From: "Chris Wright" <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net>
Subject: Re: AUT: Response to Mauro, jr. from "Commie00"
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 00:19:15 -0600


I don't think the issue should be that Lenin called socialism state
capitalism, rather that he did not have a view of socialism as workers'
self-emancipation, as workers' management of society or even of the radical
reorganization of all social relations and the destruction of basic
capitalist social relations.  This is easy enough to document, and I will
give a few dozen examples here from Lenin and other bolsheviks.

He explained that workers' control meant "that the majority of workers
should enter all responsible institutions and that the administration should
render an account of its actions to the most authoritative workers'
organisations". ) V.I. Lenin, Sochineniya, XX, 459  (note, render an
account, not take control, not take over and run.)

Lenin produces draft for a new Party programme: "The Party fights for a more
democratic workers' and peasants' republic, in which the police and standing
army will be completely abolished and replaced by the universally armed
people, by a universal militia. All official persons will not only be
elected but also subject to recall at any time upon the demand of a majority
of the electors. All official persons, without exception, will be paid at a
rate not exceeding the average wage of a competent worker".

At the same time Lenin calls for the "unconditional participation (my
emphasis) of the workers in the control of the affairs of the trusts" -
which could be brought about "by a decree requiring but a single day to
draft". V.I. Lenin. Ruin is Threatening. ibid., p. 142.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------
Publication of Lenin's 'Can the Bolsheviks retain State power?' This text
contains certain passages which help one understand many subsequent events.
"When we say workers' control, always associating that slogan with the
dictatorship of the proletariat, and always putting it after the latter, we
thereby make plain what state we have in mind... If it is a proletarian
state we are referring to (i.e. the dictatorship of the proletariat) then
workers' control can become a national, all-embracing, omnipresent,
extremely precise and extremely scrupulous accounting (emphasis in original)
of the production and distribution of goods".

In the same pamphlet Lenin defines the type of 'socialist apparatus' (or
framework) within which the function of accountancy (workers' control) will
be exercised. "Without big banks socialism would be impossible of
realisation. The big banks are a 'stable apparatus' we need for the
realisation of socialism and which we shall take from capitalism ready made.
Our problem here is only to lop away that which capitalistically disfigures
this otherwise excellent apparatus and to make it still bigger, still more
democratic, still more comprehensive..." "A single huge state bank, with
branches in every rural district and in every factory - that will already be
nine-tenths of a socialist apparatus". According to Lenin this type of
apparatus would allow "general state book-keeping, general state accounting
of the production and distribution of goods", and would be "something in the
nature, so to speak, of the skeleton of a socialist society". (Lenin's
emphasis throughout.)
-------------------------------------------
At second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Bolshevik spokesmen proclaimed:
"The Revolution has been victorious. All power has passed to the Soviets...
New laws will he proclaimed within a few days dealing with workers'
problems. One of the most important will deal with workers' control of
production and with the return of industry to normal conditions. Strikes and
demonstrations are harmful in Petrograd. We ask you to put an end to all
strikes on economic and political issues, to resume work and to carry it out
in a perfectly orderly manner... Every man to his place. The best way to
support the Soviet Government these days is to carry on with one's job".
Without apparently batting an eyelid Pankratova could write that "the first
day of workers' power was ushered in by this call to work and to the
edification of the new kind of factory". A. Pankralova. op. cit., pp.48-49.
(49) ibid., p.50. (50) ibid., p.51.

The Draft Decree also stressed (point 6) that "in all enterprises of state
importance" all delegates elected to exercise workers' control were to be
"answerable to the State for the maintenance of the strictest order and
discipline and for the protection of property". Enterprises "of importance
to the State" were defined (point 7) - and this has a familiar tone for all
revolutionaries - as "all enterprises working for defence purposes, or in
any way connected with the production of articles necessary for the
existence of the masses of the population" (our emphasis). In other words
practically any enterprise could be declared by the new Russian State as "of
importance to the State". The delegates from such an enterprise (elected to
exercise workers' control) were now made answerable to a higher authority.
Moreover if the trade unions (already fairly bureaucratised) could 'annul'
the decisions of rank-and-file delegates, what real power in production had
the rank-and-file? The Decree on Workers' Control was soon proved, in
practice, not to be worth the paper it was written on. *

* It is quite dishonest for those who should know better (see article by T.
Cliff in Labour Worker of November 1967) to trumpet these decrees on
workers' control as something they never were - and were never intended to
become.
------------------------------------------------------------
: The new decree started with the ingenious statement that: "In the
interests of a planned regulation of the national economy" the new
Government "recognised the authority of workers' control throughout the
economy". But there had to be a firm hierarchy of control organs. Factory
Committees would be "allowed" to remain the control organ of each individual
enterprise. But each Committee was to be responsible to a "Regional Council
of Workers' Control", subordinated in turn to an "All-Russian Council of
Workers' Control". (58) The composition of these higher organs was decided
by the Party.
-------------------------------------------
At first the 'left' Bolsheviks held a majority of the leading positions on
the Vesenka. The first Chairman was Osinsky and the governing bureau
included Bukharin, Larin, Sokolnikov, Milyutin, Lomov and Shmidt. (73)
Despite its 'left' leadership the new body 'absorbed' the All-Russian
Council of Workers' Control before the latter had even got going. This step
was openly acknowledged by the Bolsheviks as a move towards 'statisation'
(ogosudarstvleniye) of economic authority. The net effect of the setting up
of Vesenka was to silence still further the voice of the Factory Committees.
As Lenin put it a few weeks later, "we passed from workers' control to the
creation of the Supreme Council of National Economy". (74) The function of
this Council was clearly to "replace, absorb and supersede the machinery of
workers' control." From workers' control to workers' management), Moscow,
1918.
----------------------------------------------------------
State and Revolution includes the interesting phrase: "We want the socialist
revolution with human nature as it is now, with human nature that cannot
dispense with subordination, control and managers".
--------------------------------------------------------
Lenin's: "Socialism is stocktaking; every time you take stock of iron bars
or of pieces of cloth, that is socialism") Speech of November 4, 1917 to the
Petrograd Workers and Soldiers Soviet
--------------------------------------------------
Isvestiya publishes the 'General Instructions on Workers Control in
Conformity with the Decree of November 14'. These became known as the
'Counter-Manual' and represent the finished expression of the leninist point
of view. *

The first 4 sections deal with the organisation of workers' control in the
factories and with the election of control commissions. The next 5 sections
decree the duties and rights of these commissions, stressing which functions
they should undertake and which should remain the prerogative of the
owner-managers. Section 5 stresses that insofar as the Commissions play any
real role in the management of enterprises, this role should be confined to
supervising the carrying out of directives issued by those Central
Government agencies "specifically entrusted with the regulation of economic
activity on a national scale." Section 7 states that "the right to issue
orders relating to the management, running and functioning of enterprises
remains in the hands of the owner. The control commissions must not
participate in the management of enterprises and have no responsibilities in
relation to their functioning. This responsibility also remains vested in
the hands of the owner".
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Congress, with its overwhelming Bolshevik majority, voted to transform
the Factory Committees into union organs. (16) The Menshevik and Social -
Revolutionary delegates voted with the Bolsheviks for a resolution
proclaiming that "the centralisation of workers' control was the task of the
trade unions". (17) 'Workers' control' was defined as "the instrument by
which the universal economic plan must be put into effect locally". (18) "It
implied the definite idea of standardisation in the sphere of production".
(19) It was too bad if the workers read more into the term than this. "Just
because the workers misunderstand and falsely interpret workers' control is
no reason to repudiate it". (20) What the Party meant by workers' control
was spelt out in some detail. It meant, inter alia, that "it was not within
the competence of the lower organs of workers' control to be entrusted with
financial control function . . . this should rest with the highest organs of
control, with the general apparatus of management, with the Supreme Council
of National Economy. In the sphere of finance everything must be left to the
higher organs of workers' control". (21) "For workers' control to be of
maximum use to the proletariat it was absolutely necessary to refrain from
atomising it. Workers of individual enterprises should not be left the right
to make final decisions on questions touching upon the existence of the
enterprise". (22) A lot of re - education was needed and this was to be
entrusted to the "economic control commissions" of the unions. They were to
inculcate into the ranks of the workers the Bolshevik conception of workers'
control.

"The trade unions must go over each decree of the Factory Committees in the
sphere of control, explain through their delegates at the factories and
shops that control over production does not mean the transfer of the enter
prise into the hands of the workers of a given enterprise, that it does not
equal the socialisation of production and exchange".
16) First Trade Union Congress, p 374 (17) ibid., pp. 369 - 370. (18) ibid..
p. 369.
(19) ibid., p. 192. (20) ibid., p. 230. (21) ibid., p. 195. (22) ibid., p.
369.
------------------------------------------------
Isvestiya of the All - Russian Central Executive Committee publishes Decree
(issued by the Council of Peoples Commissars) on the "centralisation of
railway management". This decree, which ended workers' control on the
railways was "an absolutely necessary prerequisite for the improvement of
the conditions of the transport system". (39)

It stressed the urgency of "iron labour discipline" and "individual
management" on the railways and granted "dictatorial" powers to the
Commissariat of Ways of Communication. Clause 6 proclaimed the need for
selected individuals to act as "administrative technical executives" in
every local, district or regional railway centre. These individuals were to
be "responsible to the People's Commissars of Ways of Communication". They
were to be "the embodiment of the whole of the dictatorial power of the
proletariat in the given railway centre".

Every union should establish a commission "to fix norms of productivity for
every trade and category of workers". The use of piece rates "to raise the
productivity of labour" was conceded. It was claimed that "bonuses for
increased productivity above the established norm may within certain limits
be a useful measure for raising productivity without exhausting the worker".
Finally if "individual groups of workers" refused to submit to union
discipline, they could in the last resort be expelled from the union "with
all the consequences that flow there from". Narodnoye Khozyaisto No.2, 1918,
p.38
--------------------------------------------------------
"It was all very well", Bukharin pointed out, "to say as Lenin had (in State
and Revolution) that each cook should learn to manage the State. But what
happened when each cook had a commissar appointed to order him about?" The
second issue of the paper contained some prophetic comments by Osinsky: "We
stand for the construction of the proletarian society by the class
creativity of the workers themselves, not by the ukases of the captains of
industry. . . if the proletariat itself does not know how to create the
necessary prerequisites for the socialist organisation of labour no one can
do this for it and no one can compel it to do this. The stick, if raised
against the workers, will find itself in the hands of a social force which
is either under the influence of another social class or is in the hands of
the soviet power; but the soviet power will then be forced to seek support
against the proletariat from another class (e.g. the peasantry) and by this
it will destroy itself as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Socialism and
socialist organisation will be set up by the proletariat itself, or they
will not be set up at all - something else will be set up - state
capitalism". (46)

Lenin reacted very sharply. The usual vituperation followed. The views of
the 'left' Communists were "a disgrace". "a complete renunciation of
communism in practice", "a desertion to the camp of the petty bourgeoisie".
(47) The left were being "provoked by the Isuvs (Mensheviks) and other
Judases of capitalism". A campaign was whipped up in Leningrad which
compelled Kommunist to transfer publication to Moscow, where the paper
reappeared first under the auspices of the Moscow Regional Organisation of
the Party, later as the 'unofficial' mouth - piece of a group of comrades.
After the appearance of the first issue of the paper a hastily convened
Leningrad Party Conference produced a majority for Lenin and "demanded that
the adherents of Kommunist cease their separate organisational existence".
(48)

So much for alleged factional rights, in 1918! (i.e. long before the l0th
Congress officially prohibited factions - in 1921
--------------------------------------------------
We must raise the question of piece - work and apply and test it in practice
. . . we must raise the question of applying much of what is scientific and
progressive in the Taylor system (50) . . . the Soviet Republic must at all
costs adopt all that is valuable in the achievements of science and
technology in this field . . . we must organise in Russia the study and
teaching of the Taylor system". Only "the conscious representatives of petty
bourgeois laxity" could see in the recent decree on the management of the
railways "which granted individual leaders dictatorial powers" some kind of
"departure from the collegium principle, from democracy and from other
principles of soviet government".

"The irrefutable experience of history has shown that the dictatorship of
individual persons was very often the vehicle, the channel of the
dictatorship of the revolutionary classes"

"Large - scale machine industry which is the material productive source and
foundation of socialism - calls for absolute and strict unity of will . . .
How can strict unity of will be ensured? By thousands subordinating their
will to the will of one".

"unquestioning submission (emphasis in original) to a single will is
absolutely necessary for the success of labour processes that are based on
large - scale machine industry .... today the Revolution demands, in the
interests of socialism, that the masses unquestioningly obey the single will
(emphasis in original) of the leaders of the labour process". (51)
(50)Before: the Revolution Lenin had denounced Taylorism 'the enslavement of
man by the machine'. (Sochineniya XVII, 247 - 8). (51)V I Lennin Selected
Works Vol VII, PP. 332 - 3, 340 - 2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
the collegial principle (collective management) . . . represents something
rudimentary, necessary for the first stage, when it is necessary to build
anew . . . The transition to practical work is connected with individual
authority. This is the system which more than any other assures the best
utilisation of human resources". V. I. Lenin. Speech to Third Congress of
Economic Councils, Sochineniya XXV, p. 17

At Lenin's instigation the Congress called on the unions "to explain to the
broad circles of the working class that industrial reconstruction can only
be achieved by a transition to the maximum curtailment of collective
administration and by the gradual introduction of individual management in
units directly engaged in production". (21) One-man management was to apply
to all institutions from State Trusts to individual factories. "The elective
principle must now be replaced by the principle of selection". (22)
Collective management was "utopian'', ''impractical'' and ''injurious". (23)
The Congress also called for a struggle "against the ignorant conceit of . .
. demagogic elements . . .who think that the working class can solve its
problems without having recourse to bourgeois specialists in the most
responsible posts". "There could be no place in the ranks of the Party of
scientific socialism for those demagogic elements which play upon this sort
of prejudice among the backward sections of the workers". 'The Trade Unions
and their Tasks' (Lenin's theses). Appendix 12, p. 532

The Ninth Congress specifically decreed that "no trade union group should
directly intervene in industrial management" and that "Factory Committees
should devote themselves to the questions of labour discipline, of
propaganda and of education of the workers". (25) To avoid any recurrence of
'independent' tendencies among the leaders of the trade unions those
well-known proletarians Bukharin and Radek were moved onto the All-Russian
Central Council of Trade Unions to represent the Party leadership and keep a
watchful eye on the ARCCTU's proceedings.  (25)At the Eleventh Congress in
1922, Lenin was to say It is absolutely essential that all the authority in
the factories should be concentrated in the hands of management. . . Under
these circumstances any direct intervention by the trade unions in the
management of enterprises must be regarded as positively harmful and
impermissible (Resolutions I, 607, 610-612)

At a Plenum of the Central Committee Bukharin had produced a resolution on
"industrial democracy". The terms were to infuriate Lenin. They were "a
verbal twist", "a tricky phrase", "confusing", "a squib". "Industry is
always necessary. Democracy is not always necessary. The term ''industrial
democracy'' gives rise to a number of utterly false ideas". (58) "It might
be understood to repudiate dictatorship and individual management". (59)
"Without bonuses in kind and disciplinary courts it was just empty talk".
58) V. I. Lenin Selected Works vol. IX, p. 12. (59) ibid., p. 53. (60)
ibid., p. 26.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------
Nowhere in Lenin's writings is workers' control ever equated with
fundamental decision-taking (i.e. with the initiation of decisions) relating
to production (how much to produce, how to produce it, at what cost, at
whose cost, etc.).  Also, Lenin's notion of socialism is extremely limited:
state capitalism is the highest material preparation for socialism because
for Lenin, socialism=nationalization of property under a 'workers' state'
(in the limited sense above, not in the sense of workers actually running
everything and eliminating alienated, fetishized relations.)  Btw, Marx
NEVER used the term 'workers' state' and his use of the term dictatorship of
the proletariat radically differed from Lenin's usage everywhere except in a
few good parts of State and Revolution and even then, the distance is great.

This totally contravenes Marx from the 1844 Manuscripts to the 1875
Gothacritik.  I will provide more on this later.

i don't think a lot more needs to to be show, but if you want it, Maurice
Brinton's pamphelet on The Bolsheviks and Workers Control was my source for
this.  Also, Rod jones has a decent piece, and International Socialist Forum
(www.isf.org.uk) has two excellent articles in their second issue.  For a
critique of Lenin's Imperialism, see the Aufheben web site and the article
Critique of the Theory of Decadence, part 1.  Any number of other sources
will assist in this critique, but Marx himself has totally different notions
from Lenin which are there for anyone with eyes to see.  Lenin never fully
grasps Marx or dialectics (see his awful tripe in Materialism and
Empirio-Criticism, although his 1914 philosophic notebooks show great growth
in some directions.)

Now, does all this mean Lenin was a wretched tool of the bourgeoisie?  No.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks were simply politically incapable of doing what
they wanted to do, what needed to be done.  Their politics, a politics
marred by any number of problems both theoretically and practically, came up
short.  They betrayed the revolution only in so far as their conception of
it failed, not because they sought to undermine it for personal gain.  One
thing you cannot accuse Lenin and Trotsky of is seeking personal gain or
privilege.  They did not seek personal power.  they sought communism, but
they failed.  That is different.  And they dared to try, as Luxemburg
pointed out, something few others can say.  So while i am for a pitiless
critique of their politics, I am not of the opinion that Lenin and Trotsky
were some kind of fascist rogues or anti-working class.  They were genuine
products of some of the best of the workers' movement at the time (alongside
some anarchist and pre-councilist elements.)  That is no reason to believe
that we can avoid a merciless break with their deep-seated political
weaknesses.  The two should not be confused.

Anyway, that's enough.

Cheers,
Chris




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