This is the last of a series of articles debating Salar Mohandesi’s “The Actuality of Revolution: Reflections on Lenin’s State and Revolution.” Also see the earlier responses by Todd Chretien and Malcolm Harris, as well as Mohandesi’s final response.
Mohandesi‘s picture of a vacillating, conservative, confused Lenin straining to hold together a divided Bolshevik leadership caught off guard by the mature revolutionary upsurge by St. Petersburg’s workers and soldiers during what came to be known as “the July Days” in 1917 is inconsistent with the historical record. Based on his sketch, Mohandesi concludes that Lenin had to catch up theoretically with where the masses were moving practically by “articulating” the “actuality of revolution,” that is, making explicit what was implicit in the angry mass protests that nearly toppled the Provisional Government. Both he and Chretien lead us to believe that Lenin’s book, State and Revolution, and the Bolshevik-led insurrection that overthrew the Provisional Government were the results of Lenin’s reconsideration of the Marxist theory of the state.
Mohandesi argues that the enduring relevance of Lenin for activists today is not his words or deeds but the method underlying them, his theorizing and articulating of the actualities created by the rebellious masses. This echoes neatly Viewpoint Magazine’s “About Us” mission statement.
There are three components of this debate: (1) the history of the July Days; (2) the immediate context in which State and Revolution was produced (Lenin was hiding underground after the July Days when he wrote it); and (3) whether Lenin’s role was primarily that of an articulator or theorist. Harris’s piece is a welcome reality check that avoids the main pitfall of historical debates: pedantry.
A detailed, line-for-line dissection of Mohandesi’s historical account would require a lengthy essay and a necessarily narrow focus that would not be useful for discussing (2) and (3). Instead, I will confine myself to this observation: if Mohandesi’s account is accurate, it would contradict first-hand accounts written by July Days participants such as Fyodor Raskolnikov (Kronstadt and Petrograd) and Nikolai Sukhanov (The Russian Revolution, 1917), Alexander Rabinowitch’s detailed study The Bolsheviks Come to Power, and Lenin’s writings and speeches in which he shifts on the possibility of a peaceful transfer of power at least three times throughout 1917. Those who are interested in figuring out the rights and wrongs of (1) should read the aforementioned books.
Lenin’s shifts – open to a peaceful transfer of power before the July Days, for an insurrection after the July Days, back to the possibility of a peaceful power transfer in the aftermath of the Kornilov coup’s defeat, and finally to a Bolshevik-led insurrection as the Bolsheviks gained majorities in workers’ and soldiers’ councils (soviets) throughout Russia in fall of 1917 – did not reflect vacillation or lack of theoretical clarity on Lenin’s part and certainly had nothing to do with the writing of State and Revolution. As Lenin wrote shortly after completing the introduction to State of Revolution,
Now, and only now, perhaps during only a few days or a week or two, such a government could be set up and consolidated in a perfectly peaceful way. In all probability it could secure the peaceful advance of the whole Russian revolution, and provide exceptionally good chances for great strides in the world movement towards peace and the victory of socialism.1
Here, I have to disagree with Harris that “we should be careful not to be too careful.” Whether leading a demonstration or looking for lessons in the past, a revolutionary should be careful but not pedantic.
Lenin did not believe the class nature of the Provisional Government changed after the Kornilov coup’s defeat when he discussed the prospect of a peaceful transfer of power to the soviets with their Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary (SR) majorities. Lenin’s seeming flip-flops on insurrection were tactical shifts in a strategy aimed at making the soviets the sole government power that came in response to a rapidly changing situation which produced original and transient political and class alignments. Lenin’s shifts on the question of insurrection also prove that he did not believe that the Mensheviks and SRs were doomed in advance to play a counter-revolutionary role.
In other words, Lenin was careful but not pedantic.
No one who reads State and Revolution would guess based on the text that the author might countenance the possibility of a peaceful transfer of power to the soviets. The notion that the book reflects the “summing up” of the experiences of the 1917 Russian revolution fails to account for the fact that Lenin never completed the chapters dealing with the Russian experience. State and Revolution is best understood as a general guide to the Marxist approach to the state rather than a guide useful for practical on-the-ground policy (try to smash the capitalist state machine with your fist at a demonstration and you’ll understand what I mean).
Lenin felt that State and Revolution was necessary to set the record straight on Marxism and the state (the original title of the manuscript) since the distortions perpetuated by the Second International became commonly accepted as Marx’s and Engels’ actual positions by socialists and anarchists alike. Lenin himself accepted these distortions and only through his 1916 debate with Nikolai Bukharin did he uncover and reject them.
The odd thing is that Mohandesi tells us that “we must try to read Lenin the way Lenin read Marx” and yet, a few pages prior, claims that Lenin “distort[ed] Marx and Engels almost as much as Bernstein or Kautsky.” Should we distort Marx, Engels, or Lenin? Is there any value in distorting anyone, even if their name is Eduard Bernstein or Karl Kautsky? My answer is definitive: no. Revolutionaries cannot strawman, misrepresent, or distort our way to a post-capitalist order. If we could, we would have done it by now because these tactics have become commonplace in the socialist movement’s debates.
The notion that Lenin articulated at the level of theory the “actuality of revolution” and made explicit what was implicit in the struggles of the day smacks of the division between mental and manual labor, between philosophy and action, between theory and practice, between intellectuals and workers, between thinking and doing. The masses fight, Lenin thinks and devises the program they must get with (as in, “get with the program”). This is probably not what Mohandesi meant, but it is the logical implication of his heavy emphasis on Lenin the theorist/articulator in the conclusion of his essay.
Harris’s response to the question “is Lenin still relevant?” and the July Days debate is refreshingly honest – he does not know much or care to know about Lenin or Russian history, given the vastly different era we are living in. He contrasts Occupy’s horizontal, self-organized nature (“spontaneity, ambition, self-organization, quick always-on communication, working in teams”) to that of the Russia’s revolutionary workers and says, “Of course the revolutionary workers went to look for Lenin at the crucial moment – but would we?”
This false dichotomy probably stems from a combination of understandable ignorance2 about the Russian revolution in 1917 (the soviets were profoundly horizontal and far more democratic and inclusive than our General Assemblies), and a misunderstanding of what a vanguard party is.
As I argued in “Lenin and Occupy,” Occupy functioned in practice like the “Leninist” vision of a vanguard party in two respects: (1) it brought mass numbers of people onto the field of battle, into the process of self-organization, and (2) it fought all forms of oppression and exploitation.3
The third element that Occupy and a vanguard party have in common that I neglected to discuss in “Lenin and Occupy” is the role of cadres: seasoned, experienced, battle-tested political organizers were central both to the success of the Bolsheviks (people like Raskolnikov) and Occupy Wall Street (people like Harris). Of course I am not putting an equal sign between Raskolnikov and Harris; Raskolnikov’s writing is far easier to follow than Harris’s, and leading tens of thousands of heavily armed sailors to smash a state is not the same as setting up an encampment that initiates an uprising of sorts. However, there is an undeniable underlying similarity if we understand the term cadre broadly rather than narrowly. Every organization and struggle has cadres, whether we are referring to the Industrial Workers of the World, the CNT in Spain, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, the Nation of Islam, or the Syrian revolution.
Occupy’s claim to be leaderless is both true and false; it is true in the sense that there is no central committee controlling it and false in the sense that everyone in Occupy is a leader. Far from being leaderless, Occupy is leader-full – full of new ideas, initiatives, forms of organization, and collaborative projects,4 some daring, others prosaic, all initiated by occupiers themselves without direction from above or anyone’s permission (meaning autonomously).
Since the beginning of Occupy Wall Street, the Marxist left has continually bemoaned the prevalence of anarchist ideas and methods within Occupy while completely failing to provide a better, more credible, and popular alternative, as Harris correctly points out. Instead of seizing on the progressive elements in Occupy’s small-A anarchism and the tremendous freedom of action5 that came with it to help Occupy organically outgrow the restrictive and Byzantine modified consensus process, precious resources have been wasted writing polemics for a tiny audience conflating6 utopian communes, prefigurationism, and the (sound) strategic arguments against creating a list of demands, falsely7 accusing fellow radicals of being anti-union, and attacking8 Occupy’s un-Marxist vision of a general strike in a way reminiscent of the old Marxist dictum: “general strike is general nonsense.”9
Given this, is it any wonder the Harrises of Occupy look askance at us as we continually debate the excellent ideas of ancient Russian white men and tout the achievements of revolutions our grandparents are too young to remember, while revolutionaries today are being killed in the streets Homs and being brutalized by police in the streets of New York?
Rather than asking “is Lenin still relevant?” we ought to focus on making him relevant by showing everyone in practice that the people inspired by his ideas are better, more creative, more effective occupiers. Once we earn some credibility on that front people might begin to listen to what we have to say on the big questions – reform, revolution, what to do with (or rather to) the Democratic Party, running in elections – but not before. 1917 is rich with lessons, the main one being how a mass socialist party can smash a state that protects capital, but we have yet to learn how to become a mass force, a force to be reckoned with on the local, state, and national levels, a force more popular than the Obamas and the Romneys we are up against.
Occupy should be a learning experience for us all concerning these tasks, but as Lenin wrote in State and Revolution, “there are none so deaf as those who will not hear.”10
Pham Binh has published articles in the Occupied Wall Street Journal and thenorthstar.info, the first national collaborative blog by and for occupiers.
1.V.I. Lenin, “On Compromises,” Collected Works.
2. I am referring to the fact that no one outside a tiny segment of the left studies the 1917 Russian revolution in any great detail, so ignorance of the July Days and the revolution generally is understandable.
3. Pham Binh, “Lenin and Occupy,” Socialist Bullet, April 13, 2012.
4. Occupy Wall Street Project List, Issue 2.
5. Arun Gupta, “The Wonderful, Unpredictable Life of the Occupy Movement,” Truthout, April 11, 2012.
6. Doug Singsen, “Autonomous Zone on Wall Street?,” The Indypendent, October 15, 2011.
7. A documented overview of the charges and debate can be found at the Black Orchid Collective.
8. Dan Trocolli, “A strike call that won’t call a strike,” Socialist Worker, February 29, 2011.
9. Generalstreik ist generalunsinn was a common saying among socialists in debates with anarchists over the general strike in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
10. V.I. Lenin, State and Revolution.
Not sure if “pedantic” is the word for it, but this whole debate seems focused on all the wrong details. The question of Marxism vs. anarchism has to do with the state and what, if anything, will “replace” it. All the Leninists in this debate are dancing around this issue and doing everything they can to avoid coming out and saying what their position actually is on this central issue.
Isn’t it interesting that Lenin and the marxists “discovered” all the virtues of the Paris Commune, the soviets, and anti-statism when the Russian Revolution was actually proceeding in a more or less anarchistic way, and then returned to all their old notions about “dictatorship” and a “proletarian state” (ruled by one hierarchical Party, of course) as soon as they got into power, murdering, exiling, jailing and suppressing the anarchists who had helped them overthrow the Provisional Government? Is it just a funny coincidence that for decades Marxists preached statism and the rule of a caste of intellectuals (the vanguard Party), and then actually proceeded to do just that, crushing the Kronstadt rebellion, creating a totalitarian dictatorship etc.?
It’s obvious why Lenin made all the tactical changes he did over the July days etc. He was maneuvering to seize power for himself and his Party, nothing else. If that meant talking like an anarchist for a minute, before channeling and curbing the revolution into his Marxist dogma, he was willing to do that.
Posted by Novotny | April 28, 2012, 6:24 pmIt seems obvious to me that just as these writers have been “dancing around” the central issue of the state (the exception was Mohandesi), you’re missing the point of what constitutes the state. You’re dancing around the issue of class. The state is the grand weapon of a ruling economic formation that is set on maintaining its privileges and will use all the powers accumulated in it against those who oppose their interests. The state will not go away until all classes cease to exist. The working class needs the state as much as the capitalists. But it needs the state only long enough to smash the rule of the capitalist class and its remnants. And since the working class has no need to exploit/oppress anyone there is no need for a state.
One big difference between Anarchists and Marxists is that the Marxists have a well thought-out plan of struggle to get to a classless society. The Anarchists want their utopia today and want nothing to do with the new and perhaps very long process, after the defeat of the capitalists, of a worker’s democracy (Marx and Engels called it the dictatorship of the proletariat) that will exclude all other classes from holding power; meaning that the petti-bourgeois and lumpen elements in the society, alien to workers’ culture, will be restricted and their political activities curtailed. That’s what happened in the Russian Revolution and all the others that followed. The “anarchism” you mention before the Bolsheviks took over the Revolution, Mohandesi explained it succinctly in his article: the masses were leaderless and needed Lenin to guide them in destroying the power of their oppressors.
Posted by El Pachooko | April 29, 2012, 7:43 pmAnd yet the anarchists are running circles around the Marxists in Occupy…
Posted by Pham Binh | April 30, 2012, 8:48 pmThis is true. But it’s just a matter of time before the masses, who are being inspired and motivated by the anarchist majority in Occupy, begin to look for a solid vision of what a socialize future can be. As Marxists continually point out, the new society that is brought forth after the revolution comes directly from the old oppressive society that has influenced not just the behavior of the working class but also their thought patterns. In other words, the majority of working people think as they have been taught to think by the ruling elite that exploits them. There will have to be a process of education so that the masses begin to build enough consciousness to turn themselves into the subjects of history. At this point only a smart-ass will deny the need for a strong vanguard that will guide the working people in creating the new organizations, the new institutions, etc., that will serve as tools and weapons against the former oppressors who will surely fight back hard after they begin to see their privileges disappearing faster than they can count their profits. Today, though, Marxists and anarchists must work together building alliances not just with each other but with all revolutionaries and progressives and let the masses decide as they have decided in crucial moments in history from where exactly is the wind blowing.
Posted by El Pachooko | May 14, 2012, 12:16 pm“It’s obvious why Lenin made all the tactical changes he did over the July days etc. He was maneuvering to seize power for himself and his Party, nothing else. If that meant talking like an anarchist for a minute, before channeling and curbing the revolution into his Marxist dogma, he was willing to do that.”
Please explain how Lenin’s talk of a peaceful transfer of power to a Menshevik-SR soviet government fits into this. Did any anarchists call for that in 1917?
Posted by Pham Binh | April 29, 2012, 7:52 pmI can’t claim to be an expert on the details of the Russian revolution and I’m not aware of the “peaceful transfer” idea. But it seems to me the important question was not “peaceful transfer” or “violent insurrection.” The question was whether to have a soviet republic or a “bourgeois” parliamentary government. Whether it was achieved peacefully or violently, between April and October Lenin advocated for a republic of soviets, and the abolition of the army and police in favor of popular militias. These were and are anarchist ideas. It’s my belief Lenin took such an extreme stance in the April Theses and State and Revolution, shocking his Marxist comrades who thought the thing to do was go through a capitalist phase before even contemplating socialist revolution, because the Revolution at that point was actually coursing in that direction anyway and Lenin saw he had to go with the flow in order to achieve power at a later date. He correctly saw that if he talked a big game and sounded radical he could get people behind him, people he could control, disempower and dispose of later when the authentic Marxist plan of a centralized, statized society could be put into effect.
Posted by Novotny | April 29, 2012, 9:02 pmIgnorance is a very big handicap when participating in historical debates. Lenin’s ideas on the state changed radically in 1916 through an exchange with Bukharin, before the revolution, which is why the “Lenin opportunistically adopted anarchist/libertarian ideas in 1917 to win mass support” does not hold up when you look at the historical evidence (which I encourage everyone to do).
How and why the Soviet state became a tyrannical dictatorship and the crushing of Kronstadt in 1921 are separate issues from what Lenin wrote in State and Revolution, although let’s be clear that the early Soviet government was not a one-party state (the Left SRs were an important part of the Cheka and supported the suppression of the Right SRs and the Mensheviks). It turned out that way in the long run but it was not by Lenin’s design (although he and other Bolshevik leaders certainly later made a virtue of what at the time seemed to be an emergency necessity by arguing that the rule of one party was the only form a workers’ state could take.) I suggest Alexander Rabinowitch’s “Bolsheviks in Power” if you or others want to understand how and why the revolution degenerated so rapidly. My personal view is that Soviet democracy was dead by summer of 1918.
The “evil, deceptive, power-hungry Marxist Bolsheviks hell-bent in draconian centralization and one-party rule narrative” is simplistic and not substantiated by a careful and detailed look at what happened and why in 1917-1921. I don’t think the Bolsheviks and Lenin are saints, nor am I going to defend everything they did as some kind of point of honor, but ditching the complex and messy business of untangling what happened in favor of simplistic narratives to “prove” either anarchism or Marxism a fatally flawed doctrine is a real disservice to the thousands of workers and peasants on both sides who paid with their lives fighting for what they thought would be their liberation. We should honor their sacrifices with careful and thorough study and be wary about passing judgment when none of us have ever had to make the life-or-death choices they did.
Posted by Pham Binh | April 30, 2012, 12:06 pmI have read several of Lenins books, my two favorites being State and Revolution, and the Proletarian Revolution and The Renegade Kautsky. No offense to anyone, but I find Lenin, much clearer in his books than anyone attempting to discredit him or what he wrote. What I have learned about the STATE, I learned from Lenin. What I have learned about democracy also. I challenge anyone to quote either books, and explain what it is that Lenin wrote that is no longer valid, that does not teach you about the State and about Democracy.. I would recommend more time analysing paragraph by paragraph what he wrote., than speculation going off in another tangent. When Lenin defended his views from Kaustky he quoted him frequently. So please, someone what did Lenin write in State and Revolution you find so useless and irrelevant, or contradictory. I hope that is not asking too much.
Posted by Frank | April 28, 2012, 6:32 pmHi Frank,
I have written about some of Lenin’s formulations in
“State and Revolution” which have not stood the test
of time and are misleading today as they are read and
understood by most activists:
Lenin’s “State and Revolution” is inadequate
and misleading and badly needs an update
http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?b=1368
We have been over this countless times, but here it
is again:
The basic problem is that, today, most activists believe
that the “dictatorship of the proletariat” must take the
form of the rule by a single party with the ability to
censor the voice of its critics.
Lenin wrote for the specific circumstances he faced
in 1917, and some of his statements are misleading
today, in a period where we have social media and
have witnessed the degeneration of the Russian and
Chinese revolutions into corrupt police states.
Lenin did not live long enough to correct all of his
formulations.
We need to take seriously the question of democratic rights
when the working class runs society. If we fail to do this,
we will miss an excellent opportunity to help many activists
understand that we need a new kind of state during the
lengthy transition to an economy that is not based on
commodity production.
– Ben
Posted by Ben Seattle | April 29, 2012, 7:51 pmSorry Ben if my anger shows at what I see as a rebirth of Menshevism in your comments. I doubt that there is anyone of the stature of Lenin that could “update” him, today. I don’t want to assume you believe we have any other than a capitalist democracy, with no real democracy for workers, only a caraciture of democracy for ALL. I am not sure if you would extend your democracy to the Klan, Nazis, Fox news fantatics, Glenn Becks, and Rush Limbaughs. There are going to be people that even under a dictatorship of the worlking class, may die or live for generations before becoming class conscious workers. Ben, may you would want to give equal time to the Klan, or their brothers the Nazis, but I sure would not. And they fr sure would not want to give equal time to you.
Lenin was only alive for what about 5 years, under adverse circumnstances. Failure of his ideas, have more to do with the liquidating of most of the members of his central committee. It had more to do with Stalin. It seems like you might believev Stalins View was identical to Lenins view. We should ask what did Lenin do RIGHT to overthrow centuries of Tsarism, what no other party or tendency could do.
I think history will vindicate Lenin, and his struggle against Menshevism continues through the books he wrote. When a new Bolshevik van guard party comes to power, it will suppress the Klan, and other reactionary forces. But at the same time gradually win over the masses with full employment, immediate seizure of the banks. and wealth and redistribute that wealth to the working class. Modern Mensheviks must decided whether to support a new Van guard party, or attacking it rubbling elbows with the reactionary forces to sabotage it. And I think, history will repeat itself and Mensheviks will feel obligated to work with it, or be totally discredited by the class conscious members of the working class.
I suppose Castro and his small band of revolutionaries should have waited for consent from the majority. We should still have Fulgencio Batista in power. Cuba should still look like Haiti. If you are consistent why not agree with that?
I understand shortly after Castro came to power he asked the masses how many would like a home to live in? Or something to that effect. And the masses replied, jubilantly, WE DO., with rounds of applause.
I don’t hold Castro on a pedestal as an idea workers state. I only use him as an example, waiting for majority rule, as the Menssheviks wanted in the past or may want today, is what s incorrect.
I think any “update” ie REVISION of state and revolution is a disservice to the working class. I think State and Revolution should be one of the handbooks, which every class conscious worker/leader should have in his possession, to be able to sort out the leaders from the misleaders. And I do not mean that as a personal attack on anyone. I owe much to Lenin, in preventing me from being trapped into any group or party. It is by a correct understanding of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, that we will be able to overthrow capitalism, even if the capitalis class objects and does not vote for it. I thank Lenin for working tirelessly to combat incorrect views, He is the best, teacher of the class struggle, I have under my belt. Long live Lenin, and down with Menshevism, past, present or future.
Posted by Frank | April 30, 2012, 8:18 amIf you’re interested in overthrowing capitalism to achieve greater freedom, end inequality and domination etc., I fail to see how treating a hundred-year old politician and his dogmas as some kind of guru and absolute knowledge could help achieve that. Especially when the sum of Lenin’s “knowledge” is absolute discipline, faith in party leaders, power for power’s sake, industrialize at all costs, treat the workers as an object to be “led,” etc.
Anyway, what no one is addressing here, despite my earlier comments, is why Lenin moved from his very unusual, radical, libertarian, decentralized, and non-Marxist position of “All power to the soviets,” to his later authoritarian policies when he had consolidated power. If Lenin was correct in the April These and State and Revolution, and if he honestly believed what he said, why did he do the ABSOLUTE OPPOSITE?
Posted by Novotny | April 30, 2012, 11:16 amAttacks against Lenin are attacks against Marx and Engels. He backs all or most of his ideas by quoting Marx and Engels frequently. Any revision of State and Revolution is a revision of Marx and Engels. One can discover that; if one reads but one of Lenins books. If Lenin wanted to “treat the workers as object to be led, etc”, he would not waste his time writing, State and Revolution, The Proletarian Revolution and The Renegade Kaustky. The best book on philosophy I have found, has been Empirio-Criticism.
I do however find, on the left and Bob Avakian and the Rcp is but one example of treating “workers as object to be led”. But I have not found any org on the left that does not suffer from the same problem. What does Proudhon, or Kropotkin teach you, that is more powerful more clear than Lenin? Wasnt Proudhon anti violoent revolution yet would anyone so much as consider that as a reason to discredit him?
Great thinkers don’t appear every day, IMO it may be every 100 or 200 hundred years. And when they do, every pundit of the ruling class begins attacking them. I respect great thinkers, Marx.. Engels and Lenin are on top of my list. Other great thinker, is Malcolm X. And I am sure he has plenty of enemies that would love to downplay, his ideas. Lenin, NOT any party on the left is my proffessor, not anyone else on the left. My opinion from working with left parties is that they are all traps organized by the capitalist class, with their leaders in the top positions. I trust ,the cia and FBI,, must have Marxist Leinist training schools, and perhaps they may not do a very good job. But that is pure speculation. I quit RSL when they were suggesting members write to their congress person. That is all I need to quit. RCP, I visited, march with, for a couple of weeks, and when I saw the cult worship of Bob Avakian, I stopped that too.
hope you learn you are up against someone that has actually studied Lenin,, not just read party literature. If Lenin and Marxism in general has prepared me well, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.
So what thinkers would you promote more than Lenin? What thinkers would like to lead the working class to?
Posted by Frank | April 30, 2012, 12:27 pmHow do you reconcile Lenin’s talk of a peaceful transfer of power in 1917 with what is written in State and Revolution?
Posted by Pham Binh | April 29, 2012, 8:05 pmLenin was not volunteering to make compromises with the ruling class, he was doing it with the SR’s and the Mensheviks, and only temporarlity. As I undertand, it at that time the Bolsheviks were in the minority. And as it turned out, Kerensky prevented that compromise from ever taking place. Quoted also from On Compromises.
“The Russian revolution is experiencing so abrupt and original a turn that we, as a party, may offer a voluntary compromise—true, not to our direct and main class enemy, the bourgeoisie, but to our nearest adversaries, the “ruling” petty-bourgeois-democratic parties, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks.”
Is “NOT to our direct and main class enemy, the bourgeoisie”, clear enough to prove he has not making any change of making peace with the boureoisie?
And if that is not clear enough he had explaine earlier in same, On Compromises.
“To agree, for instance, to participate in the Third and Fourth Dumas was a compromise, a temporary renunciation of revolutionary demands. But this was a compromise absolutely forced upon us, for the balance of forces made it impossible for us for the time being to conduct a mass revolutionary struggle, and in order to prepare this struggle over a long period we had to be able to work even from inside such a “pigsty”. History has proved that this approach to the question by the Bolsheviks as a party was perfectly correct.”
How can one interpret that as renunciating violent revolution against the ruling class?
IM0, the following quote of Lenin by Occupy the Bolshevik revolution, has to be read in this context of what I have also quoted.
Now, and only now, perhaps during only a few days or a week or two, such a government could be set up and consolidated in a perfectly peaceful way. In all probability it could secure the peaceful advance of the whole Russian revolution, and provide exceptionally good chances for great strides in the world movement towards peace and the victory of socialism.
So no way in the world, was Lenin talking about a peaceful tranfer of power, based on what I read in On Compromises.
Posted by Frank | April 30, 2012, 6:54 amIn other words you deny that a contradiction exists between what Lenin said in State and Revolution and his position(s) in 1917 that a transfer of power could be achieved at certain transitory junctures.
Posted by Pham Binh | April 30, 2012, 2:44 pmPham Binh, could you please direct me to the source where Lenin spoke of “that transfer of power”, what source, what book by Lenin or letter?
Posted by Frank | April 30, 2012, 4:50 pm“The slogan ‘All Power to the Soviets!’ was a slogan for peaceful development of the revolution which was possible in April, May, June, and up to July 5-9…” — Lenin,
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/jul/10b.htm
Posted by Pham Binh | April 30, 2012, 9:51 pmI fail to see why what Lenin and the Bolsheviks did in power is a “separate issue” from what they wrote, advocated and did a few months before.
Perhaps Lenin did arrive at anti-state views through a debate with Bukharin in 1916, I think it is a bit pedantic to dismiss my overall point because I don’t know the obscure details of this. I said I’m not an expert but the state vs. anti-state question is actually a very simple one that doesn’t require vast encyclopedic knowledge. My point is that Lenin was obviously not anti-authoritarian either before State and Revolution (whether this was written in 1916 or 1917. The histories I’ve read say it was drafted in August-September 1917 so it would be quite a bombshell if it turned out you were right that Lenin was in was favor of abolishing the state immediately in favor of soviet power and popular militias in 1916), or after October.
This is perfectly logical and unsurprising. Bolshevik theory was openly statist and elitist. The main idea, openly and honestly stated in repeated fashion, was that a vanguard Party would lead and indoctrinate the industrial proletariat, which could only reach “trade union consciousness” without Party intellectuals showing them the way. Lenin was openly Jacobin and constantly preached the seizure of State Power and centralization in a “dictatorship”.
What was weird and surprising to everyone around Lenin, including the other Bolsheviks, was the April Theses and State and Revolution, where he even had some kind words for Proudhon and Bakunin. OK, maybe it was a debate with Bukharin that suddenly changed his mind. (It is interesting though that, for example, Lenin advocated “workers’ control” in his labor policy when he needed the factory workers to get to power, and then changed his mind on this fundamental point once he had power. Also, right after the October insurrection the Bolsheviks created a Council of People’s Commissar’s, where power ended up being concentrated, composed entirely of Bolsheviks.) The important thing is that he changed it back again when his party ruled, and he had a lot of anarchists shot and imprisoned. Anarchism was outlawed and the soviets were deprived of any real power. This was more in line with original Bolshevik and Marxist practice and theory.
Posted by Novotny | April 30, 2012, 1:42 pmYou fail to see why they are separate issues because you have not studied the historical context involved.
State and Revolution says nothing about a one-party state, and Lenin’s proposals for a non-Bolshevik soviet government made up of SRs and Mensheviks exclusively seriously undermine the notion that he was gunning for a one-party state. The Council of People’s Commisars was all Bolsheviks because the Right SRs and Mensheviks refused to participate. Is that Lenin’s fault? Hardly. The Left SRs actually outnumbered the Bolsheviks in the Soviet’s Central Executive Committee which the Council was subordinate to, but they chose not to alter the composition of the Council. Will you blame the Bolsheviks for the Left SRs’ decision there too?
It’s false that Lenin and the Bolsheviks changed their stands on workers’ control of production as soon as they got into power. 1917 is when they passed decrees empowering worker committees to control production, distribution, and management. If you have the text of a decree revoking workers’ control in 1917, please post it here.
As for this business about Lenin’s alleged elitism, trade union-ism, and related issues, Lars Lih has already decisively refuted these charges in his masterful book Lenin Rediscovered. If there are any anarchist refutations of Lih’s work, I’d be glad to read them, but to my knowledge no one who defends textbook interpretation of Lenin’s book What Is to Be Done? has been able to mount a solid, evidence-based rebuttal.
Posted by Pham Binh | April 30, 2012, 3:15 pmKindly stop condescending to me, I am not a professional historian but I have done enough research on these issues to have a little internet debate with you, and I’m simply pointing out that Lenin’s government was authoritarian and not in the least anti-state, which is frankly obvious on the face of it and almost universally agreed to. Even at the time (1917 and even before!), anti-authoritarians piled up complaints against the centralizing, bureaucratizing, statist practices of the bolsheviks. Were they imagining things?
I agree that State and Revolution is a very anarchistic text, that’s my whole point: Lenin didn’t stick to it, and as you have said yourself it deviates enormously from Lenin’s previous thinking. It’s an exceptional text, except for the mocking of the idea of revolutionizing things “overnight” and the emphasis on “transition” and “dictatorship”, it’s not very typical of Marxist or Boshevik thinking at all.
As for worker’s control, on December 1 1917, Lenin created the Supreme Economic Council to regulate the national economy, moving from worker’s control to state control. All the official Bolshevik organs called for “iron discipline” in the factories. Trade unions subsumed the factory committees. At the First All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions, 7 to 14 of January 1918, the Bolsheviks insured that the factory committees were turned into union organs. The committees were turned into “state institutions,” according to Lenin, as he wanted. The Bolsheviks further maintained that the trade unions could not be independent of the government. It was further emphasized that all this had to with “centralization” and an over-all state plan.
All of this can be found in Paul Avrich’s The Russian Anarchists, p. 166-169, he provides references to the primary sources in Russian.
But again, I find this whole debate remarkably simple and without any need for complex academic apparatus or patronizing attitudes. The Bolsheviks were very obviously an authoritarian, statist group and it is incredibly patent that Lenin did not govern according to the idea of “all power to the soviets.” If you deny that, I hardly know what to say, you’re eyes are completely closed.
Posted by Novotny | April 30, 2012, 3:51 pmI should add that “all power to the soviets” was not a purely anarchist idea and anarchists were uncomfortable with it, because they rightly saw that the soviets could become tools of state political power, but that’s another debate. For now I just want to get you to admit the simple and obvious idea that Lenin, like all marxists, was a statist and ruled as such, despite his more fiery rhetoric in State and Revolution.
Posted by Novotny | April 30, 2012, 4:11 pm“For now I just want to get you to admit the simple and obvious idea that Lenin, like all marxists, was a statist and ruled as such, ” See I agree with you. But I think Anarchist that do not want to be authoritarian should follow Gandhi and the Dali Lama and not talk about revolution. and never be athoritarian.
Posted by Frank | April 30, 2012, 5:08 pmNovotny I am not apologetic for being authoriatarian when the working class is being authoritarian over the capitalist class. Revolution is a violent authoritarian act. I don’t know you well at all, perhaps you are against a violent revolution. Throwing eggs bottles and shouting down Nazis, are very undemocratic and authoritarian acts should we preach against that? Is it based on incorrect theory?
If you want to be against Lenin for being Authoritarian and not gaving capitalists and their supporters democracy, blame Marx also, because, Lenin only applied Marxist theory to the former Soviet Union.
Posted by Frank | April 30, 2012, 4:41 pmAsking people to dig into the issues, research, and think for themselves is hardly condescension. You don’t need to be a historian to do a little more than scratch the surface of these issues.
Posted by Pham Binh | April 30, 2012, 8:59 pmNovotny, can I get you to admit that Anarchists will not under any circumctance will athoritarian and anti democratic?
Posted by Frank | April 30, 2012, 4:59 pmSee, I like Leninists like you Frank who are more honest about being authoritarian, although I would disagree that the Bolsheviks were only authoritarian against capitalists. A lot of ordinary working people, peasants and political dissenters like anarchists ended up in Bolshevik labor camps, prisons, exiled or shot etc.
What I don’t like are the people today who try to re-invent Lenin and say he was some kind of libertarian with a lot to say to horizontalist movements like Occupy, based on a reading of State and Revolution, which was a text not at all reflective of his actual practice in power and most of what he argued elsewhere.
Posted by Novotny | April 30, 2012, 6:22 pmNovotny I am confused by your statement:
“reading of State and Revolution, which was a text not at all reflective of his actual practice in power and most of what he argued elsewhere” Does that mean you like what Lenin wrote in state and revolution, not his practice ?
Posted by Frank | April 30, 2012, 8:06 pmYes exactly, State and Revolution advocates a government of soviets of Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, the abolition of the army in favor of armed militias, elimination of bureaucracy, the widest participation possible in political life, etc., and has a very anti-state tone overall, that’s what I agree with. Even there though, Lenin advocates power and subordination, and keeping the state around in a transitional phase. He just leaves vague who will be subordinated to whom. He states explicitly that factories and other workplaces will necessarily have some individuals subordinating others, and claims society will be subordinated to the proletariat. Apparently it was a small step for him to go from the idea of a dictatorship of the proletariat to a dictatorship of the Bolshevik party.
Posted by Novotny | April 30, 2012, 10:52 pmNovotny I think we have a failure to communicate. IMO Lenin quite cleary explains the Marxist and or his position on the state. And from you other post, you had no problem with killings or executions as long as was not done in the name of the state. That sounds, like change the name, and I am ok with it. Let try to explain how I undertand it. Lenin says: The state is an instrument of class rule. It is used to subdo one class over another. It has been used for about 200o years very effectively for that purpose. And continues to be used against the working class.
My conclusion of the anti state or anti authoritarians is they want to deny this effective weapon of class rule to the EXPLOITED, in effect handicap it, disarm it, and give more opportunity to the EXPLOITERS. It almost seems like they are on the side of the EXPLOITED. The Gandist and Dali Lama follower wanted to go a step further and keep the working class disarmed. Both ideas, If I was from the EXPLOITER class I would thank you both a thousand times. Maybe even pay you. It seems so unfair that you impose double standards to the EXPLOITED. Why do you people feel you have to do that? It seems to me that idea like many, could only originate with the ruling capitalist class. And some of you have adopted it, uncritically. It seems so absurd not to use the State to immediately gain control of the means of production and communication.
And I find myself agreeing with Pham about Mahkno. If someone is out executing Bolsheviks and sabotaging the revolution, or being a counter revolutionary., one must expect the consequences that go with that.
Anyway, this debate is forcing me to look at Bolshevism from a different perspective. Not that I expect any radical changes in my views, but hopefully to better undersand the questions others have and to have better answers.
Posted by Frank | May 1, 2012, 4:52 pmYou should look up the atrocities committed by Makhno in the Ukraine if you want to read about authoritarianism.
Posted by Pham Binh | April 30, 2012, 9:01 pmI think both you and Frank are confusing authoritarianism and violence. My problem isn’t just that the Bolsheviks killed people, which obviously happens during revolutions and civil war. It’s that they did it in the name of the state, power, hierarchy, centralization etc.
Posted by Novotny | May 1, 2012, 7:38 amMakhano set up a secret police and tortured people in the name of anti-statism. If the Bolsheviks had done the same you would support that?
Posted by Pham Binh | May 5, 2012, 10:21 am