|
|
Index | What's New | Links | Introduction | Bibliography
 PDF
version of Appendix 4.4.
How did Bolshevik ideology contribute to the failure of the Revolution?
It is a truism of Leninism that Stalinism has nothing to do
with the ideas of Bolshevism. Moreover, most are at pains to
stress that these ideas have no relation to the actual practice
of the Bolshevik Party after the October Revolution. To
re-quote one Leninist:
"it was overwhelmingly the force of circumstance which obliged
the Bolsheviks to retreat so far from their own goals. They
travelled this route in opposition to their own theory, not
because of it -- no matter what rhetorical justifications were
given at the time." [John Rees, "In Defence of October,"
pp. 3-82, International Socialism, no. 52, p. 70]
His fellow party member Duncan Hallas argued that it was "these
desperate conditions" (namely terrible economic situation
combined with civil war) which resulted in "the Bolshevik Party
[coming] to substitute its own rule for that of a decimated,
exhausted working class" anarchists disagree. [Towards a
Revolutionary Socialist Party, p. 43]
We have discussed in the appendix on "What caused the degeneration of the Russian Revolution?" why the various "objective
factors" explanations favoured by Leninists to explain the
defeat of the Russian Revolution are unconvincing. Ultimately,
they rest on the spurious argument that if only what most
revolutionaries (including, ironically, Leninists!) consider
as inevitable side effects of a revolution did not occur, then
Bolshevism would have been fine. It is hard to take seriously
the argument that if only the ruling class disappeared without
a fight, if the imperialists had not intervened and if the
economy was not disrupted then Bolshevism would have resulted
in socialism. This is particularly the case as Leninists argue
that only their version of socialism recognises that the
ruling class will not disappear after a revolution, that we
will face counter-revolution and so we need a state to defend
the revolution! As we argued in
section H.2.1, this
is not the case. Anarchists have long recognised that a
revolution will require defending and that it will provoke a
serious disruption in the economic life of a country.
Given the somewhat unrealistic tone of these kinds of assertions,
it is necessary to look at the ideological underpinnings of
Bolshevism and how they played their part in the defeat of the
Russian Revolution. This section, therefore, will discuss why
such Leninist claims are not true. Simply put, Bolshevik ideology
did play a role in the degeneration of the Russian Revolution.
This is obvious once we look at most aspects of Bolshevik
ideology as well as the means advocated by the Bolsheviks to
achieve their goals. Rather than being in opposition to the
declared aims of the Bolsheviks, the policies implemented by
them during the revolution and civil war had clear relations
with their pre-revolution ideas and visions. To quote Maurice
Brinton's conclusions after looking at this period:
"there is a clear-cut and incontrovertible link between what
happened under Lenin and Trotsky and the later practices of
Stalinism. We know that many on the revolutionary left will
find this statement hard to swallow. We are convinced however
that any honest reading of the facts cannot but lead to this
conclusion. The more one unearths about this period the more
difficult it becomes to define - or even to see - the 'gulf'
allegedly separating what happened in Lenin's time from what
happened later. Real knowledge of the facts also makes it
impossible to accept . . . that the whole course of events
was 'historically inevitable' and 'objectively determined'.
Bolshevik ideology and practice were themselves important
and sometimes decisive factors in the equation, at every
critical stage of this critical period. Now that more facts
are available self-mystification on these issues should no
longer be possible. Should any who have read these pages
remain 'confused' it will be because they want to remain
in that state -- or because (as the future beneficiaries
of a society similar to the Russian one) it is their interest
to remain so." [The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control,
p. 84]
This is unsurprising. The Leninist idea that politics of the
Bolsheviks had no influence on the outcome of the revolution,
that their policies during the revolution were a product purely
of objective forces, is unconvincing. The facts of the matter is
that people are faced with choices, choices that arise from the
objective conditions that they face. What decisions they make
will be influenced by the ideas they hold -- they will not
occur automatically, as if people were on auto-pilot -- and
their ideas are shaped by the social relationships they
experience. Thus, someone who favours centralisation and sees
nationalisation as the defining characteristic of socialism
will make different decisions than someone who favours
decentralising power and sees self-management as the key
issue. The former will also create different forms of
social organisation based on their perceptions of what
"socialism" is and what is "efficient." Similarly, the
different forms of social organisation favoured will also
impact on how a revolution develops and the political
decisions they make. For example, if you have a vision which
favours centralised, hierarchical organisation then those
placed into a position of power over others within such
structures will act in certain ways, have a certain world
view, which would be alien to someone subject to egalitarian
social relations.
In summary, the ideas in people's heads matter, including during
a revolution. Someone in favour of centralisation, centralised
power and who equates party rule with class rule (like Lenin and
Trotsky), will act in ways (and create structures) totally different
from someone who believes in decentralisation and federalism. The
organisation they create will create specific forms of social
relationships which, in turn, will shape the ideas of those subject
to them. This means that a centralised, hierarchical system will
create authoritarian social relationships and these will shape
those within them and the ideas they have in totally different
ways than a decentralised, egalitarian system.
Similarly, if Bolshevik policies hastened the alienation of working
class people and peasants from the regime which, in turn, resulted
in resistance to them then some of the "objective factors" facing
Lenin's regime were themselves the products of earlier political
decisions. Unwelcome and unforeseen (at least to the Bolshevik
leadership) consequences of specific Bolshevik practices and
actions, but still flowing from Bolshevik ideology all the same.
So, for example, when leading Bolsheviks had preconceived biases
against decentralisation, federalism, "petty-bourgeois" peasants,
"declassed" workers or "anarcho-syndicalist" tendencies, this
would automatically become an ideological determinant to the
policies decided upon by the ruling party. While social
circumstances may have limited Bolshevik options, these social
circumstances were also shaped by the results of Bolshevik
ideology and practice and, moreover, possible solutions to
social problems were also limited by Bolshevik ideology and
practice.
So, political ideas do matter. And, ironically, the very
Leninists who argue that Bolshevik politics played no role
in the degeneration of the revolution accept this. Modern
day Leninists, while denying Bolshevik ideology had a negative
on the development of the revolution also subscribe to the
contradictory idea that Bolshevik politics were essential for
its "success"! Indeed, the fact that they are Leninists shows
this is the case. They obviously think that Leninist ideas on
centralisation, the role of the party, the "workers' state" and
a host of other issues are correct and, moreover, essential for
the success of a revolution. They just dislike the results when
these ideas were applied in practice within the institutional
context these ideas promote, subject to the pressures of the
objective circumstances they argue every revolution will face!
Little wonder anarchists are not convinced by Leninist arguments
that their ideology played no role in the rise of Stalinism in
Russia. Simply put, if you use certain methods then these will be
rooted in the specific vision you are aiming for. If you think
socialism is state ownership and centralised planning then you
will favour institutions and organisations which facilitate that
end. If you want a highly centralised state and consider a state
as simply being an "instrument of class rule" then you will see
little to worry about in the concentration of power into the hands
of a few party leaders. However, if you see socialism in terms of
working class managing their own affairs then you will view such
developments as being fundamentally in opposition to your goals
and definitely not a means to that end.
So part of the reason why Marxist revolutions yield such anti-working
class outcomes is to do with its ideology, methods and goals. It has
little to do with the will to power of a few individuals (important
a role as that can play, sometimes, in events). In a nutshell, the
ideology and vision guiding Leninist parties incorporate hierarchical
values and pursue hierarchical aims. Furthermore, the methods and
organisations favoured to achieve (their vision of) "socialism" are
fundamentally hierarchical, aiming to ensure that power is centralised
at the top of pyramidal structures in the hands of the party leaders.
It would be wrong, as Leninists will do, to dismiss this as simply a
case of "idealism." After all, we are talking about the ideology of a
ruling party. As such, these ideas are more than just ideas: after
the seizure of power, they became a part of the real social situation
within Russia. Individually, party members assumed leadership posts
in all spheres of social life and started to apply their ideology.
Then, overtime, the results of this application ensured that the
party could not be done otherwise as the framework of exercising
power had been shaped by its successful application (e.g. Bolshevik
centralism ensured that all its policies were marked by centralist
tendencies, simply because Bolshevik power had become centralised).
Soon, the only real instance of power is the Party, and very soon,
only the summits of the Party. This cannot help but shape its
policies and actions. As Castoriadis argues:
"If it is true that people's real social existence determines
their consciousness, it is from that moment illusory to expect
the Bolshevik party to act in any other fashion than according
to its real social position. The real social situation of the
Party is that of a directorial organ, and its point of view
toward this society henceforth is not necessarily the same as
the one this society has toward itself." [The role of Bolshevik
Ideology in the birth of the Bureaucracy, p. 97]
As such, means and ends are related and cannot be separated.
As Emma Goldman argued, there is "no greater fallacy than the
belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and
tactics are another. This conception is a potent menace to social
regeneration. All human experience teaches that methods and means
cannot be separated from the ultimate aim. The means employed
become, through individual habit and social practice, part and
parcel of the final purpose; they influence it, modify it, and
presently the aims and means become identical. . . The great and
inspiring aims of the Revolution became so clouded with and
obscured by the methods used by the ruling political power
that it was hard to distinguish what was temporary means and
what final purpose. Psychologically and socially the means
necessarily influence and alter the aims. The whole history of
man is continuous proof of the maxim that to divest one's
methods of ethical concepts means to Sink into the depths of
utter demoralisation. In that lies the real tragedy of the
Bolshevik philosophy as applied to the Russian Revolution. May
this lesson not be in vain." In summary, "[n]o revolution can
ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the MEANS used to
further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the PURPOSES
to be achieved." [My Disillusionment in Russia, pp. 260-1]
If this analysis of the anarchists against Bolshevism is true
then it follows that the Bolsheviks were not just wrong on one
or two issues but their political outlook right down to the core
was wrong. Its vision of socialism was flawed, which produced a
flawed perspective on the potentially valid means available to
achieve it. Leninism, we must never forget, does not aim for
the same kind of society anarchism does. As we discussed in
section H.3.1, the short, medium and long term goals of both
movements are radically different. While both claim to aim for
"communism," what is mean by that word is radically different
in details if somewhat similar in outline. The anarchist ideal
of a classless, stateless and free society is based on a
decentralised, participatory and bottom-up premise. The
Leninist ideal is the product of a centralised, party ruled
and top-down paradigm.
This explains why Leninists advocate a democratic-centralist
"Revolutionary Party." It arises from the fact that their
programme is the capture of state power in order to abolish
the "anarchy of the market." Not the abolition of wage labour,
but its universalisation under the state as one big boss. Not
the destruction of alienated forces (political, social and
economic) but rather their capture by the party on behalf of
the masses. In other words, this section of the FAQ is based
on the fact that Leninists are not (libertarian) communists;
they have not broken sufficiently with Second International
orthodoxy, with the assumption that socialism is basically
state capitalism ("The idea of the State as Capitalist, to
which the Social-Democratic fraction of the great Socialist
Party is now trying to reduce Socialism." [Peter Kropotkin,
The Great French Revolution, vol. 1, p. 31]). Just as
one cannot abolish alienation with alienated means, so we
cannot attack Leninist "means" also without distinguishing
our libertarian "ends" from theirs.
This means that both Leninist means and ends are flawed. Both
will fail to produce a socialist society. As Kropotkin said
at the time, the Bolsheviks "have shown how the Revolution is
not to be made." [quoted by Berkman, The Bolshevik Myth,
p. 75] If applied today, Leninist ideas will undoubtedly fail
from an anarchist point of view while, as under Lenin,
"succeeding" from the limited perspective of Bolshevism. Yes,
the party may be in power and, yes, capitalist property may
be abolished by nationalisation but, no, a socialist society
would be no nearer. Rather we would have a new hierarchical
and class system rather than the classless and free society
which non-anarchist socialists claim to be aiming for.
Let us be perfectly clear. Anarchists are not saying that
Stalinism will be the inevitable result of any Bolshevik
revolution. What we are saying is that some form of class
society will result from any such a revolution. The exact
form this class system will take will vary depending on the
objective circumstances it faces, but no matter the specific
form of such a post-revolutionary society it will not be a
socialist one. This is because of the ideology of the party
in power will shape the revolution in specific ways which,
by necessity, form new forms of hierarchical and class
exploitation and oppression. The preferred means of Bolshevism
(vanguardism, statism, centralisation, nationalisation, and
so on) will determine the ends, the ends being not communist
anarchism but some kind of bureaucratic state capitalist society
labelled "socialism" by those in charge. Stalinism, in this
perspective, was the result of an interaction of certain
ideological goals and positions as well as organisational
principles and preferences with structural and circumstantial
pressures resulting from the specific conditions prevalent at
the time. For example, a Leninist revolution in an advanced
western country would not require the barbaric means used by
Stalinism to industrialise Russia.
This section of the FAQ will, therefore, indicate the key
areas of Bolshevik ideology which, when applied, will
undermine any revolution as they did the Russian. As such,
it is all fine and well for Trotskyist Max Shachtman (like
so many others) to argue that the Bolsheviks had "convert[ed]
the expediencies and necessities of the civil war period into
virtues and principles which had never been part of their
original program." Looking at this "original program" we can
see elements of what was latter to be applied. Rather than
express a divergence it could be argued that it was this that
undermined the more democratic aspects of their original program.
In other words, perhaps the use of state power and economic
nationalisation came into conflict with, and finally destroyed,
the original proclaimed socialist principles? And, perhaps,
the "socialist" vision of Bolshevism was so deeply flawed that
even attempting to apply it destroyed the aspirations for
liberty, equality and solidarity that inspired it? For, after
all, as we indicated in
section H.3.1, the anarchist and
mainstream Marxist visions of socialism and how to get there
are different. Can we be surprised if Marxist means cannot
achieve anarchist (i.e. authentic socialist) ends? To his
credit, Shachtman acknowledges that post-civil war salvation
"required full democratic rights" for all workers, and that
this was "precisely what the Bolsheviks . . . were determined
not to permit." Sadly he failed to wonder why the democratic
principles of the "original program" were only "honoured in the
breach" and why "Lenin and Trotsky did not observe them." The
possibility that Bakunin was right and that statism and socialism
cannot go together was not raised. ["Introduction" to Trotsky's
Terrorism and Communism, p. xv]
Equally, there is a tendency of pro-Leninists to concentrate
on the period between the two revolutions of 1917 when specifying
what Bolshevism "really" stood for, particularly Lenin's book
State and Revolution. To use an analogy, when Leninists do this
they are like politicians who, when faced with people questioning
the results of their policies, ask them to look at their election
manifesto rather than what they have done when in power. As
we discuss in section 4 of the
appendix "What happened during the Russian Revolution?" Lenin's book was never applied in
practice. From the very first day, the Bolsheviks ignored it.
After 6 months none of its keys ideas had been applied.
Indeed, in all cases the exact opposite had been imposed. As
such, to blame (say) the civil war for the reality of "Bolshevik
in power" (as Leninists do) seems without substance. Simply put,
State and Revolution is no guide to what Bolshevism "really"
stood for. Neither is their position before seizing power if
the realities of their chosen methods (i.e. seizing state power)
quickly changed their perspective, practice and ideology (i.e.
shaped the desired ends). Assuming of course that most of their
post-October policies were radically different from their
pre-October ones, which (as we indicate here) they were not.
With that said, what do anarchists consider the key aspects of
Bolshevik ideology which helped to ensure the defeat of the
Russian Revolution and had, long before the civil war started,
had started its degeneration into tyranny? These factors are
many and so we will, by necessity, concrete on the key ones.
These are believe in centralisation, the confusion of party
power with popular power, the Marxist theory of the state,
the negative influence of Engels' infamous essay "On Authority",
the equation of nationalisation and state capitalism with
socialism, the lack of awareness that working class economic
power was a key factor in socialism, the notion that "big" was
automatically "more efficient," the identification of class
consciousness with supporting the party, how the vanguard
party organises itself and, lastly, the underlying assumptions
that vanguardism is based on.
Each one of these factors had a negative impact on the development
of the revolution, combined they were devastating. Nor can it be
a case of keeping Bolshevism while getting rid of some of these
positions. Most go to the heart of Bolshevism and could only be
eliminated by eliminating what makes Leninism Leninist. Thus some
Leninists now pay lip service to workers' control of production
and recognise that the Bolsheviks saw the form of property (i.e.,
whether private or state owned) as being far more important that
workers' management of production. Yet revising Bolshevism to
take into account this flaw means little unless the others are
also revised. Simply put, workers' management of production would
have little impact in a highly centralised state ruled over by a
equally centralised vanguard party. Self-management in production
or society could not co-exist with a state and party power nor
with "centralised" economic decision making based on nationalised
property. In a nutshell, the only way Bolshevism could result
in a genuine socialist society is if it stopped being Bolshevik!
As is well known, Marx argued that history progressed through distinct
stages. After his death, this "materialist conception of history"
became known as "historical materialism." The basic idea of this
is that the "totality of [the] relations of production constitutes
the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which
arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond
definite forms of social consciousness . . . At a certain stage
of development, the material productive forces of society come
into conflict with the existing relations of production or --
this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms -- with the
property relations within the framework of which they have
operated hitherto. From forms of development of productive
forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an
era of social revolution." [A Contribution to the Critique of
Political Economy, pp. 20-1]
Thus slavery was replaced by feudalism, feudalism with capitalism.
For Marx, the "bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic
form of the social process of production" and "the productive
forces developing within bourgeois society create also the
material conditions for a solution of this antagonism." [Op. Cit.,
p. 21] In other words, after capitalism there would be socialism:
"The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of
production which has flourished alongside and under it. The
centralisation of the means of production and the socialisation
of labour reach a point at which they become incompatible with
their capitalist integument. The integument is burst asunder.
The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators
are expropriated." [Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1, p. 929]
Socialism replaces capitalism once the "proletariat seized
political power and turns the means of production into
state property." By so doing, "it abolishes itself as
proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and class
antagonisms, abolishes also the state as state." [Engels,
The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 713]
Most Marxists subscribe to this schema of historical progress.
For example, Tony Cliff noted that, "[f]or Lenin, whose
Marxism was never mechanical or fatalistic, the definition
of the dictatorship of the proletariat as a transition
period meant that there could be two outcomes of this
phase: going forward to socialism, or backsliding to
capitalism. The policy of the party would tip the balance."
[Revolution Besieged, p. 364]
Marxists, like Marx, argue that socialism was the society
which would come after capitalism. Thus the Bolsheviks had
the mindset that whatever they did there was only two
possibilities: (their version of) socialism or the
restoration of capitalism. However, this is based on a
false premise. Is it valid to assume that there is only
one possible post-capitalist future, one that, by definition,
is classless? If so, then any action or structure could be
utilised to fight reaction as after victory there can be
only one outcome. However, if there is more that one
post-capitalist future then the question of means becomes
decisive. If we assume just two possible post-capitalist
futures, one based on self-management and without classes
and another with economic, social and political power
centralised in a few hands, then the means used in a
revolution become decisive in determining which
possibility will become reality.
If we accept the Marxist theory and assume only one
possible post-capitalist system, then all that is
required of revolutionary anti-capitalist movements
is that they only need to overthrow capitalism and
they will wind up where they wish to arrive as there
is no other possible outcome. But if the answer no, then
in order to wind up where we wish to arrive, we have to
not only overthrow capitalism, we have use means that
will push us toward the desired future society. As such,
means become the key and they cannot be ignored or
downplayed in favour of the ends -- particularly as
these ends will never be reached if the appropriate
means are not used.
This is no abstract metaphysical or ideological/theoretical
point. The impact of this issue can be seen from the practice
of Bolshevism in power. For Lenin and Trotsky, any and
all means could and were used in pursuit of their ends.
They simply could not see how the means used shaped the
ends reached. Ultimately, there was only two possibilities
-- socialism (by definition classless) or a return to
capitalism.
Once we see that because of their flawed perspective on what
comes after capitalism we understand why, for the Bolsheviks,
the means used and institutions created were meaningless. We
can see one of the roots for Bolshevik indifference to working
class self-management. As Samuel Farber notes that "there is
no evidence indicating that Lenin or any of the mainstream
Bolshevik leaders lamented the loss of workers' control or
of democracy in the soviets, or at least referred to these
losses as a retreat, as Lenin declared with the replacement
of War Communism by NEP in 1921." [Before Stalinism, p. 44]
There was no need, for such means had no impact on achieving
the ends Bolshevik power had set itself. As we discuss in
section 6,
such questions of meaningful working class
participation in the workplace or the soviets were considered
by the likes of Trotsky as fundamentally irrelevant to whether
Bolshevik Russia was socialist or whether the working class was
the ruling class or not, incredible as it may seem.
So if we accept Marx's basic schema, then we simply have to conclude
that what means we use are, ultimately, irrelevant as there is only
one outcome. As long as property is nationalised and a non-capitalist
party holds state power, then the basic socialist nature of the regime
automatically flows. This was, of course, Trotsky's argument with
regard to Stalinist Russia and why he defended it against those who
recognised that it was a new form of class society. Yet it is
precisely the rise of Stalinism out of the dictatorship of the
Bolsheviks which exposes the limitations in the Marxist schema of
historical development.
Simply put, there is no guarantee that getting rid of capitalism
will result in a decent society. As anarchists like Bakunin argued
against Marx, it is possible to get rid of capitalism while not
creating socialism, if we understand by that term a free, classless
society of equals. Rather, a Marxist revolution would "concentrate
all the powers of government in strong hands, because the very
fact that the people are ignorant necessitates strong, solicitous
care by the government. [It] will create a single State bank,
concentrating in its hands all the commercial, industrial,
agricultural, and even scientific production; and they will
divide the mass of people into two armies -- industrial and
agricultural armies under the direct command of the State
engineers who will constitute the new privileged
scientific-political class." [The Political Philosophy of
Bakunin, p. 289] As Bolshevism proved, there was always an
alternative to socialism or a reversion to capitalism,
in this case state capitalism.
So libertarians have long been aware that actually existing
capitalism could be replaced by another form of class society.
As the experience of Bolshevik tyranny proves beyond doubt,
this perspective is the correct one. And that perspective
ensured that during the Russian Revolution the Makhnovists
had to encourage free soviets and workers' self-management,
freedom of speech and organisation in order for the revolution
to remain socialist (see the appendix on
"Why does the Makhnovist movement show there is an alternative to
Bolshevism?"). In contrast, the
Bolsheviks implemented party dictatorship, nationalisation
and one-man management while proclaiming this had something to
do with socialism. Little wonder Trotsky had such difficulties
understanding the obvious truth that Stalinism has nothing
to do with socialism.
As discussed in
section H.3.7,
anarchists and Marxists have
fundamentally different definitions of what constitutes a
state. These different definitions resulted, in practice,
to the Bolsheviks undermining real working class power
during the Russian Revolution in favour of an abstract
"power" which served as little more than a fig-leaf for
Bolshevik power.
For anarchists, the state is marked by centralised power
in the hands of a few. The state, we argue, is designed
to ensure minority rule and, consequently, cannot be used
by the majority to manage their own affairs. Every bourgeois
revolution, moreover, has been marked by a conflict between
centralised power and popular power and, unsurprisingly,
the bourgeois favoured the former over the latter. As such,
we would expect centralised power (i.e. a state) to be the
means by which a minority class seized power over the
masses and never the means by which the majority managed
society themselves. It was for this reason that anarchists
refuse to confuse a federation of self-managed organisations
with a state:
"The reader knows by now that the anarchists refused to use
the term 'State' even for a transitional situation. The gap
between authoritarians and libertarians has not always been
very wide on this score. In the First International the
collectivists, whose spokesman was Bakunin, allowed the
terms 'regenerate State,' 'new and revolutionary State,'
or even 'socialist State' to be accepted as synonyms for
'social collective.' The anarchists soon saw, however,
that it was rather dangerous for them to use the same
word as the authoritarians while giving it a quite
different meaning. They felt that a new concept called
for a new word and that the use of the old term could be
dangerously ambiguous; so they ceased to give the name
'State' to the social collective of the future." [Daniel
Guerin, Anarchism, pp. 60-1]
This is no mere semantics. The essence of statism is the
removal of powers that should belong to the community as
whole (though they may for reasons of efficiency delegate
their actual implementation to elected, mandated and
recallable committees) into the hands of a tiny minority
who claim to act on our behalf and in our interests but
who are not under our direct control. In other words it
continues the division into rulers and ruled. Any confusion
between two such radically different forms of organisation
can only have a seriously negative effect on the development
of any revolution. At its most basic, it allows those in power
to develop structures and practices which disempower the
many while, at the same time, taking about extending
working class "power."
The roots of this confusion can be found at the root of
Marxism. As discussed in
section H.3.7, Marx and Engels had
left a somewhat contradictory inheritance on the nature and
role of the state. Unlike anarchists, who clearly argued that
only confusion would arise by calling the organs of popular
self-management required by a revolution a "state," the
founders of Marxism confused two radically different ideas. On
the one hand, there is the idea of a radical and participatory
democracy (as per the model of the Paris Commune). On the other,
there is a centralised body with a government in charge (as
per the model of the democratic state). By using the term
"state" to cover these two radically different concepts, it
allowed the Bolsheviks to confuse party power with popular
power and, moreover, replace the latter by the former without
affecting the so-called "proletarian" nature of the state.
The confusion of popular organs of self-management with a
state ensured that these organs were submerged by state
structures and top-down rule.
By confusing the state (delegated power, necessarily concentrated
in the hands of a few) with the organs of popular self-management
Marxism opened up the possibility of a "workers' state" which is
simply the rule of a few party leaders over the masses. The "truth
of the matter," wrote Emma Goldman, "is that the Russian people
have been locked out and that the Bolshevik State -- even as
the bourgeois industrial master -- uses the sword and the gun
to keep the people out. In the case of the Bolsheviki this
tyranny is masked by a world-stirring slogan . . . Just because
I am a revolutionist I refuse to side with the master class,
which in Russia is called the Communist Party." [My
Disillusionment in Russia, p. xlix] In this, she simply saw
in practice that which Bakunin had predicted would happen.
For Bakunin, like all anarchists, "every state power, every
government, by its nature and by its position stands outside
the people and above them, and must invariably try to subject
them to rules and objectives which are alien to them." It
was for this reason "we declare ourselves the enemies of every
government and state every state power . . . the people can
only be happy and free when they create their own life,
organising themselves from below upwards." [Statism and
Anarchy, p. 136]
The "workers' state" proved no exception to that generalisation.
The roots of the problem, which expressed itself from the start
during the Russian revolution, was the fatal confusion of the
state with organs of popular self-management. Lenin argued in
"State and Revolution" that, on the one hand, "the armed
proletariat itself shall become the government" while, on
the other, that "[w]e cannot imagine democracy, not even
proletarian democracy, without representative institutions."
If, as Lenin asserts, democracy "means equality" he has
reintroduced inequality into the "proletarian" state as
the representatives have, by definition, more power than
those who elected them. [Essential Works of Lenin, p. 363,
p. 306 and p. 346] Yet, as noted in
section H.1.2,
representative bodies necessarily place policy-making in
the hands of deputies and do not (and cannot) mean that
the working class as a class can manage society.
Moreover, such bodies ensure that popular power can be
usurped without difficulty by a minority. After all, a
minority already does hold power.
True equality implies the abolition of the state and its
replacement by a federation of self-managed communes. The
state, as anarchists have long stressed, signifies a power
above society, a concentration of power into a few hands.
Lenin, ironically, quotes Engels on the state being marked
by "the establishment of a public power, which is no longer
directly identical with the population organising itself as
an armed power." [quoted by Lenin, Op. Cit., p. 275] As Lenin
supported representative structures rather than one based
on elected, mandated and recallable delegates then he has
created a "public power" no longer identical with the population.
Combine this with an awareness that bureaucracy must continue
to exist in the "proletarian" state then we have the ideological
preconditions for dictatorship over the proletariat. "There
can be no thought," asserted Lenin, "of destroying officialdom
immediately everywhere, completely. That is utopia. But to smash
the old bureaucratic machine at once and to begin immediately to
construct a new one that will enable all officialdom to be
gradually abolished is not utopia." In other words, Lenin
expected "the gradual 'withering away' of all bureaucracy."
[Op. Cit., p. 306 and p. 307]
Yet why expect a "new" bureaucracy to be as easy to control as
the old one? Regular election to posts does not undermine the
institutional links, pressures and powers a centralised
"officialdom" will generate around itself, even a so-called
"proletarian" one. Significantly, Lenin justified this defence
of temporary state bureaucracy by the kind of straw man
argument against anarchism "State and Revolution" is riddled
with. "We are not utopians," asserted Lenin, "we do not indulge
in 'dreams' of dispensing at once with all administration,
with all subordination: these anarchist dreams . . . are
totally alien to Marxism, and, as a matter of fact, serve
only to postpone the socialist revolution until human nature
has changed. No, we want the socialist revolution with human
nature as it is now, with human nature that cannot dispense
with subordination, control and 'managers.'" [Op. Cit.,
p. 307] Yet anarchists do not wish to "dispense" with "all
administration," rather we wish to replace government by
administration, hierarchical positions
("subordination") with co-operative organisation. Equally, we
see the revolution as a process in which "human nature" is
changed by the struggle itself so that working class people
become capable of organising itself and society without
bosses, bureaucrats and politicians. If Lenin says that
socialism "cannot dispense" with the hierarchical structures
required by class society why should we expect the same kinds
of structures and social relationships to have different ends
just because "red" managers are in power?
Thus Lenin's work is deeply ambiguous. He is confusing
popular self-management with a state structure. Anarchists
argue that states, by their very nature, are based on
concentrated, centralised, alienated power in the hands of
a few. Thus Lenin's "workers' state" is just the same as
any other state, namely rule by a few over the many. This
is confirmed when Lenin argues that "[u]nder socialism,
all will take part in the work of government in turn and
will soon become accustomed to no one governing." In fact,
once the "overwhelming majority" have "learned to administer
the state themselves, have taken this business into their
own hands . . . the need for government begins to disappear.
The more complete democracy becomes, the nearer the moment
approaches when it becomes unnecessary. The more democratic
the 'state' of the armed workers -- which is 'no longer a
state in the proper sense of the word' -- becomes, the more
rapidly does the state begin to wither away." Moreover,
"[u]ntil the 'higher' phase of communism arrives, the Socialists
demand the strictest control, by society and by the state,
of the amount of labour and of consumption." [Op. Cit., p. 361,
p. 349 and p. 345]
Clearly, the "proletarian" state is not based on direct,
mass, participation by the population but, in fact, on giving
power to a few representatives. It is not identical with
"society," i.e. the armed, self-organised people. Rather
than look to the popular assemblies of the French revolution,
Lenin, like the bourgeoisie, looked to representative structures
-- structures designed to combat working class power and influence.
(at one point Lenin states that "for a certain time not only
bourgeois right, but even the bourgeois state remains under
communism, without the bourgeoisie!" This was because "bourgeois
right in regard to the distribution of articles of consumption
inevitably presupposes the existence of the bourgeois state,
for right is nothing without an apparatus capable of enforcing
the observance of the standards of right." [Op. Cit., p. 346]).
Can we expect the same types of organs and social relationships
to produce different results simply because Lenin is at the head
of the state? Of course not.
As the Marxist theory of the state confused party/vanguard
power with working class power, we should not be surprised
that Lenin's "State and Revolution" failed to discuss the
practicalities of this essential question in anything but a
passing and ambiguous manner. For example, Lenin notes that
"[b]y educating the workers' party, Marxism educates the
vanguard of the proletariat which is capable of assuming
power and of leading the whole people to socialism, of
directing and organising the new order." [Op. Cit., p. 288]
It is not clear whether it is the vanguard or the proletariat
as a whole which assumes power. Later, he states that "the
dictatorship of the proletariat" was "the organisation of the
vanguard of the oppressed as the ruling class for the purpose
of crushing the oppressors." [Op. Cit., p. 337] Given that
this fits in with subsequent Bolshevik practice, it seems
clear that it is the vanguard which assumes power rather
than the whole class. The negative effects of this are
discussed in section 8.
However, the assumption of power by the party highlights the
key problem with the Marxist theory of the state and how it
could be used to justify the destruction of popular power.
It does not matter in the Marxist schema whether the class
or the party is in power, it does not impact on whether the
working class is the "ruling class" or not. As Lenin put it.
"democracy is not identical with the subordination of the
minority to the majority. Democracy is a state which
recognises the subordination of the minority to the majority,
i.e. an organisation for the systematic use of violence
by one class against the other, by one section of the
population against another." [Op. Cit., p. 332] Thus the
majority need not actually "rule" (i.e. make the fundamental
decisions) for a regime to be considered a "democracy" or
an instrument of class rule. That power can be delegated to
a party leadership (even dictatorship) without harming the
"class nature" of the state. This results of such a theory
can be seen from Bolshevik arguments in favour of party
dictatorship during the civil war period (and beyond).
The problem with the centralised, representative structures
Lenin favours for the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is that
they are rooted in the inequality of power. They constitute in
fact, if not initially in theory, a power above society. As
Lenin put it, "the essence of bureaucracy" is "privileged
persons divorced from the masses and superior to the masses."
[Op. Cit., p. 360] In the words of Malatesta, a "government,
that is a group of people entrusted with making laws and
empowered to use the collective power to oblige each individual
to obey them, is already a privileged class and cut off from
the people. As any constituted body would do, it will
instinctively seek to extend its powers, to be beyond public
control, to impose its own policies and to give priority to
its special interests. Having been put in a privileged position,
the government is already at odds with the people whose
strength it disposes of." [Anarchy, p. 34] As we discussed
in appendix "What happened during the Russian Revolution?", Lenin's regime provides
more than enough
evidence to support such an analysis.
This is the fatal flaw in the Marxist theory of the state.
As Bakunin put it, "the theory of the state" is "based on this
fiction of pseudo-popular representation -- which in actual
fact means the government of the masses by an insignificant
handful of privileged individuals, elected (or even not
elected) by mobs of people rounded up for voting and never
knowing what or whom they are voting for -- on this
imaginary and abstract expression of the imaginary thought
and will of the all the people, of which the real, living
people do not have the faintest idea." Thus the state
represents "government of the majority by a minority in
the name of the presumed stupidity of the one and the
presumed intelligence of the other." [Op. Cit., pp. 136-7]
By confusing popular participation with a state, by ignoring
the real inequalities of power in any state structure, Marxism
allowed Lenin and the Bolsheviks to usurp state power, implement
party dictatorship and continue to talk about the working
class being in power. Because of Marxism's metaphysical
definition of the state (see
section H.3.7), actual working
class people's power over their lives is downplayed, if not
ignored, in favour party power.
As parties represent classes in this schema, if the party is
in power then, by definition, so is the class. This raises the
possibility of Lenin asserting the "working class" held power
even when his party was exercising a dictatorship over the
working class and violently repressing any protests by it.
As one socialist historian puts it, "while it is true that
Lenin recognised the different functions and democratic
raison d'etre for both the soviets and his party, in the
last analysis it was the party that was more important than
the soviets. In other words, the party was the final
repository of working-class sovereignty. Thus, Lenin did not
seem to have been reflected on or have been particularly
perturbed by the decline of the soviets after 1918." [Samuel
Farber, Before Stalinism, p. 212] This can be seen from how
the Marxist theory of the state was changed after the
Bolsheviks seized power to bring into line with its new role
as the means by which the vanguard ruled society (see
section H.3.8).
This confusion between two radically different concepts and
their submersion into the term "state" had its negative impact
from the start. Firstly, the Bolsheviks constantly equated
rule by the Bolshevik party (in practice, its central committee)
with the working class as a whole. Rather than rule by all the
masses, the Bolsheviks substituted rule by a handful of leaders.
Thus we find Lenin talking about "the power of the Bolsheviks
-- that is, the power of the proletariat" as if these things
were the same. Thus it was a case of "the Bolsheviks" having
"to take the whole governmental power into their own hands,"
of "the complete assumption of power by the Bolsheviks alone,"
rather than the masses. Indeed, Russia had been "ruled by
130,000 landowners" and "yet they tell us that Russia will
not be able to be governed by the 240,000 members of the
Bolshevik Party -- governing in the interests of the
poor and against the rich." [Will the Bolsheviks Maintain
Power?, p. 102, p. 7 and pp. 61-2]
However, governing in the "interests" of the poor is not
the same as the poor governing themselves. Thus we have the
first key substitution that leads to authoritarian rule,
namely the substitution of the power of the masses by the
power of a few members who make up the government. Such a
small body will require a centralised state system and,
consequently, we have the creation of a hierarchical body
around the new government which, as we discuss in
section 7, will become the real master in society.
The preconditions for a new form of class society have been
created and, moreover, they are rooted in the basic ideas
of Marxism. Society has been split into two bodies, the
masses and those who claim to rule in their name. Given this
basic inequality in power we would, according to anarchist
theory, expect the interests of the masses and the rulers
to separate and come into conflict. While the Bolsheviks
had the support of the working class (as they did in the
first few months of their rule), this does not equal mass
participation in running society. Quite the reverse. So
while Lenin raised the vision of mass participation in
the "final" stage of communism, he unfortunately blocked
the means to get there.
Simply put, a self-managed society can only be created by
self-managed means. To think we can have a "public power"
separate from the masses which will, slowly, dissolve
itself into it is the height of naivety. Unsurprisingly,
once in power the Bolsheviks held onto power by all means
available, including gerrymandering and disbanding soviets,
suppressing peaceful opposition parties and violently
repressing the very workers it claimed ruled in "soviet"
Russia (see section 6 of the appendix
"What happened during the Russian Revolution?").
Significantly, this conflict
developed before the start of the civil war (see
section 3 of the appendix on
"What caused the degeneration of the Russian Revolution?" for details). So when popular support was lost, the
basic contradictions in the Bolshevik position and theory
became clear. Rather than be a "soviet" power, the Bolshevik
regime was simply rule over the workers in their name,
nothing more. And equally unsurprising, the Leninists
revised their theory of the state to take into account the
realities of state power and the need to justify minority
power over the masses (see
section H.3.8).
Needless to say, even electoral support for the Bolsheviks should
not and cannot be equated to working class management of society.
Echoing Marx and Engels at their most reductionist (see
section H.3.9), Lenin stressed that the state was "an organ or machine
for the subjection of one class by another . . . when the State
has become proletarian, when it has become a machine for the
domination of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, then we shall
fully and unreservedly for a strong government and centralism."
[Op. Cit., p. 75] The notions that the state could have interests
of its own, that it is not simply an instrument of class rule but
rather minority class rule are nowhere to be found. The
implications of this simplistic analysis had severe ramifications
for the Russian Revolution and Trotskyist explanations of both
Stalinism and its rise.
Which brings us to the second issue. It is clear that by considering
the state simply as an instrument of class rule Lenin could downplay,
even ignore, such important questions of how the working class
can "rule" society, how it can be a "ruling" class. Blinded by the
notion that a state could not be anything but an instrument
of class rule, the Bolsheviks simply were able to justify any
limitation of working class democracy and freedom and argue that
it had no impact on whether the Bolshevik regime was really a
"dictatorship of the proletariat" or not. This can be seen from
Lenin's polemic with German Social-Democrat Karl Kautsky, where
he glibly stated that "[t]he form of government, has absolutely
nothing to so with it." [Collected Works, vol. 28, p. 238]
Yet the idea that there is a difference between who rules in a
revolutionary situation and how they rule is a key one, and
one raised by the anarchists against Marxism. After all, if the
working class is politically expropriated how can you maintain
that a regime is remotely "proletarian"? Ultimately, the working
class can only "rule" society through its collective participation
in decision making (social, economic and "political"). If working
class people are not managing their own affairs, if they have
delegated that power to a few party leaders then they are not
a ruling class and could never be. While the bourgeoisie can,
and has, ruled economically under an actual dictatorship, the
same cannot be said to be the case with the working class. Every
class society is marked by a clear division between order takers
and order givers. To think that such a division can be implemented
in a socialist revolution and for it to remain socialist is pure
naivety. As the Bolshevik revolution showed, representative
government is the first step in the political expropriation of
the working class from control over their fate.
This can best be seen by Trotsky's confused analyses of Stalinism.
He simply could not understand the nature of Stalinism with the
simplistic analytical tools he inherited from mainstream Marxism
and Bolshevism. Thus we find him arguing in 1933 that:
"The dictatorship of a class does not mean by a long shot
that its entire mass always participates in the management
of the state. This we have seen, first of all, in the case
of the propertied classes. The nobility ruled through the
monarchy before which the noble stood on his knees. The
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie took on comparatively
developed democratic forms only under the conditions
of capitalist upswing when the ruling class had nothing
to fear. Before our own eyes, democracy has been supplanted
in Germany by Hitler's autocracy, with all the traditional
bourgeois parties smashed to smithereens. Today, the
German bourgeoisie does not rule directly; politically
it is placed under complete subjection to Hitler and his
bands. Nevertheless, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie
remains inviolate in Germany, because all the conditions
of its social hegemony have been preserved and strengthened.
By expropriating the bourgeoisie politically, Hitler saved
it, even if temporarily, from economic expropriation. The
fact that the bourgeoisie was compelled to resort to the
fascist regime testifies to the fact that its hegemony was
endangered but not at all that it had fallen." [Trotsky,
The Class Nature Of The Soviet State]
Yet Trotsky is confusing the matter. He is comparing the
actions of class society with those a socialist revolution.
While a minority class need not "participate" en mass the
question arises does this apply to the transition from class
society to a classless one? Can the working class really
can be "expropriated" politically and still remain "the
ruling class"? Moreover, Trotsky fails to note that the
working class was economically and politically
expropriated under Stalinism as well. This is unsurprising,
as both forms of expropriation had occurred when he and Lenin
held the reins of state power. Yet Trotsky's confused
ramblings do serve a purpose in showing how the Marxist
theory of the state can be used to rationalise the
replacement of popular power by party power. With such
ideological baggage, can it be a surprise that the
Bolshevik replacement of workers' power by party power
could be a revolutionary goal? Ironically, the Marxist
theory of the state as an instrument of class rule helped
ensure that the Russian working class did not become the
ruling class post-October. Rather, it ensured that the
Bolshevik party did.
To conclude, by its redunctionist logic, the Marxist theory
of the state ensured that the substitution of popular power
by party power could go ahead and, moreover, be justified
ideologically. The first steps towards party dictatorship
can be found in such apparently "libertarian" works as
Lenin's "State and Revolution" with its emphasis on
"representation" and "centralisation." The net effect
of this was to centralise power into fewer and fewer hands,
replacing the essential constructive working class
participation and self-activity required by a social
revolution with top-down rule by a few party leaders.
Such rule could not avoid becoming bureaucratised and
coming into conflict with the real aspirations and interests
of those it claimed to represent. In such circumstances,
in a conflict between the "workers' state" and the actual
workers the Marxist theory of the state, combined with
the assumptions of vanguardism, made the shift to party
dictatorship inevitable. As we discussed in
section 3 of the appendix on
"What caused the degeneration of the Russian Revolution?",
authoritarian tendencies had surfaced before the civil war
began.
The strange paradox of Leninism, namely that the theoretical
dictatorship of the proletariat was, in practice, a dictatorship
over the proletariat comes as no surprise. In spite of Lenin
announcing "all power to the soviets" he remained committed to
a disciplined party wielding centralised power. This regime
soon expropriated the soviets while calling the subsequent
regime "Soviet." Rather that create the authoritarian tendencies
of the Bolshevik state the "objective factors" facing Lenin's
regime simply increased their impact. The preconditions for
the minority rule which the civil war intensified to extreme
levels already existed within Marxist theory. Consequently,
a Leninist revolution which avoided the (inevitable) problems
facing a revolution would still create some kind of class society
simply because it reproduces minority rule by creating a "workers'
state" as its first step. Sadly, Marxist theory confuses popular
self-government with a state so ensuring the substitution of rule
by a few party leaders for the popular participation required to
ensure a successful revolution.
We have discussed Engels' infamous diatribe against anarchism
already (see
section H.4 and subsequent sections). Here we
discuss how its caricature of anarchism helped disarm the
Bolsheviks theoretically to the dangers of their own actions,
so helping to undermine the socialist potential of the Russian
revolution. While the Marxist theory of the state, with its
ahistoric and ambiguous use of the word "state" undermined
popular autonomy and power in favour of party power, Engels'
essay "On Authority" helped undermine popular self-management.
Simply put, Engels essay contained the germs from which Lenin
and Trotsky's support for one-man management flowed. He provided
the Marxist orthodoxy required to undermine real working class
power by confusing all forms of organisation with "authority" and
equating the necessity of self-discipline with "subordination"
to one will. Engels' infamous essay helped Lenin to destroy
self-management in the workplace and replace it with appointed
"one-man management" armed with "dictatorial powers."
For Lenin and Trotsky, familiar with Engels' "On Authority,"
it was a truism that any form of organisation was based on
"authoritarianism" and, consequently, it did not really matter
how that "authority" was constituted. Thus Marxism's agnostic
attitude to the patterns of domination and subordination within
society was used to justify one-man management and party
dictatorship. Indeed, "Soviet socialist democracy and individual
management and dictatorship are in no way contradictory . . .
the will of a class may sometimes be carried by a dictator, who
sometimes does more alone and is frequently more necessary."
[Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 30, p. 476]
Like Engels, Lenin defended the principle of authority. The
dictatorship of the Party over the proletariat found its
apology in this principle, thoroughly grounded in the practice
of bureaucracy and modern factory production. Authority,
hierarchy, and the need for submission and domination is
inevitable given the current mode of production, they argued.
And no foreseeable change in social relations could ever
overcome this blunt necessity. As such, it was (fundamentally)
irrelevant how a workplace is organised as, no matter what,
it would be "authoritarian." Thus "one-man management" would
be, basically, the same as worker's self-management via an
elected factory committee.
For Engels, any form of joint activity required as its
"first condition" a "dominant will that settles all
subordinate questions, whether this will is represented
by a single delegate or a committee charged with the
execution of the resolutions of the majority of persons
interested. In either case there is very pronounced
authority." Thus the "necessity of authority, and of
imperious authority at that." Collective life, he
stressed, required "a certain authority, no matter
how delegated" and "a certain subordination, are
things which, independently of all social organisation,
are imposed upon us." [The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 732]
Lenin was aware of these arguments, even quoting from this
essay in his State and Revolution. Thus he was aware
that for Engels, collective decisions meant "the will of
the single individual will always have to subordinate
itself, which means that questions are settled in an
authoritarian way." Thus there was no difference if
"they are settled by decision of a delegate placed at
the head of each branch of labour or, if possible, by
a majority vote." The more advanced the technology,
the greater the "despotism": "The automatic machinery
of a big factory is much more despotic than the small
capitalist who employ workers ever have been." [Op. Cit.,
p. 731] Thus Engels had used the modern factory system of
mass production as a direct analogy to argue against the
anarchist call for workers' councils and self-management
in production, for workers' autonomy and participation.
Like Engels, Lenin stressed the necessity of central
authority in industry.
It can be argued that it was this moment that ensured the
creation of state capitalism under the Bolsheviks. This
is the moment in Marxist theory when the turn from economics
to technics, from proletarian control to technocracy, from
workers' self-management to appointed state management
was ensured. Henceforth the end of any critique of alienation
in mainstream Marxism was assured. Submission to technique under
hierarchical authority effectively prevents active participation
in the social production of values. And there was no alternative.
As noted in section 8 of the appendix
"What happened during the Russian Revolution?").
and section H.3.14, during 1917 Lenin did
not favour workers' self-management of production. He raised
the idea of "workers' control" after the workers spontaneously
raised the idea and practice themselves during the revolution.
Moreover, he interpreted that slogan in his own way, placing
it within a statist context and within institutions inherited
from capitalism (see
section H.3.12). Once in power, it was
(unsurprisingly) his vision of socialism and workers' control
that was implemented, not the workers' factory committees.
The core of that vision he repeatedly stressed had been
raised before the October revolution.
This vision can be best seen in The Immediate Tasks of the
Soviet Government, written by Lenin and published on the 25th
of April 1918. This occurred before the start of the civil war
and, indeed, he starts by arguing that "[t]hanks to the peace
which has been achieved" the Bolsheviks had "gained an opportunity
to concentrate its efforts for a while on the most important
and most difficult aspect of the socialist revolution, namely
the task of organisation." The Bolsheviks, who had "managed
to complete the conquest of power," now faced "the principal
task of convincing people" and doing "practical organisational
work." Only when this was done "will it be possible to say
that Russia has become not only a Soviet, but also a
socialist, republic." [The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet
Government, p. 2 and p. 8]
Sadly, this "organisation" was riddled with authoritarianism
and was fundamentally top-down in nature. His "socialist"
vision was simply state capitalism (see section 10 of the appendix "What happened during the Russian Revolution?"). However,
what interests us here is that his arguments to justify the
"socialist" policies he presented are similar to those put
forward by Engels in "On Authority." As such, we can only
reach the following conclusions. Firstly, that the "state
capitalist" vision of socialism imposed upon Russia by the
Bolsheviks was what they had always intended to introduce.
It was their limited support for workers' control in 1917
that was atypical and not part of their tradition, not
their policies once in power (as modern day Leninists
assert). Secondly, that this vision had its roots in classical
Marxism, specifically Engels' "On Authority" and the
identification of socialism with nationalised property
(see section H.3.13 for more on this).
That Engels diatribe had a negative impact on the development
of the Russian revolution can easily be seen from Lenin's
arguments. For example, Lenin argues that the "tightening
of discipline" and "harmonious organisation" calls "for
coercion -- coercion precisely in the form of dictatorship."
He did not object to granting "individual executives dictatorial
power (or 'unlimited' powers)" and did not think "the appointment
of individual, dictators with unlimited power" was incompatible
with "the fundamental principles of the Soviet government."
After all, "the history of revolutionary movements" had "shown"
that "the dictatorship of individuals was very often the
expression, the vehicle, the channel of the dictatorship of
revolutionary classes." He notes that "[u]ndoubtably, the
dictatorship of individuals was compatible with bourgeois
democracy." [Op. Cit., p. 28 and p. 32] It would be churlish
to note that previous revolutionary movements had not been
socialist in nature and did not aim to abolish classes.
In such cases, the government appointing people with dictatorial
powers would not have harmed the nature of the revolution,
which was transferring power from one minority class to
another.
Lenin mocked the "exceedingly poor arguments" of those who objected,
saying that they "demand of us a higher democracy than bourgeois
democracy and say: personal dictatorship is absolutely incompatible
with your, Bolshevik (i.e. not bourgeois, but socialist) Soviet
democracy." As the Bolsheviks were "not anarchists," he admitted
the need "coercion" in the "transition from capitalism to
socialism,"
its form being determined "by the degree of development of the
given revolutionary class, and also by special circumstances." In
general, he stressed, there was "absolutely no contradiction in
principle between Soviet (that is, socialist) democracy and the
exercise of dictatorial powers by individuals." [Op. Cit., pp. 32-3
and p. 33] Which is, of course, sophistry as dictatorship by a
few people in some aspects of live will erode democracy in others.
For example, being subject to the economic power of the capitalist
during work harms the individual and reduces their ability to
participate in other aspects of social life. Why should being
subject to "red" bosses be any different?
In particular, Lenin argued that "individual dictatorial power"
was required because "large-scale machine industry" (which is
the "foundation of socialism") calls for "absolute and strict
unity of will, which directs the joint labours of hundreds,
thousands and tens of thousands of people. . . But how can
strict unity of will be ensured? By thousands subordinating
their will to the will of one." He reiterated that the
"unquestioning subordination to a single will is absolutely
necessary for the success of processes organised on the pattern
of large-scale machine industry." The people must "unquestioningly
obey the single will of the leaders of labour." And so it was
a case (for the workers, at least) of "[o]bedience, and
unquestioning obedience at that, during work to the one-man
decisions of Soviet directors, of the dictators elected or
appointed by Soviet institutions, vested with dictatorial
powers." [Op. Cit., p. 33, p. 34 and p. 44]
The parallels with Engels' "On Authority" could not be clearer,
as are the fallacies of Lenin's assertions (see, for example,
section H.4.4). Lenin, like Engels, uses the example of modern
industry to bolster his arguments. Yet the net effect of Lenin's
argument was to eliminate working class economic power at the
point of production. Instead of socialist social relationships,
Lenin imposed capitalist ones. Indeed, no capitalist would
disagree with Lenin's workplace regime -- they try to create
such a regime by breaking unions and introducing technologies
and techniques which allow them to control the workers.
Unsurprisingly, Lenin also urged the introduction of two
such techniques, namely "piece-work" and "applying much
of what is scientific and progressive in the Taylor system."
[Op. Cit., pp. 23-4] As Trotskyist Tony Cliff reminds us,
"the employers have at their disposal a number of effective
methods of disrupting th[e] unity [of workers as a class]. Once
of the most important of these is the fostering of competition
between workers by means of piece-work systems." He notes that
these were used by the Nazis and the Stalinists "for the same
purpose." [State Capitalism in Russia, pp. 18-9] Obviously
piece-work is different when Lenin introduces it! Similarly,
when Trotsky notes that "[b]lind obedience is not a thing to
be proud of in a revolutionary," it is somewhat different when
Lenin calls upon workers to do so (or, for that matter, Trotsky
himself when in power -- see
section 6 for Trotsky's
radically different perspective on blind obedience of the
worker to "his" state in 1920!). [Terrorism and Communism,
p. xlvii]
The economic dominance of the bourgeoisie ensures the political
dispossession of the working class. Why expect the introduction
of capitalist social relations in production to have different
outcomes just because Lenin was the head of the government? In
the words of libertarian socialist Maurice Brinton:
"We hold that the 'relations of production' -- the relations
which individuals or groups enter into with one another in
the process of producing wealth - are the essential foundations
of any society. A certain pattern of relations of production
is the common denominator of all class societies. This pattern
is one in which the producer does not dominate the means of
production but on the contrary both is 'separated from them'
and from the products of his own labour. In all class societies
the producer is in a position of subordination to those who
manage the productive process. Workers' management of
production -- implying as it does the total domination of
the producer over the productive process -- is not for us
a marginal matter. It is the core of our politics. It is
the only means whereby authoritarian (order-giving,
order-taking) relations in production can be transcended
and a free, communist or anarchist, society introduced.
"We also hold that the means of production may change hands
(passing for instance from private hands into those of a
bureaucracy, collectively owning them) with out this
revolutionising the relations of production. Under such
circumstances -- and whatever the formal status of property
-- the society is still a class society for production is
still managed by an agency other than the producers
themselves. Property relations, in other words, do not
necessarily reflect the: relations of production. They
may serve to mask them -- and in fact they often have."
[The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. vii-viii]
The net effect of Lenin's arguments, as anarchist Peter Arshinov
noted a few years later, was that the "fundamental fact" of the
Bolshevik revolution was "that the workers and the peasant
labourers remained within the earlier situation of 'working
classes' -- producers managed by authority from above." He
stressed that Bolshevik political and economic ideas may
have "remov[ed] the workers from the hands of individual
capitalists" but they "delivered them to the yet more rapacious
hands of a single ever-present capitalist boss, the State. The
relations between the workers and this new boss are the same as
earlier relations between labour and capital . . . Wage labour
has remained what it was before, expect that it has taken on
the character of an obligation to the State. . . . It is clear
that in all this we are dealing with a simple substitution of
State capitalism for private capitalism." [The History of the
Makhnovist Movement, p. 35 and p. 71] Moreover, Lenin's position
failed to understand that unless workers have power at the point
of production, they will soon loose it in society as a whole.
Which, of course, they soon did in Bolshevik Russia, even in
the limited form of electing a "revolutionary" government.
So while the causes of the failure of the Russian Revolution were
many fold, the obvious influence of Engels' "On Authority" on
the fate of the workers' control movement should be noted. After
all, Engels' argument confuses the issues that Bakunin and other
anarchists were trying to raise (namely on the nature of the
organisations we create and our relationships with others). If,
as Engels' argues, all organisation is "authoritarian," then does
this mean that there no real difference between organisational
structures? Is a dictatorship just the same as a self-managed
group, as they are both organisations and so both "authoritarian"?
If so, surely that means the kinds of organisation we create
are irrelevant and what really matters is state ownership?
Such logic can only lead to the perspective that working class
self-management of production is irrelevant to socialism and,
unfortunately, the experience of the Russian Revolution tends to
suggest that for mainstream Marxism this is the case. The
Bolsheviks imposed distinctly authoritarian social structures
while arguing that they were creating socialism.
Like Engels, the Bolsheviks defended the principle of authority.
The dictatorship of the Party over the proletariat in the
workplace (and, indeed, elsewhere) ultimately found its apology
in this principle, thoroughly grounded in the practice
of bureaucracy and modern factory production. Authority,
hierarchy, and the need for submission and domination is
inevitable, given the current mode of production, they argued.
And, as Engels had stressed, no foreseeable change in social
relations could ever overcome this blunt necessity. As such,
it was (fundamentally) irrelevant for the leading Bolsheviks
how a workplace is organised as, no matter what, it would
be "authoritarian." Thus "one-man management" would be,
basically, the same as worker's self-management via an
elected factory committee. As Trotsky made clear in 1920, for
the Bolsheviks the "dictatorship of the proletariat is expressed
in the abolition of private property in the means of production,
in the supremacy over the whole Soviet mechanism of the
collective will of the workers [i.e. the party, which Trotsky
cheerfully admits is exercising a party dictatorship], and not
at all in the form in which individual economic enterprises
are administered." Thus, it "would be a most crying error to
confuse the question as to the supremacy of the proletariat
with the question of boards of workers at the head of the
factories." [Terrorism and Communism, p. 162]
By equating "organisation" with "authority" (i.e. hierarchy)
and dismissing the importance of revolutionising the social
relationships people create between themselves, Engels opened
the way for the Bolsheviks' advocacy of "one-man management." His
essay is at the root of mainstream Marxism's agnostic attitude
to the patterns of domination and subordination within society
and was used to justify one-man management. After all, if
Engels was right, then it did not matter how the workplace
was organised. It would, inherently, be "authoritarian" and
so what mattered, therefore, was who owned property, not
how the workplace was run. Perhaps, then, "On Authority"
was a self-fulfilling prophecy -- by seeing any form
of organisation and any form of advanced technology
as needing hierarchy, discipline and obedience, as being
"authoritarian," it ensured that mainstream Marxism
became blinded to the key question of how society was
organised. After all, if "despotism" was a fact of life within
industry regardless of how the wider society was organised, then
it does not matter if "one-man management" replaces workers'
self-management. Little wonder then that the continued alienation
of the worker was widespread long before Stalin took power and,
more importantly, before the civil war started.
As such, the dubious inheritance of classical Marxism had
started to push the Bolshevik revolution down an authoritarian
path and create economic structures and social relationships
which were in no way socialist and, moreover, laid the
foundations for Stalinism. Even if the civil war had not
occurred, capitalist social relationships would have been
dominant within "socialist" Russia -- with the only difference
being that rather than private capitalism it would have been
state capitalism. As Lenin admitted, incidentally. It is
doubtful that this state capitalism would have been made to
serve "the whole people" as Lenin naively believed.
In another way Engels identification of organisation with
authority affected the outcome of the revolution. As any
form of organisation involved, for Engels, the domination
of individuals and, as such, "authoritarian" then the nature
of the socialist state was as irrelevant as the way
workplaces were run. As both party dictatorship and
soviet democracy meant that the individual was "dominated"
by collective decisions, so both were "authoritarian."
As such, the transformation of the soviet state into a
party dictatorship did not fundamentally mean a change
for the individuals subject to it. Little wonder that
no leading Bolshevik called the end of soviet democracy
and its replacement by party dictatorship as a "retreat"
or even as something to be worried about (indeed, they
all argued the opposite, namely that party dictatorship
was essential and not an issue to be worried about).
Perhaps this analogy by the SWP's Tony Cliff of the relationship
between the party and the working class provides an insight:
"In essence the dictatorship of the proletariat does not
represent a combination of abstract, immutable elements
like democracy and centralism, independent of time and
space. The actual level of democracy, as well as centralism,
depends on three basic factors: 1. the strength of the
proletariat; 2. the material and cultural legacy left to
it by the old regime; and 3. the strength of capitalist
resistance. The level of democracy feasible must be indirect
proportion to the first two factors, and in inverse
proportion to the third. The captain of an ocean liner can
allow football to be played on his vessel; on a tiny raft
in a stormy sea the level of tolerance is far lower."
[Lenin, vol. 3, p. 179]
Ignoring the obvious points (such as comparing working class
freedom and democracy to a game!), we can see shades of Engels
in Cliff's words. Let us not forget that Engels argued that
"a ship on the high seas" at a "time of danger" required
"the necessity of authority, and of imperious authority at
that." [Op. Cit., p. 732] Here Cliff is placing the party
into the Captain's role and the workers as the crew. The
Captain, in Engels argument, exercised "imperious authority."
In Cliff's, the party decides the freedoms which working
class people are allowed to have -- and so subjects them
to its "imperious authority."
Little wonder Bolshevism failed. By this simple analogy
Cliff shows the authoritarian essence of Bolshevism and
who really has "all power" under that system. Like the
crew and passengers dominated by the will of the captain,
the working class under Leninism will be dominated by the party.
It does not bode well that Cliff thinks that democracy can be
"feasible" in some circumstances, but not others and it is
up to those in power (i.e. the party leaders) to determine
when it was. In his rush to justify Bolshevik party dictatorship
in terms of "objective conditions" he clearly forgot his
earlier comments that the "liberation of the working class
can only be achieved through the action of the working class.
Hence one can have a revolution with more or less violence,
with more or less suppression of civil rights of the
bourgeoisie and its hangers-on [a general catch-all category
which, if Bolshevik practice is anything to go by, can include
rebel workers, indeed the whole working class!], with more
or less political freedom, but one cannot gave a revolution,
as the history of Russia conclusively demonstratives, without
workers' democracy -- even if restricted and distorted.
Socialist advance must be gauged by workers' freedom, by
their power to shape their own destiny . . . Without workers'
democracy the immediate means leads to a very different
end, to an end that is prefigured in these same means."
[Op. Cit., p. 110] Obviously if Lenin and Trotsky are the
captains of the ship of state, such considerations are
less important. When it is Lenin wielding "imperious
authority" then workers' democracy can be forgotten and
the regime remain a "workers' state"!
By ignoring the key issue Bakunin and other anarchists drew
attention to by attacking "authority" (and let us not forget
that by that they meant hierarchical organisations in which
power is concentrated at the top in a few hands -- see
section H.4), Engels opened up the way of seeing democratic
decision as being less than important. This is not to
suggest that Engels favoured dictatorship. Rather we are
suggesting that by confusing two radically different forms
of organisation as self-management and hierarchy he blunted
latter Marxists to the importance of participation and
collective decision making from below. After all, if all
organisation is "authoritarian" then it matters little,
in the end, how it is structured. Dictatorship,
representative democracy and self-management were all
equally "authoritarian" and so the issues raised by
anarchism can safely be ignored (namely that electing
bosses does not equate to freedom). Thus the Bolshevik
willingness to equate their dictatorship with rule by
the working class is not such a surprise after all.
To conclude, rather than the anti-authoritarians not knowing
"what they are talking about," "creating nothing but confusion,"
"betraying the movement of the proletariat" and "serv[ing] the
reaction," it was Engels' essay that aided the Bolshevik
counter-revolution and helped, in its own small way, to lay
the foundations for Leninist tyranny and state capitalism.
[Engels, Op. Cit., p. 733] Ultimately, Engels "On Authority"
helped give Lenin the ideological premises by which to
undermine workers' economic power during the revolution and
recreate capitalist social relations and call it "socialism."
His ill thought out diatribe had ramifications even he would
never have guessed (but were obvious at the time to
libertarians). His use of the modern factory system to
argue against the anarchist call for workers' councils,
federalism and workers' autonomy, for participation, for
self-management, became the basis for re-imposing
capitalist relations of production in revolutionary Russia.
As discussed in
section H.3.2, Marx and Engels had left their
followers which a contradictory legacy as regards "socialism
from below." On the one hand, their praise for the Paris Commune
and its libertarian ideas pointed to a participatory democracy
run from below. On the other, Marx's comments during the German
Revolution in 1850 that the workers must "strive for . . . the
most determined centralisation of power in the hands of the state
authority" because "the path of revolutionary activity" can
"proceed only from the centre" suggests a top-down approach.
He stressed that centralisation of power was essential to overcome
local autonomy, which would allow "every village, every town and
every province" to put "a new obstacle in the path" the revolution
due to "local and provincial obstinacy." [Marx-Engels Reader,
p. 509]
Building upon this contradictory legacy, Lenin unambiguously
stressed the "from above" aspect of it (see
section H.3.3 for
details). The only real exception to this perspective occurred
in 1917, when Lenin was trying to win mass support for his
party. However, even this support for democracy from below
was always tempered by reminding the reader that the Bolsheviks
stood for centralisation and strong government once they were
in power (see section 7).
Once in power, the promises of 1917 were quickly forgotten.
Unsurprisingly, modern day Leninists argue that this was
due to the difficult circumstances facing the Bolsheviks at
the time. They argue that the words of 1917 represent the
true democratic vision of Bolshevism. Anarchists are not
impressed. After all, for an idea to be useful it must be
practical -- even in "exceptional circumstances." If the
Bolshevik vision is not robust enough to handle the problems
that have affected every revolution then we have to question
the validity of that vision or the strength of commitment
its supporters hold it.
Given this, the question becomes which of these two aspects of
Marxism was considered its "essence" by Lenin and the Bolsheviks.
Obviously, it is hard to isolate the real Bolshevik vision of
democracy from the influence of "objective factors." However,
we can get a taste by looking at how the Bolsheviks acted and
argued during the first six months in power. During this period,
the problems facing the revolution were hard but not as bad as
those facing it after the Czech revolt at the end of May, 1918.
Particularly after March, 1918, the Bolsheviks were in a position
to start constructive work as in the middle of that month Lenin
claimed that the "Soviet Government has triumphed in the Civil
War." [quoted by Maximoff, The Guillotine at Work, p. 53]
So the question as to whether the Bolsheviks were forced into
authoritarian and hierarchical methods by the practical necessities
of the civil war or whether all this was inherent in Leninism all
along, and the natural product of Leninist ideology, can be answered
by looking at the record of the Bolsheviks prior to the civil war.
>From this we can ascertain the effect of the civil war. And the
obvious conclusion is that the record of the initial months of
Bolshevik rule point to a less than democratic approach which
suggests that authoritarian policies were inherent in Leninism
and, as such, pointed the revolution into a path were further
authoritarian policies were not only easy to implement, but had
to be as alternative options had been eliminated by previous
policies. Moreover, Bolshevik ideology itself made such policies
easy to accept and to justify.
As discussed in section 6 of the appendix
"What happened during the Russian Revolution?",it was during this period that
the Bolsheviks started to gerrymander soviets and disband any
they lost elections to. As we indicate in
section 9 of the appendix
"What happened during the Russian
Revolution?", they
undermined the factory committees, stopping them federating
and basically handed the factories to the state bureaucracy.
Lenin argued for and implemented one-man management, piecework,
Taylorism and other things Stalinism is condemned for (see
section 3, for example). In the army, Trotsky disbanded
the soldier committees and elected officers by decree.
How Trotsky defended this policy of appointing officers is
significant. It mirrors Lenin's argument in favour of
appointed one-man management and, as such, reflects the
basic Bolshevik vision of democracy. By looking at his
argument we can see how the Bolshevik vision of democracy
fatality undermined the Russian Revolution and its socialist
content. The problems of the civil war simply deepened the
abscess in democracy created by Lenin and Trotsky in the
spring of 1918.
Trotsky acknowledged that that "the soldier-workers and
soldier-peasants" needed "to elect commanders for themselves"
in the Tzarist army "not [as] military chiefs, but simply
[as] representatives who could guard them against attacks
of counter-revolutionary classes." However, in the new Red
Army this was not needed as it was the "workers' and
peasants' Soviets, i.e. the same classes which compose the
army" which is building it. He blandly asserted that "[h]ere
no internal struggle is possible." To illustrate his point
he pointed to the trade unions. "The metal workers," he
noted, "elect their committee, and the committee finds a
secretary, a clerk, and a number of other persons who are
necessary. Does it ever happen that the workers should
say: 'Why are our clerks and treasurers appointed, and
not elected?' No, no intelligent workers will say so."
[Leon Trotsky Speaks, p. 112-3]
Thus in less than six months, Lenin's call in "State and
Revolution" that "[a]ll officials, without exception,
[would be] elected and subject to recall at any time"
was dismissed as the demand that "no intelligent workers"
would raise! [Essential Works of Lenin, p. 302] But,
then again, Trotsky was in the process of destroying
another apparent "principle" of Leninism, namely (to
quote, like Lenin, Marx) "the suppression of the standing
army, and the substitution for it of the armed people."
[quoted by Lenin, Op. Cit., p. 300]
Trotsky continues his argument. The Trade union committee,
he asserts, would say "You yourselves have chosen the
committee. If you don't like us, dismiss us, but once you
have entrusted us with the direction of the union, then
give us the possibility of choosing the clerk or the
cashier, since we are better able to judge in the matter than
you, and if our way of conducting business is bad, then
throw us out and elect another committee." After this
defence of elected dictatorship, he states that the
"Soviet government is the same as the committee of a
trade union. It is elected by the workers and peasants,
and you can at the All-Russian Congress of the Soviets,
at any moment you like, dismiss that government and
appoint another." Until that happens, he was happy to
urge blind obedience by the sovereign people to their
servants: "But once you have appointed it, you must give
it the right to choose the technical specialists, the clerks,
the secretaries in the broad sense of the word, and in military
affairs, in particular." He tried to calm the nerves of those
who could see the obvious problems with this argument by
asking whether it was "possible for the Soviet government
to appoint military specialists against the interests of
the labouring and peasant masses?" [Op. Cit., p. 113]
And the answer to that question is, of course, an empathic
yes. Even looking at his own analogy, namely that of a
trade union committee, it is obvious that an elected body
can have interests separate from and in opposition to those
who elected it. The history of trade unionism is full of
examples of committees betraying the membership of the unions.
And, of course, the history of the Soviet government under
Lenin and Trotsky (never mind Stalin!) shows that just because
it was once elected by a majority of the working people
does not mean it will act in their best interests.
Trotsky even went one better. "The army is now only in the process
of formation," he noted. "How could the soldiers who have just
entered the army choose the chiefs! Have they have any vote to
go by? They have none. And therefore elections are impossible."
[Op. Cit., p. 113] If only the Tsar had thought of that one!
If he had, he would still be in power. And, needless to say,
Trotsky did not apply that particular logic to himself. After
all, he had no experience of holding governmental office or
building an army (or even being in combat). Nor did any of the
other Bolshevik leaders. By the logic of his argument, not only
should the workers not been allowed to vote for a soviet
government, he and his fellow Bolsheviks should not have
assumed power in 1917. But, clearly, sauce for the goose is
definitely not sauce for the gander.
For all his talk that the masses could replace the Bolsheviks
at the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Trotsky failed to
realise that these proposals (and other ones like it) ensured
that this was unlikely to happen. Even assuming that the
Bolsheviks had not gerrymandered and disbanded soviets, the
fact is that the Bolshevik vision of "democracy" effectively
hollowed out the grassroots participation required to make
democracy at the top anything more than a fig-leaf for party
power. He honestly seemed to believe that eliminating mass
participation in other areas of society would have no effect
on the levels of participation in soviet elections. Would
people subjected to one-man management in the workplace and
in the army really be truly free and able to vote for parties
which had not appointed their bosses? Could workers who were
disenfranchised economically and socially remain in political
power (assuming you equate voting a handful of leaders into
power with "political power")? And does being able to elect
a representative every quarter to the All-Russian congress
really mean that the working class was really in charge of
society? Of course not.
This vision of top-down "democracy" can, of course, be traced
back to Marx's arguments of 1850 and Lenin's comments that
the "organisational principle of revolutionary Social-Democracy"
was "to proceed from the top downward." (see sections
H.3.2 and
H.3.3). By equating centralised, top-down decision making by an
elected government with "democracy," the Bolsheviks had the
ideological justification to eliminate the functional democracy
associated with the factory committees and soldiers committees.
In place of workers' and soldiers' direct democracy and
self-management, the Bolsheviks appointed managers and officers
and justified because a workers' party was in power. After all,
had not the masses elected the Bolsheviks into power? This
became the means by which real democracy was eliminated in
area after area of Russian working class life. Needless to
say, a state which eliminates functional democracy in the
grassroots will not stay democratic in any meaningful sense
for long. At best, it will be like a bourgeois republic with
purely elections where people elect a party to misrepresent
them every four or so years while real economic, political
and social power rests in the hands of a few. At worse, it
would be a dictatorship with "elections" whose results are
known before hand.
The Leninist vision of "democracy" is seen purely as a means of
placing the party into power. Thus power in society shifts to
the top, to the leaders of the centralised party in charge of
the centralised state. The workers' become mere electors rather
than actual controllers of the revolution and are expected to
carry out the orders of the party without comment. In other
words, a decidedly bourgeois vision of "democracy." Anarchists,
in contrast, seek to dissolve power back into the hands of
society and empower the individual by giving them a
direct say in the revolution through their workplace and
community assemblies and their councils and conferences.
This vision was not a new development. Far from it. While,
ironically enough, Lenin's and Trotsky's support for the
appointment of officers/managers can be refuted by looking
at Lenin's State and Revolution, the fact is that the
undemocratic perspectives they are based on can be found in
Lenin's What is to be Done?. This suggests that his 1917
arguments were the aberration and against the true essence
of Leninism, not his and Trotsky's policies once they were
in power (as Leninists like to argue).
Forgetting that he had argued against "primitive democracy" in
What is to Be Done?, Lenin had lambasted the opportunists and
"present Kautskyists" for "repeat[ing] the vulgar bourgeois jeers
at 'primitive' democracy." Now, in 1917, it was a case that "the
transition from capitalism to socialism is impossible without
some 'reversion' to 'primitive' democracy (how else can the
majority, even the whole population, proceed to discharge state
functions?)" [Op. Cit., p. 302] Very true. As Leninism in power
showed, the conscious elimination of "primitive democracy" in
the army and workplace ensured that socialism was "impossible."
And this elimination was not justified in terms of "difficult"
circumstances but rather in terms of principle and the inability
of working people to manage their own affairs directly.
Particularly ironic, given Trotsky's trade union committee analogy
was Lenin's comment that "Bernstein [the arch revisionist and
reformist] combats 'primitive democracy' . . . To prove that
'primitive democracy' is worthless, Bernstein refers to the
experience of the British trade unions, as interpreted by the
Webbs. Seventy years of development . . . convinced the trade
unions that primitive democracy was useless, and they substituted
ordinary democracy, i.e. parliamentarism, combined with bureaucracy,
for it." Lenin replied that because the trade unions operated
"in absolute capitalist slavery" a "number of concessions to
the prevailing evil, violence, falsehood, exclusion of the poor
from the affairs of the 'higher' administration 'cannot be avoided.'
Under socialism much of the 'primitive' democracy will inevitably
be revived, since, for the first time in history of civilised
society, the mass of the population will rise to independent
participation, not only in voting and elections, but also in
the everyday administration of affairs" [Op. Cit., p. 361]
Obviously things looked a bit different once he and his fellow
Bolshevik leaders were in power. Then the exclusion of the
poor from the affairs of the "higher" administration was
seen as normal practice, as proven by the practice of the
trade unions! And as we note in
section H.3.8, this "exclusion"
was taken as a key lesson of the revolution and built into the
Leninist theory of the state.
This development was not unexpected. After all, as we noted in
section H.5.5, over a decade before Lenin had been less than
enthralled by "primitive democracy" and more in agreement with
Bernstein than he lets on in State and Revolution. In What
is to Be Done?, he based his argument for centralised, top-down
party organisation on the experiences of the labour movement in
democratic capitalist regimes. He quotes the same book by
the Webb's to defend his position. He notes that "in the
first period of existence in their unions, the British workers
thought it was an indispensable sign of democracy for all members
to do all the work of managing the unions." This involved "all
questions [being] decided by the votes of all the members" and
all "official duties" being "fulfilled by all the members in
turn." He dismisses "such a conception of democracy" as
"absurd" and "historical experience" made them "understand
the necessity for representative institutions" and "full-time
professional officials." Ironically, Lenin records that in
Russia the "'primitive' conception of democracy" existed in
two groups, the "masses of the students and workers" and the
"Economists of the Bernstein persuasion." [Op. Cit., pp. 162-3]
Thus Trotsky's autocratic and top-down vision of democracy has
its roots within Leninism. Rather than being forced upon the
Bolsheviks by difficult circumstances, the eroding of grassroots,
functional ("primitive") democracy was at the core of Bolshevism.
Lenin's arguments in 1917 were the exception, not his practice
after he seized power.
This fundamentally undemocratic perspective can be found today in
modern Leninism. As well as defending the Bolshevik dictatorship
during the civil war, modern Leninists support the continuation of
party dictatorship after its end. In particular, they support the
Bolshevik repression of the Kronstadt rebellion (see appendix
"What was the Kronstadt Rebellion?"
for more details). As Trotsky put it in 1937, if the Kronstadt
demand for soviet elections had been implemented then "to free
the soviets from the leadership [sic!] of the Bolsheviks would
have meant within a short time to demolish the soviets themselves
. . . Social-Revolutionary-anarchist soviets would serve only as
a bridge from the proletarian dictatorship [sic!] to capitalist
restoration." He generalised this example, by pointing to the
"experience of the Russian soviets during the period of Menshevik
and SR domination and, even more clearly, the experience of the
German and Austrian soviets under the domination of the Social
Democrats." [Lenin and Trotsky, Kronstadt, p. 90] Modern day
Leninists repeat this argument, failing to note that they
sound like leftist Henry Kissingers (Kissinger, let us not
forget, ensured US aid for Pinochet's coup in Chile and argued
that "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country
go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people").
Today we have Leninists combining rhetoric about democratic
socialism, with elections and recall, with a mentality which
justifies the suppression of working class revolt because they
are not prepared to stand by and watch a country go capitalist
due to the irresponsibility of its own people. Perhaps,
unsurprisingly, previously in 1937 Trotsky expressed his support
for the "objective necessity" of the "revolutionary dictatorship
of a proletarian party" and, two years later, that the "vanguard
of the proletariat" must be "armed with the resources of the
state in order to repel dangers, including those emanating from
the backward layers of the proletariat itself." (see
section H.3.8).
If only modern day Leninists were as honest!
So the Bolshevik contempt for working class self-government still
exists. While few, however, explicitly proclaim the logic of
this position (namely party dictatorship) most defend the
Bolsheviks implementing this conclusion in practice. Can we
not conclude that, faced with the same problems the Bolsheviks
faced, these modern day Leninists will implement the same
policies? That they will go from party power to party
dictatorship, simply because they know better than those who
elected them on such matters? That answer seems all too
obvious.
As such, the Bolshevik preference for centralised state power and
of representative forms of democracy involved the substitution of
the party for the class and, consequently, will facilitate the
dictatorship over the proletariat when faced with the inevitable
problems facing any revolution. As Bakunin put it, a "people's
administration, according to [the Marxists], must mean a people's
administration by virtue of a small number of representatives
chosen by the people . . . [I]t is a deception which would conceal
the despotism of a governing minority, all the more dangerous
because it appears as a sham expression of the people's will . . .
[T]he vast majority, the great mass of people, would be governed
by a privileged minority . . . [of] former workers, who would
stop being workers the moment they became rulers or representatives,
and would then come to regard the whole blue-collared world from
governmental heights, and would not represent the people but
themselves and their pretensions." So the Marxist state would
be "the reign of the scientific mind, the most aristocratic,
despotic, arrogant and contemptuous of all regimes. There will
be a new class, a new hierarchy of real of bogus learning, and
the world will be divided into a dominant, science-based minority
and a vast, ignorant majority. And then let the ignorant masses
beware!" [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 268, pp. 268-9
and p. 266]
In summary, Trotsky's deeply undemocratic justification for
appointing officers, like Lenin's similar arguments for
appointing managers, express the logic and reality of
Bolshevism far better than statements made before the
Bolsheviks seized power and never implemented. Sadly,
modern Leninists concentrate on the promises of the
election manifesto rather than the grim reality of
Bolshevik power and its long standing top-down vision of
"democracy." A vision which helped undermine the revolution
and ensure its degeneration into a party dictatorship presiding
over a state capitalist economy.
As we discussed in
section H.3.1, anarchists and most Marxists
are divided not only by means but also by ends. Simply put,
libertarians and Leninist do not have the same vision of
socialism. Given this, anarchists are not surprised at the
negative results of the Bolshevik revolution -- the use of
anti-socialist means to attain anti-socialist ends would
obviously have less than desirable results.
The content of the Bolshevik vision of "socialism" is criticised
by anarchists on two main counts. Firstly, it is a top-down,
centralised vision of "socialism." This can only result in the
destruction of working class economic power at the point of
production in favour of centralised bureaucratic power. Secondly,
for Bolshevism nationalisation, not workers' self-management,
was the key issue. We will discuss the first issue here and the
second in the following section.
The Bolshevik vision of "socialism" was inherently centralised
and top-down. This can be seen from the organisational schemas
and arguments made by leading Bolsheviks before and immediately
after the Revolution. For example, we discover Trotsky arguing
in March 1918 that workplaces "will be subject to policies
laid down by the local council of workmen's deputies" who,
in turn, had "their range of discretion . . . limited in
turn by regulations made for each class of industry by the
boards or bureaux of the central government." He dismissed
Kropotkin's communalist ideas by saying local autonomy
was not "suited to the state of things in modern industrial
society" and "would result in endless frictions and difficulties."
As the "coal from the Donets basin goes all over Russia, and
is indispensable in all sorts of industries" you could not
allow "the organised people of that district [to] do what they
pleased with the coal mines" as they "could hold up all the
rest of Russia." [contained in Al Richardson (ed.), In Defence
of the Russian Revolution, p. 186]
Lenin repeated this centralised vision in June of that year,
arguing that "Communism requires and presupposes the greatest
possible centralisation of large-scale production throughout
the country. The all-Russian centre, therefore, should
definitely be given the right of direct control over all
the enterprises of the given branch of industry. The
regional centres define their functions depending on local
conditions of life, etc., in accordance with the general
production directions and decisions of the centre." He
continued by explicitly arguing that "[t]o deprive the
all-Russia centre of the right to direct control over
all the enterprises of the given industry . . . would be
regional anarcho-syndicalism, and not communism." [Marx,
Engels and Lenin, Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism,
p. 292]
Thus the Bolshevik economic ideal was centralised and
top-down. This is not unsurprising, as Lenin had promised
precisely this when the Bolsheviks got into power. As in
the Bolshevik party itself, the lower organs were controlled
by the higher ones (and as we will discuss, these higher ones
were not directly elected by the lower ones). The problems
with this vision are many fold.
Firstly, to impose an "ideal" solution would destroy a revolution
-- the actions and decisions (including what others may consider
mistakes) of a free people are infinitely more productive and
useful than the decisions and decrees of the best central committee.
Moreover, a centralised system by necessity is an imposed system
(as it excludes by its very nature the participation of the mass
of the people in determining their own fate). Thus real
socialisation must proceed from below, reflecting the real
development and desires of those involved. Centralisation can
only result in replacing socialisation with nationalisation and
the elimination of workers' self-management with hierarchical
management. Workers' again would be reduced to the level of
order-takers, with control over their workplaces resting not in
their hands but in those of the state.
Secondly, Trotsky seems to think that workers at the base of
society would be so unchanged by a revolution that they would
hold their fellow workers ransom. And, moreover, that other
workers would let them. That, to say the least, seems a strange
perspective. But not as strange as thinking that giving extensive
powers to a central body will not produce equally selfish
behaviour (but on a wider and more dangerous scale). The basic
fallacy of Trotsky's argument is that the centre will not start
to view the whole economy as its property (and being centralised,
such a body would be difficult to effectively control). Indeed,
Stalin's power was derived from the state bureaucracy which ran
the economy in its own interests. Not that did not suddenly arise
with Stalin. It was a feature of the Soviet system from the start.
Samuel Farber, for example, notes that, "in practice, [the]
hypercentralisation [pursued by the Bolsheviks from early 1918
onwards] turned into infighting and scrambles for control among
competing bureaucracies" and he points to the "not untypical
example of a small condensed milk plant with few than 15 workers
that became the object of a drawn-out competition among six
organisations including the Supreme Council of National Economy,
the Council of People's Commissars of the Northern Region, the
Vologda Council of People's Commissars, and the Petrograd Food
Commissariat." [Before Stalinism, p. 73]
In other words, centralised bodies are not immune to viewing
resources as their own property and doing as they please with
it. Compared to an individual workplace, the state's power to
enforce its viewpoint against the rest of society is
considerably stronger and the centralised system would be
harder to control. The requirements of gathering and processing
the information required for the centre to make intelligent
decisions would be immense, thus provoking a large bureaucracy
which would be hard to control and soon become the real power
in the state. A centralised body, therefore, effectively
excludes the mass participation of the mass of workers -- power
rests in the hands of a few people which, by its nature,
generates bureaucratic rule. If that sounds familiar, it
should. It is precisely what did happen in Lenin's Russia
and laid the basis for Stalinism.
Thirdly, to eliminate the dangers of workers' self-management
generating "propertarian" notions, the workers' have to have
their control over their workplace reduced, if not eliminated.
This, by necessity, generates bourgeois social relationships
and, equally, appointment of managers from above (which the
Bolsheviks did embrace). Indeed, by 1920 Lenin was boasting
that in 1918 he had "pointed out the necessity of recognising
the dictatorial authority of single individuals for the pursue
of carrying out the Soviet idea" and even claimed that at that
stage "there were no disputes in connection with the question"
of one-man management. [quoted by Brinton, Op. Cit., p. 65]
While the first claim is true (Lenin argued for one-man
management appointed from above before the start of the Civil
War in May 1918) the latter one is not true (excluding
anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists and Maximalists, there
were also the dissent "Left Communists" in the Bolshevik
party itself).
Fourthly, centralism was not that efficient. The central bodies
the Bolsheviks created had little knowledge of the local
situation and often gave orders that contradicted each other
or had little bearing to reality, so encouraging factories to
ignore the centre: "it seems apparent that many workers themselves
. . . had now come to believe . . . that confusion and
anarchy [sic!] at the top were the major causes of their
difficulties, and with some justification. The fact was that
Bolshevik administration was chaotic . . . Scores of competitive
and conflicting Bolshevik and Soviet authorities issued
contradictory orders, often brought to factories by armed
Chekists. The Supreme Economic Council. . . issu[ed] dozens
of orders and pass[ed] countless directives with virtually
no real knowledge of affairs." [William G. Rosenberg,
Russian Labour and Bolshevik Power, p. 116] The Bolsheviks,
as Lenin had promised, built from the top-down their system
of "unified administration" based on the Tsarist system of
central bodies which governed and regulated certain industries
during the war. [Brinton, Op. Cit., p. 36] This was very
centralised and very inefficient (see
section 7 for
more discussion).
Moreover, having little real understanding of the
circumstances on the ground they could not compare
their ideological assumptions and preferences to reality.
As an example, the Bolshevik idea that "big" was automatically
"more efficient" and "better" had a negative impact on the
revolution. In practice, as Thomas F. Remington notes, this
simply resulted generated waste:
"The waste of scare materials at [the giant] Putilov [plant]
was indeed serious, but not only political unrest had caused
it. The general shortage of fuel and materials in the city
took its greatest toll on the largest enterprises, whose
overhead expenditures for heating the plant and firing the
furnaces were proportionally greater than those for smaller
enterprises. This point -- explained by the relative constant
proportions among needed inputs to producers at any given
point in time -- only was recognised latter. Not until
1919 were the regi |
