
Part of a debate
- On Norman Gerasâs âOur Morals: The Ethics of Revolutionâ, by Alan Johnson
- In defence of Ernest Erber, by Alan Johnson
- Morality, revolution, the Bolsheviks, and us, by Sean Matgamna (and as pdf, with appendices)
- Appendix: the Birmingham pub bombing, 1974
- What we said on the poll tax: Thatcher reaps what she sows
- How not to quote Lenin, by John Ryan
âThe October Revolution is an imperishable page in the history of the great movements of the masses to take their destiny into their own hands that began with the French Revolution.
âIt was the second stage of the elemental upsurge of the Russian masses that began in February.
âThe Kerensky regime had done its utmost to block its further advance by frustrating the efforts of the masses to end the war and divide the land. The regime sought to stretch out its undemocratic authority as long as possible by repeatedly postponing the elections of a Constituent Assembly. If the revolution was to advance, Kerensky had to go. Only the Bolshevik Party was able to show the way to the teeming, creative, democratic Soviets of 1917.
âThe revolution broke through the impasse and opened a road toward a solution of the land and peace questions. Far from carrying out a coup dâĂ©tat, as their opponents charged, the Bolsheviks rode to power on the crest of an upsurge that sought to realize the long-promised objectives of land and peaceâ â Ernest Erber, Statement of Resignation, Bulletin of the Workers Party 1949.
With the benefit of having read Ernest Erberâs statement of resignation and then Shachtmanâs criticism of it, Alan Johnsonâs reply, In defence of Ernest Erber (Solidarity 488), could have taken the opportunity to respond to some of Shachtmanâs criticisms and hence move the discussion on rather than just decrying its ârepulsive crude sarcasmâ.
For instance, at one stage, discussing the meaning of Leninâs theory of the state and its relation to the ideas of Marx and Engels, Shachtman wonders why Erber, who had called it âthe textbook of the Leninist schoolâ, doesnât quote from Leninâs State and Revolution (1917) to buttress his case.
âShachtmanâs claim that âLeninâs theory is nothing but a restatement of what Marx and Engels taughtâ is spectacularly, staggeringly wrongâ, says Alan. But he tries to refute Shachtmanâs contention not by rising to his challenge and quoting from the far more relevant and rounded and full treatment of the issue in Shachtmanâs book, but by giving us an isolated quote from Lenin in 1906, âgiven as it if it were Leninâs prospectus for 1917â.
The previous reference also deals with the epigraph given in Alanâs article. He uses it to show why the revolution ended in tyranny, and Erber uses it to prove that weeks before the October revolution Lenin had âthe anti-democratic view of the party ruling on behalf of the massesâ. The difficult thing then, of course, is to explain how to square that with this articleâs epigraph, which also comes from Erberâs resignation letter.
The Bolshevik party in October both led the âdemocratic sovietsâ and ruled âon behalf ofâ the masses: surely a contradiction? The Russian Revolution did end in counter-revolution and tyranny, but that is not where it began. And the timescale isnât âwithin monthsâ, as Alan would have it, but years.
He is also wrong to say that Lenin was opposed to democracy. He uses some neat splicing of quotes and misquotes to make his case: Alan: âHe [Erber] pointed out that far from being a mere âmachine for the suppression of the working classâ as Lenin had it, representative democracy was an arena of struggleâŠâ
Erber: âThe bourgeois state was now stripped down to its real function as ânothing else but a machine for the suppression of the working classâŠââ Unless the bourgeois state is the only form of representative democracy, what about the âteeming, creative, democratic Sovietsâ? Alanâs splice has simply got this wrong.
Alan: âLenin was completely wrong to claim that âThe parliament can in no way serve as the arena of a struggle for reforms, for improving the lot of the working peopleâ.â
Erber: âLenin concluded: âThe parliament at present can in no way serve as the arena of a struggle for reform, for improving the lot of the working people, as it was at certain periods of the preceding epoch. The centre of gravity of political life at present has been completely and finally transferred beyond the limits of the parliamentâ.â
Notice how Alan drops the time qualifier âat presentâ, and finishes the quote before getting to âas it was at certain periods of the preceding epochâ. Thus âprovingâ that Lenin was always opposed to fighting for reforms in parliament. And it gets worse. Lenin allegedly didnât like voting at all âŠ
Alan: âLenin ⊠denounced âall kinds of voting, democracy and suchlike bourgeois deceitâ.â
Lenin: âThere is and can be only one alternative: either the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, disguised by constituent assemblies, all kinds of voting systems, democracy and similar bourgeois frauds that are used to blind fools, and that only people who have become utter renegades from Marxism and socialism all along the line can make play of today â or the dictatorship of the proletariat for suppressing with an iron hand the bourgeoisie, who are inciting the most backward elements against the finest leaders of the world proletariatâ. (Report at the Second All-Russia Trade Union Congress, January 20, 1919).
Alan: Lenin ⊠oppose[d] ⊠the elective principle per se, the universal franchise, representative assemblies (i.e. elected parliaments and elected local councils), the rule of law, and the separation of powers between executive, legislature and judiciary.
Lenin: âOnce again, we must say: the lessons of Marx, based on the study of the Commune, have been so completely forgotten that the present-day âSocial-Democratâ (i.e., present-day traitor to socialism) really cannot understand any criticism of parliamentarism other than anarchist or reactionary criticism. The way out of parliamentarism is not, of course, the abolition of representative institutions and the elective principle, but the conversion of the representative institutions from talking shops into âworkingâ bodies. âThe Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary, body, executive and legislative at the same timeâ.â
("Abolition of Parliamentarism", The State and Revolution)
You really should have taken Shachtmanâs advice to Erber, Alan.
There are lots more points to cover in Alanâs article, but in lieu of a proper treatment here are a few quick-fire replies and questions for further discussion Trotskyâs authoritarianism â a useful quality for a military commander? On Luxemburg and Trotskyâs predictions â âbaseless nonsense ⊠somewhat tarnishedâ (Lih, Lenin Rediscovered pp 529, 551). Were the non-Bolsheviks shot by the Bolsheviks the SRs that had killed Voldarsky and Uritisky? How much of an authoritarian travesty of socialism was the Bolsheviksâ effort to do without a standing army after October? The people killed by the Cheka before 6 July 1918 were common criminals (The Cheka, George Leggett, p.58). The Bolsheviksâ call for a Constituent Assembly in the months after April and before October was not hypocritical (John Marot, Lenin, Bolshevism, and Social-Democratic Political Theory: The 1905 and 1917 Soviets).
If the Bolsheviks were so opposed to parliamentarism, how do we account for Lenin and Trotskyâs efforts for the United Front at the Third Comintern congress in 1921? Erber did get one thing right, though. Commenting on the role of Bolshevism in the Russian Revolution he says: âIt remains a vastly rich experience which no serious movement of social change can ignore, no matter how different the conditions under which it operates are from those of Russiaâ.