Marxman
5th October 2002, 10:06
The price of isolation
The foregoing is sufficient to prove that Lenin and the Bolshevik Party never envisaged the Russian Revolution as a self-sufficient act, but as the beginning of the world socialist revolution. The Russian Revolution acted as a beacon to the workers of the world. In particular, it gave a mighty impetus to the German Revolution. But the cowardice of the Social Democratic leaders in Western Europe led to the defeat of the revolution in Germany, Italy and other countries, and the isolation of the Russian Revolution in conditions of appalling back wardness. Under these circumstances, the Stalinist political counter-revolution became inevitable. The bureaucratic de generation of the Russian Revolution did not emerge from some theoretical flaw in Bolshevism, but from crushing backwardness.
The young Soviet Republic had been saved by international working class solidarity, but isolation was the cause of enormous cost and suffering. The Russian working class was stretched to breaking point. Physically exhausted and numerically weakened, they were faced with insurmountable cultural, economic and social obstacles. Herculean efforts were needed simply to hold out against imperialist encirclement.
Lenin had an honest and realistic attitude to the terrible problems that the Russian proletariat faced as a result of isolation and backwardness. In January 1919, he explained in a speech to the Russian trade unions: "The workers were never separated by a Great Wall of China from the old society. And they have preserved a good deal of the traditional mentality of capitalist society. The workers are building a new society without themselves having become new people, or cleansed of the filth of the old world; they are still standing up to their knees in that filth. We can only dream of clearing the filth away. It would be utterly utopian to think this could be done all at once. It would be so utopian that in practice it would only postpone socialism to kingdom come." (LCW, Vol. 25, pp. 424-5.)
As a result of the civil war and the sabotage by the Russian capitalists, the Soviet government was forced to introduce a sharp change in policy. Originally, the Bolsheviks had intended to leave the bulk of industry in private hands until the small Russian working class had learned to manage industry themselves. This would take time. Given the cultural backwardness of Russia, it was thought that, through workers' control, the proletariat would acquire the necessary knowledge, learn the art of management, and eventually take over completely the running of industry and the state. In the meantime, the workers' state was forced to bide its time, maintain private industry under workers' control, and rely to a large extent on the old state bureaucracy to run the state apparatus. This could be maintained, it was hoped, until help came from the workers in the West. The Russian workers could take power, but they could not hold onto power indefinitely: everything depended on the world revolution. Even in an advanced capitalist country, it would have been difficult at that time to have immediately introduced workers' control and management of industry and the state. In that case, how much more so in backward Russia?
The military defence of the Revolution was paramount. The millions who enrolled into the Red Army had to be fed and clothed. Requisitioning was vital if the workers and soldiers were to survive. The whole of Soviet society was put on a war footing. The so-called policy of War Communism represented a desperate and heroic attempt to defend the revolution against all the odds. But the sabotage of big business, which looked to the counter-revolution to restore its position, the pressure of the workers themselves, as well as the needs of the civil war, forced the Bolsheviks to carry through the wholesale nationalisation of the key sectors of the economy sooner than they intended. Between July and December 1918, a total of 1,208 enterprises were taken into state ownership. These were the heavy industries, the decisive basis of the Russian economy.
The first years of the Soviet power were characterised by acute economic difficulties, partly the result of war and civil war, partly as a result of shortages of both materials and skilled manpower, and partly of the opposition of the peasant small property owners to the socialist measures of the Bolsheviks. During the civil war nine million perished through famine, disease and freezing conditions. The economy was in ruins and on the verge of collapse. In order to put a stop to this catastrophic decline, drastic measures were introduced to get industry moving, to feed the hungry workers and to end the drift from town to country. For a temporary period it meant the militarisation of labour. The critics of October point an accusing finger at Bolshevism for this policy. As if there was any alternative under conditions of war and famine. The real responsibility for this situation lies at the door of imperialism which inflicted unspeakable horrors on the Russian people in its armed intervention against the Revolution.
There is no more disgusting distortion than the attempt to smear the memory of Lenin and Trotsky by linking the policy of War Communism and the harsh measures necessitated by the defence of the revolution in war with the monstrous totalitarian regime of Stalin. As a matter of fact, even the most democratic bourgeois government finds it necessary to restrict democratic rights in time of war. During the second world war, the British workers temporarily accepted all kinds of limitations on their rights, and did so in the main willingly, in the belief that they were fighting against Nazism to "defend democracy". To a far greater degree the Russian workers accepted the need for stern discipline to defeat the White armies. Power was in the hands of the workers' soviets. Even in conditions of terrible civil war, there was more democracy than in any other period in history. One only has to glance at the minutes of the Congresses of the Communist Party and the Third International, which were held annually even in these conditions, to see the complete freedom to debate, discuss and criticise. Nothing could be further from a totalitarian regime than the atmosphere of freedom which characterised the workers' state during the first five years of its existence. However, in the last analysis, the possibility of maintaining and deepening Soviet democracy depended on the material conditions.
A key question was the relation of industry to agriculture. This was just another way of expressing the relation of the proletariat to the peasantry. The mass of peasants supported the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks as a means of obtaining land. But after the revolution, the attitude of the peasants to the Soviet regime was determined more and more by its ability to provide the villages with cheap commodities in exchange for agricultural produce. Normally, the peasants' food and grain surpluses would be exchanged for the products of industry. But with the collapse of production, there were no goods to exchange for the peasants' product. To stave off starvation in the towns armed detachments requisitioned grain to keep the war industries going. There was no alternative. That was the essential meaning of War Communism. Despite these measures, the period was one of economic disruption and falling production. The relations with the peasantry were being stretched to the limits. This system of regimentation, based upon strict centralisation and the introduction of quasi-military measures into all fields of life, flowed from the difficulties of the revolution isolated in a backward, war-shattered country, under conditions of civil war and foreign intervention.
The conditions of civil war, together with the chronic inflation of the period, brought trade between town and countryside to a virtual standstill. This meant the workers in the towns and cities were on the point of starvation, and famine was widespread. The ghastly conditions of the workers in the towns led to a mass exodus to the countryside in search of food. Already by 1919 the number of industrial workers declined to 76 per cent of the 1917 level, while that of building workers fell to 66 per cent, railway workers to 63 per cent. The figure for industrial workers generally fell to less than half from three millions in 1917 to 1,240,000 in 1920. The population of Petrograd alone fell from 2,400,000 in 1917 to 574,000 in August 1920.
The foregoing is sufficient to prove that Lenin and the Bolshevik Party never envisaged the Russian Revolution as a self-sufficient act, but as the beginning of the world socialist revolution. The Russian Revolution acted as a beacon to the workers of the world. In particular, it gave a mighty impetus to the German Revolution. But the cowardice of the Social Democratic leaders in Western Europe led to the defeat of the revolution in Germany, Italy and other countries, and the isolation of the Russian Revolution in conditions of appalling back wardness. Under these circumstances, the Stalinist political counter-revolution became inevitable. The bureaucratic de generation of the Russian Revolution did not emerge from some theoretical flaw in Bolshevism, but from crushing backwardness.
The young Soviet Republic had been saved by international working class solidarity, but isolation was the cause of enormous cost and suffering. The Russian working class was stretched to breaking point. Physically exhausted and numerically weakened, they were faced with insurmountable cultural, economic and social obstacles. Herculean efforts were needed simply to hold out against imperialist encirclement.
Lenin had an honest and realistic attitude to the terrible problems that the Russian proletariat faced as a result of isolation and backwardness. In January 1919, he explained in a speech to the Russian trade unions: "The workers were never separated by a Great Wall of China from the old society. And they have preserved a good deal of the traditional mentality of capitalist society. The workers are building a new society without themselves having become new people, or cleansed of the filth of the old world; they are still standing up to their knees in that filth. We can only dream of clearing the filth away. It would be utterly utopian to think this could be done all at once. It would be so utopian that in practice it would only postpone socialism to kingdom come." (LCW, Vol. 25, pp. 424-5.)
As a result of the civil war and the sabotage by the Russian capitalists, the Soviet government was forced to introduce a sharp change in policy. Originally, the Bolsheviks had intended to leave the bulk of industry in private hands until the small Russian working class had learned to manage industry themselves. This would take time. Given the cultural backwardness of Russia, it was thought that, through workers' control, the proletariat would acquire the necessary knowledge, learn the art of management, and eventually take over completely the running of industry and the state. In the meantime, the workers' state was forced to bide its time, maintain private industry under workers' control, and rely to a large extent on the old state bureaucracy to run the state apparatus. This could be maintained, it was hoped, until help came from the workers in the West. The Russian workers could take power, but they could not hold onto power indefinitely: everything depended on the world revolution. Even in an advanced capitalist country, it would have been difficult at that time to have immediately introduced workers' control and management of industry and the state. In that case, how much more so in backward Russia?
The military defence of the Revolution was paramount. The millions who enrolled into the Red Army had to be fed and clothed. Requisitioning was vital if the workers and soldiers were to survive. The whole of Soviet society was put on a war footing. The so-called policy of War Communism represented a desperate and heroic attempt to defend the revolution against all the odds. But the sabotage of big business, which looked to the counter-revolution to restore its position, the pressure of the workers themselves, as well as the needs of the civil war, forced the Bolsheviks to carry through the wholesale nationalisation of the key sectors of the economy sooner than they intended. Between July and December 1918, a total of 1,208 enterprises were taken into state ownership. These were the heavy industries, the decisive basis of the Russian economy.
The first years of the Soviet power were characterised by acute economic difficulties, partly the result of war and civil war, partly as a result of shortages of both materials and skilled manpower, and partly of the opposition of the peasant small property owners to the socialist measures of the Bolsheviks. During the civil war nine million perished through famine, disease and freezing conditions. The economy was in ruins and on the verge of collapse. In order to put a stop to this catastrophic decline, drastic measures were introduced to get industry moving, to feed the hungry workers and to end the drift from town to country. For a temporary period it meant the militarisation of labour. The critics of October point an accusing finger at Bolshevism for this policy. As if there was any alternative under conditions of war and famine. The real responsibility for this situation lies at the door of imperialism which inflicted unspeakable horrors on the Russian people in its armed intervention against the Revolution.
There is no more disgusting distortion than the attempt to smear the memory of Lenin and Trotsky by linking the policy of War Communism and the harsh measures necessitated by the defence of the revolution in war with the monstrous totalitarian regime of Stalin. As a matter of fact, even the most democratic bourgeois government finds it necessary to restrict democratic rights in time of war. During the second world war, the British workers temporarily accepted all kinds of limitations on their rights, and did so in the main willingly, in the belief that they were fighting against Nazism to "defend democracy". To a far greater degree the Russian workers accepted the need for stern discipline to defeat the White armies. Power was in the hands of the workers' soviets. Even in conditions of terrible civil war, there was more democracy than in any other period in history. One only has to glance at the minutes of the Congresses of the Communist Party and the Third International, which were held annually even in these conditions, to see the complete freedom to debate, discuss and criticise. Nothing could be further from a totalitarian regime than the atmosphere of freedom which characterised the workers' state during the first five years of its existence. However, in the last analysis, the possibility of maintaining and deepening Soviet democracy depended on the material conditions.
A key question was the relation of industry to agriculture. This was just another way of expressing the relation of the proletariat to the peasantry. The mass of peasants supported the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks as a means of obtaining land. But after the revolution, the attitude of the peasants to the Soviet regime was determined more and more by its ability to provide the villages with cheap commodities in exchange for agricultural produce. Normally, the peasants' food and grain surpluses would be exchanged for the products of industry. But with the collapse of production, there were no goods to exchange for the peasants' product. To stave off starvation in the towns armed detachments requisitioned grain to keep the war industries going. There was no alternative. That was the essential meaning of War Communism. Despite these measures, the period was one of economic disruption and falling production. The relations with the peasantry were being stretched to the limits. This system of regimentation, based upon strict centralisation and the introduction of quasi-military measures into all fields of life, flowed from the difficulties of the revolution isolated in a backward, war-shattered country, under conditions of civil war and foreign intervention.
The conditions of civil war, together with the chronic inflation of the period, brought trade between town and countryside to a virtual standstill. This meant the workers in the towns and cities were on the point of starvation, and famine was widespread. The ghastly conditions of the workers in the towns led to a mass exodus to the countryside in search of food. Already by 1919 the number of industrial workers declined to 76 per cent of the 1917 level, while that of building workers fell to 66 per cent, railway workers to 63 per cent. The figure for industrial workers generally fell to less than half from three millions in 1917 to 1,240,000 in 1920. The population of Petrograd alone fell from 2,400,000 in 1917 to 574,000 in August 1920.