From: Maoist Internationalist Movement <mim3-AT-blythe.org>
Subject: MIM Congress: On the Historical Role of G. Zinoviev
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 1996 21:56:59 -0400 (EDT)


"On the Historical Role of G. Zinoviev"
MIM Congress Resolution, July, 1996

It is an historical fact that Central Committee member G. Zinoviev 
snitched on the Bolsheviks at the crucial moment in October 1917 
and opposed the armed uprising. "Encountering a decisive rebuff at 
both meetings of the C.C., Kamenev and Zinoviev made a statement 
on October 18 in the Menshevik newspaper. . . about the Bolsheviks' 
preparations for an armed uprising and said that they considered it 
to be an adventurous gamble."(1)

Yet Lenin stressed repeatedly 
thereafter that this should not be held against Zinoviev. Nearing 
death, Lenin said on December 24, 1922, "I shall just recall that the 
October episode with Zinoviev and Kamenev was, of course, no 
accident, but neither can the blame for it be laid upon them 
personally."

After October, Lenin not only kept Zinoviev in the leadership, but 
also Lenin made him president of the COMINTERN. How could Lenin 
do that? What could outweigh splitting the party and being on the 
wrong side at the crucial moment of the insurrection?

In spite of these actions taken by Zinoviev, Lenin held that Zinoviev's 
attacks on the Second International during World War I far 
outweighed his weak points. Without Lenin's and Zinoviev's efforts to 
re-orient the international communist movement, there would have 
been no military battle to snitch on in October, 1917. During World 
War I, it was Zinoviev's job to represent the Central Committee,(2) 
including at the most crucial Zimmerwald conferences.

Lenin knew very well that it was a rare 
comrade willing to go against the social-patriotism and militarism of 
the Second International which dragged workers into slaughtering 
each other in World War I. Not only did 
Zinoviev attack social-patriotism and imperialist militarism, but also 
he provided theoretical leadership along with 
Lenin on how to destroy the old revisionism and re-orient the 
international communist movement. Fundamentally that re-
orientation hinged on distinguishing between proletarians and 
workers. It meant not fighting for the interests of the labor 
aristocracy. When the social-patriots said that the majority of 
workers favored the war, Zinoviev replied firmly that it was not the 
proletarians who favored the war. When the sizeists bragged about 
how much support they got for supporting World War I, Zinoviev 
said he'd rather have a party with one-fifth as many delegates, as 
long as it didn't vacillate. For this reason, and only because 
comrades Zinoviev and Lenin were able to hold out against World 
War I, the Bolsheviks were able eventually to turn an imperialist 
civil war into the world's first communist-led revolution.

This is something that Zinoviev brought to the COMINTERN as well, at 
Lenin's bidding. On any matter concerning the role of proletarian 
leadership, we will find that on the floor of the COMINTERN in his 
verbal comments or in Lenin's written Selected Works, Lenin always 
defended Zinoviev.

Who but Zinoviev would be a better choice for forming the Third 
International to replace the social-chauvinist Second International? 
According to Lenin, none other than Zinoviev was suited for this task.

Later in life, Zinoviev sold out, and even allied with Trotsky at 
times and ended up being shot by Stalin. Yet even so, Stalin made 
sure to uphold what Zinoviev said about issues of proletarian 
leadership, even after Zinoviev was disgraced. It is not the Marxist-
Leninist method to throw out the truth just because its author was 
not later able to uphold it.

Just as Deng Xiaoping had to clear out the "Gang of Four" before he 
could carry out his sinister plans for the restoration of capitalism in 
China, those seeking to restore the social-patriotism of the Second 
Internationalism do not attack Lenin directly and instead aim their 
attacks at the perceived weak link of 
Zinoviev. We must crush the attempts of the Mensheviks to attack 
Zinoviev when he was correct.

When Zinoviev laughed at Trotsky's proposals for how to put the 
party in line with his theory of the productive forces, Lenin defended 
Zinoviev in "Once Again on the Trade Unions."(3) It was Trotsky's 
idea to boost production to defeat 
imperialism by using coercive methods of government 
administration, including the use of military organization in 
industrial and agricultural production. Zinoviev Trotsky accused of 
using propaganda methods, and Lenin defended him.(4)

After Lenin died, Trotsky disgraced himself before Zinoviev did. At 
that time, Zinoviev managed to play a crucial role in the defeat of 
Trotsky. Later when Zinoviev disgraced himself, Stalin made a point 
of defending what Zinoviev had done in attacking the social-
democracy of the Second International. Bringing down Zinoviev did 
not mean Stalin was going to make peace with social-patriotism.(5)

As time passed, Mao did not try to reverse correct verdicts on 
Zinoviev either. The Foreign Language Press of Peking continued to 
publish Lenin's works that referred to Zinoviev favorably in concrete 
historical conditions.(6)

Notes:
1. V.I. Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. 3 (NY: International Publishers, 
1967), p. 831.
2. For Lenin specifically authorizing Zinoviev as representative of the 
CC at that time, see "Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution," Vol. 
2, p. 44.
3. Ibid., Vol. 3, pp. 527-30.
4. Ibid., Vol. 3, pp. 539, 544.
5. See MIM Theory #10, p. 23.
6. See for example the Peking, 1965 edition of "The Proletarian 
Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky" preface which mentions a 
work called Against the Stream "by G. Zinoviev and N. Lenin 
(Petrograd, 1918, 550 pp.)



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