Continuing a presentation of the components of Classical Marxism Leninism preparatory to assessing the system’s merits and demerits as ideology for contemporary practice, this entry presents Leninism as overwhelmingly excerpted from a book titled What Is To Be Undone that was published in 1974. It aims to present a summary of Leninism as used by Lenin and Trotsky in their day to day practice back then, but also as Leninism is used nowadays. What constitutes Leninism? What is being Leninist?
We start with two offset quotations. First, Lenin asks, “What is to be done?”[1]
And second, Keynes commented, “…we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.[2]
Then the chapter proceeds: Classical Marxism provides a social, political, economic world view. It is neither complete, nor determinist. It allows some predictions, but does not help with certain others. It facilitates our understanding of some situations but says little or nothing about many others. Lenin the revolutionist took on the responsibility of formulating sound strategy based on the dictates of his own theory, the experiences of his own interactions with his own particular environment, and his own understanding of the interrelation of each of these with the other.
Leninist strategy covers multitudes of situations and comprises countless volumes of writings. Here we are concerned not with the whole of that, but only with its most generally utilized strategic and tactical dispositions, which, in coordination with a grounding in Classical Marxist theory, provide Marxist Leninists with the essence of their ideology. We must try now to first determine and later assess it if we are to either follow rationally in the Leninist tradition, or if we are to decide that it is deficient and should be updated or even replaced.
Lenin was a strategic pragmatist par excellence—he recognized the absolute necessity of working with material at hand to accomplish as much as possible. So he wrote: “We can and must begin to build socialism not with imaginary human material, not with human material invented by us, but with the human material bequeathed to us by the capitalists.”[3]
Lenin always attempted to work scientifically and although of course he was not the first to take up the socialist struggle, he was, at least according to Georg Lukacs “alone in thinking through every question radically to its very end: in radically transforming his theoretical insight into practice.”[4]
In accord, Lenin himself wrote: “Of course without a revolutionary mood among the masses and without conditions favoring the growth of this mood, revolutionary tactics would never be converted into action; but we in Russia have been convinced by long, painful, and bloody experiences of the truth that revolutionary tactics cannot be built up upon revolutionary moods alone. Tactics must be based upon a sober and strictly objective estimation of all the class forces in a given state as well as of the experiences of the revolutionary movements.”[5]
Lenin believed and Classical Leninists now believe that revolutions are created by only those people functioning in certain specific contexts, and functioning effectively in those contexts. And so he wrote that a revolution’s “creation is facilitated by correct revolutionary theory, which in its turn, is not a dogma but assumes final shape only in close connection with the practical activity of a truly mass and truly revolutionary movement.”[6]
Many of Classical Leninism’s initial strategic biases come directly from the Classical Marxist legacy. Classical Marxism says workers become a class because their similar position with relation to production gives them a shared world view. It says workers have power because of their numbers; workers are organized by their factory milieu to respond easily to discipline and to function easily in parties which can lead revolutions; and workers eventually join such parties and revolt precisely because their situations become steadily worse to the point of being unbearable.
The Marxism of the Manifesto drew a very clear distinction between immediate and future tasks. Immediately and most specifically in Germany, communists were to aid in carrying out the middle-class revolution against feudal monarchy, and at the same time to lay a groundwork for future conflict between the proletariat and the middle class. Marxism’s analysis of the conditions in Germany at the time of the Manifesto made it clear that the proletariat must carry through and perhaps even lead the bourgeois revolution and that it must do that by means of a powerful party.
Marx and Engels as strategists, as classically interpreted, considered the party a vehicle for better leading the working classes. If a party was deficient or caused them personal difficulties the solution was to eliminate it. Marx and Engels saw themselves as the world’s most effectual communists and believed their relation to revolution and to a party of revolution had to be different from that of other people. So Marx wrote: “What have we to do with a party that is nothing more than a herd of asses, and that swears by us because their members look upon us as their equals?”[7]
The answer: we lead such a party for as long as it suits us. Marx and Engels emphasized the need for other people’s discipline that they felt central to successful operations, but their own behavior was to be different precisely because they were the brightest of the intellectuals. They would never submit themselves to any outside authority, but others would certainly have to. The noted Marx and Marxism scholar Shlomo Avineri described this aspect of their attitudes very clearly: “Marx’s and Engels’ theoretical awareness of the limitations of proletarian revolutions and their need for intellectual guidance was coupled with disdain, if not outright contempt, for those leaders of the movement who were themselves of working class origin: especially so far as Marx was concerned, a certain intellectual hauteur is clearly visible in his comments. This attitude is exemplified by Marx’s behavior toward Wilhelm Weitling, to whom he Occasionally used to refer as ‘a tailor’s king’; even one of his own most loyal followers, George Eccarius, also a tailor by trade, came in for a generous measure of unearned contempt from his teacher and master. The Marx-Engels correspondence abounds in numerous allusions to the worker’s intellectual limitations, stupidity, and narrow-mindedness. Sometimes they are dismissed in such derogatory terms as ‘asses,’ ‘Knoten,’ ‘Straubinger.’ In a letter written in 1870 Engels voices some anxiety at the decrease, since 1848, of the supply of intellectuals in the socialist movement, being apprehensive lest a situation come about in which the workers will have to do everything by themselves.”[8]
And in another place Avineri wrote: “Marx’s position may consequently be stated as follows: in Western, industrialized societies, socialist intellectuals are bound to hold leading positions in the proletarian movement; this is indispensable for the very success of the revolutionary effort; it gives it direction, historical insight, leadership, moderation, and endurance.”[9]
Classical Marxism’s strategic gift to Lenin came out of Marx’s analysis of Germany’s need for a democratic revolution led by the German proletariat. Marx and Engels were both concerned that the German middle class couldn’t engineer such a revolution alone.
I interject: What, actually, does the word “led” mean as used in various passages, including various quotations? Does it mean most numerous participants? Then every U.S. war and every production of every U.S. product and so on has been led by the U.S. proletariat. So, not that. Does it instead mean carried through to further the interests of the proletariat? But then, for any action, production, or revolution what evidence would indicate that enhanced proletarian interests were the outcome or even the intent?
The chapter continues: Thus the Marxist program called for the workers to lead the middle class revolution, to give it a proletarian orientation, and to lead it toward future class struggles and a future proletarian revolution. But the workers had no experience in such matters, and since they could not spontaneously get such experience, Marx, at least in the Classical interpretation, saw the need for a revolutionary party of iron discipline led by class-conscious intellectuals and followed by all proletarians.
Lenin was the foremost intellectual of that type in Russia. According to Classical Marxism if he was to succeed as a leader he would have to be guided by the dictates of Classical Marxist theory, by the content of his own Classical Marxist analysis of his surroundings, and perhaps most importantly by his own practical understanding of the interrelations between theory, strategy, and tactics.
Lenin often created tactical guidelines: victory is impossible unless attack is as well known as retreat; unless legal and illegal activities are combined into functional programs; unless fighting is never initiated at a time advantageous to the enemy; and unless the strictest discipline and centralization of organization is employed in all practice. But at the same time Lenin never allowed himself to get blindly caught up in such formulations—he understood that the lessons of one situation could never be randomly applied to another, and that there were no iron clad rules except perhaps those in the body of theoretical Marxism itself. In this context and in reference to the needs for a multitude of tactical alignments for his forces, Lenin favorably quotes another as having said that, “political activity is not the pavement of the (straight) Nevsky Prospect;” one must change to fit changing situations.”[10]
This meant the problem what to do and how to do it wasn’t one with a timeless principled answer, but was instead one with reference only to specific situations and specific times, and with answers which would therefore vary, and tactics which would also vary as contexts and times changed. Lenin understood that a theorist was only consequential insofar as he could refer the general to the specific and insofar as he could be flexible enough to change as the specific itself changed.
Perhaps it was for this reason that Lukacs said: “Lenin’s greatness as a dialectician consisted in his ability to see the basic principles of the dialectic, the development of the productive forces and the class struggle in their innermost essence, concretely, without abstract prejudices, but also without being fetishistically confused by superficialities. He always related all phenomena to their ultimate basis — to the concrete actions of concrete (in other words class-conditioned) men in accordance with their real class interests.”[11]
Lenin’s emphasis on the mutable nature of tactical choices was evident in his attack upon what he called leftist tendencies toward arbitrary irredeemable tactical rules. For example he wrote for leftists “…to refuse beforehand to maneuver, to utilize the conflict of interests (even though temporarily) among one’s enemies, to refuse to temporize and compromise with possible (even though transitory, unstable, vacillating, and conditional) allies—is not this ridiculous in the extreme? Is it not as though, when making an ascent of an unexplored and hitherto inaccessible mountain, we were to refuse beforehand ever to move in zigzags, ever to retrace our steps, ever to abandon the course once selected to try others?”[12]
The leftists Lenin criticized seemingly feared zigzags while Lenin in some sense adored them as additions to his tactical arsenal—and up to this point he was quite right. The real question, though, was how well he or anyone could assess the merits and costs of potential zigzags given his or their theoretical armature. How well could he perceive which was a straight path and which a crooked one, and more importantly how well could he recognize which path held pitfalls and which was relatively safe for travel?
The relation one takes to the question of compromise often illuminates one’s understanding of the nature of tactics and strategy precisely because the question of compromise is often fraught with debates surrounding the need for principles, steadfastness, and flexibility. Before proceeding with Lenin’s general strategic views, and by way of an introduction to his tactical style, it makes some sense to consider his ways of relating to the idea of compromise with existing authorities.
Lenin felt that one should or should not compromise not on the basis of some timeless principles, but rather on the basis of specific analyses of specific situations. He felt that compromise was a tactic and that like all other tactics it had use at some times but should be ignored at others. He wasn’t arbitrary and he was never inconsistent. He favored compromise when it was made necessary by objective conditions or when it seemed likely to lead to large gains. He rejected compromise when he felt it ill-suited to the demands of a specific situation, when it seemed unnecessary, or of course when it seemed likely to lead to unnecessary losses.
So, for example, when those he called “infantile leftists” argued that working in parliament was a backward step, Lenin was concerned. And when they went on to say that parliaments were obsolete and that leftists should accept the principle that compromises with parliaments were universally detrimental, he felt their position amounted to sheer lunacy. He argued that it was quite necessary to use parliaments to reach workers and that no such principled stances about tactics made any sense anyway. He analyzed specific tactics with reference to specific conditions of their times and in this case he determined that working with parliaments was useful because it could create allies inside; because it could be an educational tool; because it could demonstrate parliamentary inadequacies; and because in crises people in parliament could be very useful. He also determined that compromise in this situation could also have potentially detrimental effects because people might believe that the left had sold out, but on balance he thought the tactic should be used, though carefully, and he lashed out at the infantile leftists with little mercy: “You want to create a new society, yet you fear the difficulties involved in forming a good parliamentary faction, consisting of convinced, devoted, heroic, communists in a reactionary parliament. Is this not childishness?”[13]
In almost everyone’s eyes Lenin had reduced his opponents’ arguments to rubble while at the same time challenging their revolutionary competence and sincerity. He well understood the relations of tactics to strategy and theory. He was as competent, consistent, and logical as any leader of Classical Marxist persuasion. Weaknesses, if they crept in at all, could come only from his ideas and not from any inabilities to act upon them effectively. He was well versed, he could think, he could express himself quite clearly, he had courage, and most of all he had a firm grounding in Classical Marxist ideas and methods. What, then, did he actually do in Russia? What were his strategic beliefs, and how did they emerge?
In 1905, Lenin confronted a Russian situation rather similar to Marx’s Germany. He saw that to overthrow czarism the peasant army had to be won over. He couldn’t abolish private property but he had to attack the church and all other czarist authority forms. He had to establish a democratic republic through the instrument of a broad coalition including socialist, working-class, peasant, and middle-class parties. But above all else the Bolsheviks had to persevere and rise above the rest. They had to gain the strength necessary to rule the new democratic republic in the name of the proletariat. And Lenin thought the Bolsheviks could do this precisely because they had the discipline, the theory, and the most competent leaders.[14]
In 1905, Rosenburg reports, “Lenin said that ‘he would postpone the revolution to the spring if he could but that he would not be asked.’ He viewed even the upheaval itself as a tactic which like others should be employed carefully in accord with conditions, possibilities, and goals. He was undisturbed by the failure of 1905; he felt there had been a crisis that did not totally rupture society, that much had been learned, and that there would be more opportunities later.”[15]
Even the young Lenin had a clear conception of party organization and discipline and 1905 further substantiated all his convictions. He thought workers were the only ones who could successfully carry through a revolution, but he didn’t think they could do it alone. He felt they needed allies, leadership, and discipline.
He was convinced that the proletariat had to assist in the middle-class revolution even if only as a first necessary step towards its own greater interests. But he also saw that such activity was beyond then existent proletarian consciousness. He concluded simply enough that it was ridiculous to wait for communists to give all workers higher consciousnesses. He decided that his task was to gauge when a vanguard could seize power, and when it would receive enough support to consolidate that power—his ideas made it quite clear, when the time came, he and his party would have to be quick, their actions would have to be decisive.
He knew as did all others that, as he put it, “…classes are led by political parties; that political parties, as a general rule, are directed by more or less stable groups composed of the most authoritative, influential, and experienced members, who are elected to the most responsible positions and are called leaders. All this is simple and clear.”[16] But what was to be the specific nature of the revolutionary party? Who was to lead it, and how?
The answer had already come with the birth of Bolshevism. Lenin felt that its party was the epitome of revolution. He believed in the idea of a relatively small coterie of professional revolutionaries. He believed that breaches of discipline should be considered tantamount to treason. He believed that the problem was not so much the political self-determination of the masses or even of the many political workers carrying out the tasks of the party, as it was a question of accuracy, efficiency, and flexibility. He felt that success depended upon a tactical alignment of forces that included absolute discipline and put intellectuals in command—for in this way efficiency and the ability to effectively change positions in the face of a changed situation would all be most enhanced. He felt that professional revolutionaries should convince the proletariat it was their business to seize control of the imminent bourgeois revolution, and he felt no other approach could work.
Nowadays many people suggest that Lenin foreswore a democratic party in favor of hierarchy because of the constraints imposed by the repressive power of the czarists, but this was not really the case. For as Rosenberg noted, “the real reason was of another and deeper nature: such a (democratic) party would not be able to carry out its revolutionary tasks, not just because of repression but because of the need for strict leadership from the most enlightened, far-sighted cadre.”[17]
Lukacs also later attributed the same perspective to Lenin, though admiringly rather than disparagingly: “…the Leninist form of organization is inseparably connected with the ability to foresee the coming revolution. For only in this context is every deviation from the right path fateful and disastrous for the proletariat; only in this context can a decision on an apparently trivial everyday issue be of profound significance to it; only in this context is it a life and death question for the proletariat to have the thoughts and actions which truly correspond to its class situation clearly in front of it.”[18]
And in another place Lukacs added, “This degree of adjustment of the life of the masses is impossible without the strictest party discipline. If the party is not capable of immediately adjusting its interpretation to the ever-changing situation, it lags behind, follows instead of leads, loses contact with the masses and disintegrates.”[19]
Lenin felt that the working class had to successfully lead a middle class revolution and parlay it into a proletarian struggle, and that the workers could only do that if they were led by a “tribune of the people.” He felt that a person or persons of simple trade union consciousness could not get the job done, and that socialism was only understood by “educated elements of the propertied classes,” and that its concepts were beyond the spontaneous learnings of the workers. In his words, “The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labor legislation etc. The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals…”[20]
Classical Marxism says the proletariat is never spontaneously revolutionary and Lenin agrees and draws what seem like sensible conclusions: The party has to lead the proletariat toward the proletariat’s best interests, whether the proletariat immediately perceives those interests or not. Marx, Engels, and Lenin, and for that matter most other Leninist leaders as well, were intellectuals. Without reservation they adopted the task not of representing or aiding the proletariat but of leading it. These men’s entire discussion about discipline, organization, and consciousness occurred in context of the need to take power away from one class and give it to another. Their solutions were always in accordance with the logic of Classical Marxism and with what they perceived to be the conditions of their times. And so Leninist strategy wherever it has ever been employed has involved a disciplined, relatively small, hierarchical party, whose central will is to be eventually followed by the workers.
As Rosa Luxemburg, who was not so favorable to Lenin’s views, characterized it: “…the two principles upon which Lenin’s centralism rests are precisely these: 1- The blind subordination, in the smallest detail, of all party organs to the party center, which alone thinks, guides, and decides for all. 2- The rigorous separation of the organized nucleus of revolutionaries from its social revolutionary surroundings.”[21]
Whether Leninist organizational forms are the only ones that a Classical Marxist can uphold is certainly unclear but it is quite obvious that they are at least consistent with Classical Marxism’s understandings and are in fact the form that most Classical Marxists, for one reason or another, gravitate towards. With regard to questions of organization as with regard to questions of tactical decision-making, Lenin was consistent with his Classical Marxist heritage and as good in employing it as anyone else.
Shortly after its inception Lenin became convinced that the First World War would lead to revolution in Russia. He felt it, but he needed to be sure, and he needed to know how. Following the imperatives of a scientific approach to social change, he commenced a study of the war, and of its effects on various forms of social organization. The study was completed in a relatively short time and was released under the title Imperialism: The Final Stage of Capitalism. The book was a new addition to Marxist theory (though others had also contributed similarly). It added analysis based upon descriptions of systems that Marx hadn’t fully foreseen. Lenin enriched Marx’s ideas in accordance with the changing dictates of his surroundings.
Lenin’s book showed that when Capitalism became monopolistic it lost all its progressive content—the drive to increase productive capacity diminished while the drive to increase profits by any and all means increased. Lenin saw that peacetime capitalism could create conditions not totally unfavorable to the proletariat but he also saw that imperialist wars were inevitable and that miserable conditions would result in all involved countries. The only alternative for such a country’s proletariat, peasantry, and lower middle classes was revolution. Lenin felt that if the wartime Russian proletariat moved, everyone else would follow—the coalition approach to a proletariat led middle-class revolution could now work, precisely because the war was almost universally abhorrent. But there was one proviso for success that obviously followed: the leading elements of the coalition had to avoid involvement in the imperialist war.
Lenin had a careful analysis of the whole war situation: 1- He didn’t want to see a German victory; 2- He felt that the cause of the Russian revolution and therefore the world revolution necessitated the overthrow of the Czar; 3- He felt that prospects for successful revolution depended upon internal Russian opposition to the war’s continuation. Anyone who supported the war effort had to become inevitably and inextricably caught up in the dynamics of imperialism, and such a person or party would be totally incapable of waging an effective opposition to the Czar.
Lenin then reversed one of his earlier positions. He decided that the Bolsheviks had to have complete sole control of the middle class revolution; everyone else and most specifically the democratic socialists had adopted the wrong war position. The other parties were bankrupt as revolutionary agents and there could be no coalitions with any of them.
To Lenin the Menshevik cry, “Revolt for Victory,” was total insanity. In 1905 he would have welcomed a coalition victory as progressive but in 1915 he opposed any coalition government attempts. The popular parties had the wrong war positions and so a new government with them in it would have a wrong war position and would not be deserving of support. It would be unable to do anything differently from the Czars. The dynamics of imperialist war would prohibit social change.
Because Lenin decided it would be fatal to coalesce with any of the social-chauvinist or middle-class labor parties who would try to defend war gains, and because he also felt that a coalition of forces was necessary, he was left with only one strategic alternative. The Bolsheviks had to go it essentially alone but yet had to develop at the base throughout the country. They had to adopt policies which would take people from pro-imperialist organizations into the Bolsheviks or at least into support of the party.
Thus, Lenin supported pursuing a democratic dictatorship aimed at the interests of the workers and peasants and administered by the Bolshevik Party in a totally centralized disciplined way. He moved from a theoretical analysis of the conditions of imperialism to an understanding of the position of the various sectors of the Russian population, to a strategy for victory.
Trotsky thought Lenin’s plan was naive on one point. He was convinced that in a revolutionary upheaval the workers would go further than Lenin outlined and so he supported a drive toward the establishment of a proletariat state dictatorship. As Rosenberg put it: “Trotsky favored democracy among the workers at the same time that he advocated the suppression of all other classes by the proletariat.”[22]
Lenin on the other hand favored a broad national Russian Democracy within the limits considered desirable by the leaders of the governing Bolshevik Party. The two were able to work together because though they disagreed about the goal they agreed on the main steps toward it.
By 1917 the peasants were war-weary and their desperation was spreading through the whole army. The cities were without fuel and people were starving. By March discontent was almost universal: from below, the workers, peasants, and army were demanding peace and bread; and from above, the middle class was demanding victory in the war. The Petrograd workers’ revolt spread through the whole country—the workers and peasants overran the Czar’s authorities, and the liberal middle classes took over the committee that had been established to replace the Duma.
The Social Revolutionaries were strong enough to do what they liked, but were content to be an opposition and didn’t push hard for separate peace. The middle classes were slowly joined by reactionary land owners and each kept a concern for winning the war and of course defending property rights. The upheavals’ social institutions, the soviets, were led by Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, and they chose to help the other parties establish a provisional government.
Lenin returned from exile in 1917 and from the first fought against the old idea that a coalition form of government was sensible since war views were relatively secondary. In March he developed a full strategy. He saw a liberal government using the tools of the old police forces, and a parallel soviet government supported by armed workers. The way seemed clear. The soviets were a new-found means to victory. Lenin planned to overthrow the provisional government by establishing the soviets as the sole organs of power. He adopted as his demand, and as the Bolshevik demand, the already mass cry for peace, bread, land, and liberty. He was quite convinced that the liberal government could in no way meet those demands so long as it was preoccupied with war and property. It would crumble of its own weaknesses.
His goal was to use the soviets to destroy Russian imperialism. His problem was to figure what tactics to use in order for the Bolsheviks to take control of those same soviets.
By May things were critical. The liberals had proven themselves totally bankrupt. The soviets, still under the control of the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary parties, had to take over the government. But the new rulers were not to fare much better. They too became victims of the dynamics of imperialism. They too were unable to deal with land and bread demands, and they even launched a failing offensive on the war front. Very quickly old forms began reasserting themselves, most especially in the army where the czarist commanders were again taking control and eliminating opposition. The soldiers and peasants were losing faith in the government; the workers in the cities had been dubious about the new government right from the start. As Rosenberg saw it: “The revolution was not the work of the Bolsheviks. Their service lies in the recognition by Lenin and Trotsky that at midnight a great anarchical revolt would occur. Five minutes before midnight Lenin and Trotsky gave the order for a Bolshevik uprising and in so doing created the impression that the tremendous occurrence at midnight was their work. It was in this manner that they won for themselves the authority necessary to enable them to govern Russia.”[23]
The Bolsheviks fought against Kerensky’s July war offensive, but then they also fought against Kornilov’s putsch attempt aimed at unseating Kerensky from the right. When the time for them to lead came, their record was impeccable: they favored peace but also supported revolution.
At Lenin’s own admission their economic goal upon taking power was the establishment of state capitalism. They didn’t want to alter the city’s basic property relations. They wanted the workers to have power but not ownership. This was Lenin’s plan, but as Trotsky had accurately predicted the workers were out in front. There was upheaval and revolution, all the old ways were dying; the workers took over the factories and the entire economy for themselves.
Arthur Rosenberg characterized Lenin’s strategy on taking power and then implementing it: “In their capacity as organs of the spontaneous will of the masses the soviets were from the very beginning an unwelcome and extraneous element of Bolshevik doctrines. In 1917 Lenin used the soviets to destroy czarism. Once that had been accomplished he created his own state machinery after the true Bolshevik pattern, i.e., the rule of the small disciplined minority of professional revolutionaries over the great and undisciplined masses.”[24]
But we needn’t rely on Rosenberg’s description, for Lenin made his own dispositions quite clear: “The Bolsheviks could not have maintained themselves in power for two and a half months, let alone for two and a half years, unless the strictest, truly iron discipline prevailed in our party.”[25] And “…the dictatorship of the proletariat is a most determined and most ruthless war against a more powerful enemy, the bourgeoisie, whose resistance is increased tenfold by its overthrow.”[26] And ”…absolute centralization and strictest discipline of the proletariat constitute one of the fundamental conditions for victory over the bourgeoisie.”[27]
Though Trotsky had similar inclinations, he at first he still leaned toward a more open and democratic party organization, in the context of the party’s standing dictatorially above everyone else. He felt that the Red Army, for example, should be disciplined and hierarchically organized for two reasons: first and most obviously, it would be the most efficient way to fight the Civil War; and second, it was a good way to gain control over the peasants, otherwise not easily accomplished inside a democratic system that included peasant soviets.
To foreshadow some of our later critique, we might well ask, as many then did, if it wasn’t perhaps possible for a party with another more, democratic disposition than Lenin’s to have succeeded? Was a better approach outside the realm of Lenin’s thoughts and desires or were his thoughts well suited to the potentialities of his times? More, are they well suited to the potentialities of our time?
Leninist strategy, however, is concerned not only with taking power, but also derivatively with using it in building a new society. Moreover the Leninist role in this in Russia was certainly much more than it had been in the upheaval itself. Perhaps most characteristically Lenin and Trotsky felt that capitalist tools of development were tactics. They could be put at the disposal of socialism as easily as capitalism. And so at the beginning of 1918 Lenin said that: “…In the present circumstances, state capitalism would mean a step toward for the Soviet Republic. If, for example, state capitalism firmly established itself here after six months, that would be a mighty achievement, and the surest guarantee that, after a year, socialism would be finally and irrevocably established here.”[28] And that the task of the Bolsheviks was “To study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it, (to not) shrink from adopting dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of it.”[29]
At the eleventh Party Congress, in attacking the opponents of state capitalist strategy, Lenin said: “State capitalism is capitalism which we shall be able to restrain, and the limits of which we shall be able to fix. This state capitalism is connected with the state, and the state is the workers, the advanced section of the workers, the vanguard. We are the state…. And it rests with us to determine what this state capitalism is to be.”[30]
Lenin and Trotsky were Classical Marxists, they were always concerned with who was in power and with what their goals were, rather than with how precisely those in power operated. With the Bolsheviks, the so-called Party of the Proletariat in power, there was only one rational criterion for judging tactics: were they effective in achieving Bolshevik goals or weren’t they? There was little worry about side effects or about the validity of goals, and how could there be? The goals and the methods of the Bolsheviks were by definition those of the proletariat as a whole, and thus inherently quite above suspicion.
Lenin and Trotsky were both concerned with the need to increase production but they thought about the problem in bourgeois managerial terms. They thought that managerial techniques could be put at the disposal of socialism. Trotsky said he felt it was a political affair who ran the factories and how they were run, just as long as the dictatorship was in the hands of the proletariat represented by the Bolshevik Party. He clarified: “It (one man management) may be correct or incorrect from the point of view of the technique of administration. It would consequently be a most crying error to confuse the question as to the supremacy of the proletariat with the question of boards of workers at the heads of factories. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is expressed in the abolition of private property, in the supremacy over the whole soviet mechanism of the collective will of the workers, and not at all in the form in which individual economic enterprises are administered.”[31]
I interject: The logic throughout is consistent. Classical Marxism says classes are defined by property relations—by who owns what—not by local choices of contextually efficient or inefficient organizational forms. If there is a problem in this definition it will reside in how the employed concepts focused Lenin’s and Trotsky’s attention on what the concepts highlighted as fundamental and away from what the concepts deemed contingent and secondary.
The chapter proceeds: In 1919, Trotsky submitted a set of theses on the need for the militarization of the work force—it was distributed to the public by a left faction and Trotsky was forced to defend his ideas to the people. He wrote: “The workers must not be allowed to roam all over Russia. They must be sent where they are needed, called up and directed like soldiers. Labor must be directed most intensely during the transition from capitalism to socialism.”[32]
And in another context Trotsky added that “… it is essential to form punitive contingents and to put all those who shirk work into concentration camps…. coercion, regimentation, and militarization of labor were no mere emergency measures and the worker’s state normally had the right to coerce any citizen to perform any work at any place of its own choosing.”[33]
In 1920, Lenin, who had long held these views, put Trotsky, who had already abolished soldiers’ soviets in the army, in charge of the commissariat of transportation. Trotsky immediately instituted martial law over railway personnel and replaced all old union leaders who disagreed with his policies.
Lenin and Trotsky logically and consistently carried out a strategic conception within which the dynamics of the structure of the army and of industry were not nearly so important as who ruled over them and how effective that rule was.
In 1921, after the New Economic Policy was enacted, Lenin took the logic of his strategy to its conclusive stage. He admitted and basked in the fact that what he was building in Russia was state capitalism explaining that: “State capitalism in a land in which capital is the governing authority and state capitalism in a proletarian state are two different things. State capitalism in a capitalistic state means capitalism controlled by the state for the benefits of the middle class as opposed to the proletariat. In a proletariat state this process benefits the working class and enables it to defend itself against a middle class that is too powerful.”[34]
Rosenberg explains the motivations at work nicely: “… the main concern of the Bolshevik Party during this period was not how the taking over by the workers of management of production be facilitated? It was, what is the quickest way to develop a layer of managers and administrators for the economy?”[35]
And as the Bolshevik Tomsky said in one of the clearest descriptions of the Leninist internal ‘power struggle’: “…it was the task of the communists first to create well-knit trade unions in their industries, secondly to take possession of these organizations by tenacious work, thirdly to stand at the head of these organizations, fourthly to expel all non-proletarian organizations, and fifthly to take the union under our communist influence.”[36]
The task was to transfer power from grass roots spontaneously controlled worker’s committees and give it to the more bureaucratic and manageable trade unions so that it might then finally be completely held by managers and party bureaucrats.
At the close of the process in 1922 Lenin delivered one final blow to any chances for even minimal worker’s power: “It is absolutely essential that all authority in the factories should be concentrated in the hands of management—under these circumstances any direct intervention by the trade unions in the management of enterprises must be regarded as positively harmful and impermissible.”[37]
Lenin and the Bolsheviks believed firmly in the rightness of their approach. There were no excuses, no protestations that the policies were brought on by hardship, no excuses that they were necessary evils. In fact, the Bolsheviks glorified their tactics as the only model for socialist revolution—they didn’t think creatively about other alternatives, they ruled them out as foolhardy or counter-revolutionary.
But they also felt from the start that the success of their revolution depended in large part upon world events. They wanted European revolution and European support. During the early years Lenin tried to export the revolution through the Third International.
Broad masses of workers in Europe saw what had been accomplished in Russia. They were willing to sacrifice democracy in their organizations if it would get them as far. They didn’t know or particularly care about the middle-class aspects of the Russian revolution nor were they interested in hearing such things.
I interject: Here and earlier the term “middle class” or “middle classes” has been intermittently used by nearly everyone who was quoted including Lenin, Trotsky, and Marx. As you read the words did you wonder, who was this so-called middle class or these middle classes? What did the phrase “‘middle class revolution” mean? More, what in Marxist terms, was this middle class’s relation to the means of production? Were they people with a different ownership relation? Or did something else that Classical Marxism did not highlight make them “middle class”? And finally, what, over time, became of this middle class? Did the concept allow effective understanding and, in turn, viable and worthy strategy?
The chapter proceeds: Lenin wanted to consolidate European revolutionary forces around coteries of professional leaders who would exercise authority at the behest of the Russian Central Committee. He was trying to resolve the need for a revolution in another to country by choosing between various poor but necessary tactics. Centralization and participation in reactionary parliaments were two things he forced upon the v revolutionaries. But there was also submission to his ultimate authority as the head of the Bolshevik Party, and the use of expulsion against those who dissented.
Leninist world strategy was formulated in the context of Lenin’s understanding of Classical Marxist theory and his Classical Marxist analysis of the conditions in Europe and the possibilities within Russia itself. Leninist models were quickly pushed outwards beyond Russia’s borders and even beyond her specific kinds of conditions.
Classical Leninism is then a strategic perspective that was formulated in the context of Lenin’s Classical Marxist world view and the experiences of a group of intellectuals in peasant Russia. It was elevated to the status of an ultimate strategy on the wings of Bolshevik victories. It was turned into dogma by the fact that it was forced upon Europe as the road to socialism.
I interject: And Marxism Leninism has persisted to this day, including winning some revolutions and building some post-capitalist societies, and it still beckons advocacy. We may reasonably wonder, why has that been true? Has it been because Marxism Leninism has repeatedly, unswervingly, and optimally served the interests of workers and of all oppressed peoples as well as was possible during its times of use, as some modern seekers of fundamental change assert? If so, then post-Sixties we should have and now as well should adopt it as our ideology for going forward. Or has Marxism Leninism persisted for some other reason—including, perhaps, due to serving some other ends than proletarian interests, which is to say due to serving some other class and some other constituencies? If so, then we ought to reject Marxism Leninism as an ideology for going forward. To address such a choice has been our guiding motivation for presenting first, Classical Marxism, and now Leninism, on the road toward assessing each.
The presentation of Leninism continued: Leninism stresses the need to take and maintain power by means of the correct employ of a small party of professional revolutionaries, or at least a small central committee of professional revolutionaries, leading the revolutionary working class and the masses in the name of the proletariat. It takes power and then employs it to new ends. It stresses a Classical Marxist analysis of tactics to determine their value—and on the basis of such analysis, it stresses the importance of some organizational forms (centralism, the party, the dictatorship of the proletariat) and the relative unimportance of other forms (decentralism, self management, spontaneity, etc.). To understand Leninism more fully and to begin our effort to assess it and Classical Marxism, we must next spend some time critically examining the actual Bolshevik practice of the Russian Revolution up through the year of Lenin’s death.
So concluded the chapter I have excerpted from the book What Is To Be Undone, written during 1972-1973. It—and so also this article—presents what I then perceived and still perceive to be the heart of Leninist views as we were coming out of the Sixties. Was it a strategic perspective, as part of ideology, that I and others should have advocated and pursue? Or, as we were coming out of the Sixties and aware of the difficulties and inadequacies we had endured and we had also imposed, was it something we should have overhauled or even jettisoned for subsequent efforts? And, if it was the latter, then what about Anarchism, a contender, and Maoism, an adaptation? How should people seeking fundamental change have proceeded after the Sixties? And more important, how should we proceed now?
But why do I emphasize such questions now? Am I just unearthing long gone history at a time of incredible crisis in the world around us? Is this sequence of articles just nostalgia? Is it a mere academic exercise? I certainly hope not. Instead, I have chosen to present this sequence of articles because I believe the question of ideology is again front and center. What ways of understanding the world, what tools, plans, and methods for changing the world do we need to employ after we remove Trump and roll back fascism? Some say we should look to the classics. They propose that we double down on Marxism Leninism. Others, myself included, say not so fast. Let’s carefully assess first.
Activists and sane citizens of all sorts around the world now face a deadly drift toward fascism. We see that we must delay, defeat, and definitively eliminate it. But we also see that to return to business as it was before the fascist threat arose would be to settle for the retaining institutions that gave us that drift to fascism in the first place. It would thus invite its recurring return and more, even if fascism’s return could be forever held off, it would re-elevate the many forms of injustice and deprivation of the past not to mention the steadily worsening prospects of ecological catastrophe that prevailed before fascism’s new rise and that indeed prevailed from the Sixties to the present.
To do better than we did in the Sixties, to do better than we did in the half century since the Sixties, should we double down on thinking we can use one or another Classical ideology better than Lenin, Trotsky and others ever used it before? Or should we break with that past to develop, advocate, and utilize fundamentally new approaches? That is the question that this sequence of articles hopes to bring to the fore. Next up in the sequence, an assessment of Bolshevik practice.
[Finally, all that said, can I take a minute for a bit of promotion? This sequence of articles asks what ideology we should advocate and employ to win fundamental, “to the roots,” revolutionary change in our circumstances. It will also propose some features that new, positive answers might offer. The sequence is based on the first book I ever wrote titled What Is To Be Undone? To bookend that, the most recent book I have written, that has become available only in the last few weeks, is titled The Wind Cries Freedom: An Oral History of the Next American Revolution. A book page for it is at windcriesfreedom.org and there you can see its description, contents, early testimonials, a couple of interviews and reviews, and even an accompanying musical playlist, and, if you choose, there are links by which you can get a digital or print copy. The new book is very different, however, than What Is To Be Undone. Where the articles from the earlier book have lots of more or less academic quotations from lots of long-dead revolutionaries, The Wind Cries Freedom contains instead passionate, personally-engaged, totally unacademic, down to earth, accessible theory and vision bit mostly strategy, motives and lesson-focussed reports from yet to be born future activists conveying their own oral history. I hope you will give it and them a chance…
Footnotes
1. Lenin, What Is To Be Done, International Publishers, New York.
2. Keynes quoted in E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful, Harper Torchbooks, New York.
3. Lenin, Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder, International Publishers, New York. 34
4. Lukacs, Lenin, MIT Press, Cambridge. Mass. 17.
5. Lenin, Left Wing Communism, op. cit. 46
6. ibid. 11.
7. Marx in Avineri, Marx and the Intellectuals, Journal of the History of Ideas, xxviii, no. 2 (April-June 1967)
8. Avineri, Marx and the Intellectuals, op. cit.
9. ibid.
10. Lenin, Left Wing Communism, op. cit. 53.
11. Lukacs, op. cit. 79.
12. Lenin, Left Wing Communism, op. cit. 52.
13. ibid. 47.
14. See for example Arthur Rosenberg’s A History of Bolshevism, Doubleday Inc. Garden City, New York.
15. ibid.
16. Lenin, Left Wing Communism, op. cit. 26.
17. Rosenberg, op. cit. 29.
18. Lukacs, op. cit. 29.
19. ibid. 35.
20. Lenin, What Is To Be Done, op. cit. 31-32.
21. Luxemburg, “The Organization of the Social Democratic Party in Russia,” Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, Pathfinder Press, New York.
22. Rosenberg, op. cit. 71.
23. ibid. 111.
24. ibid. 137-138.
25. Lenin, Left Wing Communism, op. cit. 9.
26. ibid. 9.
27. ibid. 10.
28. Lenin in Lukacs, op. cit. 75.
29. Lenin in Maurice Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers’ Control, Solidarity, London. 46.
30. Lenin in Lukacs, op. cit. 86.
31. Trotsky quoted in Brinton, op. cit.
32. Trotsky quoted in Daniel Cohn Bendit, Obsolete Communism: A Left Wing Alternative, McGraw Hill Book Company, New York. 229.
33. ibid. 229.
34. Lenin quoted in Rosenberg, op. cit. 177.
35. Rosenberg, op. cit.
36. Tomsky quoted in Brinton, op. cit.
