Why do so many hold Lenin responsible for famine

[Cheung Mo]

Lenin's predecessors did not have deal with a twenty-some nation foreign army and two powerful classes (the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy) doing everything they could to subvert the aspirations of a substantial majority of workers and peasants in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and grind production to a halt.

[Tower of Bebel]

Well, by 1920 warcommunism had hopelessly antagonized the peasants, who were culitviating less than two-thirds as much land as in 1914. This fact, together with a severe drought and the breakdown of transportation, poduced a great famine. The ravages of eight years - of the Great War, the Revolution, the civil wars, the Terror, the famine - had left the country in ruins, its productive facilities thrown back by decades as compared with 1914.

[Cheung Mo]

But is the fault of communism or the fault of tyrannical order that will do whatever it can, up to and including destroying that which it holds power over, to cling to power against the aspirations of the majority? A repressive ruling class that strives primarily to consolidate and perpetuate its power cannot and will not fall bloodlessly, else the Paris Commune would have succeeded (a fact recognised by both Lenin and Trotsky). And sadly, under those circumstances, it is very easy (for very logical reasons) for the bourgeoisie to woo people into reaction by offering them sustinence.

[Whitten]

The famine wasn't the fault of Lenin or the Communists, it was the fault of those who resisted them.

[Tower of Bebel]

The farmers were producing less because (a) Russia didn't have huge cereal exports to Europa anymore, so the farmers weren't forced to cultivate most of there lands; (b) they only wanted to produce more than they could eat if they could get stuff in exchange (like money or clothes). At that time money in Russia was rubbish, it almost had no value.
And as I previously wrote, there was a severe drought.

[RedArmyFaction]

The famine was caused because the economy collapsed. And why was this ? Because Lenin made the error of entering the revolution before Russia had fully entered capitalism. This was against what Marx stated. That's why lenin had to resort to capitalism to increase food production. He ended up putting small industry back in private ownership.

[syndicat]

It's true that, with a good deal of Russia's industry dedicated to keeping the Red Army in the field during the civil war, it made little that could be exchanged with the peasants. However, this is not a complete explanation. in may 1918 the Bolsheviks set up a national grain monopoly, and started doing forced grain requisitions from the peasants, and used a divide and conquer game, setting up snitch groups in the villages. These things provoked resistance, and made it harder to appeal to solidarity as a way to motivate the peasants to feed the cities. The Bolsheviks refused to allow the residents of the cities to set up supply committees, to make use of personal contact with relatives in the countryside. They wanted the food supply to be centralized in their hands. But this didn't work. It proved to be ineffective.

What actually happened was that this drove people to act illegally, to circumvent the ineffective government supply chain, out of desperation, by going out on uncoordinated, unorganized personal expeditions into the countryside to get food. This caused a gigantic problem for the railways, due to a huge mass of people from the cities "commuting" to buy food in the countryside, and caused the railways to go to the verge of collapse. It would have been more efficient to allow these citizens to form local supply organizations to minimize the number of buyers going out to the countryside to obtain food.

My point here is that Bolshevik centralist policies made things worse, but they didn't create the basic situation.

[manic expression]

For all the criticism of the Bolsheviks' actions, there is no recognition of the circumstances surrounding them. The Russian Civil War was simply devestating, and any economy would have been greatly hurt by such a conflict. War Communism, which included centralizing most industries, was both necessary and effective. In spite of the great number of problems that the Soviets faced, War Communism did its job in the end.

So, in reality, it is beyond foolish to blame Lenin or the Bolsheviks for the famines. If anything, it would have been far worse were it not for their policies.

[syndicat]

Emma Goldman's book on her experiences in Russia during that period cast doubt on the alleged effectiveness of war communism. The example she gives is heating. People were freezing. That's because the state had no effective system to provide wood. There were massive forests only a few miles from St. Petersburg. Goldman asked one of the Bolshevik leaders why not let the citizens organize teams to go out and cut wood. He said that would go against their centralist approach.

This is similar to the problem with the food supply i mentioned. Because the centralized approach to food supply was ineffective, and people were starving, they went on their own out to the countryside to barter for food with peasants. With huge numbers of people commuting to the countryside, this overburdened the railways and led to the virtual collapse of the railway network. Since people were going to take initiative to negotiate themselves with peasants, including their own relatives, it would have been more efficient to help them organize into groups and send delegations, putting less burden on the railways.

Also, this does not explain why the elected worker committees running enterprises were done away with and replaced with managers appointed from above. Worker self-management is known to be more productive than a more authoritarian system of management because of the greater motivation of the workers.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 12:27 am
Emma Goldman's book on her experiences in Russia during that period cast doubt on the alleged effectiveness of war communism. The example she gives is heating. People were freezing. That's because the state had no effective system to provide wood. There were massive forests only a few miles from St. Petersburg. Goldman asked one of the Bolshevik leaders why not let the citizens organize teams to go out and cut wood. He said that would go against their centralist approach.

This is similar to the problem with the food supply i mentioned. Because the centralized approach to food supply was ineffective, and people were starving, they went on their own out to the countryside to barter for food with peasants. With huge numbers of people commuting to the countryside, this overburdened the railways and led to the virtual collapse of the railway network. Since people were going to take initiative to negotiate themselves with peasants, including their own relatives, it would have been more efficient to help them organize into groups and send delegations, putting less burden on the railways.

Also, this does not explain why the elected worker committees running enterprises were done away with and replaced with managers appointed from above. Worker self-management is known to be more productive than a more authoritarian system of management because of the greater motivation of the workers.
If a policy is breached in one area, it will be breached in others. If people started hearing that people were going out and chopping down trees, that sets a precedent for many other things which would hurt the revolution and the condition of the workers. Centralization saved the Soviet Union, and the adherence to this policy by the Bolsheviks made this possible.

The railway system was under constant strain due to many factors. One was sabotage (IIRC), while another was what all railways experience during wartime. Blaming centralization is strange with all of the problems it faced at the time.

The Soviet system WAS workers running workplaces. That was the whole point. War Communism restricted this to a point because it was necessary. If the Bolsheviks' "more authoritarian system of management" was so unproductive, why did it show itself to be so resilient during a devestating war? Again, you need to take into account situations surrounding policy.

I will get to Emma Goldman's critique of the Soviets, I haven't read it yet. However, it does strike me as a bit shortsighted to criticize a system which survived massive onslaughts while supporting a system which fell over like a house of cards at the slightest opposition.

[syndicat]

The Soviet system WAS workers running workplaces. That was the whole point. War Communism restricted this to a point because it was necessary.

This is not true. The soviets were set up by the Mensheviks in early 1917 with a very top-down structure. Power was concentrated in the executive committee and later concentrated in the 7-member presdium, of the St. Petersburg and Moscow soviets. The plenaries were mere talking shops. This is why workers organized thru the factory committee movement, because they could control that movement and use it to deal with the workplace situation. This is described by Pete Rachlef in his essay "Soviets and Factory Committees in the Russian Revolution": http://www.geocities.com/~johngray/raclef.htm

Moreover, the local soviets had nothing to do with the management of enterprises. They were the local government bodies.

There were about 300 enterprises that were expropriated on the initiative of the worker commitees by early 1918, before the civil war. in early 1918 is when Trotsky and Lenin began the push for one-man management, which meant appointment of managers over workers, appointed by the government, from above. by 1920 there was not a single worker-managed enterprise left in the soviet union.

What was set up under Bolshevik initiative, beginning with the creation of the Supreme Council of National Economy in Nov 1917, was a technocratic, managerialist system, not a system run by workers. The civil war and war communism were part of the impetus furthering this along.


If a policy is breached in one area, it will be breached in others. If people started hearing that people were going out and chopping down trees, that sets a precedent for many other things which would hurt the revolution and the condition of the workers. Centralization saved the Soviet Union, and the adherence to this policy by the Bolsheviks made this possible.

Goldman wasn't suggesting a do-your-ownl-thing solution but an organized, coordinated campaign of mobilizing the citizens to go out and chop wood and bring it back and distribute it, controlld by them but collectively, in a coordinated fashion. Yes, this was contrary to the top-down statist approach preferred by the Bolsheviks, but it was that approach that led to the emergence of a new managerialist dominating class.

Nor was it centralism alone that saved them. In the fall of 1919 a massive white army, of Denikin, 200,000 troops, with the support of the Cossack chieftains, was within 200 miles of Moscow and Lenin thought it would be necessary to flee. He thought their overthrow was imminent. What saved them was not the top-down Red Army, which was retreating, but the grassroots guerrilla army in the Ukraine. Denikin had assigned a white army of about 30,000 to guard his left flank and this army pushed Makhno's Ukrainian revolutionary army west 600 miles to the vicinity of Kiev. But in Nov. 1919, as the whites neared Moscow, thru a clever maneuver, Makhno's army stopped fleeing, turned and attacked fullon the white army, destroying it. They then rode their horses as fast as they could across the Ukraine and attacked the white army besieging Moscow from the rear, forcing it to halt its advance, and eventually giving enough of a breather to the Red Army that the white army was defeated and routed.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 03:45 am

The Soviet system WAS workers running workplaces. That was the whole point. War Communism restricted this to a point because it was necessary.

This is not true. The soviets were set up by the Mensheviks in early 1917 with a very top-down structure. Power was concentrated in the executive committee and later concentrated in the 7-member presdium, of the St. Petersburg and Moscow soviets. The plenaries were mere talking shops. This is why workers organized thru the factory committee movement, because they could control that movement and use it to deal with the workplace situation. This is described by Pete Rachlef in his essay "Soviets and Factory Committees in the Russian Revolution": http://www.geocities.com/~johngray/raclef.htm

Moreover, the local soviets had nothing to do with the management of enterprises. They were the local government bodies.

There were about 300 enterprises that were expropriated on the initiative of the worker commitees by early 1918, before the civil war. in early 1918 is when Trotsky and Lenin began the push for one-man management, which meant appointment of managers over workers, appointed by the government, from above. by 1920 there was not a single worker-managed enterprise left in the soviet union.

What was set up under Bolshevik initiative, beginning with the creation of the Supreme Council of National Economy in Nov 1917, was a technocratic, managerialist system, not a system run by workers. The civil war and war communism were part of the impetus furthering this along.


If a policy is breached in one area, it will be breached in others. If people started hearing that people were going out and chopping down trees, that sets a precedent for many other things which would hurt the revolution and the condition of the workers. Centralization saved the Soviet Union, and the adherence to this policy by the Bolsheviks made this possible.

Goldman wasn't suggesting a do-your-ownl-thing solution but an organized, coordinated campaign of mobilizing the citizens to go out and chop wood and bring it back and distribute it, controlld by them but collectively, in a coordinated fashion. Yes, this was contrary to the top-down statist approach preferred by the Bolsheviks, but it was that approach that led to the emergence of a new managerialist dominating class.

Nor was it centralism alone that saved them. In the fall of 1919 a massive white army, of Denikin, 200,000 troops, with the support of the Cossack chieftains, was within 200 miles of Moscow and Lenin thought it would be necessary to flee. He thought their overthrow was imminent. What saved them was not the top-down Red Army, which was retreating, but the grassroots guerrilla army in the Ukraine. Denikin had assigned a white army of about 30,000 to guard his left flank and this army pushed Makhno's Ukrainian revolutionary army west 600 miles to the vicinity of Kiev. But in Nov. 1919, as the whites neared Moscow, thru a clever maneuver, Makhno's army stopped fleeing, turned and attacked fullon the white army, destroying it. They then rode their horses as fast as they could across the Ukraine and attacked the white army besieging Moscow from the rear, forcing it to halt its advance, and eventually giving enough of a breather to the Red Army that the white army was defeated and routed.
You're confused, badly. The Soviets existed since (at least) 1905, and were set up by the workers themselves. Geocities is your source? Try a history book.

Yes, the Soviets were government bodies. What was the nature of those government bodies? Oh yes, they were made up of workers. This fact makes your comments of a "top-down" structure completely incorrect. The managers in the Soviet system answered to the Soviets (a la the Commissars).

The entire Soviet system was a "worker-managed enterprise".

Goldman was proposing something that could have easily turned into "do your own thing". There was a need to stringently follow the policy in place. The "managerialist dominating class" came into being far late from other circumstances.

Are you actually suggesting that Makhno brought down Denikin? That's just pathetic and you know it. That statement is so blatantly wrong that it's not even worth a response.

[syndicat]

The Soviets existed since (at least) 1905, and were set up by the workers themselves. Geocities is your source? Try a history book.

Don't be an idiot. The essay is simply posted on a peson's home page there. Pete Rachleff is a well-known leftist labor historian. The essay was originally published in a volume entitled "Root and Branch", now out of print.

The soviets of 1905 were indeed set up by the workers themselves, as a strike committee during the mass general strike. But the soviets in the main cities in 1917 were completely different. The plenary sessions were mere talking shops. The Mensheviks and Bolsheviks didn't believe in participatory democracy. The only role they saw for workers was electing the leaders who would make the decisions. (See Sam Farber, "Before Stalinism" on this point about Russian Marxism. Farber is a Marxist sociologist.)

Trotsky, Lenin, Martov, Sukhanov (a Menshevik writer) weren't workers in factories. How did they get elected? They got elected because party leaders of the professional class campaigned there. How do you think Kerensky (a lawyer) and the initial leaders of the St Petersburg soviet were elected? The three top leaders of the soviet initially were members of parliament. And the Bolsheviks didn't change the structure of the local soviets when they became the majority in the fall of 1917.


This fact makes your comments of a "top-down" structure completely incorrect. The managers in the Soviet system answered to the Soviets (a la the Commissars).

The Council of People's Commissars was set up by the Bolshevik party when they obtained a majority at the Congress of Soviets in Oct. 1917. In Nov. 1917 the Peasant Congress merged with the Congress of Worker and Soldier Soviets. The Left SRs were the main political tendency in the Peasant Congress and were almost a majority of the merged soviet. That's why there was a coalition government for a few months. The people on the Council of Commissars were members of the professional class. When the two soviet congresses were merged, the Bolsheviks stacked the congress with duplicate representatives of the unions, which were not directly elected by the workers, but by the party-controlled union bureaucracy. by doing this, the Bolsheviks were able to ensure a permanent majority of their party in the congress, and then the congress rapidly became a mere rubber stamp. impoortant decisions were often issued by the Commissars as decrees, without first getting them approved by the soviet congress. when the Commissar of Justice, a Left SR named Steinberg, tried to get control of the police, he couldn't because the Cheka only answered to the central committee of the Bolshevik Party, in violation of the soviet principle.

So the idea that the "soviet government" was controlled by "workers" is laughable.

The rest of your comments don't provide any rational argument in reply to what I've said.

[manic expression]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 06:40 pm

The Soviets existed since (at least) 1905, and were set up by the workers themselves. Geocities is your source? Try a history book.

Don't be an idiot. The essay is simply posted on a peson's home page there. Pete Rachleff is a well-known leftist labor historian. The essay was originally published in a volume entitled "Root and Branch", now out of print.

The soviets of 1905 were indeed set up by the workers themselves, as a strike committee during the mass general strike. But the soviets in the main cities in 1917 were completely different. The plenary sessions were mere talking shops. The Mensheviks and Bolsheviks didn't believe in participatory democracy. The only role they saw for workers was electing the leaders who would make the decisions. (See Sam Farber, "Before Stalinism" on this point about Russian Marxism. Farber is a Marxist sociologist.)

Trotsky, Lenin, Martov, Sukhanov (a Menshevik writer) weren't workers in factories. How did they get elected? They got elected because party leaders of the professional class campaigned there. How do you think Kerensky (a lawyer) and the initial leaders of the St Petersburg soviet were elected? The three top leaders of the soviet initially were members of parliament. And the Bolsheviks didn't change the structure of the local soviets when they became the majority in the fall of 1917.


This fact makes your comments of a "top-down" structure completely incorrect. The managers in the Soviet system answered to the Soviets (a la the Commissars).

The Council of People's Commissars was set up by the Bolshevik party when they obtained a majority at the Congress of Soviets in Oct. 1917. In Nov. 1917 the Peasant Congress merged with the Congress of Worker and Soldier Soviets. The Left SRs were the main political tendency in the Peasant Congress and were almost a majority of the merged soviet. That's why there was a coalition government for a few months. The people on the Council of Commissars were members of the professional class. When the two soviet congresses were merged, the Bolsheviks stacked the congress with duplicate representatives of the unions, which were not directly elected by the workers, but by the party-controlled union bureaucracy. by doing this, the Bolsheviks were able to ensure a permanent majority of their party in the congress, and then the congress rapidly became a mere rubber stamp. impoortant decisions were often issued by the Commissars as decrees, without first getting them approved by the soviet congress. when the Commissar of Justice, a Left SR named Steinberg, tried to get control of the police, he couldn't because the Cheka only answered to the central committee of the Bolshevik Party, in violation of the soviet principle.

So the idea that the "soviet government" was controlled by "workers" is laughable.

The rest of your comments don't provide any rational argument in reply to what I've said.

The soviets of 1905 were indeed set up by the workers themselves

Thanks.

Now, if the Bolsheviks were so against the Soviets then why did they incorporate them into the Soviet system? The Congress of the Soviets appointed commissars, agreed to a constitution and more. Hardly "talking shops".

Those leaders became leaders because of their skill in speaking, agitation and more. Lenin got support from the workers while supporting the idea of professional revolutionaries and the vanguard party (he was past his factory-working prime at that point, anyway).

Are you talking about the Duma? Yes, I do think that the Bolsheviks (and other groups) sat in the Duma, but they had no intention of actually using it. In fact, they dissolved the Constituent Assembly and opted for a government based on the Soviets.

You need to clarify your story, as you say that the Bolsheviks were forced to take part in a coalition government due to the merge, but then say that they siezed control of the Congress due to the merge.

Nevertheless, the plain facts are that the Congress of the Soviets established the Council of People's Commissars. The Congress was not a rubber stamp when it wielded the highest power in the Soviet system. The Cheka was not the only "police force" at the time, its responsibilities lay in specific areas. Also, please provide a link for your claims.

Now, you may be claiming that the Bolsheviks drove Soviet policy. The Bolsheviks themselves would agree with you. This is nothing surprising.

The Soviet government was controlled by the workers. What is your evidence against this? That the Bolsheviks dictated Soviet policy? This gives not a shred of support for your argument.

What you said is completely irrational, so there is no need to refute it. Claiming that Makhno had a significant part in defeating Denikin is simply wrong.

[syndicat]

Are you talking about the Duma? Yes, I do think that the Bolsheviks (and other groups) sat in the Duma, but they had no intention of actually using it. In fact, they dissolved the Constituent Assembly and opted for a government based on the Soviets.

No, I'm not talking about the Duma. The Duma was effectively abolished by the Feb. 1917 revolution. It was not only the Bolsheviks who opposed the Constituent Assembly. The libertarian Left -- maximalists, syndicalists, anarchists -- also opposed the Constituent Assembly. I'm talking about the soviets here.


Now, if the Bolsheviks were so against the Soviets then why did they incorporate them into the Soviet system? The Congress of the Soviets appointed commissars, agreed to a constitution and more. Hardly "talking shops".

You need to distinguish the local soviets, formed during the Feb 1917 revolution, and the Congress of Soviets, formed in June, 1917. I didn't say the Bolsheviks were "against the soviets." The Bolsheviks had a strategy of dominating the mass organizations -- soviets, factory committees, unions -- to use them as a trampoline to get into power. But the local soviets in the big cities, like St. Petersurg and Moscow, were formed by the Mensheviks in Feb. 1917, and were structured in a totally top down way. This is what labor historian Pete Rachleff says about the way the St. Petersburg soviet was formed:


This organisation was formed from the top down by a group of liberal and radical intellectuals who got together on February 27th and constituted themselves the "Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet." They then called for elections to the Soviet itself. On February 28th, in response to a proclamation from this "Executive Committee," elections were held in the factories. By one o'clock in the afternoon, over 120 delegates assembled for the plenary meeting. However, this meeting--and most future ones--was chaotic: credentials could not be verified and little was accomplished. All essential decisions were made within the "strict intimacy" of the Executive Committee. Some of these decisions, such as the one of March 2nd stating that the Soviet would not co-operate with the Provisional Government, were submitted to the Soviet as a whole for ratification. Most decisions, however, were not.

The intellectuals who put out the call for the soviet included three parliamentary deputies of the Menshevik and Popular Socialist Party, including Alexander Kerensky, a lawyer. As Rachleff points out, power was concentrated in the executive. The plenary sessions -- the actual worker delegates -- were just a talking shop, treated as a rubber stamp. This is described by Sukhanov, a Menshevik journalist (a member of the professional class) who was a member of the executive committee:


To this day, I, a member of the Executive Committee of the Soviet, am completely ignorant of what the Soviet was doing in the course of the day. It never interested me, either then or later, because it was self-evident that all the practical pivotal work had fallen on the shoulders of the Executive Committee. As for the Soviet at that moment, in the given situation, with its quantitative and qualitative composition, it was clearly incapable of any work even as a Parliament, and performed merely moral functions.

The Executive Committee had to accomplish by itself all the current work as well as bring into being a scheme of government. In the first place, to pass this programme through the Soviet was plainly a formality; secondly, this formality was not difficult and no one cared about it....

"And what's going on in the Soviet?" I remember asking someone who had come in from beyond the curtain. He waved his hand hopelessly: "A mass meeting! Anyone who wants to gets up and says whatever he likes!"

In other words, the worker and soldier delegates may have voted to elect the executive committee, but that doesn't mean they "controlled" the soviet. Do you think workers in the USA "control" governments by voting every couple years for politicians? That would be a naive idea. To control the soviet, the worker delegates would need to make the actual decisions.

Now, not all of the soviets formed in Feb 1917 in Russia were structured in that top-down way. in the Kronstadt soviet the worker delegates did make the real
decisions. Unlike the St. Petersburg and Moscow soviets, they didn't allow politicians from the intellgentsia to run for election. You had to be a member of a ship crew, army unit, or work in a workplace to be elected as a delegate. Each workplace had its own assemblies to control their delegates. And the plenary sessions of the soviet were the real location of decision-making. The executive committee just made sure these decisions were carried out.

But the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks were never the majority in the Kronstadt soviet. The dominant political tendency in the Kronstadt soviet in 1917 was the Union of Maximalists, an anti-parliamentary libertarian socialist group who worked closely with the Russian syndicalists. The maximalis/syndicalist alliance were able to protect the rule of participatory democracy in Kronstadt. The Kronstadt soviet of 1917 is described in good detail in Israel Getzler's book, Kronstadt 1917-21.

By October 1917, the radical left in general supported the transfer of power from the Provisional Govenment of Kerensky to the Congress of Soviets. Most of the radical left assumed that the Central Committee of the Soviet Congress would be the government. The Central Committee had representatives of the various radical left tendencies on it. But that isn't what happened. At the meeting of the Congress of Soviets on Oct 24 1917, the Right Mensheviks and Right SRs walked out in protest when the majority proposed transfer of power to the Congress from the Provisional Government. That gave the Bolsheviks a temorary majority, not due to winning an election. they then sprang their demand: the Bolshevik-controlled Council of People's Commissars should be the new government, not the Central Executive Committee of the Congress.

But the Congress only represented urban workers and military personnel. But 80% of the population were peasants. They needed the Peasant Congress to agree to merge with the Congress of Soviets. When the Peasant Congress met in Nov 1917, the Left SRs were the majority. That's why the Bolsheviks had to agree to a coalition government.

But in the merger of the two congresses, the Bolsheviks were able to stack the Executive Committee -- the new legislature -- with representatives of the union bureaucracy and the permanent bureaucracy of the soldier union. This violated the soviet principle because these people weren't directly elected. They were mainly Bolsheviks but bureaucrats. This is how the Bolsheviks were able to "stack" the Exeuctive Committee of the Congress with a Bolshevik majority. Once that was accomplished, the Congress Executive Committee rapidly degenerated into a rubber stamp and very soon the Bolshevik leaders on the Council of Peoples' Comissars started disregarding it and ruling by decree, also in violation of the soviet principle.

So, you ask, Who elected the Council of People's Commissars? The Bolsheviks could retain control of this body only so long as they had a majority in the Executive Commitee of the Congress. That body was stacked to give an artificcial Bolshevik majority. And the Executive Committee in general wasn't elected directly by workers. It was mostly elected by the Soviet Congress, which ended up meeting only rarely.

But if you say "But the congress was elected by the workers", what you're saying is that it is sufficient for workers to control society that they participate once in a great while in an election of leaders to government office. Also, the union bureaucrats who got a large block of seats on the Congress Executive Committee were only elected rarely, and it was hard for the rank and file to remove them since they'd need a nation-wide network or political organization.

Do you really believe that is all the "worker power" should mean? That is absurd. To be liberated, the working class must directly participate in the making of the decisions that directly affect us. This means things like collectively managing the industries where we work, controlling the buildings we live in and the neighborhoods we live in, thru things like community assemblies. And it means that key issues brought before any congress of delegates can be brought back to the base assemblies so we make the decision. And it means that the congress is a real deliberative body that makes the real proposals, not just a rubber stamp to elect government leaders.

Moreover, by the spring of 1918 the Bolsheviks were no longer even willing to go along with the principle of election of the soviets by the workers. When they lost the elections in 19 of 22 cities in European Russia that spring, they simply abolished the soviets or refused to recognize the results of the election. "The dictatorship of the party", as Lenin called it, took precedence over "worker democracy." This destruction of the soviet democracy in the spring of 1918 is discussed by Sam Farber -- a Marxist sociologist -- in his book "Before Stalinism."

Here are some good sources:

Sheila Jackon, The Russian Revolution
Peter Rachleff, "Soviets and Factory Committees in the Russian Revolution"
http://www.geocities.com/~johngray/raclef.htm
Maurice Brinton, Bolsheviks and Workers Control
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/s...61/bolintro.htm (http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/sp001861/bolintro.htm)
Sam Farber, Before Stalinism
Vladimir Brovkin, The Mensheviks After October
Israel Getzler, Kronstadt 1917-21
Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel, "The Soviet Experience" in Socialism Today
and Tomorrow