The Bolshevik coups d'etat of 1918?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Why did the "anti-soviet" Bolshevik coups d'etat of 1918 happen, ranging from gerrymandering to "military revolutionary committees" taking over "in the name" of their respective regions to outright shutting down those soviets... which actually threw out the Bolsheviks and replaced them with Menshevik-Internationalists and Left-SRs?



The Mensheviks after October (http://books.google.com/books?id=cP0xLtu1aZgC&pg=PA154&lpg=PA154&dq=1918+soviet+elections+mensheviks&source=bl&ots=h4gg3Ee2b4&sig=_uTwVh4Hvs9MVcHsZIUoPw8pm2o&hl=en&ei=YKHjS5KAFoTMMLD-tPgC&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=1918%20soviet%20elections%20mensheviks&f=false)


[In Sormovo] The Bolsheviks tried to delay elections, but an outbreak of strikes forced them to give way. N. Bykhovskii reported that the election returns had brought 21 seats in the EC of the new soviet to the Mensheviks and 18 to the Bolsheviks and Left SRs... The Bolsheviks not only declined to make an accounting but refused to hand over power to the new majority.

[...]

The Bolsheviks came to power in Viatka province only in January 1918, just when the plants' production was drastically curtailed. Many workers were laid off. The opposition parties naturally blamed the Bolsheviks. In elections to the Izhevsk soviet in February 1918, the Menshevik-SR bloc, together with the nonparty delegates, won a majority... The Bolsheviks refused to honor the election results and insisted on new elections in May, at which they were soundly defeated: only 22 Bolsheviks were elected out of 170 delegates... This soviet was disbanded as well.

In the EC formed in Zlatous following elections there, the Bolsheviks held three seats, the Menshevik-SR bloc nine, and nonparty delegates nine. The chairman elected by the Menshevik, SR, and nonparty votes was arrested and the soviet disbanded... In Syzran, the newly elected soviet, with a Menshevik-SR majority, was disbanded and its chairman arrested.

[...]

Elections [in Rostov] were held, and the returns brought the Mensheviks a majority in the city soviet. The Mensheviks' victory could have ended tragically for them. It turned out that the Bolsheviks were planning to install machine guns in the soviet building and shoot the "Menshevik counterrevolutionaries" during the session. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and the soviet was simply disbanded...

It was a wave of Bolshevik [I]coups d'etat. Since Soviet Russia was safe from imperialist adventurism briefly between the end of the civil war and Kronstadt, perhaps then would have been the best time for what was left of the Menshevik-Internationalists and Left-SRs to mobilize the exploited masses to "return" power to the soviets (in quotes because it is political parties that are ultimately in power in any event) and overthrow the Bolshevik putschists.

Perhaps?

[Znamya]

Brovkin is a right-wing hack and a revisionist falsifier of history whose rubbish should not be taken seriously. He is basically Richard Pipes's apprentice.

For example, he vastly overstates the influence that the SRs and Mensheviks had during the Civil War. But these groups influence after the Revolution had dwindled almost to nothing. In the period November 1917 - March 1918, the Cossack warlords probably had more popular support than they did. Indeed, a handful of Cossack warlords and their bands predominated in the early months of the anti-Soviet counter-revolution. Yet, Brovkin wants us to believe that the discredited SRs and Mensheviks could have provided some kind of alternative to Soviet power.

It should be noted:


The reference is to the elections to the Petrograd Soviet in June 1918. During the elections the Mensheviks and S.R.s conducted a bitter struggle against the Bolsheviks, resorting to terrorism (on June 20 during the elections V. Volodarsky, an active member of the Communist Party, was assassinated by a Right S.R.). The Communists won the election. The first session of the Soviet on June 27 was attended by 405 Bolsheviks and Bolshevik sympathisers, 75 Left S.’R.s, 59 Menshevik defencists and Right S.R.s and 43 non-party people.

And as a book explains about the Revolution:


In many cities of Russia the local Soviets, in which the Bolsheviks predominated, exercised real authority even before the October armed uprising in Petrograd. These were the Soviets in the industrial cities and townships of the Moscow area, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Kostrova, Tver, Kazan, Brynask, Yaroslavl, Rybinsk, Syzran, Ryazan, Vladimir, and other cities. The provlcomatino of Soviet power legalized and consolidated hteir position as authorised organs of power.

However, there were many Soviets in Russia in which even after the revolutin in Petrograd and Moscow the Menshviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries continued to predominate, and the Bolhsheviks had to wage an unremetting struggle against them. This was the situation in the Soviets of Nizhny Novgorod, Kursk, Arkhangelsk, Smoelnsk, Tambov, Tula, SImbirsk, Penza, and some other cities. But under the impact of Bolshevik propaganda and the first decrees of the Soviet Government and with the assistance of envoys of the proletariat from the center the people quickly freed themselves from the influence of the conciliators and established Soviet power. The establishment of Soviet power in localities where the Soviets were not Bolshevik was usually preceded by new elections to the Soviets and the expulsion from them by of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks.

On October 26, upon hearing of the news that the armed uprising in Petrograd had triumphed, the TUla Bolsheviks convened the Party activists in teh city and elected a Military-Revolutionary Committee. But the latter was slow in taking action. Taking advantage of this, the SR-Menshevik-controlled Soviet used armed detachments to control the post and telegraph offices and the banks; detachments formed by the conciliator Railwaymen's Union Executive, which had an armored train, controlled the railway junction and kept the city under the threat of shelling. The City Duma set-up a counter-revolutionary Committee for Public Security. The atmosphere in the city grew tense. At a plenary meeting of the Tula Soviets on October 30 the Mensheviks and SRs defeated the Bolshevik resolution to transfer power to the Soviets and passed a decision callinf for a "homogenous democratic authority." The counter-revolutionary Committee for the People's Struggle was formed in Tula. Power in the city remained in the hands of the organs of the deposed Provisional Government and the City Duma. The situation persisted until the end of November, when at the election to the Soviet the Bolsheviks polled the majority of votes. On December 7 the Committee for the People's Struggle was dissolved and all power passed to the Soviet.

By January 1918 the influence of the Right SRs in the local Soviets had dwindled almost to nil.


Why did the "anti-soviet" Bolshevik coups d'etat of 1918 happenYou're rewriting history, but it does not seem to be your fault as much as it is the work of Brovkin that you are paraphrasing.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The reference is to the elections to the Petrograd Soviet in June 1918. During the elections the Mensheviks and S.R.s conducted a bitter struggle against the Bolsheviks, resorting to terrorism

Um, this act of terrorism occurred after the Bolshevik coups, perhaps in response to those coups.

[Enragé]

I think its funny how when things like these come up the response is always along the lines of "[the guy who wrote what your basing what you say on] is a right-wing hack and a revisionist falsifier of history whose rubbish should not be taken seriously".

This goes for both trotskyists and stalinists. The only difference is that trotskyists rightly point out what i just pointed out, as long as it happened after 1926.

[Znamya]

Um, this act of terrorism occurred after the Bolshevik coups, perhaps in response to those coups. Using terms like "Bolshevik coup" and sticking up for the counter-revolutionary Right SRs? Seriously? That is typical of the right-wing, bourgeois falsification of the history of the Revolution. I don't mean you, but the slanderers of the Revolution like Pipes, Brovkin, Figes, and others.

The Bolsheviks had shown its willingness to work with all parties committed to the Revolution. The right SRs and Mensheviks, the defenders of the bourgeois Provisional Government, rejected this and joined the ranks of the counter-revolution. They collaborated with the bourgeoisie as well as foreign aggressors and committed terror and massacres against the workers.



On June 8, 1918, Samara was occupied by the mutinous Czechoslovak corps which set up a whiteguard-S.R.-Menshevik government, the so-called Komuch (A Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly). By August 1918, Komuch had, with the aid of Czechoslovak units, occupied some gubernias on the Volga and in the Urals area, but that autumn it was defeated by the Red Army and ceased to exist.




is a right-wing hack and a revisionist falsifier of history

These people should not be trusted because they twist, manipulate, and in many cases make up the facts. Perfectly logical.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Using terms like "Bolshevik coup" and sticking up for the counter-revolutionary Right SRs?

[...]

The right SRs and Mensheviks, the defenders of the bourgeois Provisional Government

What did I say again? Left-SRs, not Right-SRs; Menshevik-Internationalists, not Menshevik-Defencists.

Despite his anti-socialist bias, Brovkin covered many more areas than just Petrograd and Moscow.

The un-parliamentary problem of not meeting frequently (hell, Churchill's House of Commons met frequently in WWII despite the bombings) was not limited to just Petrograd, but occurred in the cities where "anti-soviet" Bolshevik coups occurred.

The renegade Kautsky called for an outright bourgeois counterrevolution only in the mid to late 20s. I place my hypothetical socialist overthrow earlier, calling for the Menshevik-Internationalists and Left-SRs to overthrow the Bolshevik putschists and the disciple-turned-flip-side-but-lesser-renegade Lenin after the civil war but before Kronstadt (that is, before British imperialists were waiting in the wings on the coast).

[Znamya]

What did I say again? Left-SRs, not Right-SRs; Menshevik-Internationalists, not Menshevik-Defencists.Left-SRs supported the Revolution and cooperated with the Bolsheviks up until the summer of 1918. Popular support for the Left SRs should not be interpreted as opposition to Soviet power or hatred of the Bolsheviks.

Menshevik Internationalists were a divided party. Some cooperated with the defencists and others with the Bolsheviks. In the autumn of 1918, the Internationalists turned toward neutrality or with an alliance with the Bolsheviks. Some Internationalists joined the Red Army or worked with the Soviets. Lozovsky in 1919 went on to declare that differences between his party and the Bolsheviks disappeared and that they should merge.


Despite his anti-socialist bias, BrovkinBourgeois historians' work on the Revolution such as from Carr, Rabinowitch, and Fitzpatrick should not be dismissed out of hand because to a considerable extent they are quite valuable.

But right-wing historiography, whether it be the White Guardist publicism of the 20s and 30s or the work of Pipes, Figes, and Brovkin, should not be taken seriously. These people's views are criticized even among their academic colleagues.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You still didn't address the question of the Bolshevik coups of suppressing soviets that booted out local Bolsheviks and elected Left-SRs and Menshevik-Internationalists.

I did, by calling for this coalition to have done to the Bolsheviks exactly what the Bolsheviks themselves did to the Provisional Government:

1918-1920 Bolsheviks = Kerensky and co.
Civil War = prolonged White version of Kornilov's coup attempt
1918-1920 Soviets disbanded = 1917 Petrograd Soviet
Menshevik-Internationalists and Left-SRs = 1917 Bolsheviks

After a stance of revolutionary defencism against the Whites and imperialists, the workers' bayonets should have been turned against the central government Bolsheviks and especially local Bolshevik/Cheka thugs through the agitation of the Menshevik-Internationalists and Left-SRs.

[syndicat]

first of all, the Right-mensheviks were expelled after they joined the rebellion against the government in June 1918. the Left Mensheviks gained control of the Menshevik party conference in Nov 1918 with over 60 percent of the delegates. it was the Left-Mensheviks who were in control of the party and mainly involved in the organizing in early 1918, including the building of delegate conferences independent of the soviets in a number of situations. so the idea that their influence was nil can't be maintained.

the Right-mensheviks lost out, it is true. also in early 1918 support for the syndicalists grew as well. according to one historian, the Bolsheviks took power in the various cities over a period of months and were not well coordinated and often were in contradiction to each other, resulting in chaos. the growing chaos in general worked to the discredit of the bolsheviks, who were in charge of government.

i think the tendency of the party to take power on its own derives from the theory of the vanguard party as the sine qua non, the essential guarantor, of the revolution, rather than worker democracy being the guarantor. as Sam Farber points out in "Before Stalinism" it was in early 1918 that Lenin started talking not about the rule of the class but of only one part of the class.

during this period the Bolshevik party almost split over the Brest-Litovsk treaty. the treaty was in particular a total betrayal of the Finnish revolution. it required them to remove the 6,000 Russian troops in Finland which enabled the Germans to destroy the worker revolution which controlled southern Finland. perhaps if the libertarian left had been more unified and stronger it could have built an alliance of left-Communists and Left-SRs to replace the Bolsheviks in defense of soviet power and for revolutionary people's war.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Meh, I just think that Trotsky should have been sidelined from foreign affairs diplomacy altogether. An earlier peace treaty would have had Russia concede less territory than it did.

[chimx]

Why did the "anti-soviet" Bolshevik coups d'etat of 1918 happen

It happened because of political apathy towards Bolshevism from the primarily agrarian economy. It was the peasantry that gave the SRs their majority in the CA, and there lack of protests to the closing of the CA is indicative of a political indifference to socialist parties, so long as they carried out agrarian reform.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I wasn't talking about the Constituent Assembly which, as you noted, nobody cared about.

[gilhyle]

Could it be because the Mensheviks and SRs really had no program to resolve the dual power situation ? Any action they might have taken would have onlly propelled them into the position of vanguard of counterrevolution, irrespective of their own aspirations. Thats why so many committed revolutionaries moved across to the bolsheviks in this period - it was a polarising situation. You either sided with the bolsheviks or the counter revolution. The appearance of third course - which undoubtedly was an appearance in 1918 wasnt even a credible one for those who considered the bolsheviks policies unacceptable

[Die Neue Zeit]

You have the wrong year. Dual power was in 1917.

Workers [EDIT: while fighting Whites and interventionists] could have waited out [EDIT: with respect to the Bolsheviks] after 1918 until the war was over in 1920, and then oust the Bolsheviks from the soviets but ultimately from the coalition of Menshevik-Internationalists and Left-SRs.

[Kléber]

Meh, I just think that Trotsky should have been sidelined from foreign affairs diplomacy altogether. An earlier peace treaty would have had Russia concede less territory than it did.
But "no war, no peace" would not have been the policy if the terms initially offered had been acceptable. Yes, he was bluffing as regards the German willingness to launch an offensive but the alternatives (outright surrender or proclamation of revolutionary war against Germany) looked like even worse options and thus Trotsky's position won more votes. Besides, most of the conceded territory took the form of pro-German puppet states which fell to the Red forces during the Civil War.


until the war was over in 1920Hostilities did not cease until 1922 when the last White detachments were defeated and the last foreign occupiers withdrew. In 1920, White and interventionist forces were still doing battle with the Reds. Your proposal, that a fictional Mezhraiontsy-Left SR coup attempt should have been added to the list of rebellions against Soviet power, would have given the imperialists reason to fund another White offensive.

[S.Artesian]

You have the wrong year. Dual power was in 1917.

Workers could have waited out after 1918 until the war was over in 1920, and then oust the Bolsheviks from the soviets but ultimately from the coalition of Menshevik-Internationalists and Left-SRs.


What ignorant idealism. The workers "could have waited out after 1918"-- right and what would have happened had the "workers waited" out the civil war?

The whites would have won. The soviets would have been crushed. The workers organizatons pulverized. Your mythical menshevik internationalists would have be slaughtered or begging the Bolshevik underground to protect them.

You forget conveniently what brought the Bolsheviks into power-- it was the defense of Petrograd against Kornilov; it was the organized opposition to Kerensky's Congress of Counterrevolution in Moscow in the summer of 1917.

When the petitions to the soviets increased from workers from the raion soviets, from the factory committees demanding that the central soviets assume all power, those petitions, those demands were accompanied by the election of more Bolsheviks to the soviets, the selection of more Bolsheviks to represent factory committees of the metal workers, the machine tool makers, etc.


There was no "waiting out" the civil war. That's the thing about war in general, and civil war in particular, no time for speculation; no fence sitting as it is the fence itself that is being blown up.

Sure the workers could have waited it out. And my aunt could have been my uncle. And if frogs had wings, they could fly, and not bump their asses on the ground.

[chegitz guevara]

I place my hypothetical socialist overthrow earlier, calling for the Menshevik-Internationalists and Left-SRs to overthrow the Bolshevik putschists and the disciple-turned-flip-side-but-lesser-renegade Lenin after the civil war but before Kronstadt (that is, before British imperialists were waiting in the wings on the coast).

You are viewing the Russian Revolution as a thing in itself, not a thing in a complex interrelationship. If it was simply about Russia, the Bolsheviks likely would not have completed the revolution. Because of the situation, a terrible world war, with millions dying (something like half a million Russians died in Kerensky's summer offensive alone), a military strike in France, unrest in the Central powers, it would have been criminal for the Bolsheviks not to do whatever was in their power to continue the revolution and hold on to power by any means necessary.

Again and again, Lenin pointed out, we make the revolution not for Russia, but for Germany. Their goal in Russia was to create the conditions necessary for the revolution in Germany, and they couldn't do that by surrendering power to those who wanted to set up a bourgeois republic, and who would have quickly been tossed out by the White generals.

In any event, the Left SRs and MIs had no serious base of support to attempt an overthrow of the Communist Party.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Hostilities did not cease until 1922 when the last White detachments were defeated and the last foreign occupiers withdrew. In 1920, White and interventionist forces were still doing battle with the Reds. Your proposal, that a fictional Mezhraiontsy-Left SR coup attempt should have been added to the list of rebellions against Soviet power, would have given the imperialists reason to fund another White offensive.

Those interventionist forces and the Whites were practically defeated. It's like the Red Army on the borders of Nazi Germany in 1945 and suddenly Stalin was ousted.


What ignorant idealism. The workers "could have waited out after 1918"-- right and what would have happened had the "workers waited" out the civil war?

The whites would have won.

Per my OP, I clearly meant that "workers could have waited out" with respect to Bolshevik authoritarianism, not with respect to the Civil War.


You are viewing the Russian Revolution as a thing in itself, not a thing in a complex interrelationship. If it was simply about Russia, the Bolsheviks likely would not have completed the revolution. Because of the situation, a terrible world war, with millions dying (something like half a million Russians died in Kerensky's summer offensive alone), a military strike in France, unrest in the Central powers, it would have been criminal for the Bolsheviks not to do whatever was in their power to continue the revolution and hold on to power by any means necessary.

Again and again, Lenin pointed out, we make the revolution not for Russia, but for Germany. Their goal in Russia was to create the conditions necessary for the revolution in Germany, and they couldn't do that by surrendering power to those who wanted to set up a bourgeois republic, and who would have quickly been tossed out by the White generals.

In any event, the Left SRs and MIs had no serious base of support to attempt an overthrow of the Communist Party.

Who said that the Left SRs and MIs wanted to set up a bourgeois republic? The Left SRs were initially for the soviets, and the MIs started to defend the soviets themselves, the same soviets that they walked out on initially but were disbanded left, right and center by local Bolsheviks.

As for "serious" base, you mean you're totally discounting the majority political support they had in the many soviets I mentioned? :confused:

[S.Artesian]

That is not at all clear from your original post, or from the later post.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Please read Post #8 above for all the irony.

[S.Artesian]

Please read Post #8 above for all the irony.

Read it. Let me repeat what I said before rereading #8, ignorant idealism. First and foremost, the cost borne by the working class in waging the civil war, the devastation of the economy in the conflict is what destroyed the soviets.

There's this thing called materialism that says the actions of humans are precipitated by material conditions. With the workers sacrificing half their numbers, with levels of agricultural and industrial production in 1921 being 40 percent to 90 percent below 1913 levels, the soviets had in fact sacrificed themselves in order to defeat the whites.

Exactly who, what, how would the mythical menshevik internationalist organize for their anti-Bolshevik coup? The soldiers of the Red Army who had campaigned under the leadership of the top Bolsheviks?

Who was going to revolt? What class? Despite all the discontent, the privation, the misery, the suffering, how many Kronstadt revolts were there against the Bolsheviks?

And in the countryside? Exactly what would our mythical internationalists done regarding agricultural production, ensuring the provisioning of the urban areas, and trying to restore some functioning economy between city and countryside? Taken over soviets which, even at their peak, had been so much weaker in the countryside? Soviets that were pretty well ignored by the peasantry?

The material reality which propelled, facilitated the Bolsheviks power also demanded they fight a civil war of devastating consequences; consequences of such devastation that, without the international revolution, the economic basis for restoring the soviets had been destroyed.

[Die Neue Zeit]

There's a fine line between proper materialism and economic determinism ("devastation of the economy destroyed the soviets"). The elections of Menshevik-Internationalists and Left-SRs were an attempt by workers and peasants to prevent the Russian economy from totally collapsing during the civil war.

A struggling economy may prevent soviets from meeting frequently (the main problem of workers councils historically, compared to the crudest forms of parliamentarism), but it takes human actors to refuse recognition of and arbitrarily shut down whole numbers of soviets.

[Turinbaar]

Another good read on the negations and false pretenses of the bolshevik revolution is Bertrand Russel's "Theory and Practice of Bolshevism"

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'm a bit too suspicious of works made by left-reformists in that period, because they invariably boil down to "Why was the Constituent Assembly shut down?"