Stefan Engel on the international revolution

What about the International Revolution?

In a very long-winded manner, Stefan Engel refers to Marx,Engels, Lenin and Stalin, quoting them extensively. Thus, in his first chapter, “Proletarian Strategy and the International Character of the Socialist Revolution,” he quotes what Marx and Engels stated in the Communist Manifesto:

“Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.” (https://www.marxists.org/ archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007, quoted by Stefan Engel on page 27)

Then he tells us that Marx and Engels in the beginning (of the 1848 bourgeois revolution) took as a starting point an early proletarian revolution in several countries, but they corrected their opinion because of the real historical development. It takes Stefan Engel five pages to say that. 

Three more pages are filled with the statement that Lenin, based on his analysis of imperialism, concluded that it is possible that the revolution will first be victorious in only one country but in spite of that its character will be international.

There is again nothing new in what is stated by Stefan Engel and his collective of authors. Instead, a method is pursued which takes much space in the whole book. Quotations from texts of Lenin and other Marxist-Leninists are taken out of context in or- der to give them a certain desired direction:

“Lenin regarded the October Revolution as the start of the international revolution against imperialism. He therefore em- phasized:

“ ‘This first victory is not yet the final victory, and it was achieved by our October Revolution at the price of incredible difficulties and hardships, at the price of unprecedented suffering, accompanied by a series of serious reverses and mistakes on our part....

“‘We have made the start. When, at what date and time, and the proletarians of which nation will complete this process is not important. The important thing is that the ice has been broken; the road is open, the way has been shown’.” (“Fourth Anniver- sary of the October Revolution,” Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, pp. 56-57), quoted in: Engel, Dawn..., pp. 33-34)

Here, the false impression is given that this article of Lenin confirms Stefan Engel’s alleged new insights about the interna- tional revolution. This, by the way, would also mean that these “new insights” are not so new. If you read Lenin’s whole article, as we recommend, you will see that this is not at all his subject. What Stefan Engel quotes belongs to the part in which the historical merits of the October Revolution are presented – that this revolution showed how to escape “that inferno” of imperialist wars, an inferno from which people only could escape “by a Bolshevik struggle and a Bolshevik revolution” (ibid, page 56). It is typical that Engel and his collective omit the following passage between the two parts of their “quotation,” since it would have immediately shown that the text does not deal with their subject:

‘How could a single backward people be expected to frustrate the imperialist wars of the most powerful and most devel- oped countries of the world without sustaining reverses and without committing mistakes! We are not afraid to admit our mis- takes and shall examine them dispassionately in order to learn how to correct them. But the fact remains that for the first time... the promise ‘to reply’ to war between the slave-owners by a revo- lution of the slaves directed against all the slave-owners has been completely fulfilled —and is being fulfilled despite all difficulties. We have made the start.” (Continued as quoted by Engel).

So closely is “this work” connected with the Bolshevik revo- lution, the question here is the revolutionary blow against the imperialist war – a further example of how “creatively” Engel bends “his” Lenin into shape. But again the rest of Engel’s asser- tions are already clear from the statements of Marx and Engels. We fight for the revolution in a national form, while its content is international.

In this article on the fourth anniversary of the October Revo- lution, Lenin deals, above all and in an expressly concrete way, with the real, practical tasks in Soviet Russia. He deals unsparingly with the errors and defects. He insists on pushing ahead  with building socialism in one 

country (which later became the Soviet Union) with all his might. The revolution remains interna- 

tional in content, national in form – as Marx and Engels already analyzed it. Here we present a 

little part of this presentation developed by Lenin.

“Let the curs and swine of the moribund bourgeoisie and of the petty-bourgeois democrats who trail behind them heap imprecations, abuse and derision upon our heads for our reverses and mistakes in the work of building up our Soviet system. We do not forget for a moment that we have committed and are commit- ting numerous mistakes and are suffering numerous reverses. How can reverses and mistakes be avoided in a matter so new in the history of the world as the building of an unprecedented type of state edifice! We shall work steadfastly to set our reverses and mistakes right and to improve our practical application of Soviet principles, which is still very, very far from being perfect. But we have a right to be and are proud that to us has fallen the good fortune to begin the building of a Soviet state, and thereby to usher in a new era in world history, the era of the rule of a new class, a class which is oppressed in every capitalist country, but which everywhere is marching forward towards a new life, to- wards victory over the bourgeoisie, towards the dictatorship of the proletariat, towards the emancipation of mankind from the yoke of capital and from imperialist wars.” (“Fourth Anniversary of the October Revolution,” Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, pp. 54-55)

This is Lenin through and through: frank, unsparing, clear, vigorous and pressing forward. Lenin is concrete and grasped the immense difficulties, errors and defects, he demands to overcome them and 

to resolutely build socialism in Soviet Russia (later the Soviet Union), that is, in one country. 

Initially Lenin and also Stalin hoped that the October Revolution would be followed by further revolutions in other countries and in that sense they spoke of an international revolution. But in this text, Lenin already corrects this und speaks about an epoch that began with the revolution in Russia and will end with the worldwide “victory over the bourgeoisie.” Therefore, he presses forward to make the real revolution successful in the national framework and thus to contribute to an international revolution. The form remains national. In order to deny the accusation of Trotskyism, that was also made by the Maoist organization “Trotz alledem,” Stefan Engel again quotes Lenin:

“Lenin already revealed the close connection of the revolution in one country with the international revolution:

“After expropriating the capitalists and organizing their own socialist production, the victorious proletariat of that country will arise against the rest of the world — the capitalist world — attracting to its cause the oppressed classes of other countries, stirring uprisings in those countries against the capitalists, and in case of need using even armed force against the exploiting classes and their states.” (“On the Slogan for a United States of Europe,” Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 342) (In Engel, Dawn..., p. 135)

He omits what Lenin stated immediately before:

“A United States of the World (not of Europe alone) is the state form of the unification and freedom of nations which we associate with socialism — until the time when the complete victory of communism brings about the total disappearance of the state, including the democratic. As a separate slogan, however, the slogan of a United States of the World would hardly be a correct one, first, because it merges with socialism; second, because it may be wrongly interpreted to mean that the victory of social- ism in a single country is impossible, and it may also create misconceptions as to the relations of such a country to the others. 

“Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone.” (“On the Slogan for a United States of Europe, Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 342)

This is clear. It is true that Lenin here speaks of the worldwide victory of socialism and communism as our (long- term) objective. But he does not want such universal slogans to obscure the concrete tasks. Therefore, he opposes big slogans, but demands instead working for the concrete revolution wherever and however it is possible – in one single country too. And he confirms that “uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism,” from which he concludes that the victory of socialism “is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone.” This argument, written in 1915, two years before the October Revolution, clearly contradicts using these words of Lenin to support the vague pipe-dream of an “international revolution.” Here, too, Stefan Engel and his collective of authors omit all the concrete considerations with which Lenin frankly deals with real problems and difficulties and points out a way. But that does not fit the idealist cheers for the “international revolution.”

In his own defense, on page 136 Stefan Engel also quotes Stalin:

“In the debate with the Trotskyites, Stalin too unmistakably defended the reference to the international proletarian revolution:

“The characteristic feature of that danger is lack of confi- dence in the international proletarian revolution; lack of confi- dence in its victory; a sceptical attitude towards the national- liberation movement in the colonies and dependent countries; failure to understand that without the support of the revolution- ary movement in other countries our country would not be able to hold out against world imperialism; failure to understand that the victory of socialism in one country alone cannot be final because it has no guarantee against intervention until the revolution is victorious in at least a number of countries; failure to un- derstand the elementary demand of internationalism, by virtue of which the victory of socialism in one country is not an end in itself, but a means of developing and supporting the revolution in other countries.” (Stalin, “Questions And Answers, Speech De- livered at the Sverdlov University, June 9, 1925,” Works, Vol. 7,p. 169 – bold in this edition, underlining in the original, in Engel, Dawn..., p. 136)

Here, too, it is interesting to see what is not quoted. Stalin deals with the concrete question of  a participant at that conference: “What dangers are there of our Party degenerating as a result of the stabilization of capitalism, if this stabilization lasts a long time?” (Stalin, Works, Vol. 7, 

p. 165)

He gives a list of three possible dangers:

“a) the danger of losing the socialist perspective in our work of building up our country, and the danger of liquidationism con- nected with it;

“b) the danger of losing the international revolutionary per- spective, and the danger of nationalism connected with it;

“c) the danger of a decline of Party leadership and the pos- sibility connected with it of the Party’s conversion into an ap- pendage of the state apparatus.” (Ibid, p. 166)

Engel quotes from the answer to the second question, and Stalin very concretely deals with the debates in the Soviet Union and with bourgeois-nationalist trends within it. At the same time and also in a very concrete manner, he deals with the unevenness of development in the world and the necessity of proletarian internationalism. But first of all Stalin, as a practical revolutionary, starts from the “victory of socialism in one country”! In 1925, victory had just been won against an imperialist war of intervention, with the most difficult efforts, with the hardest fights, and it had only been won with a great deal of international revolutionary solidarity! But only because Stalin’s position is firmly based on this fact do his further observations make real sense: that this victory “cannot be final” because “it has no guarantee against intervention until the revolution is victorious in at least a number of countries,” that “the victory of socialism in one country is not an end in itself, but a means of developing and supporting the revolution in other countries.” Nowadays, no serious communist denies this fact in any way, so that Stefan Engel must provide clarity on this point. Again, the words quoted from Stalin do not support Stefan Engel’s conception of “international revolution.”

Once again it is clear: Stalin did not dream based on abstract wishes and hopes, but he clearly saw 

the national form of the fights without forgetting the “international revolutionary perspective.” 

He confirms the analysis of Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto in the concrete conditions 

in which the CPSU and the Soviet Union was fighting at that time. There is nothing that could support Stefan Engel’s defense of his new phase of a “cartel of the solely ruling financial capital” and his “supermonopolies.”

Obviously, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin are only quoted as showpieces in Engel’s book, to enhance the master’s glory rather than to seriously deal with their real and dialectic-materialist analyses. We could provide numerous other examples where Engel twists quotations. And if Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin did indeed already confirm all the theses of Stefan Engel, we must ask him, what is really new. In all these passages Engel is rather vague, as for example on the question of whether the  statestill has real power or not.

Trotsky and the International Revolution