The Russian Revolution and Its Fate

AS noted in the accompanying summary of the debate, Kerensky spent much of his time working over scraps of quotations from Lenin — from different periods, contexts, and articles indiscriminately, — la Boris Shub — under the heading of a discussion of the Russian Revolution and democracy. While it takes at least ten times longer to nail one of these forgeries than it takes to reel off the distorted quotation, Shachtman was able to take them up effectively. Here is one of the "quotations" which Kerensky tossed off, for example. Quite often it was impossible for the audience to determine from his...

By Max Shachtman THE Independent Socialist League does not subscribe to any doctrine called Leninism. It does not have an official position on the subject and I am pretty certain that nobody could get the League to commit itself officially on a term which has been so varyingly and conflictingly defined as to make discussion of it more often semantic than ideological or political. To me, and surely to most of our comrades, Leninism is a question primarily of historical importance in our time. Most often what is in people’s minds is the Russian Revolution and democracy as the road and aim of...

THE FATE OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. When, after Korniloff’s adventure, the paramount parties on the Soviets made an attempt to make amends for their previous attitude of indulgence towards the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, they demanded the speedy convocation of the Constituent Assembly. Kerensky, who had just been saved by the Soviets from the too close embrace of his ally Korniloff, was obliged to give in. The Constituent Assembly was fixed for the end of November. But the circumstances had by that time become such that no guarantee whatsoever was available that the Constituent...

Lenin called for the "dictatorship of the proletariat" as a great expansion of democracy. By "dictatorship" he meant the rule of a class, not of a Hitler or a Stalin. This is an abridged version of Lenin's "Theses on Bourgeois Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat", adopted by the founding congress of the Communist International in March 1919. Long-forgotten contemporary references and examples have been cut. FACED WITH THE GROWTH of the revolutionary workers' movement in every country, the bourgeoisie and their agents in the workers' organisations are making desperate political...

The Russian revolution was the most important event of the 20th century. It was the most important event in the entire history of the working class. The working class took and held power in territory that covered one sixth of the globe. That working class power was overthrown in the early-mid 1920s by the Stalinist counter-revolution, which though continuing to call itself "communist" and "working class" put in a brutal and savage state bureaucracy as a new ruling class over the working people. That Stalinist "dictatorship of the bureaucracy" — brutal, exploiting class power pretending to be...

By Dale Street Widespread disillusionment with the results of market reforms and privatisation is now rife throughout the Russian Federation. This has combined with conflicts between different sections of the old Soviet elite to lay the groundwork for a resurgence of Russian nationalism. Despite Yeltsin’s incessant claims that the Russian economy is on the road to recovery, the country remains in the grip of deep economic crisis. Inflation and unemployment are rising, while the value of the ruble and living standards are falling. Industries often cannot afford to pay their own workforces. At...

By Colin Foster Al Richardson overdoes it a bit in his response to Robin Blick (WL 20). To Blick’s claim “that during the Russian Revolution Lenin’s ‘elitist and coercive “blood and iron” state socialism’ triumphed over Martov’s ‘vision of a society that was both collectivist and democratic’,” he replies that the option “both collectivist and democratic” was impossible in 1917 because of the harsh world context and the great backwardness of Russia. So what did the Bolsheviks think they were doing? He does not, or seems not to, dispute Blick’s description of the Bolshevik revolutionary regime...

8 November 1917 The workers’ and peasants’ government, created by the Revolution of 6-7 November and basing itself on the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, calls upon all the belligerent peoples and their governments to start immediate negotiations for a just, democratic peace. By a just or democratic peace… the government means an immediate peace without annexations (i.e., without the seizure of foreign lands, without the forcible incorporation of foreign nations) and without indemnities… In accordance with the sense of justice of democrats in general, and of the working...