From: "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba-AT-online.no>
Subject: Re: AUT: Re: Russia without the Bolsheviks???
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 12:18:52 +0100



----- Original Message -----
From: "Kurasje Archive" <kurasje-AT-iname.com>
To: <aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: 21. november 2002 22.26
Subject: Re: AUT: Re: Russia without the Bolsheviks???


> Hello Harald,
> Actually I didn't want to get into a deep discussion with you  -  since I
have not the time nor all the necessary details at hand/present in mind to
take up a conversation at your energetic level.
>
> What did I say to provoke you this much ?

Sorry to be late in responding. I got sidetracked
by something else.
        "What did I say to provoke you this much,"
you ask. A good question. Just an expression
of my particular form of periodic madness, I am
tempted to say. (Not to be taken too literally.)
        That my particular  form of "madness" was
awaken now is partially no doubt rooted in a
combination of finding this moment of history
fascinating in itself (even if I have not have given it
too my thought in the last years), the recognising
of how much it came to colour most of the
20th century, the labour movements and what for
long has been represented as socialism and
communism (however incredible the later might
seem from a rational perspective) and finally
that word "doomed."
        I have great respect for the council communist
tradition, so sorry if that did not get through, and I
came over as angry.
        Actually I think it was Nate's "what if?" question
that in a positive sense provoked me the most.
Before getting sidetracked, I started rereading old
stuff and looking for new, and got  a reaffirmation
of how much of the story of 1917-18 which
remains to be told. It might partially be due to the
lack of sources, but I am convinced that it also
has a lot to do with that just about every historian
of the period takes statism and market relations
as something given.
        Now it is easy to show all the forces facilating
the counter-revolution, or to be more precise, barring
a social revolution going beyond capitalism
from taking place. So the fact that  the general revolt
failed so miserably, and entered into blind alleys
almost from the very beginning, is hardly surprising.
        But I still insist on that (pre-)revolutionary historical
moments are more open that usual, that they are
characterised by a power vacuum that has to be filled
in one way or the other, and they thus in a sense by
defintion are never "doomed". When I say open, this
also implies that the working classes, and people in
general, are more receptive to trying out ideas, practices,
unknown paths, and their very own creativity. For
for moment they discover a new energy within themselves
which increases the potential for overcoming
challenges. Such moments are never doomed, but
the traps are many. Thus counter.factual history also
makes more sense applied to such moments of
history. For revolutionaries, asking such questions
has a significance for the present and future.
        But we must almost certainly start in February
1917 (and also take a look further back) and not
with October. It is hard to know what .might come
out of this, but it at least awakens my curiosity. In
the last issue of Aufheben, a llet from the French group,
"Theorie Communiste" draws attententon to a story
told by Voline in his book "The Unknown Revolution".
They write:  "In a factory the workers had started to
organize their transactions with other firms themsleves.
A representative of Bolshevik authority arrives  and
using threats, orders the end of this type of activity,
because the state is undertaking it. [Actually the
state was ordering the factory to be shut down.]  Of
course this did not go without confrontation, without
opposition, but is it possible to imagine an exchange
which would not take a form alienated from the
exchangers connected by it?"
        [The "representative of  Bolshevik authority"
mentioned  was Shlypanikov, then Commissar of
Labour, later principal figure within the so-called
"Workers' Opposition"]
        Now I agree with "Theorie Communiste" about
the nature of [generalised commodity] exchange
relations. But it is also very easy to see how these
might have been overcome if not any step in that
direction had been sabotaged. At that particular
moement the step from "the workers ha[ving]
started to organize their transactions with other
firms themsleves" to going beyond commodiy
transactions might not have been that great, had
they only been encouraged, and a critical means
to such an end, the councils of factory
commiitees not been dissolved. The sooner after
February (alternatively October) such a process
had started, the greater would also the possibilities
of a radically different course have been (and
the lesser the economical crisis of disorganization).
Whatever one may think of the likelyhood of
such a developement, the role played by subjective
factors here are obvious.


You write Jens:

"I could add, that from what I remember having read,
Petersborg got more or less empty politically during
the summer so that the only ones left to play on the
scene were those determined to ride on the back of
the workers, i.e. the 'left' of the political spectre. Under
the pressure of war defeat and growing internal
problems of both logistics and social peace the
'responsible' bourgeois groupings gave up and left
the scene. And among the groups that stayed the
Bolshevics were simply brilliant in political
manouvering. "

By "during the summer" you are referring to the
summer of 1918, are you not? That is *very* late.
At this point, I can agree with you that revolution
was not only pretty much doomed, but lost. And
by the then both subjective and objective conditions
had also radically changed. But they had largely done so
due the politico-economcial course that had been
followed. In revolutionary times conditions change
incredibly fast, thus also the importance of the
subjective of organisational factor, or in other
words the critical constructive aspect. (The same
pretty much applies for a wildcat strike. Moments
not used are lost, and it is often little that
separates events taking this or that course.)


You end ( I have not reproduced the first part of your
reply) by writing:

"I don't know what you and I are discussing here, but
the above would only have a 'communist' perspective
if such a crisis had a change of the producers'
collective take over of all means of social production
in a joint project of regulating society directly according
to socially agreed human needs.  -  We know that
that was not the Bolshevic idea. But was any of the
other positions more realistic ?
        "So I tend to repeat:
"Subjective will and 'right' programmes cannot compen-
sate for the lack of historical maturity of conditions
necessary for the new world. A proletarian revolution in
Europe might have changed perspectives for Russia  -
I don't know. But on it's own it was doomed more or
less."

Again, neither I am much surprised that the events took
the course it did. But this is not the same as ruling out
any other course, including a more genuniely social
revolutionary one.
        I am far more inclined to go along with what you
call  "historical maturity " but this is surely also a subjective
factor. And it is not absolutely self-evident that it could
not be overcome. I am not talking in terms of "'right"
programmes, even if they might also make a difference.
I am talking in terms such as the overcoming of
parochialism among the peasantry, the nuturing of
a self-confidence among the workers in that they through co-
operation and (together with the "specialist" that did
not flee) would be able to bring about (non-market)
self-management.
        The existence, and dominant position of Bolsheviks
and Mensheviks and also most of the SRs, sharing
the conviction of the necessity of capitalist and
thus also a statist historical stage, is also an important
subjective factor. And Lenin and the Bolsheviks
were no exception in this, whatever the myth might
say.
        Now the possibilities of failure would have been
great in all circumstances. But also the possibility of
success, even if maybe not on a pemanent basis. In
all circumstances, even such a temporary victory, would
very likely have radically changed the history of class
struggles in Europe and the rest of the world.
        Many ifs here. But it just might be that such ifs
at times can play an important role in the development
of revolutionary thought. There is also a psycological
element involved here, that should not be undervalued.
And I can also think numerous reasons "revealing" that a
future social revoluton in United States and Europe
will be "doomed to degenerate" due to
objective conditions. This does not imply that I am
not convinced that the general conditions are
far better there than they were within the Russian Empire
in 1917. But to the degree that it is likely that a
social revolution will be preceded by a deep crisis,
it is not certain we can rely on objective conditions
alone, and forget the rest. In the final instance any
revolution will be lost if the constructive part (the
real revolutions) fails. The power vacuum will always
be filled, either through self-management or through
being managed by others.

Hope this at least made a little sense.

Harald





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