Was Lenin right?
* The lessons of October 1917 Any debate on the Russian revolution eventually touches on Lenin's conception of the revolutionary party. François Vercammen
Anti-revolutionaries of all types see a socialist revolution as a coup d'état. To ward off any hint of social transformation, they also need to discredit those responsible for the revolutionary "plot"
In their own way, they show that, just as all radical critique of capitalism sooner or later turns to Marx, anti-capitalist action cannot ignore Lenin if it wants to be
Social conditions in Russia at that time were so far removed from the situation in the West today that they should discourage all blind adoption of Bolshevik strategies. But there is clearly a universal component to the Russian experience. That revolution confirmed the capacity of the exploited and oppressed classes) to emancipate themselves. Indeed, self-emancipation was the most important single concrete element of the Russian revolution.
Self-organisation in the mass struggle, particularly during the period of dual power, gave way to self-organisation during the seizure of power, and then to something quite different, self-management by the formerly oppressed classes through the new state.
So what is the role of the Party during and within this self-emancipation process? Some say that self-emancipation is by definition totally spontaneous, an "immaculate conception" actually existing workers' organisation. In this analysis, the Party as a body distinct from the movement, with its higher than average level of consciousness, stronger than average level of organisation, and relatively autonomous capacity to take initiatives, became an obstacle to self-emancipation.
But how can one "judge" the selfemancipatory dynamic? Who gets to do the judging? How can one unravel the real dialectic which comes to exist between all the forms of self-activity in the working class and society?
Marc Ferro, who dislikes all parties, has a definition of self-organisation which excludes most of the council movement. He only approves of the local (factory and district) soviets, and not those which "centralised" or which contained sociological or political elements from outside like intellectuals or political parties. (See Naissance et effondrement du régime communiste en Russie, published by Livre de poche, 1997).
In fact, this is a challenge to the legiti30 International Viewpoint #294 macy of taking power at all, since this preactivity absolutely requires the initiative of a revolutionary organisation like a party: a very centralised and homogenous structure, capable of neutralising the violent reaction of the repressive state apparatus. Those who try to imagine an alternative scenario, in which soviets could take power without a party like, in the Russian context, the Bolsheviks, are unconvincing. (See C. Read From Tsar to Soviets, London, UCL
The Russian revolution did not contradict Marx's saying about "the emancipation of the workers". Indeed, the revolution gave it a concrete form for the first time, integrating the role of the Party (or parties). Obviously there were problems. Not just with the party, but concerning the struggling popular masses. The concrete dialectic between these two factors did not depend solely on the Party's desire for autonomy. The Party was heavily conditioned by the subordinate classes' level of political consciousness, militant energy, and cultural capacity for self-management. This was proved by the whole cycle of the Russian revolution, from 1895 to Lenin: A Party for the revolution
At the beginning of the 20th century. for the first time in history, a "Marxist party set itself the objective of leading the popular masses towards the revolutionary conquest of political power on the basis of their own activity. This was a real innovation, breaking with the "parliamentarist" substitutionism of the increasingly reformist social democratic movement and the "populist" substitutionism of the Social Revolutionaries.
The contradictions in all European societies began to multiply and intensify at the end of the 19th century. Analysing this new reality, a new Marxist programme began to take shape. Among the contributors were Parvus, Kautsky, Plekhanov, Axelrod, Hilferding, Luxem-
Trotsky, Pannekoek, Bauer.
Lenin and his comrades were the first to import this understanding into a party which was ready to meet the challenge of revolution. This success has been recognised by enemies, fellow travellers, and militants around the world. militants have tried to understand Lenin's concept of the Party, and apply it, more or less sensibly, in their own countries. They have projected their hopes onto Lenin's conception of the party, as set out in What
This work was originally published as a series of articles in Iskra (Spark) and as a brochure in 1902. It had a great influence on the Russian Social-Democratic Workers Party. Lenin was trying to convince the militants of the party's local committees that they needed new strategies if they were to survive the tsarist repression. This meant abandoning their 'artisanal' political habits, and centralising their activity through a new newspaper aimed at an all-Russian audience. This implied a centralised political and prac tical leadership.
The practical aspect of Lenin's proposals met with enormous sympathy among the militants. At last someone had suggested a solution to the endless arrests of militants and the dismantling of party organisations. And this practical proposal was based on a political perspective: a revolution in the foreseeable future. Centralising the party was one way of preparing the insurrection.
Until Leninist ideas fell out of favour recently, What Is to Be Done? has been served up with a wide variety of sauces. Its influence on revolutionaries is rather strange, considering that the brochure had hardly been published when it was overtaken and marginalised by the 1905 revolution. In April of that year, Lenin himself withdrew its most controversial components. Later, he denied that the work had any general theoretical implications. He opposed republishing it for use in political
After 95 years of debate, two elements of What Is to Be Done? stand out.
First, the necessity for a centralised party. To this day, anti-revolutionary currents have seen this as the "original sin" of "Leninism"
Lenin's arguments were initially accepted as obvious, given the repressive conditions. But in the difficult 1903 founding congress of the Russian party, Lenin became the target of outrageous polemics, in which he was accused of ultra-centralism, Bonapartism, "substitutionism" individual dictatorship. Trotsky and Luxemburg were his most virulent and eloquent critics. They tried to back up their opposition to Lenin with historical and analytical arguments.
The second "essential" argument of What Is to Be Done? was the need for the Party to introduce class (socialist and political) consciousness "from the outside" Again, Lenin's argument was initially accepted unanimously. Lenin himself even invoked the (at that time unchallenged) legitimacy of Karl Kautsky, "Pope" of the International, for his arguments.
Lenin quickly responded to his critics on both these points. He told Luxemburg that the kind of centralisation he was proposing corresponded to the elementary
criteria of any organisation, such as the subordination of lower organs to higher ones, and the need for everyone to apply the decisions of the majority after debate and voting. What Is to Be Done? had simply made a distinction between a few general principles of organisation like these and the specific practical organisation of work, which, Lenin argued, would depend on the concrete situation.
He admitted that he had "bent the stick too far the other way" in stressing the importance of the "outside" introduction of political and socialist consciousness by the party. This was part of his polemic with what he called "economism" ception in which economic struggles would spontaneously lead to anti-tsarist political struggles and "trade-unionist" class consciousness would develop into revolutionary consciousness. (See the preface to In Twelve Years, 1907).
Influenced by this virulent debate, and by the lessons of the 1905 revolution, Lenin began to develop a new conception of the Party, less motivated by the desire to innovate, compared with the German social democrats, than by the desire to meet the challenge of the coming revolution. Recognising the persistent failure to build the Party in Russia, Lenin stressed the importance of meeting all the practical conditions for success in this field. He made a thorough analysis not just of practical and organisational questions but also of the "backwardness" of Russian society and the working class (mainly through his discussions with "old man" Axelrod). His sharpening awareness of the approach of revolution since 1890 only fed Lenin's vision, so radically opposed to fatalism or spontanism where the role of the Party (its programme, activity and organisation) was
This desire to lead (in the Party, and in the Party's relationship with the class) carried the seeds of the future theorisation of the "vanguard party". tion conflicted directly with that of Luxemburg, who argued in Organisational Questions of Russian Social Democracy that "in fact, social democracy is the movement of the working class itself, rather than something linked to the organisation of the class" Beyond What Is to Be Done?
Lenin took the Bolsheviks through four stages of construction in the years culminating in 1917. The Bolshevik faction (formed in 1903) became the Bolshevik Party in 1912.
Each stage reflected specific political and organisational experiences, which influenced and shaped Lenin's thinking The first moment was defined by the 1905 revolution. This affirmed not only the role of the working class as vanguard of the anti-tsarist revolution, but also its potential for spontaneous self-organisation. Not that this rendered the leading role of the Party unnecessary. Lenin had understood the limits of spontaneity.
The result was, for the first time, a clearer conception of the Party and its dialectical relationship with the class, in terms of both consciousness and organisation. The hierarchical rules which prevented workers from joining were challenged.
Overwhelmed by a working class "in
, the Party became in effect an organisation of cadres, open to any worker with a minimum consciousness and activism. Lenin pushed in this direction, against the opposition of the middle cadres, the "professional revolutionaries", who quoted What Is to Be Done? against
The 1905 revolution has been seen by historians as the "dress rehearsal" for 1917. It marked the consciousness and the imagination of those who were adult at the time. For the Party, it had a volatile effect: boosting the number of members from 500-2000 in 1904 to 70,000 in 1906, a membership which was to almost completely evaporate by 1910.
This, combined with the factional atmosphere of 1907-1914, has blinded many commentators, who have concentrated on 1905 and 1917. But the "calm" period in-between is a time of attempted reforms from above (symbolised by Stolypin) and the semi-revolutionary crisis
This is when the Bolshevik Party acquired its definitive shape, thanks to more articulate and thoughtful political activity, within the emerging civil society. For the first time, the Party won majority influence within the labour movement, in the trade unions and strike committees. Leninism against ultra-leftism
Between 1906 and 1912, Lenin went through an intense learning process. The unthinkable seemed to be happening. The beginnings of parliamentary democracy allowed the Liberal Party to win elections. And the regime attempted agrarian reform. This did not reinforce tsarism, but allowed the emergence of autonomous peasant organisations, both on the parliamentary
In the towns, the labour movement won its legal existence. Lenin turned his back on his own previous analysis and political line. He did not hesitate to go against the orthodoxy of the party and his own faction: he urged participation in fraudulent elections for an emasculated parliament; parliamentary work in a dictatorial system; an orientation towards the poorer peasants; rapprochement with
"labourites" Revolutionaries" -- his old enemies; united action with the Mensheviks and "rightist" currents on specific issues; joining the legal trade unions, and a democratic tendency struggle; recognition of the nationality question; and the beginnings of women's work.
It is rarely stressed, but Leninism was forged in the struggle against ultra-leftism, which was very present among the peasants and in the intelligentsia (the
The lessons of October 1917 * Maximalists), as well as in the Party itself. Ultra-leftism threatened to paralyse the Party's intervention in the "real movement", and prevent it from being present in the active centres of political life.
Radical as it was, never the most left-wing of the major currents of the Russian mass movement.
In 1913-14, the failure of the timid reforms provoked the beginnings of a revolution. But unlike in 1905 (and 1917). the upsurge did not begin with a labour explosion which affected all of society, including the revolutionaries. Instead, the Bolshevik Party won the minds of the growing student and labour movement and pushed it towards general strike. In Petrograd in August 1914, this became an insurrection.
### McDonald's
The activity of the Party was the determining factor, before and during the confrontation. This was the real test of its leadership capacity, its political capability ("the line") and its practical capacity in organising mass work "on the ground."
Still underground, the Party developed intense agitational work for a platform of demands including the eight-hour day, confiscation of the lands of the aristocracy, trade union rights, universal social security paid for by the bosses and the state, and democratic elections to a sovereign, constituent assembly. This looked a lot like a "transitional" approach!
The legal parliamentary fraction played an important role, as did the trade union fractions. The Mensheviks, obsessed by their rapprochement with the liberals, not only opposed the strikes, but argued against the "excessively radical" demands. In six months, Menshevism was judged and crushed in the forum of workers' democracy: in the trade unions and the strike committees.
In other words, from the Party's point of view, the "dress rehearsal" was not 1905, but this general strike and insurrection in the capital.
By the end of 1913, the Bolshevik party had made its breakthrough on the ground.
The apparently smooth convergence between the Party and the movement in 1917 was not the result of chance. It was the culmination of a cycle of organisation, political reflection and activism which had brought the Party to the heart of the working class and which, in 1917, carried it into the leadership of the state. *
31