Bolshevism in the West

[The Idler]

Why has Bolshevism never took power in the West?

[IbelieveInanarchy]

Why has Bolshevism never took power in the West?

the USA. then when communism got a bit of a foothold, we got hitler who destroyed all our countries, after which the USA saved us from nazis and rebuilt our lands buying our democracies. Talking about western europe here.

[IbelieveInanarchy]

oh and maybe people saw what was happening in the ussr and ddr, regarding the dictatorship.

[Ale Brider]

I think this phenomenon has its roots in the quasi-voluntarist tactics of Leninism, which is the basis of the Bolshevik method. As it relies more on the momentary crisis and its utilization by a highly organized party of professional revolutionaries than the the mass and spontaneous uprisings of the proletariat and its own revolutionary organizations. The Bolshevik method needs the crisis and it needs the vanguard. First, because without the crisis and emerging chaos, the vanguard can't just force a revolution out of nowhere, this is clear. While Lenin is in a sense a voluntarist, the need for opportunity is still there. Second, it needs the vanguard, because without the vanguard, the revolution would have no focus, no centre, which is again, essential to Bolshevism, because the socialist state (that would, theoretically, eventually lead to communist society) could be only founded around the revolutionary centre, and with the leading of this revolutionary centre. Now, where the Bolshevik method was successful, like in Russia, or in China (which is slightly different, but generally followed Leninist tactics), et cetera, decentralized organizational structures basically had no real presence before. So the only means they could organize the proletariat swiftly and without delay (in order to utilize a crisis) was with the help of the vanguard. Of course, eventually the workers themselves would have found a way to organize in a decentralized manner, and there were even signs of decentralized and democratic organization operating simultaneously with a vanguard within one movement and within one revolution, but we saw everywhere that the vanguard always dictates, and always prevails, because this is how Leninism works. Now the reason why Bolshevism never prevailed in the West? First of all, while economic backlashes strike Western countries as well, clearly not as strong as less industrialized countries with less economic power. Also, Western ruling classes were much better at providing concessions, they were (and are) much more flexible. And because Bolshevism heavily relies on a) the debilitating and infuriating effects of a crisis which are less powerful in a richer, Western society, and b) on the very oppressive and even despotic nature of the ruling classes, in order to provoke a violent uprising against them which knows no compromise, it has significantly less chance to seize power in Western countries. Especially in the countries which were imperialist in the past (or have imperialistic policies in the present), because these countries are usually the richest, these countries usually have an effective welfare net, and so on. In rich countries with a long tradition of convenient bourgeois democracies, Leninism basically has no chance, as long an apocalyptic economic cataclysm doesn't occur.

[(A)]

There are no proletarians in america; only temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

[Antiochus]

Why has Bolshevism never took power in the West?

Depends what you mean by 'West' exactly. It happened in Germany in 1918-1919, it just failed. Not necessarily due to support, something like 500,000 workers in Berlin rioted against the transitional SDP government. It was just crushed from a tactical perspective. I suppose it didn't take root in France/Britain and the U.S because these were the *winning* powers. If you notice, most of the major Socialist upheavals happened in countries that were totally defeated in WW1 (Russian Empire, Hungary/Austria-Hungary, Germany). It almost also happened in Italy.

[John Nada]

Why has Bolshevism never took power in the West?

I don't know. Why hasn't the proletariat taken power in the west, regardless of the theory?

I think this phenomenon has its roots in the quasi-voluntarist tactics of Leninism, which is the basis of the Bolshevik method. As it relies more on the momentary crisis and its utilization by a highly organized party of professional revolutionaries than the the mass and spontaneous uprisings of the proletariat and its own revolutionary organizations. The Bolshevik method needs the crisis and it needs the vanguard. First, because without the crisis and emerging chaos, the vanguard can't just force a revolution out of nowhere, this is clear. While Lenin is in a sense a voluntarist, the need for opportunity is still there. Second, it needs the vanguard, because without the vanguard, the revolution would have no focus, no centre, which is again, essential to Bolshevism, because the socialist state (that would, theoretically, eventually lead to communist society) could be only founded around the revolutionary centre, and with the leading of this revolutionary centre. Now, where the Bolshevik method was successful, like in Russia, or in China (which is slightly different, but generally followed Leninist tactics), et cetera, decentralized organizational structures basically had no real presence before. So the only means they could organize the proletariat swiftly and without delay (in order to utilize a crisis) was with the help of the vanguard. Of course, eventually the workers themselves would have found a way to organize in a decentralized manner, and there were even signs of decentralized and democratic organization operating simultaneously with a vanguard within one movement and within one revolution, but we saw everywhere that the vanguard always dictates, and always prevails, because this is how Leninism works. Now the reason why Bolshevism never prevailed in the West? First of all, while economic backlashes strike Western countries as well, clearly not as strong as less industrialized countries with less economic power. Also, Western ruling classes were much better at providing concessions, they were (and are) much more flexible. And because Bolshevism heavily relies on a) the debilitating and infuriating effects of a crisis which are less powerful in a richer, Western society, and b) on the very oppressive and even despotic nature of the ruling classes, in order to provoke a violent uprising against them which knows no compromise, it has significantly less chance to seize power in Western countries. Especially in the countries which were imperialist in the past (or have imperialistic policies in the present), because these countries are usually the richest, these countries usually have an effective welfare net, and so on. In rich countries with a long tradition of convenient bourgeois democracies, Leninism basically has no chance, as long an apocalyptic economic cataclysm doesn't occur.

Would you say a insurrectionary general strike strategy would've been better?:

The Insurrectionary general strike strategy Inheritance (claimed or not) of Bakunin theses aimed at causing the abolition of the state by a single collective action, preferably a general strike, the insurgency sees its release depends on the spontaneity of the masses. Under this strategy, the insurrectionary general strike will arrive when the masses are subjectively ready, and that these subjective dispositions will easily solve objective questions (military, organizational) using the revolutionary creativity of the masses. This strategy also relies on a broad collapse of bourgeois power, again caused by the subjective dispositions of the masses (mass desertion in the army, etc.) This strategy was reproposed in the period between WWI and WWII by the current revolutionary syndicalist, and was able to find resurgence in the « Spontex Maoists » and in the ultra-left inspired by Bordiga.

[Bolshevik 180]

Living standards in the West are sufficiently high enough to prevent the kind of crisis needed for revolution. This is my theory anyway. The only great power in the world ever to have a revolution (Russia) was mainly agrarian, disintegrated ethnically and suffering heavily from war casualties. This kind of breakdown simply does not happen today in modern countries, even the conditions of WW2 were not as bad as the condition of the general population of Russia in the WW1 period.

[Blake's Baby]

The workers' rising in Germany that ended WWI was 'Bolshevik' if it was anything; the Bavarian Soviet Republic was 'Bolshevik', as was the Hungarian Soviet Republic. All were crushed by the military might of capitalist states, as well as the inability of the working class to see a clear way forward (due to illusions in 'democracy' and such like).

Lenin's theory was that Russia was a 'weak link' - it had a somewhat developed economy and several million workers, but its political institutions (especially by 1917) were a shambles. By implication, Germany, Britain, France, the US etc were 'stronger' links. They may also have had developed economies and large working classes, but their institutions were more robust.

However, Germany at the end of the war was also a basket-case country. The reasons for the failure of the revolution in Germany are several, and I'd say that trust in so-called 'socialists', democrats and parliamentarians was even more important than the direct military repression - which was terrible; but only a comparatively small number of workers were involved in the revolutionary actions. Many more workers were prepared to let 'their' politicians in the SPD defend the status quo and destroy the revolution.

Why? Because electoralist politics are a dead-end for the working class.