Die Neue Zeit
3rd November 2007, 19:55
[Or is the organizational question inherently part of the strictly/directly materialist analysis? :confused: ]
To start off, Lenin treated the concept of organization as its own "question," and I was inspired by such separation in some of my recent analysis.
I started off on this board by stating somewhere that Russia was already materially ripe for a traditional bourgeois revolution since the Crimean war, long before Stolypin became the prime minister (after "Bloody Sunday"), and before Lenin himself was born! Also, Russia was ripe for "revolutionary democracy" in the 1890s, thanks to the accelerated economic programs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_history,_1892-1917#Accelerated_industrialization) of one Sergey White (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Witte) (the developments being commented on in Lenin's The Development of Capitalism in Russia).
However, such revolutions (bourgeois-democratic or revolutionary-democratic) didn't happen spontaneously. As usual, "the devil is in the details."
Now, before someone here cries out "Great Men of History" or even "Ideologist" (sorry if my humour is poor this morning), I'm not one such analyst (coincidentally, those folks who subscribe to the "Great Men" crap are basically saying that some guys came out of the blue spontaneously and fulfilled their historical roles).
Last night, as I peeked into this Learning thread on Stalin's rise to power (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=72409), I noted one sweeping generalization being made (as sweeping and as generalized as the "analysis" of the "Great Men" folks, but this time by the "strictly/directly" materialist side): civil war conditions.
Before I comment on the Learning thread material, I'll go back to the material above on capitalist development in Russia and introduce a fourth perspective (after "Great Men," "Ideology," and "strict/direct" materialism): organization. Simply put, Russia's masses were not sufficiently organized at that time to enact either a proper bourgeois-democratic revolution or a revolution for "revolutionary democracy" in their respective periods (post-Crimean War and under both Stolypin and White). The high levels of illiteracy certainly doesn't help the Ideologists' case or the "Great Men" folks (communication). By the time of March 1917, there were still high levels of illiteracy, but the high levels of regimentation and organization resulting from a third imperialist war in just sixty years (after the Crimean war and the Russian-Japanese war) and from the creation of soviets helped the revolutionary cause immensely. Also, although the Bolsheviks themselves were hardly the organized folks lionized by Soviet propaganda, the proliferation of soviets and factory committees helped the revolutionary cause immensely.
Now, on to Stalin, his bureaucratic bunch, and my two (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=72409&view=findpost&p=1292405670) posts (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=72409&view=findpost&p=1292407266) in the Learning thread (but briefly): no matter how bad the civil war conditions were, no matter how many posts Stalin himself held simultaneously (as noted by Preobrazhensky) (http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Back/Wnext19/Stalin.html) before that critical moment in 1922, no matter how much "will to power" he had (and ideology was irrelevant at this point, anyway), Stalin and his ignored bureaucratic bunch would not have prevailed over the more prominent trade-union bureaucracy (represented by Tomsky, Shlyapnikov, and Kollontai) and other emerging but equally prominent bureaucratic factions (including the "Bonapartist" military-bureaucratic pressures that Trotsky himself faced) without a key organization. It was neither the Secretariat nor the Orgburo itself (both of which Stalin presided over as General Secretary, a post that mattered little politically even without what I'm about to say); it was a little known Central Committee section known as "Uchraspred."
[Later on, the resurrection and permanence of the "Partyocracy" after Stalin's death was due to corresponding unknowns utilized by Khrushchev and his "Partyocrats," and not so much due to the Secretariat itself. (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=69965)]
Last, but not least, is the question of Hitler and the Nazis. Trotsky may have wrote some fine stuff regarding the petit-bourgeoisie's role in the rise of fascist states, but he, just like the "Great Men" folks and the "Ideologists," ignored the role of organization. Prospective fascist states have their material conditions (usually a political and/or economic defeat or mere eclipse of some sort, plus industrialist $$$), "masses" of petit-bourgeoisie and "Great Men" rabble-rousers, but left unorganized or organized improperly, fascism won't succeed. [If I recall correctly, shortly before Hitler's rise to power, France was the most anti-Semitic country in Europe, and it was long since eclipsed by Britain as the leading imperialist power.]
To start off, Lenin treated the concept of organization as its own "question," and I was inspired by such separation in some of my recent analysis.
I started off on this board by stating somewhere that Russia was already materially ripe for a traditional bourgeois revolution since the Crimean war, long before Stolypin became the prime minister (after "Bloody Sunday"), and before Lenin himself was born! Also, Russia was ripe for "revolutionary democracy" in the 1890s, thanks to the accelerated economic programs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_history,_1892-1917#Accelerated_industrialization) of one Sergey White (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Witte) (the developments being commented on in Lenin's The Development of Capitalism in Russia).
However, such revolutions (bourgeois-democratic or revolutionary-democratic) didn't happen spontaneously. As usual, "the devil is in the details."
Now, before someone here cries out "Great Men of History" or even "Ideologist" (sorry if my humour is poor this morning), I'm not one such analyst (coincidentally, those folks who subscribe to the "Great Men" crap are basically saying that some guys came out of the blue spontaneously and fulfilled their historical roles).
Last night, as I peeked into this Learning thread on Stalin's rise to power (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=72409), I noted one sweeping generalization being made (as sweeping and as generalized as the "analysis" of the "Great Men" folks, but this time by the "strictly/directly" materialist side): civil war conditions.
Before I comment on the Learning thread material, I'll go back to the material above on capitalist development in Russia and introduce a fourth perspective (after "Great Men," "Ideology," and "strict/direct" materialism): organization. Simply put, Russia's masses were not sufficiently organized at that time to enact either a proper bourgeois-democratic revolution or a revolution for "revolutionary democracy" in their respective periods (post-Crimean War and under both Stolypin and White). The high levels of illiteracy certainly doesn't help the Ideologists' case or the "Great Men" folks (communication). By the time of March 1917, there were still high levels of illiteracy, but the high levels of regimentation and organization resulting from a third imperialist war in just sixty years (after the Crimean war and the Russian-Japanese war) and from the creation of soviets helped the revolutionary cause immensely. Also, although the Bolsheviks themselves were hardly the organized folks lionized by Soviet propaganda, the proliferation of soviets and factory committees helped the revolutionary cause immensely.
Now, on to Stalin, his bureaucratic bunch, and my two (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=72409&view=findpost&p=1292405670) posts (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=72409&view=findpost&p=1292407266) in the Learning thread (but briefly): no matter how bad the civil war conditions were, no matter how many posts Stalin himself held simultaneously (as noted by Preobrazhensky) (http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Back/Wnext19/Stalin.html) before that critical moment in 1922, no matter how much "will to power" he had (and ideology was irrelevant at this point, anyway), Stalin and his ignored bureaucratic bunch would not have prevailed over the more prominent trade-union bureaucracy (represented by Tomsky, Shlyapnikov, and Kollontai) and other emerging but equally prominent bureaucratic factions (including the "Bonapartist" military-bureaucratic pressures that Trotsky himself faced) without a key organization. It was neither the Secretariat nor the Orgburo itself (both of which Stalin presided over as General Secretary, a post that mattered little politically even without what I'm about to say); it was a little known Central Committee section known as "Uchraspred."
[Later on, the resurrection and permanence of the "Partyocracy" after Stalin's death was due to corresponding unknowns utilized by Khrushchev and his "Partyocrats," and not so much due to the Secretariat itself. (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=69965)]
Last, but not least, is the question of Hitler and the Nazis. Trotsky may have wrote some fine stuff regarding the petit-bourgeoisie's role in the rise of fascist states, but he, just like the "Great Men" folks and the "Ideologists," ignored the role of organization. Prospective fascist states have their material conditions (usually a political and/or economic defeat or mere eclipse of some sort, plus industrialist $$$), "masses" of petit-bourgeoisie and "Great Men" rabble-rousers, but left unorganized or organized improperly, fascism won't succeed. [If I recall correctly, shortly before Hitler's rise to power, France was the most anti-Semitic country in Europe, and it was long since eclipsed by Britain as the leading imperialist power.]