Ninety
years ago, on 21st January 1924, Vladimir Lenin, the great Marxist and
leader of the Russian Revolution, died from complications arising from
an earlier assassin’s bullet. Ever since then there has been a sustained
campaign to slander his name and distort his ideas, ranging from
bourgeois historians and apologists to various reformists, liberals and
assorted anarchists. Their task has been to discredit Lenin, Marxism and
the Russian Revolution in the interests of the “democratic” rule of
bankers and capitalists.
A recent history by Professor Robert Service, “Lenin: A Political Life, The Iron Ring”, states that:
“Although this volume is intended as a balanced [!], multifaceted
account, nobody can write detachedly about Lenin. His intolerance and
repressiveness continues to appal me.”
Another “balanced” historian, Anthony Read, goes so far as to assert,
without any actual evidence, that Lenin was in a minority at the 1903
Party Congress, and simply chose the name “Bolsheviks” (the Russian word
for majority) as “Lenin never missed a chance of furthering the
illusion of power. From its very beginning, therefore, Bolshevism was
founded on a lie, setting a precedent that was to be followed for the
next ninety years.”
Mr Read continues with his diatribe: “Lenin had no time for
democracy, no confidence in the masses and no scruples about the use of
violence.” (The World on Fire, 1919 and the Battle with Bolshevism,
pp.3-4, Jonathan Cape, 2008)
There is nothing new in such false claims which rely, not on the
writings of Lenin, but heavily on the outpourings of Professors Orlando
Figes and Robert Service, two “experts” on the “evils” of Lenin and the
Russian revolution. Full of bile, they all peddle the lie that Lenin
somehow created Stalinism.
Likewise, the Stalinists, having turned Lenin into a harmless icon,
also defamed his ideas to serve their crimes and betrayals. Lenin’s
widow, Krupskaya, was fond of quoting his words:
“There have been occasions in history when the teachings of great
revolutionaries have been distorted after their death. Men have made
them into harmless icons, and, while honouring their name, they blunted
the revolutionary edge of their teaching.”
In 1926, Krupskaya, said that “if Lenin was alive, he would be in one of Stalin’s prisons.”
Lenin was without doubt one of the greatest revolutionaries of our
time, whose efforts culminated in the victory of October 1917 and whose
work changed the course of world history. The socialist revolution was
transformed by Lenin from words into deeds. He became overnight “the
most hated and most loved man on earth.”
Lenin’s youth
Born in Simbirsk on the Volga in 1870, Lenin was to experience a time
of great upheaval in Russia. The semi-feudal country was ruled by
Tsarist despotism. The revolutionary intelligentsia, faced with this
despotism, were attracted to the terrorist methods of the Peoples’ Will.
Indeed, Lenin’s elder brother, Alexander, was hanged for his part in
the attempted assassination of Tsar Alexander III.
Following this tragedy, Lenin entered university and was soon
expelled for his activities. This increased his political thirst and led
to his eventual contact with Marxist circles. This progressed to a
study of Marx’s Capital, which was circulating in small numbers, and
then on to Anti-Duhring by Engels.
He got in touch with the exiled Emancipation of Labour Group, headed
by George Plekhanov, the founder of Russian Marxism, who he considered
to be his spiritual father. He them moved, at the age of 23, from Samara
to St Petersburg to form one of the first Marxist groups.
“It is thus, between his brother’s execution and his move to St
Petersburg, in these simultaneously short and long six years of stubborn
work, that the future Lenin was formed”, explained Trotsky. “All the
fundamental features of his personality, his outlook on life, and his
mode of action were already formed during the interval between the
seventeenth and twenty-third years of his life.”
Massive foreign investment gave a spur to the development of
capitalism and the emergence of a small virgin working class. The
emergence of study circles and the impact of Marxist ideas saw attempts
to establish a revolutionary Russian Social Democratic Party.
Lenin had met with Plekhanov in Switzerland in 1895 and on his return
he was arrested, imprisoned, and then exiled. The first Congress of the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) was held in 1898, but
the Congress was raided and the participants arrested.
Marxism and Bolshevism
At the end of his exile, Lenin concentrated his efforts on the
establishment of a Marxist newspaper – Iskra, the ‘Spark’. By this
means, Iskra was to establish Marxism as the dominant force on the left.
Smuggled back into Russia it served to unite the circles into a unified
national party on solid political and theoretical foundations.
In this period, Lenin wrote his famous pamphlet What is To Be Done?,
which argued for a party made up of professional revolutionaries, people
dedicated to the cause.
In 1903, the Second Congress of the RSDLP was held, which was
essentially the founding Congress. It was here that the comrades of
Iskra established themselves as the dominant trend in the party.
However, an open split took place late in the proceedings over
organisational questions between Lenin and Martov, both editors of
Iskra. The Majority around Lenin became known as the “Bolsheviks” and
the Minority around Martov as the “Mensheviks”.
There are many myths surrounding this split, which took most
participants by surprise, including Lenin. There were no political
disagreements at that time. These would only emerge later. Lenin
attempted reconciliation between the factions, but failed. He later
characterised the split as an “anticipation” of later important
differences.
These differences emerged over the perspectives for the revolution in
Russia. All tendencies viewed the coming revolution as
“bourgeois-democratic”, namely a means of sweeping away the old feudal
regime and clearing the path for capitalist development. The Mensheviks,
however, stated that in this revolution, the workers would need to
subordinate themselves to the leadership of the bourgeoisie. The
Bolsheviks, on the other hand, believed that the liberal bourgeoisie
could not lead the revolution as they were tied to landlordism and
imperialism, therefore the workers should lead the revolution supported
by the peasants. They would form a “democratic dictatorship of the
proletariat and peasantry”, which would provoke the socialist revolution
in the West. In turn, this would come to the aid of the Russian
revolution. Trotsky held a third view: he agreed with Lenin that the
workers would lead the revolution, but believed they should not stop
half way, but should continue with socialist measures, as the beginning
of a world socialist revolution. In the end, the events of 1917
confirmed Trotsky’s prognosis of “Permanent Revolution”.
Internationalism
The 1905 Revolution demonstrated in practice the leading role of the
working class. While the Liberals had run for cover, the workers set up
Soviets, which Lenin recognised as the embryo of workers’ rule. The
RSDLP grew enormously under these conditions and served to pull the two
factions of the party closer together.
The defeat of the 1905 Revolution, however, was followed by a period
of ruthless reaction. The party faced tremendous difficulties as it
become more and more isolated from the masses. The Bolsheviks and
Mensheviks grew further apart politically and organisationally, until in
1912 the Bolsheviks constituted themselves as a separate party.
In these years, Trotsky was a “conciliator” between the Bolsheviks
and Mensheviks. He had stood apart from the two factions while preaching
“unity”. This led to bitter clashes with Lenin, who had upheld
Bolshevik political independence and these clashes were later used by
the Stalinists to discredit Trotsky, despite Lenin’s wish, contained in
his Testament, that Trotsky’s non-Bolshevik past must not be held
against him.
The revival of the workers’ movement after 1912 witnessed growing
support for the Bolsheviks, which claimed the support of the
overwhelming majority of Russian workers. This growth, however, was cut
across by the First World War.
The betrayal of August 1914 and the capitulation of the leaders of
the Second International marked a terrible blow to international
socialism. It meant the effective death of this International.
The small handful of internationalists worldwide regrouped at an
anti-war Conference held in Zimmerwald in 1915, where Lenin called for
the creation of a new workers’ International. These were very dark times
- the forces of Marxism were now completely isolated. Revolutionary
prospects looked very dim indeed. In January 1917, Lenin addressed a
small meeting of the Swiss Young Socialists in Zurich. He remarked that
the situation would eventually change but that he would not live to see
the revolution. Yet, within the space of one month, the Russian working
class would bring Tsarism crashing down and bring about a situation of
dual power. Within nine months, Lenin would head a government of
Peoples’ Commissars.
The Russian Revolution
When in Zurich, Lenin scoured the newspapers for the latest news from
Russia. He saw that the soviets, now dominated by the leaders of the
Social Revolutionaries (SRs) and the Mensheviks, had handed power to the
Provisional Government, headed by the monarchist Prince Lvov. He
immediately telegraphed Kamenev and Stalin, who were wavering: “No
support for the Provisional government! No trust in Kerensky!”
Writing from exile, Lenin warned:
“Ours is a bourgeois revolution, therefore, the workers must support
the bourgeoisie, say the Potresovs, Gvozdyovs and Chkheidzes, as
Plekanov said yesterday.
“Ours is a bourgeois revolution, we Marxists say, therefore the
workers must open the eyes of the people to the deception practised by
the bourgeois politicians, teach them to put no faith in words, to
depend entirely on their own strength, their own organisation, their own
unity, and their own weapons… You must perform miracles of
organisation, organisation of the proletariat and of the whole people,
to prepare the way for your victory in the second stage of the
revolution.”
In his Farewell Letter to the Swiss Workers, Lenin explained the key
task: “make our revolution the prologue to the world socialist
revolution.”
When Lenin returned to Russia on 3rd April 1917, he put forward his
April Theses: a Second Russian Revolution must be a step to the world
socialist revolution! He came out against the old guard who were lagging
behind the situation and fought to rearm the Bolshevik Party.
“The person who now speaks only of a ‘revolutionary-democratic
dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry’ is behind the times,
consequently, he has in effect gone over to the petty bourgeoisie
against the proletarian class struggle; that person should be consigned
to the archive of ‘Bolshevik’ pre-revolutionary antiques (it may be
called the archive of ‘old Bolsheviks’).”
He managed to win the support in the ranks and overcome the
resistance of the leadership, which had ironically accused him of
“Trotskyism”. In reality, Lenin had come over to Trotsky’s position of
Permanent Revolution, but by his own route.
In May, Trotsky had returned to Russia after being interned by the
British in Canada. “On the second or third day after I reached Petrograd
I read Lenin’s April Theses. This was just what the revolution was in
need of”, explained Trotsky. His line of thought is identical with
Lenin’s. In agreement with Lenin, Trotsky joined the Inter-District
Organisation with the aim of winning them over to Bolshevism. He entered
into close collaboration with the Bolsheviks, describing himself
everywhere as “We, Bolshevik-internationalists.”
The seizure of power
On 1st November 1917, at a meeting of the Petrograd committee, Lenin
said that after Trotsky had become convinced of the impossibility of
union with the Mensheviks, “there has been no better Bolshevik”. In
reviewing the Revolution two years later, Lenin wrote: “At the moment
when it seized power and created the Soviet republic, Bolshevism drew to
itself all the best elements in the current of Socialist thought that
were nearest to it.”
“Lenin did not come over to me, I went over to Lenin”, stated Trotsky
modestly. “I joined him later than many others. But I make bold to
think I understood him in a way not inferior to others.”
In the months preceding the revolution, Lenin had called on the
Menshevik and SR-dominated Soviets to break with the capitalist
ministers and take power, to which they stubbornly refused to do.
However, the Bolshevik slogans - Bread! Land! Peace! All Power to the
Soviets! - won rapid support amongst the masses. The mass demonstrations
in June reflected this shift. It also prompted the new premier Kerensky
to begin a campaign of repression against the Bolsheviks. The “July
Days” saw the Bolsheviks driven underground. A campaign of hysteria was
whipped up against them, calling them “German agents”, which forced
Lenin and Zinoviev into hiding and the arrest of Trotsky, Kamenev,
Kollontai and other Bolshevik leaders.
In August, General Kornilov tried to impose his own fascist
dictatorship. Desperate for help, and fearing Kornilov, the government
released Trotsky and other Bolsheviks. The Bolshevik workers and
soldiers stepped into the breach and defeated Kornilov’s
counter-revolution in the process.
This boosted support enormously for the Bolsheviks, who won
majorities in both the Moscow and Petrograd Soviets. “We were the
victors”, stated Trotsky concerning the elections at the Petrograd
Soviet. This victory proved decisive, and became an essential
stepping-stone to the victory in October.
Lenin, who by now was in hiding in Finland, became very impatient
with the Bolshevik leaders. He feared that they were dragging their
feet. “Events are prescribing our task so clearly for us that
procrastination is becoming positively criminal”, explained Lenin in a
letter to the Central Committee. “To wait would be a crime to the
revolution.” In October, the Central Committee took the decision to take
power, against the votes of Zinoviev and Kamenev, who issued a public
statement opposing any insurrection and for the Party to look towards
the convening of the Constituent Assembly!
Trotsky, as head of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the
Petrograd Soviet, acted swiftly to ensure the smooth transfer of power
on 25th October 1917. The Revolution succeeded in a bloodless fashion
and on the following day, 26th October, its results were announced to
the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets. This time, the Bolsheviks
held some 390 delegates out of a total of 650 present, a clear majority.
In protest, the Mensheviks and Right SRs walked out. Lenin, who
addressed the Congress, simply proclaimed to the triumphal delegates:
“We will proceed to construct the Socialist order.” The Congress then
proceeded to set up a new Soviet government with Lenin at its head.
Despised just four months earlier, the Bolsheviks were now hailed by the
revolutionary workers.
In a matter of days, decrees were issued by Lenin’s government: on
peace proposals and the abolition of secret diplomacy, on land to the
toilers, on the right of nations to self-determination, on workers’
control and the right of recall over all representatives, on full
equality of men and women, and on the complete separation of church from
state.
When the Third Congress of Soviets in January 1918 proclaimed
the establishment of the Russian Federated Soviet Republic, large
tracts of Russia were still occupied by the Central Powers, bourgeois
nationalists and White generals.
Five days after the Revolution, the new government was attacked by
Cossack forces led by General Krasnov. The attack was repulsed and the
general was handed over by his own men. However, he was released after
giving his word not to take up arms. Of course, he broke his promise and
went south to lead the Cossack White Army. Similarly, after the Winter
Palace military cadets were released they staged an uprising.
Year One
The Revolution was all too generous and trusting in its early days.
“We are accused of resorting to terrorism, but we have not resorted, and
I hope will not resort, to the terrorism of the French revolutionaries
who guillotined unarmed men”, stated Lenin in November. “I hope we shall
not resort to it, because we have strength on our side. When we
arrested anyone we told him we would let him go if he gave us a written
promise not to engage in sabotage. Such written promises have been
given.”
This innocence was recognised by Victor Serge, a former anarchist
turned Bolshevik, who wrote in his book ‘Year One of the Russian
Revolution’:
“The Whites massacre the workers in the Arsenal and the Kremlin: the
Reds release their mortal enemy, General Krasnov, on parole… The
revolution made the mistake of showing magnanimity to the leader of the
Cossack attack. He should have been shot on the spot… [Instead] He was
to go off to put the Don region to fire and the sword.”
No sooner had the Soviet power established itself than the
imperialists acted to crush the revolution in blood. In March 1918 Lenin
moved the government to Moscow as Petrograd had become vulnerable to
German attack.
Soon afterwards, British troops landed in Murmansk accompanied by
American and Canadian forces; the Japanese landed in Vladivostok
alongside British and American battalions. The British also seized the
port of Baku to get their hands on the oil. French, Greek and Polish
forces landed in the Black Sea ports of Odessa and Sevastopol and linked
up with the White armies. The Ukraine was occupied by the Germans. In
all, 21 foreign armies of intervention on several fronts confronted the
Soviet government forces. The Revolution was fighting for its life. It
was surrounded, starving and infested with conspiracies.
White Terror
The SR party leadership endorsed the principle of foreign
intervention to “restore democracy”. A similar counter-revolutionary
position was held by the Mensheviks, which placed them in the enemy
camp. They collaborated with the Whites and took money from the French
government to carry out their activities.
In the summer of 1918 attempts were made to murder Lenin and Trotsky.
On 30th August, Lenin was shot, but managed to survive. On the same
day, Uritsky was assassinated, as was the German ambassador. Volodarsky
was also killed. The plot to blow up Trotsky’s train was fortunately
foiled. This White Terror served in turn to unleash the Red Terror in
defence of the Revolution.
The White Terror was played down by the capitalists, who blamed
everything on the Reds. White atrocities “were generally the work of
individual White generals and warlords and were not systematic or
matters of official policy”, explains Anthony Read, in an attempt to
excuse them. “But they often matched and sometimes outdid the Red
Terror.” In fact, as a policy they always outdid the Red Terror in terms
of brutality, as is the nature of counter-revolutionary forces.
Interestingly, Read goes on to describe the methods of General Baron
Roman von Ungern-Sternberg. “No Bolshevik, for instance, could equal the
White General Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, a German Balt born in
Estonia, who was sent by the Provisional Government to the Russian far
east, where he claimed to be a reincarnation of Genghis Khan and did his
best to outdo the Mongol conqueror in brutality. A fanatical
anti-Semite, in 1918 he declared his intention of exterminating all the
Jews and commissars in Russia, a task he set about with great
enthusiasm, having his men slaughter any Jew they came across in a
variety of barbarous ways, including skinning them alive. He was also
noted for leading his men in nocturnal terror rides dragging human
torches across the steppe at full gallop, and for promising to ‘make an
avenue of gallows that will stretch from Asia across to Europe’.”
This was the fate that awaited the workers and peasants of Russia in
the event of a victory of the counter-revolution. It was the fate of
Spartacus and his slave army at the merciless hands of the Roman
slave-state. The alternative to Soviet power was no “democracy” but the
most brutal bloodthirsty fascist barbarism. The whole effort of the Red
Army and the Cheka, the security force, was therefore directed at
winning the Civil War and defeating the counter-revolution.
The Soviet government had no alternative but to fight fire with fire,
and to make a revolutionary appeal to the troops of foreign
intervention. As Victor Serge explained:
“The toiling masses use terror against classes which are in a
minority in society. It does no more than complete the work of newly
arisen economic and political forces. When progressive measures have
rallied millions of workers to the cause of revolution, the resistance
of the privileged minorities is not difficult to break at this stage.
White terror, on the other hand, is carried out by these privileged
minorities against the labouring masses, whom it has to slaughter, to
decimate. The Versaillais (name given to counter-revolutionary forces
that put down the Paris Commune) accounted for more victims in a single
week in Paris alone than the Cheka killed in three years over the whole
of Russia.”
A period of “War Communism” was forced upon the Bolsheviks, where
grain was forcibly requisitioned from the peasants to feed the workers
and soldiers. Industry, ravaged by sabotage, war and now civil war, was
in a state of complete collapse.
The imperialist blockade crippled
the country. The population of Petrograd fell from 2,400,000 in 1917 to
574,000 in August 1920. Typhoid and cholera killed millions. Lenin
described the situation as “Communism in a besieged fortress”.
On 24th August 1919, Lenin wrote: “industry is at a standstill. There
is no food, no fuel, no industry.” Faced with this disaster, the
Soviets relied upon the sacrifice, courage and will-power of the working
class to save the revolution. In March 1920, Lenin declared “The
determination of the working class, its inflexible adherence to the
watchword ‘Death rather than surrender!’ is not only a historical
factor, it is the decisive, the winning factor.”
Aftermath of the Civil War
Under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky, who had organised the Red
Army from scratch, the Soviets were victorious, but at a terrible cost.
Deaths at the front, famine, disease, all combined with economic
collapse.
By the end of the Civil War, the Bolshevik government was forced to
make a retreat and introduce the New Economic Policy. This allowed the
peasants a free market in their grain and contributed to the growth of
strong capitalist tendencies, resulting in the emergence of the Nepmen
and Kulaks. It was simply a breathing space.
Given the low cultural level, where 70% of the population were
illiterate, the Soviet regime had to rest for support on the old Tsarist
officers, officials and administrators, who were opposed to the
revolution. “Scratch the soviet state at any point and underneath you
will see the same old Tsarist state apparatus”, stated Lenin bluntly.
With the continuing isolation of the revolution, this constituted a
grave danger through a bureaucratic degeneration of the revolution. The
working class was systematically weakened by the crisis. The Soviets
simply ceased to function in this situation as the careerists and
bureaucrats filled the vacuum.
Despite measures being introduced to combat this bureaucratic menace,
the only real saviour of the revolution was the success of the world
revolution as material assistance from the West.
In early 1919 Lenin had established the Third International as a
weapon for spreading the revolution internationally. It was a school of
Bolshevism. Mass Communist Parties were soon established in Germany,
France, Italy, Czechoslovakia and other countries.
Unfortunately, the revolutionary wave following the First World War
was defeated. The revolution in Germany in 1918 had been betrayed by the
Social Democrats. The young Soviet Republics in Bavaria and Hungary had
been crushed in blood by the counter-revolution. The revolutionary
factory occupations in Italy in 1920 had also been defeated. Once again,
in 1923, all eyes were on Germany which was in the grip of a
revolutionary crisis. However, the false advice given by Zinoviev and
Stalin resulted in its tragic defeat.
This came as an almighty blow to the morale of the Russian workers,
who were hanging on by the skin of their teeth. At the same time, the
defeat reinforced the growth of bureaucratic reaction in the state and
the Party. With the incapacity of Lenin following a series of strokes,
Stalin began to emerge as the figurehead of the bureaucracy. In fact,
Lenin’s last struggle was in a bloc with Trotsky against bureaucracy and
Stalin. Stalin retreated, but a final stroke left Lenin paralysed and
speechless.
Prior to this, Lenin had drawn up a Testament. In it he states Stalin
“having become General Secretary, [which Lenin opposed – RS] has
unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether
he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient
caution.” “Comrade Trotsky, on the other hand… is distinguished not only
by outstanding ability. He is personally perhaps the most capable man
of the present CC...” He warned there was a danger of a split in the
Party.
Stalinism
Two weeks later, Lenin added an addendum to his Testament after
Stalin swore at and abused Krupskaya for helping Trotsky and others
communicate with Lenin. Lenin broke off all personal relations with
Stalin. “Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in
our midst and in dealings among us communists, becomes intolerable in a
General Secretary”, stated Lenin. He urged that Stalin be removed from
his position due to his disloyalty and tendency to abuse power.
But on 7th March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke that rendered him
completely incapacitated. He would remain in this state until his death
on 21st January 1924. Lenin’s removal from political life gave increased
power to Stalin, which he used to full advantage, not least in
suppressing Lenin’s Testament.
It was left to Trotsky to defend Lenin’s heritage, which was being
betrayed by Stalin. The victory of Stalinism was due fundamentally to
objective reasons, above all the terrible economic and social
backwardness of Russia and its isolation.
The subsequent defeat of the international revolution in Britain and
especially China, served to further demoralise the Russian workers,
exhausted by years of struggle. On the basis of this terrible weariness,
the bureaucracy, headed by Stalin, consolidated its stranglehold.
Lenin’s body, against the protests of his widow, was then placed in a
mausoleum.
It is a monstrous lie to suggest that Stalinism is the continuation
of the democratic regime of Lenin, as the apologists of capitalism
claim. In reality, a river of blood separates the two. Lenin was the
initiator of the October Revolution; Stalin was its grave-digger. They
had nothing in common.
We end this tribute with the fitting words of Rosa Luxemburg:
“Whatever a party could offer of courage, revolutionary
far-sightedness and consistency in a historic hour, Lenin, Trotsky and
the other comrades have given in good measure. All the revolutionary
honour and capacity which Western social democracy lacked was
represented by the Bolsheviks. Their October uprising was not only the
actual salvation of the Russian Revolution; it was also the salvation of
the honour of international socialism.”
Ninety years after his death, we pay homage to this great man, his
ideas and courage. Lenin combined theory with action and personified the
October Revolution. Lenin and the Bolsheviks changed the world; our
task at this time of capitalist crisis is to finish the job.