From: "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba-AT-online.no>
Subject: Re: AUT: Re: Russia without the Bolsheviks???
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 20:23:17 +0100



----- Original Message -----
From: "Kurasje Archive" <kurasje-AT-iname.com>
To: <aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: 9. november 2002 07.07
Subject: Re: AUT: Re: Russia without the Bolsheviks???


>   There is a very good collection of texts to this subject at a web-site
called
>
>   "Bolsheviks in the Russian revolution - how the revolution degenerated"
at
>
>   http://www.angelfire.com/nb/revhist17/
>
>   j.

Jens, thanks for the notice of the website, which is announced
as follows::

"Once reformism had contained workers in the West then revolution in
war-torn, poverty stricken Russia was doomed to degenerate. However much of
the left have spent their time either excusing or denouncing the Bolsheviks
rather than trying to understand how such a huge popular revolution
descended into dictatorship so rapidly. "
        The following articles, by some of the best social historians of the
revolution, go a long way in explaining the process. The debate initiated by
William Rosenberg is especially thought-provoking. There is also a link to
articles on the degeneration of the Spanish revolution where surprisingly
similar processes took place. (Adobe Acrobat to read pdf files is available
here.)"

But I do not support the conclusion made in the above intoduction
to the texts. As I have read every article listed years ago, with
the exception I believe of the article of  Lutz Hafner on the Left SR
"July uprising,"  and the Betrand Patendaude article on peasants,
together with books of the authors on the subject and most on the
suggestions for further reading list, and do not have to go longer than
to my bookshelf to find most of it, together with more than 100
other books on the subject, I do think I have a relative solid basis
for my opinion on the matter. Especially since I have read the
whole of the "especially thought-provoking" debate initiated by
William Rosenberg, though many years has passed since then.
The background for my interest was "trying to understand how
such a huge popular revolution descended into dictatorship so
rapidly," aprt from the history is fascinating in itself.

My most obvious if not most critical objection to the conclusion
is that the revolution "degenerated" long before reformisn had
contained workers in the West.
        "[T)he revolution in war-torn, poverty stricken Russia was
doomed to degenerate" as long as halted in mid-passage, as
long as power was deperately tried centralized according to
an utopian state capitalist scheme from the very beginning
(heavily inspired by Kautsky's pamphlet "Die Soziale
Revolution", and the writings of Larin -- who in 1918 became
the head of the Comiitee for Economic Policy of the VSNK --
on the German War economy and Kriegswirtschaftsrat)
and where coercion and terror -- rather than politics -- was
seen as not only the main means but celebrated (not by all
Bolsheviks for sure, but those whose will conquered, and
above all Lenin). It was further "doomed to degenerate" as
the leading cadres of the Bolsheviks had learned all the
wrong lessons of the French Revolutions (an obsession of
theirs). The recipee for this was remarkably accuratly
summed up by Kropotkin's "Conquest of Bread" more than
a decade before.

"To those who put their trust in "authority" the question will
appear quite simple. They would begin by establishing a
strongly centralized Government, furnished with all the
machinery og coercion - the police, the army, the guillotine.
This government  would draw up a statement of all the
produce contained in France. It would divide the country
into districts of supply, and then command that a prescribed
quantity of some particular foodstuff be sent to such a
place on such a day, and delievered at such station, to
be received on a given day by a specified offical and
stored in particular warehouses.
        "Now we declare with the fullest conviction, not merely
that such a solution is undesirable, but that it never could
by any possibility be put into pratice. It is wildly utopian!
Pen in hand, one may dream such a dream in the study,
but in contact with reality it comes to nothing - this was
proved in 1793; for like all such theories, it leaves out of
account the spirit of independence that is in man. The
attempt would lead to a universal uprising, to three or four
Vendées, to the villages rising against the towns, all the
country up in arms defying the city for its arrogance in
attempting to impose such a system upon the country."

Noone is denying the enormous challenge a very real
crisis entailed. The thing is that everyting both the leading
cadres of the  Bolsheviks did (and it is critical to
differentiate between them and their followers among
workers, soliders and peasants at this point) and just as
important, everything they directly or indirectly
sabotaged, made the crisis worse for every day that
passed.
        If you take the Bolshevik policies after October
for given, where in particular the first months were
crititical, then the conclusion above also become easy
to unconditionally support.
        On a "pure economical" level (but at the same
time political to its core) there is in particularily two
critical point to be made. 1) A policy of NOT letting
the workers take over and organize the means of
production, opting for negotations for gigantic
joint-ventures enterprises, "workers control"
without workers control, nor owner's or manager's
control, but an only a huge amount of paper
state control,  with "anarchy" as the only possible
result, which again was tried "solved" with
coercion and maniac phantasies of "shoot
every tenth ... " 2) opting for a state grain monoply,
machine guns and  "merciless" (in the words of
Lenin) war against the peasantry, (and in every
other economical question it might be added).  If
Lenin actually believed at this point in the Kulak
myth or not is irrelvant here. He was warned by
just everyone about the desasterous
consequences such a policy was "doomed" (and
here the word is appropriate) to entail.
        In 1917 73,6 % of the citizens of Petrograd were
in-migrants, most of them coming from peasants
families. 31% of the industrial workers within
the Russian Empire had land rights in the peasant
communes they came from. Where these human
resources where put in collective use through initiatives
"from below" though dialogue and not through
coercion, one did also manage to get results. Had
one taken such experiences as a point of departure,
the co-operatives that actually existed, and that
were functioning, if not perfect, tried generalizing
them and organising them better, taken a minimum
of consideration to "peasant mentality" and their
natural resentment to a policy of The Lord Gives -- the
promises of the revolution --  the Lord Takes [the
return of the Tsar dressed in leather caps and
armed], done something to avoid that tonns of food
was rottening at central ware-houses, taking intiatives
to produce things peasants actually needed or
wanted etc.  rather than giving the empty promises
at gunpoint ... etc., then...  All this of course demanded
that power and organisational efforts was brought
down to where most of the first-hand knowledge existed.
        In his book "Peasant Russia Civil War: The Volga
Countryside in Revolution 1917-1921" Orlando
Figes tells of efforts made "from below" to overcome
peasant parochialism, not without succees, if far from
perfect, until crushed by the central authorities war
on the peasantry.
        The ever-deeping crisis was self-forfilling
prophecy. The central authorities obsession with
centralization through coercion and coercion
through cetralization made becoming a  "bagman,"
the condition of survival for every worker, the
black market and petty trade the only option, and
more coercion and terror further assured an
ever increasing "inflation". The problem was
already there, for sure, but rather than promoting
a policy that could overcome it, one "ruthhlessly"
put in action a policy that brought it to gigantic
proportions, opting for the Cheka, and biological
warfare (Lenin's understanding of class relations
in a nutshell) as as the universal medicine.
        And of course people fled from the cities,
and of course production just about halted,
except for a remarkable return to illegal petty-craft
production in countryside on which the
ridiculously over-proportioned Red Army (growing
to 5 millions) together with just about every
soviet institution (and the ever-growing bureaucracy)
entirely came to depend.
    [ And while the crisis was approaching its climax,
those in the Ivory Towers began on working out
fantastic plans on the exproriation of all the seed
of the empire, where what should be sowed (by
sowing committes) on every inch of the soil of the
Russian Empire, and even what the inventory of
each peasant should be, and the usage of every
horse and  cow, should be decided through
a central plan. Somehow they thought that the empire
was just a gigantic factory, where they were the
CEOs, or rather Gods with absolute power and
eyes that could see all. It is hard to know if one
should regret or rejoice that this was a few years
prior to the internet.]


This is a vast subject. But the "what-if" thought
is very relevant here. It migh not be the domain
of professional historians, but it is relevant for
revolutionaries, for some of these questions
and challenges are very likely to re-appear in the
future, if not in precisly the same form, nor
under exactly the same conditions. But there are
reasons to into account that extreme poverty,
as well as parochialism is not only something
of the past. It is a reality quite a few places
today also.

There is still much truth in that we are the
creators of the conditions we are compelled
to adopt to. In no other circumstances is this
truer than in a revolutionary situation. In no
other situation does our acts have greater
consequences, and do things evolve as fast.

At last. The "processes that took place" in the
"degeneration of the Spanish revolution" hardly
were surprisingly similar. They were radically
different in important aspects. Even if
something will always be quite similar in a
"degeneration process,". the concrete and
large differences are as important.  Another
critique and other lessons evolves from the
events in Spain that cannot simply be summarised
in a  "doomed to degenerate"  formula. Unlike
wat was the case in Russia however, the
revoltion in Spain was sooner or latter doomed
to military defeat, without a workers uprising
elsewhere beginning in France. But there you
also see the consequences of not only the defeat
of the Russian revolution but how it was deafeated,
that came to have an enormous impact on the
development of the working class (and
peasant) movements on a global scale.

And its never only a question if a revolution is
defeated. How it is defeated is also important.
It is 100 per cent self-evident that the Menshe-
viks were more correct than the
Bolsheviks in 1917. But are one not satisfied
with the latters answers, I think it is worthwhile
to consider the potentials existing, despite
everything, for a social revolutionary course.
Somehow I believe are relevant lessons for
the future that can also be derived from this.

Many nuances and aspects is self-evidently
lost in the above. It is not at all possible to give
anywhere near adequate answers to all the
questions arising from these vast themes at
the spur of the moment, and some hastily
written down thoughts in an email.  And I am
not going to read this through, or else I will
easily begin writing on something longer, re-
reading old stuff,  start searching for new,
and end up posting nothing, at least not within
the first coming months.

Harald




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