Anarchist critiscism of the russian revolution

[proletarianrevo]

Hi comrades,
Recently a huge debate erupted in Denmark. The reason was that the labour movement museum in Copenhagen has a large Lenin-statue in front of its museum-hall.
Suddently, all the top-layers, the president, etc of the Social Democratic Party demanded that this be removed because Lenin was a massmurderer and a "traitor" to the cause of the labour movement.

They might be forgetting that their old friends were the real traitors, and massmurderers in 1914 when they send thousands of workers out in a bloody mayhem fighting for the "fatherland".

Anyway, they did not succeed in putting sufficient pressure on the museum-board, so the statue stands there, and will continue to do so.

But in some debates, I heard a lot of the various stupid claims from anarchists, etc. about Lenin and Kroonstadt, and so on. They are rather easy to answer.

But some of the more experienced anarchists have been puttling abvout a certain book that they see as an eternal "thruth" about the great crimes of Bolshevism.

It is called "The Bolsheviks and Workers Control", by Maurice Brinton. it is online here: http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/sp001861/bolintro.html

I havn't really had sufficient time to look into it myself, and find some good sources to counter such anarchist arguments, but I think it is quite necessary.
I would like to hear from comrades wether they know this book - and its author - and wether they have some good concrete sources to counter it.

comradely,
Andreas

[P.O.U.M]

I know the book is used repeatedly throughout the Anarchist FAQ, thats about all i know on the book

[P.O.U.M]

personally, i would like to see Grant/Woods write something on it, because of what i read from them they know the most on the revolution and im almost positive that this book is known throughout the more experinced anarchists, as i said its in the anarcho faq quite a bit.

[turnoviseous]

There is one comrade working on producing a book about anarchism from its beginings to anarcho-sindicalism...dont know even when approx. it will be finished tho´.


P.O.U.M, otherwise I suggest you a book "Year one of the Russian revolution" written by at the time an anarchist (Victor Serge) who later joined Trotskyists.

[rlyon]

Hello comrades. I am familiar with this book, and general anarchist criticisms of the Russian Revolution. The book largely maps out Bolshevik and Soviet policy through the years 1917-1921 in a effort to counter Trotskyist arguments on Stalinism - paying particluar attention to the question of workers control and production in general.

It attempts to show that all the ills of Stalinism had actually been initiated under Lenin, and that Trotsky supported them. In the conclusion the author clearly states that "The events described in this pamphlet show that in relation to industrial policy there is a clear-cut and incontrovertible link between what happened under Lenin and Trotsky and the later practices of Stalinism."

This follows the general anarchist idea that Bolshevism is an aberration, and that the Bolsheviks were an evil Machiaevellian party determined to control and rule Russia on their own - and that everything was planned and executed to give them maximum control over the working class. From this they either claim that the Bolsheviks were not actual Marxists and that the Party was an alien intrusion into the ranks of the working class - that it was a party of alien "petty bourgeois intellectuals" which de-railed the movement and the revolution, or they claim that they were real Marxists, who truly exposed Marxism as being "authoritarian" and "statist" and that this is how all Marxist led revolutions will end up. Some anarchists even claim that Lenin and the Bolsheviks put on a "libertarian" face with the ideas and slogans from "State and Revolution" in order to trick the workers (and the anarchists) into trusting and supporting them - of course only to reveal their true colours after the revolution and crush the workers movement.

Obviously this is not the case, and many anarchist critics forget one important thing - that as Trotsky says in the Revolution Betrayed "The utopian hopes of the epoch of military communism came in later for a cruel, and in many respects just, criticism. The theoretical mistake of the ruling party remains inexplicable, however, only if you leave out of account the fact that all calculations at that time were based on the hope of an early victory of the revolution in the West". It was not possible to build socialism in Russia in 1917 - the country was far too backward, but on a world scale it was possible to build socialism. The productive forces on a world scale had been sufficiently developed. It became apparent, that the revolution against imperialism and capitalism would begin at capitalism's weakest link - in the colonial world. This is the essence of the permanent revolution. Russia could only move towards socialism with the aid of the socialist revolution in the West - which the Russian revolution would hopefully spark. As we all know, the revolution in the West was delayed, leaving Russia isolated.

With the beginnings of the civil war in Russia, tough decisions needed to be made. This was the beginnings of War Communism. The Bolsheviks had actually left production in the hands of the Factory commitees until mid-1918. Only some factories had placed under "workers control" - as opposed to "workers self-management". The bosses had locked out many workers and fled - so the workers had taken them over - and were running them themselves. There were problems - which the anarchists never talk about (but Marcel Liebman does in his excellent book "Leninism under Lenin" - which is unfortunately rare these days and hard to find). There were several things happening in this period that needed to be addressed - for several reasons - to feed the population, and to prepare for the civil war. Many factories were lagging behind in production. There is one anecdote Krupskaya mentions when she ran into a worker from a well know munitions factory in St. Petersburgh. the worker told her that the factory workers had decided to take the day off because they didn;t feel like working, and they wanted a holiday - she mentioned that seeing as the workers now owned the factory, they should get the priviledges that bosses used to have. This in the middle of a war! There are many such stories. Many factories also began to ask the bosses back, either into their old position, or as a worker in order to help them profiteer. Other factories began to horde products, and profiteer. There is another story, from Liebman, that the Central Military authority had ordered bullets from some far away region, only to have the shipment taxed (in the form of money or a portion of the shipment itself) by all the Soviets along the way.

This follows the Marxist crticism of anarcho-syndicalism. The basic idea of anarcho-syndicalism is that the workers, through their respective organizations (either Trade Unions or factory Commitees) will control the factories and production, in the absence of a central authorty, ie the state. Marxists have always said that this would simply change one set of owners for another, ie. that it would simply create another form or type of capitalism. And this is what happened in Russia in 1917 and 1918. Factories began to horde products and profiteer - there was no general plan of production and things were chaotic. This is unnacceptable in times of war. the army and workers need to be fed, in order to win the war, otherwise there would be no revolution, and no hope of socialism at all - everything would have been in vain. This demonstrates that socialism is not determined by who owns or runs the factories, or by how many people administer the factory (whether it is a council of workers or managers or a single administrator), or whether there are specialised in the factories employed at higher wages (as happened under the Bolsheviks) - socialism is determined by the socialization of production - ie the nationalization of factories and production into a single economic plan, in order to coordinate and plan production for the benefit of all. Russia was entering the civil war, and all production needed to be centralized and accounted in order to ensure that workers and soldiers were being fed - and to halt the influence of capitalism - in the form of profiteering. As Trotsky said in Terrorism and Communism "The first who must plead guilty in the face of the Socialist revolution is our Party Congress, which expressed itself in favor of the principle of one-man management in the administration of industry, and above all in the lowest grades, in the factories and plants. It would be the greatest possible mistake, however, to consider this decision as a blow to the independence of the working class. The independence of the workers is determined and measured not by whether three workers or one are placed at the head of a factory, but by factors and phenomena of a much more profound character—the construction of the economic organs with the active assistance of the trade unions; the building up of all Soviet organs by means of the Soviet congresses, representing tens of millions of workers; the attraction into the work of administration, or control of administration, of those who are administered. It is in such things that the independence of the working class can be expressed. And if the working class, on the foundation of its existence, comes though its congresses, Soviet party and trade union, to the conclusion that it is better to place one person at the head of a factory, and not a board, it is making a decision dictated by the independence of the working class. It may be correct or incorrect from the point of view of the technique of administration, but it is not imposed upon the proletariat, it is dictated by its own will and pleasure. It would consequently 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 factories. 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, and not at all in the form in which individual economic enterprises are administered."

The other general point is on the realtionship between Leninism and Stalinism. The Anarchists have always maintained, as have the liberals, reformists and conservatives (Trotsky made the point that all political trends united to defeat Bolshevism), that the policies of Leninism led directly to Stalinism. This is obviously not so - there is a river of blood that separates genuine Bolshevism from Stalinism.

[rlyon]

Now, it cannot be denied that there was repression under Lenin - but one must look at where it was directed, and agianst whom. Any repression under Lenin was used only against those who rose up in arms against the Soviet state - this included monarchists, reformists, liberals, and anarchists. In 1918 (or maybe 1919, don;t remember off hand) a group of anarchists blew up the Moscosw CP headquarters - killing about 15 party members and seriously wounding Bukharin. Before this there had been many armed demonstrations of anarchists - calling for the downfall of Soviet power - which ended up in riots and looting and other such activities. The bombing of the party headquarters consituted an armed attack on the state - in the middle of a civil war by the way - which resulted in a crackdown on the anarchists in general. What were the Bolsheviks and Soviet State to do? Just let armed gangs of anarchists run around blowing up buildings and banks and attacking Communists? this is counter-revolutionary activity. Now Lenin always maintained that only "criminal" anarchists were detained, and not ideological anarchists. Victor Serge recounts many stories, and facts, which prove that many monarchists and criminals infiltrated anarchist "organizations" in order to use them to commit crimes - looting, pillaging, and other such things. In fact they had targeted them as easy access groups, through which they could subvert the Soviet State. Most were hostile to organized Soviet power, and most had no requirements of membership, and no control over membership activities. It was relatively easy to get them riled up for a riot etc...It was generally these people that were arrested. In fact, on the word of Emma Goldman, or even Alexander Berkman, many anarchists were released by the Bolsheviks.
The book "The Bolsheviks and Workers Control" actually proves that there was freedom of discussion - at trade union congresses and Soviet congresses etc... and that the Bolsheviks simply won the arguments - and this was in the middle of a civil war! As I said before, repression was only used against those who rose up in arms. Beyond that, the Bolsheviks utilized the Soviet state (ie the workers's state) and the implementation of workers control in the army and the factories against the capitalists and monarchists - ie as a tool of class repression against the bourgeoisie. The Stalinist regime utilized a degenerated workers state, resting on the bureacracy, to bureaucratically twist workers control and the institutions of the state against the working class - in order to solidify their domination. The Stalinist regime relied heavily on the old state machinery - bureacrats and the like - as well as many Mensheviks (looking down the list of CC members, and prosecuters from the time of the Moscow Trials clearly shows that many were former Mensheviks) to actually physically eradicate the Bolsheviks and all vestiges of genuine workers control. Now these Mensheviks did not care for the revolution, or the struggle for socialism, but were simply concerned with mainatining their own prestige, positions, and power. To make a long story short - the Bolsheviks relied on the working class to maintain state power and use it against the bourgeois and the feudal elements of Russian society - the Stalinist regime relied on bureacrats and Mensheviks and other elements of the old state machinery to attack the workers and physically destroy the Bolshevik Old Guard.How can Stalinism and Leninism be the same thing - when the Stlainists had to kill the Leninists in order to maintain power?
The anarchists just don;t realize that there is no such thing as a "pure revolution" - the wage system could not be abolished, and the Russia could not move directly to "pure" communism (from each according to his ability to each according to his needs - which is what many anarchists advocated, simply, as a policy for the revolution) because the material conditions were not present for this. Workers needed to be fed, and they needed to buy food. There was not enough resources to spread them around equally - most people were starving and hungry. While these may be reasons to build socialism, they are not the conditions under which to build socialism - at least not easily and in the absence of the revolution in the West. On the other hand, this does not mean that there are not measures that can not be taken - and the Bolsheviks did, workers control, a nationalized economic plan, etc...They needed to hold out for the West, and wait for the material and human assistence necesary to create socialism. As Trotsky also explained in the Revolution Betrayed - the socialist revolution and Soviet power do not mean that you have created socialism, or that socialism exists - it means that the working class, at the head of the nation, now has the means and the ability to go about creating socialism. Vestiges of the old society still exist (how could it be otherwise - capitalism and money did not disappear on Oct 26th 1917), and the working class, organized as the ruling class of the nation, must use the state to go about building socialism. Socialism will not fall from the sky, or be created over night, but is a process and continuation of class struggle, of the revolution itself.
One last point on workers control: as Trotsky explained, workers control is " a school of planned economy" and is a weapon in the class struggle whereby the workers learn about industry and production to the extent that they can run it on their own. It gives the working class time to study, scientifically, how the economy functions, from the base level of individual factories the to the large scale of the world economy. Only through this process of workers control, can the workers actually rest power over the economy from the bosses, and move towards self management and a nationalized planned economy.
 Some good sources are:
Year one of the Russian Revolution: Victor Serge
Memoirs of a revolutionary: Victor Serge
The Revolution in Danger: Victor Serge
Leninism under Lenin: Marcel Liebman
The Russian Anarchists: Paul Avrich
The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution: Paul Avrich
Terrorism and Communism: Leon Trotsky - although this was largely written against Kautsky and reformism in general, it largely applies to anarchism as well.
Kronstadt - a collection of writings by Lenin and Trotsky

[Daymare17]

Very good posts Rob.

The difference between Marxists and anarchists is that Marxists have a grip of reality. The anarchists are idealists, and they think that identical causes always produce identical effects no matter the objective conditions. They believe the original sin of "Leninism" is its "despotic centralism", which will always result in totalitarianism no matter what. Victor Serge, despite his otherwise good Bolshevik creds, was also influenced by this stupid idea, as we can see from this passage.

"It is easy to explain – and even to justify – this development of Bolshevik Marxism by referring to the constant mortal danger, the Civil War, the superbly energetic defence of the public safety by Lenin, Trotsky, Dzerzhinsky. Easy and just to recognise that this policy, in its early stages, made certain the victory of the workers – and a victory won in the face of difficulties that were truly without precedent. But one must realise that later on this policy brought about the defeat of the workers by the bureaucracy."

http://www.marxists.org/archive/serge/1938/xx/ourtime.htm

That policy did not bring on the defeat by itself, it was merely a tiny factor. The Bolsheviks did the best they could under the conditions. If the dictatorship had not used terror then there would have been a counter-revolution. Then Serge could die happily, with a clean libertarian conscience, hanged from a tree by a White Guard. Is it so difficult to understand that the dictatorship would have been loosened up with the first victory of the world revolution? And that the victory of the bureaucracy came from the failure of the world revolution, and not primarily from the Bolshevik dictatorship?

[P.O.U.M]

In 1918 (or maybe 1919, don;t remember off hand) a group of anarchists blew up the Moscosw CP headquarters - killing about 15 party members and seriously wounding Bukharin.

I have heard of this before but ye who I heard it from could not remember where they heard it from. Do you know where I could find this information? Book, phamplet, something.