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 3

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

Related material: See booklist at end.


THE WORKING CLASS UNDER LENIN

Another key area is the position of the working 
class in the Stalinist society.  No Trotskyist 
would disagree that under Stalin workers had no 
say in the running of their workplaces and 
suffered atrocious conditions under threat of the 
state's iron fist.  Yet again these conditions 
came in under Lenin and not Stalin.  Immediately 
after the revolution the Russian workers had 
attempted to federate the factory committees in 
order to maximise the distribution of resources.  
This was blocked, with Bolshevik 'guidance', by 
the trade unions. 

By early 1918 the basis of the limited workers 
control offered by the Bolsheviks (in reality 
little more then accounting) became clear when 
all decisions had to be approved by a higher body 
of which no more than 50% could be workers.  
Daniel Guerin describes the Bolshevik control of 
the elections in the factories "elections to 
factory committees continued to take place , but 
a member of the Communist cell read out a list of 
candidates drawn up in advance and voting was by 
show of hands in the presence of armed 
'Communist' guards.  Anyone who declared his 
opposition to the proposed candidates became 
subject to wage cuts, etc."  9 

On March 26th 1918 workers control was abolished 
on the railways in a decree full of ominous 
phrases stressing "iron labour discipline" and 
individual management.  At least, say the 
Trotskyists, the railways ran on time.  In April 
Lenin published an article in Isvestiya which 
included the introduction of a card system for 
measuring each workers productivity.  He said 
"..we must organise in Russia the study and 
teaching of the Talyor system".  "Unquestioning 
submission to a single will is absolutely 
necessary for the success of the labour 
process...the revolution demands, in the 
interests of socialism, that the masses 
unquestioningly obey the single will of the 
leaders of the labour process" 10  Lenin declared 
in 1918.  This came before the civil war broke 
out and makes nonsense of the claims that the 
Bolsheviks were trying to maximise workers 
control until the civil war prevented them from 
doing so.

With the outbreak of the Civil War things became 
much worse.  In late May it was decreed that no 
more than 1/3 of the management personnel of 
industrial enterprises should be elected.11  A 
few "highlights" of the following years are worth 
pointing out.  At the ninth party congress in 
April of 1920 Trotsky made his infamous comments 
on the militarization of labour "the working 
class...must be thrown here and there, appointed, 
commanded just like soldiers. Deserters from 
labour ought to be formed into punitive 
battalions or put into concentration camps"."12  
The congress itself declared "no trade union 
group should directly intervene in industrial 
management". 13 

ONE MAN MANAGEMENT

At the trade union congress that April, Lenin was 
to boast how in 1918 he had "pointed out the 
necessity of recognising the dictatorial 
authority of single individuals for the purpose 
of carrying out the soviet idea". 14  Trotsky 
declared that "labour..obligatory for the whole 
country, compulsory for every worker is the basis 
of socialism"15 and that the militarisation of 
labour was no emergency measure16.  In War 
Communism and Terrorism published by Trotsky that 
year he said "The unions should discipline the 
workers and teach them to place the interests of 
production above their own needs and demands".  
It is impossible to distinguish between these 
policies and the labour policies of Stalin.

WORKERS REVOLTS

Perhaps the most telling condemnation of the 
Stalinist regimes came from their crushing of 
workers' revolts, both the well known ones of 
East Berlin 1953, Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia 
in 1968 and scores of smaller, less known 
risings.  The first such major revolt was to 
happen at the height of Lenin's direction of the 
party in 1921 at Kronstadt, a naval base and town 
near Petrograd.  The revolt essentially occurred 
when Kronstadt attempted to democratically elect 
a Soviet and issued a set of proclamations 
calling for a return to democratic soviets and 
freedom of press and speech for "the anarchists 
and left socialist parties".17

This won the support of not only the mass of 
workers and sailors at the base but of the rank 
and file of the Bolshevik party there as well.  
Lenin's response was brutal.  The base was 
stormed and many of the rebels who failed to 
escape were executed.  Kronstadt had been the 
driving force for the revolution in 1917 and in 
1921 the revolution died with it.

There are other commonly accepted characteristics 
of Stalinism.  One more that is worth looking at 
is the way Stalinist organsiations have used 
slander as a weapon against other left groups.  
Another is the way that Stalin re-wrote history.  
Yet again this is something which was a deep 
strain within Leninism.  Mhakno for example went 
from being hailed by the Bolshevik newspapers as 
the "Nemesis of the whites" 18 to being described 
as a Kulak and a bandit . 

SLANDER

Modern day Trotskyists are happy to repeat this 
sort of slander along with describing Mhakno as 
an anti-Semite.  Yet the Jewish historian M. 
Tchernikover says "It is undeniable that, of all 
the armies, including the Red Army, the 
Makhnovists behaved best with regard to the 
civilian  population in general and the Jewish 
population in particular."19 

The leadership of the Makhnovists contained Jews 
and for those who wished to organise in this 
manner there were specific Jewish detachments.  
The part the Makhnovists played in defeating the 
Whites has been written out of history by every 
Trotskyist historian, some other historians 
however consider they played a far more decisive 
role then the Red Army in defeating Wrangel20.

Kronstadt provides another example of how Lenin 
and Trotsky used slander against their political 
opponents.  Both attempted to paint the revolt as 
being organised and lead by the whites.  Pravda 
on March 3rd, 1921 described it as "A new White 
plot....expected and undoubtedly prepared by the 
French counter-revolution".  Lenin in his report 
to the 10th party congress on March 8th said 
"White generals, you all know it, played a great 
part in this. This is fully proved". 21. 

Yet even Isaac Deutscher, Trotskys biographer 
said in 'The Prophet Armed' "The Bolsheviks 
denounced the men of Kronstadt as counter-
revolutionary mutineers, led by a White general. 
The denunciation appears to have been 
groundless"22. 

RE-WRITING HISTORY

Some modern day Trotskyists repeat such slanders, 
others like Brian Pearce (historian of the 
Socialist Labour League in Britain) try to deny 
it ever occurred "No pretence was made that the 
Kronstadt mutineers were White Guards"23  In 
actual fact the only czarist general in the fort 
had been put there as commander by Trotsky some 
months earlier!   Lets leave the last words on 
this to the workers of Kronstadt "Comrades, don't 
allow yourself to be misled. In Kronstadt, power 
is in the hands of the sailors, the red soldiers 
and of the revolutionary workers" 24 

There is irony in the fact that these tactics of 
slander and re-writing history as perfected by 
the Bolsheviks under Lenin were later to be used 
with such effect against the Trotskyists.  
Trotsky and his followers were to be denounced as 
"Fascists" and agents of international 
imperialism.  They were to be written and air-
brushed out of the history of the revolution.  
Yet to-day his followers, the last surviving 
Leninists  use the same tactics against their 
political opponents.

The intention of this article is to provoke a 
much needed debate on the Irish left about the 
nature of Leninism and where the Russian 
revolution went bad.  The collapse of the Eastern 
European regimes makes it all the more urgent 
that this debate goes beyond trotting out the 
same old lies.  If Leninism lies at the heart of 
Stalinism then those organisations that follow 
Lenin's teaching stand to make the same mistakes 
again.  Anybody in a Leninist organisation who 
does not take this debate seriously is every bit 
as blind and misled as all those Communist Party 
members who thought the Soviet Union was a 
socialist country until the day it collapsed.

Andrew Flood

1. V.I. Lenin "Left wing childishness and petty-
bourgeois mentality",  2. V.I. Lenin "The 
threatening catastrophe and how to fight it",  3. 
M. Brinton "The Bolsheviks and Workers Control" 
page 38,  4. M. Brinton page 38,  5. Brinton, 
page 39,  6. Brinton, page 40,  7. D. Guerin 
"Anarchism", page 101,  8. Brinton, page 78,  9. 
Guerin, page 91,  10. Brinton, page 41,  11. 
Brinton, page 43, 12. Brinton, page 61,  13. 
Brinton, page 63,  14. Brinton, page 65,  15. 
Brinton, page 6  , 16. I. Deutscher, "The Prophet 
Armed" pages 500-07,  17. Ida Mett,"The Kronstadt 
Uprising", page 38,  18.  A. Berkman, "Nestor 
Makhno", page 25,  19. quoted by Voline "The 
Unknown Revolution", page 572,  20.  P. Berland, 
"Mhakno", Le Temps, 28 Aug, 1934,  21. Lenin, 
Selected Works, vol IX, p. 98,  22.  Deutscher, 
The Prophet Armed, page 511.   23. Labour Review, 
vol V, No. 3.  24. I. Mett, page 51.


ON QUOTES AND MISQUOTES

The problem when writing an article covering this 
period of history is where you select your 
quotations from.  Both Lenin and Trotsky changed 
their positions many times in this period.  Many 
Leninists for example try to show Lenin's 
opposition to Stalinism by quoting from State and 
Revolution (1917).  This is little more then 
deception as Lenin made no attempt to put the 
program outlined in this pamphlet into practise.  
In any case it still contains his curious 
conception of Workers control.

I have only used quotes from the October 
revolution to 1921 and in every case these quotes 
are either statements of policy, or what should 
be policy at the time.  As socialists are aware 
governments in opposition may well say "Health 
cuts hurt the old, the sick and the handicapped".  
It is however in power that you see their real 
programe exposed.



       A fresh  look at Lenin  (From WS 31)

THE COLLAPSE of the regimes in Eastern Europe has 
thrown up all sorts of questions about socialism.  
So let's go back to the beginning.  The Russian 
revolu-tion of 1917 was, initially, a shot in the 
arm for socialists everywhere.  It was possible, 
it existed and now it only remained to imitate it 
everywhere else.

But as time passed it became obvious that 
something had gone terribly wrong.  Instead of 
being the inspiring picture of our future, Russia 
had turned into a squalid class-ridden 
dictatorship. 

 As purge followed purge and the new rulers 
allocated themselves the best of everything, the 
socialist movement in the West floundered as it 
sought explanations for what had gone wrong.

FLAT EARTH SOCIETY

There were those who found the idea of an 
existing socialist society so attractive that 
they refused to believe all the evidence to the 
contrary.  These were the people who wrote 
glowing articles about the mechanisation of 
agriculture while old Bolsheviks were being 
tortured in the cellars of Stalin's secret 
police.  

With the upheavals in Eastern Europe most of 
these Stalinists with rose-tinted spectacles have 
had to start facing reality, albeit begrudgingly.  
Those who still refuse to do so are no different 
in attitude or degree of stupidity from the Flat 
Earth Society or the fanatics of the Bermuda 
Triangle.

Among those socialists who accept that something 
went badly wrong (and not just in the last year 
or two!), the debate continues.  Why should a 
revolution led by dedicated followers of Lenin 
have produced an oppressive regime where workers 
had no rights and bureaucrats had all the power 
and privileges.

TROTSKY

Two explanations seem the most worthy of 
consideration.  The first, put forward by Trotsky 
and his subsequent followers, comes down to this:  
no amount of dedication on behalf of the 
communists could offset the dreadful weight of 
the material difficulties.

In such a backward country, beset by civil war on 
all sides, with much of its working class 
destroyed in battle, degeneration was avoidable.  
Perhaps if Lenin had lived, or if Trotsky had 
replaced him as the no.1 leader, things might 
have been different - but it was not to be.

LENIN ...AND FATE

"Lenin certainly did not call for a dictatorship 
of the party over the proletariat, even less for 
that of a bureaucratised party over a decimated 
proletariat.  But fate - the desperate condition 
of a backward country besieged by world 
capitalism - led to precisely this".  Tony Cliff, 
Lenin, Vol.3, page 111.

"The proletariat of a backward country was fated 
to accomplish the first socialist revolution.  
For this historic privilege it must, according to 
all the evidences, pay with a second 
supplementary revolution against bureaucratic 
absolutism"  Trotsky, The Age of Permanent 
Revolution: A Trotsky Anthology, page 278.

Thus according to the Trotskyists, it was hard 
material  factors such as backwardness and the 
isolation of the young Bolshevik state which 
resulted in the tragic degeneration of the 
revolution.  And don't forget "fate" - a most 
unusual term for 'scientific socialists' to use.

ANARCHISTS

An alternative explanation of events in Russia is 
provided by the anarchists, who see the prime 
cause of the revolution's failure in the ideas of 
the Bolsheviks.  The anarchist argument has the 
great advantage that it was not constructed to 
explain events after they took place but was 
formulated before and during the revolution.

Anarchists had always gone in for dire 
predictions of what would happen if 
revolutionaries attempted to take over the state 
instead of smashing it at the first opportunity.  
They understood two things: firstly, either the 
working class has direct and absolute control or 
some other class does; secondly, the state only 
serves the needs of a minority class which seeks 
to rule over the majority.  No party could claim 
the right to make decisions for the working 
class, this would be the start of their progress 
towards becoming a new ruling class.

TOLD YOU SO!!!

Forty five years before 1917, Michael Bakunin, 
the leading anarchist in the International 
Working Mens' Association, warned of just such a 
prospect.  He saw that the authoritarians would 
interpret the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' 
to mean their own dictatorship which "would be 
the rule of scientific intellect, the most 
autocratic, the most despotic, the most arrogant 
and the most contemptuous of all regimes.  They 
will be a new class, a new hierarchy of sham 
savants, and the world will be divided into a 
dominant minority in the name of science, and an 
immense ignorant majority"  Paul Avrich, The 
Russian Anarchists, page 93.

While a small minority of anarchists thought it 
would be possible to co-operate with the 
Bolsheviks, the majority were positive that,  
though the Bolsheviks did not set out to create a 
new class system, this was precisely what they 
were achieving.  The anarchist Sergven recorded 
in 1918 that "The proletariat is being gradually 
enserfed by the state.  The people are being 
transformed into servants over whom there has 
arisen a new class of administrators - a new 
class born mainly from the womb of the so-called 
intelligentsia.  Isn't this merely a new class 
system looming on the revolutionary horizon".   
Paul Avrich, The Anarchists in the Russian 
Revolution, page 123

CENTRALISED POWER

And he could point a finger at the cause of this 
enserfment.  "We do not mean to say ...that the 
Bolshevik party set out to create a new class 
system  But we do say that even the best 
intentions and aspirations must inevitably be 
smashed against the evils inherent in any system 
of centralised power"  Ibid page 124.

In other words, unless centralised state power is 
immediately destroyed, the revolution is doomed 
to create a new ruling class.  Either the masses 
have real power or the state does.  For the 
anarchists it was a case of either a federation 
of workers' councils where the power came from 
below or the authority of the party/state giving 
orders to the masses.  The two could not co-
exist.

"SCIENTIFIC" SOCIALISTS

Thus the two most plausible explanations for the 
failure of the revolution are opposed to each 
other.  On the one hand we have the Trotskyists 
who, being 'scientific socialists' see the cause 
of the failure in 'material circumstances' such 
as Russian backwardness, civil war and the 
failure of the revolution to spread across 
Europe.  The Bolsheviks, had, it appears, 
understood Marxism and applied it correctly and 
yet were faced with events beyond their control 
that conspired to defeat  them.  Consequently the 
theory and party structure put forward by Lenin, 
remain, according to this school of thought, 
adequate today.

The Anarchists would agree that a revolution 
can't survive for too long if isolated in the 
middle of a sea of capitalism.  They don't, 
however, believe that this explains everything 
that happened.  What you end up with will be 
related to what you seek and how you fight for 
it.  They argue that it was precisely the theory 
and party structures of Bolshevism that led to 
the bureaucratisation and death of the genuine 
liberatory revolution.

BEING REALISTIC

Neither argument is entirely satisfying.  It is 
undoubtably true that the Bolsheviks had to face 
very difficult conditions when they assumed 
power.  But according to their own mentor this 
will always be the case.  "...those who believe 
that socialism will be built at a time of peace 
and tranquillity are profoundly mistaken: it will 
everywhere be built at a time of disruption, at a 
time of famine.  Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.27 
page 517.

This makes sense.  Revolution, by its very 
nature, involves some disruption and civil war 
(though not necessarily famine).  If a party 
organised on Bolshevik lines cannot survive a 
period of disruption without degenerating into a 
bureaucratic monolith then clearly such a form of 
organisation must be avoided at all costs.

GRUBBY HANDS

Some anarchists tend to oversimplify the problem 
and see the Bolsheviks as setting out from day 
one to become an elite of privileged rulers.  
This is similarly unsatisfying.  Are we really to 
believe that  the whole Bolshevik party were only 
interested in making a revolution for the sole 
purpose of getting their grubby hands on state 
power so that they could make themselves into a 
new ruling class?  

The briefest look at what they suffered in the 
Tsarist  prisons, in Siberia, in exile and later 
in Stalin's purges suggests that such a notion is 
highly suspect!  We must accept that most of them 
were courageous men and women with high ideals.

WHAT POLITICS?

Nevertheless there is a great strength to the 
anarchist case.  It points to errors in the 
theory and practice of Bolshevism itself.  It 
says that no matter how honest their intentions, 
their politics still lead them to be objectively 
opposed to the interests of the working class.  
It turns our attention to the theories of those 
who led Russia from workers' control to 
Stalinism.

It is too often taken for granted among 
socialists that we know what the Bolsheviks stood 
for.  Before we can understand why things went 
wrong in Russia we need to know what exactly the 
Bolsheviks proposed to do on coming to power, 
what kind of structure they put forward, what 
form they thought the revolution would take, and 
what kind of society did they set out to create.  

FROM LENIN'S MOUTH

It is particularly interesting to look at the 
ideas of V.I.Lenin - he was the unquestioned 
leader of the Bolsheviks and is still regarded as 
the greatest ever socialist, after Marx, by the 
vast majority of those who see themselves as 
revolutionary socialists.

It can be a dangerous practice to pick quotations 
for use in an article such as this.  Who is to 
say that they are not taken out of context.  To 
allow the reader to make up his/her own mind all 
sources are provided so that the complete piece 
can be read if desired.  It is felt necessary to 
use Lenin's own words lest there be an accusation 
that words are being put in his mouth.

LENIN'S   SOCIALISM

The starting point must be Lenin's conception of 
'socialism':  "When a big enterprise assumes 
gigantic proportions, and, on the basis of an 
exact computation of mass data, organises 
according to plan the supply of raw materials to 
the extent of two-thirds, or three fourths, of 
all that is necessary for tens of millions of 
people; when raw materials are transported in a 
systematic and organised manner to the most 
suitable places of production, sometimes situated 
hundreds of thousands of miles from each other; 
when a single centre directs all the consecutive 
stages of processing the materials right up to 
the manufacture of numerous varieties of finished 
articles; when the products are distributed 
according to a single plan among tens of millions 
of customers.

"....then it becomes evident that we have 
socialisation of production, and not mere 
'interlocking'; that private economic and private 
property relations constitute a shell which no 
longer fits its contents, a shell which must 
inevitably decay if its removal is artificially 
delayed, a shell which may remain in a state of 
decay for a fairly long period ...but which will 
inevitably be removed"  Lenin, Collected Works, 
Vol.22, page 303.

SOCIALISM?

This is an important passage of Lenin's.  What he 
is describing here is the economic set-up which 
he thought typical of both advanced monopoly 
capitalism and socialism.  Socialism was, for 
Lenin, planned capitalism with the private 
ownership removed.  

"Capitalism has created an accounting apparatus  
in the shape of the banks, syndicates, postal 
service, consumers' societies, and office 
employees unions.  Without the big banks 
socialism would be impossible.

The big banks are the "state apparatus" which we 
need to bring about socialism, and which we take 
ready made from capitalism; our task is merely to 
lop off what characteristically mutilates this 
excellent apparatus, to make it even bigger, even 
more democratic, even more comprehensive.  
Quantity will be transformed into quality.  

"A single state bank, the biggest of the big, 
with branches in every rural district, in every 
factory, will constitute as much as nine-tenths 
of the socialist apparatus.  This will be 
country-wide book-keeping, country-wide 
accounting of the production and distribution of 
goods, this will be, so to speak, something in 
the nature of the skeleton of socialist society.  
Lenin, Ibid, Vol.26  page 106.

HEY PRESTO!

This passage contains some amazing statements.  
The banks have become nine-tenths of the 
socialist apparatus.  All we need to do is unify 
them, make this single bank bigger, and "Hey 
Presto", you now have your basic socialist 
apparatus.  

Quantity is to be transformed into quality.  In 
other words, as the bank gets bigger and more 
powerful it changes from an instrument of 
oppression into one of liberation.  We are 
further told that the bank will be made "even 
more democratic".  Not "made democratic" as we 
might expect but made more so.  This means that 
the banks, as they exist under capitalism, are in 
some way democratic.  No doubt this is something 
that workers in Bank of Ireland and AIB have been 
unaware of.  

For Lenin it was not only the banks which could 
be transformed into a means for salvation.  
"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"  Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 25 page 
358.

"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 immediate rungs".  Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 24 
page 259.

BUILDING CAPITALISM

This too is important.  History is compared to a 
ladder that has to be climbed.  Each step is a 
preparation for the next one.  After state 
capitalism there was only one way forward - 
socialism.  But it was equally true that until 
capitalism had created the necessary framework, 
socialism was impossible.  Lenin and the 
Bolshevik leadership saw their task as the 
building of a state capitalist apparatus.

"...state capitalism would be a step forward as 
compared with the present state of affairs in our 
Soviet Republic.  If in approximately six months 
time state capitalism became established in our 
Republic, this would be a great success and a 
sure guarantee that within a year socialism will 
have gained a permanently firm hold and will 
become invincible in our country"  Lenin, Ibid, 
Vol. 27 page 294.

"While the revolution in Germany is still slow in 
"coming forth", our task is to study the state 
capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in 
copying it and not shrink from adopting 
dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of it"  
Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 27 page 340.

WHAT DIFFERENCE?

The sole difference between state capitalism 
under the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' and 
the capitalism of other countries is that a 
different class would be in control of the state, 
according to Lenin's theory.  But what, we are 
entitled to ask, is the difference between the 
two states if the working class does not control 
the Soviet state, becomes in fact controlled by 
it, and dictated to by it?  

Anarchists have always held that the state, in 
the real sense of the word, is the means by which 
a minority justifies and enforces its control 
over the majority.  

Lenin underlined this point when in March 1918 he 
told the Bolshevik Party that they must "...stand 
at the head of the exhausted people who are 
wearily seeking a way out and lead them along the 
true path of labour discipline, along the task of 
co-ordinating the task of arguing at mass 
meetings about the conditions of work with the 
task of unquestioningly obeying the will of the 
Soviet leader, of the dictator during the work.  
Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 27 page 270.

NO TIME FOR SOCIALISM!

Lenin could not accept that working class people 
were more than capable of running their own 
lives.  He continually sought justifications for 
the dictatorship of his party.  

In June 1918 he informed the trade unions that 
"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"  Lenin, Ibid,  Vol. 27 page 466.

The month previously he had written "Now power 
has been siezed, retained and consolidated in the 
hands of a single party, the party of the 
proletariat...".  Lenin, Ibid, Vol. 27 page 346.
Andrew Flood

anflood@macollamh.ucd.ie
Phone: 706(2389)

