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txt/append45.txt
1
Were any of the Bolshevik oppositions a real alternative?
2
3
The real limitations in Bolshevism can best be seen by the various
4
oppositions to the mainstream of that party. That Bolshevik politics
5
were not a suitable instrument for working class self-liberation can be
6
seen by the limited way which opposition groups questioned Bolshevik
7
orthodoxy -- even, in the case of the opposition to the rising
8
Stalinist bureaucracy. Each opposition was fundamentally in favour of
9
the Bolshevik monopoly of power, basically seeking reforms on areas
10
which did not question it (such as economic policy). This does not mean
11
that the various oppositions did not have valid points, just that they
12
shared most of the key assumptions of Bolshevism which undermined the
13
Russian revolution either by their application or their use to justify
14
specific (usually highly authoritarian) practice.
15
16
We will not cover all the various oppositions with the Bolshevik party
17
here (Robert V. Daniels' The Conscience of the Revolution discusses all
18
of them in some detail, as does Leonard Schapiro's The Origin of the
19
Communist Autocracy). We will concentrate on the "Left Communists" of
20
1918, the "Workers' Opposition" of 1920/1 and the Trotsky-led "Left
21
Opposition"
22
of 1923-7. It can be said that each opposition is a pale reflection of
23
the one before it and each had clear limitations in their politics
24
which fatally undermined any liberatory potential they had. Indeed, by
25
the time of the "Left Opposition" we are reduced to simply the more
26
radical sounding faction of the state and party bureaucracy fighting it
27
out with the dominant faction.
28
29
To contrast these fake "oppositions" with a genuine opposition, we will
30
discuss (in [1]section 4) the "Workers' Group" of 1923 which was
31
expelled from the Communist Party and repressed because it stood for
32
(at least until the Bolshevik party seized power) traditional socialist
33
values. This repression occurred, significantly, under Lenin and
34
Trotsky in 1922/3. The limited nature of the previous oppositions and
35
the repression of a genuine dissident working class group within the
36
Communist Party shows how deeply unlibertarian the real Bolshevik
37
tradition is. In fact, it could be argued that the fate of all the
38
non-Trotskyist oppositions shows what will inevitably happen when
39
someone takes the more democratic sounding rhetoric of Lenin at face
40
value and compares it to his authoritarian practice, namely Lenin will
41
turn round and say unambiguously that he had already mentioned his
42
practice before hand and the reader simply had not been paying
43
attention.
44
45
1 Were the "Left Communists" of 1918 an alternative?
46
47
The first opposition of note to Lenin's state capitalist politics was
48
the "Left Communists" in early 1918. This was clustered around the
49
Bolshevik leader Bukharin. This grouping was focused around opposition
50
to the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty with Germany and Lenin's advocacy of
51
"state capitalism" and "one-man management" as the means of both
52
achieving socialism and getting Russia out of its problems. It is the
53
latter issue that concerns us here.
54
55
The first issue of their theoretical journal Kommunist was published in
56
April 1920 and it argued vigorously against Lenin's advocacy of
57
"one-man management" and state capitalism for "socialist" Russia. They
58
correctly argued "for the construction of the proletarian society by
59
the class creativity of the workers themselves, not by the Ukases of
60
the captains of industry . . . If the proletariat itself does not know
61
how to create the necessary prerequisites for the socialist
62
organisation of labour, no one can do this for it and no one can compel
63
it to do this. The stick, if raised against the workers, will find
64
itself in the hands of a social force which is either under the
65
influence of another social class or is in the hands of the soviet
66
power; but the soviet power will then be forced to seek support against
67
the proletariat from another class (e.g. the peasantry) and by this it
68
will destroy itself as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Socialism
69
and socialist organisation will be set up by the proletariat itself, or
70
they will not be set up at all: something else will be set up -- state
71
capitalism." [Osinsky, quoted by Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers'
72
Control, p. 39]
73
74
Lenin reacted sharply, heaping insult upon insult on the Left
75
Communists and arguing against their ideas on workers' self-management.
76
Rather than see self-management (or even workers' control) as the key,
77
he argued forcefully in favour of one-man management and state
78
capitalism as both the means of solving Russia's immediate problems and
79
building socialism. Moreover, he linked this with his previous
80
writings, correctly noting his "'high' appreciation of state" had been
81
given "before the Bolsheviks seized power." For Lenin, "Socialism [was]
82
inconceivable without large scale capitalist engineering . . . [and]
83
without planned state organisation, which keeps tens of millions of
84
people to the strictest observance of a unified standard in production
85
and distribution." Thus "our task is to study the state capitalism of
86
the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it and not shrink from
87
adopting dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of it." [Selected
88
Works, vol. 2, p. 636 and p. 635] This required appointing capitalists
89
to management positions, from which the vanguard could learn.
90
91
So, as long as a workers' party held power, the working class need not
92
fear "state capitalism" and the lack of economic power at the point of
93
production. Of course, without economic power, working class political
94
power would be fatally undermined. In practice, Lenin simply handed
95
over the workplaces to the state bureaucracy and created the social
96
relationships which Stalinism thrived upon. Unfortunately, Lenin's
97
arguments carried the day (see see [2]section 9 of the appendix
98
[3]"What happened during the Russian Revolution?"). How this conflict
99
was resolved is significant, given that the banning of factions (which
100
is generally seen as a key cause in the rise of Stalinism) occurred in
101
1921 (a ban, incidentally, Trotsky defended throughout the 1920s). As
102
one historian notes:
103
104
"The resolution of the party controversy in the spring of 1918 set a
105
pattern that was to be followed throughout the history of the
106
Communist Opposition in Russia. This was the settlement of the
107
issues not by discussion, persuasion, or compromise, but by a
108
high-pressure campaign in the party organisations, backed by a
109
barrage of violent invective in the party press and in the
110
pronouncements of the party leaders. Lenin's polemics set the tone,
111
and his organisational lieutenants brought the membership into
112
line." [Daniels, Op. Cit., p. 87]
113
114
Indeed, "[s]oon after the party congress had approved the peace [in the
115
spring of 1918], a Petrograd city party conference produced a majority
116
for Lenin. It ordered the suspension of the newspaper Kommunist which
117
had been serving as a Left Communist organ . . . The fourth and final
118
issue of the Moscow Kommunist had to be published as a private
119
factional paper rather than as the official organ of a party
120
organisation." Ultimately, "[u]nder the conditions of party life
121
established by Lenin, defence of the Opposition position became
122
impossible within the terms of Bolshevik discipline." [Op. Cit., p. 88
123
and p. 89] So much for faction rights -- three years before they were
124
officially prohibited in the 10th Party Congress!
125
126
However, the "Left Communists," while correct on socialism needing
127
workers' economic self-management, were limited in other ways. The
128
major problems with the "Left Communists" were two-fold.
129
130
Firstly, by basing themselves on Bolshevik orthodoxy they allowed Lenin
131
to dominate the debate. This meant that their more "libertarian"
132
reading of Lenin's work could be nullified by Lenin himself pointing to
133
the authoritarian and state capitalist aspects of those very same
134
works. Which is ironic, as today most Leninists tend to point to these
135
very same democratic sounding aspects of Lenin's ideas while
136
downplaying the more blatant anti-socialist ones. Given that Lenin had
137
dismissed such approaches himself during the debate against the Left
138
Communists in 1918, it seems dishonest for his latter day followers to
139
do this.
140
141
Secondly, their perspective on the role of the party undermined their
142
commitment to true workers' power and freedom. This can be seen from
143
the comments of Sorin, a leading Left Communist. He argued that the
144
Left Communists were "the most passionate proponents of soviet power,
145
but . . . only so far as this power does not degenerate . . . in a
146
petty-bourgeois direction." [quoted by Ronald I. Kowalski, The
147
Bolshevik Party in Conflict, p. 135] For them, like any Bolshevik, the
148
party played the key role. The only true bastion of the interests of
149
the proletariat was the party which "is in every case and everywhere
150
superior to the soviets . . . The soviets represent labouring democracy
151
in general; and its interest, and in particular the interests of the
152
petty bourgeois peasantry, do not always coincide with the interests of
153
the proletariat." [quoted by Richard Sakwa, Soviet Communists in Power,
154
p. 182] This support for party power can also be seen in Osinsky's
155
comment that "soviet power" and the "dictatorship of the proletariat"
156
could "seek support" from other social classes, so showing that the
157
class did not govern directly.
158
159
Thus soviet power was limited to approval of the party line and any
160
deviation from that line would be denounced as "petty bourgeois" and,
161
therefore, ignored. "Ironically," the historian Kowalski notes,
162
"Sorin's call for a revived soviet democracy was becoming vitiated by
163
the dominant role assigned, in the final analysis, to the party." [Op.
164
Cit., p. 136] Thus their politics were just as authoritarian as the
165
mainstream Bolshevism they attacked on other issues:
166
167
"Ultimately, the only criterion that they appeared able to offer was
168
to define 'proletarian' in terms of adherence to their own policy
169
prescriptions and 'non-proletarian' by non-adherence to them. In
170
consequence, all who dared to oppose them could be accused either of
171
being non-proletarian, or at the very least suffering from some form
172
of 'false consciousness' -- and in the interests of building
173
socialism must recant or be purged from the party. Rather
174
ironically, beneath the surface of their fine rhetoric in defence of
175
the soviets, and of the party as 'a forum for all of proletarian
176
democracy,' there lay a political philosophy that was arguably as
177
authoritarian as that of which they accused Lenin and his faction."
178
[Kowalski, Op. Cit., pp. 136-7]
179
180
This position can be traced back to the fundamentals of Bolshevism (see
181
[4]section H.5 on vanguardism). "According to the Left Communists,
182
therefore," notes Richard Sakwa, "the party was the custodian of an
183
interest higher than that of the soviets. Earlier theoretical
184
considerations on the vanguard role of the party, developed in response
185
to this problem, were confirmed by the circumstances of Bolshevism in
186
power. The political dominance of the party over the soviets encouraged
187
an administrative one as well. Such a development was further
188
encouraged by the emergence of a massive and unwieldy bureaucratic
189
apparatus in 1918 . . . The Left Communists and the party leadership
190
were therefore in agreement that . . . the party should play a tutelary
191
role over the soviets."
192
Furthermore, "[w]ith such a formulation it proved difficult to maintain
193
the vitality of the soviet plenum as the soviet was controlled by a
194
party fraction, itself controlled by a party committee outside the
195
soviet." [Op. Cit., p. 182 and p. 182-3]
196
197
With this ideological preference for party power and the ideological
198
justification for ignoring soviet democracy, it is doubtful that their
199
(correct) commitment to workers' economic self-management would have
200
been successful. An economic democracy combined with what amounts to a
201
party dictatorship would be an impossibility that could never work in
202
practice (as Lenin in 1921 argued against the "Workers' Opposition").
203
204
As such, the fact that Bukharin (one time "Left Communist") "continued
205
to eulogise the party's dictatorship, sometimes quite unabashedly"
206
during and after the civil war becomes understandable. In this, he was
207
not being extreme: "Bolsheviks no longer bothered to disclaim that the
208
dictatorship of the proletariat as the 'dictatorship of the party.'"
209
[Stephen F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution, p. 145 and p.
210
142] All the leading Bolsheviks had argued this position for some time
211
(see [5]section H.1.2, for example). Bukharin even went so far as to
212
argue that "the watchword" taken up by some workers ("even metal
213
workers"!) of "For class dictatorship, but against party dictatorship!"
214
showed that the proletariat "was declassed."
215
This also indicated that a "misunderstanding arose which threatened the
216
whole system of the proletarian dictatorship." [contained in Al
217
Richardson (ed.), In Defence of the Russian Revolution, p. 192] The
218
echoes of the positions argued before the civil war can be seen in
219
Bukharin's glib comment that proletarian management of the revolution
220
meant the end of the "proletarian" dictatorship!
221
222
Lastly, the arguments of the Left Communists against "one-man
223
management"
224
were echoed by the Democratic Centralists at the Ninth Party Congress.
225
One member of this grouping (which included such "Left Communists" as
226
Osinsky) argued against Lenin's dominate position in favour of
227
appointed managers inside and outside the party as follows:
228
229
"The Central Committee finds that the [local] party committee is a
230
bourgeois prejudice, is conservatism bordering on the province of
231
treason, and that the new form is the replacement of party
232
committees by political departments, the heads of which by
233
themselves replace the elected committees . . . You transform the
234
members of the party into an obedient gramophone, with leaders who
235
order: go and agitate; but they haven't the right to elect their own
236
committee, their own organs.
237
238
"I then put the question to comrade Lenin: Who will appoint the
239
Central Committee? You see, there can be individual authority here
240
as well. Here also a single commander can be appointed."
241
[Sapronov, quoted by Daniels, Op. Cit., p. 114]
242
243
Obviously a man before his time. As Stalin proved, if one-man
244
management was such a good idea then why wasn't it being practised in
245
the Council of People's Commissars. However, we should not be surprised
246
by this party regime. After all, Trotsky had imposed a similar regime
247
in the Army in 1918, as had Lenin in industry in the same year. As
248
discussed in [6]section 3 of the appendix [7]"What caused the
249
degeneration of the Russian Revolution?", the Bolshevik preference for
250
centralised "democracy" effectively hollowed out the real democracy at
251
the base which makes democracy more than just picking masters.
252
253
2 What were the limitations of the "Workers' Opposition" of 1920?
254
255
The next major opposition group were the "Workers' Opposition" of 1920
256
and early 1921. Significantly, the name "Workers' Opposition" was the
257
label used by the party leadership to describe what latter became a
258
proper grouping within the party. This group was more than happy to use
259
the label given to it. This group is generally better known than other
260
oppositions simply because it was the focus for much debate at the
261
tenth party congress and its existence was a precipitating factor in
262
the banning of factions within the Communist Party.
263
264
However, like the "Left Communists," the "Workers' Opposition" did not
265
extend their economic demands to political issues. Unlike the previous
266
opposition, however, their support for party dictatorship was more than
267
logically implied, it was taken for granted. Alexandra Kollontai's
268
pamphlet, for example, expounding the position of the "Workers'
269
Opposition" fails to mention political democracy at all, instead
270
discussing exclusively economic and party democracy. Thus it was a case
271
of the "Workers' Opposition" expressing the "basis on which, in its
272
opinions, the dictatorship of the proletariat must rest in the sphere
273
of industrial reconstruction." Indeed, the "whole controversy boils
274
down to one basic question: who shall build the communist economy, and
275
how shall it be build?" [Selected Writings of Alexandra Kollontai, p.
276
161 and p. 173]
277
278
Kollontai was right to state that the working class "can alone by the
279
creator of communism" and to ask the question of "shall we achieve
280
communist through the workers or over their heads, by the hands of
281
Soviet officials." As she argued, "it is impossible to decree
282
communism." However, her list of demand were purely economic in nature
283
and she wondered "[w]hat shall we do then in order to destroy
284
bureaucracy in the party and replace it by workers' democracy?" She
285
stressed that the "Workers' Opposition" struggle was "for establishing
286
democracy in the party, and for the elimination of all bureaucracy."
287
[Op. Cit., p. 176, p. 174, p. 187, p. 192 and p. 197] Thus her demands
288
were about the internal regime of the party, not a call for wider
289
democratic reforms in the state or society as a whole.
290
291
As one historian notes, the "arguments of Kollontai were . . . strictly
292
limited in their appeal to the communist party . . . Nor did they in
293
any form criticise the domination of the communist minority over the
294
majority of the proletariat. The fundamental weakness of the case of
295
the Workers' Opposition was that, while demanding more freedom of
296
initiative for the workers, it was quite content to leave untouched the
297
state of affairs in which a few hundred thousand imposed their will on
298
many millions. 'And since when have we [the Workers' Opposition] been
299
enemies of komitetchina [manipulation and control by communist party
300
committees], I should like to know?' Shlyapnikov asked at the Tenth
301
Party Congress. He went on to explain that the trade union congress in
302
which, as he and his followers proposed, all control of industry should
303
be vested would 'of course' be composed of delegates nominated and
304
elected 'through the party cells, as we always do.' But he argued that
305
the local trade union cells would ensure the election of men qualified
306
by experience and ability in pace of those who are 'imposed on us at
307
present' by the centre. Kollontai and her supporters had no wish to
308
disturb the communist party's monopoly of political power." [Leonard
309
Schapiro, The Origin of the Communist Autocracy, p. 294]
310
311
Even this extremely limited demand for more economic democracy were too
312
much for Lenin. In January, 1921, Lenin was arguing that the Bolsheviks
313
had to "add to our platform the following: we must combat the
314
ideological confusion of those unsound elements of the opposition who
315
go to the lengths of repudiating all 'militarisation of economy,' of
316
repudiating not only the 'method of appointing' which has been the
317
prevailing method up to now, but all appointments. In the last analysis
318
this means repudiating the leading role of the Party in relation to the
319
non-Party masses. We must combat the syndicalist deviation which will
320
kill the Party if it is not completely cured of it." Indeed, "the
321
syndicate deviation leads to the fall of the dictatorship of the
322
proletariat." [quoted by Brinton, Op. Cit., pp. 75-6] Maurice Brinton
323
correctly notes that by this Lenin meant that "working class power
324
('the dictatorship of the proletariat') is impossible if there are
325
militants in the Party who think the working class should exert more
326
power in production ('the syndicalist deviation')." Moreover, "Lenin
327
here poses quite clearly the question of 'power of the Party' or 'power
328
of the class.' He unambiguously opts for the former -- no doubt
329
rationalising his choice by equating the two. But he goes even further.
330
He not only equates 'workers power' with the rule of the Party. He
331
equates it with acceptance of the ideas of the Party leaders!" [Op.
332
Cit., p. 76]
333
334
At the tenth party congress, the "Workers' Opposition" were labelled
335
"petty-bourgeois," "syndicalist" and even "anarchist" simply because
336
they called for limited participation by workers in the rebuilding of
337
Russia. The group was "caused in part by the entry into the ranks of
338
the Party of elements which had still not completely adopted the
339
communist world view." Significantly, those who had the "communist
340
world view" did not really debate the issues raised and instead called
341
the opposition "genuinely counter-revolutionary,"
342
"objectively counter-revolutionary" as well as "too revolutionary."
343
[quoted by Brinton, Op. Cit., p. 79]
344
345
For Lenin, the idea of industrial democracy was a nonsense. In this he
346
was simply repeating the perspective he had held from spring 1918. As
347
he put it, it was "a term that lends itself to misinterpretations. It
348
may be read as a repudiation of dictatorship and individual authority."
349
Industry, he argued, "is indispensable, democracy is not" and "on no
350
account must we renounce dictatorship either." Indeed, "[i]ndustry is
351
indispensable, democracy is a category proper only to the political
352
sphere"." He did admit "[t]hat [the opposition] has been penetrating
353
into the broad masses is evident" however it was the duty of the party
354
to ignore the masses. The "bidding for or flirtation with the non-Party
355
masses" was a "radical departure from Marxism." "Marxism teaches,"
356
Lenin said, "and this tenet has not only been formally endorsed by the
357
whole Communist International in the decisions of the Second (1920)
358
Congress of the Comintern on the role of the political party of the
359
proletariat, but has also been confirmed in practice by our revolution
360
-- that only the political party of the working class, i.e. the
361
Communist Party, is capable of uniting, training and organising a
362
vanguard of the proletariat . . . . that alone will be capable of
363
withstanding the inevitable petty-bourgeois vacillation of this mass .
364
. . Without this the dictatorship of the proletariat is impossible."
365
[Collected Works, vol. 31, p. 82, p. 27, p. 26, p. 197 and p. 246] In
366
other words, "Marxism" teaches that workers' democracy and protest (the
367
only means by which "vacillation" can be expressed) is a danger to the
368
"dictatorship of the proletariat"! (see also [8]section H.5.3 on why
369
this position is the inevitable outcome of vanguardism).
370
371
It should be stresses that this opposition and the debate it provoked
372
occurred after the end of the Civil War in the west. The Whites under
373
Wrangel had been crushed in November, 1920, and the Russian revolution
374
was no longer in immediate danger. As such, there was an opportunity
375
for constructive activity and mass participation in the rebuilding of
376
Russia. The leading Bolsheviks rejected such demands, even in the
377
limited form advocated by the "Workers' Opposition." Lenin and Trotsky
378
clearly saw any working class participation as a danger to their power.
379
Against the idea of economic participation under Communist control
380
raised by the "Workers' Opposition," the leading Bolsheviks favoured
381
the NEP. This was a return to the same kind of market-based "state
382
capitalist" strategy Lenin had advocated against the "Left Communists"
383
before the outbreak of the civil war in May 1918 (and, as noted, he had
384
argued for in 1917). This suggests a remarkable consistency in Lenin's
385
thoughts, suggesting that claims his policies he advocated and
386
implemented in power were somehow the opposite of what he "really"
387
wanted are weak.
388
389
As with the "Left Communists" of 1918, Lenin saw his opposition to the
390
"Workers' Opposition" as reflecting the basic ideas of his politics.
391
"If we perish," he said privately at the time according to Trotsky, "it
392
is all the more important to preserve our ideological line and give a
393
lesson to our continuators. This should never be forgotten, even in
394
hopeless circumstances." [quoted by Daniels, Op. Cit., p. 147]
395
396
In summary, like the "Left Communists", the "Workers' Opposition"
397
presented a platform of economic demands rooted in the assumption of
398
Bolshevik party domination. It is, therefore, unsurprising that leading
399
members of the "Workers' Opposition" took part in the attack on
400
Kronstadt and that they wholeheartedly rejected the consistent demands
401
for political and economic that the Kronstadt rebels had raised (see
402
appendix [9]"What was the Kronstadt Rebellion?" for more information).
403
Such a policy would be too contradictory to be applied. Either the
404
economic reforms would remain a dead letter under party control or the
405
economic reforms would provoke demands for political change. This last
406
possibility may explain Lenin's vitriolic attacks on the "Workers'
407
Opposition."
408
409
This opposition, like the "Left Communists" of 1918, was ultimately
410
defeated by organisational pressures within the party and state. Victor
411
Serge "was horrified to see the voting rigged for Lenin's and
412
Zinoviev's 'majority'" in late 1920. [Memoirs of a Revolutionary, p.
413
123] Kollantai complained that while officially one and a half million
414
copies of the "Workers' Opposition" manifesto was published, in fact
415
only 1500 were "and that with difficulty." [quoted by Schaprio, Op.
416
Cit., p. 291] This applied even more after the banning of factions,
417
when the party machine used state power to break up the base of the
418
opposition in the trade unions as well as its influence in the party.
419
420
"Victimisation of supporters of the Workers' Opposition," notes
421
Schapiro, "began immediately after the Tenth Party Congress. 'The
422
struggle,' as Shlyapnikov later recounted, 'took place not along
423
ideological lines but by means . . . of edging out from appointments,
424
of systematic transfers from one district to another, and even
425
expulsion from the party.' . . . the attack was levelled not for
426
heretical opinions, but for criticism of any kind of party
427
shortcomings. 'Every member of the party who spoke in defence of the
428
resolution on workers' democracy [in the party -- see next section] was
429
declared a supporter of the Workers' Opposition and guilty of
430
disintegrating the party,' and was accordingly victimised." [Op. Cit.,
431
pp. 325-6] Thus "the party Secretariat was perfecting its technique of
432
dealing with recalcitrant individuals by the power of removal and
433
transfer, directed primarily at the adherents of the Workers'
434
Opposition. (Of the 37 Workers' Opposition delegates to the Tenth
435
Congress whom Lenin consulted when he was persuading Shlyapnikov and
436
Kutuzov to enter the Central Committee, only four managed to return as
437
voting delegates to the next congress.)" [Daniels, Op. Cit., p. 161]
438
439
A similar process was at work in the trade unions. For example, "[w]hen
440
the metalworkers' union held its congress in May 1921, the Central
441
Committee of the party handed it a list of recommended candidates for
442
the union leadership. The metalworkers' delegates voted down the
443
party-backed list, but this gesture proved futile: the party leadership
444
boldly appointed their own men to the union offices." This was "a show
445
of political force" as the union was a centre of the Workers'
446
Opposition. [Daniels, Op. Cit., p. 157]
447
448
This repression was practised under Lenin and Trotsky, using techniques
449
which were later used by the Stalinists against Trotsky and his
450
followers. Lenin himself was not above removing his opponents from the
451
central committee by undemocratic methods. At the Tenth Party Congress
452
he had persuaded Shlyapnikov to be elected to the Central Committee in
453
an attempt to undermine the opposition. A mere "five months later,
454
Lenin was demanding his expulsion for a few sharp words of criticism of
455
the bureaucracy, uttered at a private meeting of a local party cell. If
456
he was looking for a pretext, he could scarcely have picked a weaker
457
one." [Schapiro, Op. Cit., p. 327] Lenin failed by only one vote short
458
of the necessary two thirds majority of the Committee.
459
460
In summary, the "Workers' Opposition" vision was limited. Politically,
461
it merely wanted democracy within the party. It did not question the
462
party's monopoly of power. As such, it definitely did not deserve the
463
labels "anarchist" and "syndicalist" which their opponents called them.
464
As far as its economic policy goes, it, too, was limited. Its demands
465
for economic democracy were circumscribed by placing it under the
466
control of the communist cells within the trade unions.
467
468
However, Kollontai was right to state that only the working class "can
469
alone by the creator of communism," that it was impossible to "achieve
470
communist . . . over [the workers'] heads, by the hands of Soviet
471
officials" and that "it is impossible to decree communism." As
472
Kropotkin put it decades before:
473
474
"Communist organisation cannot be left to be constructed by
475
legislative bodies called parliaments, municipal or communal
476
council. It must be the work of all, a natural growth, a product of
477
the constructive genius of the great mass. Communism cannot be
478
imposed from above." [Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 140]
479
480
3 What about Trotsky's "Left Opposition" in the 1920s?
481
482
Finally, there is Trotsky's opposition between 1923 and 1927. Since
483
1918 Trotsky had been wholeheartedly in favour of the party
484
dictatorship and its economic regime. This position started to change
485
once his own power came under threat and he suddenly became aware of
486
the necessity for reform. Unsurprisingly, his opposition was the last
487
and by far the weakest politically. As Cornelius Castoriadis points
488
out:
489
490
"From the beginning of 1918 until the banning of factions in March
491
1921, tendencies within the Bolshevik party were formed that, with
492
farsightedness and sometimes an astonishing clarity, expressed
493
opposition to the Party's bureaucratic line and to its very rapid
494
bureaucratisation. These were the 'Left Communists' (at the
495
beginning of 1918), then the 'Democratic Centralist' tendency
496
(1919), and finally the 'Workers' Opposition' (1920-21). . . these
497
oppositions were defeated one by one . . . The very feeble echoes of
498
their critique of the bureaucracy that can be found later in the
499
(Trotskyist) 'Left Opposition' after 1923 do not have the same
500
signification. Trotsky was opposed to the bad policies of the
501
bureaucracy and to the excesses of its power. He never put into
502
question its essential nature. Until practically the end of his
503
life, he never brought up the questions raised by the various
504
oppositions of the period from 1918 to 1921 (in essence: 'Who
505
manages production?' and 'What is the proletariat supposed to do
506
during the 'dictatorship of the proletariat,' other than work and
507
follow the orders of 'its' party?')." [Political and Social
508
Writings, vol. 3, p. 98]
509
510
While the "Left Communists" and "Workers' Opposition" had challenged
511
Lenin's state capitalist economic regime while upholding the Bolshevik
512
monopoly of power (implicitly or explicitly), Trotsky did not even
513
manage that. His opposition was firmly limited to internal reforms to
514
the party which he hoped would result in wider participation in the
515
soviets and trade unions (he did not bother to explain why continuing
516
party dictatorship would reinvigorate the soviets or unions).
517
518
Politically, Trotsky was unashamedly in favour of party dictatorship.
519
Indeed, his basic opposition to Stalinism was because he considered it
520
as the end of that dictatorship by the rule of the bureaucracy. He held
521
this position consistently during the civil war and into the 1920s (and
522
beyond -- see [10]section H.3.8). For example, in April 1923, he
523
asserted quite clearly that "[i]f there is one question which basically
524
not only does not require revision but does not so much as admit the
525
thought of revision, it is the question of the dictatorship of the
526
Party." [Leon Trotsky Speaks, p. 158] And was true to his word. In "The
527
New Course" (generally accepted as being the first public expression of
528
his opposition), he stated that "[w]e are the only party in the
529
country, and in the period of the dictatorship it could not be
530
otherwise." Moreover, it was "incontestable that factions [within the
531
party] are a scourge in the present situation" and so the party "does
532
not want factions and will not tolerate them." [The Challenge of the
533
Left Opposition (1923-25), p. 78, p. 80 and p. 86] In May 1924, he even
534
went so far as to proclaim that:
535
536
"Comrades, none of us wishes or is able to be right against his
537
party. The party in the last analysis is always right, because the
538
party is the sole historical instrument given to the proletariat for
539
the solution of its basic problems . . . I know that one cannot be
540
right against the party. It is only possible to be right with the
541
party and through the party, for history has not created other ways
542
for the realisation of what is right." [quoted by Daniels, The
543
Conscience of the Revolution, p. 240]
544
545
However, confusion creeps into the politics of the Left Opposition
546
simply because they used the term "workers' democracy" a lot. However,
547
a close reading of Trotsky's argument soon clarifies this issue.
548
Trotsky, following the Communist Party itself, had simply redefined
549
what "workers' democracy" meant. Rather than mean what you would expect
550
it would mean, the Bolsheviks had changed its meaning to become "party
551
democracy." Thus Trotsky could talk about "party dictatorship" and
552
"workers' democracy" without contradiction. As his support Max Eastman
553
noted in the mid-1920s, Trotsky supported the "programme of democracy
554
within the party -- called 'Workers' Democracy' by Lenin." This "was
555
not something new or especially devised . . . It was part of the
556
essential policy of Lenin for going forward toward the creation of a
557
Communist society -- a principle adopted under his leadership at the
558
Tenth Congress of the party, immediately after the cessation of the
559
civil war." [Since Lenin Died, p. 35] In the words of historian Robert
560
V. Daniels:
561
562
"The Opposition's political ideal was summed up in the slogan
563
'workers' democracy,' which referred particularly to two documents
564
[from 1920 and 1923] . . . Both these statements concerned the need
565
to combat 'bureaucratism' and implement party democracy." [Op. Cit.,
566
p. 300]
567
568
That this was the case can be seen from the Fourth All-Russian Congress
569
of Trade Unions in 1921:
570
571
"At the meeting of delegates who were party members, Tomsky
572
submitted for routine approval a set of these on the tasks of trade
573
unions. The approval was a matter of form, but an omission was
574
noted, The theses made no reference to the formula of 'proletarian
575
democracy' with which the Tenth Congress had tried to assuage the
576
rank and file. Riazanov . . . offered an amendment to fill the
577
breach, in language almost identical with the Tenth Congress
578
resolution: 'The party must observe with special care the normal
579
methods of proletarian democracy, particularly in the trade unions,
580
where most of all the selection of leaders should be done by the
581
organised party masses themselves.' . . . The party leadership
582
reacted instantaneously to this miscarriage of their plans for
583
curtailing the idea of union autonomy. Tomksy was summarily ejected
584
from the trade union congress. Lenin put in appearance together with
585
Bukharin and Stalin to rectify the unionists' action." [Daniels, Op.
586
Cit., p. 157]
587
588
The "New Course Resolution" passed in December, 1923, stresses this,
589
stating that "Workers' democracy means the liberty of frank discussion
590
of the most important questions of party life by all members, and the
591
election of all leading party functionaries and commissions . . . It
592
does not . . . imply the freedom to form factional groupings, which are
593
extremely dangerous for the ruling party." [Trotsky, Op. Cit., p. 408]
594
It made it clear that "workers' democracy" was no such thing:
595
596
"Worker's democracy signifies freedom of open discussion by all
597
members of the party of the most important questions of party life,
598
freedom of controversy about them, and also electiveness of the
599
leading official individuals and collegia from below upwards.
600
However, it does not at all suggest freedom of factional groupings .
601
. . It is self-evident that within the party . . . it is impossible
602
to tolerate groupings, the ideological contents of which are
603
directed against the party as a whole and against the dictatorship
604
of the proletariat (such as, for example, the 'Workers' Truth' and
605
the 'Workers' Group')." [quoted by Robert V. Daniels, Op. Cit., p.
606
222]
607
608
As "Left Oppositionist" Victor Serge himself pointed out, "the greatest
609
reach of boldness of the Left Opposition in the Bolshevik Party was to
610
demand the restoration of inner-Party democracy, and it never dared
611
dispute the theory of single-party government -- by this time, it was
612
too late." Trotsky had "ever since 1923 [been] for the renovation of
613
the party through inner party democracy and the struggle against
614
bureaucracy." [The Serge-Trotsky Papers, p. 181 and p. 201]
615
616
Thus Trotsky's opposition was hardly democratic. In 1926, for example,
617
he took aim at Stalin's dismissal of the idea of "the dictatorship of
618
the party" as "nonsense" the previous year. If he were the heroic
619
defender of genuine workers democracy modern day Trotskyists assert, he
620
would have agreed with Stalin while exposing his hypocrisy. Instead he
621
defended the concept of "the dictatorship of the party" and linked it
622
to Lenin (and so Leninist orthodoxy):
623
624
"Of course, the foundation of our regime is the dictatorship of a
625
class. But this in turn . . . assumes it is class that has come to
626
self-consciousness through its vanguard, which is to say, through
627
the party. Without this, the dictatorship could not exist . . .
628
Dictatorship is the most highly concentrated function of function of
629
a class, and therefore the basic instrument of a dictatorship is a
630
party. In the most fundamental aspects a class realises its
631
dictatorship through a party. That is why Lenin spoke not only of
632
the dictatorship of the class but also the dictatorship of the party
633
and, in a certain sense, made them identical." [Trotsky, The
634
Challenge of the Left Opposition (1926-27), pp. 75-6]
635
636
Trotsky argued that Stalin's repudiation of the "dictatorship of the
637
party" was, in fact, a ploy to substitute the dictatorship of the party
638
"apparatus" for the dictatorship of the party (a theme which would be
639
raised in the following year's Platform of the Opposition). Such a
640
substitution, he argued, had its roots in a "disproportion" between
641
workers' democracy and peasants' democracy (or "the private sector of
642
the economy" in general). As long as there was a "proper 'proportion'"
643
between the two and "the advance of democratic methods in the party and
644
working class organisations," then "the identification of the
645
dictatorship of the class with that of the party is fully and
646
completely justified historically and politically." Needless to say,
647
Trotsky did not bother to ask how much democracy (of any kind) was
648
possible under a party dictatorship nor how a class could run society
649
or have "democratic" organisations if subjected to such a dictatorship.
650
For him it was a truism that the "dictatorship of a party does not
651
contradict the dictatorship of the class either theoretically or
652
practically, but is an expression of it." [Op. Cit., p. 76] Needless to
653
say, the obvious conclusion to draw from Trotsky's argument is that if
654
a revolution occurred in a country without a peasantry then the
655
"dictatorship of the party" would be of no real concern!
656
657
This was no temporary (7 year!) aberration. As indicated in [11]section
658
H.3.8, Trotsky repeated this support for party dictatorship ten years
659
later (and after). Furthermore, Trotsky's defence of party dictatorship
660
against Stalin was included in the 1927 Platform of the Opposition.
661
This included the same contradictory demands for workers' democracy and
662
the revitalising of the soviets and trade unions with deeply rooted
663
ideological support for party dictatorship. This document made his
664
opposition clear, attacking Stalin for weakening the party's
665
dictatorship. In its words, the "growing replacement of the party by
666
its own apparatus is promoted by a 'theory' of Stalin's which denies
667
the Leninist principle, inviolable for every Bolshevik, that the
668
dictatorship of the proletariat is and can be realised only through the
669
dictatorship of the party." It repeats this principle by arguing that
670
"the dictatorship of the proletariat demands a single and united
671
proletarian party as the leader of the working masses and the poor
672
peasantry." As such, "[w]e will fight with all our power against the
673
idea of two parties, because the dictatorship of the proletariat
674
demands as its very core a single proletarian party. It demands a
675
single party." [The Platform of the Opposition] Even in the prison
676
camps in the late 1920s and early 1930s, "almost all the Trotskyists
677
continued to consider that 'freedom of party' would be 'the end of the
678
revolution.' 'Freedom to choose one's party -- that is Menshevism,' was
679
the Trotskyists' final verdict." [Ante Ciliga, The Russian Enigma, p.
680
280]
681
682
Once we understand that "workers' democracy" had a very specific
683
meaning to the Communist Party, we can start to understand such
684
apparently contradictory demands as the "consistent development of a
685
workers' democracy in the party, the trade unions, and the soviets."
686
Simply put, this call for "workers' democracy" was purely within the
687
respective party cells and not a call for genuine democracy in the
688
unions or soviets. Such a position in no way undermines the
689
dictatorship of the party.
690
691
Economically, Trotsky's opposition was far more backward than previous
692
oppositions. For Trotsky, economic democracy was not an issue. It
693
played no role in determining the socialist nature of a society. Rather
694
state ownership did. Thus he did not question one-man management in the
695
workplace nor the capitalist social relationships it generated. For
696
Trotsky, it was "necessary for each state-owned factory, with its
697
technical director and with its commercial director, to be subjected
698
not only to control from the top -- by the state organs -- but also
699
from below, by the market which will remain the regulator of the state
700
economy for a long time to come." In spite of the obvious fact that the
701
workers did not control their labour or its product, Trotsky asserted
702
that "[n]o class exploitation exists here, and consequently neither
703
does capitalism exist." Moreover, "socialist industry . . . utilises
704
methods of development which were invented by capitalist economy."
705
Ultimately, it was not self-management that mattered, it was "the
706
growth of Soviet state industry [which] signifies the growth of
707
socialism itself, a direct strengthening of the power of the
708
proletariat"! [The First 5 Years of the Communist International, vol.
709
2, p. 237 and p. 245]
710
711
Writing in 1923, he argued that the "system of actual one-man
712
management must be applied in the organisation of industry from top to
713
bottom. For leading economic organs of industry to really direct
714
industry and to bear responsibility for its fate, it is essential for
715
them to have authority over the selection of functionaries and their
716
transfer and removal." These economic organs must "in actual practice
717
have full freedom of selection and appointment." He also tied payment
718
to performance (just as he did during the civil war), arguing that "the
719
payment of the directors of enterprises must be made to depend on their
720
balance sheets, like wages depend on output." [quoted by Robert V.
721
Daniels, A Documentary History of Communism, vol. 1, p. 237]
722
723
Moreover, Trotsky's key idea during the 1920s was to industrialise
724
Russia. As the 1927 Platform argued, it was a case that the "present
725
tempo of industrialisation and the tempo indicated for the coming years
726
are obviously inadequate" and so the "necessary acceleration of
727
industrialisation" was required. In fact, the "Soviet Union must nor
728
fall further behind the capitalist countries, but in the near future
729
must overtake them." Thus industrialisation "must be sufficient to
730
guarantee the defence of the country and in particular an adequate
731
growth of war industries." [The Platform of the Opposition]
732
733
In summary, Trotsky's "opposition" in no way presented any real
734
alternative to Stalinism. Indeed, Stalinism simply took over and
735
applied Trotsky's demands for increased industrialisation. At no time
736
did Trotsky question the fundamental social relationships within Soviet
737
society. He simply wished the ruling elite to apply different policies
738
while allowing him and his followers more space and freedom within the
739
party structures. Essentially, as the 1927 Platform noted, he saw
740
Stalinism as the victory of the state bureaucracy over the party and
741
its dictatorship. Writing ten years after the Platform, Trotsky
742
reiterated this: "The bureaucracy won the upper hand. It cowed the
743
revolutionary vanguard, trampled upon Marxism, prostituted the
744
Bolshevik party . . . To the extent that the political centre of
745
gravity has shifted form the proletarian vanguard to the bureaucracy,
746
the party has changed its social structure as well as its ideology."
747
[Stalinism and Bolshevism] He simply wanted to shift the "political
748
centre of gravity" back towards the party, as it had been in the early
749
1920s when he and Lenin were in power. He in no significant way
750
questioned the nature of the regime or the social relationships it was
751
rooted in.
752
753
This explains his continual self-imposed role after his exile of loyal
754
opposition to Stalinism in spite of the violence applied to him and his
755
followers by the Stalinists. It also explains the lack of excitement by
756
the working class over the "Left Opposition." There was really not that
757
much to choose between the two factions within the ruling party/elite.
758
As Serge acknowledged: "Outraged by the Opposition, they [the
759
bureaucrats] saw it as treason against them; which in a sense it was,
760
since the Opposition itself belonged to the ruling bureaucracy."
761
[Memoirs of a Revolutionary, p. 225]
762
763
This may come as a shock to many readers. This is because Trotskyists
764
are notorious for their rewriting of the policies of Trotsky's
765
opposition to the rise of what became known as Stalinism. This
766
revisionism can take extreme forms. For example, Chris Harman (of the
767
UK's SWP) in his summary of the rise Stalinism asserted that after
768
"Lenin's illness and subsequent death" the "principles of October were
769
abandoned one by one." [Bureaucracy and Revolution in Eastern Europe,
770
p. 14] Presumably, in that case, the "principles of October" included
771
the practice of, and ideological commitment to, party dictatorship,
772
one-man management, banning opposition groups/parties (as well as
773
factions within the Communist Party), censorship, state repression of
774
working class strikes and protests, piece-work, Taylorism, the end of
775
independent trade unions and a host of other crimes against socialism
776
implemented under Lenin and normal practice at the time of his death.
777
778
Harman is correct to say that "there was always an alternative to
779
Stalinism. It meant, in the late 1920s, returning to genuine workers'
780
democracy and consciously linking the fate of Russia to the fate of
781
world revolution." Yet this alternative was not Trotsky's. Harman even
782
goes so far as to assert that the "historical merit of the Left
783
Opposition" was that it "did link the question of the expansion of
784
industry with that of working-class democracy and internationalism."
785
[Op. Cit., p. 19]
786
787
However, in reality, this was not the case. Trotsky, nor the Left
788
Opposition, supported "genuine" working-class democracy, unless by
789
"genuine" Harman means "party dictatorship presiding over." This is
790
clear from Trotsky's writings for the period in question. The Left
791
Opposition did not question the Bolshevik's monopoly of power and
792
explicitly supported the idea of party dictatorship. This fact helps
793
explains what Harman seems puzzled by, namely that Trotsky "continued
794
to his death to harbour the illusion that somehow, despite the lack of
795
workers' democracy, Russia was a 'workers' state.'" [Op. Cit., p. 20]
796
Strangely, Harman does not explain why Russia was a "workers' state"
797
under Lenin and Trotsky, given its "lack of workers' democracy." But
798
illusions are hard to dispel, sometimes.
799
800
So, for Trotsky, like all leading members of the Communist Party and
801
its "Left Opposition", "workers' democracy" was not considered
802
important and, in fact, was (at best) applicable only within the party.
803
Thus the capitulation of many of the Left Opposition to Stalin once he
804
started a policy of forced industrialisation comes as less of a
805
surprise than Harman seems to think it was. As Ante Ciliga saw first
806
hand in the prison camps, "the majority of the Opposition were . . .
807
looking for a road to reconciliation; whilst criticising the Five Year
808
Plan, they put stress not on the part of exploited class played by the
809
proletariat, but on the technical errors made by the Government qua
810
employer in the matter of insufficient harmony within the system and
811
inferior quality of production. This criticism did not lead to an
812
appeal to the workers against the Central Committee and against
813
bureaucratic authority; it restricted itself to proposing amendments in
814
a programme of which the essentials were approved. The socialist nature
815
of State industry was taken for granted. They denied the fact that the
816
proletariat was exploited; for 'we were in a period of proletarian
817
dictatorship.'" [The Russian Enigma, p. 213]
818
819
As Victor Serge noted, "[f]rom 1928-9 onwards, the Politbureau turned
820
to its own use the great fundamental ideas of the now expelled
821
Opposition (excepting, of course, that of working-class democracy) and
822
implemented them with ruthless violence." While acknowledging that the
823
Stalinists had applied these ideas in a more extreme form than the
824
Opposition planned, he also acknowledged that "[b]eginning in those
825
years, a good many Oppositionists rallied to the 'general line' and
826
renounced their errors since, as they put it, 'After all, it is our
827
programme that is being applied.'" Nor did it help that at "the end of
828
1928, Trotsky wrote to [the Opposition] from his exile . . . to the
829
effect that, since the Right represented the danger of a slide towards
830
capitalism, we had to support the 'Centre' -- Stalin -- against it."
831
[Op. Cit., p. 252 and p. 253]
832
833
However, Serge's comments on "working-class democracy" are somewhat
834
incredulous, given that he knew fine well that the Opposition did not
835
stand for it. His summary of the 1927 Platform was restricted to it
836
aiming "to restore life to the Soviets . . . and above all to
837
revitalise the Party and the trade unions. . . In conclusion, the
838
Opposition openly demanded a Congress for the reform of the Party, and
839
the implementation of the excellent resolutions on internal democracy
840
that had been adopted in 1921 and 1923." [Op. Cit., pp. 224-5] Which is
841
essentially correct. The Platform was based on redefining "workers'
842
democracy" to mean "party democracy" within the context of its
843
dictatorship.
844
845
We can hardly blame Harman, as it was Trotsky himself who started the
846
process of revising history to exclude his own role in creating the
847
evils he (sometimes) denounced his opponents within the party for. For
848
example, the 1927 Platform states that "[n]ever before have the trade
849
unions and the working mass stood so far from the management of
850
socialist industry as now" and that "[p]re-revolutionary relations
851
between foremen and workmen are frequently found." Which is hardly
852
surprising, given that Lenin had argued for, and implemented, appointed
853
one-man management armed with "dictatorial powers"
854
from April 1918 and that Trotsky himself also supported one-man
855
management (see [12]section 10 of the appendix [13]"What happened
856
during the Russian Revolution?").
857
858
Even more ironically, Harman argues that the Stalinist bureaucracy
859
became a ruling class in 1928 when it implemented the first five year
860
plan. This industrialisation was provoked by military competition with
861
the west, which forced the "drive to accumulate" which caused the
862
bureaucracy to attack "the living standards of peasants and workers."
863
He quotes Stalin: "to slacken the pace (of industrialisation) would
864
mean to lag behind; and those who lag behind are beaten . . . We must
865
make good this lag in ten years. Either we do so or they crush us."
866
Moreover, the "environment in which we are placed . . . at home and
867
abroad . . . compels us to adopt a rapid rate of industrialisation."
868
[Harman, Op. Cit., pp. 15-6] Given that this was exactly the same
869
argument as Trotsky in 1927, it seems far from clear that the "Left
870
Opposition" presented any sort of alternative to Stalinism. After all,
871
the "Left Opposition took the stand that large-scale new investment was
872
imperative, especially in heavy industry, and that comprehensive
873
planning and new sources of capital accumulation should be employed
874
immediately to effect a high rate of industrial expansion . . . They
875
also stressed the necessity of rapidly overtaking the capitalist powers
876
in economic strength, both as a guarantee of military security and as a
877
demonstration of the superiority of the socialist system." [Robert V.
878
Daniels, The Conscience of the Revolution, p. 290]
879
880
Would the Left Opposition's idea of "primitive socialist accumulation"
881
been obtained by any means other than politically enforced exploitation
882
and the repression of working class and peasant protest? Of course not.
883
Faced with the same objective pressures and goals, would it have been
884
any different if that faction had become dominant in the party
885
dictatorship? It is doubtful, unless you argue that who is in charge
886
rather than social relationships that determine the "socialist" nature
887
of a regime. But, then again, that is precisely what Trotskyists like
888
Harman do do when they look at Lenin's Russia.
889
890
As for Harman's assertion that the Left Opposition stood for
891
"internationalism," that is less straight forward than he would like.
892
As noted, it favoured the industrialisation of Russia to defend the
893
regime against its foreign competitors. As such, the Left Opposition
894
were as committed to building "socialism" in the USSR as were the
895
Stalinist promoters of "socialism in one country." The difference was
896
that the Left Opposition also argued for spreading revolution
897
externally as well. For them, this was the only means of assuring the
898
lasting victory of "socialism" (i.e. statised industry) in Russia. So,
899
for the Left Opposition, building Russia's industrial base was part and
900
parcel of supporting revolution internationally rather, as in the case
901
of the Stalinists, an alternative to it.
902
903
The contradictions in Trotsky's position may best be seen from the
904
relations between Lenin's Russia and the German military. Negotiations
905
between the two states started as early as 1920 with an important aide
906
of Trotsky's. The fruit of the German military's negotiations were
907
"secret military understandings." By September 1922 German officers and
908
pilots were training in Russia. An organisation of German military and
909
industrial enterprises in Russia was established and under it's
910
auspices shells, tanks and aircraft were manufactured in Russia for the
911
German army (an attempt to produce poison gas failed). [E.H. Carr, The
912
Bolshevik Revolution, vol. 3, p. 327 and pp. 431-2] In April, 1923, the
913
German High Command ordered 35 million gold marks worth of war
914
material. [Aberdeen Solidarity, Spartakism to National Bolshevism, p.
915
24]
916
917
These relations had their impact on the politics of the German
918
Communist Party who enforced its so-called "Schlageter Line" of
919
co-operation with nationalist and fascist groups. This policy was first
920
promoted in the Comintern by leading Communist Radek and inspired by
921
Zinoviev. According to Radek, "national Bolshevism" was required as the
922
"strong emphasis on the nation in Germany is a revolutionary act."
923
[quoted in E.H. Carr, The Interregnum 1923-1924, p. 177] During the
924
summer of 1923, joint meetings with them were held and both communist
925
and fascist speakers urged an alliance with Soviet Russia against the
926
Entente powers. So, for several months, the German Communists worked
927
with the Nazis, going so as far as to stage rallies and share podiums
928
together. The Communist leader Ruth Fischer even argued that "he who
929
denounces Jewish capital . . . is already a warrior in the class war,
930
even though he does not know it" (she latter said her remarks had been
931
distorted). [quoted in E.H. Carr, Op. Cit., p. 182f] This continued
932
until "the Nazis leadership placed a ban on further co-operation."
933
[E.H. Carr, Op. Cit., p. 183] Thus the activities of the German
934
communists were tailored to fit into the needs of Lenin's regime and
935
Trotsky played a key role in the negotiations which started the
936
process.
937
938
How "internationalist" was it to arm and train the very forces which
939
had crushed the German revolutionary workers between 1919 and 1921? How
940
sensible was it, when pressing for world revolution, to enhance the
941
power of the army which would be used to attack any revolution in
942
Germany? Which, of course, was what happened in 1923, when the army
943
repressed the Comintern inspired revolt in November that year. Trotsky
944
was one of the staunchest in favour of this insurrection, insisting
945
that it be fixed for the 7th of that month, the anniversary of the
946
Bolshevik seizure of power. [E.H. Carr, Op. Cit., p. 205] The attempted
947
revolt was a dismal failure. Rather than a revolution in Berlin on the
948
7th of November, there was a diner at the Russian embassy for German
949
officers, industrialists and officials to celebrate the anniversary of
950
the Russian revolution. [Carr, Op. Cit., p. 226] The big question is
951
how many Communists and workers killed in the revolt had been at the
952
receiving end of weapons and training supplied to the German army by
953
Trotsky's Red Army?
954
955
Moreover, the nature of any such revolution is what counts. The Left
956
Opposition would have encourage revolutions which followed (to re-quote
957
the Platform of the Opposition) the "Leninist principle" ("inviolable
958
for every Bolshevik") that "the dictatorship of the proletariat is and
959
can be realised only through the dictatorship of the party." It would
960
have opposed workers' self-management in favour of nationalisation and
961
one-man management. In other words, the influence of the Left
962
Opposition would have been as detrimental to the global workers'
963
movement and other revolutions as Stalin's was (or, for that matter,
964
Lenin's) although, of course, in a different way. Generalising Lenin's
965
state capitalism would not have resulted in socialism, no matter how
966
many revolutions in the west the Left Opposition encouraged.
967
968
Finally, the fate of the "Left Opposition" should be noted. As befell
969
the previous oppositions, the party machine was used against it.
970
Ironically, the Stalinists began by using the very techniques the
971
Trotskyists had used against their opponents years before. For example,
972
the Eighth Party Congress in December 1919 agreed that "[a]ll decisions
973
of the higher jurisdiction are absolutely binding for the lower."
974
Moreover, "[e]ach decision must above all be fulfilled, and only after
975
this is an appeal to the corresponding party organ permissible."
976
Centralism was reaffirmed: "The whole matter of assignment of party
977
workers is in the hands of the Central Committee of the party. Its
978
decision is binding for everyone..." These decisions were used as a
979
weapon against the opposition: "Translating this principle into
980
practice, the Secretariat under Krestinsky [a Trotsky supporter] began
981
deliberately to transfer party officials for political reasons, to end
982
personal conflicts and curb opposition." In 1923, the Secretariat
983
"brought into play its power of transfer, which had already proven to
984
be an effective political weapon against the Ukrainian Leftists and the
985
Workers' Opposition." [Robert V. Daniels, Op. Cit., p. 113 and p. 229]
986
987
The party itself had been reorganised, with "the replacement of local
988
party committees, which were at least democratic in form, by
989
bureaucratically constituted 'political departments.' With the
990
institution of such bodies, all political activity . . . was placed
991
under rigid control from above. This innovation was taken from the
992
army; as its origin suggests, it was strictly a military, authoritarian
993
institution, designed for transmitting propaganda downward rather than
994
opinion upward." [Op. Cit., p. 114] Needless to say, it was Trotsky
995
himself who implemented that regime in the army to begin with.
996
997
It should also be remembered that when, in early in 1922, the "Workers'
998
Opposition" had appealed to the Communist abroad in the form of a
999
statement to a Comintern Congress, Trotsky defended the party against
1000
its claims. These claims, ironically, included the accusation that the
1001
"party and trade-union bureaucracy . . . ignore the decisions of our
1002
congresses on putting workers' democracy [inside the party] into
1003
practice." Their "effort to draw the proletarian masses closer to the
1004
state is declared to be 'anarcho-syndicalism,' and its adherents are
1005
subjected to persecution and discrediting." They argued that the
1006
"tutelage and pressure by the bureaucracy goes so far that it is
1007
prescribed for members of the party, under threat of exclusion and
1008
other repressive measures, to elect not those whom the Communists want
1009
themselves, but those whom the ignorant high places want." [quoted by
1010
Daniels, Op. Cit., p. 162]
1011
1012
Even more ironically, the dominant faction of the bureaucracy heaped
1013
upon Trotsky's opposition faction similar insults to those he (and
1014
Lenin) had heaped upon previous oppositions inside and outside the
1015
party. In 1924, the Trotskyist opposition was accused of having
1016
"clearly violated the decision of the Tenth Congress . . . which
1017
prohibited the formation of factions within the party" and has
1018
"enlivened the hopes of all enemies of the party, including the
1019
West-European bourgeoisie, for a split in the ranks of the Russian
1020
Communist Party." In fact, it was a "direct departure of Leninism" and
1021
"also a clearly expressed petty-bourgeois deviation" reflecting "the
1022
pressure of the petty bourgeois on the position of the proletarian
1023
party and its policy." [contained in Daniels, A Documentary History of
1024
Communism, vol. 1, pp. 247-8] In 1927 the "United Opposition" was
1025
"[o]bjectively . . . a tool of the bourgeois elements." [quoted by
1026
Daniels, The Conscience of the Revolution, p. 318]
1027
1028
One of the ways which supporters of Leninism seek to differentiate it
1029
from Stalinism is on the issue of repression within the Communist Party
1030
itself. However, the suppression of opposition currents within
1031
Bolshevism did not start under Stalinism, it had existed to some degree
1032
from the start. Ironically, Trotsky's belated opposition faced exactly
1033
the same measures he had approved for use against groups like the
1034
"Workers' Opposition" within a party regime he himself had helped
1035
create.
1036
1037
Of course, the Stalinists did not stop there. Once the "Left
1038
Opposition" was broken its members were brutally repressed. Some were
1039
simply murdered, many more arrested and placed into prison camps where
1040
many died. Which shows, in its own way, a key difference between
1041
Lenin's and Stalin's regime. Under Lenin, the opposition outside the
1042
party was brutally repressed. Stalin simply applied the methods used by
1043
Lenin outside the party to oppositions within it.
1044
1045
4 What do these oppositions tell us about the essence of Leninism?
1046
1047
The history and ideas of these oppositions are important in evaluating
1048
the claims of pro-Bolsheviks. If, as modern-day supporters of
1049
Bolshevism argue, Leninism is inherently democratic and that before the
1050
revolution it stood for basic civil liberties for the working class
1051
then we have to come to the conclusion that none of the party
1052
oppositions represented the "true" Leninist tradition. Given that many
1053
Trotskyists support the "Left Opposition" as the only "real" opposition
1054
to Stalin, defending the true essence of Bolshevism, we can only wonder
1055
what the "real" Bolshevik tradition is. After all, the "Left
1056
Opposition" wholeheartedly supported party dictatorship, remained
1057
silent on workers' control and urged the speeding up of
1058
industrialisation to meet competition from the west.
1059
1060
However, there are groups which did raise more substantial critiques of
1061
mainstream Bolshevism. They raised their ideas between 1921 and 1923.
1062
How Lenin and Trotsky responded to them is significant. Rather than
1063
embrace them as expressing what the (according to Leninists) really
1064
stood for, they used state repression to break them and they were
1065
kicked out of the Communist Party. All with the approval of Lenin and
1066
Trotsky.
1067
1068
The only groups associated with the Bolshevik party which advocated
1069
democracy and freedom for working people were the dissidents of the
1070
"Workers' Truth" and "Workers' Group." Material on both is hard to come
1071
by. The "Workers' Truth" group was labelled "Menshevik" by the ruling
1072
party while the "Workers' Group" was dismissed as
1073
"anarcho-syndicalist." Both were expelled from the party and their
1074
members arrested by the Bolsheviks. The latter group is better known
1075
than the former and so, by necessity, we will concentrate on that. It
1076
was also the largest, boldest and composed mainly of workers. We find
1077
them labelled the NEP the "New Exploitation of the Proletariat" and
1078
attacking, like the "Workers' Opposition", the "purely bureaucratic
1079
way" industry was run and urging "the direct participation of the
1080
working class" in it. However, unlike the "Workers' Opposition", the
1081
"Workers' Group" extended their call for workers' democracy to beyond
1082
the workplace and party. They wondered if the proletariat might not be
1083
"compelled once again to start anew the struggle . . . for the
1084
overthrow of the oligarchy." They noted that ruling clique in the party
1085
"will tolerate no criticism, since it considers itself just as
1086
infallible as the Pope of Rome." [quoted by E.H. Carr, The Interregnum
1087
1923-1924, p. 82, p. 269]
1088
1089
The "Workers' Group" is associated with the old worker Bolshevik G. T.
1090
Miasnikov, its founder and leading thinker (see Paul Avrich's essay
1091
Bolshevik Opposition to Lenin: G. T. Miasnikov and the Workers' Group
1092
for more details -- any non-attributed quotes can be found in this
1093
essay). As Ante Ciliga recounted in his experiences of political debate
1094
in the prison camps in the late 1920s and early 1930s (ironically,
1095
there had always been more freedom of expression in prison than in
1096
Bolshevik society):
1097
1098
"In the criticism of the Lenin of the revolutionary period the tone
1099
was set by . . . the Workers Group . . . [It was], in origin, from
1100
the Bolshevik old guard. But . . . they criticised Lenin's course of
1101
action from the beginning, and not on details but as a whole. The
1102
Workers Opposition denounced Lenin's economic line. The Workers
1103
Group went even farther and attacked the political regime and the
1104
single party established by Lenin prior to the NEP . . .
1105
1106
"Having put as the basis of its programme Marx's watchword for the
1107
1st International -- 'The emancipation of the workers must be the
1108
task of the workers themselves' -- the Workers Group declared war
1109
from the start on the Leninist concept of the 'dictatorship of the
1110
party' and the bureaucratic organisation of production, enunciated
1111
by Lenin in the initial period of the revolution's decline. Against
1112
the Leninist line, they demanded organisation of production by the
1113
masses themselves, beginning with factory collectives. Politically,
1114
the Workers Group demanded the control of power and of the party by
1115
the worker masses. These, the true political leaders of the country,
1116
must have the right to withdraw power from any political party, even
1117
from the Communist Party, if they judged that that party was not
1118
defending their interests. Contrary to . . . the majority of the
1119
Workers' Opposition, for whom the demand for 'workers' democracy'
1120
was practically limited to the economic domain, and who tried to
1121
reconcile it with the 'single party,' the Workers Group extended its
1122
struggle for workers' democracy to the demand for the workers to
1123
choose among competing political parties of the worker milieu.
1124
Socialism could only be the work of free creation by the workers.
1125
While that which was being constructed by coercion, and given the
1126
name of socialism, was for them nothing but bureaucratic State
1127
capitalism from the very beginning."
1128
[Op. Cit., pp. 277-8]
1129
1130
Years before, Miasnikov had exposed the abuses he has seen first hand
1131
under Lenin's regimed. In 1921, he stated the obvious that "[i]t stands
1132
to reason that workers' democracy presupposes not only the right to
1133
vote but also freedom of speech and press. If workers who govern the
1134
country, manage factories, do not have freedom of speech, we get a
1135
highly abnormal state." He urged total freedom of speech for all. He
1136
discussed corruption within the party, noting that a "special type of
1137
Communist is evolving. He is forward, sensible, and, what counts most,
1138
he knows how to please his superiors, which the latter like only too
1139
much." Furthermore, "[i]f one of the party rank and file dares to have
1140
an opinion of his own, he is looked upon as a heretic and people scoff
1141
at him saying, 'Wouldn't Ilyitch (Lenin) have come to this idea if it
1142
were timely now? So you are the only clever man around, eh, you want to
1143
be wiser than all? Ha, ha, ha! You want to be clever than Ilyitch!'
1144
This is the typical 'argumentation' of the honourable Communist
1145
fraternity." "Any one who ventures a critical opinion of his own," he
1146
noted, "will be labelled a Menshevik of Social-Revolutionist, with all
1147
the consequences that entails." [quoted by G. P. Maximoff, The
1148
Guillotine at Work, p. 269 and p. 268]
1149
1150
Lenin tried to reply to Miasnikov's demand for freedom of speech.
1151
Freedom of the press, Lenin argued, would, under existing
1152
circumstances, strengthen the forces of counter-revolution. Lenin
1153
rejected "freedom" in the abstract. Freedom for whom? he demanded.
1154
Under what conditions? For which class? "We do not believe in
1155
'absolutes.' We laugh at 'pure democracy,'" he asserted. "Freedom of
1156
press in the RSFSR," Lenin maintained, "surrounded by bourgeois enemies
1157
everywhere means freedom for the bourgeoisie" and as "we do not want to
1158
commit suicide and that is why we will never do this" (i.e. introduce
1159
freedom of speech). According to Lenin, freedom of speech was a
1160
"non-party, anti-proletarian slogan" as well as a "flagrant political
1161
error." After sober reflection, Lenin hoped, Miasnikov would recognise
1162
his errors and return to useful party work.
1163
1164
Miasnikov was not convinced by Lenin's arguments. He drafted a strong
1165
reply. Reminding Lenin of his revolutionary credentials, he wrote: "You
1166
say that I want freedom of the press for the bourgeoisie. On the
1167
contrary, I want freedom of the press for myself, a proletarian, a
1168
member of the party for fifteen years, who has been a party member in
1169
Russia and not abroad. I spent seven and a half of the eleven years of
1170
my party membership before 1917 in prisons and at hard labour, with a
1171
total of seventy-five days in hunger strikes. I was mercilessly beaten
1172
and subjected to other tortures . . . I escaped not abroad, but for
1173
party work here in Russia. To me one can grant at least a little
1174
freedom of press. Or is it that I must leave or be expelled from the
1175
party as soon as I disagree with you in the evaluation of social
1176
forces? Such simplified treatment evades but does not tackle our
1177
problems." [quoted by Maximoff, Op. Cit., pp. 270-1] Lenin said,
1178
Miasnikov went on, that the jaws of the bourgeoisie must be cracked:
1179
1180
"To break the jaws of international bourgeoisie, is all very well,
1181
but the trouble is that, you raise your hand against the bourgeoisie
1182
and you strike at the worker. Which class now supplies the greatest
1183
numbers of people arrested on charges of counter-revolution?
1184
Peasants and workers, to be sure. There is no Communist working
1185
class. There is just a working class pure and simple." [quoted by
1186
Maximoff, Op. Cit., p. 271]
1187
1188
"Don't you know," he asked Lenin, "that thousands of proletarians are
1189
kept in prison because they talked the way I am talking now, and that
1190
bourgeois people are not arrested on this source for the simple reason
1191
that the are never concerned with these questions? If I am still at
1192
large, that is so because of my standing as a Communist. I have
1193
suffered for my Communist views; moreover, I am known by the workers;
1194
were it not for these facts, were I just an ordinary Communist mechanic
1195
from the same factory, where would I be now? In the Che-Ka [prison] . .
1196
. Once more I say: you raise your hand against the bourgeoisie, but it
1197
is I who am spitting blood, and it is we, the workers, whose jaws are
1198
being cracked." [quoted by Maximoff, Ibid.]
1199
1200
After engaging in political activity in his home area, Miasnikov was
1201
summoned to Moscow and placed under the control of the Central
1202
Committee. In defiance of the Central Committee, he returned to the
1203
Urals and resumed his agitation. At the end of August he appeared
1204
before a general meeting of Motovilikha party members and succeeded in
1205
winning them over to his side. Adopting a resolution against the
1206
Orgburo's censure of Miasnikov, they branded his transfer to Moscow a
1207
form of "banishment" and demanded that he be allowed "full freedom of
1208
speech and press within the party."
1209
1210
On November 25 he wrote to a sympathiser in Petrograd urging a campaign
1211
of agitation in preparation for the 11th party congress. By now
1212
Miasnikov was being watched by the Cheka, and his letter was
1213
intercepted. For Lenin, this was the last straw: "We must devote
1214
greater attention to Miasnikov's agitation," he wrote to Molotov on
1215
December 5, "and to report on it to the Politburo twice a month." To
1216
deal with Miasnikov, meanwhile, the Orgburo formed a new commission.
1217
This commission recommended his expulsion from the party, which was
1218
agreed by the Politburo on February 20, 1922. This was the first
1219
instance, except for the brief expulsion of S. A. Lozovsky in 1918,
1220
where Lenin actually expelled a well-known Bolshevik of long standing.
1221
1222
By the start of 1923, he had organised a clandestine opposition and
1223
formed (despite his expulsion) the "Workers' Group of the Russian
1224
Communist Party." He claimed that it, and not the Bolshevik leadership,
1225
represented the authentic voice of the proletariat. Joining hands in
1226
the venture were P. B. Moiseev, a Bolshevik since 1914, and N. V.
1227
Kuznetsov, the former Workers' Oppositionist. The three men, all
1228
workers, constituted themselves as the "Provisional Central
1229
Organisational Bureau" of the group. Their first act, in February 1923,
1230
was to draw up a statement of principles in anticipation of the Twelfth
1231
Party Congress called the "Manifesto of the Workers' Group of the
1232
Russian Communist Party."
1233
The manifesto was "denouncing the New Exploitation of the Proletariat
1234
and urging the workers to fight for soviet democracy," according to
1235
Trotskyist historian I. Deutscher. [The Prophet Unarmed, p.107]
1236
1237
The manifesto recapitulated the program of Miasnikov's earlier
1238
writings: workers' self-determination and self-management, the removal
1239
of bourgeois specialists from positions of authority, freedom of
1240
discussion within the party, and the election of new soviets centred in
1241
the factories. It protested against administrative high-handedness, the
1242
expanding bureaucracy, the predominance of non-workers within the
1243
party, and the suppression of local initiative and debate. The
1244
manifesto denounced the New Economic Policy (NEP) as the "New
1245
Exploitation of the Proletariat." In spite of the abolition of private
1246
ownership, the worst features of capitalism had been preserved: wage
1247
slavery, differences of income and status, hierarchical authority,
1248
bureaucratism. In the words of the manifesto, the "organisation of this
1249
industry since the Ninth Congress of the RCP(b) is carried out without
1250
the direct participation of the working class by nominations in a
1251
purely bureaucratic way." [quoted by Daniels, Op. Cit., p. 204]
1252
1253
The manifesto wondered whether the Russian proletariat might not be
1254
compelled "to start anew the struggle -- and perhaps a bloody one --
1255
for the overthrow of the oligarchy." Not that it contemplated an
1256
immediate insurrection. Rather it sought to rally the workers,
1257
Communist and non-Communist alike, to press for the elimination of
1258
bureaucratism and the revival of proletarian democracy. Within the
1259
party the manifesto defended-the right to form factions and draw up
1260
platforms. "If criticism does not have a distinct point of view,"
1261
Miasnikov wrote to Zinoviev, "a platform on which to rally a majority
1262
of party members, on which to develop a new policy with regard to this
1263
or that question, then it is not really criticism but a mere collection
1264
of words, nothing but chatter." He went even further, calling into
1265
question the very Bolshevik monopoly of power. Under a single-party
1266
dictatorship, he argued, elections remained "an empty formality." To
1267
speak of "workers' democracy" while insisting on one-party government,
1268
he told Zinoviev, was to entwine oneself in a contradiction, a
1269
"contradiction in terms."
1270
1271
Miasnikov was arrested by the GPU (the new name for the Cheka) on May
1272
25, 1923, a month after the Twelfth Party Congress (the rest of the
1273
group's leadership was soon to follow). Miasnikov was released from
1274
custody and permitted to leave the country and left for Germany (this
1275
was a device not infrequently used by the authorities to rid themselves
1276
of dissenters). In Berlin he formed ties with the council communists of
1277
the German Communist Workers' Party (KAPD) and with the left wing of
1278
the German Communist Party. With the aid of these groups, Miasnikov was
1279
able to publish the manifesto of the Workers' Group, prefaced by an
1280
appeal drafted by his associates in Moscow. The appeal concluded with a
1281
set of slogans proclaiming the aims of the Workers' Group: "The
1282
strength of the working class lies in its solidarity. Long live freedom
1283
of speech and press for the proletarians! Long live Soviet Power! Long
1284
live Proletarian Democracy! Long live Communism!"
1285
1286
Inside Russia the manifesto was having its effect. Fresh recruits were
1287
drawn into the Workers' Group. It established ties with discontented
1288
workers in several cities and began negotiations with leaders of the
1289
now defunct Workers' Opposition. The group won support within the Red
1290
Army garrison quartered in the Kremlin, a company of which had to be
1291
transferred to Smolensk. By summer of 1923 the group had some 300
1292
members in Moscow, as well as a sprinkling of adherents in other
1293
cities. Many were Old Bolsheviks, and all, or nearly all, were workers.
1294
Soon an unexpected opportunity for the group to extend its influence
1295
arrived. In August and September 1923 a wave of strikes (which recalled
1296
the events of February 1921) swept Russia's industrial centres. An
1297
economic crisis (named the "scissors' crisis") had been deepening since
1298
the beginning of the year, bringing cuts in wages and the dismissal of
1299
large numbers of workers. The resulting strikes, which broke out in
1300
Moscow and other cities, were spontaneous and no evidence existed to
1301
connect them with any oppositionist faction. The Workers' Group,
1302
however, sought to take advantage of the unrest to oppose the party
1303
leadership. Stepping up its agitation, it considered calling a one-day
1304
general strike and organising a mass demonstration of workers, on the
1305
lines of Bloody Sunday 1905, with a portrait of Lenin (rather than the
1306
Tzar!) at the lead.
1307
1308
The authorities became alarmed. The Central Committee branded the
1309
Workers' Group as "anti-Communist and anti-Soviet" and ordered the GPU
1310
to suppress it. By the end of September its meeting places had been
1311
raided, literature seized, and leaders arrested. Twelve members were
1312
expelled from the party and fourteen others received reprimands. As one
1313
Trotskyist historian put it, the "party leaders" were "determined to
1314
suppress the Workers' Group and the Workers' Truth." [I. Deutscher, Op.
1315
Cit., p. 108] Miasnikov was considered such a threat that in the autumn
1316
of 1923 he was lured back to Russia on assurances from Zinoviev and
1317
Krestinsky, the Soviet ambassador in Berlin, that he would not be
1318
molested. Once in Russia he was immediately placed behind bars. The
1319
arrest was carried out by Dzerzhinsky himself (the infamous creator and
1320
head of the Cheka), a token of the gravity with which the government
1321
viewed the case.
1322
1323
This response is significant, simply because Trotsky was still an
1324
influential member of the Communist Party leadership. As Paul Avrich
1325
points out, "[i]n January 1924, Lenin died. By then the Workers' Group
1326
had been silenced. It was the last dissident movement within the party
1327
to be liquidated while Lenin was still alive. It was also the last
1328
rank-and-file group to be smashed with the blessing of all the top
1329
Soviet leaders, who now began their struggle for Lenin's mantle."
1330
[Bolshevik Opposition To Lenin: G. Miasnikov and the Workers Group]
1331
1332
The response of Trotsky is particularly important, given that for most
1333
modern day Leninists he raised the banner of "authentic" Leninism
1334
against the obvious evils of Stalinism. What was his reaction to the
1335
state repression of the Workers' Group? As Deutscher notes, Trotsky
1336
"did not protest when their adherents were thrown into prison . . . Nor
1337
was he inclined to countenance industrial unrest . . . Nor was he at
1338
all eager to support the demand for Soviet democracy in the extreme
1339
form in which the Workers' Opposition and its splinter groups [like the
1340
Workers' Group] had raised it." [Op. Cit., pp. 108-9] Dzerzhinsky was
1341
given the task of breaking the opposition groups by the central
1342
committee. He "found that even party members of unquestioned loyalty
1343
regarded them as comrades and refused to testify against them. He then
1344
turned to the Politburo and asked it to declare it was the duty of any
1345
party member to denounce to the GPU people inside the party engaged
1346
aggressive action against the official leaders." Trotsky "did not tell
1347
the Politburo plainly that it should reject Dzerzhinsky's demand. He
1348
evaded the question." [Op. Cit., p. 108 and p. 109]
1349
1350
Trotskyist Tony Cliff presents a similar picture of Trotsky's lack of
1351
concern for opposition groups and his utter failure to support working
1352
class self-activity or calls for real democracy. He notes that in July
1353
and August 1923 Moscow and Petrograd "were shaken by industrial unrest
1354
. . . Unofficial strikes broke out in many places . . . In November
1355
1923, rumours of a general strike circulated throughout Moscow, and the
1356
movement seems at the point of turning into a political revolt. Not
1357
since the Kronstadt rising of 1921 had there been so much tension in
1358
the working class and so much alarm in the ruling circles." The ruling
1359
elite, including Trotsky, acted to maintain their position and the
1360
secret police turned on any political group which could influence the
1361
movement. The "strike wave gave a new lease of life to the Mensheviks"
1362
and so "the GPU carried out a massive round up of Mensheviks, and as
1363
many as one thousand were arrested in Moscow alone." When it was the
1364
turn of the Workers Group and Workers Truth, Trotsky "did not condemn
1365
their persecution" and he "did not support their incitement of workers
1366
to industrial unrest." Moreover, "[n]or was Trotsky ready to support
1367
the demand for workers' democracy in the extreme form to which the
1368
Workers Group and Workers Truth raised it." [Trotsky, vol. 3, p. 25, p.
1369
26 and pp. 26-7]
1370
1371
By "extreme," Cliff obviously means "genuine" as Trotsky did not call
1372
for workers' democracy in any meaningful form. Indeed, his "New Course
1373
Resolution" even went so far as to say that "it is obvious that there
1374
can be no toleration of the formation of groupings whose ideological
1375
content is directed against the party as a whole and against the
1376
dictatorship of the proletariat. as for instance the Workers' Truth and
1377
Workers' Group." Trotsky himself was at pains to distance himself from
1378
Myainikov. [The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1923-25), p. 408 and
1379
p. 80] The resolution made it clear that it considered "the
1380
dictatorship of the proletariat" to be incompatible with real workers
1381
democracy by arguing "it is impossible to tolerate groupings, the
1382
ideological contents of which are directed against the party as a whole
1383
and against the dictatorship of the proletariat (such as, for example,
1384
the 'Workers' Truth' and the 'Workers' Group')." [quoted by Robert V.
1385
Daniels, Op. Cit., p. 222] Given that both these groups advocated
1386
actual soviet and trade union democracy, the Politburo was simply
1387
indicating that actual "workers' democracy" was "against" the
1388
dictatorship of the proletariat (i.e. the dictatorship of the party).
1389
1390
Thus we come to the strange fact that it was Lenin and Trotsky
1391
themselves who knowingly destroyed the groups which represent what
1392
modern day Leninists assert is the "real" essence of Leninism.
1393
Furthermore, modern day Leninists generally ignore these opposition
1394
groups when they discuss alternatives to Stalinism or the
1395
bureaucratisation under Lenin. This seems a strange fate to befall
1396
tendencies which, if we take Leninists at their word, expressed what
1397
their tradition stands for. Equally, in spite of their support for
1398
party dictatorship, the "Workers' Opposition" did have some
1399
constructive suggests to make as regards combating the economic
1400
bureaucratisation which existed under Lenin. Yet almost all modern
1401
Leninists (like Lenin and Trotsky) dismiss them as "syndicalist" and
1402
utopian. Which is, of course, significant about the real essence of
1403
Leninism.
1404
1405
Ultimately, the nature of the various oppositions within the party and
1406
the fate of such real dissidents as the "Workers' Group" says far more
1407
about the real reasons the Russian revolution than most Trotskyist
1408
books on the matter. Little wonder there is so much silence and
1409
distortion about these events. They prove that the "essence" of
1410
Bolshevism is not a democratic one but rather a deeply authoritarian
1411
one hidden (at times) behind libertarian sounding rhetoric. Faced with
1412
opposition which were somewhat libertarian, the response of Lenin and
1413
Trotsky was to repress them. In summary, they show that the problems of
1414
the revolution and subsequent civil war did not create but rather
1415
revealed Bolshevism's authoritarian core.
1416
1417
References
1418
1419
1. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append45.html#app4
1420
2. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append41.html#app9
1421
3. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append41.html
1422
4. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secH5.html
1423
5. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secH1.html#sech12
1424
6. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append43.html#app3
1425
7. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append43.html
1426
8. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secH5.html#sech53
1427
9. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append42.html
1428
10. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secH3.html#sech38
1429
11. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/secH3.html#sech38
1430
12. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append41.html#app10
1431
13. file://localhost/home/mauro/baku/debianize/maint/anarchy/append41.html
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