***From The Archives-In The Salad Days Of The Revolution- Leon Trotsky’s History Of The Russian Revolution-Take Two  

 

 

A Book Review From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Leon Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution in three volumes is partisan history at its best. One does not, at least in this day in age, ask a historian to be ‘objective’. One simply asks that the historian give his or her analysis and get out of the way. Trotsky meets that criterion. Furthermore, in Trotsky’s case there is nothing like having a central actor in the drama, who can also write brilliantly and wittily, give his interpretation of the important events and undercurrents swirling around Russia in 1917. If you are looking for a general history of the revolution or want an analysis of what the revolution meant for the outcome of World War I or world geopolitics look elsewhere. E.H. Carr’s History of the Russian Revolution offers an excellent multi-volume set that tells that story through the 1920’s. Or if you want to know what the various parliamentary leaders, both bourgeois and Soviet, were thinking and doing from a moderately leftist viewpoint read Sukhanov’s Notes on the Russian Revolution. Trotsky provides this type of material as well. However, if additionally, you want to get a feel for the molecular process of the Russian Revolution in its ebbs and flows down at the base in the masses where the revolution was made Trotsky’s is the book for you.

The life of Leon Trotsky is intimately intwined with the history of the Russian Revolution. As a young man he entered the revolutionary struggle against the Czar at the turn of the 20^th century. Shortly thereafter  he embraced a lifelong devotion to Marxism. Except for the period of the 1905 Revolution when Trotsky was Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet and later in 1912 when he tried to unite all the Social Democratic forces in an ill-fated unity conference which goes down in history as the ‘August Bloc’ he was essentially a free lancer in the international social democracy. While politically close to their positions Trotsky saw the Bolsheviks as sectarians. With the coming of World War I he nevertheless drew even closer to Bolshevik positions, especially on the proper attitude to the imperialist war. He, however, did not actually join the party until the summer  of 1917 when he entered the Central Committee after the fusion of his organization, the Inter-District Committee, and the Bolsheviks. This represented an important and decisive switch in his understanding of the necessity of a revolutionary party.

As Trotsky noted, although he was a late comer to the concept of a Bolshevik Party that delay only instilled in him a greater understanding about the need for a non-inclusive revolutionary party. This understanding animated his political positions throughout the rest of his career as a Soviet official and leader of the struggle of the Left Opposition against the Stalinist degeneration of the revolution. Trotsky wrote these three volumes in exile in Turkey from 1930 to 1932. At that time he was not only trying to draw the lessons of the revolution from an historian’s perspective but to teach new cadre the necessary lessons of that struggle as he tried to first reform the Bolshevik Party and the Communist International and later to form a new, revolutionary Fourth International. Trotsky was still fighting for this perspective in defense of the gains of the Russian Revolution when a Stalinist agent cut him down. Thus, without doubt his political insights developed over long experience give his volumes an added worth not found in other sources for militants today.

Throughout most of the 20^th century the Russian Question was the central focus of world politics and the politics of the international labor movement. At the beginning of the 21^st century this question has lost its immediate focus.  That central question ended practically with the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s. However, there are still lessons- some positive,  some negative, to be learned from that experience. Today, understanding those lessons is the task for the natural audience for this book, the young alienated radicals of Western society. This is one of the political textbooks you need to read if you want to change the world. However, even if you are merely a history buff getting the inside details of the struggle for power are invaluable.  Below I will try to point out what I think are the key points to be learned from the Russian Question that keep that question very much alive today

The central thrust of Trotsky’s volumes and of his later political career was animated  by the concept of the crisis of revolutionary leadership. The plain fact is that since the European Revolutions of 1848 and not excepting the heroic Paris Commune until his day (and unfortunately ours) the only successful working class revolution had been in Russia in 1917. Why? Today Anarchist may look back to the Paris Commune  of 1871 or forward to the Spanish Civil War in 1936 for solace but the plain fact is that absent a revolutionary party those struggles were defeated. The history of the international labor movement and the resolution of its social policy dictates that a revolutionary party that has assimilulated the lessons of the past and is rooted in the working class leading the plebian masses is the only way to bring the socialist program to fruition. That hard truth shines through the three volumes.

Anarchists and other commentators have hailed the February Revolution in Russia as a spontaneous overturn of Czarism. However, Trotsky makes an interesting note that despite this notion the February overturn of the monarchy was not as spontaneous as one would be led to believe. He notes that the Russian revolutionary movement had been in existence for many decades before that time, that the Revolution of 1905 had been a dress rehearsal for it and that before World War I temporarily halted its progress another revolutionary period was on the way. All the while ostensibly revolutionary organizations – the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries and others were influencial among the plebian masses. If there had been no such experiences and no such organizations then those who argue for spontenaity  would have grounds to stand on. The most telling point in Trotsky’s favor is that the outbreak occurred in Petrograd not exactly an unknown location of revolutionary activities.

It is no longer possible to lead a workers revolution without the capital city of the country being the center of the struggle. That probably has been true in Europe since 1848 and elsewhere for the last one hundred years. It is not only that this is the seat of government but all the vital forces of the government including the arm forces are there as well as civil society. Guerilla warfare and other forms of rebellion may occur but you cannot succeed until you capture the capital city

All revolutions after the first flush of success against the old regime tend to be supported or at least tolerated by the masses. This is a period when divergent class programs are somewhat stifled in the interest of unity. Thus, we see in the English Revolution of the 17^th century and later in the great French Revolution of the 18^th century a struggle mainly led by the lower classes taken over by other forces who try to brake any further revolutionary developments. The common term used in Marxist terminology for this phase is called the Popular Front period. The Russian Revolution also had its Popular Front phase various combinations and guises from February to October. The key to Bolshevik success in October  lies in breaking with the Popular Front politically after the arrival of Lenin from exile in April. History has shown us in Spain in the 1930’s and more recently in Chile in the 1970’s how deadly political capitulation to Popular Frontism can be. Parlimentary Popular Fronts  in France and elsewhere have shown those  limitations in another fashion. In short, Popular Fronts mean the derailment, if  not the decimation, of the revolution movement. Learn this hard lesson.

Most history shows that when the popular masses overthrow a tyrant the need to be all-inclusive and therefore passive looms large as we are all good fellows and true spirit starts out. Nevertheless, the class interests of the various parties do not permit such an amorphous gathering in to continue for long. The dual power situation between the demands of the Provisional Government and the tensions form below that the reformist led Soviet’s permitted shows the tension that must be resolved one way or the other. Except for the Bolshevik Revolution that tension has been resolved in the wrong direction. 

The Bolsheviks all along had no illusions in the capacity of the other leftist parties to see the February Revolution to the end and furthermore suffered under the persecution of these so-called leftist parties when they were ascendant.  Nevertheless the Bolsheviks accepted and I believe desire a revolutionary coalition government. No this got all balled up later with the role of the Left SR’s in the summer of 1918. Nevertheless the principle of a multi-party Soviet system committed to defense of the gains of the October Revolution would seem no to be precluded.

One of Trotsky’s great skills as a historian is to show that within the general revolutionary flow there are ebbs and flows that is that there are events which occur that either speed up the revolutionary process or slow it down. This is the fate of all revolutions and can determine the outcome  for good or bad for generations. The first such occurrence  in Russia occurred during  the April Days when it became clear that the then presently constituted Provisional Government intended to continue Russian participation in the war and maintain the aims of  Czarism without the Czar. This led the vanguard of the masses to make a premature attempt to bring down the government. However, the vanguard was isolated and did not have the authority needed to bring down the government, especially without the support of the garrison and the peasantry in the country. While this action proved not to be fatal it only resulted in a reshuffling of the Cabinet. The more important result was to sober the advanced workers to the need to better explain and organize its actions.

We saw in the April days that the vanguard was isolated in its efforts to overthrow the government that wanted to continue the war under Czarist principals. The so-called July Days are another example of the ebb and flow of revolution. Here as a result of the demoralizations on the front the workers and others of Petrograd were ready to overthrow the government The Bolsheviks tried to stop then stating that the time was not right. However, when it was going to happen anyway the Bolsheviks went along with the vanguard elements. This seems like the beginning of wisdom if you are going to lead a revolution. The other so-called leftist parties were more than happy to suppress these elements and the Bolsheviks for good measure.

The Bolsheviks were probably the most revolutionary party in the history of revolutions both in terms of their commitment to program and the form of organization and organizational practices that they developed. Nevertheless, before the arrival of Lenin back from exile the forces on the ground were to put it mildly floundering. It was necessary to rearm the party. How to revamp the old theory to the new conditions which placed the socialist program on the immediate agenda much as Trotsky had analyzed in his theory of permanent revolution. This was not done without a struggle in the party. For those who argue that a party is not necessary that is crazy because even with a truly revolutionary party you can have problems as the situation Spain with the POUM and Durrutti point out. This is why Trotsky came with the Bolsheviks and why he drew that lesson very sharply for the rest of his political career.

The peasant based Russian army took a real beating in World War I and was at the point of disintegration when the February Revolution occurred. It was the decisive effort on the part of the peasant soldier along with the worker that overthrew the monarchist system in order that they could end the war and get to the land. From then on the peasant army through coercion or through inertia was no longer a reliable vehicle for any of the combinations of provisional governmental ministries to use. Its final flare-up in defense of placing all power into Soviet hands was as a reserve an important one nevertheless a reserve. Only later when the Whites came to try to take the land did the peasant soldier exhibit a willingness to fight and die.

Not all revolutions exhibit this massive breakdown in the army- the armed organ which defends any state but it played an exception role here. What does always occur is the existing governmental authority can no longer rely on such troops. If this did no occur revolution generally would no be possible as untrained plebeians are no match for trained soldiers. Moreover, this peasant bastion is exception in that it responded to the general democratic demand for land to the tiller that the Bolsheviks were the only party to endorse at the time. In the normal course of events the peasant as peasant on the land cannot lead a modern revolution in an industrial state. It has been the bulwark for reaction witness the Paris Commune, etc. However, World War I put the peasant youth, and this is decisive in uniform and gave it discipline that it would not other wise have

Trotsky is merciless toward the Menshevik and Social Revolutionary leadership which provided the support for the Provisional governments in their various guises against the real interests of their ranks. Part of this is from the perspective that they saw the current revolution was bourgeois and so therefore they could no go further than the decrepit bourgeoisie of Russia was willing to go- and given its relationships with foreign capital that was not very far. Let us face it these organizations in the period from February to October betrayed the interest of their ranks on the question of immediate peace and on the question of the redistribution of the land. This is particularly true with the start of the ill-fated summer offensive and the refusal to convene a Constituent Assembly to ratify the redistribution of the land. One can see the slow but then quick rise of the Bolsheviks in places when they did not really exist when the formal parties of those areas moved to the right.

Engels one time suggested that the victory of socialism in Germany would entail a struggle led by the workers and in its tail a peasant war for the land. If that was true in highly industrialized Germany you can imagine the necessity of it in Russia. Here it actually happened. The land hunger of the peasants was enormous in the summer of 1917. In a sense the Bolsheviks when they seized power in October were merely ratifying the land grabs. One can no longer postulate that condition today in fact the program of land to the peasant is no a program that would have meaning except in extremely backward areas and even then with the international division of agricultural labor would be more likely to lead to a communal situation. 

As the above-mentioned April Days showed revolutions have ebb and flow as we know but more than that if the revolutionary forces lose momentum then other forces will inevitably come to the fore as saviors of the situation in the interests of other classes. This is the meaning of the August Days. The Bolsheviks were just coming out of their isolation and not yet ready to take the power and other forces around Kornilov with the complicity of Kerensky were ready to take over a dictatorship. It was only the mobilization of the Bolsheviks leading all the democratic plebian forces that stooped the counterrevolution in its tracks. We have seen this happen the other way when the revolutionary forces do not put up enough of a resistance to such forces.

Something that is much understood by many leftist groups today and in the past is the question of military support to bourgeois democratic forces in the struggle against right wing forces ready to overthrow democracy. That was clearly the case with the Kornilov uprising. Kerensky asked the Bolsheviks for help with troops to defend the government against the approaching counterrevolutionary forces.  Lenin stated that we would give military support to the effort but no political support. This would take the form of not supporting war budgets, etc. It is a very subtle maneuver but miles away from giving blanket support both military and political to forces that you will eventually have to overthrow. The Spanish revolutionaries learned this lesson the hard way.  

The tragic deaths of Rosa Luxemburg  and  Karl Liebknecht in the aftermath of the suppression of the Spartacist uprising of January 1919 in Germany highlight the necessity of protection of the leading cadre at almost all costs if you are to be successful. After the suppressions of the July Days Lenin and Zinoviev went into hiding that was good so that you can retain the nucleus of leadership if others are caught

The question of the land was a central question for the revolutionary democracy at that time. However, the natural proponents of land redistribution the Social revolutionary Party reneged on its responsibility. Therefore, the second order of business after the Bolshevik seizure of power was to codify the land reform. In its wake it drew in the Left Social Revolutionaries into the government.

As I write this review we are in the third year of the Iraq war (2006). For those who opposed that war from the beginning or have come to oppose it over time actively the Bolshevik Revolution shows the way to end a war. If you really want to end an imperialist war you have to overthrow the imperialist powers History provides no other way. 

The Soviets or workers councils which sprang up first in the Revolution of 1905 and then almost automatically were resurrected after the February overturn are merely a convenient and appropriate organization form for the structure of workers power. A Soviet led by Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries does not lead to the seizure of power. That is why Lenin was looking to the factory committees to jump-start the revolution. Soviets are the necessary form of government in the post seizure period but may not be adequate for the task of seizing power. Soviet fetishism is a danger. 

The question of the Constituent Assembly, which was a slogan, raised by all parties the Bolsheviks included represents a progressive demand in situations where there has been no previous democratic revolution. Nevertheless in the modern era it has been counterpoised to the Soviets. Any disputes between the authority of the two bodies has to be resolved in favor of the Soviets as the class organization of the workers leading the plebian masses.

A counterrevolutionary attempt is almost inevitable in a revolutionary situation therefore some kind of Committee of Public Safety has to be established to guard against such an eventually. Thus a purely military organization is needed to insure the adequate preparations for such an eventuality. Here the Military Revolutionary Committee was not only an agency of the Soviets but also the nucleus of the insurrectionary forces

The question of whether to seize power is a practical one that no hard and fast rules can be made of except that it important to have the masses ready to go when the decision is made. In fact, it is probably not a bad idea to have the masses a little overeager to insurrect. There is an assumption that power can be taken at any time in a revolutionary period. This is not true because the failure to have a revolutionary party ready to roll means that there is a fairly short window of opportunity for this to occur

As stated before the Bolsheviks were probably and still remain the most revolutionary urban party in world history. Nevertheless the pressures from other classes and parties are intense especially on the leadership level that is usually composed of intellectuals and semi-intellectuals. One must learn from history that the real revolutionary opportunities are rare and that you had better take power when you can

For obvious tactical reasons it is better to take power in the name of a pan-class organization like the Soviets than in the name of a single party. This brings up an interesting point because Lenin was willing to do so in the name of the party if conditions warranted it. Under the circumstances I believe that the Bolsheviks could have taken it in their own name but that it would have been harder for them to keep it. Moreover, they had the majority in the All Russian Soviet and so it would be inexplicable if they took power solely in their own name.

Many historians and political commentators have declared the Bolshevik seizure of power a coup d’etat. If one wants to do harm to the notion of a coup d’etat in the classic sense of a closed military conspiracy this cannot be true. First of all the Bolsheviks were an urban civilian party with at best tenuous ties to military knowledge and resources. Secondly, and decisively their influence over the garrison in Petrograd and eventually elsewhere precluded such a necessity although conspiracy is an element of any insurrection

With almost a century of hindsight and knowing what we know now it is easy to see that the slender social basis for the establishment of Soviet power absent international working class revolution particularly in Germany in Russia meant of necessity that there were going to be deformations even under a healthy workers regime. Nevertheless this begs the question whether at the time the Bolsheviks should have taken power. You do not get that many opportunities to seize power and try to change world history for the better so you better take advantage of the opportunities when they present themselves. History is replead with failed revolutionary opportunities. No, the hell with it.Take the power when you can because the reaction certainly will.