Bolsheviks' 
position.  Their argument is that without 
the measures the Bolsheviks took, the 
revolution would have fallen to a White 
reaction and a return to the monarchy.

Our argument is that no matter what the 
objective factors were or will be, the 
Bolshevik route always and inevitably leads 
to the death of the revolution.  More than 
this, defeat by revolutionaries is much 
worse than defeat by the Whites, for it 
brings the entire revolutionary project 
into disrepute.  For seventy years 
socialism could easily be equated with 
prison camps and dictatorship.  The Soviet 
Union became the threat of a bad example.  
Socialists found themselves defending the 
indefensible.  Countless revolutions were 
squandered and lost to Leninism and its 
heir, Stalinism.

Freedom and utopia

In the following passage Engels outlines 
how revolution will lead to mankind's 
freedom;

"Proletarian Revolution - [is the] solution 
of the contradictions [of capitalism].  The 
proletariat seizes the public power, and by 
means of this transforms the socialised 
means of production, slipping from the 
hands of the bourgeoisie, into public 
property.  By this act the proletariat 
frees the means of production from the 
character of capital they have thus far 
borne and gives their socialist character 
complete freedom to work itself out.  
Socialised production upon a predetermined 
plan becomes henceforth possible.  The 
development of production makes the 
existence of different classes in society 
henceforth an anachronism.  In proportion 
anarchy  [chaos] in social production 
vanishes, the political authority of the 
state dies out.  Man, at last the master of 
his own form of organisation, becomes at 
the same time lord over nature, his own 
master - free".(23)

In power, the Bolsheviks followed this 
program.  They centralised production, 
removing from it 'the character of 
capital', yet the existence of different 
classes did not die out.  Bolshevik party 
officials got better rations, accommodation 
and privileges.  In time they were able to 
transfer their privileges to their 
offspring, acting just as the ruling class 
in the West.  Chaos in social production 
didn't vanish, chaos in Stalin's time led 
to famine.  The political authority of the 
state did not die out and the soviet people 
were not free.

The 'character of capital' is not the only 
force underpinning the structure in 
society.  Power relations also have a part 
to play, and contrary to Engel's 
assumptions, power does not only come from 
ownership of capital.  The members of the 
central committee may not have owned the 
deeds to the factories per se but they were 
in charge.

Freedom isn't just a goal, a noble end to 
be achieved but rather a necessary part of 
the process of creating socialism.  
Anarchists are often accused of being 
'utopian'.  Beliefs are utopian if 
subjective ideas are not grounded in 
objective reality.  Anarchists hold that 
part of the subjective conditions required 
before socialism can exist is the existence 
of free exchange of ideas and democracy.  
To believe that revolution is possible 
without freedom, to believe those in power 
can, through their best and genuine 
intentions, impose socialism from above, as 
the Bolsheviks did, is indeed utopian.  As 
Sam Faber puts it in Before Stalinism:

"determinism's characteristic and systemic 
failure is to understand that what the 
masses of people do and think politically 
is as much part of the process determining 
the outcome of history as are the objective 
obstacles that most definitely limit 
peoples' choices"(24)

The received wisdom is that there was no 
alternative open to the Bolsheviks.  The 
Bolsheviks could have followed a more 
democratic route, but they chose not to.  
They were in the minority and their goal 
was to have absolute power.  Their failure 
to understand that socialism and democracy 
are part of the same process destroyed the 
prospect for socialism in the Soviet Union.  
Next time there are revolutionary upheavals 
in society, it is to be hoped that the 
revolutionary potential of the working 
class will not be so squandered.  

Leaving the last word to Alexander Berkman;

"No revolution has yet tried the true way 
of liberty.  None has had sufficient faith 
in it.  Force and suppression, 
persecutionn, revenge, and terror have 
characterised all revolutions in the past 
and have thereby defeated their original 
aims.  The time has come to try new 
methods, new ways.  The social revolution 
is to achieve the emancipation of man 
through liberty, but if we have no faith in 
the latter, revolution becomes a denial and 
betrayal of itself."(25)

Footnotes

1 Rosa Luxemburg, The Russian Revolution, 
(1918)
2 Sergei Mstislavskii, Five Days which 
Transformed Russia, (1923)
3 Paul Frolich in his book Rosa Luxemburg , 
(1933)
4 Maurice Brinton, The Bolsheviks and 
Workers Control, (1970)
5 Voline, The Unknown Revolution, (1953)
6 The RSDLP was the name of the party that 
was to split into the Bolsheviks and the 
Mensheviks.
7  George Leggett, The Cheka, Lenins 
Political Police , (1981)
8 Where the US Government aided in the 
massacre of over half a million Communist 
Party supporters.
9 Military Revolutionary Committee.  This 
group was initially set up by the Executive 
Committee of the Petrograd Soviet on the 
12th Oct 1917 to organise for the October 
revolution.  After the revolution the newly 
formed Second Congress of Soviets elected 
two interim bodies; the Sovnarkom (the 
government) composed only of Bolsheviks and 
the VTsLK (a legislative body).  The 
Sovnarkom transferred the functions of the 
MRC to the Cheka.
10 George Leggett, The Cheka, Lenins 
Political Police , (1981)
11  George Leggett, The Cheka, Lenins 
Political Police , (1981)
12 Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment with 
Russia,  (1922)
13 For Anarchism, edited by David Goodway, 
(1989),pp73
14 Samuel Farber, Before Stalinism, the 
rise and fall of Soviet democracy, (1990)
15 George Leggett, The Cheka, Lenins 
Political Police , (1981) p40
16  quoted by Voline, The Unknown 
Revolution, (1953)
17 Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment with 
Russia, (1922)
18 Leon Trotsky, Work, Discipline, Order,  
pp171-172
19 Vernon Richards, Lessons of the Soanish 
Revolution, (1983)
20 Maurice Brinton, The Bolsheviks and 
Workers Control, (1970)
21 Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25 page 358 
22 Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24 page 259 
23 Engles, Socialism - Utopian and 
Scientific, (1880)
24 Sam Faber, Before Stalinism, pp198
25 Alexander Berkman, ABC of Anarchism, 
(1929)

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