Chattopadhyay applies Marxian categories to the Russian Revolution of 1917 to examine its socialist content.
Did the Bolshevik seizure of power inaugurate a socialist revolution? A Marxian inquiry - Paresh Chattopadhyay | libcom.org Skip to main content libcom.org Menu Main navigation Recent Donate Collections Introductions Organise About User account menu Log in / Register Did the Bolshevik seizure of power inaugurate a socialist revolution? A Marxian inquiry - Paresh Chattopadhyay Chattopadhyay applies Marxian categories to the Russian Revolution of 1917 to examine its socialist content. Submitted by Spassmaschine on January 16, 2011 Copied to clipboard In the eyes of the overwhelming majority on the left – certainly in South Asia – the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia in 1917 signalled the victory of socialist revolution or at least started the socialist revolution in that country. Those who accept this position hold it more or less axiomatically. The present essay is an attempt at examining this position by going back to the significance of socialist revolution in the original sense of Marx. All the principal (theoretical) categories used in the following lines are Marxian. We say ‘Marxian’ and not ‘Marxist’ in order to stress that we are taking the categories as they appear in Marx’s own texts and not as they are interpreted by people claiming to be his followers. We are no historian , and the paper naturally in no way claims to be a contribution in history. Ours is rather an essay in (critical) analysis, from a Marxian point of view, based on the events that are already well-known.1 I As is well known Russia, around the time of the Bolshevik seizure of power, was a backward (capitalist) country. On the eve of the first World War, according to one authority, « after three decades of swift industrialisation the urban population still accounted for less than one fifth of the total, and workers in mining and manufacturing (excluding the artisan sector) less than 2 percent. Some 80 percent of the population still derived its livelihood from agriculture. »2 Given this situation in Russia there seems to be a quasi-consensus shared by the Marxists and the non-Marxists – that what is generally known as « October Revolution » – supposed to be proletarian – was contrary to the Marxian contention that a proletarian revolution could take place only in an advanced capitalist country. This idea could be seen summed up in the laconic statement of the young Antonio Gramsci: « The revolution of the Bolsheviks is the revolution against Karl Marx’s Capital« .3 Abstracting for the moment from the question of the character of the October event in Russia, the general theoretical stand underlying the view given above, is, we submit, an oversimplification – bordering on a superficial reading of the Marxian position. 4 To start with, in Marx’s perspective of future revolution, it is not the proletarian revolution or – what is equivalent in this case – socialist (communist) revolution breaking out in an advanced capitalist country that alone finds a place. In this perspective there could also be outside of this so-called ‘classic’ case, a situation occurring in a relatively backward society where, unlike what had happened in earlier revolutions, the proletariat would play an active (including the leading) role. Such a situation could arise in two types of circumstances. First, this could be a non-proletarian revolution that would directly interest the proletariat. Secondly, this could be a proletarian revolution without yet being a communist (socialist) revolution. As regards the first case the Communist Manifesto (Section IV) specifically discusses the role of the communists in the coming « bourgeois revolution » in (backward) Germany. Again, in Marx’s « address » on « revolution in permanence » delivered two years later the immediate perspective for the German proletariat is still held as the completion of the bourgeois revolution to be only followed by the proletarian revolution. Similarly in the preface to the Russian edition of the Communist Manifesto – jointly signed by Marx and Engels one year before the former’s death – we read about the possibility of a (non-proletarian) « Russian revolution giving a signal to the proletarian revolution in the West » and leading to a « communist form of collective ownership » in Russia mediated by the existing communal form of property in land. As to the second case Marx envisages, with regard to backward Germany, a « proletarian revolution backed by some second edition of the Peasant war ».5 In the same way, Marx in his polemic with Bakunin about two decades later, speaks of the possibility of the proletariat coming to power in the « states of Western European Continent (that is, outside of England P.C.) where the mass of peasants form a more or less important majority of the population » and where (naturally) the proletariat has to « win the peasantry for the revolution. »6 Thus a proletarian revolution breaking out in a backward capitalist country is certainly not, in principle, outside of the Marxian framework. In a famous passage which has been subject to numerous misinterpretations and misuses Marx writes: « No social formation ever disappears before all the productive forces, for which it is large enough, have developed. »7 It goes without saying that in a backward capitalist country the forces of production have far from developed to the full. But Marx speaks of revolution in such a country taking place under the leadership of the proletariat, as we saw above. Can these two positions be reconciled? Now, in a situation of backwardness the immediate task of the proletariat leading the revolution is not to effect a transition to socialism by eliminating (the partially-existing) capitalism. Its immediate task is to destroy the pre-capitalist relations, that is, complete the « historic » tasks of the bourgeois revolution. In the ‘classical’ case this would be the work of the bourgeoisie itself. But in a situation where the bourgeoisie is weak and no longer revolutionary vis-a-vis the pre-bourgeois dominant classes it is the proletariat in alliance with the rest of the immediate producers that must accomplish the work. In the process of completion of the tasks of the bourgeois revolution the proletariat, at the same time, creates (consciously) « the material conditions of existence of the higher relations of production », to use the words of the same passage cited above. Here a proletarian revolution is not directly a socialist revolution (yet) in the sense that its task is not yet to prepare – at least not directly – the transition to the society of free and associated labour. To try the latter without creating its « material conditions of existence » would simply be « Don Quixotism »8 . After all, « a society cannot go over the natural (naturgemasse) phases of its development either by leaps or by decrees. »9 Given, however, that Marx’s principal preoccupation is with the « (economic) law of motion » of the capitalist society (its birth, growth, decay and death) the revolution that occupies most of his attention is the revolution against capital by its « grave diggers, » that is, communist or socialist revolution (they are equivalent in Marx). Here the proletarian revolution – pre-supposing the completion of the historic task of the bourgeois revolution – is the same as socialist revolution. Let us be clear about the Marxian conception of ‘revolution’. By (social) revolution Marx means, as he already emphasises in his polemic with Ruge (1844), the « dissolution of the old relations » of society10 or equivalently, as he says fifteen years later, a « change » in society’s « economic basis » constituted by the (social) « relations of production. »11 An immediate consequence of this conception is that a social revolution is not a momentary event coinciding with the so-called ‘seizure of power’12 . It is epochal. Particularly for the proletariat the « epoch of social revolution begins » – the famous phrase of Marx’s 1859 ‘Preface’ (referred to earlier) – with the establishment of its political power (though the destruction of the bourgeois state apparatus), it being only the « first step in the workers revolution » as the Communist Manifesto declared. The old relations of production do not disappear and the new relations do not arise on the morrow of the proletarian seizure of power and the establishment of the juridically ordained « public ownership » of the means of production in as much as the working class has to go « through long struggles, through series of historical processes transforming circumstances and men » – as Marx emphasises referring to the first proletarian dictatorship in history 13 – in short, through a whole « period of revolutionary transformation » to which corresponds the proletarian rule.14 Thus the « epoch of social revolution » for the working class comprises a whole period – the period of « prolonged birth pangs » in Marx’s celebrated metaphor of 1875 – from the installation of the proletarian political rule to the advent of the new society, the « first phase of communism. » The entire process is of course based – in the Marxian conceptual framework – on the central postulate enshrined in Marx’s whole life work, namely, that the emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves. The proletarian revolution is indeed summed up in what Marx called (in 1850) the battle cry of the working class: « The Revolution in permanence. » As a consistent materialist Marx, it is well-known, did not leave any ‘blueprint’ for the future society. In the same way, it should go without saying, there is no unique ‘model’ of socialist revolution in Marx’s writings – the « German model » as Lenin would say in his polemic with the Mensheviks. There could indeed be innumerable kinds of historical situations with corresponding correlations of social forces in which a socialist revolution could break out and proceed. (Marx himself learnt a lot about the proletarian revolution from the Parisian workers in 1871). But what remains invariant amidst all these permutations and combinations is that his revolution must involve a radical transformation in the social relations of production and must be self-emancipatory act of the immediate producers themselves beginning with the establishment of their absolute rule as a class (That is, not by an individual or a group in its name and standing outside of their direct control). Otherwise we are not speaking of socialist revolution within a Marxian framework. A radical transformation in the social relations of production would mean, in this connection, (re) union – at a higher level – of the producers with their conditions of production – in real and not formal judicial terms of course – away from separation (opposition) between the two characterising capitalism. This would signify a complete inversion of the principle under capitalism: « The means of production employ the workers, the workers do not employ the means of production, » in Marx’s striking paraphrase of Ricardo. 15 II-1 It is for the first time in April 1917, upon his arrival in Petrograd, that Lenin called for a socialist revolution in Russia.16 He knew perfectly well that in the Marxian scheme socialist revolution is supposed to follow the bourgeois-democratic revolution. Indeed he himself had, in 1905, clearly distinguished between these two phases of the Russian revolution. Following Lenin the Bolsheviks had hitherto argued that the socialist revolution in Russia starting with the proletarian dictatorship would usher in after the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution were, at least in the main, completed under the revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, given the incapacity of the Russian bourgeoisie to accomplish its « historical mission ». When, however, Lenin called for a socialist revolution in Russia bourgeois-democratic revolution was very very far from completed in the country. In support of his call Lenin advanced the surprising argument that « the state power in Russia has passed into the hands of a new class, namely the bourgeoisie and the landlord turned bourgeois. To this extent the bourgeois democratic revolution in Russia is completed. » 17 We would, on the other hand, suggest that to the extent that Lenin predicated the completion (even partial) of the bourgeois democratic revolution simply on the passage to political power of the Russian bourgeoisie, Lenin was revising the concept of social revolution in Marx in as much as a social revolution in Marx, as we saw above, means nothing less than a transformation of the social relations of production and not simply a change in the political « superstructure », to use Marx’s language of 1859. Lenin’s defence of his position against his opponents is, to say the least, ambiguous. Thus one year before his death he wrote against N. Sukhanov that, contrary to a pre-established « model » of revolutionary sequence, a people « faced with a revolutionary situation » might have to « throw itself » into it before creating the conditions for « socialism ».18 Now as a general proposition this is unexceptionable. But why and in what sense the revolution referred to has to be precisely a socialist revolution in a semi-feudal society with the proletariat constituting a tiny minority of the total population? Why cannot this be a bourgeois-democratic revolution under the leadership of the proletariat – in alliance with the rest of the exploited – towards completing the so-called « historic task » of the bourgeoisie in order to advance uninterruptedly to a socialist revolution. In fact this latter position was defended against Lenin by the much maligned Bolshevik Kamenev in April 1917. Kamenev and his partisans went further. In as much as Lenin’s call for « socialist revolution », bereft of theory, meant in practice merciless struggle against all the non-Bolshevik socialist currents in Russia (not accepting Lenin’s point of view) leading to the exclusive political power of the Bolsheviks Kamenev and his partisans, who wanted a « party of revolutionary proletarian masses, » warned against the danger of the seizure of power by a « small group of communist propagandists » incapable of holding the power excepting through terror. 19 The spontaneous rise of the Soviets – at first of workers and soldiers’ deputies – in Russia in February 1917, surprised all the existing political parties in the country as it had done twelve years earlier. The workers had gone far beyond their so-called « trade-union consciousness » and on their own gained full political class consciousness – independently of the political parties. In a way the soviet phenomenon largely invalidated Lenin’s 1902 thesis that on their own the workers could only acquire « Trade Union consciousness » and that the revolutionary consciousness had to be imported to them from outside by the revolutionary intelligentsia. On the other hand the soviet phenomenon fully corroborated what the young Marx and Engels had written: « The consciousness of the necessity of a profound revolution » would arise from the (working) class (itself),20 or what Lenin’s great contemporary said in 1906: « revolutions do not allow any school master ».21 The great Paris Commune had shown the same tendency in 1871 just as the splendid Spanish workers were to show in their fight against Fascism in the thirties only to be shamelessly crushed by Stalin’s « Internationalists. » Unprepared for and surprised by the rise of the Soviets the different socialist parties increasingly tried to control them by gaining majority in them. At the first Pan-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers and Soldiers deputies in June the Bolsheviks constituted less than one-seventh of the delegates. However, in spite of some setbacks in July-August, the Bolsheviks increasingly won influence in the Soviets and the beginning of autumn they made great progress, gaining clear majority in Petrograd, Moscow and other big industrial centres. However, in the vast rural regions (among the peasantry), that is, among the immense majority of the country’s working population, it is the Socialist Revolutionaries that held a marked majority (in October the Socialist Revolutionaries split and the minority of the party came out and formed an independent party, the so-called Left Socialist Revolutions, which often helped the Bolsheviks obtain majority in different Soviets). The Mensheviks had majority only in a handful of regions. The anarchists and the so-called ‘Maximalists’ also gained not a little, supported the Bolsheviks very often and contributed considerably to the increasing radicalisation of the masses. This was the situation in October. Though « all power to the Soviets » was the great mobilizing slogan propagated by Lenin and his Party (dropped for a while during summer in view of the « reactionary character » of the Soviets) Lenin in fact wanted ‘power’ to be exclusively in the hands of his Party. This is clearly seen, for example, when in the first Congress of Soviets of Workers and Soldiers’ Deputies where the Bolsheviks constituted a small minority Lenin declared that his Party was ready to assume power. (This declaration, moreover, was made by the « democratic centralist » without consulting anybody in the Party). This is seen, again, when in September, on the strength of his Party’s majority in the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets alone, Lenin insisted that « the Bolsheviks can and must take state power into their own hands (v svoi ruki) » and that « it would be naive to wait for a ‘formal’ majority for the Bolsheviks »22 (presumably in the country as a whole). Lenin gave vent to his obsession for exclusive power for his Party when he vehemently denounced « a trend in the Central Committee of the Party » that disapproved of the Party « taking power immediately » and wanted to « wait for the Congress of the Soviets. « To wait for the Congress of the Soviets, » he declared, « is idiocy, because the Congress will give nothing and can give nothing. ….. First defeat Kerensky, then call the Congress ».23 In the event the Bolsheviks together with their allies, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, did obtain a majority in the Second Congress of Soviets held on October 25-26 (November 7-8 according to new Calendar). One should observe that a large number of Soviets in the country including many from the army – opposed to convening the Congress before the Constituent Assembly had met – did not send delegates to the Second Congress. Thus the second congress was less representative than the first. Moreover, and what is perhaps even more important, the immense majority of the peasantry was not represented at the Congress. Even then, even though the Bolsheviks and their allies would have a clear majority in the Congress Lenin, unsure of the outcome of the normal democratic process, wanted to forestall all uncertainties about his Party’s domination and insisted on the seizure of power by armed uprising before the Congress could met. « It would be ruinous or a formality to wait for the wavering vote of October 25. The people have the right and the duty to resolve such questions not by vote, but by force, » he wrote to the Central Committee.24 (Presumably it is Lenin who decided this « right » and this « duty » for the people). Thus the Congress of the Soviets when it met was placed before the seizure of power (through insurrection) as a fait accompli. Not only that. The ‘Provisional Government’ was dismissed not by the Congress of Soviets, not even by the Petrograd Soviet but by the so-called ‘Military Revolutionary Committee’ of the Petrograd Soviet – completely dominated by the Bolsheviks – by a decree drawn up by Lenin himself. This singular operation, writes a noted French historian, « deprived simultaneously the Congress of Soviets and the Petrograd Soviet of all right to paternity regarding the founding… truncated (30,853 more characters in archive)