The Russian Revolution: 1918 - ?

[Red Enemy]

My concern, as I have lined up a few reads (particularly Reed and Serge's) on the topic, is of getting a better understanding before I read. I want to get insight from the Leftists, Stalinists, Anarchists, Trotskyists, etc, on the revolution. From what I understand, and what I believe, the revolution itself was truly proletariat, which is a view in opposition to the council communist claim that it was bourgeois. That the revolution had, in fact, created a genuine proletariat dictatorship...in the beginning.

My questions revolve around the soviets and claims that they were essentially cleansed of power in 1918, war communism, and the degeneration of this revolution.

First, when did the soviets truly become subordinate to the party, and the phrase used by Lenin "All power to the soviets!" lose it's meaning?

Second, war communism as a necessity, was it necessary? Was it necessary in the exact way it was carried out? What could have been different?

Thirdly, did supercentrism/the lack of adherence to democratic principle within the party, as a result of war communism, ultimately lead to the demise of the revolution (outside of the failure of the German revolution i.e. an international revolution)?

Lastly, as the revolution degraded from isolation - internal party conflict - civil war - the peasant class becoming antsy - etc, what was the defining point at which there ceased to be a truly proletarian dictatorship in Russia?

[Blake's Baby]

I think you're oversimplifying the Council Communist position, I'm afraid. I don't think it makes it any more coherent, but the Council Communist position is that it was both bourgeois and proletarian; a proletarian revolution 'from below' and a bourgeois revolution 'from above'. To be honest I don't even understand what that's supposed to mean but there you have it.

I would say that the aside to your question 3 was the ultimate determinant and that all other questions as a result were rendered moot. The world revolution failed. Without that the revolution in Russia (I've recently stopped calling it 'the Russian revolution' as I don't think it was) was doomed to failure too - its degeneration was inevitable. The Bolsheviks presided over the degeneration and to some extent determined the shape of that degeneration but not the fact of that degeneration. The revolution could not have been saved by 'policy'. Rosa said (quite rightly in my opinion) that the questions had been posed in Russia but could not be answered there.

Anyway, I think the degeneration was a process, and that process began immediately; there was also, obviously, a revolutionary process going on, so there are two tendencies competing against each other, a forward movement of the revolution and a counter-revolutionary movement. Outside of Russia the same process are happening too. Judging when the counter-revolution overcomes the revolution in Russia or elsewhere is pretty hard but I think it's fairly obvious with hindsight that the failure of the revolutionary wave in Germany between November 1918-January 1919 was a serious blow and the world revolution never recovered from that really.

In Russia, the Civil War began destroying the working class, and the Bolsheviks began to substitute themselves for the working class in the soviets, effectively usurping power from the working class, and that process was arguably complete by the end of 1919 (though there are those who would deny this ever even happened). The debates around the 'Manual v Counter-Manual' I think mainly happened in early 1918 (with interventions from among others Grigory Maximov), so at that point there were still real debates going on about how the reolationships between party and class organs could be worked out... but with the state of war that soon existed between the Bolsheviks and the Left SRs, the potential still exstant in the first few months of 1918 was soon gone. If you want a period when I think the revolution actually went onto the defensive in Russia I'd say around April-May 1918. Not that there weren't positive developments after that because I think there were, but the point where the negative, counter-revolutionary tendencies became more prevelant than the positive tendencies, I'd locate around then I think.

Don't know how much all of that helps, but there it is.

[Ostrinski]

A lot of the Trotskyists will likely posit that the degeneration starts with the defeat of the Left Opposition in 1927 or so but I think it started much earlier for reasons that Blake's Baby has demonstrated.

I think Trotsky's theory of political revolution would have had some sway in the 20's after the war when revolutionary ardor possibly still existed among the working class but by the 30's the bureaucratic isolation of the working class from control over the productive process had been completely institutionalized and bureaucratic party substitution over political matters was transformed into a relationship of stratification into irreconciliably opposed groups.

Call it capitalist or not but the above cannot be denied and for those reasons I think social revolution was on the table for getting power back into the hands of the working class because it would have had to entail the realization of the irreconcilability of the existing state of bureaucrat-worker relations and the overthrow of the state that preserved the status quo of the situation.

This is just my opinion but I think putting an exact date on when the revolution degenerated is as impossible as it is futile because so many complex issues have to be taken into account and even if we could put an exact date on it somewhere I don't think it would shed much insight on or help us to understand very clearly the degeneration as a process not as some cataclysmic event that turned everything to shit.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Blake's Baby and Ostrinski each have laid out cogent arguments. I agree that the degeneration was a process and identifying a date certain would be an exercise in futility. Just to add something new for consideration, I would identify the time between the 1921 Party congress and the consolidation of the Stalin/Zinoviev/Kamenev troika in 1923 as the last opportunity for proletarian democracy. IMO by the time Trotsky initiated his 1923 New Course Opposition he had missed the boat.

[Red Enemy]

From my understanding, and Blake Baby touches on it, the working class population was decimated in the war. After already being in the minority, how could an even smaller number come to revolt again, or even to take the reigns of power from the growing, supercentralized bureaucracy of the party?

[Blake's Baby]

Because of the way I understand the history of the Bolsheviks and organisations of the proletariat in general, I'd date the end of proletarian opposition (that is, opposition on a more-or-less revolutionary terrain) in the Party as late as 1927. I think the currents around Trotsky were the last, weakest and most confused elements in the Party that still defended the politics of the working class.

For some of us, looking at events in Russia, March 1921 is absolutely crucial. The banning of factions at the 10th Party Congress, and the suppression of Kronstadt happened practically simultaneously. Both were ferocious signs of the power of the Bolshevik Party to silence dissent - after the end of the Civil War when perhaps the working class might have thought that government control, maybe seen as necessary during the war, could have perhaps been relaxed. Kronstadt was a very bad sign.

But this may just be misunderstanding your point here. On a world scale, though I say that the events of 1918-19 in Germany were crucial and the world revolution never really recovered, there were still positive dynamics after this, the foundation of the Communist International for instance, and other positive dynamics as late as the mid-1920s - the Shanghai Commune in April 1927 was probably the last of these. Perhaps you mean something similar by Trotsky missing the boat in 1923 - not that no (unsuccessful) attempt was subsequently made to 'catch the boat', but that from hindsight the forces of reaction were increasingly in control.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Because of the way I understand the history of the Bolsheviks and organisations of the proletariat in general, I'd date the end of proletarian opposition (that is, opposition on a more-or-less revolutionary terrain) in the Party as late as 1927. I think the currents around Trotsky were the last, weakest and most confused elements in the Party that still defended the politics of the working class.

For some of us, looking at events in Russia, March 1921 is absolutely crucial. The banning of factions at the 10th Party Congress, and the suppression of Kronstadt happened practically simultaneously. Both were ferocious signs of the power of the Bolshevik Party to silence dissent - after the end of the Civil War when perhaps the working class might have thought that government control, maybe seen as necessary during the war, could have perhaps been relaxed. Kronstadt was a very bad sign.

But this may just be misunderstanding your point here. On a world scale, though I say that the events of 1918-19 in Germany were crucial and the world revolution never really recovered, there were still positive dynamics after this, the foundation of the Communist International for instance, and other positive dynamics as late as the mid-1920s - the Shanghai Commune in April 1927 was probably the last of these. Perhaps you mean something similar by Trotsky missing the boat in 1923 - not that no (unsuccessful) attempt was subsequently made to 'catch the boat', but that from hindsight the forces of reaction were increasingly in control.

Thanks for explaining it so well.

[Red Enemy]

So, on the point of soviets, which to me defines the essence of the working class dictatorship, at what point did they become subordinate to the Bolsheviks? Was it war communism? If so, at what year, and if the move was necessary for war communism, would it have been also necessary to reverse it after war communism?