Part 3 - Ideological Warfare tactics of capitalists against socialism through concepts and theories
Ideological Warfare tactics of capitalists against socialism through concepts and theories
Part 3 - Standing
Army-The military corollary
Lenin vs Trotsky on the Standing
Army
In politics, nothing is
coincidental but a reflection of an ideology in one way or another. No matter
how much the core ideology is masked, the actions will inevitably show the
indications and bring the mask down and expose the real ideology behind it. From
the time of the split as Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in 1903, the opposition to the
insurrection, opposition to the party, treatment of Military Commissars and
favoring Tsarist officers, the "August Bloc", "Trotsky-Zinoviev
Bloc", collaborating with the fascists and imperialists in different
capacities in China, Vietnam, Spain, and other places was never a
coincidence but an inevitable path of Trotsky's ' ideology '.
As Stalin asks;
"Is it
an accident that Trotsky, who, after the Revolution made his way into
the ranks of our Party, slipped up and adopted a counter-revolutionary Menshevik
position and was thrown out beyond the borders of our state, beyond the borders
of the Soviet Union?" The Right Deviation in the C.P.S.U.(B.)
Vyshinsky actually responded to
this question at the court;
"It is not an accident because prior to the October Revolution as well, Trotsky and his friends fought against Lenin and Lenin's Party as they fight now against Stalin and the Party of Lenin and Stalin.”
The fact is that Trotsky
never believed in the possibility of Socialism, not only in one
country, but socialism in general, since there is no possibility of a world
revolution in one leap, at one strike. Trotsky believed in a military dictatorship of an elite group, not much different
than that of Mussolini's or Hitler's, with exporting “revolutions” in mind.
For Trotsky, the working class is a means to the military dictatorship of the elite, not
the dictatorship of the working class.
Although years later he revised
it in words only, but not indeed, here is what he says:
“In its real
significance, a revolution is a fight for control of the State.
That rests directly on the Army. This is why all
revolutions in history sharply raised the question: on whose side
is the army? And one way or another, in every case, this question had
to be answered.” Leon Trotsky, The Young Turks,
Without twisting his words, two
of these remarks are crucial as far as Marxist Leninists are concerned: 1)
revolution” rests directly on the Army and 2) “whose
side is the army".
If we talk about an army,
and mention the "side" it will take, we are,
without any doubt, talking about an existing standing army and
literally saying that the success of a revolution "rests
directly on this Army".
Let’s start with what an army
is in view of Marxism-Leninism
As far back as 1899, Rosa
Luxemburg was saying;
“The most
general standpoint upon which Schippel bases his defense of militarism is his
belief in the necessity of this military system. Using all possible arguments
of a technical, social, and economic nature, he demonstrates the
absolute necessity of a standing army. And from a certain point of view he
is quite correct. A standing army and militarism are indeed indispensable – but
for whom? For the present-day ruling classes and
the contemporary governments. Now what can one conclude from
this other than that, from the class standpoint of the present
government and ruling classes, doing away with the standing army, and
introducing the militia, i.e., arming the people, must appear to be an
impossibility, an absurdity?” Rosa Luxemburg, The Militia and
Militarism
And the same year James Connolly was
saying;
“A standing army
anywhere, in any country, is first of all unnecessary; secondly, a tool in the
hands of oppressors of the people” James Connolly, ‘Soldiers of the
Queen’,
To the question of What is an
army? Lenin responds;
" A
standing army and police are the chief instruments of state power..... The centralized
state power that is peculiar to bourgeois society came into being in
the period of the fall of absolutism. Two institutions are
most characteristic of this state machine: bureaucracy
and the standing army. In their works, Marx and Engels
repeatedly show that it is the bourgeoisie with whom these institutions
are connected by thousands of threads." Lenin, The state,
and revolution
“We cannot,
unless we have become bourgeois pacifists or opportunists, forget that
we are living in a class society from which there is no way out, nor
can there be, save through the class struggle. In every class society, whether
based on slavery, serfdom, or, as at present, wage-labor, the oppressor class
is always armed. Not only the modern standing army, but even the modern
militia—and even in the most democratic bourgeois republics, Switzerland,
for instance—represent the bourgeoisie armed against the proletariat. That
is such an elementary truth that it is hardly necessary to dwell upon
it.” Lenin, The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution
Reading Trotsky's
remarks, he is resting the success of a revolution on
the "question of "whose side the army will be, an
army which Lenin describes as a "parasite" on the body of
bourgeois society. "
What do Marxist Leninists do
with the Army?
“The capitalists now have
directed all their efforts at making the Russian republic as much like a
monarchy as possible so that it might be changed back into a
monarchy with the least difficulty (this has happened time and again
in many countries). For this purpose, “says Lenin, “the
capitalists want to preserve the bureaucracy, which stands above the
people, to preserve the police and the standing army, which is
separated from the people and commanded by non-elective generals and other
officers. And the generals and other officers, unless they are
elected, will almost invariably be landowners and capitalists. That
much we know from the experience of all the republics in the world.
Our Party, the party of
class-conscious workers and poor peasants, is therefore working for a
democratic republic of another kind. We want a republic where there is no
police that browbeats the people; where all officials, from the bottom up, are
elective and displaceable whenever the people demand it, and are paid salaries
not higher than the wages of a competent worker; where all army officers are
similarly elective and where the standing army separated from the people
and subordinated to classes alien to the people is replaced by the universally
armed people, by a people’s militia.” Lenin, An Open Letter to the
Delegates to the All-Russia Congress of Peasants’ Deputies
Trotsky not only
suggests cooperation with the army but reconstructing and
"partly" dismissing the army. Here is what he says;
“To establish
revolutionary cooperation with the army, the peasantry, and the
plebeian lower strata of the urban bourgeoisie. To abolish absolutism. To
destroy the material organization of absolutism by reconstructing
and partly dismissing the army. Leon Trotsky, Our
Revolution, The Soviet and the Revolution
Lenin, however,
speaks of the "abolition" of the standing army and "arming
the people." Here is what Lenin says;
". . .
The first decree of the Commune . . . was the suppression
of the standing army, and the substitution for it of the armed
people." This demand now figures in the program of every
party claiming the name of Socialist.
"The Commune," Marx
wrote, "made that catchword of bourgeois revolutions, cheap government, a
reality, by destroying the two greatest sources of expenditure
-- the standing army and State functionaries." Lenin,
“The State and Revolution”: What is the smashed state machine to be
replaced?
The question of the army is not
separated from the question of the state. The state apparatus needs to be smashed; all
other institutions need to be wrested from capitalist control, for the use
and benefit of the new. Trotsky looks at the question differently. His
admiration for the army goes so far that the insurrection was against the
commanding army staff, not to Monarchy, and if the "bad
apples" in the army are cleaned, the army, serving the society,
could be revived.
“In the minds
of the soldiers, the insurrection against the monarchy was primarily
an insurrection against the commanding staff.
An army is
always a copy of the society it serves – with this difference,
that it gives social relations a concentrated character, carrying both their
positive and negative features to an extreme.
The ill-will
and friction between the democratic and aristocratic officers, incapable
of reviving the army, only introduced a further element of
decomposition. Even many fighting officers, those who seriously cared
about the fate of the army, insisted upon the necessity of a general
clean-up of the commanding staff.” Leon Trotsky, The History of the
Russian Revolution, Volume One: The Overthrow of Tzarism
Lenin, however, finds this approach
of not replacing but a “general clean-up” as a deception and trick in
the service of the bourgeoisie.
“The minimum
programme of the Social-Democrats calls for the replacement of
the standing army by a universal arming of the people… it is most
urgent and essential that there be a universal arming of the people. To
assert that, while we have a revolutionary army, there is no need to arm the
proletariat, or that there would “not be enough” arms to go around, is
mere deception and trickery. The thing is to begin organising a
universal militia straight away, so that everyone should learn the use of arms
even if there is “not enough” to go around, for it is not at all necessary that
the people have enough weapons to arm everybody. The people must learn, one and
all, how to use arms, they must belong, one and all, to the militia which is to
replace the police and the standing army…..
The workers do
not want an army standing apart from the people; what they want is that
the workers and soldiers should merge into a single militia consisting
of all the people. Failing this, the apparatus of oppression will remain in
force…, Replacement of the old organs of oppression, the police, the
bureaucracy, the standing army, by a universal arming of the people, by
a really universal militia, is the only way to guarantee the
country a maximum of security against the restoration.
Public service
through a police force standing above the people, through bureaucrats, who are
the most faithful servants of the bourgeoisie, and through a standing
army under the command of landowners and capitalists—that is
the ideal of the bourgeois parliamentary republic, which is out to
perpetuate the rule of Capital.
Public service
through a really universal people’s militia, composed of men
and women, a militia capable partly of replacing the bureaucrats—this, combined
with the principle of elective office and displaceability of all public
officers, with payment for their work according to proletarian, not
“master-class”, bourgeois standards, is the ideal of the working
class.” Lenin, A Proletarian Militia
Countering the bourgeois demand
of keeping or “cleaning-up of the standing army under the command of landowners
and capitalists, Lenin, explaining the soldiers' demands and intentions, states;
“The soldiers
do not want to keep out of politics. The soldiers do not agree with
the Cadets. The soldiers are advancing a demand that obviously amounts
to the abolition of the caste army, of the army that is isolated from the
people, and its replacement by an army of free and equal
citizens. Now this is exactly the same thing as the
abolition of the standing army and the arming of the people.
They are
demanding freedom of assembly and of association for soldiers “without
the consent or presence of officers”. Lenin, The Army & the
People
In connection with that, defends
arming of people;
“the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour Party advances as its immediate political task the
over throw of the tsarist autocracy and its replacement by
a republic based on a democratic constitution that would
ensure: general arming of the people instead of maintaining a standing
army;” Lenin, Material for the Preparation of the Programme
of the R.S.D.L.P. January-April 1902, Collected Works, Volume 6,
pages 17-78."The Soviets are a new state apparatus which, in the first
place, provides an armed force of workers and peasants; and this
force is not divorced from the people.. From the military point of
view this force is incomparably more powerful than
previous forces; from the revolutionary point of view, it cannot be
replaced by anything else." Lenin: Can the Bolsheviks retain
the Power?
Trotsky says;
“Territorial-economic
districts must form the basis both of the Soviet territorial-administrative
system (region, province, uyezd, volost) and of the local military organs
(commissariats), in the course of the gradual transition from the
standing army to the militia.” Trotsky, The Transition
to Universal Labour Service
Lenin says;
“Everywhere,
in all countries, the standing army is used not so much against the external
enemy as against the internal enemy. Everywhere the standing
army has become the weapon of reaction, the servant of capital in its struggle
against labour, the executioner of the people’s liberty. Let us not,
therefore, stop short at mere partial demands in our great liberating
revolution. Let us tear the evil up by the roots. Let us do away with
the standing army altogether…. The experience of Western Europe has shown
how utterly reactionary the standing army is.” Lenin, The Armed Forces,
and the Revolution
“We are in
favour of a people's republic, without a standing army, bureaucracy,
or police force. In place of a standing army we demand a
national guard with elected commanders.” Stalin, The Constituent
Assembly elections, July 27, 1917
Another staunch Trotskyite,
General Tukhachevsky, spells out the Trotskyite, anti-Marxist
view of “exporting of revolution by force, by means of war”. During
the heated discussions between the supporters of the militia system and the
advocates of a standing army, the chief spokesman for the standing army was
Tukhachevsky. He published a polemic entitled “The Red Army and the Militia” in
January 1921, in which he states;
“The adherents of the militia
system take absolutely no account of Soviet Russia’s present military
mission of disseminating socialist revolution throughout the world. The
rich varieties of socialist life and the socialist revolution cannot be forced
into any particular framework. They will spread irresistibly over the
whole world, and their expanding force will endure so long as there is
a bourgeoisie left anywhere.
“What is the way in which they
will best achieve their aims? It is the way of armed insurrection within every
state, or the way of armed socialist attacks on bourgeois states, or a
combination of both ways. No one can make definite prophecies, for the course
of the Revolution will show us the right way. One thing, however, is certain:
if a socialist revolution succeeds in gaining power in any country, it will
have a self-evident right to expand, and will strive to cover the whole world
by making its immediate influence felt in all neighboring countries. Its
most powerful instrument will naturally be its military forces.
“The structure
of an army is determined on the one hand by the political aims it
pursues and on the other by the recruiting system it employs.” Tukhachevsky,
The Red Army and the Militia
For Marxist Leninists, the
question of exporting revolution by force or otherwise is
fundamentally anti-Marxist and not even worth debating.
Going back to March 1848, at a
meeting of the German Workers’ Club in Paris, Marx opposes the adventurist “export
of revolution” planned by the petty-bourgeois leaders of the German
migrants in Paris. The quotes below should suffice to comprehend the Marxist-Leninist attitude.
Engels;
“One thing alone
is certain: the victorious proletariat can force no blessings of any
kind upon any foreign nation without undermining its own victory by
so doing. Which of course by no means excludes defensive wars of
various kinds.” Engels to Karl Kautsky In Vienna, 12 September 1882
Lenin;
“There is
one, and only one, kind of real internationalism, and that is—working
whole-heartedly for the development of the revolutionary movement and the
revolutionary struggle in one’s own country, and supporting (by
propaganda, sympathy, and material aid) this struggle, this, and only this,
line, in every country without exception. Everything else is deception and
Manilovism.” Lenin, The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution
Stalin;
“The export
of revolution is nonsense. Every country will make its own revolution
if it wants to, and if it does not want to, there will be no revolution.” Interview
Between J. Stalin and Roy Howard
Marxist Leninists do not
expect and rely on the Army switching sides for the revolution. The
success of the revolution depends largely on the revolutionary
activity and the ability of the vanguard Party and the proletariat to
organize and ally themselves with great masses of the other exploited and
oppressed groups and classes of the population. Revolutionary activity
does not exclude working among the soldiers, since most of them belong
either to the poor peasants or the middle strata. As Stalin puts it;
” The question
of the middle strata is undoubtedly one of the basic questions of the workers'
revolution… these are the strata whose economic status puts them midway between
the proletariat and the capitalist class… they constitute the important
reserves from which the capitalist class recruits its army against the
proletariat. The proletariat cannot retain power unless it enjoys the
sympathy and support of the middle strata, primarily of the peasantry.. The
proletariat cannot even seriously contemplate seizing power if these strata
have not been at least neutralized, if they have not yet managed to break away
from the capitalist class, and if the bulk of them still serve as the army of
capital.” Stalin, The October Revolution, and the Question of the
Middle Strata
Marxists, in addition to the Party’s
military cadres, arm the people and do not call on Army but soldiers, troopers.
December 1905 Bolshevik Leaflet states: “Strictly differentiate between your
conscious enemies and your unconscious and accidental enemies. Destroy the
former and have mercy on the latter. If possible, do not bother the infantry. Soldiers
are the children of the people and do not go against the people by their own
will. The officers and the higher leadership set them on the people. Direct
your energies against these officers and authorities. Every officer leading
soldiers to beat workers proclaims himself an enemy of the people and puts
himself outside the law. Kill him unconditionally.” Combat
Organization of the Moscow Committee of the RSDLP
As does Trotsky, not in so many
words but indeed, the bourgeoisie likes to describe any revolutionary
uprising as something artificial, a military “putsch”, and
try to minimize the power of working masses. In reference to the 1905
uprising, countering such arguments, Lenin says: “In reality, the
inexorable trend of the Russian revolution was towards an armed, decisive
battle between the tsarist government and the vanguard of the
class-conscious proletariat.” Lenin, Lecture on the 1905
revolution, January 9,1917
Neither Trotsky’s reliance on the
switching of the standing army for the success of revolution, nor Tukhachevsky’s
statement of “exporting of revolution” is accidental. As history has proven, it was an inevitable path derived from ideology. It is not an accident but
the reflection of ideology in practice, regardless of how skillfully disguised
with Marxist-Leninist phrases.
The army’s switching sides as the
determining factor on which the success of “revolution” rests directly on it, in
fact corresponds to the concept of a military “putsch”. “The term “putsch”, in
its scientific sense, “says Lenin, “may be employed only when the
attempt at insurrection has revealed nothing but a circle of
conspirators or stupid maniacs and has aroused no sympathy among the
masses.” Giving an example of the Irish rebellion, Lenin notes;
“So, one
army lines up in one place and says, “We are for
socialism”, and another, somewhere else and says, “We are for
imperialism”, and that will be a social revolution! Only those
who hold such a ridiculously pedantic view could vilify the Irish
rebellion by calling it a “putsch”. Lenin: The Discussion
on Self-Determination Summed Up
An army in any given country
is the chief instrument of state power. From top down, all the officers
controlling the army are either a part of the ruling class or
well-paid and receiving their lion's share from the exploitation
of natural resources and of laboring masses. To rest the success of revolution
on the “switching side of the army, and to speak about cooperation with the army, and
after the revolution “cleaning up the bad apples and keeping the army cannot
be proposed by a Marxist-Leninist, but by a bourgeois. Marxist-Leninists
abolish the standing army and arm the people, setting up a revolutionary army in
the process.
