with the changing political situation; he frequently followed the temper of the revolutionary tide. At the start of the century he had viewed the forthcoming revolution as "bourgeois," in 1905 he accentuated its "bourgeois-democratic" (meaning peasant) essence, in March 1917 the revolution was to him still a violent social upheaval without, however, abolition of the system of private economy. In the following months, moving more and more to the left, he was still expecting to be prodded and guided by the West. Interaction of Russian and Western revolutions-Trotsky's "permanent revolution"—was actually (though not in so many words) accepted by Lenin as the prospect of his November upheaval. In the early stage of the revolution Lenin wrote: The proletariat of Russia, operating in one of the most backward countries in Europe, surrounded by a vast petty-peasant population, cannot make its aim the immediate realization of a Socialist transformation.18 Stalin, on the other hand, less a thinker and philosopher than a man of practice, pushed aside the hard questions concerning advanced and backward countries. He was the first among the Bolsheviks to proclaim that Russia might be the first to enter the path of socialism. In August 1917 he told the congress of the Bolshevik Party: Some comrades say that since capitalism is poorly developed in our country, it would be utopian to raise the question of a socialist revolution. They would be right if there were no war, if there were no economic disruption, if the foundations of the capitalist organization of the national economy were not shaken. . . . It would be rank pedantry to demand that Russia should "wait" with socialist changes until Europe "begins." That country "begins" which has the greater opportunities. 19 . . The possibility is not excluded that Russia will be the country that will lay the road to socialism. No country hitherto has enjoyed such freedom in time of war as Russia does, or has attempted to introduce workers' control of production. Moreover, the base of our revolution is broader than in Western Europe, where the proletariat stands utterly alone face to face with the bourgeoisie. . . . We must discard the antiquated idea that only Europe can show us the way. There is dogmatic Marxism and creative Marxism. I stand by the latter.20 18 "O Tekushchem Momente" ([Resolution] On the Present Situation), adopted at the Seventh All-Russian or “April" Conference of the RSDLP (b) in 1917, KPSS v Rezolyutsiyakh i Resheniyakh part 1, p. 351. 19 J. V. Stalin, "Report on the Political Situation," Delivered July 30 [August 12], 1917 at the Sixth Congress of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks), Works (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1952–55), vol. III (1953), pp. 185, 186. The Sixth Congress was held August 8-16 [July 26-August 3], 1917. 20 'Stalin, "Reply to Preobrazhensky on Clause 9 of the Resolution 'On the Political Situation,' Speech Delivered August 3 [16], 1917 at the Sixth Congress of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks), Works, vol. III (1953), pp. 199, 200. Other problems of his movement were discussed by Lenin in a small book written in Finland in the summer of 1917, while he was in hiding after his arrest had been ordered by the Provisional Government. The book, "The State and Revolution," has attained a prominent place in the library of basic works on communism. The most important subjects dealt with were dictatorship, democracy, and the "withering away" of the state. All states, including democracies, are organized violence, Lenin said; "dictatorship of the proletariat" is likewise organized violence. ... the dictatorship of a single class is necessary not only for class society in general, not only for the proletariat which has overthrown the bourgeoisie, but for the entire historical period between capitalism and "classless society," communism. The forms of the bourgeois state are extremely varied, but in essence they are all the same: in one way or another, in the last analysis, all these states are inevitably the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The transition from capitalism to communism will certainly create a great variety and abundance of political forms, but in essence there will inevitably be only one: the dictatorship of the proletariat.21 At this time Lenin did not pretend that dictatorship would be tantamount to political democracy; he honestly defined its eventual role as power based on armed force: The doctrine of the class struggle, as applied by Marx to the question of the state and of the socialist revolution, leads inevitably to the recognition of the political rule of the proletariat, of its dictatorship, i. e., of power shared with none and relying directly upon the armed force of the masses. The overthrow of the bourgeoisie can be achieved only by the proletariat becoming transformed into the ruling class, capable of crushing the inevitable and desperate resistance of the bourgeoisie, and of organising all the toiling and exploited masses for the new economic order. The proletariat needs state power, the centralised organisation of force, the organisation of violence, for the purpose of crushing the resistance of the exploiters and for the purpose of leading the great mass of the population— the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie, the semi-proletarians—in the work of organising socialist economy.22 Speaking of the state, Lenin had in mind the state machinery only— police, army, officialdom; the party of a proletarian revolution, he said, cannot take over and reform the existing state; it must break it up, destroy it completely, and replace it by a new one: ... Revolution means that the proletariat will destroy the "administrative apparatus" and the whole state machine, and substitute for it a new one consisting of the armed workers. 21 Lenin, "The State and Revolution" (August-September 1917), Selected Works (New York: International Publishers, 1943), vol. VII, p. 34. 29 Ibid., p. 26. 44836-60-Vol. II- 4 The point is not whether the "Ministries" will remain, or whether "commissions of specialists" or other kinds of institutions will be set up; this is quite unimportant. The point is whether the old state machine (connected by thousands of threads with the bourgeoisie and completely saturated with routine and inertia) shall remain, or be destroyed and superseded by a new one. Revolution must not mean that the new class will command, govern with the aid of the old state machine, but that this class will smash this machine and command, govern with the aid of a new machine.23 To Lenin the state was an evil; but, in contrast to the anarchists, he insisted on its being conquered, taken over, and used by the victorious class (meaning the Communist Party) to establish the socialist type of society. ... Under socialism much of the "primitive" democracy will inevitably be revived, since, for the first time in the 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. Under socialism, all will take part in the work of government in turn and will soon become accustomed to no one governing." We set ourselves the ultimate aim of abolishing the state i.e., all organised and systematic violence, all use of violence against man in general. We do not expect the advent of an order of society in which the principle of the subordination of the minority to the majority will not be observed. But in striving for socialism we are convinced that it will develop into communism and, hence, that the need for violence against people in general, the need for the subjection of one man to another, and of one section of the population to another, will vanish, since people will become accustomed to observing the elementary conditions of social life without force and without subordination.25 Only at a later stage will the state begin to wither away: Only in communist society, when the resistance of the capitalists has been completely broken, when the capitalists have disappeared, when there are no classes (ie., when there is no difference between the members of society as regards their relation to the social means of production), only then does "the state . . . cease to exist," and it "becomes possible to speak of freedom." Only then will really complete democracy, democracy without any exceptions, be possible and be realised. And only then will democracy itself begin to wither away owing to the simple fact that, freed from capitalist slavery, from the untold horrors, savagery, absurdities and infamies of capitalist exploitation, people will gradually become accustomed to observing the elementary rules of social life that have been known for centuries and repeated for thousands of years in all copy-book maxims; they will become accustomed to observing them without force, without com Ibid., pp. 106, 107. Ibid., p. 108. pulsion, without subordination, without the special apparatus for compulsion which is called the state. The expression "the state withers away" is very well chosen, for it indicates both the gradual and the spontaneous nature of the process. Only habit can, and undoubtedly will, have such an effect; for we see around us millions of times how readily people become accustomed to observing the necessary rules of social life if there is no exploitation, if there is nothing that causes indignation, that calls forth protest and revolt and has to be suppressed.26 4. The Unstable Regime In this initial period of the revolution the Bolsheviks were a minor, almost an insignificant, party. At the first All-Russian Congress of the Peasants' Soviets which convened in May, Lenin's group mustered fourteen delegates out of a total of 1115; the great majority belonged to the Socialist-Revolutionaries. The congress supported the Provisional Government, though not without reservations. These were months of growing unrest and accelerated political crises. The situation at the front was deteriorating, economic conditions worsened. Bolshevism, on the rise, bitterly criticized the foreign policy of the government, in particular its adherence to the former secret agreements with Russia's allies about the annexation of certain German, Austrian, and Turkish territories to Russia; though the text of the agreements remained unknown, the war was viewed by the extreme left as "predatory" and "annexationist," and the antiwar propaganda was highly successful. The first major crisis developed with the publication on May 3 [April 20] of Foreign Minister Milyukov's note to the Allies emphasizing Russia's determination to carry on the war and fulfill its obligations to the Allies. Soldiers, sailors, and workers marched in demonstrative protest under banners bearing such inscriptions as "Down with Milyukov," "Down with the Provisional Government," and "Down with the War." . . . Guchkov, the Minister of War, and Milyukov resigned from the cabinet. After protracted negotiations with the leaders of the Soviet in the course of which the Executive Committee first pronounced against participation in the cabinet and then reversed itself, Prince Lvov announced a new cabinet on May 18... 27 While the moderate ministers quit, six socialists entered the cabinet, among them Viktor Chernov, the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and Irakli Tseretelli, a Menshevik leader. Alexander Kerensky now served as Minister of War. Soon afterwards, on July 25, the moderate Prince Lvov was replaced as premier by Kerensky. "Ibid., pp. 81, 82. "Merle Fainsod, How Russia Is Ruled (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953), pp. 66, 67. In June the Bolsheviks achieved a majority in the powerful Petrograd Soviet, although they still remained in a minority in the provinces. ... At the first All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which met in Petrograd on June 16 [3], the Bolsheviks were still in a definite minority. Of the 777 delegates who declared their political affiliations, 285 were SR's, 248 Mensheviks, 105 Bolsheviks, and 32 Menshevik-Internationalists. . . .. the Bolshevik Party continued to gather its forces and strengthen its organization.28 The attempt of the government to resume the offensive on the Western front ended in a military debacle which promptly shattered its stability. On July 16-17 [3-4] the Bolsheviks staged another demonstrationa step toward possible seizure of power-which ended in clashes and casualties. The government countered by ordering the arrest of a number of Bolshevik leaders, among them Lenin and Trotsky. For several weeks there was a growing wave of anti-Bolshevik sentiment which culminated in the attempt of General Lavr Kornilov to put down the Bolshevik movement and abolish the Soviets by military force. The attempt, to which non-Bolshevik parties offered opposition, failed, and resistance to the growing subversive forces petered out. Kornilov's movement was also followed by an outbreak of lawlessness and brutal excesses against army officers, who in many places were beaten up, shot, drowned. In a report on events that occurred in Viborg, for example, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets stated: The picture of the lynching was dreadful. First three generals and a colonel, just arrested by the combined Executive Committee and the Army Corps Committee, were dragged from the guardhouse, thrown off the bridge, and shot in the water. Then the regiments took the law into their own hands. The troops brought out the commanders and some of the other officers, beat them, threw them into the river, and beat them again in the water. About eleven officers were killed in this manner. The exact number has not yet been established, since some of the officers fled. The murders went on till night." In these last few months before the upheaval, the Bolshevik party, growing in numbers, employed the strategy of defeatism in its crassest form: whatever was bad for the government was approved by the LeninTrotsky movement. Disintegration in the army, though obviously in the interests of Germany, was fostered by the propaganda of fraternization and the peace slogans. Strikes, including strikes in war industries, were organized. Despite the Bolsheviks' own inclination toward strict centralism, national movements for separation from Russia, especially 28 Ibid., p. 68. (Note: The All-Russian Congress of Soviets was a conference of representatives from all the local Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Soviets.) As quoted in David Shub, Lenin (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1948), p. 227. 29 |