Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 16:39:42 +1000
From: rws-AT-comserver.canberra.edu.au (Rob Schaap)
Subject: M-I: Re; Transitional Programme


Dave asks (rhetorically):
'As for Troskyists never leading a revolution. What do you call the Russian
revolution?  This is the only genuinely socialist revolution led by anyone,
and one of the main leaders was Trotsky.  As for Lenin's views on Trotsky,
actions 
speak louder than words.  Why entrust the Red Army to Trotsky,
Brest-Litovsk, and the purging of Stalin as general-sectretary, to Trotsky?
 Was Lenin senile after 1917 or something?'

Lenin chose the right person for the job.  Lenin knew what Trotsky was good
at.  Trotsky was a great orator, a great warrior and a great tactician.  He
was not always a great political theorist/strategist. 

If I may; an amateur's potted history of 1905-1917 to try to make my point
(my sources are limited and my general knowledge is weak here - I'd
appreciate corrections if they affect my conclusions):

As far back as post-St Petersburg in 1905, Lenin was insisting on the need
for a united democratic front on the road to socialism: 'We are not afraid
of so broad and mixed a composition - indeed, we want it, for unless the
proletariat and the peasantry unite and *unless the Social Democrats and
revolutionary democrats form a fighting alliance*, the great Russian
revolution cannot be fully successful.' 

As I understand it, the differences with the Menshevik conference of the
same year were to do with just how much change could be won *and kept* in
the prevailinmg conditions.  Lenin wanted to exploit the revolutionary
climate by way of initial national strikes and, ultimately, armed
insurrection in the name of the proletariat.  The Menshies didn't see a
future in this *at the time*, preferring to keep sympathetic petit
bourgeois elements on-side, as they offered the best hope of useful
agitation and public education from within extant institutions.  

Trotsky was at the opposite pole, demanding the immediate transformation of
the state into/based upon (I suspect the former) a coherent communist
model.  In this he explicitly excluded the role of the peasantry and (I
surmise, in light of the conditions of 1905) implicitly excluded the
possibility of substantial proletarian leadership.  Lenin's view was that
the character of the 1905 upheaval was essentially bourgeois - politically
useful, but not automatically the foundation of socialist revolution.  For
him, Trotsky's optimism/impatience was ill-founded and dangerous.  I think
he went along though - and the momentum of the insurrection was duly
terminated in an unorganised mess in Moscow in December.  Lenin took what
public solace he could for a mess essentially brought about by his and
Trotsy's inability to arrive at a coherent strategy - he called it a 'dress
rehearsal'.

Lenin's *relative* patience showed up again in 1911, when he opposed the
left's demands that the Social Democrats renounce all ties with legal
institutions and practices.  This, he thought, would cut loose the
proletariat and peasantry - ie. the very constituency his strategy was
based upon.  *This argument reinforces, in my mind anyway, the importance
Lenin accorded the 'trenches and fortifications of the bourgeoisie' in his
programme for change*.  Lenin was also instrumental in the foundation of
*Pravda* in 1912 - another admission that public education and demonstrable
public involvement were essential components in developing the conditions
for change.

This proposition maintains in 1916.  Lenin says state capitalism is not
state socialism, but goes on to make the point that 'The proximity of such
capitalism to socialism should serve genuine representatives of the
proletariat as an argument proving the proximity, facility, feasibility and
urgency of the socialist revolution.'  Again, Lenin displays a belief in a
proletariat that is *carefully, democratically and patiently brought to the
recognition of its interests*.  The working class of Lenin was not the
instantly available shock force of Leon Trotsky.  While I don't go all the
way with Lou Godena's reservations, the Trotsky of 1916 is even less
relevant today.

Lenin was a cleverer political theorist than Trotsky.  For me, the
Mensheviks may have been cleverer than Lenin.  As I understand it, most of
them were at the barricades in 1917, practising Joao's articulated policy
that, even if you're not sure of the timing, you have to stand up if events
overtake your own strategy.  We'll never know, of course - formal
Menshevism was marginalised after the abolition of the Constituent Assembly
in 1918.  Bolshevism died a few years later, unable to internationalise the
momentum of its revolution because too large an element of the Russian
population remained indifferent/antagonistic (not to mention the infamous
Archangel business). 

Me, I'm taking a Menshevik stance in the Australia of 1997 because (a)
Lenin was right in his approach to building revolution; (b) wrong in his
apprehension of just how long this takes and (c) wrong in his belief that
an exclusively Russian revolution could be sustained.

Comments?

Rob.





     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---