It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Vultures and artificial intelligence(s) as death detectors: GAIA develops a high-tech approach for wildlife research and conservation
Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW)
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AI data scientists and wildlife biologists analyse and interpret data from vulture tags and develop an Artificial Intelligence for behaviour recognition. The GAIA I³ Lab at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) in Berlin brings together state of art expertise in Wildlife Biology and Artificial Intelligence development.
In order to use remote locations to record and assess the behaviour of wildlife and environmental conditions, the GAIA Initiative developed an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm that reliably and automatically classifies behaviours of white-backed vultures using animal tag data. As scavengers, vultures always look for the next carcass. With the help of tagged animals and a second AI algorithm, the scientists can now automatically locate carcasses across vast landscapes. The algorithms described in a recently published article in the “Journal of Applied Ecology” are therefore key components of an early warning system that can be used to quickly and reliably recognise critical changes or incidents in the environment such as droughts, disease outbreaks or the illegal killing of wildlife.
The GAIA Initiative is an alliance of research institutes, conservation organisations and enterprises with the aim of creating a high-tech early warning system for environmental changes and critical ecological incidents. The new AI algorithms were developed by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS and the Tierpark Berlin.
The death of wildlife is an important process in ecosystems – regardless whether this is a regular case, such as the successful hunt of a predator, or an exceptional case caused by the outbreak of a wildlife disease, the contamination of the landscape with environmental toxins or illegal killing by people. For the investigation of mammalian species communities and ecosystems it is therefore important to systematically record and analyse these regular and exceptional cases of mortality. In order to achieve this, the GAIA Initiative makes use of the natural abilities of white-backed vultures (Gyps africanus) in combination with highly developed biologging technologies and artificial intelligence. “This combination of three forms of intelligence – animal, human and artificial – is the core of our new I³ approach with which we aim to make use of the impressive knowledge that wildlife has about ecosystems”, says Dr Jörg Melzheimer, GAIA project head and scientist at the Leibniz-IZW.
Vultures are perfectly adapted by millions of years of evolution to detect carcasses across vast landscapes quickly and reliably. They have outstanding eye-vision and sophisticated communication that allows them to monitor very large areas of land when many individuals work together. Vultures thus fulfil an important ecological role by cleaning landscapes of carrion and containing the spread of wildlife diseases. “For us as wildlife conservation scientists, the knowledge and skills of vultures as sentinels are very helpful to be able to quickly recognise problematic exceptional cases of mortality and initiate appropriate responses”, says Dr Ortwin Aschenborn, GAIA project head alongside Melzheimer at the Leibniz-IZW. “In order to use vulture knowledge, we need an interface – and at GAIA, this interface is created by combining animal tags with artificial intelligence.”
The animal tags with which GAIA equipped white-backed vultures in Namibia record two groups of data. The GPS sensor provides the exact location of the tagged individual at a specific point in time. The so-called ACC sensor (ACC is short for acceleration) stores detailed movement profiles of the tag – and thus of the animal – along the three spatial axes at the exact same time. Both groups of data are used by the artificial intelligence algorithms developed at the Leibniz-IZW. “Every behaviour is represented by specific acceleration patterns and thus creates specific signatures in the ACC data of the sensors”, explains wildlife biologist and AI specialist Wanja Rast from the Leibniz-IZW. “In order to recognise these signatures and reliably assign them to specific behaviours, we trained an AI using reference data. These reference data come from two white-backed vultures that we fitted with tags at Tierpark Berlin and from 27 wild vultures fitted with tags in Namibia.” In addition to the ACC data from the tags, the scientists recorded data on the behaviour of the animals – in the zoo through video recordings and in the field by observing the animals after they had been tagged. “In this way, we obtained around 15,000 data points of ACC signatures ascribed to a verified, specific vulture behaviour. These included active flight, gliding, lying, feeding and standing. This data set enabled us to train a so-called support vector machine, an AI algorithm that assigns ACC data to specific behaviours with a high degree of reliability”, explains Rast.
In a second step, the scientists combined the behaviour thus classified with the GPS data from the tags. Using algorithms for spatial clustering, they identified locations where certain behaviours occurred more frequently. In this way, they obtained spatially and temporally finely resolved locations where vultures fed. “The GAIA field scientists and their partners in the field were able to verify more than 500 of suspected carcass locations derived from the sensor data, as well as more than 1300 clusters of other non-carcass behaviours”, says Aschenborn. The field-verified carcass locations ultimately served to establish vulture feeding site signatures in the scientists’ final AI training dataset – this algorithm indicates with high precision locations where an animal has most likely died and a carcass is on the ground. “We could predict carcass locations with an impressive 92 percent probability and so demonstrated that a system which combines vulture behaviour, animal tags and AI is very useful for large-scale monitoring of animal mortality”, says Aschenborn.
This AI-based behaviour classification, carcass detection and carcass localisation are key components of the GAIA early warning system for critical changes or incidents in the environment. “Until now, this methodological step has been carried out in the GAIA I³ data lab at the Leibniz-IZW in Berlin”, says Melzheimer. “But with the new generation of animal tags developed by our consortium, AI analyses are implemented directly on the tag. This will provide reliable information on whether and where an animal carcass is located without prior data transfer in real time without any loss of time.” The transfer of all GPS and ACC raw data is no longer necessary, allowing data communication with a significantly lower bandwidth to transmit the relevant information. This makes it possible to use a satellite connection instead of terrestrial GSM networks, which guarantees coverage even in remote wilderness regions completely independent of local infrastructure. Even at the most remote locations, critical changes or incidents in the environment – such as disease outbreaks, droughts or illegal killing of wildlife – could then be recognised without delay.
In recent decades, the populations of many vulture species declined sharply and are now acutely threatened with extinction. The main causes are the loss of habitat and food in landscapes shaped by humans as well as a high number of direct or indirect incidences of poisoning. The population of the white-backed vulture, for example, declined by around 90 percent in just three generations – equivalent to an average decline of 4 percent per year. “Owing to their ecological importance and rapid decline, it is essential to significantly improve our knowledge and understanding of vultures in order to protect them”, says Aschenborn. “Our research using AI-based analysis methods will not only provide us with insights into ecosystems. It will also increase our knowledge of how vultures communicate, interact and cooperate, forage for food, breed, rear their young and pass on knowledge from one generation to the next.” GAIA has so far fitted more than 130 vultures in different parts of Africa with tags, most of them in Namibia. Until today, the scientists analysed more than 95 million GPS data points and 13 billion ACC records.
White-backed vultures and a jackal at a carcass
Vultures are perfectly adapted by millions of years of evolution to detect carcasses across vast landscapes quickly and reliably. They have outstanding eye-vision and sophisticated communication that allows them to monitor very large areas of land when many individuals work together. Vultures thus fulfil an important ecological role by cleaning landscapes of carrion and containing the spread of wildlife diseases.
Credit
Photo by Jan Zwilling
The development of the AI algorithms require a distinct multi-step process that includes data acquisition in the wild and from vultures under human care, data annotation and AI training. The new AI algorithms were developed by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS and the Tierpark Berlin.
At the end of September 2024, western North Carolina and the surrounding states experienced 30 inches of rainfall over two days when an unnamed storm collided with Hurricane Helene over the mountains of Southern Appalachia. The resulting catastrophe laid waste to the entire region. At a time when misinformation, rising authoritarianism, and disasters exacerbated by industrially-produced climate change are creating a feedback loop of escalating crisis, it’s crucial to understand disaster response as an integral part of community defense and strategize about how this can play a part in movements for liberation. In the following reflection, a local anarchist involved in longstanding disaster response efforts in Appalachia recounts the lessons that they have learned over the past six weeks and offers advice about how to prepare for the disasters to come.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated that Hurricane Helene poured 40 trillion gallons of water on the region. This caused an estimated 1800 landslides; it damaged over 160 municipal water and sewer systems, at least 6000 miles of roads, more than 1000 bridges and culverts, and an estimated 126,000 homes. There have been over 230 confirmed deaths across six states with many still missing.
The entire region was completely cut off from the outside world for a day or more, with all major roads shut down by landslides, collapsed bridges, and downed trees. Water, power, internet and cell service all went down within hours of the hurricane arriving, and remained down for days or, in some areas, weeks. There are still communities that will likely not have electricity for another three months because the roads that the power company would use no longer exist. Six weeks into this disaster, there are still tens of thousands of people who lack access to drinkable water. Not only have thousands of homes been wiped off the map—in many cases, the land they rested on no longer exists. Massive landslides have scoured canyons 30 feet deep, exposing bedrock that has not seen the light of day for tens of thousands of years. The torrential floods moved so much earth and caused so many rivers to change course that scientists have designated the hurricane a “geological event.”
In response, a beautiful web of mutual aid networks has emerged, saving countless lives by bringing in essential supplies, providing medical care, setting up neighborhood water distribution centers, solar charging stations, satellite internet hubs, free kitchens, free childcare, and more. Name a need and there are folks out here who have self-organized to meet it. We share these lessons we have learned in hopes of helping others to prepare for similar situations, aiming to increase our capacity to build autonomous infrastructure for the long haul.
Start Preparing Now
There is no time like the present to get organized.
Our mutual aid group has been around for almost eight years. Within 72 hours of the floodwaters receding, we had a functioning mutual aid hub and were mobilizing folks to check on missing people and chainsaw crews to cut people out of their homes and open up roads. We were only able to do these things because we had already put in the work in our community to build the trust and relationships that are so vital in times of crisis.
While we are a small group, we have an extensive network of friends and allies that has grown throughout years of smaller-scale mutual aid and organizing efforts. The best way to prepare for a disaster is not to stockpile supplies, but to build trust in your community and nurture a healthy web of relationships. The best way to accomplish this is to start doing mutual aid projects in your community before an acute crisis arises. This will give you practice operating as a group and organizing logistics, and it will also connect you with others you wouldn’t otherwise meet and show them that they can count on you. Because of the work we had already put in, when the crisis hit, people turned to us and spread the word that we are a good group to funnel supplies and money through. You can only build that kind of reputation by putting in the work now.
Communications
One of the biggest initial challenges we faced was that most means of communication went offline for between 24 hours and several weeks, depending on where you lived. That includes landlines, cell phones, and internet. We can’t stress enough the importance of having multiple back-up options in place to be ready for a situation like this. First of all, make sure you have a place and time established in advance where folks know they can find each other in the event of a disaster. This is probably a good idea even if communications don’t go offline—nothing beats face-to-face communication.
Satellite internet was invaluable during the first couple of weeks. For some particularly hard-hit communities, it remains the only means of communication six weeks into this disaster. Unfortunately, Starlink, which is owned by the white supremacist Elon Musk, has proven to be the most useful and the easiest to set up in a disaster scenario. We know from past experience that he is eager to suppress social movements that use his companies’ services. There are other companies that provide satellite internet, but it tends to be slower, with significant data limits. These are generally not mobile systems and would be challenging to set up in the middle of a disaster.
Don’t forget that you will need a source of electricity such as a generator or solar power to make satellite internet work.
Radios, especially ham radios, are another important means of communication that should be arranged in advance with people who already know how to use them. Our mountainous terrain limits the distance that radios can broadcast, but it would still have been helpful if we had possessed ham radios.
Supply Chain Logistics
Supply chain logistics are a huge piece of the puzzle. They will be one of your biggest headaches. In the first couple days of a disaster, you will probably only have access to the supplies you already have on hand in your immediate community. Stores will be closed and gas will not be available.
Soon, supplies will start pouring in from outside the disaster zone. The problem is that there will be a significant lag time between the announcement of a request for supplies and the time when those supplies arrive. In some cases, too many people will eventually answer the call, or by the time the supplies arrive, the needs on the ground will have changed. Social media can be useful in getting the word out about what supplies are needed, but it greatly exacerbates the lag time, especially as old posts are screenshotted and shared long beyond their relevance. When you make requests on social media, put a date in both the text and the visuals so people will know when the request was made.
Learn to anticipate what your needs will be a week from now, not tomorrow, because that is when the supplies will arrive. If and when regional support hubs are established, it is generally more efficient to communicate your needs directly to one of these hubs rather than blasting them on social media.
That being said, not every disaster is going to receive the kind of national spotlight that Hurricane Helene did. You may well find yourself in a situation where there are not enough donors or supplies.
Heavy Machinery
We need more people in our sphere that own or at least know how to operate heavy equipment. The floods destroyed hundreds of miles of roads and countless bridges. Massive piles of debris and tens of thousands of downed trees also blocked the roads, rendering many areas inaccessible. This is not the kind of problem you can solve with shovels and wheel barrows.
In many cases, communities that were totally cut off literally bulldozed their way to town; some used excavators to build new bridges out of pieces of the old bridges. It was not the state doing this work, but hillbillies who own heavy equipment who took matters into their own hands long before the state or federal government showed up. The rural activist scene is pretty well prepared to tackle anything involving a chainsaw, given that our network includes more than a few professional arborists and many of us already cut our own firewood. But we were not prepared for scenarios involving debris piles and earthmoving. Even beyond the immediate need of opening access to cut-off communities, heavy equipment such as dump trucks and track hoes remains crucial to the long-term demolition and clean-up work in the months following the storm.
Breaking the Spell
At the risk of repeating a cliché, acute crises such as natural disasters really do break the spell of normalcy that so many of us live under. Across western North Carolina, tens of thousands of people have experienced the joy of breaking out of the shell of isolated individualism and diving into the exhilaration and sense of purpose that collective action offers. Suddenly, people see that we are better off when we work in cooperation with each other, and that there are enough resources to meet everyone’s needs when we collaborate rather than compete. Even for radicals, there is a difference between knowing these truths intellectually and living, breathing, and feeling them 24/7.
To be clear, we don’t think that mutual aid groups should approach their work with the question “How do we radicalize people?” as the primary objective. Our primary goal should always be to save lives and make sure that people’s basic needs are met. But it is true that in the course of this crisis, thousands of people have gotten a taste of how we could organize society better. Many of them have a real hunger to keep that spirit alive but don’t know where to begin or where to plug in.
We should not show up in disasters the way that authoritarian or Christian groups do, looking to prey upon the vulnerable. Rather, we should make sure that there are ways that those who are radicalized by disasters and the experience of responding to them have opportunities to become involved in something lasting.
Rumors and Misinformation
Reliable information is hard to come by in a disaster. Even when phone and internet access return, rumors run rampant as everyone scrambles to figure out what happened and what kind of help is available or on its way. Many people will be deeply traumatized: when you have suddenly lost everything or your sense of stability has been pulled out from under you, fear and anxiety reign. On top of this, many of those joining in relief efforts will be running on pure adrenaline. None of these states of mind are conducive to clear thinking. It is important to get grounded and spread calm.
Do not repeat unverified information, especially on social media. If a statement starts with “my best friend’s uncle said…” or “I heard from a reliable source that…”, there is a pretty good chance that it is a rumor and not verified information. The more sensational the rumor, the more tempting it will be to spread it.
We can’t count the number of rumors that circulated here. Most of them only served to spread fear. “The military is coming in and shutting down mutual aid hubs and seizing supplies.” “Militias are out hunting FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] workers.” It is best to take note of such rumors and be prepared in the event that they turn out to be true, but in the meantime, to keep on doing what you are doing until you see otherwise with your own to two eyes. The best way to get reliable information is in face-to-face interactions with primary sources.
Ask questions of people as you are distributing aid. Whenever we did a supply run or a wellness check, we made sure to ask extensive questions, such as:
“What are the needs here that aren’t being met?”
“Has there been any help from the government yet?
“Are there still missing people?”
“What roads are open or closed?”
“Do you know of people who are still cut off from supplies?”
Vultures
Count on it: the far right will hurry to capitalize on any disaster, no matter what the scenario, in order to advance their fascist agenda. Within hours of communications returning, there were racist fake news stories alleging that Black and brown people were looting. Soon, these morphed into absurd claims that FEMA couldn’t help people because they had spent all their money on immigrants, and then into even wilder conspiracy theories suggesting that the government had manufactured the storm to disenfranchise Republican voters and that FEMA was going to seize people’s land for lithium mining. Never mind that there is no lithium to be found in the mountains of western North Carolina.
On top of this, many far-right and white nationalist groups made appearances in western North Carolina to provide aid. In most cases, they just showed up with a few supplies and left as soon as they had taken pictures to post on social media. It is worth distinguishing between groups that are part of the organized far right, like Patriot Front and the Proud Boys, who are only showing up to score political points, not to help people, and groups that really are there to provide direct aid but also happen to lean to the right. There should be no tolerance for the former. We feel that people should approach groups in the latter category with caution and evaluate whether it makes sense to work with them on a case-by-case basis. Crises make for strange bedfellows; there were a lot of Trump supporters working alongside anarchists to save lives, clear roads, and deliver supplies.
The best solution to countering the influence that the far right can build in disaster scenarios is to be better prepared and better organized. The groups that get the most done, deliver the most supplies, and do the most good are the ones that garner the most respect. It’s as simple as that. A good social media game doesn’t hurt, either. It is vital that we crank out reliable information and inspiring memes and narratives to counter the racist fearmongering that the far-right disinformation machine churns out.
Engaging with the State
We need more nuanced ways of thinking about government aid. Anarchists find themselves in a awkward situation in regards to FEMA and other forms of official government assistance. We rightfully criticize the government for its painfully slow and inadequate response to the disaster, but when the government finally shows up with significant resources, we aren’t sure how to engage.
We’d suggest that people should approach FEMA and similar organizations with the same cautious curiosity as aid groups that lean to the right but are not actively organizing for fascism. While grassroots mutual aid efforts are a thousand times more flexible and efficient in responding to disasters than the lumbering bureaucracy of the United States government, our access to resources pales in comparison to theirs when it comes to money, machinery, and labor. There is simply no way that we can crowdfund the estimated $17 billion in damages that Helene did. We need to strategically tap into those resources without compromising our principles or weakening our own efforts. Strategies such as helping people to navigate FEMA’s cumbersome aid applications and insurance claims can take pressure off our own fundraising efforts.
Another example of how we need a more nuanced approach to engaging with the government concerns the military. The presence of the military drastically changes the atmosphere in a community as soon as they show up. The communal feeling of mutual aid and cooperation can start to dissipate as their chain of command takes over. It is crucial to keep our mutual aid hubs completely separate from the military; do not let them staff or set up shop at our locations under any circumstances. But that does not mean we cannot strategically engage with them to use their free labor (and machinery) to muck out buildings, split firewood, and swing hammers.
The majority of military personnel are working-class folks in their late teens or early twenties who were sold a lie by military recruiters, a decision many of them come to regret. It will not hurt if they catch a glimpse of a better way of helping people.
Finances
Direct financial assistance is a huge need that most disaster relief groups are unable or unwilling to provide. If your group has the ability to raise large amounts of cash, you can be an absolutely invaluable resource in the days and weeks after the disaster. Donated supplies can only do so much.
In our case, tens of thousands of people have not only lost their homes, they’ve also lost weeks or months of employment. Bills are coming due and the overwhelming majority of folks are not getting anything close to the kind of assistance they need from FEMA or insurance companies. If you have a mutual aid group, set up a checking account in the group’s name and a few different digital wallets like Paypal and Venmo. Set up a website and social media accounts with clear links on how to donate. Do not wait for a disaster to do these things.
If you know that a disaster is on its way, take out a large amount of cash to have on hand. Remember, Venmo and credit cards are not going to work when the power grid and communications are down. We have found that most people are able to set up some sort of digital wallet if they need to, but it is important to have cash on hand for those who can’t.
It is also likely that if you are suddenly receiving and sending out large amounts of money in a short time, your account will get frozen or the people you send the money to won’t be able to access it immediately. This is infuriating, but there seems to be nothing that we can do about it—these companies have automated systems that flag accounts and they claim that they can’t override the system when your account is flagged.
Getting Organized
Grassroots disaster relief is no longer the exclusive province of church groups and small bands of autonomous mutual aid groups. The notion has gone mainstream since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when so many people discovered that their neighbors were all they had to count on. At this point, well-organized and well-resourced groups of every stripe are prepared to mobilize quickly—from reactionary right-leaning groups like the Cajun Navy and to networks of volunteer helicopter pilots, not to mention radical groups like Mutual Aid Disaster Relief. Beyond these specific groups, more people understand how to self-organize now. Within three to five days of the flood waters receding, you couldn’t drive more than ten minutes without running into a do-it-yourself relief hub or water station in someone’s front yard, church, or gas station parking lot. It would not be an overstatement to say that within a week, western North Carolina had the highest concentration of four-wheelers, all-terrain vehicles, and dirt bikes in the world, as people poured in from all over the South and beyond to help with search and rescue and to get supplies out to cut-off communities.
Most of these hubs were truly grassroots, with no formal organization behind them. This is an overwhelmingly positive development, but it does not come without challenges. The chief problems were redundancy of effort and lack of coordination between relief hubs, road clearing crews, and people doing supply runs, search and rescue, and wellness checks. The sooner you can develop relationships and good communication systems with other hubs, the better, so you won’t have to be constantly reinventing the wheel.
Creating an intake system for incoming volunteers and arranging for people to coordinate them is a huge piece of the puzzle. We had to turn away many offers of help in the first few weeks because we didn’t have a good system in place for fielding newcomers, especially those from out of town, nor could we guarantee that we could plug them into a project on any given day if they just showed up, despite the fact that there was always a mountain of work to do. Connecting volunteers to communities and individual homes that need medical care, mucking, gutting, and repairs requires an enormous amount of legwork on your part, not to mention building trust between you and the residents. You would do well to have someone in your group that has a deep love of spreadsheets.
On his death centenary this year, we need to not only remember Lenin’s contributions to political action and building a revolutionary party, but also to the philosophy of science and the role of electricity.
This year is Comrade V I Lenin's death centenary year. For those who are socialists and communists, the Soviet Union was the hope of founding a new society in which the working people, and not the capitalist or the feudal classes, would own the means of production. For many, the Soviet Union gave hope for a different social order and the possibility of national liberation from the clutches of the colonial rulers. The Bolshevik Revolution changed the capitalist and the colonial world, giving birth to the possibility of a world without greed and oppression, where those laboured would get the fruits of their labour. Not a set of parasitic classes who had very little contribution to production.
But this is not what I want to write today. I will address two very different aspects of Lenin's contribution which may not be so well-known: i) the electricity sector and its larger role in society, ii) science and philosophy. I will address only a few of the issues he grappled with and how these issues continue today, though in different forms.
In both these fields, Lenin not only had views but was also an active participant in shaping the views of his generation. In the electricity sector, he saw the future of industrialisation and agriculture in the Soviet Union. So much so that he declared that the Soviets and electrification equalled socialism; this was not simply a slogan but a deeply thought-out structure of the relationship he was proposing between the economy, the productive forces and knowledge. That, for him, included both scienceand technology—and the peoples' organisations: at that time, the Soviets.
The second addresses the new physics—relativity and quantum mechanics—both of which created problems not only for classical physics but also all the existing philosophical systems. Not surprisingly, not only were the old-school philosophers divided, but also the Marxists, many of whom dismissed both relativity and quantum mechanics as bourgeois deviations.
For Lenin, it was not simply a question of interpretation of reality within the framework of dialectical materialism but also one of how to enlarge the framework itself to meet these new challenges. Though he had published his initial work, Materialism and Empirio-criticism, and is widely known, his Philosophical Notebook, which advanced his formulations over his earlier work, remains as notes.
Though published later in the Soviet Union and available to all interested people, we miss the final form his notes would surely have taken due to his early death in 1924 at the age of 53.
Let us start with the story of the Soviet Union's electrification. At the time the Bolshevik Revolution took place—in 1918—the Soviet Union had an installed capacity of only 4.8 MW, catering at best to a few cities. What Lenin and the Communist Party recognised was that without large-scale electrification, neither industries nor agriculture would develop. Agriculture needed both irrigation and manufacturing to produce agricultural implements. This was why he said that the Soviets plus electrification was equal to socialism. For him and the Bolshevik party, that meant not just importing machines but also manufacturing them. The first target of industrialisation, therefore, was the electricity sector itself.
In November 1920, Lenin identified electricity as Russia's path to communism: "Communism is equal to Soviet power plus the electrification of the entire country". The declaration signified the Communist Party's approval of a plan forwarded by GOELRO, The State Commission for the Electrification of Russia, composed of engineers and scientists.
"A large-scale machine industry capable of reorganising agriculture is the only material basis that is possible for socialism… We had to undertake the scientific work of drawing up such a plan for the electrification of the USSR...with the cooperation of over two hundred of the best scientists, engineers and agronomists in Russia. Arrangements have now been made to convene an all-Russia congress of electrical engineers in August 1921 to examine this plan in detail, before it is given final government endorsement."
A number of later bourgeois scholars, including post-modernists, have tried to present Lenin as a mechanistic materialist who sought to strait jacket science within a utilitarian framework of technology. What they fail to understand is that Lenin was proposing an alliance of the technical workers with the peasantry for the two-fold purpose of rapid industrialisation of Russia and expanding its agriculture.
The technical intelligentsia—engineers and scientists—also allied with the revolutionary forces through this programme of expanding the fledgeling electricity sector. It was not simply expanding electrification but also developing the ability to build the machines that would produce electricity: the hydro-turbines. This is what Marx called the Department 1 of the industry, the ability to build the machines themselves that produce other artefacts/goods. Hydroelectric power would supply electricity to the people and the industries, and the dams would provide water to irrigate the peasants' fields. The alliance of the workers and peasants would be built around the hydroelectric projects themselves.
Lenin's slogan of Soviets plus electricity was a political slogan as much as it was a techno-economic one. It became the backbone of the industrial development of the Soviet Union, as without electricity, no large-scale industrialisation would have been possible. It also built up a cadre of workers and technologists who would power the industrialisation of the Soviet Union.
Interestingly, the electricity sector in India was also the arena in which Nehruvian, the socialist-communist and the Ambedkarite vision also came together in post-Independence India. Just as Lenin had identified the electricity sector and hydroelectric projects as the core of the socialist project, so did Nehru and Ambedkar.
As we know, Nehru declared hydroelectric projects as the "temples" of modern India, though he also later thought of many small dams and small industrial projects as an alternative to a few large projects (When the big dams came up: The Hindu, March 20, 2015).
What is less known is Ambedkar and his pioneering efforts as the Chairman of the Policy Committee on Public Works and Electric Power in 1943, and drafting of India's Electricity Act in 1948. He, as the architect of the Act, envisaged that electricity was an essential necessity, needed to be in the public sector and kept free of profit-making (Ambedkar's Role in Economic Planning Water and Power Policy, Sukhdeo Thorat, Shipra Publications, 2006). He also defined himself as a socialist, though not a Marxist (India and Communism, B.R. Ambedkar, Introduction by Anand Teltumbde, Leftword Books).
Remembering Lenin, we not only have to remember his many-sided contributions to political action and building a revolutionary party but also his contribution to philosophy, including the philosophy of science.
His first major philosophy of science work was Materialism and Empirio-criticism, in which he criticises those who uncritically accepted the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Undoubtedly, quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity posed serious challenges to all philosophical schools. This is the nature of any major scientific advance. It not only challenges the knowledge of nature that we have, but also the philosophies of nature that we build on such an understanding of nature.
Just like the heliocentric world, the discovery of the quantum world and the relativistic nature of the world, shook up the philosophical world. Philosophers refused to accept Einstein's theory of relativity, arguing that Einstein did not understand the philosophical nature of time, to which Einstein's reply was he only understood the time that could be measured and not philosophical time.
This was reflected in a major debate between Einstein and Henri Bergson in Paris (The Physicist and the Philosopher, Jimena Canales, 2015). Though history would show that Einstein's vision of time was objective, unlike subjective time for Bergson, Bergson's view prevailed on the Nobel Committee, which gave Einstein the Nobel Prize for the photoelectric effect and not for relativity, for which he became world-famous, keeping in mind, "...that the famous philosopher Bergson in Paris has challenged this theory".
Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks, though not written as a book but as notes to himself, makes clear that he had moved beyond his earlier formulation of sense perception of the external world as a "reflection". However, the critics of his Material and Empiro Criticism condemn it wrongly as being crude materialist based on this formulation alone. This is on par with condemning Engels as a crude materialist as opposed to Marx as the "correct" materialist.
Though Lenin always recognised that scientific laws are only partial and "fallible", his understanding of motion itself as—being in two places simultaneously—as dialectical and cannot be captured by binary (yes/no) Aristotelian logic. This is enunciated clearly in the Notebook. Though many multi-valued logic formulations exist, an exposition of dialectical logic that can replace Aristotelian binarylogic and yet retain the mathematics built on this structure of Aristotelian logic remains a challenge. In other words, Zeno's paradox of why Achilles cannot catch a tortoise still remains a problem in the current paradigm of mathematical logic, even though we are fully aware that Achilles will overtake the tortoise!
We should be happy that Lenin has left us many more problems than what he has solved, both in revolutionary practice, history, economics and philosophy. This is our challenge, and a challenge all living science and philosophy should have. Others are dogmas that need to be discarded to understand the dynamics of nature and society
Thursday, February 22, 2024
The Passing of Lenin. (1924)
From the March 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard
One of the significant facts brought into prominence by the great war was the intellectual bankruptcy of the ruling class of the Western World.
A gigantic field of operations and colossal wealth at their disposal, failed to bring out a single personality above the mediocre, from England and Germany down the list to America and Roumania.
The only character that stood, and stands, above the Capitalist mediocrities, was the man lately buried in Moscow – Nikolai Lenin.
The senseless shrieks of the Capitalist henchman against Lenin was itself evidence of their recognition of their own inferiority. All the wild and confused tales that were told by the agents of the master class (from Winston Churchill to Mrs. Snowden) to suggest that Lenin was “the greatest monster of iniquity the world has ever seen,” largely defeated their object, to every person capable of thinking clearly, by their sheer stupidity and extravagance.
One result of this tornado of lies was to cause a corresponding reaction on the other side. The various groups of woolly headed Communists, inside and outside of Russia, began to hail Lenin a new “Messiah” who was going to show the working class a new quick road to salvation. Thus does senseless abuse beget equally senseless hero-worship.
From sheer exhaustion the two-fold campaign has died down in the last year or two, even the “stunt” press only giving small space to Lenin and Russia.
Lenin’s sudden death, despite his long illness, has brought forward a flood of articles and reviews entirely different in tone from those that greeted his rise to power.
The shining light of modern Conservatism – Mr. J. L. Garvin – does not know whether Lenin was famous or infamous, whether he was a great man or a great scoundrel, so, wisely, leaves the verdict to posterity to settle.
A Fabian pet, Mr. G. D. H. Cole, in the New Statesman, for the 2nd February, makes the claim that Lenin’s great work was the “invention of the Soviet”! It is difficult to understand how the editor of a journal, supposed to be written for “educated” people, should have allowed such a piece of stupid ignorance to have passed his scrutiny. The word “Soviet” – that seems to have mesmerised some people – simply means “Council.” Every student of Russia knows that the “Council” has been an organic part of the Russian Constitution since the middle of the 16th century. But there may be another explanation of Mr. Cole’s attitude. As one of the leaders of that hopeless crusade to turn back the hands of the clock (known as “The Guild System”) he sees around him the ruins and the rubbish of the various experiments in this system and maybe he hopes by claiming Russia as an example of “Guildism” to arouse some new enthusiasm for further useless experiments. His hopes are built on shifting sands.
Michael Farbman, in the Observer, Jan. 27th, 1924, takes a more daring and dangerous line. He claims to understand Marx and Marxism, and yet makes such statements as:-
“When Lenin inaugurated the Dictatorship of the Proletariat he obviously was unhampered by the slightest hesitation or doubt as to the efficacy of Marxian principles. But the longer he tested them as a practical revolutionist and statesman the more he became aware of the impossibility of building up a society on an automatic and exclusively economic basis. When he had to adopt an agrarian policy totally at variance with his Marxian opinions, and when later he was compelled to make an appeal to the peasants’ acquisitive instincts and go back to what he styled ‘State Capitalism,’ he was not only conscious that something was wrong with his Marxian gospel, but frankly admitted that Marx had not foreseen all the realities of a complex situation. It is probably no exaggeration to say that the greatest value of the Russian Revolution to the world Labour movement lies in the fact that it has replaced Marxism by Leninism.”
The above quotation has been given at length because it not only epitomises Mr. Farbman’s attitude but also that of many so-called “Socialists.”
It will, therefore, be a matter of astonishment to the reader unacquainted with Marx’s writings and theories to learn that almost every sentence in that paragraph either begs the question or is directly false.
In the first sentence we have two assertions, One that Lenin established the “ Dictatorship of the Proletariat,” the other that this is a “Marxian principle.” Both statements are deliberately false.
Lenin never established any “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” – whatever that may mean – but only the Dictatorship of the Communist Party which exists today. In the whole of Marx’s writing that he himself saw through the press the phrase Dictatorship of the Proletariat does not occur once! This, of course, Mr. Farbman knows well. The next sentence contains a phrase that Mr. Farbman may know the meaning of, but which is idiotic nonsense from a Marxian standpoint. To talk of a Society “on an automatic and exclusively economic basis” is utterly in opposition to all Marxian teachings.
If Lenin ever made the statement attributed to him in the sentence that follows – “that Marx had not foreseen all the realities of a complex situation” – which is at least doubtful as no reference is given, that would only show Lenin’s misreading of Marx.
But the last sentence is a gem. Not only has the Russian revolution not displaced Marxism by Leninism (for as showed above Marxism never existed there) – it has displaced Leninism by Capitalism.
To understand Lenin’s position, both actually and historically, it is necessary to examine the conditions under which he came to the front. Early in 1917 it was clear to all observers that the corruption, treachery and double-dealing of the Czar and his nobles had brought about the collapse of the Army. (See M, Phillips Price The Soviet, the Terror and Intervention, p. 15; John Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World, etc,).
This was the most important factor in the whole Russian upheaval, and is the pivot upon which all the rest turns.
The Romanoffs and their crew had fallen from power when an efficient armed force was no longer at their disposal. Kerensky, who replaced them, tried to keep the war going without men or munitions. Lenin obtained permission to leave Switzerland for Russia and tried to stir up a revolt in March, 1917, but this failed, and he had to fly to Finland. Confusion grew, and finally it was decided to take steps to call a Constituent Assembly to draw up a new Constitution for Russia. The Bolsheviks hailed this move and loudly protested against the dilatoriness of Kerensky, who was afraid of losing office. At the same time the various Councils of peasants, workers and soldiers began to send representatives to Petrograd for an All-Russian Congress. At once a struggle began between the Kerensky section – or Mensheviks – and the Lenin section – or Bolsheviks – to obtain the majority of representation in this Assembly. For days the struggle continued and almost to the last moment the issue was in doubt, but the superior slogan of the Bolsheviks – “Peace, Bread, Land” – finally won a majority over to their side.
A day or two before this Lenin had come out of his hiding place and placed himself at the head of the Bolsheviks.
The first thing Lenin did when in office was to keep his promise. He issued a call for peace to all the belligerents on the basis of’ “no annexations, no indemnities.” This astonished the politicians of the Western Nations to whom election promises are standing jokes.
It was at this point that Lenin made his greatest miscalculation. He believed that the working masses of the western world were so war weary that upon the call from one of the combatants they would rise and force their various Governments to negotiate peace. Unfortunately these masses had neither the knowledge nor the organisation necessary for such a movement, and no response was given to the call, except the snarling demands of the Allies that Russia should continue to send men to be slaughtered. This lack of response was a terrible disappointment to Lenin, but, facing the situation, he opened negotiations for a separate peace with Germany. And here he made a brilliant stroke. To the horror and dismay of all the diplomatic circles in Europe he declared that the negotiations would be carried on in public, and they were. Thus exposing the stupid superstition still so beloved of Communists here, that it is impossible to conduct important negotiations in public.
Of course the conditions demanded by the Germans were hard. Again and again Lenin’s followers demanded that war should be re-opened rather than accept these conditions. Radek reports a conversation (Russian Information and Review, January 26th, 1924):-
“The mujik must the war. ‘But don’t you see that the mujik voted against the war,’ Lenin answered. ‘Excuse me, when and how did he vote against it?’ ‘He voted with his feet; he is running away from the front.’”
Large tracts of territory were detached from the Bolshevik control, and the greatest blow was the separation of the Ukraine, whose splendid fertile soil would have been of immense value for the purpose of providing food.
Still the problems to be handled were enormous. The delegates to the Constituent Assembly had gathered in Petrograd, but Lenin, who shouted so loudly for this Assembly when out of office, was not running the risk of being deposed now he was in office. He had the gathering dispersed, and refused to let the Assembly meet. Sporadic outbreaks among the peasantry were a source of continual trouble, particularly as the Bolsheviks had only a poor force at their disposal. The signing of the Armistice however solved this problem. The Communists are fond of claiming that Trotsky organised the “Red Army.” This claim is absurd, for Trotsky knew nothing of military matters. The upheaval in Germany, after the signing of the Armistice, threw hundreds of German officers out of work and Lenin gladly engaged their services, at high salaries, to organise the army. By the offer of better food rations, better clothing and warmer quarters plenty of men offered themselves for enlistment. The main difficulty however was not men but munitions.
Lenin and his supporters expected that the victorious Allies would turn their combined forces on Russia. But the Allies were so engrossed in trickery, double-dealing and swindling each other over the sharing of the plunder that they largely ignored Russia. Still to show their good will and kind intentions they subsidised a set of thieving scoundrels – Koltchak (assisted by that British hero “Colonel” John Ward), Deniken, Wrangel, Yudenitch, etc., to invade Russia for the purpose of taking it out of the control of the Russians.
It was a most hopeful undertaking, this sending in of marauding bands! The peasant, who had just got rid of his age-long enemy the landlord (sometimes rather summarily) was expected to assist in restoring that gentleman. To help them in reaching a decision, these marauding bands, with strict impartiality, plundered friend and foe alike. The only result of these various raids was to unify the mass of the people in Russia in accepting the Bolshevik rule. Slowly the Russians began to gather arms. Their army was already in good order, and although the enormous distances and lack of transport prevented them reaching many places, yet whenever the Red Army met the looting bands mentioned above the latter were defeated, with monotonous regularity.
Of course compared with the battles on the western front these engagements were mere hand skirmishes, as neither side had any heavy artillery, high-velocity shells, poison gas, nor bombing aeroplanes.
A greater enemy to Leninism than any of these gangs, however, and one which had been exerting its influence for some time, now greatly increased its pressure, this was the individualistic conditions of the peasant, combined with the wants of the townsmen. Various decrees had been passed forbidding private trading in the towns and villages (apart from special licences) but the Bolsheviks had never dared to enforce these decrees in face of the food shortage. The result of this increased pressure was the famous “New Economic Policy,” that caused such consternation in the ranks of the Communist parties. In this country Miss Sylvia Pankhurst nearly died of disgust when the news arrived.
But once more Lenin was right. He recognised the seriousness of the conditions and tried to frame a policy to fit them. His own words describe the situation with great clearness:-
“Yet, in 1921, after having emerged victoriously from the most important stages of the Civil War, Soviet Russia came face to face with a great – I believe, the greatest – internal political crisis which caused dissatisfaction, not only of the huge masses of the peasantry, but also of large numbers of workers. “It was the first, and I hope the last, time in the history of Soviet Russia that we had the great masses of the peasantry arrayed against us, not consciously, but instinctively, as a sort of political mood. “What was the cause of this unique, and, for us, naturally disagreeable, situation? It was caused by the fact that we had gone too far with our economic measures, that the masses were already sensing what we had not properly formulated, although we had to acknowledge a few weeks afterwards, namely, that the direct transition to pure Socialist economy, to pure Socialistic distribution of wealth, was far beyond our resources, and that if we could not make a successful and timely retreat, if we could not confine ourselves to easier tasks, we would go under.” (Address to the Fourth Congress of the Communist International.) (Italics ours.)
The most significant phrase in the above statement – the one we have underlined – now admits at last that Marx was right, and that the whole of the Communist “Theories and Theses” are rubbish from top to bottom.
Mr. Brailsford, the £1,000 a year, editor of The New Leader, in the issue for January 25th, 1924 says:-
“Alone in the earthquakes of the war period, this Russian revived the heroic age, and proved what the naked will of one man may do to change the course of history.”
What knowledge! What judgement! What intelligence! Where has the “course of history” changed one hair’s breadth owing to Russia? And the above specimen of ignorance, that would disgrace a school child, is considered worth £1,000 a year by the I.L.P.! Doubtless the measure of their intelligence.
The chief points of Lenin’s rule can now be traced out. He was the product of the “course of history” when the breakdown occurred in Russia. At first – nay even as late as the publication of Left-Wing Communism (p.44) – Lenin claimed that it was “a Socialist Revolution.” He also claimed that the Bolsheviks were establishing “Socialism” in Russia in accord with Marxian principles. Some of the shifts, and even deliberate misinterpretations of Marx’s writings that Lenin indulged in to defend his unsound position have already been dealt with in past issues of the Socialist Standard and need not detain us here. To delay the victorious Allies taking action against Russia, large sums were spent on propaganda in Europe by the Bolsheviks. “Communist” Parties sprang up like mushrooms, and now that these funds are vanishing, are dying like the same vegetable. Their policy was to stir up strife. Every strike was hailed as the “starting of the revolution.” But somehow they were all “bad starts”!
When the Constituent Assembly was broken up by Lenin’s orders he had the Russian Soviet Constitution drawn up. He realised that if the Bolsheviks were to retain control this new Constitution must give them full power. We have already analysed this Constitution in detail, in a previous issue, but a repetition of one point will make the essential feature clear. Clause 12 says:-
“The supreme authority in the Russian Soviet Republic is vested in the All Russia Congress of Soviets, and, during the time between the Congresses, in the Central Executive Committee.”
Clause 28 says:-
“The All Russia Congress of Soviets elects the All Russia Central Executive of not more than 200 members.”
Innocent enough, surely! But – yes there is a but – the credentials of the delegates to the All-Russia Congress are verified by the officials of the Communist Party and at every congress it turns out – quite by accident of course – that a large majority of the delegates are members of the Communist Party. The others are listened to politely, allowed to make long speeches, and then voted down by the “Block.” This little fact also applies to all “The Third Communist International Congresses,” and to all “The International Congresses of the Red Labour Unions.” No matter how many delegates the other countries may send, the Russian delegation is always larger than the rest combined.
By this “Dictatorship of the Communist Party” Lenin was able to keep power concentrated in his own hands.
Lenin made desperate efforts to induce the town workers to run the factories on disciplined lines, but despite the most rigid decrees these efforts were a failure. The Russian townsmen, like the peasant, has no appreciation of the value of time, and it is impossible to convert a 17th century hand worker into a modern industrial wage slave by merely pushing him into a factory and giving him a machine to attend. Lenin’s experience proves the fallacy of those who proclaim that modern machines, because they are made “fool-proof” in some details, can be operated by any people, no matter how low their stage of development.
Another idea was tried. A number of minor vultures on the working class, of the I.W.W. and Anarchist “leader” type, had gone to Russia to see what could be picked up. There were 6,000,000 unemployed in America. Lenin called upon these “leaders” to arrange for the transport of numbers of mechanics and skilled labourers to form colonies in Russia, with up-to-date factories and modern machinery. These “leaders” pocketed their fees and expenses, but the colonies have yet to materialise.
Such was the position up to the time of Lenin’s illness.
What then are Lenin’s merits? First in order of time is the fact that he made a clarion call for a world peace. When that failed he concluded a peace for his own country. Upon this first necessary factor he established a Constitution to give him control and, with a skill and judgement unequalled by any European or American statesman, he guided Russia out of its appalling chaos into a position where the services are operating fairly for such an undeveloped country, and where, at least, hunger no longer hangs over the people’s heads. Compare this with the present conditions in Eastern Europe!
Despite his claims at the beginning, he was the first to see the trend of conditions and adapt himself to these conditions. So far was he from “changing the course of history” as Brailsford ignorantly remarks that it was the course of history which changed him, drove him from one point after another till today Russia stands halfway on the road to capitalism. The Communists, in their ignorance, may howl at this, but Russia cannot escape her destiny. As Marx says:-
“One nation can and should learn from others. And even when a society has got upon the right track for the discovery of the natural laws of its movement – and it is the ultimate aim of this work to lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society – it can neither clear by bold leaps nor remove by legal enactments the obstacles offered by the successive phases of its normal development. But it can shorten and lessen the birth pangs.” (Preface Vol, I. Capital.)
The Bolsheviks will probably remain in control for the simple reason that there is no one in Russia capable of taking their place. It will be a question largely as to whether they will be able to stand the strain for the task is a heavy one, and they are by no means overcrowded with capable men. But this control will actually resolve itself into control for, and in the interests of, the Capitalists who are willing to take up the development of raw materials and industry in Russia. The New Economic Policy points the way.
The peasant problem will take longer to solve because of the immense areas, and lack of means of communication. Until the capitalists develop roads and railways the peasants will, in the main, follow their present methods and habits. When these roads and railways are developed, modern agriculture will begin to appear worked at first with imported men and machines. But then Russia will be well on the road to fully developed Capitalism.
The Communists claim that Lenin was a great teacher to the working class the world over, but with singular wisdom they refrain from pointing out what that teaching was. His actions from 1917 to 1922 certainly illustrate a certain lesson that is given above, but the teacher of that lesson was Karl Marx.
