The struggle against fascism begin with the fight against bolshevism!
- Thread starter Herbert Read
- Start date
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
well, the Hitler Stalin pact was signed on August 23, 1939, and this article is from Vol. 4, No. 8 of Living Marxism, which published almost monthly - so it would be written either just after the pact was signed, or just before, when it seemed obvious it was going to be signed.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
sihhi said:
This is a meaningless question. You may as well ask if anarchism was so good why has anarchism failed? I mean if you are going to go on the historical record the score thus far in terms of succesful revolutions is 1-0 to Lenin and Trotsky. I don't think that's much of an argument either way.
The revolutionary left - used in its broadest sense here as including Trotskyists, class struggle anarchists, Left Communists etc - has a pretty poor record in fomenting revolution or even building mass organisations. We have all spent most of our existence as small groups squashed between Stalinist and Social Democratic behemoths. In fact the only revolutionary groupings of any kind which have succeeded in building any mass organisations at all since the rise of Stalinism have been the Trotskyists (eg Sri Lanka) and the anarcho-syndicalists (eg Spain).
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
Nigel Irritable said:
I probably fit in as left communist and I made that flippant remark only in relation to Russia because I'm fed up of most Trotskyist analysis of the years 1924-1932 in the Soviet Union and particularly inside the Communist party in Russia.
I'll put it this way:
WRT the Soviet Union after 1924 only, Why did Stalin's ideas become reality and Trotsky's not?
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
sihhi said:
Because it wasn't simply a battle of ideas. Still less was it a battle of personalities.
The Soviet Union was utterly isolated in an entirely hostile capitalist world. Russia was already an extremely backwards place and the Civil war had killed off or dismantled what working class there was. The revolutions elsewhere - which Lenin and Trotsky had always premised the long term success of the Russian revolution on - did occur but they failed or were brutally crushed (in large part, I would argue, because the working class lacked a mass combat organisation like the Bolsheviks but that's a seperate argument).
The need to survive, the need to keep the revolution alive, led to more and more desperate measures. It also meant the massive bureaucratisation of the Soviet Union, and that bureaucracy of course developed interests seperate to those of the working class and peasantry. This wasn't something Lenin was oblivious to in the last stages of his life, still less was it something Trotsky was oblivious to - hence the Left Opposition.
The key lesson from all of this, at least as far as I am concerned, is that socialism in one country is impossible.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
sihhi said:
Because it wasn't simply a battle of ideas. Still less was it a battle of personalities.
The Soviet Union was utterly isolated in an entirely hostile capitalist world. Russia was already an extremely backwards place and the Civil war had killed off or dismantled what working class there was. The revolutions elsewhere - which Lenin and Trotsky had always premised the long term success of the Russian revolution on - did occur but they failed or were brutally crushed (in large part, I would argue, because the working class lacked a mass combat organisation like the Bolsheviks but that's a seperate argument).
The need to survive, the need to keep the revolution alive, led to more and more desperate measures. It also meant the massive bureaucratisation of the Soviet Union, and that bureaucracy of course developed interests seperate to those of the working class and peasantry. This wasn't something Lenin was oblivious to in the last stages of his life, still less was it something Trotsky was oblivious to - hence the Left Opposition.
The key lesson from all of this, at least as far as I am concerned, is that socialism in one country is impossible.
The usual anarchist response to all of this is to produce a series of quotes from Lenin or Trotsky out of their post-revolutionary writings where they defend desperate measures as if they were objectively good things or to provide a list of anti-democratic measures taken by the Bolsheviks, stripped of the context of an increasingly desperate struggle for survival. Just in case you are tempted to repeat that yet again, please, for the love of God, take it that I'm already familiar with the material.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
I'm not suggesting at all it was a battle of personalities.
Perhaps I'm missing something big but why didn't the Left Opposition win out after Lenin died?
My guess is even if social revolution had succeeded in Germany or wherever the Bolsheviks would've tried to control it- and it would've been genuine socialism in any meaningful sense as a result. But then again I've not read enough about the precise situation of Eastern Europe Austria & Germany in 1918-1924 to know the facts fully.
Edit: I know I'm probably biased on the issue because I am anti-vanguard and anti-Cheka and all the rest of it.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Sorry about the wierd double posting - I was trying to edit the first post and must have hit the reply button.
I know. I was just dealing with another attitude which sometimes comes up in this kind of discussion. I should have been clearer.
A combination of reasons, chiefly revolving around the objective circumstances in which the argument was played out. The point I was trying to make was that the struggle did not take the form of a debating society assembling together, comparing two alternative programmes and then deciding that the Stalinist one was a better idea. The argument took place in a context which massively favoured the Stalinists.
Factors contributing to this include but are not limited to:
The fact that the Russian working class, already small had been all but wiped out in the civil war. Linked to that is the fact that the Russian economy and infrastructure was by this stage practically non-existant.
The fact that the revolutionary wave which followed the first world war had been crushed across Europe leaving the Soviet Union entirely isolated.
The fact that the Soviet Union had become increasingly bureaucratised as a result of the desperate struggle to hold the revolution together. And this is linked, of course, to mistakes made by the Bolsheviks but was also an objective problem.
In those circumstances, quite apart from factional manoueverings by the Stalinists, they had enormous built in advantages. The bureaucracy was increasingly powerful and determined to defend and increase its privileges. The "world revolution" seemed to have been crushed, which meant that even honest militants could be swayed by the argument which said, well the cavalry isn't coming so we have to get on with building "socialism" here.
Well that rather depends on what you mean by "the Bolsheviks". The Russian Bolsheviks certainly wouldn't have been in any position to do so, in fact a German Soviet Union would have probably been the more significant ally. As I said above though I think that the absence of a mass party in Germany along the lines of the Bolsheviks is one of the key reasons why the social revolution did not succeed. But anyway, another argument for another day.
What precisely do you mean by "anti-vanguard"?
sihhi said:
I know. I was just dealing with another attitude which sometimes comes up in this kind of discussion. I should have been clearer.
sihhi said:
A combination of reasons, chiefly revolving around the objective circumstances in which the argument was played out. The point I was trying to make was that the struggle did not take the form of a debating society assembling together, comparing two alternative programmes and then deciding that the Stalinist one was a better idea. The argument took place in a context which massively favoured the Stalinists.
Factors contributing to this include but are not limited to:
The fact that the Russian working class, already small had been all but wiped out in the civil war. Linked to that is the fact that the Russian economy and infrastructure was by this stage practically non-existant.
The fact that the revolutionary wave which followed the first world war had been crushed across Europe leaving the Soviet Union entirely isolated.
The fact that the Soviet Union had become increasingly bureaucratised as a result of the desperate struggle to hold the revolution together. And this is linked, of course, to mistakes made by the Bolsheviks but was also an objective problem.
In those circumstances, quite apart from factional manoueverings by the Stalinists, they had enormous built in advantages. The bureaucracy was increasingly powerful and determined to defend and increase its privileges. The "world revolution" seemed to have been crushed, which meant that even honest militants could be swayed by the argument which said, well the cavalry isn't coming so we have to get on with building "socialism" here.
sihhi said:
Well that rather depends on what you mean by "the Bolsheviks". The Russian Bolsheviks certainly wouldn't have been in any position to do so, in fact a German Soviet Union would have probably been the more significant ally. As I said above though I think that the absence of a mass party in Germany along the lines of the Bolsheviks is one of the key reasons why the social revolution did not succeed. But anyway, another argument for another day.
sihhi said:
What precisely do you mean by "anti-vanguard"?
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
Why should this- the reduction in proportion of the population of the city working-class- mean Stalin's ideas were preferable.
Surely Trotsky's ideas of revolution abroad would've been more preferable to the party members in Soviet Union.
Against the Kronstadt massacre, Cheka, Central Committee and Politburo - against the worst aspects of a vanguard party.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
sihhi said:
The destruction of much of the working class, and in particular of its most politically coherent elements who tended to be at the forefront of the civil war, had two knock on effects - it removed many of the people who were the driving force of the revolution from the scene and just as importantly it further weakened the Russian social and economic infrastructure, in turn helping strengthen the bureaucracy. This was just one factor in a whole series of factors though.
It is well worth reading Trotsky himself on this. "The Revolution Betrayed" is one of the most important books in socialist history, whether you agree with it or not, yet it never ceases to amaze me how few of Trotsky's critics (anarchist, Stalinist or other) have actually read it. Chapter 5, "The Soviet Thermidor" deals with much of what we are discussing here:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1936-rev/ch05.htm#ch05-1
sihhi said:
That doesn't really clarify very much. It reduces "anti-vanguard" to not liking certain actions or institutions of the Soviet regime. My own organisation has neither a Central Committee nor a Politburo. I hope very much that in a revolutionary situation that a local rebellion won't have to be put down and that no institution along the lines of the Cheka will be necessary. Does that make me an "anti-vanguardist"?
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
Re Vanguardism & politics today that's another issue... I don't like what Trotskyist parties do because at their very best they extend social democracy and don't really listen to what many working class people are saying... But that's another issue- and another thread...
So sticking to USSR:
This socialist revolution if entrusted just to the "most politically coherent elements" it is meaningless. If they die what happens- if they are the victims of a freak disease- what happens = "bureaucracy" = evenutally NKVD.
As someone seeking a new order of social relations-- you've got to be prepared for blockade, war, bombardment, sabotage, black propaganda, espionage, accidents, disease- everything.
I did read TRB but a long time ago I will do so again. I wasn't convinced by it because it seemed to blame external events: revolution in Germany failed+ foreign armies intervened, peasants not wanting war because they knew their would be requistioned; low education of peasants and workers left after civil war.
I've also read his defence of the early Leninist period 1917-1920 responding to Karl Kautsky in Terrorism or Communism and that convinced me even less because the Bolshevik actions dismantling factory committees and soviets and centralise their representatives were enacted well before the severest the civil war. To deal with these facts of foreign intervention, of civil war you need genuine popular recallable democracy.
In fact thinking about it we probably disagree on too much about pre-1924 to have a fruitful discussion about post-1924.
I just don't think Lenin or Trotsky or Stalin or Tomsky particularly cared about the crushing of workers democracy between 1921 and 1924.
Blaming events like civil war and intervention is not good enough. Just as the CNT and CNT-FAI joined the Popular Front government in Spain in 1936 blaming the threat of army coup- not understandable or excusable at all.
So sticking to USSR:
This socialist revolution if entrusted just to the "most politically coherent elements" it is meaningless. If they die what happens- if they are the victims of a freak disease- what happens = "bureaucracy" = evenutally NKVD.
As someone seeking a new order of social relations-- you've got to be prepared for blockade, war, bombardment, sabotage, black propaganda, espionage, accidents, disease- everything.
I did read TRB but a long time ago I will do so again. I wasn't convinced by it because it seemed to blame external events: revolution in Germany failed+ foreign armies intervened, peasants not wanting war because they knew their would be requistioned; low education of peasants and workers left after civil war.
I've also read his defence of the early Leninist period 1917-1920 responding to Karl Kautsky in Terrorism or Communism and that convinced me even less because the Bolshevik actions dismantling factory committees and soviets and centralise their representatives were enacted well before the severest the civil war. To deal with these facts of foreign intervention, of civil war you need genuine popular recallable democracy.
In fact thinking about it we probably disagree on too much about pre-1924 to have a fruitful discussion about post-1924.
I just don't think Lenin or Trotsky or Stalin or Tomsky particularly cared about the crushing of workers democracy between 1921 and 1924.
Blaming events like civil war and intervention is not good enough. Just as the CNT and CNT-FAI joined the Popular Front government in Spain in 1936 blaming the threat of army coup- not understandable or excusable at all.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
sihhi said:
I don't have a clue what you are saying here, but fair enough we'll leave it for another thread.
sihhi said:
You are extrapolating something which I have not and do not argue into my prior statement. I think that the wiping out of much of the working class and in particular its most politically active sections was one factor which weakened the Soviet infrastructure. In fact to me that's so obvious that I doubt if you actually disagree with it. I am not suggesting that a socialist revolution be entrusted to "just the most politically coherent elements" but to the working class as a whole.
That said there will be political differentiation inside the working class - unless you are suggesting that the entire class should possess a uniform political consciousness and that every single worker must be convinced of the need for a revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and of the need for full involvement in the struggle before a revolution should take place? If you are, then let me suggest that you avoid holding your breath because that revolution will never come.
In reality there will be people who will choose to involve themselves more than others or who will have a greater understanding of the political situation than others - remember that many workers today vote Tory and that in any revolutionary situation which has occurred some workers have sided with reaction and others have tried as best they can to just keep their heads down. I don't argue that "the most politically coherent elements" should take power on behalf of everyone else, but I do argue that they have a responsibility to offer people a lead through argument and example and that if they are wiped out that yes that will negatively effect the prospects of any revolution.
sihhi said:
Which is exactly the triumph of Bolshevism over any other form of socialist strategy which has yet been tried. The Russian revolutionaries were prepared, they were organised, they led a revolution, they organised the red army, they fought off the whites and the expeditionary forces of every capitalist power, they did everything conceivable to hold the revolution together and yet in the end the revolution was subverted. It is central to remember what the Bolsheviks maintained - there is no socialism in one country. No preparation would be enough if backwards Russia remained isolated. The revolutionary beacon was also in a sense a holding operation.
sihhi said:
I think that you are making a quite arbitrary distinction between external and internal causes. In so far as there were internal causes (by which I presume you mean various mistakes on the part of the revolutionaries) these occurred in a context. If you don't at all times remember such things as civil war, economic backwardness, foreign intervention, the gutting of the Russian working class, bureaucratisation, the risk of starvation, isolation and the suppression of the european revolutionary wave you will be unable to make sense of anything which was going on in the revolutionary state. The whole thing was predicated on the spread of the revolution. There was no Russian road to socialism in isolation from the rest of the world, instead of overcoming scarcity there could only be various forms of rationing and desperation. That's not some excuse after the fact - that was central to Trotsky's thinking from the start. Remember that the argument amongst Russian revolutionaries in the period up to 1917 wasn't about strategy for a working class revolution but about whether a working class revolution was even possible in such a backward country.
Finally on your points about various anti-democratic measures taken by the Bolsheviks in this context, I'd refer you to my earlier point. Most unpleasant decisions I would argue were necessary in the circumstances, some were on balance mistaken and in both cases Trotsky and Lenin often wrote their polemics as if such measures were good things in themselves which was clearly wrong.
888 said:
Could someone give a good link to what a Bordigist is.
Top Dog
Well-Known Member
Amadeo Bordiga was the head of the italian CP before Gramsci. Fell out with Lenin among other things over the 'tactical' question of parliamentarism. Remained a Leninist however and after the WWII set up the Internationalist CP of Italy. The Bordiga Archive is probably the best place to begin...james_walsh said:
On the subject of Bordiga, the collection of his writings (Murdering the Dead) on how capital is implicated in seemingly 'natural' disasters, like New Orleans is well worth a read at the moment
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
OK Have to be brief for now:
I'm aware of the working-class Tory vote yes and ??.
The whole plan of working-class self-control and mutual aid will have to involve the significant majority of working-class people.
I think because there *was* such a solid block of working-class Tory voters amongst other things that the "general success of socialism as an idea amongst the working-class" in post-war Britain as trumpeted by some lefties (not your group) is incorrect.
Not sure what you mean by that last sentence "revolutionary beacon" "holding operation" WTF?
And I'm not sure I hold with that paragraph as a whole because if the "Bolsheviks" were prepared as you suggest surely they should have been prepared for the blockade, the Western intervention, the possibility of four harsh winters in a row etc etc.
Re Leading "a revolution"- yes they did lead a revolution but one which was circumscribed by one-man management, non-independence of trade unions from the state, and no freedom of the press.
If the whole thing was predicated upon the spread of revolution- why then wasn't the spreading of revolution prioritised?
If you answer "Well the spread of the revolution wasn't possible"- why then lead the revolution at all if the spread of the revolution wasn't possible?
If "they [the revolution's leaders] couldn't have known this at time" then surely they were a useless vanguard party- but one which opened up the possibility for the NKVD etc.
Trotsky in the middle Ch8 OF Terrorism and Communism in the COLLEGIATE AND ONE-MAN MANAGEMENT sub-section:
Even if it were the case that as you suggest Trotsky loved making a virtue of necessity surely that underlies that
Trotsky didn't trust his own reasoning or the message of Bolshevism in general or was afraid that explaining this necessity in any great detail would blow the cover of something more sinister entirely.
I'm aware of the working-class Tory vote yes and ??.
The whole plan of working-class self-control and mutual aid will have to involve the significant majority of working-class people.
I think because there *was* such a solid block of working-class Tory voters amongst other things that the "general success of socialism as an idea amongst the working-class" in post-war Britain as trumpeted by some lefties (not your group) is incorrect.
Not sure what you mean by that last sentence "revolutionary beacon" "holding operation" WTF?
And I'm not sure I hold with that paragraph as a whole because if the "Bolsheviks" were prepared as you suggest surely they should have been prepared for the blockade, the Western intervention, the possibility of four harsh winters in a row etc etc.
Re Leading "a revolution"- yes they did lead a revolution but one which was circumscribed by one-man management, non-independence of trade unions from the state, and no freedom of the press.
If the whole thing was predicated upon the spread of revolution- why then wasn't the spreading of revolution prioritised?
If you answer "Well the spread of the revolution wasn't possible"- why then lead the revolution at all if the spread of the revolution wasn't possible?
If "they [the revolution's leaders] couldn't have known this at time" then surely they were a useless vanguard party- but one which opened up the possibility for the NKVD etc.
That's far too rosy an outlook on Trotsky's writings- back in 1920 describing the events of 1917-1920-
Trotsky in the middle Ch8 OF Terrorism and Communism in the COLLEGIATE AND ONE-MAN MANAGEMENT sub-section:
Even if it were the case that as you suggest Trotsky loved making a virtue of necessity surely that underlies that
Trotsky didn't trust his own reasoning or the message of Bolshevism in general or was afraid that explaining this necessity in any great detail would blow the cover of something more sinister entirely.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
sihhi said:
I am pointing out that within the working class there is now a political differentiation, that there has also been such in every revolutionary situation which has occurred and that there will be in any future revolution. Some workers will have a very clear idea of what is necessary and a willingness to put themselves on the line to do it, some will be opposed to revolution at all, many others will be at various points in between. You are right that a significant majority will have to be both supportive and crucially *actively involved* in any revolutionary process, but even that majority will not be uniform in its politics. Do you really think otherwise?
It's important to remember why this came up in this discussion though - the near-destruction of the small Russian working class in the course of revolution and civil war.
sihhi said:
I'm a bit startled by this, to be honest, because it is centrally a restatement of the question which began this discussion - why did Stalin's ideas rather than Trotsky's become reality?
Revolutionaries than as now considered socialism to be a worldwide system. A revolution happens in a single country, but a single revolutionary country is not socialism but a besieged island. Besieged in a literal military sense, and rather more fundamentally in an economic sense, tied as it is to the world capitalist market.
The general view of socialists both in Russia and around the world had been that revolution would occur first in the most advanced countries, with their huge and organised working classes and their concentrated industry. It was felt that Russia was far too backwards, with too small a working class and inadequate capitalist development, to have a socialist revolution. Instead a revolution there would be led by the bourgeoisie and would be centrally about furthering capitalist development.
Trotsky - to his eternal credit - saw something different. He saw a failing aristocracy and a feeble capitalist class incapable of following in the footsteps of its more advanced equivalents. He saw Russian capitalism as potentially the weak link in the chain. The very weakness of the capitalist class would allow the working class to take the lead. The point though was not that backwards Russia would then be able to push ahead and forge socialism in a besieged island, but instead that other revolutions would follow on its heels. And this is exactly what happened. With one fatal problem. The revolutionary wave across Europe was brutally suppressed.
The Russian revolutionaries did prioritise the spreading of the revolution. Not at the point of Russian bayonets, but as indigenous revolutions. That's why they founded the Communist International to organise for and encourage those revolutions (the Stalinists of course were to pervert that organisation into a tool for suppressing revolutionary movements).
Incidentally the much sneered at Trotskyist obsession with international organisation is founded on the understanding that a national revolution is not enough.
roger rosewall
New Member
sihhi said:No I've never had any dealings with the ICC fortunately
and not a Bordigist but apparently a "Mattickist or Pannenkoekist left communist"- according to an anarchist
Not that it matters a fuck but hey.
The ICC is not Bordigist. It claims to have developed a synthesis of both the German/Dutch and and Italian traditions of Left Communism.
There were some Bordigists in Britain, or maybe just one, in the International Communist Party (Communist Programme).
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
If you mean those up in Merseyside, there was more than one. There are certainly many more people influenced by Bordiga - most notably his analyis of the USSR/capitalism rather than his ultra-leninist organisational ideas - than there are actual bordiguists.
roger rosewall
New Member
butchersapron said:
One or ten it really does not matter. Except perhaps to trainspotters.
In any case i agree that there are many people influenced by Bordiga but previous few Bordigists. We must disagree that Bordiga was in any real sense a Leninist.
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