Why is workers' revolution necessary?

Submitted by Anon on 5 March, 2006 - 11:26

For many, the term "revolution" evokes images of a Stalinist-led army descending on them to create a police state. Many revolutions in the twentieth century, such as those in Eastern Europe, China, Cuba and Vietnam, were in fact just like that. Because of that many socialists think it more prudent only to fight for reforms, or (as the title of a recent book puts it) to "change the world without taking power".

The AWL also fights for reforms, because mobilising the working class for immediate improvements is the best way to transform the labour movement and prepare the working class to make socialism. However, we reject the idea that there is a "parliamentary road" to socialism.

The Westminster system is not democratic enough to serve the working class. MPs are on inflated salaries and only subject to election every five years. The government controls Parliament much more than Parliament controls the government; and the government operates within the framework of a huge unelected state machine. Top civil servants, the police, the military and judges are appointed, not elected. The secret service is not accountable to governments. Key economic decisions are made by the bosses of big corporations and banks.

If serious socialists should fight our way through all those obstacles to win a parliamentary majority, the ruling class will try to use its army and police against us. In Chile - a country with longer parliamentary traditions than almost all European countries - the army made a coup in 1973 and imposed a military dictatorship, killing thousands, in order to oust a reforming, socialistic, elected government. In the UK, when a (very tame) Labour government was elected on the back of industrial militancy in 1974, "fairly senior" officers discussed a military coup (so the top army commander, Michael Carver, who told them they were over-reacting, later revealed). In the early 1980s, when the Labour Party swung left, the very respectable Times newspaper editorialised that Labour must not be allowed to form a government, even if it should win a majority in a General Election. In Australia in 1975, a leftish Labour government was "sacked" by the Governor-General, acting on the authority of the Queen. (The same happened in New South Wales in 1931).

We are for democracy. We are for parliamentary democracy against dictatorship. We know that a better democracy cannot be won unless and until the working class has tested the potentialities of parliamentary democracy to their limits. But a big push by the working class to win decisive change through the channels of parliamentary democracy will face the workers with a choice between going over to direct action and more responsive forms of democracy - workers' councils, workers' militias, in a word revolution - or submitting to capitalist counter-revolution, "constitutional" or violent.

Working-class revolution is something very different from the Stalinist stereotype of "revolution" - even more different from it than our sort of reforms are from the Blair-Brownite notion of "reform".

Working-class revolutions break out when the ruling class can no longer rule in the old way and the workers are no longer willing to be ruled in the old way. Workers' revolutions involve the participation of millions in politics, and generate thoroughgoing democratic forms when we workers take control of our destiny. A workers' revolution must be democratic - an act of the overwhelming majority of the workers, with sufficient backing from the rest of the population to overwhelm the entrenched conservative powers - or it does not happen at all.

Workers' revolutions across the globe have shown what the working class is capable of.

The Russian revolution of 1917

The revolution in Russia was the high point of working class history so far. The Russian working class overthrew the Tsar (king) and then the unelected temporary ("provisional") government that took over from him. The Russian working class took power and held it for some years. Only once before, in Paris in 1871, had workers seized power; and they were smashed within two months there.

The Russian revolution started on International Women's Day - 23 February by the calendar then in use in Russia (8 March by the Western calendar). Thousands of angry women, some of them textile workers, took to the streets of the capital, St Petersburg, to protest about a bread shortage and the World War. The next day 200,000 workers went on strike and marched into the centre of the city, carrying placards demanding "Down with the war" and "Down with the Tsarist government". The following day students and middle class people joined them.

Workers decided to organise new committees of struggle, based on workplaces. On 27 February 1917 the St Petersburg Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies was formed.

The day before, soldiers fired on the crowds, killing hundreds. But that prompted regiments to mutiny. On 1 March 170,000 soldiers joined the demonstrators. Soldiers and sailors sacked officers who had tyrannised them. Some officers were shot.

On 27 February, members of the (very limited) Russian parliament began moves to oust the Tsar, who until then had had dictatorial power. On 2 March he abdicated and Russia became a republic, run by a provisional government.

What then opened up was a period of "dual power", where two forces - on the one side the workers' and peasants' soviets and on the other the provisional government - vied for power.

Russia on the eve of 1917

Russia was a web of contradictions. It was the world's fifth largest industrial power (18 per cent lived in towns and cities), yet 75 per cent of its 164 million people worked in farming. It was the world's largest grain exporter, yet most peasants lived in poverty. Per capita, more children died young than in any other European country.

Although there were only 3.6 million industrial workers in the factories and mines, they were concentrated in a few regions and in huge workplaces - giving them great political clout.

The Russian working class was already very political. It had risen against the Tsar in 1905, organising Soviets (workers' councils) - a new form of democratic organisation. Although the Tsar banned unions, Russian workers organised many strikes in 1905-06 and again in 1912-14.

A Marxist workers' party was founded in 1898. It split into two factions in 1903 and into two separate parties, called Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, in 1912. In January 1917 the Mensheviks had 100,000 members, half of them in Georgia. The Mensheviks supported the provisional government.

The Bolsheviks had 10,000 members. Many of its leaders, such as Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, were in exile. Bolsheviks inside Russia critically supported the provisional government and the war. When Lenin returned to Russia in April, he led a debate in which the Bolsheviks changed their policies and their slogans - to "peace, bread, land" and "all power to the soviets". Other workers' groups such as Leon Trotsky's Mezhraiontsy joined the Bolsheviks during 1917.

The biggest party was the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SRs), based mainly on the peasants. By mid 1917 the SRs had 700,000 members in villages and in the army - and 300,000 members in towns and cities.

Prices tripled between 1914 and 1916, while wages only doubled. In the first two months of 1917 strikes surpassed the level reached in 1913.

Workers' organisation

After the general strike and the fall of the Tsar, workers went back to work with new ideas of how factories should be run. Hated managers were driven out and old rules discarded.

Workers organised factory committees to represent their interests. The committees fought for an eight-hour day and pay rises and took control over hiring and firing, supplies and guarding the factories - and imposed workers' supervision of production. By October 1917 two-thirds of factories with 200 or more workers had factory committees.

By October there were two million trade union members, organised along industrial not craft lines. Between February and October 1917, 2.5 million workers went on strike over higher wages.

But the main organisations were the soviets. In St Petersburg the soviet elected 1,200 deputies within its first week. The movement spread. In March and April 1917, 700 soviets formed, with 200,000 deputies. By October there were 1,400 soviets, around a third based on the peasants.

The basic soviet principle was that delegates were directly elected by those they represented. Delegates could be recalled and replaced immediately. Representatives were not privileged. They did not live life above and apart from the workers, soldiers and peasants who elected them.

The soviets ruled on a range of matters. For example St Petersburg soviets' Order No.1 instructed soldiers to take their orders from the soviet and set up committees in the forces -
undermining the power of the officers.

In June 1917 the first Russia-wide congress of soviets was organised. Out of 777 delegates, 285 were SRs, 248 were Mensheviks and 155 were Bolsheviks. The congress set up the Central Executive Committee (CEC), run by the SRs and Mensheviks.

Most of the soviets and factory committees demanded peace. On 20 April foreign minister Miliukov was exposed for secretly supporting the Allies. Thousands of workers and soldiers in St Petersburg protested saying "Down with the Provisional Government". (Lenin considered this slogan premature, though he opposed the Provisional Government.)

Miliukov resigned and six Menshevik and SR members of the soviet executive joined the provisional government. War minister Kerensky pushed for an army offensive in June.

On 3 July soldiers from the first machine gun regiment demonstrated against the war. They were joined by 20,000 sailors from Kronstadt and thousands of workers, demanding "all power to the soviets". Bolshevik party leaders thought that any attempt to seize power at that time would be premature, so joined the demonstrations while advising caution and patience.

On 4 July soldiers surrounded government headquarters, but were dispersed by loyalist troops. Leading Bolsheviks were arrested or forced into hiding. Kerensky became prime minister and launched a crackdown.

Kerensky appointed Kornilov as commander in chief of the army. On 26 August Kornilov demanded civil and military authority. Kerensky ordered Kornilov to step down. Kornilov responded by ordering his troops to march on St Petersburg. Kerensky asked the soviets for help. The workers and soldiers drove Kornilov back.

The Bolsheviks had been working steadily to educate and mobilise, emphasising basic working-class organisation in place of the flowery "revolutionary" declarations of the Mensheviks and the SRs. Now they gained majority influence in the working class as they mobilised the workers and soldiers to fight Kornilov while giving no political support to Kerensky.

The workers take power

The Kornilov events demonstrated the weakness of the provisional government and the strength of the soviets. The Bolsheviks increased their vote in municipal elections in August. On 31 August the St Petersburg soviet passed a Bolshevik resolution calling for "all power to the soviets". On 5 September the Moscow soviet passed the same resolution. Over the next two weeks 80 other soviets also called for the seizure of power.

The Bolshevik party had 400,000 members by October. Lenin urged them to organise for the taking of power. The party voted to do so through the second soviet congress on 20 October. Trotsky headed the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), responsible for practical preparations, including the organisation of Red Guards.

Kerensky moved against the Bolsheviks, attempting to shut their printing press. He and the Mensheviks managed to postpone the soviet congress by five days. However, on 24 October Red Guards occupied strategic positions and stormed the Winter Palace, where the provisional government met.

Next day, at the soviet congress, Lenin announced that the provisional government had been overthrown and called on the soviets to assume power. As the Mensheviks and most SRs walked out, Trotsky said: "Your role is played out. Go where you belong, into the dustbin of history."

For most workers, soldiers and peasants, soviet government meant freedom and equality: a government of the toilers. The workers' government proclaimed its aim: "the abolition of exploitation of man by man, the elimination of the division of society into classes, the ruthless suppression of the exploiters, the establishment of a socialist organisation of society and the victory of socialism in all countries".

Before the end of 1917 the soviet government issued 100 decrees. It stopped the war; distributed land to the peasants; nationalised industry, putting it under workers' control; introduced the right to divorce, self-determination of nations and a shorter working day.

France 1968

France in May 1968 gives us a picture of what a socialist revolution will be like in developed capitalist countries. But few would have believed it even a month before. In 1967 a one-day general strike failed abysmally and academics argued that the French working class had been tamed.

Students in Nanterre University provided the spark, campaigning for the right to stay in each other's rooms after 11pm and about overcrowding and course content. On 3 May 1968 they took their struggle to the Sorbonne University in the centre of Paris.

Police attacked the demonstration and hundreds were arrested. The Sorbonne was closed and occupied by police. In response, 50,000 attended a students' demonstration on 7 May.

On 10 May, 30,000 assembled for another demo. They saw riot police near the Sorbonne. So they set up barricades. The police unleashed CS gas and baton-charged the students, who fought back.

Millions of French workers sympathised with the students' struggle and condemned the government's repression. The Communist Party (CP)-led CGT union called a one-day general strike. On 13 May over one million workers and students demonstrated in Paris and other cities.

The next day workers at Sud-Aviation in Nantes (led by Trotskyists and anarchists) occupied the factory, demanding pay rises, shorter hours and rights for casual workers. More factories followed - notably Renault car factories in Cléon and Billancourt. By the end of the week two million workers were on strike. Action committees brought together students and the younger, more militant workers. There were 460 action committees in Paris by the end of May.

The general strike continued to grow. On 20 May over six million were out. By 24 May between eight and ten million workers were on strike. This was quadruple the number at the height of strike action in France in 1936 and in Britain during the general strike of 1926.

In the occupied factories discussion and debate flourished. At Renault factories there were discussions about workers' control and the occupation. Almost half of all workers picketed. They also put on films, plays and debated issues like sexuality and contraception.

Even the police and the army were affected. The police federation came out in support of the strike (but not for long) and some army units established action committees. And still workers demonstrated. Half a million marched through Paris on 29 May calling for French president de Gaulle to resign.

Workers in Nantes formed a Central Strike Committee. The committee organised food distribution, the schooling of children and traffic control. At the Nuclear Research Centre in Saclay, workers set up a workers' council with links to local farmers and provided medical aid for injured students.

The government (with help from the Stalinist CP) scrambled to stem the tide. On 27 May they offered a 30 per cent increase in the minimum wage, a 10 per cent pay rise and a cut in the working week. Workers at Renault Billancourt simply booed. But, lacking a revolutionary workers' political party which could lead a struggle to generalise workers' organisations like that in Nantes - or the Russian soviets of 1917 - the movement started to flounder and ebb.

The revolutionary left in France had suffered harshly in the late 1940s and the 1950s. Despite some recent growth, it was still tiny before the explosion in May 1968. The biggest group was only 300 members, almost all students. Even apart from whatever mistakes they made in 1968, the revolutionaries just did not have the forces to grow into a Bolshevik-type mass revolutionary party in time.

On 30 May de Gaulle called National Assembly elections for June. Police were sent into occupied workplaces. Over the next two weeks, despite heroic resistance, the strike petered out. Factories and universities were taken back by police. In the June elections, Gaullists increased their majority.

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