The Bolsheviks: From Ideological Conflict to Civil War
The Russian Revolution and the Dialectic of Saturn
In the eyes of Khrushchev, Stalin is tarnished by the horrendous crimes against comrades from his own party, having deviated from Leninism and Bolshevism and having betrayed the ideals of socialism. But it’s precisely the reciprocal accusations of betrayal that contributed in a very important way to the tragedies which struck Soviet Russia; accusations that hasten or deepen the internal divisions in the leadership group from October 1917. How to explain these divisions? The dialectic of “Saturn devouring her own children” is certainly not a trait exclusive to the October Revolution: the consensus that presides over the overthrow of an old regime rejected by the majority of the people can inevitably crumble or wither at the moment in which they try to determine how the new order should be constructed. This is also true for the English and American Revolutions.129 But this dialectic in Russia is felt in a particularly violent and prolonged way. Even at the time of the Czarist autocracy’s collapse, while the attempts to restore the monarchy or to establish a military dictatorship persist, there’s a painful decision imposed on those who are determined to avoid a return to the past: to concentrate on peace first or, as the Mensheviks argue, to continue or even intensify the war efforts, rallying Russia behind the slogan of democratic interventionism.
The consolidation of the Bolshevik victory in no way ends the dialectic of Saturn, which gets further intensified, in fact. Lenin’s call for the conquest of power and the revolution’s transformation in a socialist direction is considered an intolerable deviation from Marxism in the eyes of Kamenev and Zinoviev, who alert the Mensheviks to the situation and therefore invite upon themselves the accusation of betrayal from the majority of the Bolshevik party. It’s a debate that extends beyond Russia’s borders and the communist movement itself. The social democrats are the first to cry out against the scandalous abandonment of orthodoxy, which excluded the possibility of a socialist revolution in a country that hadn’t yet passed through full capitalist development; while both Karl Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg condemned Lenin’s embrace of the slogan “land to the peasantry” as an abandonment of the path toward socialism.
Here, however, it’s worth concentrating on the divisions that occur within the Bolshevik leadership group itself. The millenarian expectations that arise from a combination of circumstances, both objective and subjective, explains the particularly devastating strength demonstrated by the dialectic of Saturn. Fear and indignation, universally shared, caused by the unspeakable carnage and conflict between different states as if it they were Moloch, determined to sacrifice millions and millions of men on the altar of national defense, when in reality they are competing in an imperialist race for world hegemony, all of this strengthens the demand for a completely new political and social order: it’s a matter of once and for all ripping out the roots from from which all the horrors since 1914 had emerged. Nurtured by a world view (which with Marx and Engels appears to call for a future without national borders, market relations, a state apparatus, and even judicial coercion) and by an almost religious approach to the texts of the communist movement’s founders, that demand could only be a disappointment once the structure of the new order begins to take form.
Therefore, well before being central to Trotsky’s thoughts and the criticisms he made, and after having already manifested itself during the collapse of the Tsarist autocracy, the theme of the revolution betrayed looms like a shadow over the history that begins with the Bolshevik rise to power. The accusation or the suspicion of betrayal emerges at every turn of this particularly tortured revolution, driven by the government’s need to reconsider some of the original utopian motives, and in any case forced to moderate their grand ambitions given the extreme difficulties of the objective situation.
The first challenges faced by the new political order is that represented by the dissolution of the state apparatus and by the continued widespread anarchy among the peasantry (who lack any state or national vision, and are therefore quite indifferent to the plight of the cities, which lack any sources of food) inclined to establish short lived “peasant republics”; anarchy was also present among deserters, already hostile to all forms of discipline (as is confirmed by the rise of a “Free Republic of Deserters” in a district of Bessarabia). In this case, it’s Trotsky who’s labeled a traitor, who as leader of the army is on the front line in the restoration of centralized power and the very existence of the State: at this time it’s the peasantry, the deserters (among them deserters from the Red Army) and outcasts who lay claim to the “authentic” socialism and the “true” soviets, and who long for Lenin (who had endorsed or encouraged the revolt against state power) and who consider Trotsky and the Jews to be vile usurpers.130 One can place in that same context the revolt in 1921 by sailors in Kronstadt. From what it appears, on this occasion Stalin had spoken in favor of a more cautious approach, that is, waiting for the depletion of fuel and food provisions available to the besieged fortress; but in a situation in which the danger of civil war and intervention by counter-revolutionary powers had not yet vanished, a quick military solution ends up being imposed. Again, it’s Trotsky, the “police officer” or marshall, who is considered the “defender of bureaucratic organization”, “dictator”, and, in the last analysis, traitor to the original spirit of the revolution. Trotsky, for his part, suspects Zinoviev of having for weeks encouraged the agitation that then turns into a revolt, demagogically wielding the banner of “worker democracy [...] like in 1917."131 Judging from these events, the first accusation of “betrayal” is an inevitable step in all revolutions, but it’s especially painful when it’s a revolution carried out in the name of the state’s withering away, from the moment of the old regime’s overthrow up until the construction of the new order, from the “libertarian” phase up until the “authoritarian” phase. Naturally, the accusation or suspicion of “betrayal” is tied to personal ambitions and the struggle for power.
The Foreign Ministry “Closes Up Shop”
The jingoistic rhetoric and national hatreds, in part “spontaneous”, in part intentionally fanned, led to the nightmare of imperialist war. The need to put an end to all this takes on an all consuming importance. Thus, a totally unrealistic internationalism emerges in certain parts of the communist movement, which tends to dismiss different national identities as mere prejudices. Let’s see in what terms, at the start of 1918, Bukharin opposes not only the peace of Brest-Litovsk, but any attempt on the part of Soviet power to exploit the contradictions among the various imperialist powers, whether by stipulating agreements or doing deals with one or the other: “What are we doing? We are turning the party into a dung heap [...]. We always said [...] that sooner or later the Russian Revolution would have to clash with international capital. That moment has now come."132
It’s easy to understand the deception and unease of Bukharin who nearly two years earlier―against a war to the last drop of blood between the great capitalist powers and between different nation states, and against the chauvinist turn by social democracy―had supported a vision of humanity finally united in brotherhood thanks to the “social revolution of the international proletariat, that through arms toppled the dictatorship of financial capital." With the defeat of “the socialist epigones of Marxism” (guilty of having forgotten or repressed “the well known thesis from the Communist Manifesto”, according to which “the workers have no fatherland”), “thus ends the final way of limiting the proletariat's conception of the world: the limitations of its nation state and its patriotism”; “the slogan for the abolition of state borders and the convergence of the peoples into a single socialist family."133
It’s not a matter of a single person’s illusions. Upon taking the position as People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Trotsky would declare: “I shall publish some revolutionary decrees to the peoples of the world, then I will close up shop."134 With the arrival of a unified humanity across the world following the ruins of war and a wave of global revolution, the ministry that would prove to be superfluous is that which would normally handle relations between different states. Compared to this enthusiastic perspective, reality and the political project―as revealed by the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, with the return of state and national borders and even the return of the state’s raison d'être―must appear mediocre and disappointing! It’s not a small number of Bolshevik members and leaders who experience that event as the fall, or even the vile abandonment and betrayal of an entire world of ideals and hopes. Certainly, it would not be easy to resist Wilhelm II’s armies, but to make concessions to German imperialism just because the Russian peasantry, self absorbed in their own interests and ignorant of the responsibilities imposed on them by world revolution, refuse to continue fighting? Is that not proof of the nascent “peasant degeneration within our party and Soviet power”? Toward the end of 1924 Bukharin describes the common sentiments among “the ‘pure blooded’ left communists” and the “circles that sympathized with comrade Trotsky” during the Brest-Litovsk period: “comrade Riazanov stood out in particular, who at the time quit the party because, in his opinion, we had lost revolutionary purity."135 Apart from individual figures, there are important party organizations that declare: “In the interest of the international revolution, we judge it opportune to accept the possibility of losing Soviet power, which has now become something purely formal." They are “strange and monstrous” words from Lenin’s perspective,136 who’s suspected and accused of treason, and even becomes the target of a coup plot by Bukharin, however vague it may have been.137
All of the prestige and energy of the great revolutionary leader is needed to overcome the crisis. But it emerges again some years later. With the defeat of the central powers and the outbreak of revolution in Germany, Austria, Hungary and its potential outbreak in other countries, the outlook the Bolsheviks were forced to abandon with Brest-Litovsk appears to again acquire new vitality and relevance. At the conclusion to the First Congress of the Communist International, it’s Lenin himself who declares: “The victory of the worldwide proletarian revolution is guaranteed. The founding of the International Soviet Republic draws near."138 Therefore, the imminent defeat of capitalism around the world would have been rapidly followed by the fusion of different nations and different states into a single entity: again, the foreign ministry was about to become superfluous!
The twilight of that illusion coincides with Lenin’s illness and death. The new crisis is even more serious because now, inside the Bolshevik party, there’s no indisputable authority. From the point of view of Trotsky, his allies, and his followers, there can be no doubt: what had dictated the choice of “socialism in one country” and the consequent neglect of the idea of world revolution, wasn’t political realism and a calculation of the balance of forces, but bureaucracy, opportunism, cowardice, and in the last analysis, betrayal.
The first to face this accusation is Stalin, who from the start had dedicated special attention to the national question, looking toward the victory of the revolution at an international level, but thinking first of Russia. Between February and October of 1917, he had presented the proletarian revolution not only as the necessary instrument to build the new social order, but to also reaffirm Russia’s national independence. The Entente tried to force Russia, through all possible means, to continue fighting and bleeding, and similarly tried to transform it into some type of “colony of Britain, America and France”; worse yet, they behaved in Russia as if they were “in Central Africa”;139 complicit in this operation were the Mensheviks, who with their insistence on the war’s continuation, accepted the imperialist diktat, and were open to the “gradual sale of Russia to the foreign capitalists”, leading the country “to ruin” and revealing themselves, therefore, as the true “traitors” to the nation. Against all this, the completion of the revolution not only promoted the emancipation of the popular classes, but cleared “the way to the effective liberation of Russia."140
After October, the counter-revolution, unleashed by the Whites and supported or encouraged by the Entente, was also defeated due to the appeal to the Russian people by the Bolsheviks to resist the invasion by the imperialist powers determined to reduce Russia to a colony or semi-colony of the West; it’s for that reason even officers from the nobility had given their support to the new Soviet order.141 And Stalin had distinguished himself once again in promoting this line, describing the situation during the civil war as follows:
A victory by Denikin and Kolchak means the loss of Russia’s independence, the transformation of Russia into a rich source of money for the Anglo-French capitalists. In that sense, the Denikin-Kolchak government is the most anti-popular and anti-national government. In that sense, the soviet government is the only popular and national government in the best meaning of this term, because it carries with it not only the liberation of the workers from capital, but also the liberation of all of Russia from the yoke of world imperialism, and the transformation of Russia from a colony into a free and independent country.142
The rear of the Polish armies [...] differ notably to those of Kolchak and Denikin, to Poland’s great advantage. Different from the rearguard of Kolchak and Denikin, the Polish troops are homogeneous and have a single nationality. From there arises their unity and stability. “Patriotic sentiment” prevails in the spirit of their people, which reaches the frontlines in a number of ways, creating a sense of national unity and steadfastness among the troops.
Exporting revolution is nonsense. Each country can have its revolution if it wishes, but if it doesn’t want it, there won’t be a revolution. Our country wanted to have a revolution and it did.
We cite word by word. The theory of revolution in one country is the natural next step after the theory of socialism in one country [...]. We have proclaimed an infinite number of times that the proletariat in the country with the victorious revolution is morally obligated to help the revolting and oppressed classes, and not only in the realm of ideas, but also with weapons, if possible. And we haven’t limited ourselves to declaring it. We have defended with weapons the workers of Finland, Estonia and Georgia. We tried, by marching on Warsaw with the Red Army, to offer the Polish proletariat the opportunity to have an insurrection.147
It’s the realization of Psalm Four from Sunday Vespers and the Magnificat: the powerful are toppled from their thrones and the poor are rescued from misery [...] There’s no longer any rich, only the poor and the very poor. Knowledge does not confer privilege or respect. The former worker promoted to manager gives orders to the engineers. The gap between higher and lower salaries is narrowed. The right to property is reduced to personal possessions. The judge is no longer obligated to apply the law if his sense of proletarian equality contradicts it.153
We, communist youths, all grew up with the conviction that money would disappear once and for all [...]. If money returned, wouldn’t the rich also reappear? Would we not find ourselves on a slippery slope that leads us to capitalism?155
The idealization of agricultural communes was encouraged at a certain time, going as far as to introduce workshops and factories into the communes, where skilled and unskilled workers, working each according to their vocation, had to put their salary in the common fund, and later divide it in equal parts. It’s well known how much damage was caused for our industry by these puerile exercises in leveling due to “left” bunglers.161
Whether “radical” or “superficial”, the differences between the worker aristocracy and the proletarian masses matter little from the perspective of Stalinist sociology; in any case, it’s this difference that gave birth in its time to the need to break with social democracy and to found the Third International.169
Instead, it’s a matter of encouraging access to education for all social strata who had been excluded up until then. On the opposing side, Trotsky recognized that there had been a process of “training scientific cadre originating from the people”, and yet he claimed: “The social gap between manual and intellectual labor has increased during the last few years instead of decreasing."171 The continuation of the division of labor and the continuation of social and economic inequalities were two sides of the same coin; in other words, it’s the return of capitalist exploitation and, therefore, of the complete betrayal of socialist ideals:There are some who think that the suppression of the antagonism between intellectual labor and physical labor can be achieved through a certain cultural and technical leveling of intellectual and manual workers, that it could be attained by lowering the cultural and technical level of engineers and specialists, of the intellectual workers, and even the level of moderately skilled workers. That is absolutely wrong.170
Therefore, the very presence of the “maid” as a social figure, and the servant in general, was synonymous not only with exploitation, but “exploitation under its most barbaric forms”; and how do you explain the continuation or the reemergence in the USSR of such relations, if not by the abandonment of an authentically socialist perspective, in other words, by betrayal?The new constitution, in declaring that “exploitation of man by man is abolished in the USSR”, says the opposite of the truth. The new social differentiation created the conditions for a rebirth of exploitation under the most barbaric forms, like the hiring of a man for another’s personal service. Servants are not counted in the census, having evidently been included under the category of “workers." The following questions are not made: does the Soviet citizen have servants and what kind (maid, cook, nurse, governess, driver)? Do you have an automobile? How many rooms do you have? Nor does it even speak of the amount of their salary! If the Soviet rule that deprived political rights to those who exploited the work of others was restored, you would suddenly see that the top leaders of Soviet society ought to be deprived of their constitutional rights! Fortunately, a complete equality has been established… between master and servant.172
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