The Russian Revolution Destroyed

The R ussian
R evolution
Destroyed
Zabalaza
Books The Nature
“Knowledge is the Key
to be Free” and Strategy of
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Bolshevism
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The Russian
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Revolution
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Destroyed
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The Nature and Strategy of
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Bolshevism
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Contents
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____________________________________________________________ The Role of the Bolshevik Party during
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____________________________________________________________ The Makhno Movement and Opposition
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____________________________________________________________ Kronstadt Page 23
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NOTES:
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The Role of the Bolshevik Party during the ____________________________________________________________
Russian Revolution ____________________________________________________________
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On reading Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution we are struck by a ____________________________________________________________
fundamental contradiction: as an honest historian he shows us just how much the ____________________________________________________________
Party lagged behind the masses, and as a Bolshevik theorist he must reaffirm that ____________________________________________________________
the Party was necessary for the success of the revolution. Thus he writes: The
soldiers lagged behind the shop committees. The committees lagged behind the ____________________________________________________________
masses ... The party also lagged behind the revolutionary dynamic - an ____________________________________________________________
organisation which had the least right to lag, especially in a time of revolution ... ____________________________________________________________
The most revolutionary party which human history until this time had ever known ____________________________________________________________
was nevertheless caught unawares by the events of history. It reconstructed itself in ____________________________________________________________
the fires, and straightened out its ranks under the ons laught of events. The masses ____________________________________________________________
at the turning point were a hundred times to the left of the extreme left party.’ ____________________________________________________________
(History of the Russian Revolution* Volume I, 403 f.) ____________________________________________________________
This passage alone should suffice to destroy the myth of the Bolshevik Party as ____________________________________________________________
the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat. Its ‘lagging behind’ was patent even
during the first days of February 1917 - the overthrow of the Czar and the creation of ____________________________________________________________
workers’ councils, were the work of the masses themselves. In this connexion ____________________________________________________________
Trotsky quotes Mstislavsky (a leader of the left wing of the Social Revolutionaries ____________________________________________________________
who subsequently went over to the Bolsheviks) as saying: The revolution caught us ____________________________________________________________
napping, the party people of those days, like the foolish virgins of the Bible.’ To ____________________________________________________________
which Trotsky himself adds: ‘It does not matter how much they resembled the ____________________________________________________________
virgins, but it is true they were all fast asleep.’ (op. cit. Volume I, 147.) ____________________________________________________________
This was as true of the Bolshevik Party as of all other left-wing organisations. In ____________________________________________________________
effect: ‘Up to the very last hour, these leaders thought it was a question of a ____________________________________________________________
revolutionary manifestation, one among many, and not at all an armed insurrection...
The Central Committee was unable to give any directives for the coming day.’ (op. ____________________________________________________________
cit. Volume 1, 147.) In short, the Bolsheviks were anything but leaders of the ____________________________________________________________
masses in February, and subsequently they lagged behind both the action of the ____________________________________________________________
masses and also their revolutionary spirit. Thus in July 1917, when ‘about 10,000 ____________________________________________________________
men assembled, to shouts of encouragement, the machine-gunners told how they ____________________________________________________________
had received an order to go to the Front on 4 July, but they had decided not to go to ____________________________________________________________
the German Front against the German proletariat but against their own capitalist ____________________________________________________________
ministers. Feeling ran high. "Let’s get moving!" cried the workers. The secretary of ____________________________________________________________
the factory committee, a Bolshevik, objected, suggesting that they ask instructions ____________________________________________________________
from the party. Protests from all sides: "Down with it. Again you want to postpone
things. We can’t live that way any longer." Towards six o’clock came ____________________________________________________________
representatives from the Executive Committee, but they succeeded still less with the ____________________________________________________________
workers.’ (op. cit. Volume II, 127.) ____________________________________________________________
The Bolsheviks not only played no part in this struggle but tried to squash it; they ____________________________________________________________
wanted to refer the whole matter back to Party Headquarters, and when their ____________________________________________________________
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* Gollanez and Sphere Books, London. All page references are to the Sphere edition. ____________________________________________________________
NOTES: leaders arrived these were shouted down. A wide gulf had opened up between the
Party and the ‘masses’ who had a dynamic of their own and, from the start, set up
____________________________________________________________
their own soldiers’ and workers’ Soviets. It was here and nowhere else that the real
____________________________________________________________ decisions were taken. In the workers’ Soviets, each member, Bolshevik or not,
____________________________________________________________ could make his voice heard and hence influence events. No political group as such
____________________________________________________________ had the right to decide any issues, even though the delegates were originally
____________________________________________________________ chosen from among Party militants (Mensheviks first, and then Bolsheviks).
____________________________________________________________ However, these men were picked not for their political orthodoxy but because of
____________________________________________________________ their active participation in the workers’ struggle, and when they tried to act as
____________________________________________________________ dampers they were generally dismissed very quickly - at least while Soviet
____________________________________________________________ democracy still existed. Trotsky has described the role of the Bolsheviks in July
1917, as follows: The Bolsheviks were caught up by the movement and dragged
____________________________________________________________
into it, looking around the while for some justification for an action which flatly
____________________________________________________________ contravened the official decision of the party, (op. cit. Volume II, 30.) And, so as
____________________________________________________________ not to lose face, rank and file Bolsheviks were forced to go flatly against the
____________________________________________________________ decisions of their leaders: Their Central Committee addressed an appeal to the
____________________________________________________________ workers and soldiers: "Unknown persons... are summoning you into the streets
____________________________________________________________ under arms, and that proves that the summons does not come from any of the
____________________________________________________________ Soviet parties..." Thus the Central Committee - both of the Party and the Soviet -
____________________________________________________________ proposed, but the masses disposed.’ (op. cit. Volume II, 33.)
____________________________________________________________ Here we are not so much interested in whether or not the Bolsheviks had good
reasons for opposing these demonstrations as in the fact that they had no sway
____________________________________________________________
over the masses. Clearly, five months after the Revolution and three months after
____________________________________________________________ the October uprising, the masses were still governing themselves, and the Bolshevik
____________________________________________________________ vanguard simply had to toe the line. ‘Popular Bolsheviks - Nevsky, Lashevich,
____________________________________________________________ Padvoisky - speaking from the balcony, tried to send the regiments home. They
____________________________________________________________ were answered from below: "Go to hell! Go to hell!" Such cries the Bolshevik
____________________________________________________________ balcony had never yet heard from the soldiers, it was an alarming sign... What was
____________________________________________________________ to be done? Could the Bolsheviks possibly stand aside? The members of the
____________________________________________________________ Petrograd Committee together with the delegates of the Conference and
____________________________________________________________ representatives from the regiments and factories, passed a resolution: To end all
fruitless attempts to restrain the masses and guide the developing movement in
____________________________________________________________
such a way that the government crisis may be decided in the interests of the people
____________________________________________________________ (sic!)...’ (op. cit. Volume II, 33 f.) The fiction of the proletarian vanguard had to be
____________________________________________________________ maintained at any price!
____________________________________________________________ Trotsky himself added: The members of the Central Committee who were
____________________________________________________________ present sanctioned this change of tactics.’ (op. cit. Volume II, 34.) As if they had
____________________________________________________________ had any choice in the matter! (At least before 1921, by which date the secret police
____________________________________________________________ and the army could be mustered against th e masses.)
____________________________________________________________ But the Party could not just sit by with folded arms. Speaking for the Party
____________________________________________________________ leadership, Kamenev said:
‘ "We did not summon the manifestation, the popular masses themselves came
____________________________________________________________
into the street... but once the masses have come out, our place is among them ...
____________________________________________________________ Our present task is to give the movement an organised character." ‘ (op. cit.
____________________________________________________________ Volume II, 37.) Kamenev therefore admitted that the Party was no longer at the
____________________________________________________________ head, that it was no longer directing anything, that all it could do was to organise
post facto. And how? The afternoon summons from the Central Committee to stop in what Lenin so proudly referred to as his ‘constitution’. The idea that the same
the demonstration was torn from the presses - but too late to replace it with a new means cannot serve different ends, that neither the army nor a factory are simple
text.’ (op. cit. Volume II, 42.) ‘instruments’ but socialist structures embodying productive relationships and hence
Pravda accordingly appeared with a blank page, and this is what the Bolsheviks the real power - this idea, so obvious to Marxists, was completely ‘forgotten’. True,
call organising a movement! And despite all their efforts, the demonstration did take the Bolsheviks abolished private property, and ‘the anarchy of the market’, but the
place, and attracted ‘at least 500,000 persons’. practical reorganisation of capitalist production when it came, took none of the forms
The conclusion is obvious: The movement had begun from below irrespective of the Russian Social Democrats had envisaged during twenty years of debate. ‘The
the Bolsheviks - to a certain extent against their will.’ {op. cit. Volume II, 71.) revolutionary bureaucracy which directed the proletariat and seized the State
Trotsky, moreover, declared in a speech at about that time: machine imposed a new form of class domination on society.’ (Guy Debord: La
They accuse us of creating the mood of the masses; that is wrong, we only try to Societe du Spectacle.)
formulate it.’ (op. cit. Volume II, 7A.) The most unshakeable belief of the Communist Party, indeed of every party of
In short, the great vanguard was reduced to the role of mere mouthpiece, and the Bolshevik type, is precisely that it must direct the revolution as well as the
failed even in this. Still, it might be argued that though the Party was sleeping in economy. The only Communists to challenge this view at the time were a handful of
February, and though it lagged behind the masses in July, it nevertheless has the clear-sighted comrades, including Rosa Luxemburg, Anton Pannekoek and the far-
October Revolution to its credit. Nothing could be further from the truth. left German KAPD who, before and after the Revolution, stressed the fact that
From April to October, Lenin had to fight a constant battle to keep the Party centralisation was bound to dampen the spontaneity and self-confidence of the
leadership in tune with the masses: ‘Even the victory of the insurrection in Petrograd masses. The reason why the Bolshevik Party was able to usher in a counter-
was far from breaking everywhere the inertia of the waiting policy and the direct revolution, is because it has crushed, rather than led, the proletariat; because no
resista nce of the right wing. The wavering of the leaders subsequently almost organisation can represent the proletariat: whenever a minority acts in the name of
shipwrecked the insurrection in Moscow. In Kiev, the committee, headed by the proletariat it acts only to betray them in the end. The defeat of all the opposition
Piatakov, which had been conducting a purely defensive policy, turned over the groups inside the party - the Left-Wing Communists in 1918, the Centralist
initiative in the long run - and also the power - to the Rada ... The actual overturn in Democrats in 1919 and finally the Workers’ Opposition in 1921 - are so many nails
Voronezh ... was carried out not by a committee of the party but by its active in the coffin of the Russian proletariat. The Workers’ Opposition, despite its
minority ... In a whole series of provincial cities, the Bolsheviks formed in October a theoretical confusion and weakness, was nevertheless right to assert that the
bloc with the Compromisers "against the counter-revolution" ... In spite of the vast workers must rebuild the social edifice from top to bottom. The Workers’ Opposition
work that has been done in recent years towards concealing these facts ... plenty of was the last voice inside the official Marxist movement to call for direct control, to
testimony has been preserved in the newspapers, memoirs and historic journals of express confidence in the creative capacity of the proletariat, to proclaim that the
the time, to prove that on the eve of the overturn of the official machine even the socialist revolution must usher in a new period in human history. This was the voice
most revolutionary party put up a big resistance.’ {op. cit. Volume III, 145 f.) of the Kronstadt workers and so clear and loud was their message that it could only
Early in October, Lenin could only impose his view by going over the head of his be silenced with cannon.
Central Committee: ‘His letter to the Central Committee he not only sent to the
Petrograd and Moscow Committees, but he also saw to it that copies fell into the
hands of the more reliable party workers of the district locals.’ (op. cit. Volume III,
1931)
And again: ‘Lenin appealed to a Petrograd party conference to speak a firm
word in favour of insurrection. Upon his initiative, the conference insistently
requested the Central Committee to take all measures for the leadership of the
inevitable insurrection of the workers, soldiers and peasants ".’ (op. cit. Volume II,
132.)
Thus Lenin, aware that the glorious vanguard was again lagging behind the
masses, tried desperately to preserve its prophetic role and, in so doing, had to
break the very rules of democratic centralism he himself had formulated.
‘In the upper circles of the party,’ he wrote, ‘a wavering is to be observed, a sort
of dread of the struggle for power, an inclination to replace the struggle with
resolutions, protests and conferences.’ And this is what Trotsky had to say about
As far as we are concerned there is no break between the ideology of the old it: This is already almost a direct pitting of the party against the Central Committee.
Bolshevik Party and that of the new bureaucracy. Lenin did not decide lightly upon such steps, but it was a question of the fate of the
The direction of the proletariat, acting through a clandestine and disciplined revolution and all other considerations fell away.’ (op. cit. Volume III, 132 f.)
party, and run by intellectuals turned professional revolutionaries, had no need to In short, the success of the revolution called for action against the ‘highest
come to terms with other managerial classes, and so became the absolute dictator circles of the party’, who, from February to October, utterly failed to play the
of society.’ (Guy Debord: La Societe du Spectacle) revolutionary role they ought to have taken in theory. The masses themselves
Now, while it is undeniable that the Russian Revolution took place in a backward made the revolution, with or even against the party - this much at least was clear to
country - one in which the peasantry was predominant; that it was isolated, largely Trotsky the historian. But far from drawing the correct conclusion, Trotsky the
due to the failure of the German revolution, and that it was severely weakened by theorist continued to argue that the masses are incapable of making a revolution
the Civil War, these general factors can in no way explain the specific turn it took. without a leader. To begin with he admits that Tugan-Baranovsky is right when he
For instance, like the Commune of 1871 or like the German revolution, it might have says that the February revolution was accomplished by workers and peasants - the
been smashed from without and replaced by the old capitalist system. Even the latter in the person of the soldiers. But there still remains the great question: who
introduction of state capitalism might have taken quite different forms than it did, in led the revolution, who led the workers to their feet? ... It was solved most simplyby
fact, take in the Soviet Union. Moreover, backwardness and isolation have long the universal formula: nobody led the revolution, it happened of itself.’ (op. cit.
been overcome: today the Soviet Union is a powerful industrial giant with an empire Volume I, 145.)
that covers more than half of Europe. No, the specific failure of the Russian Trotsky not only put the question very well but also gave a clear answer: the
Revolution must be laid squarely at the door of the Bolshevik party. That failure was Revolution was the spontaneous expression of the will of the masses - not just in
far more significant even than the defeat of the French Commune at the hands of theory but in actual practice. But Trotsky the theorist could not accept the obvious
reaction, of the Spanish Revolution at the hands of Franco, or the Hungarian answer: he had to refute it since the idea of a centralised leadership is the crux of
uprising by Krushchev’s tanks - simply because the Russian Revolution had his dogma and must be upheld at all costs. Hence he quoted with approval
triumphed over the forces of external reaction only to succumb to the bureaucracy Zavadsky’s dictum that ‘spontaneous conception is still more out of place in
the Revolution itself had engendered. It forces us to reflect on the nature of sociology than in natural science. Owing to the fact that none of the revolutionary
workers’ powers and on what we mean by socialism. What is specific in the leaders with a name was able to hang his label on the movement, it becomes not
degeneration of the Russian Revolution is that, while the ‘revolutionary’ party impersonal but merely nameless.’ (op. cit. Volume I, 151.)
retained power, the working class itself lost it; that it was their own party that We wish to say no more. Anonymity is precisely what characterises a
defeated the workers, and not the classical forces of the counter-revolution. What spontaneous movement, i.e. one that disdains the tutelage of official organisations,
Rosa Luxemburg had to say about the German revolution, just before her death, that will have no official name. Trotsky’s argument is quite different: there can be no
applies in full to the Russian Revolution as well: ‘In all previous revolutions, the revolution without leadership and if no leaders can be pointed out, it is simply
contenders were ranged on two clear sides, class against class, programme against because the leaders are anonymous. Thus, after recalling that the ‘Union of
programme. In the present revolution, the defenders of the old order do not fight Officers of February 27’, formed just after the revolution, tried to determine with a
under the banner of the ruling class, but under the social democratic banner.’ questionnaire who first led out the Volynsky Regiment, Trotsky explains: "They
The only difference is that in Germany, the Social Democrats served as a front received seven answers naming seven initiators of this decisive action. It is very
for the bourgeoisie, while in Russia, the Bolshevik wing of the Social Democratic likely, we may add, that a part of the initiative really did belong to several soldiers.’
Party took the place of the bourgeoisie. From 1918 to 1921, the Bolsheviks were (op. cit. Volume I, 150.)
concerned to give Russia a well-organised economy based on the then capitalist Why then will he not admit that the soldiers took more than ‘part’ of the initiative?
model, i.e. State capitalism. This is a term that kept recurring in Lenin’s writings. Because Trotsky prefers another explanation: ‘It is not impossible that the chief
And what he and Trotsky said time and again was that Russia must learn from the initiator fell in the street fighting carrying his name with him into oblivion.’ Thus
advanced capitalist countries, that there is only one way of developing production: Trotsky, the historian, doctors the historical evidence to introduce a mythical leader,
the application of capitalist ideas on management and industrial rationalisation. whose existence cannot be verified because he is dead! Another example quoted
Trotsky, for example, believed that the actual organisation of the army did not matter by Trotsky highlights the absurdity of this line of argument: ‘On Friday, 24 February,
so long as it fought on the right side. Thus an army is not bourgeois because of its nobody in the upper circles as yet expected a revolution ... a tram car in which a
structure (e.g. hierarchy and discipline) but only if it serves the bourgeoisie. senator was riding turned off quite unexpectedly with such a jar that the windows
Similarly an industrial system is not considered bourgeois because its discipline, rattled and one was broken ... Its conductor told everybody to get off:
hierarchy, and incentives (bonuses, piece work, etc.) are those used by the
bourgeois system. All that matters, apparently, is whose power is enshrined
Now this is the very essence of Bolshevism: the working class is incapable of
"The car isn’t going any further" ... The movement of the tramways stopped socialist consciousness, of making a revolution, of running socialist society - hence
everywhere as far as the eye could see.’ (op. cit. Volume I, 151.)
the Party must step in on its behalf and, if necessary, ignore the "temporary
Trotsky makes the following comment: That resolute conductor, in whom the aberrations’ of the proletariat. What then is the meaning of the phrase ‘the
liberal officials could already catch a glimpse of the "wolf-look" must have been emancipation of the workers can only be achieved by the workers themselves’?
dominated by a high sense of duty in order all by himself to stop a car containing Lenin’s answer was that the ‘domination by the working class rests on the
officials on the streets of imperial Petersburg in time of war. It was just such Constitution, in the new property system’. De Gaulle ought to take a leaf out of his
conductors who stopped the car of the monarchy and with practically the same
book: enshrine workers’ control in the French Constitution but leave the real power
words - This car does not go any further! ... The conductor on the Liteiny boulevard with the bourgeoisie as heretofore, since running society, according to Lenin,
was a conscious factor of history. It had been necessary to educate him in requires a kind of skill the working class does not have. Fancy a cook running a
advance.’ (op. cit. Volume I, 151 f.) And a few lines further down he repeats the ministry!
same refrain: Those nameless, austere statesmen of the factory and street did not And so, when the party robbed the workers and the Soviets of their powers, they
fall out of the sky: they had to be educated.’ (op. cit. Volume I, 152.)
were obviously acting in the best interests of what was no more than an ignorant
The Party as such played no role in these decisive days, but those who were the and illiterate mass.
real actors, ‘the conscious instruments of history’ had needs to be educated, and by And if only the Party can wield power for them, only the Party must be allowed to
whom if not by the Party? In short, the past actions of the Party justify its present wield power. Let us listen to Trotsky again: ‘But who will guarantee, some evil
inactivity. There are but two alternatives for Trotsky: either people have fallen out of tongues have asked, that your party alone represents the cause of historical
the sky or else they must have been educated by the Party. The first hypothesis
development? In suppressing or overshadowing the other parties, they say, you
being absurd, the second is the only possible answer. But as the Jewish father said have rid yourself of political rivals, and hence prevented any chance of evaluating
to his son: ‘My boy, whenever there are two alternatives, choose the third.’ Now the correctness of your own line of conduct.’ Before looking at Trotsky’s reply to his
that alternative is simply that the workers could have managed without a Party, just own rhetorical question, we must repeat that not only had the Bolshevik leaders
as they do in their everyday life. Let us see what Trotsky himself has to say on this squashed all opposition outside the Party, but that they had also outlawed all
subject: The anaemic and pretentious intelligentsia ... was burning with desire to
opposition within the Party - as Trotsky himself was to discover when his turn came
teach the popular masses ... but was absolutely incapable of understanding them to challenge the authority of Stalin. But let us hear what he said at the time: ‘This
and of learning anything from them. Now, failing this, there can be no revolutionary question reflects purely liberal ideas on the progress of the revolution. At a period
politics.’ This judgement applies equally well to Trotsky himself, who was when all antagonists came out into the open and when the political struggle
responsible for the regimentation of labour and for shooting the Kronstadt rebels. becomes transformed into Civil War, the party in power has other statistics for
But Trotsky is not aware of this fact, and his History is so valuable precisely
evaluating the correctness of its line of conduct than the circulation figures of
because he is honest, or stupid, enough to list the facts that contradict his every Menshevik journals ... Noske tried to squash the Communists but their numbers
conclusion. Forgetting what he has written on page 151, he notes that ‘one of the kept growing, whereas we succeeded in demolishing the Mensheviks and the Social
factories carried this placard: "The Right to Life is Higher than the Rights of Private Revolutionaries until nothing remained of them. This criterion suffices us.’
Property". This slogan had not been suggested by the party.’ (op. cit. Volume I,
It suffices us as well. The German Social Democrat Noske did smash the
419.)
German Revolution while the number of Communists kept increasing, but all this
No one would wish to challenge his claim that ‘the thought of the worker has proves is that Trotsky was good at figures and not necessarily at political analysis.
become more scientific ... because it was fertilised to a large extent by the methods In fact, the German Communist Party enjoyed full parliamentary immunity in the
of Marxism.’ True, the use of the term ‘scientific thought’ is questionable, but there Weimar Republic. However, as soon as Hitler took power in 1933, not only the
is no doubt that scientific Marxism has played a large part in the education of both
number of Jews but also that of German Communists diminished by leaps and
Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. It should be added that other trends - anarcho-
bounds. Is this a justification of Hitlerism? Again, the number of Trotskyists in
syndicalist, anarchist, social revolutionary - made their contribution too. And as Russia dwindled to almost nothing from 1923 to 1940. Is this a Trotskyist
Trotsky himself admits when discussing working class thought, its development was justification of Stalinism? All it proves is the power of the repressive system.
chiefly due to ‘the living experience of the masses’. In 1921, the fate of the Russian Revolution was finally sealed and the
It was this living experience that went into the creation of the Soviets in 1905,
bureaucracy triumphed. Henceforth it would grow daily in strength. It is not
Soviets that the Bolshevik Party largely ignored, a fact for which Trotsky himself
surprising that the working class, having been weakened by years of civil war and
severely criticized the Party at the time. But as soon as he himself turned Bolshevik famine and then by the destruction of the Soviets, should have stood by passively
theorist, he had perforce to dismiss the whole idea of workers’ spontaneity. Thus while Trotsky himself was ‘liquidated’. Stalin could even permit himself the
while he says in Volume II, page 72, that the masses were complaining that ‘even indulgence of calling Trotsky ‘the patriarch of all bureaucrats’.
the Bolsheviks are dawdling and holding us back,’ he goes
‘TO ALL, TO ALL, TO ALL’ on to say on page 88: ‘What they (the German Spartacists) lacked was a Bolshevik
party.’
‘Comrades, workers, red soldiers and sailors! Here in Kronstadt we know full well
The absurdity of his hypotheses - all due to the fact that he cannot admit the
how much you and your wives and your children are suffering under the iron rule of idea of a spontaneous revolution - becomes even clearer in the following passage:
the Party. We have overthrown the Party-dominated Soviet. The Provisional ‘A careful study of the materials characterising the party life during the war and the
Revolutionary Committee is today starting elections to a new Soviet. It will be freely beginning of the revolution ... reveals more clearly every day the immense
elected, and it will reflect the wishes of the whole working population, and of the intellectual backsliding of the upper stratum of the Bolsheviks during the war when
garrison - and not just those of a handful of Party members.
the proper life of the party practically came to an end. The cause of this backsliding
‘Our cause is just. We stand for the power of the Soviets, not for that of the Party. is twofold: isolation from the masses and isolation from those abroad, that is
We stand for freely elected representatives of the toiling masses. Deformed primarily from Lenin.’ (op. cit. Volume III, 134.) This ‘twofold backsliding’ is nothing
Soviets, dominated by the Party, have remained deaf to our pleas. Our appeals less than an indictment of the Bolshevik Party: by stressing the importance of Lenin
have been answered with bullets. in the way he does, Trotsky is, in fact, depreciating the value of the Party. And
The workers’ patience is becoming exhausted. So now they are seeking to pacify
Lenin, far from being the infallible revolutionary Trotsky makes him out to be,
you with crumbs. On Zinoviev’s orders the militia barrages have been withdrawn. between February and October 1917, went back on a good many positions he had
Moscow has allocated ten million gold roubles for the purchase of foodstuffs and earlier defended. Thus while he had stressed the importance of Soviets in 1905, in
other articles of first necessity. But we know that the Petrograd proletariat will not January 1917, when he gave a lecture to Swiss workers, he merely mentioned the
be bought over in this way. Over the heads of the Party, we hold out to you the Soviets in passing. This did not prevent him, a few months later, to the dismay of
fraternal hand of revolutionary Kronstadt.
the majority of the Party, from once again adopting the anarchist slogan: All power
‘Comrades, you are being deceived. And truth is being distorted by the basest of to the Soviets! The Party, faithful and disciplined though it was, could not perform
calumnies. these gyrations with the same speed. The break between Lenin and the Party may
‘Comrades, don’t allow yourselves to be misled. prove Lenin’s genius when it comes to changing the political line, but it also proves
‘In Kronstadt, power is in the hands of the sailors, of the red soldiers and of the how ill-fitted a Party of the Bolshevik type is to deal with a revolutionary situation.
revolutionary workers. It is not in the hands of White Guards commanded by
Hence Trotsky’s claim that ‘the March leadership of Kamenev and Stalin lagged
General Kozlovsky, as Moscow Radio lyingly asserts. behind the gigantic historic tasks.’ (op. cit. Volume I, 403.)
‘Signed: The Provisional Revolutionary Committee.’ However, Trotsky was quick to refute this line of reasoning when it was dished
up to explain the failure of the White Guards. Thus he had this to say about the
Kronstadt, as Voline has rightly pointed out, was a genuine attempt by the abortive Kornilov putsch: The sums of money set aside for organisation were,
workers to run their own lives, without the help of political leaders, tutors, or
according to Vinberg, appropriated by the principal participants and squandered on
shepherds. And Alexander Berkman added: ‘Kronstadt destroyed the myth of the dinner parties ... One of the secret contributors, who was to deliver to some officers
workers’ state; it provided the proof of an incompatibility between the dictatorship of a considerable sum of money, upon arrival at the designated place found the
the Communist Party and the Revolution.’ conspirators in such a state of inebriation that he could not deliver the goods.
The Kronstadt Izvestia had this to say: ‘Be careful, Trotsky! You may escape the Vinberg himself thinks that if it had not been for these truly vexatious "accidents",
judgement of the people, you may shoot down innocent men and women by the
the plan might have been crowned with complete success. But the question
score, but even you cannot kill the truth.’ remains: Why was a patriotic enterprise entered into and surrounded, for the most
And on 8 March, the rebels wrote: ‘At Kronstadt the foundation stone has been part, by drunkards, spendthrifts and traitors? Is it not because every historic task
laid of the Third Revolution. This will break the final chains which still bind the mobilises the cadres that are adequate to it?’ {pp. cit. Volume II, 219 f.)
working masses and will open up new paths of socialist creation.’ Now if every historical task indeed mobilises the necessary cadres, it will do this
It is in the light of the events of February 1917, and March 1921, that we must
for the revolution no less than for the counter-revolution. Hence Trotsky should not
read the following text by Trotsky: ‘It has been said more than once that we have really blame the Bolshevik leaders for the failure of the Party to rise to its ‘historic
substituted the dictatorship of the Party for the dictatorship of the Soviets. However, task’. The reason Stalin and Kamenev found themselves at the head of the Party
we can claim without fear of contradiction that the dictatorship of the Soviets was was because they were elected by the whole of that Party, and it is therefore the
only made possible by the dictatorship of the Party ... In fact there has been no Party as such that is to blame and not x or y. Again, if the presence or absence of
substitution at all, since the Communists express the fundamental interests of the
Lenin explains the success or failure of the Party, the Party reduces to Lenin and
working class ... (In a revolutionary period) the Communists become the true becomes superfluous.
representatives of the working class as a whole.’ As for the gap between the Party and the masses, it can have two causes: either
the masses are too apathetic for revolution or else, as happened in 1917, the
masses are only too anxious to carry the revolution a step further, and the Party
no longer consider myself a member of the Party. I support the call issued by the
itself is apathetic. In the second case it is not the masses who cannot ‘ris e’ to its
workers of Kronstadt. All power to the Soviets, not to the Party!’
historic task but the Party. This rupture between the Party and the masses is due to
A military group assigned to the special company dealing with discipline also
the Party’s very nature: a small, closed group of professional revolutionaries, sure of
issued a declaration:
being the repository of truth and incapable of adapting themselves to any
independent initiative of the masses. A case in point was their attitude to the
‘We, the undersigned joined the Party believing it to express the wishes of the
Soviets, or workers’ councils, which gave the atomised masses their own centres for
working masses. In, fact the Party has proved itself an executioner of workers and
action and collective decisions. The Soviets sprang up quite spontaneously in 1905
peasants. This is revealed quite clearly by recent events in Petrograd. These
and did not figure in any party programme. It was only in retrospect that they were
events show up the face of the Party leaders. The recent broadcasts from Moscow
analysed by various writers of the Left. Some of these - particularly the anarchists,
show clearly that the Party leaders are prepared to resort to any means in order to
the extreme left Social Revolutionaries and minority groups within the Social
retain power.
Democratic Party, were frankly in favour of the Soviets - and so, in 1905, was Leon
‘We ask that henceforth, we no longer be considered Party members. We rally
Trotsky. Anton Pannekoek was another and his movement for workers’ control was
to the call issued by the Kronstadt garrison in its resolution of 2 March. We invite
attacked by Lenin in ‘Left-wing’ Communism: An Infantile Disorder. All the
other comrades who have become aware of the error of their ways, publicly to
Bolsheviks were frankly hostile. Those in St Petersburg were convinced that ‘only a
recognise the fact.
party based on class conceptions can direct the political movement of the proletariat
‘Signed: gutman, yefimov, koudriatzev, andreev.’
and preserve the purity of its intentions, whereas the workers’ councils are so many
(Izvestia of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, 7 March 1921.)
heterogeneous and indecisive bodies’. (Quoted by Oscar Auweiler in The Workers’
Councils in Russia 1905-1929.) At the same time, P. Mendeleev declared in the
Every attempt to settle matters peacefully was rejected out of hand by the
name of the Bolsheviks: ‘The council of workers’ deputies is a political organisation
government; Trotsky ordered his troops ‘to shoot the Kronstadt "rebels" down like
and Social Democrats (Bolsheviks and Mensheviks) must leave it because its very
partridges’, and entrusted the task to Toukhatchevsky, a military expert taken over
existence impedes the development of the social democratic movement. The
from the Old Regime. On 6 March, Trotsky addressed the following radio appeal to
workers’ council may exist as a trade union or not at all.’ Whence Mendeleev
the Kronstadt garrison over the radio:
concluded that the Bolsheviks should use the following strate gy: ‘First of all we must
try to get the workers’ council to limit itself to its trade union tasks, and secondly, in
‘The Workers’ and Peasants’ Government has decided to reassert its authority
case this attempt fails, the workers’ council must be made to acknowledge the
without delay, both over Kronstadt and over the mutinous battleships, and to put
leadership of the Social Democratic Party, and thirdly, this having been done, it
them at the disposal of the Soviet Republic. I therefore order all those who have
must be dissolved as quickly as possible, seeing that its parallel existence with other
raised a hand against the Socialist Fatherland, immediately to l ay down their
social democratic organisations serves no purpose.’ And this at a time when
weapons. Those who resist will be disarmed and put at the disposal of the Soviet
workers were beginning to form workers’ councils in all the factories, and workers’
Command. The arrested commissars and other representatives of the Government
‘parliaments’ in all the major towns! The Social Democrats did not even think fit to
must be freed immediately. Only those who surrender unconditionally will be able to
invite the workers to participate in their party’s august deliberations, but expected
count on the clemency of the Soviet Republic. I am meanwhile giving orders that
them to carry out blindly what the proletarian vanguard ordered from on high, and
everything be prepared to smash the revolt and the rebels by force of arms. The
then to declare themselves redundant. That the workers’ councils ‘impeded’ this
responsibility for the disasters that will affect the civilian population must fall
sort of development is a truism - they challenged the wisdom of the Party leaders in
squarely on the heads of the White Guard insurgents.
practice and not simply in theory. This was more than our professional
‘Signed: trotsky, President of the Military Revolutionary Council of the Soviet
revolutionaries were prepared to swallow. In 1907, Lenin got the Fifth Congress of
Republic.
the Social Democratic Workers’ Party to pass a resolution whose subject was highly
Kamenev,* Glavkom (Commanding Officer).’
revealing: ‘On the independent workers’ organisation and the anarcho-syndicalist
currents within the proletariat.’ He condemned all these ‘currents’, and declared:
No matter how often the workers of Kronstadt affirmed their loyalty to Soviet
The participation of Social Democratic organisations in councils composed of
Socialism, Kronstadt, like Carthage, was destroyed; its appeal to the truth went
delegates and workers’ deputies without distinction of party ... or the creation of
unheard:
such councils, cannot be countenanced unless we can be sure that the party can
benefit and that its interests are fully protected.’ (Quoted by Oscar Auweiler, page
103.)
* This Kamenev was an ex-Tsarist officer, now collaborating with the Soviet Government. He
was a different Kamenev from the one shot by the Stalinists in 1936.
‘(10) The abolition of Party combat detachments in all military groups. The abolition In dealing with workers’ organisations, the Bolsheviks had but one major
of Party guards in factories and enterprises. If guards are required, they should be concern: to strengthen their own organisation. Since the Party was the sole
nominated, taking into account the views of the workers. guardian of the proletariat and the revolution, any attempt by the workers to make a
‘(11) The granting to the peasants of freedom of action on their own soil, and of the revolution without the Party must clearly be wrong or indeed impossible, as Trotsky
right to own cattle, provided they look after them themselves and do not employ argues in his History of the Russian Revolution. When the workers disavow the
hired labour. Party in practice, the Party simply disavows the practice of the workers.
‘(12) We request that all military units and officer trainee groups associate This disdain for the working class and its capacity for self-emancipation can be
themselves with this resolution. heard most clearly in Lenin’s What is to be done?, a theoretical justification of the
‘(13) We demand that the Press give proper publicity to this resolution. leadership principle. In it, Lenin simply repeats the words of Karl Kautsky, whom he
‘(14) We demand the institution of mobile workers’ control groups. still admired at the time: The workers, w e have said, still lacked a Social-Democratic
‘(15) We demand that handicraft production be authorised provided it does not consciousness; it could only come to them from the outside. History in all countries
utilise wage labour.’ attests that, on its own, the working class cannot go beyond the level of trade union
consciousness, the realisation that th ey must combine into trade unions, fight
The workers and sailors of Kronstadt were, in fact, defending the power of the against the employers, force the government to pass such laws as benefit the
Soviets against the power of the Party. condition of the workers ... As for the Socialist doctrine, it was constructed out of
The Kronstadt resolution had the merit of stating things openly and clearly. But it philosophical, historical and economic theories elaborated by educated members of
was breaking no new ground. Its main ideas were being discussed e verywhere. the ruling class, by intellectuals. Thus Marx and Engels, the founders of modern
For having, in one way or another, put forward precisely such ideas, workers and scientific socialism, were bourgeois intellectuals. Similarly in Russia, the social
peasants were already filling the prisons and the recently set up concentration democratic doctrine sprang up almost independently of the spontaneous
camps. development of the working class movement ...’
And while all this was going on, Radio Moscow kept spreading lies and Lenin summed it all up by saying: ‘The workers can acquire class political
calumnies against the workers. Thus when Stalin accused Trotsky a few years later consciousness only from without, that is, only outside of the economic struggle,
of conspiring with a White Guard officer of the Wrangel Army, he was merely using outside of the sphere of the relation between workers and employers.’
the same smear campaign Trotsky had used against the Kronstadt sailors. Now this claim that class political consciousness can only reach the working
On 3 March, for instance, Radio Moscow launched the following appeal: class from the outside, has been refuted in practice, and ought to cease being part
‘Struggle against the White Guard Plot ... Just like other White Guard insurrections, of any socialist’s stock of ideas. The history of French trade unionism before 1914
the mutiny of ex-General Kozlovsky and the crew of the battleship Petropavlovsk in itself is sufficient proof that the workers can transcend what Lenin calls their ‘trade
has been organised by Entente spies. This is clear from the fact that the French union consciousness’. The Charter of Amiens adopted in 1906 makes this quite
paper Le Monde published the following message from Helsingfors two weeks explicit: ‘The CGT is affiliated to no political party, but is a union of class-conscious
before the revolt of General Kozlovsky: "We are informed from Petrograd that as the workers fighting for the abolition of wage-slaves and employers. The Congress
result of the recent Kronstadt revolt, the Bolshevik military authorities have taken a pledges itself to support the workers in their class struggle against all forms of
whole series of measures to isolate the town and to prevent the soldiers and sailors capitalist exploitation and oppression, both material and moral. Accordingly the
of Kronstadt from entering Petrograd." Congress sets itself the following tasks: in the short term, trade unionists will try to
‘It is therefore clear that the Kronstadt revolt is being led from Paris. The French improve the workers’ lot by calling for such immediate reforms as increases in
counter espionage is mixed up in the whole affair. History is repeating itself. The wages, a shorter working week, etc. But this is only one aspect of our work. The
Socialist Revolutionaries, who have their headquarters in Paris, are preparing the trade unions also pave the way for the complete emancipation of the working class,
ground for an insurrection against the Soviet power. The ground prepared, their real which cannot be achieved except by expropriation or the capitalists. To that end,
master, the Tsarist general appeared. The history of Koltchak, installing his power they will call general strikes, so that those resisting capitalism on the wages front
in the wake of that of the Socialist Revolutionaries, is being repeated.’ today may tomorrow take charge of production and distribution and so usher in a
Faced with all these lies and also with an imminent attack by the Central completely new era...’
Government, local Bolsheviks deserted their party en masse. To appreciate just This text shows clearly that the working class can rise a great deal beyond the
how strongly they felt, we need only read some of the letters they sent to the ‘trade union consciousness’, and precisely in a country where the influence of the
Kronstadt Izvestia. The teacher Denissov wrote: ‘I openly declare to the Provisional Social Democrats was extremely tenuous. Conversely it was when Social
Revolutionary Committee that as from gunfire directed at Kronstadt, I Democrats started to gain influence in France that the trade unions reverted to their
role of economic intermediaries, and changed into the bureaucratic machines
of today, machines that form an integral part of capitalist society. The Leninist
ideology, in postulating the incapacity of the working class to make a revolution, or,
as we shall see, to manage production in post-revolutionary society, is in direct
conflict with the inaugural declaration of the First International: The emancipation of
the workers must be brought about by the workers themselves’. The fact that Kronstadt
‘scientific socialism’ was the creation of bourgeois intellectuals is undeniable, and,
indeed, it bears the unmistakable marks of this: it is alien to the proletariat and At the end of February 1921, the workers of Petrograd, who had been making an
perhaps it ought not to be quite so proud of this alienation as it obviously is. enormous productive effort despite the short rations they were allowed, went on
Moreover, Bolshevik organisations were born in an industrially backward country strike against their intolerable conditions. The Party and Zinoviev, who was
(which explains rather than justifies their own backward nature). This type of responsible for the defence of Petrograd, could think of only one answer: to send a
organisation, and the ideology that went hand in hand with it, would, after 1917, detachment of the Koursanty (cadet officers) against the strikers, and to proclaim a
seize upon the backwardness of Russia and also on the lack of revolutionary spirit state of siege in Petrograd. In The Kronstadt Commune*, Ida Mett tells what
among the workers outside, as a pretext for bringing to fruit the counter- happened next.
revolutionary germs it contained from the very beginning. On 26 February the Kronstadt sailors, naturally interested in all that was going
The Leninist belief that the workers cannot spontaneously go beyond the level of on in Petrograd, sent delegates to find out about the strikes. The delegation visited
trade union consciousness is tantamount to beheading the proletariat, and then a number of factories. It returned to Kronstadt on the 28th. That same day, the
insinuating the Party as the head. The original aims of French trade unionism, and crew of the battleship Petropavlovsk, having discussed the situation, voted the
the creation of Soviets show that Lenin was wrong, and, in fact, in Russia, the Party following resolution:
was forced to decapitate the workers’ movement with the help of the political police
and the Red Army under the brilliant leadership of Trotsky and Lenin. Moreover, the ‘Having heard the reports of the representatives sent by the General Assembly of
decapitation was not enough, the body, too, had to be destroyed, and since this task the Fleet to find out about the situation in Petrograd, the sailors demand:
required less finesse and revolutionary education, the honour of finishing the work ‘(1) Immediate new elections to the Soviets. The present Soviets no longer express
so brilliantly begun by Lenin and Trotsky, fell to the uncultured Stalin. the wishes of the workers and peasants. The new elections should be by secret
However, in fairness to Trotsky, it must be said that, in 1902, when Lenin wrote ballot, and should be preceded by free electoral propaganda.
What is to be done?, Trotsky not only opposed it violently but had the wit to foresee ‘(2) Freedom of speech and of the press for workers and peasants, for the
its worst dangers: that the Party would substitute itself for the working class, the anarchists, and for the Left Socialist parties.
Central Committee for the party, the Politburo for the Central Committee, and finally ‘(3) The right of assembly, and freedom for trade union and peasant organisations.
the General Secretary for the Politburo. It is to be hoped that Trotsky’s critique may ‘(4) The organisation, at the latest on 10 March 1921, of a Conference of non-Party
one day be published in full, for it, better than anything else, would provide us with a workers, soldiers and sailors of Petrograd, Kronstadt and the Petrograd District.
critique of modern Trotskyism. Lenin’s views were also challenged by Rosa ‘(5) The liberation of all political prisoners of the Socialist parties, and of all
Luxemburg, representing the far-left wing of the German Social Democratic imprisoned workers and peasants, soldiers and sailors belonging to working class
Movement. While she shared Lenin’s disgust with the reformist and parliamentary and peasant organisations.
German Social Democratic Party, she also attacked his own centralism and his ‘(6) The election of a commission to look into the dossiers of all those detained in
ideas of discipline. prisons and concentration camps.
In his ‘One step forward and two steps back’, Lenin glorified the educational ‘(7) The abolition of all political sections in the armed forces. No political party
effect of factory life which ‘accustoms the proletariat to discipline and organisation’. should have privileges for the propagation of its ideas, or receive State subsidies to
To this Rosa Luxemburg replied: The discipline w hich Lenin has in mind is driven this end. In the place of the political sections, various cultural groups should be set
home to the proletariat not only in the factory but also in the barracks and by all up, deriving resources from the State.
sorts of bureaucrats, in short by the whole power machine of the centralised ‘(8) The immediate abolition of the militia detachments set up between towns and
bourgeois state ... It is an abuse of words to apply the same term "discipline" to two countryside.
such unrelated concepts as the mindless reflex motions of a body with a thousand ‘(9) The equalisation of rations for all workers, except those engaged in dangerous
hands and a thousand legs, and the spontaneous co-ordination of the conscious or unhealthy jobs.
political acts of a group of men. What can the well-ordered docility of the former
have in common with the aspirations of a class struggling for its total emancipation?’
(The Organisation of the Social Democratic Party in Russia.)
* Ida Mett: The Kronstadt Commune, Solidarity Pamphlet No 27, available from Zabalaza
Books.
challenging the right of the Party to affirm its dictatorship, even when this In fact, it was Lenin’s own consciousness that failed to transcend the
dictatorship comes into conflict with the evanescent mood of the workers’ organisational level of the bourgeoisie. Speaking of the revolutionary movement
democracy. We must bear in mind the historical mission of our Party. The Party is that, at the turn of the century, shook the autocratic Russian Empire and later
forced to maintain its dictatorship without stopping for these vacillations, nor even culminated in the Russian Revolution of 1905, Rosa Luxemburg wrote (in 1904):
the momentary falterings of the working class. This realisation is the mortar that ‘Our cause (i.e. Socialism) has made immense progress. However, in this, the
cements our unity. The dictatorship of the proletariat does not always have to initiative and conscious direction of the Social Democratic organisation played no
conform to formal principles o f democracy.’ more than an insignificant part. This fact cannot be explained away by arguing that
And Lenin mocked at the Workers’ Opposition: ‘A producers’ Congress! What our organisation was not prepared for such great events (although this was true),
precisely does that mean? It is difficult to find words to describe this folly. I keep and even less by the absence of the all-powerful central apparatus Lenin has
asking myself, can they be joking? Can one really take these people seriously? recommended. On the contrary, it is more than likely that such an apparatus would
While production is always necessary, democracy is not. Democracy of production simply have increased the confusion of the local committees, stressing the gulf
engenders a series of radically false ideas.’ between the impetuous masses and the cautious attitude of the Social Democratic
Lenin should not have laughed quite so loudly at all this ‘folly’, for it was Party.’ (The Organisation of the Social Democratic Party in Russia.)
precisely what he himself had written in 1917, in his State and Revolution. Every The ultra-centralisation advocated by Lenin,’ Rosa Luxemburg continued, ‘is
phrase of that book is a denunciation of the Bolshevik policy in 1920-21, for it was filled, not with a positive and creative spirit, but with the sterile spirit of the night
written at a time when the masses forced Lenin to be an anarchist rather than a watchman.’ Prophetic words these, for within a few months the Party became
Bolshevik. When it suited him, Lenin buried the State and Revolution. And even incapable of understanding, and even fought, the establishment of workers’
while Trotsky was still thundering on about the Workers’ Opposition, Lenin was councils. Prophetic also for what happened in 1917, when the Party proved quite
forced, and not by words only, to correct ‘the temporary falterings of the working incapable of playing the leading part for which it had been prepared so long, and left
class’. This he did at Kronstadt, where the bullets of the Party finally settled ‘the the entire job to a Lenin (quod Jovi licet non bovi licet). Rosa Luxemburg had
conflict between its dictatorship and the vanescent moods of the workers’ clearly foreseen all this, and had accordingly advocated the ‘tearing down of that
democracy’. barbed wire fence which prevents the Party from accomplishing the formidable task
of the hour’. In fact, far from dismantling the fence, the Party eventually put the
entire Russian proletariat behind it.
Rosa Luxemburg’s conclusions are no less relevant today than they were at the
time they were written: ‘Finally we saw the birth of a far more legitimate offspring of
the historical process: the Russian workers’ movement, which, for the first time,
gave expression to the real will of the popular masses. Then the leadership of the
Russian revolution leapt up to balance on their shoulders, and once more appointed
itself the all-powerful director of history, this time in the person of His Highness the
Central Committee of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party. This skilful acrobat did
not even realise that the only one capable of playing the part of director is the
"collective" ego of the working class, which has a sovereign right to make mistakes
and to learn the dialectics of history by itself. Let us put it quite bluntly: the errors
committed by a truly revolutionary workers’ movement are historically far more
fruitful and valuable than the infallibility of even the best Central Committee.’
(Organisation of Social Democratic Party in Russia.)
The value of these remarks is in no way diminished by the fact that, today, we
have dozens of Central Committees each insisting on its own infallibility, and all
alike unable to learn the lessons of the Russian Revolution on which they base most
of their self-justifications.
In February 1917, we have said, the Party line and dynamic was opposed to that
of the masses organised in Soviets. Lenin had to labour hard, not to convince the
masses of the need to seize power in the factories and towns, but to convince his
own party that the masses were ready for this step. It was the party that had to rise
to the level of the masses, not the other way round. Lenin had to turn
‘anarchist’, and to carry an incredulous party with him. October thus represents the
The railwaymen and the personnel of the repair workshops were put under
point where the action and aspiration of the masses coincided with those of the
martial law. There was a major outcry. To silence his critics, and with the full
temporarily de-Bolshevised Bolshevik Party, and this happy state persisted until the
endorsement of the Party leadership, Trotsky ousted the elected leaders of the
spring of 1918. The Bolshevik Party could not, moreover, behave otherwise,
union and appointed others who were willing to do his bidding. He repeated the
because it was still trying to win the support of the workers. The previous eight
procedure in other unions of transport workers.
months (i.e. February to October 1917) had brought on an extraordinary proliferation
Perhaps it is of these men he was thinking when he wrote: ‘It is a general rule
of factory and workshop committees. In April 1917 a conference of factory
that man will try to get out of work. Man is a lazy animal.’ And in his Terrorism and
committees at Petrograd had declared: ‘All decisions affecting the internal
Communism ’, a piece of Trotskyist writing if ever there was one, he proclaimed:
management of factories, such as the length of the working day, wages, hiring and
‘Those workers who contribute more than the rest to the general good have every
dismissing of workers, etc. must come from the facto ry committee.’ Another
right to receive a larger share of the socialist product than layabouts, idlers and the
conference of factory committees held in June 1917 demanded ‘the organisation of
undisciplined.’
complete control by the workers of production and distribution’ and ‘a proletarian
The last battle over the militarisation of work was fought inside the party in 1920-
majority in all institutions wielding executive power’. Still another congress, after the
21. Those opposed to Trotsky’s ideas formed the ‘Workers’ Opposition’, whose
seizure of power, declared: ‘The workers’ control commissions must not merely be
history has been recorded by Alexandra Kollontai. A Party conference held in
used to check production ... but must prepare for the transfer of production into the
Moscow in November 1920 showed that the ‘Workers’ Opposition’ was growing
hands of the workers.’
rapidly in strength. They, the Centralist Democrats and the Ignatov group (closely
The January 1918 issue of Vestnik Metalista (Metalworkers’ News) contained an
associated with the "Workers’ Opposition" obtained 124 seats as against the 154
article by the worker N. Filipov which said, inter alia: The working class, by its very
obtained by the supporters of the Central Committee.’ (Daniels: The Conscience of
nature, must hold a central place in the productive process. In the future, all
the Revolution.)
production must reflect the spirit and the will of the proletariat.’
The Party leadership took fright and introduced a whole series of counter-
In this truly revolutionary period, Lenin told the Third Congress of Soviets held at
measures, some of which were so scandalous that the Moscow Committee passed
the beginning of 1918: ‘Anarchist ideas have assumed virulent forms.’
a resolution publicly censoring the Petrograd Party ‘for not observing the rules of
A. Pantakrava wrote: ‘On the morrow of the October Revolution, these anarchist
correct discussion’. The Central Committee, too, was criticised and instructed to
tendencies have become prevalent, precisely because the capitalists have
‘ensure that the allocation of printed matter and speakers was such that all points of
increased their resistance to the application of the Decree on Workers’ Control and
view can be honestly represented’. At the Tenth Congress, Alexandra Kollontai
continue to oppose the workers’ management of production.’
nevertheless felt impelled to protest that the distribution of her pamphlet. The
We shall see that from the spring of 1918 it was the Bolshevist-Leninists
Workers’ Opposition, had been deliberately sabotaged.
themselves who opposed workers’ management. Before that happened, the
Lenin denounced the Worker’s Opposition at the very beginning of the
anarcho-syndicalist Maximov could still write: ‘The Bolsheviks have abandoned not
Congress, calling it ‘a menace to the Revolution’. The atmosphere of the Congress
only their theory of the withering away of the state, but Marxist ideology as a whole.
was electric, particularly when Kollontai, Ignatov and many others attacked the
They have become anarchists of a sort.’
bureaucracy, its class character, and the transformation of the Party into a non-
However, the anarchist Voline, writing in Golos Truda (The Voice of Labour) at
proletarian one by the influx of new elements. What the ‘Leftist’ Communists had
the end of 1917, had this to say: ‘Once their power has been consolidated and
foreseen in 1918, what Voline and the anarchists had prophesied all along, had
legalised, the Bolsheviks, as state socialis ts, that is as men who believe in
become reality: ‘The party had become the springboard for bureaucratic careerists.’
centralised and authoritarian leadership - will start running the life of the country and
Lenin and Trotsky were to triumph over the Workers’ Opposition, and when they had
of the people from the top. Your Soviets ... will gradually become simple tools of the
done so, the last voice to speak up for the Soviet working class was silenced. The
central government ... You will soon see the inauguration of an authoritarian
Congress ordered the dissolution of all factions within the Party - having squashed
political and state apparatus that will crush all opposition with an iron fist ... "All
freedom of expression outside, the Party leaders now finished off the opposition
power to the Soviets" will become "all power to the leaders of the party".’
within. Nor was it simply a struggle of ideas - it was the very fate of the working
And this is precisely what happened in 1918. To achieve their ends, the
class that was at stake in this battle. While ostensibly attacking the Left-wing
Bolsheviks had to smash all opposition and the anarchists in particular. This
Communists, the Centrist Democrats and the Workers’ Opposition, it was in fact the
political repression went hand in hand with the repression of the workers in the
working class itself that was being clubbed down, that lost every right to manage its
factory.
own destiny.
Thus Captain Jacques Sadaul wrote: ‘The anarchist party is the most active and
At the Congress, Trotsky accused the Workers’ Opposition of putting forward
militant and probably the most popular opposition group of all ... The Bolsheviks are
dangerous slogans. They turn democratic principles into a fetish. They put the
greatly disturbed.’
right of the workers to elect their own representatives above the Party, thus
sent where they are needed, called up and directed like soldiers. Labour must be Voline confirmed this account: To tolerate anarchist propaganda would have
directed most intensely during the transition of capitalism to socialism.’ We might been suicide for Lenin. It (the Bolshevik authority) did everything possible to impede
add, in parenthesis, that since this transition has not yet been made, and never will and then forbid and repress by brute force, all manifestations of libertarian ideas.’
be made unless there is another revolution. Soviet workers must prepare to settle This repression began with a change of attitude on the question of workers’
down to a further spell of forced labour. ‘It is essential,’ Trotsky went on, ‘to form management. From 1918 onwards, opposition was kept within the Bolshevik party -
punitive contingents and to put all those who shirk work into concentration camps.’ outside all criticism was suppressed. Hence it is by looking at developments inside
Stalin, who as Trotsky himself has repeatedly pointed out, lacked theoretical the Bolshevik Party that we can best follow the process of repression, which
imagination, did in fact very little more than pursue the theoretical and practical path culminated in the silencing, even within the party, of anyone who spoke up for the
opened up by Trotsky. In particular, Trotsky introduced Stakhanovism when he crushed proletariat. The Tenth Congress of the Bolshevik Party, in March 1921
offered special bonuses for extra effort ‘worthy of socialist emulation’; he also spoke dissolved all Party fractions, while outside, the Party was busy firing on the workers
of the need to adopt the ‘progressive essence of Taylorism’ - at that time the most and sailors at Kronstadt, and on what pockets of resistance there still were in the
extreme form of capitalist exploitation. Lenin’s thesis of one-man management and rest of the country. In particular, the Ukrainian Makhno Movement was a force the
‘work discipline’ were adopted at this Congress. Bolsheviks had to destroy at all costs.
After the Ninth Congress, Trotsky wrote: ‘The young workers’ state requires
trade unions not for a struggle for better conditions of labour ... but to organise the
working class for the ends of production, to educate, to discipline the workers ... to
exercise their authority hand in hand with the State, to lead the workers into the
framework of a single economic plan ...’ (Trotsky: Dictatorship vs. Democracy, page
14.) ‘The unions should discipline the workers and teach them to place the interests
of production above their own needs and demands.’ Of the militarisation of labour
Trotsky said: ‘This term at once brings us into the region of the greatest possible
superstitions and outcries from the opposition.’ (ibid., page 14.) He denounced his
opponents as Mensheviks, and ‘people full of trade unionist prejudices’.
‘The militarisation of labour,’ he declared at the Third Congress of Trade Unions,‘
... ‘is the indispensable basic method for the organisation of our labour forces.’ This
use of the word ‘our’ when referring to the labour forces of the working class fully
justifies Debord’s remark: ‘Its claim to a monopoly of the representation and defence
of the workers, turned the Bolshevik Party into what it is today: the masters of the
proletariat...’ (La Sociele du Spectacle).
‘Was it true,’ Trotsky asked, ‘that compulsory labour was always unproductive?’
He denounced this view as ‘wretched and miserable liberal prejudice’, learnedly
pointing out that ‘chattel slavery, too, was productive’ - and that compulsory serf
labour was in its times ‘a progressive phenomenon’. He told the unions that
‘coercion, regimentation and militarisation of labour were no mere emergency
measures and that the workers’ State normally had the right to coerce any citizen to
perform any work at any place of its choosing’. A little later he proclaimed that the
‘militarisation of the trade unions and the militarisation of transport required an
internal, ideological militarisation’.
And this was precisely what Stalin achieved, when he stepped into the shoes of
that great strategist who later became his bitterest opponent. Trotsky, who had
already ‘disciplined’ the army by abolishing the soldiers’ Soviets, early in 1920, took
over the Commissariat of Transport, in addition to his defence post. The Politburo
offered to back him to the hilt, in any course of action he might take, no matter how
severe. Once in charge of Transport, Trotsky was immediately to implement his pet
ideas on the ‘militarisation of labour’.
... not only from above but from below’. They urged that two-thirds of the
representatives on the management boards of industrial enterprises should be
elected from among the workers. They succeeded in getting a Congress sub-
committee to accept this resolution. Lenin was furious at this ‘stupid decision’.
The Makhno Movement and Opposition Under his guidance a plenary session of the Congress ‘corrected’ the resolution,
within the Party decreed that no more than one-third of the managerial personnel should be elected,
and set up a complex hierarchical structure vesting veto rights in a Supreme
The Makhnovchina, better perhaps than any other movement, shows that the Economic Council, at the apex of an administrative pyramid.
Russian Revolution could have become a great liberating force. It was inspired by A split occurred at this time among the ‘left’ Communists. Radek was willing to
Makhno, a young Ukrainian anarchist, and has been almost totally ignored by make a deal with the Leninists. He was prepared to accept the ‘one-man
bourgeois historians no less than by Stalinist and Trotskyist apologists - and for management’ principle in exchange for the extensive nationalisation decrees of
good reason. It shows the Bolsheviks stifling workers and peasants with lies and June 1918, which heralded the period of War Communism, and which in his opinion
calumnies, and then crushing them in a bloody massacre. would ensure the proletarian basis of the regime. Bukharin also broke with
Geographically, the Makhno movement covered a region inhabited by seven Ossinsky and rejoined the fold. The ideas developed by the left Communists
million people and measuring s ome 150 miles in diameter. Its centre was the small continued to find an echo, however, despite the defection of most of those who had
Ukrainian town of Gulye Polye with 30,000 inhabitants. first advocated them. Ossinsky and his supporters formed the new opposition group
The movement flourished from 1918 until the summer of 1921, when it was of ‘Democratic Centralists’. Their ideas on workers’ management of production (and
finally crushed by the Red Army. those of the original group of ‘left’ Communists) were to play an important part in the
From 1918 to 1921, armed Makhnovite groups fought the White Guards and development, two years later, of the Workers’ Opposition.
later the Red Army without respite. They were responsible for holding the Ukrainian Writing in the second issue of the Kommunlst, Ossinsky was to issue a prophetic
front against the White general Denikin, whose armies Makhno defeated in 1919, warning: ‘We stand,’ he wrote, ‘for the construction of a proletarian society by the
and then against General Wrangel. The best way of showing who they were and class creativity of the workers themselves, not by ukases from the "captains of
what they stood for is to quote from the manifesto published by the Cultural and industry" ... We proceed from trust in the class instinct, and in the active class
Educational Section of the Insurrectional Makhnovite Army. It was widely distributed initiative of the proletariat. It cannot be otherwise. If the workers themselves do not
among the peasants and workers. know how to create the necessary prerequisites for the socialist organisation of
labour - no one can do this for them, nor can the workers be forced to do it. The
‘(i) Who are the Makhnovites and what are they fighting for? stick, if raised against the workers, will find itself either in the hands of another social
force ... or in the hands of the soviet power. But then the soviet power will be forced
‘The Makhnovites are peasants and workers who in 1918 rose up against the to seek support against the proletariat from another class (e.g. the peasantry), and
brutality of the German, Hungarian and Austrian interventionists and against the by this it will destroy itself as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Socialism and
Hetman of the Ukraine. socialist organisation must be set up by the proletariat itself, or they will not be set
‘The Makhnovites are workers who have carried the battle-standard against up at all; something else will be set up: state capitalism.’
Denikin and against every form of oppression and violence, who have rejected lies These prophetic phrases, and the reception they were given by Lenin and
from whatever source. Trotsky, should put an end to all the ‘revolutionary’ arguments that it was Stalin the
‘The Makhnovites are the workers who by their life’s labour have enriched and Terrible alone who perverted socialism into a bureaucratic dictatorship.
fattened the bourgeoisie in the past, and are today enriching new masters. Thus it was Trotsky, not Stalin, who, towards the end of 1919, submitted to the
Central Committee the famous thesis ‘transition from war to peace’. The most
‘(ii) Why are they called Makhnovites? important of his propositions was the call for the ‘militarisation o f the proletariat’.
Trotsky did not believe that these propositions would go further than the Central
‘Because during the greatest and most painful days of reactionary intervention in Committee; like all good bureaucrats he liked to take the most important decisions
the Ukraine, they had within their ranks the staunch friend and comrade, Makhno, behind closed doors. But by ‘mistake’, Bukharin published its text in Pravda of 17
whose voice was heard across the entire Ukraine, challenging every act of violence December 1919. According to Isaac Deutscher, this indiscretion caused an
against the workers, calling for struggle against the oppressors, the thieves, the
extremely tense public controversy and one that continued for more than a year, as
usurpers and those charlatans who were deceiving the workers. That voice still the working class seized on this unexpected opportunity of discussing its own fate.
rings among us today, and unwaveringly calls for the liberation and emancipation of Trotsky defended his views before the Ninth Congress of the Bolshevik Party in
the workers from all oppression.
1920: The workers must not be allowed to roam all over Russia. They must be
‘(iii) How do you think you will obtain this liberation?
government during work time’ - ‘iron discipline while at work, with unquestioning
obedience to the will of a single person, the Soviet leader.’ ‘By overthrowing the coalition of monarchists, republicans, social democrats,
Lenin’s oft-repeated views on labour discipline did not go unchallenged. communists and Bolsheviks. In its place we call for the free election of workers’
Opposition developed within the Party itself. Early in 1918, the Leningrad District councils that will not rule by arbitrary laws because no true soviet system can be
Committee published the first issue of the ‘left’ Communist paper Kommunist. This authoritarian. Ours is the purest form of socialism, anti -authoritarian and anti-
was edited by Bukharin, Radek and Ossinsky (Obolonsky and Smirnov were later to government, it calls for the free organisation of the social life of the workers,
join the editorial board). The journal issued a far-sighted warning: The introduction independent of authority, a life in which each worker, in a free association with his
of labour discipline in connexion with the restoration of capitalist management of brothers, can build his own happiness and well-being in accordance with the
industry cannot really increase the productivity of labour, but it will diminish the class principles of solidarity, amity and equality.
initiative, activity and organisation of the proletariat. It threatens to enslave the
working class. It will rouse discontent among the backward elements as well as ‘(iv) What do the Makhnovites think of the Soviet regime?
among the vanguard of the proletariat. In order to introduce this system in the face The workers themselves must choose their own councils (soviets), to express
of the hatred prevailing at present among the proletariat for the "capitalist the will and carry out the orders of these self-same workers. The Soviets will be
saboteurs", the Communist Party would have to rely on the petty-bourgeoisie, as executive organs of, and not authorities over, the workers. The land, the factories,
against the workers, and in this way it would ruin itself as the party of the proletariat.’ the businesses, the mines, transport, etc. must belong to those who work in them.
Lenin reacted violently. He called such views ‘a disgrace’, ‘a complete All that the people inherit must be socialised.
renunciation of communism in practice’, ‘a complete desertion to the camp of the
petty-bourgeoisie’. (‘Left-wing Childishness and Petty-bourgeois Mentality’, ‘(v) What are the paths that will lead to the final goals of the Makhnovites?
Selected Works Vol. VII, p. 374). The Left were being ‘provoked by the Isuvs
(Mensheviks) and other Judases of capitalism’. He lumped together leaders of the ‘A consistent and implacable revolutionary battle against all false theories,
‘left’ and open enemies of the revolution, thus initiating the technique of the political against all arbitrary power and violence, no matter from what quarter, a struggle to
smear that was to be used so successfully by Stalin in later years. A campaign was the death. Free speech, justice, honest battle with guns in our hands.
whipped up in Leningrad that compelled the Kommunist to transfer publication to ‘Only by overthrowing all governments, every representative of authority, by
Moscow, where the paper reappeared in April 1918, first under the auspices of the destroying all political, economic and authoritarian lies, wherever they are found, by
Moscow regional organisation of the Party, later as the ‘unofficial’ mouthpiece of a destroying the state, by a social revolution, can we introduce a true system of
group of comrades. workers’ and peasants’ Soviets and advance towards socialism.’
The controversy smouldered on throughout 1918. Kommunist repeatedly
denounced the replacement of workers’ control by ‘labour discipline’, the increasing Trotsky was one of Makhno’s bitterest adversaries among the Bolsheviks, and
tendency for industrial management to be placed in the hands of non-Communist never forgave Makhno for refusing to serve under his supreme command in the Red
‘specialists’ and the conclusion of all sorts of unofficial deals with previous owners Army. On 4 June 1919, Trotsky began his first campaign of calumny and military
‘to ensure their co-operation’. It pointed out that ‘the logical outcome of intimidation; by publishing the notorious order No. 1824. It forbade the holding of a
management based on the participation of capitalists and on the principle of congress in the Ukraine, and accused Makhno of delivering this front over to the
bureaucratic centralisation was the institution of a labour policy which would seek to enemy. The Makhno brigade has constantly retreated before the White Guards,
re-establish regimentation of workers on the pretext of voluntary discipline. owing to the incapacity, criminal tendencies, and the treachery of its leaders.’
Governmental forms would then evolve towards bureaucratic centralisation, the rule
of all sorts of commissars, loss of independence for local Soviets and, in practice, Trotsky’s order stipulated, inter alia:
the abandonment of government from below’. ‘It was all very well,’ Bukharin pointed ‘(1) It is forbidden to hold this congress, which must not take place under any
out, ‘to say as Lenin had (in State and Revolution) that "each cook should learn to circumstances;
manage the State". But what happened when each cook had a commissar ‘(2) Participation in the congress by any worker or peasant will be deemed to
appointed to order him about?’ constitute an act of high treason;
The conflict between the Leninists and the ‘left’ Communists came to a head ‘(3) All delegates to the said congress must be apprehended and brought before the
during May and June 1918, during the First Congress of Economic Councils. Lenin revolutionary tribunal of the Fourteenth Army of the Ukraine.’
spoke out strongly in favour of ‘labour discipline’, of ‘one-man management’ and of So much for Trotsky’s respect for the workers’ right of free assembly!
the need to use bourgeois specialists. Ossinsky, Smirnov and Obolensky,
supported by numerous provincial delegates, demanded ‘a workers’ administration
The accusation that Makhno had retreated before the White Guards, when in Even while the struggle for Soviet democracy was still being carried on under a
fact he defeated them, was repeated by the entire Soviet press. But for the time black banner in the Ukraine, elsewhere the Bolsheviks had succeeded in crushing
being, continued attacks by the White Guards prevented Trotsky from implementing every form of resistance. Inside the party, a bitter controversy on the question of
his Order 1824 - he shelved it but did not forget it. In November 1920, the Soviet ‘one-man management’ was started in the spring of 1918. The deliberate policy of
authorities invited several officers of Makhno’s army to a military council meeting, the Bolshevik leaders to run all factories by State-appointed managers was not only
and shot them. The ensuing battle raged for nine long months. At the end, a flagrant breach of Bolshevik promises but also led to the demoralisation of the
Trotsky’s troops, who were superior in number and in arms and had constant most advanced sectors of the Russian proletariat. This development was a strong
replacements, won the day. It was in the course of the last battle that the contributive factor to the bureaucratic degeneration of the Bolshevik party. Lenin’s
Makhnovites issued the following appeal to their brethren in the Red Army: ‘The immediate tasks of the Soviet Government’, published in Izvestia on 28 April
1918, explained the stand of the Party leadership in quite unambiguous terms: it
‘STOP, READ AND THINK!’ emphasized discipline, obedience and the need for individual rather than collective
management. ‘Discipline is a prerequisite of economic renewal ... Greater output is
‘Comrades of the Red Army!"
essential ... The class-conscious vanguard of the Russian proletariat has already
‘You have been sent out by your commissars to fight the revolutionary Makhnovites. tackled the task of enforcing discipline at work, for example, the Central Committee
‘On the orders of your commander you ruin peaceful villages, you will raid, arrest, of the Metal Workers Union and the Central Council of the Trade Unions, have
and kill men and women whom you do not know but who have been presented to begun to draft the necessary measures and decrees.’
you as enemies of the people, bandits and counter-revolutionary. You will be told to These ‘measures and decrees’ whereby ‘labour discipline’ was to be enforced
kill us, you will not be asked. You will be made to march like slaves. You will arrest
make tragic reading in the light of subsequent events. They start by bemoaning the
and you will murder. Why? For what cause? ‘absence of all industrial discipline’. They then prescribe measures ‘for the purpose
‘Think, comrades of the Red Army; think, workers, peasants suffering under the lash of improving labour discipline such as: the introduction of a card system for
of new masters who bear the high-sounding name of "worker-peasant authorities"! registering the productivity of each worker, the introduction of factory regulations in
We are revolutionary Makhnovites. The same peasants and workers as you, our every enterprise, the establishment of rate of output bureaux for the purpose of
brethren in the Red Army. We have risen up against oppression and slavery, we
fixing the output of each worker and the payment of bonuses for increased
fight for a better life and a more enlightened one. Our ideal is to build a community productivity.’ (Lenin: Selected Works, Vol. VII, page 504.)
of workers without authorities, without parasites, and without commissars. Our It requires no great imagination to see in the pen-pushers recording the
immediate aim is to establish a free Soviet regime, not controlled by the Bolsheviks, ‘productivity of each worker’ and in the clerks manning ‘the rate of output bureaux’
without the pressure of any party. the as yet amorphous elements of the new bureaucracy.
The government of the Bolsheviks and Communists has sent you out on a punitive
But Lenin went much further. He quite explicitly came out, as early as 1918, in
expedition. It hastens to make peace with Denikin and with the rich Poles and other favour of the individual management of industrial enterprises. ‘The struggle that is
rabble of the White Army, the better to suppress the popular movement of the developing around the recent decree on the management of the railways, the
revolutionary insurgents, of the oppressed, of the rebels against the yoke of all decree which grants individual leaders dictatorial powers (or "unlimited powers") is
authority. characteristic,’ he wrote. Only the ‘conscious representatives of petty-bourgeois
‘But the threats of the White and Red commanders do not frighten us. We shall
laxity’ could see ‘in this granting of unlimited (i.e. dictatorial) powers to individual
reply to violence with violence. If necessary, we, a small handful of people shall put persons a departure from the collegium principle, a departure from democracy and
to flight the divisions of the Red Army because we are free and love our liberty. We from other principles of Soviet government’. ‘Large scale machine industry,’ he
are revolutionaries who have risen up in a just cause. went on, ‘- which is the material productive source and foundation of socialism -
‘Comrades, think for whom you are fighting and against whom! Throw off your calls for absolute and strict unity of will ... How can strict unity of will be ensured?
shackles, you are free men!
By thousands subordinating their will to the will of one.’
‘The Revolutionary Makhnovites.’ What of discussion and initiative at shop floor level? The idea was summarily
dismissed. ‘The revolution demands,’ Lenin wrote, ‘in the interests of socialism that
Let us hope that one day some publisher will see fit to translate Arshinov’s the masses unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of the labour
History of the Makhno Movement which is unobtainable today but is fundamental to process.’ No nonsense here about workers’ management of production, about
any true understanding of the history of the Russian Revolution. Makhno’s defeat
collective decisions, about government from below. Nor are we left in any doubt as
spelled the defeat of the Revolution; Trotsky’s victory, the victory of the bureaucratic to who the ‘leaders of the labour process’ were to be. There was, Lenin said, to be
counter-revolution. ‘unquestioning obedience to the orders of individual representatives of the Soviet

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