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<title>H.6 Why did the Russian Revolution fail?
</title>

</head>

<h1>H.6 Why did the Russian Revolution fail?</h1>

<p>
The greatest myth of Marxism must surely be the idea that the Russian
Revolution failed solely due to the impact of objective factors. While 
the date Leninists consider the revolution to have become beyond
reform varies (over time it has moved backwards towards 1917 as the 
authoritarianism under Lenin and Trotsky has become better known), 
the actual reasons are common. For Leninists, the failure of the 
revolution was the product of such things as civil war, foreign 
intervention, economic collapse and the isolation and backwardness 
of Russia and <b>not</b> Bolshevik ideology. Bolshevik authoritarianism,
then, was forced upon the party by difficult objective circumstances.
It follows that there are no fundamental problems with Leninism and so 
it is a case of simply applying it again, hopefully in more fortuitous 
circumstances. 
</p><p>
Anarchists are not impressed by this argument and we will show why by 
refuting common Leninist explanations for the failure of the revolution.
For anarchists, Bolshevik ideology played its part, creating social 
structures (a new state and centralised economic organisations) which 
not only disempowered the masses but also made the objective circumstances 
being faced much worse. Moreover, we argue, vanguardism could not help 
turn the rebels of 1917 into the ruling elite of 1918. We explore these 
arguments and the evidence for them in this section.
</p><p>
For those who argue that the civil war provoked Bolshevik policies, the
awkward fact is that many of the features of war communism, such 
as the imposition of one-man management and centralised state control
of the economy, were already apparent before war communism. As one
historian argues, <i>"[f]rom the first days of Bolshevik power there was 
only a weak correlation between the extent of 'peace' and the mildness or
severity of Bolshevik rule, between the intensity of the war and the 
intensity of proto-war communist measures . . . Considered in ideological 
terms there was little to distinguish the 'breathing space' (April-May 1918) 
from the war communism that followed."</i> Unsurprisingly, then, <i>"the 
breathing space of the first months of 1920 after the victories over 
Kolchak and Denikin . . . saw their intensification and the militarisation 
of labour"</i> and, in fact, <i>"no serious attempt was made to review the 
aptness of war communist policies."</i> Ideology <i>"constantly impinged 
on the choices made at various points of the civil war . . . Bolshevik 
authoritarianism cannot be ascribed simply to the Tsarist legacy or to 
adverse circumstances."</i> [Richard Sakwa, <b>Soviet Communists in 
Power</b>, p. 24, p. 27 and p. 30] The inherent tendencies of Bolshevism 
were revealed by the civil war, a war which only accelerated the 
development of what was implicit (and, often, not so implicit) in 
Bolshevik ideology and its vision of socialism, the state and the 
role of the party.
</p><p>
Thus <i>"the effective conclusion of the Civil War at the beginning of 1920 
was followed by a more determined and comprehensive attempt to apply these 
so-called War Communism policies rather than their relaxation"</i> and so
the <i>"apogee of the War Communism economy occurred after the Civil War 
was effectively over."</i> With the fighting over Lenin <i>"forcefully 
raised the introduction of one-man management . . . Often commissars fresh 
from the Red Army were drafted into management positions in the factories."</i>
By the autumn of 1920, one-man management was in 82% of surveyed workplaces.
This <i>"intensification of War Communism labour policies would not have 
been a significant development if they had continued to be applied in the same 
haphazard manner as in 1919, but in early 1920 the Communist Party leadership 
was no longer distracted by the Civil War from concentrating its thoughts and 
efforts on the formulation and implementation of its labour policies."</i> 
While the <i>" experience of the Civil War was one factor predisposing communists 
towards applying military methods"</i> to the economy in early 1920, <i>"ideological 
considerations were also important."</i> [Jonathan Aves, <b>Workers Against Lenin</b>,
p. 2, p. 17, p. 15, p. 30, p. 17 and p. 11]
</p><p>
So it seems incredulous for Leninist John Rees to assert, for example, 
that <i>"[w]ith the civil war came the need for stricter labour discipline and 
for  . . . 'one man management'. Both these processes developed lock step 
with the war."</i> [<i>"In Defence of October,"</i> pp. 3-82, <b>International 
Socialism</b>, no. 52, p. 43] As we discuss in the <a href="secH6.html#sech61">next section</a>, 
Lenin was advocating both of these <b>before</b> the outbreak of civil war in
May 1918 <b>and</b> after it was effectively over. Indeed he explicitly, both
before and after the civil war, stressed that these policies were being 
implemented because the lack of fighting meant that the Bolsheviks could turn
their full attention to building socialism. How these facts can be reconciled 
with claims of policies being in <i>"lock step"</i> with the civil war is 
hard to fathom.
</p><p>
Part of the problem is the rampant confusion within Leninist circles as to 
when the practices condemned as Stalinism actually started. For example, 
Chris Harman (of the UK's SWP) in his summary of the rise Stalinism asserted 
that after <i>"Lenin's illness and subsequent death"</i> the <i>"principles 
of October were abandoned one by one."</i> Yet the practice of, and 
ideological commitment to, party dictatorship, one-man management in 
industry, banning opposition groups/parties (as well as factions 
within the Communist Party), censorship, state repression of strikes 
and protests, piece-work, Taylorism, the end of independent trade 
unions and a host of other crimes against socialism were all 
implemented under Lenin and normal practice at the time of his 
death. In other words, the <i>"principles of October"</i> were 
abandoned under, and by, Lenin. Which, incidentally, explains why, 
Trotsky <i>"continued to his death to harbour the illusion that somehow, 
despite the lack of workers' democracy, Russia was a 'workers' state.'"</i> 
[<b>Bureaucracy and Revolution in Eastern Europe</b>, p. 14 and p. 20] 
Simply put, there had been no workers' democracy when Trotsky held 
state power and he considered that regime a <i>"workers' state"</i>. 
The question arises why Harman thinks Lenin's Russia was some 
kind of "workers' state" if workers' democracy is the criteria by 
which such things are to be judged. 
</p><p>
From this it follows that, unlike Leninists, anarchists do not judge a
regime by who happens to be in office. A capitalist state does not 
become less capitalist just because a social democrat happens to be
prime minister or president. Similarly, a regime does not become 
state capitalist just because Stalin is in power rather than Lenin. 
While the Marxist analysis concentrates on the transfer of state power 
from one regime to another, the anarchist one focuses on the transfer 
of power from the state and bosses to working class people. What 
makes a regime socialist is the social relationships it has, not the 
personal opinions of those in power. Thus if the social relationships
under Lenin are similar to those under Stalin, then the nature of the 
regime is similar. That Stalin's regime was far more brutal, oppressive and 
exploitative than Lenin's does not change the underlying nature of the
regime. As such, Chomsky is right to point to <i>"the techniques of use 
of terminology to delude"</i> with respect to the Bolshevik revolution.
Under Lenin and Trotsky, <i>"a popular revolution was taken over by a 
managerial elite who immediately dismantled all the socialist 
institutions."</i> They used state power to <i>"create a properly 
managed society, run by smart intellectuals, where everybody does his job 
and does what he's told . . . That's Leninism. That's <b>the exact opposite of
socialism</b>. If socialism means anything, it means workers' control of
production and then on from there. That's the first thing they destroyed.
So why do we call it socialism?"</i> [<b>Language and Politics</b>, p. 537]
</p><p>
To refute in advance one obvious objection to our argument, the anarchist 
criticism of the Bolsheviks is <b>not</b> based on the utopian notion 
that they did not create a fully functioning (libertarian) communist 
society. As we discussed <a href="secH2.html#sech25">section H.2.5</a>, 
anarchists have never thought a revolution would immediately produce such 
an outcome. As Emma Goldman argued, she had not come to Russia <i>"expecting 
to find Anarchism realised"</i> nor did she <i>"expect Anarchism to follow 
in the immediate footsteps of centuries of despotism and submission."</i> 
Rather, she <i>"hope[d] to find in Russia at least the beginnings of 
the social changes for which the Revolution had been fought"</i> and that 
<i>"the Russian workers and peasants as a whole had derived essential 
social betterment as a result of the Bolshevik regime."</i> Both hopes were 
dashed. [<b>My Disillusionment in Russia</b>, p. xlvii] Equally, anarchists
were, and are, well aware of the problems facing the revolution, the impact of
the civil war and economic blockade. Indeed, both Goldman and Berkman used
these (as Leninists still do) to rationalise their support for the Bolsheviks, 
in spite of their authoritarianism (for Berkman's account see <b>The Bolshevik
Myth</b> [pp. 328-31]). Their experiences in Russia, particularly after the
end of the civil war, opened their eyes to the impact of Bolshevik ideology
on its outcome.
</p><p>
Nor is it a case that anarchists have no solutions to the problems facing the 
Russian Revolution. As well as the negative critique that statist structures 
are unsuitable for creating socialism, particularly in the difficult economic 
circumstances that affects every revolution, anarchists stressed that genuine 
social construction had to be based on the people's own organisations and 
self-activity. This was because, as Goldman concluded, the state is a 
<i>"menace to the constructive development of the new social structure"</i> 
and <i>"would become a dead weight upon the growth of the new forms of 
life."</i> Therefore, she argued, only the <i>"industrial power of the 
masses, expressed through their libertarian associations - Anarchosyndicalism 
- is alone able to organise successfully the economic life and carry on 
production"</i> If the revolution had been made a la Bakunin rather than 
a la Marx <i>"the result would have been different and more satisfactory"</i> 
as (echoing Kropotkin) Bolshevik methods <i>"conclusively demonstrated how 
a revolution should <b>not</b> be made."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 253-4 
and  p. liv]
</p><p>
It should also be mentioned that the standard Leninist justification for 
party dictatorship is that the opposition groups supported the counter-revolution
or took part in armed rebellions against "soviet power" (i.e., the Bolsheviks).
Rees, for example, asserts that some Mensheviks <i>"joined the Whites. The
rest alternated between accepting the legitimacy of the government and agitating
for its overthrow. The Bolsheviks treated them accordingly."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>,
p. 65] However, this is far from the truth. As one historian noted, while the
<i>"charge of violent opposition would be made again and again"</i> by the
Bolsheviks, along with being <i>"active supporters of intervention and of
counter-revolution"</i>, in fact this <i>"charge was untrue in relation to
the Mensheviks, and the Communists, if they ever believed it, never succeeded
in establishing it."</i> A few individuals did reject the Menshevik <i>"official
policy of confining opposition to strictly constitutional means"</i> and they
were <i>"expelled from the party, for they had acted without its knowledge."</i>
[Leonard Schapiro, <b>The Origin of the Communist Autocracy</b>, p. 193] 
Significantly, the Bolsheviks annulled their June 14th expulsion of the 
Mensheviks from the soviets on the 30th of November of the same year, 1918.
[E. H. Carr, <b>The Bolshevik Revolution</b>, vol. 1, p. 180]
</p><p>
By <i>"agitating"</i> for the <i>"overthrow"</i> of the Bolshevik government, 
Rees is referring to the Menshevik tactic of standing for election to soviets 
with the aim of securing a majority and so forming a new government! Unsurprisingly,
the sole piece of evidence presented by Rees is a quote from historian E.H. Carr: 
<i>"If it was true that the Bolshevik regime was not prepared after the first few
months to tolerate an organised opposition, it was equally true that no opposition 
party was prepared to remain within legal limits. The premise of dictatorship was 
common to both sides of the argument."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 190] Yet this 
<i>"judgment ignores"</i> the Mensheviks whose policy of legal opposition: <i>"The 
charge that the Mensheviks were not prepared to remain within legal limits is 
part of the Bolsheviks case; it does not survive an examination of the facts."</i> 
[Schapiro, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 355fn]
</p><p>
As regards the SRs, this issue is more complicated. The right-SRs welcomed 
and utilised the rebellion of the Czech Legion in May 1918 to reconvene the 
Constituent Assembly (within which they had an overwhelming majority and 
which the Bolsheviks had dissolved). After the White General Kolchak 
overthrew this government in November 1918 (and so turned the civil war 
into a Red against White one), most right-SRs sided with the Bolsheviks 
and, in return, the Bolsheviks restated them to the soviets in February 
1919. [Carr, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 356 and p. 180] It must be stressed 
that, contra Carr, the SRs aimed for a democratically elected government, 
not a dictatorship (and definitely not a White one). With the Left-SRs, 
it was the Bolsheviks who denied them their majority at the Fifth 
All-Congress of Soviets. Their rebellion was <b>not</b> an attempted 
coup but rather an attempt to force the end of the Brest-Litovsk treaty 
with the Germans by restarting the war (as Alexander Rabinowitch proves 
beyond doubt in his <b>The Bolsheviks in Power</b>). It would be fair to 
say that the anarchists, most SRs, the Left SRs and Mensheviks were not 
opposed to the revolution, they were opposed to Bolshevik policy.
</p><p>
Ultimately, as Emma Goldman came to conclude, <i>"what [the Bolsheviks] 
called 'defence of the Revolution' was really only the defence of [their] 
party in power."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 57] 
</p><p>
At best it could be argued that the Bolsheviks had no alternative but to impose
their dictatorship, as the other socialist parties would have succumbed to the
Whites and so, eventually, a White dictatorship would have replaced the Red one.
This was why, for example, Victor Serge claimed he sided with the Communists 
against the Kronstadt sailors even though the latter had right on their side
for <i>"the country was exhausted, and production practically at a standstill; 
there was no reserves of any kind . . . The working-class <b>elite</b> that 
had been moulded in the struggle against the old regime was literally decimated. 
. . . If the Bolshevik dictatorship fell, it was only a short step to chaos . . . 
and in the end, through the sheer force of events, another dictatorship, this 
time anti-proletarian."</i> [<b>Memoirs of a Revolutionary</b>, pp. 128-9]
</p><p>
This, however, is shear elitism and utterly violates the notion that socialism 
is the self-emancipation of the working class. Moreover, it places immense 
faith on the goodwill of those in power - a utopian position. Equally, it 
should not be forgotten that both the Reds and Whites were anti-working 
class. At best it could be argued that the Red repression of working class 
protests and strikes as well as opposition socialists would not have been 
as terrible as that of the Whites, but that is hardly a good rationale for 
betraying the principles of socialism. Yes, libertarians can agree with Serge 
that embracing socialist principles may not work. Every revolution is a 
gamble and may fail. As libertarian socialist Ante Ciliga correctly argued:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"Let us consider, finally, one last accusation which is commonly circulated: 
that action such as that at Kronstadt could have <b>indirectly</b> let loose 
the forces of the counter-revolution. It is <b>possible</b> indeed that even by 
placing itself on a footing of workers' democracy the revolution might have been 
overthrown; but what is <b>certain</b> is that it has perished, and that it has
perished on account of the policy of its leaders. The repression of Kronstadt, 
the suppression of the democracy of workers and soviets by the Russian Communist 
party, the elimination of the proletariat from the management of industry, and 
the introduction of the NEP, already signified the death of the Revolution."</i> 
[<i>"The Kronstadt Revolt"</i>,  pp. 330-7, <b>The Raven</b>, no, 8, p. 333 p. 335]
</blockquote></p><p>
So it should be stressed that no anarchist would argue that if an anarchist path 
had been followed then success would have automatically followed. It is possible 
that the revolution would have failed but one thing is sure: by following the 
Bolshevik path it <b>did</b> fail. While the Bolsheviks may have remained in 
power at the end of the civil war, the regime was a party dictatorship preceding 
over a state capitalist economy. In such circumstances, there could no further 
development towards socialism and, unsurprisingly, there was none. Ultimately, 
as the rise of Stalin showed, the notion that socialism could be constructed without 
basic working class freedom and self-government was a baseless illusion.
</p><p>
As we will show, the notion that objective circumstances (civil war, economic 
collapse, and so on) cannot fully explain the failure of the Russian Revolution.
This becomes clear once the awkward fact that Bolshevik authoritarianism and state 
capitalist policies started before the outbreak of civil war is recognised 
(see <a href="secH6.html#sech61">section H.6.1</a>);
that their ideology inspired and shaped the policies they implemented and these
policies themselves made the objective circumstances worse 
(see <a href="secH6.html#sech62">section H.6.2</a>);
and that the Bolsheviks had to repress working class protest and strikes against
them throughout the civil war, so suggesting a social base existed for a genuinely
socialist approach (see <a href="secH6.html#sech63">section H.6.3</a>). 
</p><p>
Finally, there is a counter-example which, anarchists argue, show the impact of 
Bolshevik ideology on the fate of the revolution. This is the anarchist influenced 
Makhnovist movement (see Peter Arshinov's <b>The History of the Makhnovist Movement</b>
or Alexandre Skirda's <b>Nestor Makhno Anarchy's Cossack</b> for more details). 
Defending the revolution in the Ukraine against all groups aiming to impose their 
will on the masses, the Makhnovists were operating in the same objective conditions 
facing the Bolsheviks - civil war, economic disruption, isolation and so forth. 
However, the policies the Makhnovists implemented were radically different than 
those of the Bolsheviks. While the Makhnovists called soviet congresses, the 
Bolsheviks disbanded them. The former encouraged free speech and organisation, 
the latter crushed both. While the Bolsheviks raised party dictatorship and 
one-man management to ideological truisms, the Makhnovists stood for and 
implemented workplace, army, village and soviet self-management. As one historian
suggests, far from being necessary or even functional, Bolshevik policies <i>"might
even have made the war more difficult and more costly. If the counter-example of
Makhno is anything to go by then [they] certainly did."</i> [Christopher Read, 
<b>From Tsar to Soviets</b>, p. 265] Anarchists argue that it shows the failure 
of Bolshevism cannot be put down to purely objective factors like the civil war: 
the politics of Leninism played their part. 
</p><p>
Needless to say, this section can only be a summary of the arguments and 
evidence. It does not pretend to be a comprehensive account of the revolution 
or civil war. It concentrates on the key rationales by modern day Leninists 
to justify Bolshevik actions and policies. We do so simply because it would 
be impossible to cover every aspect of the revolution and because these 
rationales are one of the main reasons why Leninist ideology has not been 
placed in the dustbin of history where it belongs. For further discussion, 
see <a href="append4.html">the appendix on the Russian Revolution</a> or 
Voline's <b>The Unknown Revolution</b>, Alexander Berkman's <b>The Russian 
Tragedy</b> and <b>The Bolshevik Myth</b>, Emma Goldman's <b>My 
Disillusionment in Russia</b> or Maurice Brinton's essential <b>The 
Bolsheviks and Workers' Control</b>.
</p>

<a name="sech61"><h2>H.6.1 Can objective factors explain the failure of the 
Russian Revolution?</h2></a>

Leninist John Rees recounts the standard argument, namely that the 
objective conditions in Russia meant that the <i>"subjective factor"</i> 
of Bolshevik ideology <i>"was reduced to a choice between capitulation 
to the Whites or defending the revolution with whatever means were 
at hands. Within these limits Bolshevik policy was decisive. But it 
could not wish away the limits and start with a clean sheet."</i> From 
this perspective, the key factor was the <i>"vice-like pressure of the 
civil war"</i> which <i>"transformed the state"</i> as well as the <i>"Bolshevik 
Party itself."</i> Industry was <i>"reduced . . . to rubble"</i> and the 
<i>"bureaucracy of the workers' state was left suspended in mid-air, its 
class based eroded and demoralised."</i> [<i>"In Defence of October,"</i> 
pp. 3-82, <b>International Socialism</b>, no. 52, p. 30, p. 70, p. 66 and 
p. 65] 
</p><p>
Due to these factors, argue Leninists, the Bolsheviks became dictators 
<b>over</b> the working class and <b>not</b> due to their political ideas. 
Anarchists are not convinced by this analysis, arguing that is factually and 
logically flawed. 
</p><p>
The first problem is factual. Bolshevik authoritarianism started <b>before</b> 
the start of the civil war and major economic collapse. Whether it is soviet 
democracy, workers' economic self-management, democracy in the armed forces 
or working class power and freedom generally, the fact is the Bolsheviks had 
systematically attacked and undermined it from the start. They also, as we 
indicate in <a href="secH6.html'sech63">section H.6.3</a> repressed working 
class protests and strikes along with opposition groups and parties. As such, 
it is difficult to blame something which had not started yet for causing 
Bolshevik policies.
</p><p>
Although the Bolsheviks had seized power under the slogan <i>"All Power to
the Soviets,"</i> as we noted in <a href="secH3.html#sech311">section H.3.11</a>
the facts are the Bolsheviks
aimed for party power and only supported soviets as long as they controlled 
them. To maintain party power, they had to undermine the soviets and 
they did. This onslaught on the soviets started quickly, in fact overnight
when the first act of the Bolsheviks was to create an executive body, the
the Council of People's Commissars (or Sovnarkon), over and above the 
soviets. This was in direct contradiction to Lenin's <b>The State and 
Revolution</b>, where he had used the example of the Paris Commune 
to argue for the merging of executive and legislative powers. Then, 
a mere four days after this seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, the 
Sovnarkom unilaterally took for itself legislative power simply by 
issuing a decree to this effect: <i>"This was, effectively, a 
Bolshevik coup dtat that made clear the government's (and party's) 
pre-eminence over the soviets and their executive organ. Increasingly, 
the Bolsheviks relied upon the appointment from above of commissars 
with plenipotentiary powers, and they split up and reconstituted 
fractious Soviets and intimidated political opponents."</i> [Neil 
Harding, <b>Leninism</b>, p. 253]
</p><p>
The highest organ of soviet power, the Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) 
was turned into little more than a rubber stamp, with its Bolshevik dominated 
presidium using its power to control the body. Under the Bolsheviks, the 
presidium was converted <i>"into the <b>de facto</b> centre of power within 
VTsIK."</i> It <i>"began to award representations to groups and factions 
which supported the government. With the VTsIK becoming ever more unwieldy 
in size by the day, the presidium began to expand its activities"</i> and 
was used <i>"to circumvent general meetings."</i> Thus the Bolsheviks were
able <i>"to increase the power of the presidium, postpone regular sessions, 
and present VTsIK with policies which had already been implemented by the 
Sovnarkon. Even in the presidium itself very few people determined policy."</i> 
[Charles Duval, <i>"Yakov M. Sverdlov and the All-Russian Central Executive 
Committee of Soviets (VTsIK)"</i>, pp. 3-22, <b>Soviet Studies</b>, vol. XXXI, 
no. 1, p.7, p. 8 and p. 18]
</p><p>
At the grassroots, a similar process was at work with oligarchic tendencies 
in the soviets increasing post-October and <i>"[e]ffective power in the local 
soviets relentlessly gravitated to the executive committees, and especially 
their presidia. Plenary sessions became increasingly symbolic and ineffectual."</i> 
The party was <i>"successful in gaining control of soviet executives in the
cities and at <b>uezd</b> and <b>guberniya</b> levels. These executive bodies 
were usually able to control soviet congresses, though the party often 
disbanded congresses that opposed major aspects of current policies."</i> 
Local soviets <i>"had little input into the formation of national policy"</i> 
and <i>"[e]ven at higher levels, institutional power shifted away from the 
soviets."</i> [Carmen Sirianni, <b>Workers' Control and Socialist Democracy</b>, 
p. 204 and p. 203] In Moscow, for example, power in the soviet <i>"moved away 
from the plenum to ever smaller groups at the apex."</i> The presidium, created 
in November 1917, <i>"rapidly accrued massive powers."</i> [Richard Sakwa, 
<b>Soviet Communists in Power</b>, p. 166]
</p><p>
The Bolshevik dominated soviet executives used this power to maintain 
a Bolshevik majority, by any means possible, in the face of popular 
disillusionment with their regime. In Saratov, for example, <i>"as early 
as the spring of 1918 . . . workers clashed with the soviet"</i> while
in the April soviet elections, as elsewhere, the Bolsheviks' <i>"powerful 
majority in the Soviet began to erode"</i> as moderate socialists 
<i>"criticised the nondemocratic turn Bolshevik power has taken and the 
soviet's loss of their independence."</i> [Donald J. Raleigh, <b>Experiencing 
Russia's Civil War</b>, p. 366 and p. 368] While the influence of the Mensheviks 
<i>"had sunk to insignificance by October 1917"</i>, the <i>"unpopularity 
of government policy"</i> changed that and by the <i>"middle of 1918 the 
Mensheviks could claim with some justification that large numbers of the 
industrial working class were now behind them, and that but for the 
systematic dispersal and packing of the soviets, and the mass arrests at 
workers' meeting and congresses, their party could have one power by its 
policy of constitutional opposition."</i> The soviet elections in the 
spring of 1918 across Russia saw <i>"arrests, military dispersal, even 
shootings"</i> whenever Mensheviks <i>"succeeded in winning majorities 
or a substantial representation."</i> [Leonard Schapiro, <b>The Origin 
of the Communist Autocracy</b>, p. 191]
</p><p>
One such technique to maintain power was to postpone new soviet elections, 
another was to gerrymander the soviets to ensure their majority. The 
Bolsheviks in Petrograd, for example, faced <i>"demands from below
for the immediate re-election"</i> of the Soviet. However, before the 
election, the Bolshevik Soviet confirmed new regulations <i>"to help
offset possible weaknesses"</i> in their <i>"electoral strength in 
factories."</i> The <i>"most significant change in the makeup of the 
new soviet was that numerically decisive representation was given to
agencies in which the Bolsheviks had overwhelming strength, among 
them the Petrograd Trade Union Council, individual trade unions,
factory committees in closed enterprises, district soviets, and
district non-party workers' conferences."</i> This ensured that <i>"[o]nly
260 of roughly 700 deputies in the new soviet were to be elected
in factories, which guaranteed a large Bolshevik majority in advance"</i> 
and so the Bolsheviks <i>"contrived a majority"</i> in the new Soviet 
long before gaining 127 of the 260 factory delegates. Then there 
is <i>"the nagging question of how many Bolshevik deputies from 
factories were elected instead of the opposition because of press 
restrictions, voter intimidation, vote fraud, or the short duration 
of the campaign."</i> The SR and Menshevik press, for example, were 
reopened <i>"only a couple of days before the start of voting."</i> 
Moreover, <i>"Factory Committees from closed factories could and did
elect soviet deputies (the so-called dead souls), one deputy for each 
factory with more than one thousand workers at the time of shutdown"</i>
while the electoral assemblies for unemployed workers <i>"were organised
through Bolshevik-dominated trade union election commissions."</i>
Overall, then, the Bolshevik election victory <i>"was highly suspect, 
even on the shop floor."</i> [Alexander Rabinowitch, <b>The Bolsheviks 
in Power</b>, pp. 248-9, p. 251 and p. 252] This meant that it was 
<i>"possible for one worker to be represented in the soviet five times 
. . . without voting once."</i> Thus the soviet <i>"was no longer a 
popularly elected assembly: it had been turned into an assembly of 
Bolshevik functionaries."</i> [Vladimir N. Brovkin, <b>The Mensheviks 
After October</b>, p. 240]
</p><p>
When postponing and gerrymandering failed, the Bolsheviks turned to 
state repression to remain in power. For all the provincial soviet 
elections in the spring and summer of 1918 for which data is available, 
there was an <i>"impressive success of the Menshevik-SR block"</i> 
followed by <i>"the Bolshevik practice of disbanding soviets that 
came under Menshevik-SR control."</i> The <i>"subsequent wave of
anti-Bolshevik uprisings"</i> were repressed by force. [Brovkin, 
<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 159] Another historian also notes that by the 
spring of 1918 <i>"Menshevik newspapers and activists in the trade 
unions, the Soviets, and the factories had made a considerable 
impact on a working class which was becoming increasingly 
disillusioned with the Bolshevik regime, so much so that in many 
places the Bolsheviks felt constrained to dissolve Soviets or 
prevent re-elections where Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries 
had gained majorities."</i> [Israel Getzler, <b>Martov</b>, p. 179]
</p><p>
When the opposition parties raised such issues at the VTsIK, it had 
no impact. In April 1918, one deputy <i>"protested that non-Bolshevik 
controlled soviets were being dispersed by armed force, and wanted 
to discuss the issue."</i> The chairman <i>"refus[ed] to include it in 
the agenda because of lack of supporting material"</i> and requested such 
information be submitted to the presidium of the soviet. The majority 
(i.e. the Bolsheviks) <i>"supported their chairman"</i> and the facts 
were <i>"submitted . . . to the presidium, where they apparently remained."</i> 
[Charles Duval, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 13-14] Given that the VTsIK was 
meant to be the highest soviet body between congresses, this lack of 
concern clearly shows the Bolshevik contempt for soviet democracy.
</p><p>
The Bolsheviks also organised rural poor committees, opposed to by all 
other parties (particularly the Left-SRs). The Bolshevik leadership 
<i>"was well aware that the <b>labouring peasantry</b>, largely 
represented in the countryside by the Left Socialist-Revolutionary 
party, would be excluded from participation."</i> These committees
were <i>"subordinated to central policy and thus willing to implement
a policy opposing the interests of the mass of the peasants"</i> and
were also used for the <i>"disbandment of the peasants' soviets in which 
Bolshevik representation was low or nil"</i>. It should be noted that
between March and August 1918 <i>"the Bolsheviks were losing power
not only in favour of the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries"</i> but 
also <i>"in favour of non-party people."</i> [Silvana Malle, <b>The 
Economic Organisation of War Communism, 1918-1921</b>, pp. 366-7]
</p><p>
Unsurprisingly, the same contempt was expressed at the fifth All-Russian 
Soviet Congress in July 1918 when the Bolshevik gerrymandered it to 
maintain their majority. The Bolsheviks banned the Mensheviks in the 
context of political loses <b>before</b> the Civil War, which gave the
Bolsheviks an excuse and they <i>"drove them underground, just on the 
eve of the elections to the Fifth Congress of Soviets in which the 
Mensheviks were expected to make significant gains"</i>. While the 
Bolsheviks <i>"offered some formidable fictions to justify the 
expulsions"</i> there was <i>"of course no substance in the charge 
that the Mensheviks had been mixed in counter-revolutionary activities 
on the Don, in the Urals, in Siberia, with the Czechoslovaks, or that 
they had joined the worst Black Hundreds."</i> [Getzler, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
p. 181]
</p></p><p>
With the Mensheviks and Right-SRs banned from the soviets, popular 
disenchantment with Bolshevik rule was expressed by voting Left-SR. 
The Bolsheviks ensured their majority in the congress and, therefore, 
a Bolshevik government by gerrymandering it has they had the 
Petrograd soviet. Thus <i>"electoral fraud gave the Bolsheviks a huge 
majority of congress delegates"</i>. In reality, <i>"the number of 
legitimately elected Left SR delegates was roughly equal to that of 
the Bolsheviks."</i> The Left-SRs expected a majority but did not 
include <i>"roughly 399 Bolsheviks delegates whose right to be seated 
was challenged by the Left SR minority in the congress's credentials 
commission."</i> Without these dubious delegates, the Left SRs and SR 
Maximalists would have outnumbered the Bolsheviks by around 30 delegates. 
This ensured <i>"the Bolshevik's successful fabrication of a large 
majority in the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets."</i>  [Rabinowitch, 
<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 396, p. 288, p. 442 and p. 308] Moreover, the 
Bolsheviks also <i>"allowed so-called committees of poor peasants 
to be represented at the congress. . . This blatant gerrymandering 
ensured a Bolshevik majority . . . Deprived of their democratic majority 
the Left SRs resorted to terror and assassinated the German ambassador 
Mirbach."</i> [Geoffrey Swain, <b>The Origins of the Russian Civil 
War</b>, p. 176] The Bolsheviks falsely labelled this an uprising 
against the soviets and the Left-SRs joined the Mensheviks and 
Right-SRs in being made illegal. It is hard not to agree with 
Rabinowitch when he comments that <i>"however understandable framed 
against the fraudulent composition of the Fifth All-Russian Congress 
of Soviets and the ominous developments at the congresses's start"</i>
this act <i>"offered Lenin a better excuse than he could possibly have 
hoped for to eliminate the Left SRs as a significant political 
rival."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 308] 
</p><p>
So before the start of the civil war all opposition groups, bar the Left-SRs, 
had suffered some form of state repression by the hands of the Bolshevik 
regime (the Bolsheviks had attacked the anarchist movement in April, 1918
[Paul Avrich, <b>The Russian Anarchists</b>, pp. 184-5]). Within six 
weeks of it starting <b>every</b> opposition group had been excluded from 
the soviets. Significantly, in spite of being, effectively, a one-party 
state Lenin later proclaimed that soviet power <i>"is a million times 
more democratic than the most democratic bourgeois republic"</i> and 
pointed to the 6th Congress of Soviets in November with its 97% of 
Bolsheviks! [<b>Collected Works</b>, vol. 28, p. 248 and p. 303]
</p><p>
A similar authoritarian agenda was aimed at the armed forces and 
industry. Trotsky simply abolished the soldier's committees and 
elected officers, stating that <i>"the principle of election is 
politically purposeless and technically inexpedient, and it has 
been, in practice, abolished by decree."</i> [<b>How the Revolution 
Armed</b>, vol. 1, p. 47] The death penalty for disobedience was 
restored, along with, more gradually, saluting, special forms of 
address, separate living quarters and other privileges for officers. 
Somewhat ironically, nearly 20 years later, Trotsky himself lamented
how the <i>"demobilisation of the Red Army of five million played no 
small role in the formation of the bureaucracy. The victorious commanders 
assumed leading posts in the local Soviets, in economy, in education, 
and they persistently introduced everywhere that regime which had 
ensured success in the civil war."</i> For some reason he failed to
mention who had introduced that very regime, although he felt able 
to state, without shame, that the <i>"commanding staff needs democratic 
control. The organisers of the Red Army were aware of this from the 
beginning, and considered it necessary to prepare for such a measure 
as the election of commanding staff."</i> [<b>The Revolution Betrayed</b>, 
p. 90 and p. 211] So it would be churlish to note that <i>"the root of the 
problem lay in the very organisation of the army on traditional lines, 
for which Trotsky himself had been responsible, and against which the 
Left Communists in 1918 had warned."</i> [Richard Sakwa, <b>Soviet 
Communists in Power</b>, p. 231]
</p><p>
In industry, Lenin, as we discussed in <a href="secH3.html#sech314">section H.3.14</a>, 
started to champion one-man management armed with <i>"dictatorial"</i> powers 
in April, 1918. Significantly, he argued that his new policies were <b>not</b>
driven by the civil war for <i>"[i]n the main . . . the task of suppressing the 
resistance of the exploiters was fulfilled"</i> (since <i>"(approximately) February 
1918."</i>). The task <i>"now coming to the fore"</i> was that of <i>"organising
[the] <b>administration</b> of Russia."</i> It <i>"has become the main 
and central task"</i> precisely <b>because</b> of <i>"the peace which has been 
achieved - despite its extremely onerous character and extreme instability"</i>
and so <i>"the Russian Soviet Republic has gained an opportunity to concentrate 
its efforts for a while on the most important and most difficult aspect of the 
socialist revolution, namely, the task of organisation."</i> This would involve
imposing one-man management, that is <i>"individual executives"</i> with
<i>"dictatorial powers (or 'unlimited' powers)"</i> as there was <i>"absolutely 
<b>no</b> contradiction in principle between Soviet (<b>that is</b>, socialist) 
democracy and the exercise of dictatorial powers by individuals."</i> 
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, vol. 27, p. 242, p. 237, p. 267 and p. 268]
</p><p>
Trotsky concurred, arguing in the same speech which announced the destruction
of military democracy that workplace democracy <i>"is not the last word in 
the economic constructive work of the proletariat"</i>. The <i>"next step 
must consist in self-limitation of the collegiate principle"</i> and its 
replacement by <i>"[p]olitical collegiate control by the Soviets"</i>, i.e. 
the state control Lenin had repeatedly advocated in 1917. However <i>"for 
executive functions we must appoint technical specialists."</i> He ironically 
called this the working class <i>"throwing off the one-man management principles 
of its masters of yesterday"</i> and failed to recognise it was imposing the 
one-man management principles of new masters. As with Lenin, the destruction of 
workers' power at the point of production was of little concern for what 
mattered was that <i>"with power in our hands, we, the representatives of the 
working class"</i> would introduce socialism. [<b>How the Revolution Armed</b>, 
vol. 1, p. 37 and p. 38]
</p><p>
In reality, the Bolshevik vision of socialism simply replaced private capitalism 
with state capitalism, taking control of the economy out of the hands of the 
workers and placing it into the hands of the state bureaucracy. As one historian
correctly summarises the s-called workers' state <i>"oversaw the reimposition of 
alienated labour and hierarchical social relations. It carried out this function
in the absence of a ruling class, and them played a central role in ushering 
that class into existence - a class which subsequently ruled not through its 
ownership of private property but through its 'ownership' of the state. That 
state was antagonistic to the forces that could have best resisted the retreat 
of the revolution, i.e. the working class."</i> [Simon Pirani, <b>The Russian 
Revolution in Retreat, 1920-24</b>, p. 240]
</p><p>
Whether it is in regards to soviet, workplace or army democracy or the rights 
of the opposition to organise freely and gather support, the facts are the 
Bolsheviks had systematically eliminated them <b>before</b> the start 
of the civil war. So when Trotsky asserted that <i>"[i]n the beginning, the 
party had wished and hoped to preserve freedom of political struggle within 
the framework of the Soviets"</i> but that it was civil war which <i>"introduced 
stern amendments into this calculation,"</i> he was rewriting history. Rather 
than being <i>"regarded not as a principle, but as an episodic act of self-defence"</i> 
the opposite is the case. As we note in <a href="secH3.html#sech38">section H.3.8</a> 
from roughly October 1918 onwards, the Bolsheviks <b>did</b> raise party dictatorship 
to a <i>"principle"</i> and did not care that this was <i>"obviously in 
conflict with the spirit of Soviet democracy."</i> Trotsky was right to state 
that <i>"on all sides the masses were pushed away gradually from actual 
participation in the leadership of the country."</i> [<b>The Revolution 
Betrayed</b>, p. 96 and p. 90] He was just utterly wrong to imply that this
process happened <b>after</b> the end of the civil war rather than before its
start and that the Bolsheviks did not play a key role in so doing. Thus, 
<i>"in the soviets and in economic management the embryo of centralised 
and bureaucratic state forms had already emerged by mid-1918."</i> 
[Sakwa, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 96-7]
</p><p>
It may be argued in objection to this analysis that the Bolsheviks faced 
resistance from the start and, consequently, civil war existed from the 
moment Lenin seized power and to focus attention on the events of late 
May 1918 gives a misleading picture of the pressures they were
facing. After all, the Bolsheviks had the threat of German Imperialism and
there were a few (small) White Armies in existence as well as conspiracies
to combat. However, this is unconvincing as Lenin himself pointed to the 
ease of Bolshevik success post-October. On March 14th, 1918, Lenin had
proclaimed that <i>"the civil war was one continuous triumph for Soviet 
power"</i> and in June argued that <i>"the Russian bourgeoisie was 
defeated in open conflict . . . in the period from October 1917 to 
February and March 1918"</i>. [<b>Collected Works</b>, vol. 27, p. 174 
and p. 428] It can be concluded that the period up until March 1918 
was not considered by the Bolsheviks themselves as being so bad as 
requiring the adjustment of their politics. This explains why, as 
one historian notes, that the <i>"revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion 
on 25 May 1918 is often considered to be the beginning of full-scale 
military activity. There followed a succession of campaigns."</i> This 
is reflected in Bolshevik policy as well, with war communism <i>"lasting 
from about mid-1918 to March 1921."</i> [Sakwa, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 22 
and p. 19]
</p><p>
Significantly, the introduction of one-man management was seen not as an 
emergency measure forced upon the Bolsheviks by dire circumstances of civil 
war but rather as a natural aspect of building socialism itself. In March, 
1918, for example, Lenin argued that civil war <i>"became a fact"</i> on 
October, 25, 1917 and <i>"[i]n this civil war . . . victory was achieved with . . . 
extraordinary ease . . . The Russia revolution was a continuous triumphal march 
in the first months."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 88-9] Looking back at this
time from April 1920, Lenin reiterated his position (<i>"Dictatorial powers 
and one-man management are not contradictory to socialist democracy."</i>)
while also stressing that this was not forced upon the Bolsheviks by civil
war. Discussing how, again, the civil war was ended and it was time to build
socialism he argued that the <i>"whole attention of the Communist Party and 
the Soviet government is centred on peaceful economic development, on problems 
of the dictatorship and of one-man management . . . When we tackled them for 
the first time in 1918, there was no civil war and no experience to speak of."</i>
So it was <i>"not only experience"</i> of civil war, argued Lenin <i>"but 
something more profound . . . that has induced us now, as it did two years
ago, to concentrate all our attention on labour discipline."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
vol. 30, p. 503 and p. 504] Trotsky also argued that Bolshevik policy was not 
conditioned by the civil war (see <a href="secH3.html#sech314">section H.3.14</a>).
</p><p>
As historian Jonathan Aves notes, <i>"the Communist Party took victory as a 
sign of the correctness of its ideological approach and set about the task of 
economic construction on the basis of an intensification of War Communism 
policies."</i> [<b>Workers Against Lenin</b>, p. 37] In addition, this 
perspective flowed, as we argue in the <a href="secH6.html#sech62">next section</a>,
from the Bolshevik ideology, from its vision of socialism, rather than some 
alien system imposed upon an otherwise healthy set of ideas. 
</p><p>
Of course, this can be ignored in favour of the argument that party rule was
required for the revolution to succeed. That would be a defendable, if utterly 
incorrect, position to take. It would, however, also necessitate ripping up
Lenin's <b>State and Revolution</b> as it is clearly not relevant to a 
socialist revolution nor can it be considered as the definitive guide of
what Leninism really stands for, as Leninists like to portray it to this
day. Given that this is extremely unlikely to happen, it is fair to suggest 
that claims that the Bolsheviks faced "civil war" from the start, so justifying 
their authoritarianism, can be dismissed as particularly unconvincing special 
pleading. Much the same can be said for the "objective conditions" produced
by the May 1918 to October 1920 civil war argument in general.
</p><p>
Then there is the logical problem. Leninists say that they are revolutionaries. 
As we noted in <a href="secH2.html#sech21">section H.2.1</a>, they inaccurately 
mock anarchists for not believing that a revolution needs to defend itself. 
Yet, ironically, their whole defence of Bolshevism rests on the <i>"exceptional 
circumstances"</i> produced by the civil war they claim is inevitable. If 
Leninism cannot handle the problems associated with actually conducting a 
revolution then, surely, it should be avoided at all costs. This is 
particularly the case as leading Bolsheviks all argued that the specific 
problems their latter day followers blame for their authoritarianism were 
natural results of any revolution and, consequently, unavoidable. Lenin, 
for example, in 1917 mocked those who opposed revolution because <i>"the 
situation is exceptionally complicated."</i> He noted <i>"the development 
of the revolution itself <b>always</b> creates an <b>exceptionally</b> 
complicated situation"</i> and that it was an <i>"incredibly complicated 
and painful process."</i> In fact, it was <i>"the most intense, furious, 
desperate class war and civil war. Not a single great revolution in history 
has taken place without civil war. And only a 'man in a muffler' can think 
that civil war is conceivable without an 'exceptionally complicated situation.'"</i> 
<i>"If the situation were not exceptionally complicated there would be no 
revolution."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, vol. 26, pp. 118-9]
</p><p>
He reiterated this in 1918, arguing that <i>"every great revolution, 
and a socialist revolution in particular, even if there is no external 
war, is inconceivable without internal war, i.e., civil war, which 
is even more devastating than external war, and involves thousands 
and millions of cases of wavering and desertion from one side to 
another, implies a state of extreme indefiniteness, lack of equilibrium 
and chaos."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, vol. 27, p. 264] He even argued that 
revolution in an advanced capitalist nations would be far more devastating 
and ruinous than in Russia. [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, vol. 28, p. 298] 
</p><p>
Therefore, Lenin stressed, <i>"it will never be possible to build socialism at 
a time when everything is running smoothly and tranquilly; it will never be 
possible to realise socialism without the landowners and capitalists putting 
up a furious resistance."</i> Those <i>"who believe that socialism can be built 
at a time of peace and tranquillity are profoundly mistaken: it will be everywhere 
built at a time of disruption, at a time of famine. That is how it must be."</i> 
Moreover, <i>"not one of the great revolutions of history has taken place"</i> 
without civil war and <i>"without which not a single serious Marxist has 
conceived the transition from capitalism to socialism."</i> Obviously, <i>"there 
can be no civil war - the inevitable condition and concomitant of socialist 
revolution - without disruption."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, vol. 27, p. 520, 
p. 517, p. 496 and p. 497]
</p><p>
Moreover, anarchists had long argued that a revolution would be associated 
with economic disruption, isolation and civil war and, consequently, had 
developed their ideas to take these into account. For example, Kropotkin 
was <i>"certain that the coming Revolution . . . will burst upon us in the
middle of a great industrial crisis . . . There are millions of unemployed 
workers in Europe at this moment. It will be worse when Revolution has burst 
upon us . . . The number of the out-of-works will be doubled as soon as 
barricades are erected in Europe and the United States . . . we know that in 
time of Revolution exchange and industry suffer most from the general upheaval 
. . . A Revolution in Europe means, then, the unavoidable stoppage of at least 
half the factories and workshops."</i> The <i>"smallest attack upon property 
will bring in its train the complete disorganisation"</i> of the capitalist 
economy. This meant that society <i>"itself will be forced to take production 
in hand . . . and to reorganise it to meet the needs of the whole people."</i>
[<b>The Conquest of Bread</b>, pp. 69-70] This prediction was a common
feature of Kropotkin's politics (as can be seen from, say, his <i>"The First
Work of the Revolution"</i> [<b>Act for Yourselves</b>, pp. 56-60]).
</p><p>
Revolutionary anarchism, then, is based on a clear understanding of the 
nature of a social revolution, the objective problems it will face and
the need for mass participation and free initiative to solve them. So 
it must, therefore, be stressed that the very <i>"objective factors"</i> 
supporters of Bolshevism use to justify the actions of Lenin and Trotsky 
were predicted correctly by anarchists decades beforehand and integrated
into our politics. Moreover, anarchists had developed their ideas on 
social revolution to make sure that these inevitable disruptions would 
be minimised. By stressing the need for self-management, mass participation,
self-organisation and free federation, anarchism showed how a free people
could deal with the difficult problems they would face (as we discuss
in the <a href="secH6.html#sech62">section H.6.2</a> there is substantial
evidence to show that Bolshevik ideology and practice made the problems
facing the Russian revolution much worse than they had to be).
</p><p>
It should also be noted that every revolution has confirmed the 
anarchist analysis. For example, the German Revolution after 1918 
faced an economic collapse which was, relatively, just as bad as 
that facing Russia the year before. The near revolution produced
extensive political conflict, including civil war, which was matched 
by economic turmoil. Taking 1928 as the base year, the index of 
industrial production in Germany was slightly lower in 1913, namely 
98 in 1913 to 100 in 1928. In 1917, the index was 63 and by 1918, 
it was 61 (i.e. industrial production had dropped by nearly 40%). 
In 1919, it fell again to 37, rising to 54 in 1920 and 65 in 1921. 
Thus, in 1919, the <i>"industrial production reached an all-time low"</i> 
and it <i>"took until the late 1920s for [food] production to recover its 
1912 level."</i> [V. R. Berghahn, <b>Modern Germany</b>, p. 258, 
pp. 67-8 and p. 71] In Russia, the index for large scale industry 
fell to 77 in 1917 from 100 in 1913, falling again to 35 in 1918, 26 
in 1919 and 18 in 1920. [Tony Cliff, <b>Lenin</b>, vol. 3, p. 86] 
</p><p>
Strangely, Leninists do not doubt that the spread of the Russian 
Revolution to Germany would have allowed the Bolsheviks more 
leeway to avoid authoritarianism and so save the Revolution. 
Yet this does not seem likely given the state of the German 
economy. Comparing the two countries, there is a similar picture 
of economic collapse. In the year the revolution started, production 
had fallen by 23% in Russia (from 1913 to 1917) and by 43% in 
Germany (from 1913 to 1918). Once revolution had effectively started, 
production fell even more. In Russia, it fell to 65% of its pre-war 
level in 1918, in Germany it fell to 62% of its pre-war level in 1919.
However, no Leninist argues that the German Revolution was impossible 
or doomed to failure. Similarly, no Leninist denies that a socialist 
revolution was possible during the depths of the Great Depression of 
the 1930s or to post-world war two Europe, marked as it was by economic 
collapse. This was the case in 1917 as well, when economic crisis had 
been a fact of Russian life throughout the year. This did not stop the 
Bolsheviks calling for revolution and seizing power. Nor did this 
crisis stop the creation of democratic working class organisations, 
such as soviets, trade unions and factory committees being formed nor
did it stop mass collective action. It appears, therefore, that while 
the economic crisis of 1917 did not stop the development of socialist 
tendencies to combat it, the seizure of power by a socialist party did. 
</p><p>
To conclude, it seems hypocritical in the extreme for Leninists to 
blame difficult circumstances for the failure of the Russian Revolution.
As Lenin himself argued, the Bolsheviks <i>"never said that the transition 
from capitalism to socialism would be easy. It will invoke a whole period 
of violent civil war, it will involve painful measures."</i> They knew
<i>"that the transition from capitalism to socialism is a struggle of an 
extremely difficult kind"</i> and so <i>"[i]f there ever existed a revolutionary 
who hoped that we could pass to the socialist system without difficulties, 
such a revolutionary, such a socialist, would not be worth a brass farthing."</i>
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>,  p. 431, p. 433 and pp. 432-3] He would have been surprised
to discover that many of his own followers would be <i>"such a socialist"</i>!
</p><p>
Consequently, it is not hard to conclude that for Leninists difficult 
objective circumstances place socialism off the agenda only when they 
are holding power. So even if we ignore the extensive evidence that 
Bolshevik authoritarianism started before the civil war, the logic of 
the Leninist argument is hardly convincing. Yet it does have advantages,
for by focusing attention on the civil war, Leninists also draw attention 
away from Bolshevik ideology and tactics. As Peter Kropotkin recounted to 
Emma Goldman this simply cannot be done:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"the Communists are a political party firmly adhering to the idea
of a centralised State, and that as such they were bound to misdirect
the course of the Revolution . . . [Their policies] have paralysed 
the energies of the masses and have terrorised the people. Yet
without the direct participation of the masses in the reconstruction
of the country, nothing essential could be accomplished . . . They 
created a bureaucracy and officialdom . . . [which were] parasites 
on the social body . . . It was not the fault of any particular 
individual: rather it was the State they had created, which 
discredits every revolutionary ideal, stifles all initiative, 
and sets a premium on incompetence and waste . . . Intervention 
and blockade were bleeding Russia to death, and were preventing 
the people from understanding the real nature of the Bolshevik 
regime."</i> [<b>My Disillusionment in Russia</b>, p. 99]
</blockquote></p><p>
Obviously, if the "objective" factors do not explain Bolshevik 
authoritarianism and the failure of the revolution we are left with the 
question of which aspects of Bolshevik ideology impacted negatively on 
the revolution. As Kropotkin's comments indicate, anarchists have good 
reason to argue that one of the greatest myths of state socialism is the 
idea that Bolshevik ideology played no role in the fate of the Russian 
Revolution. We turn to this in the <a href="secH6.html#sech62">next section</a>.
</p>

<a name="sech62"><h2>H.6.2 Did Bolshevik ideology influence the outcome of the Russian Revolution?</h2></a>

</p><p>
As we discussed in the <a href="secH6.html#sech61">last section</a>, 
anarchists reject the Leninist argument that the failure of Bolshevism 
in the Russian Revolution can be blamed purely on the difficult objective 
circumstances they faced. As Noam Chomsky summarises:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"In the stages leading up to the Bolshevik coup in October 1917, there 
<b>were</b> incipient socialist institutions developing in Russia - workers' 
councils, collectives, things like that. And they survived to an extent 
once the Bolsheviks took over - but not for very long; Lenin and Trotsky 
pretty much eliminated them as they consolidated their power. I mean,
you can argue about the <b>justification</b> for eliminating them, but the 
fact is that the socialist initiatives were pretty quickly eliminated.
</p><p>
"Now, people who want to justify it say, 'The Bolsheviks had to do it' - 
that's the standard justification: Lenin and Trotsky had to do it, because 
of the contingencies of the civil war, for survival, there wouldn't have 
been food otherwise, this and that. Well, obviously the question is, was 
that true. To answer that, you've got to look at the historical facts: 
I don't think it was true. In fact, I think the incipient socialist 
structures in Russia were dismantled <b>before</b> the really dire conditions 
arose . . . But reading their own writings, my feeling is that Lenin and 
Trotsky knew what they were doing, it was conscious and understandable."</i> 
[<b>Understanding Power</b>, p. 226] 
</blockquote></p><p>
Chomsky is right on both counts. The attack on the basic building blocks 
of genuine socialism started before the civil war. Moreover, it did not 
happen by accident. The attacks were rooted in the Bolshevik vision of 
socialism. As Maurice Brinton concluded:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"there is a clear-cut and incontrovertible link between what happened 
under Lenin and Trotsky and the later practices of Stalinism . . . The 
more one unearths about this period the more difficult it becomes to 
define - or even to see - the 'gulf' allegedly separating what 
happened in Lenin's time from what happened later. Real knowledge of 
the facts also makes it impossible to accept . . . that the whole 
course of events was 'historically inevitable' and 'objectively 
determined'. Bolshevik ideology and practice were themselves important 
and sometimes decisive factors in the equation, at every critical stage 
of this critical period."</i> [<b>The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control</b>, 
p. 84]
</blockquote></p><p>
This is not to suggest that the circumstances played no role in the 
development of the revolution. It is simply to indicate that Bolshevik 
ideology played its part as well by not only shaping the policies 
implemented but also how the results of those policies themselves 
contributed to the circumstances being faced. This is to be expected,
given that the Bolsheviks were the ruling party and, consequently, 
state power was utilised to implement their policies, policies which, 
in turn, were influenced by their ideological preferences and prejudices.
Ultimately, to maintain (as Leninists do) that the ideology of the ruling 
party played no (or, at best, a minor) part hardly makes sense logically 
nor, equally importantly, can it be supported once even a basic awareness 
of the development of the Russian Revolution is known.
</p><p>
A key issue is the Bolsheviks support for centralisation. Long before 
the revolution, Lenin had argued that within the party it was a case of 
<i>"the transformation of the power of ideas into the power of authority, the 
subordination of lower Party bodies to higher ones."</i> [<b>Collected Works</b>, 
vol. 7, p. 367] Such visions of centralised organisation were the model 
for the revolutionary state and, once in power, they did not disappoint. 
Thus, <i>"for the leadership, the principle of maximum centralisation 
of authority served more than expedience. It consistently resurfaced as 
the image of a peacetime political system as well."</i> [Thomas F. Remington, 
<b>Building Socialism in Bolshevik Russia</b>, p. 91]
</p><p>
However, by its very nature centralism places power into a few hands 
and effectively eliminates the popular participation required for any 
successful revolution to develop. The power placed into the hands of 
the Bolshevik government was automatically no longer in the hands of 
the working class. So when Leninists argue that "objective" circumstances 
forced the Bolsheviks to substitute their power for that of the masses, 
anarchists reply that this substitution had occurred the moment the 
Bolsheviks centralised power and placed it into their own hands. As a 
result, popular participation and institutions began to wither and die. 
Moreover, once in power, the Bolsheviks were shaped by their new position 
and the social relationships it created and, consequently, implemented
policies influenced and constrained by the hierarchical and centralised 
structures they had created.
</p><p>
This was not the only negative impact of Bolshevik centralism. It also
spawned a bureaucracy. As we noted in <a href="secH1.html#sech17">section H.1.7</a>,
the rise of a state bureaucracy started immediately with the seizure of power. 
Thus <i>"red tape and vast administrative offices typified Soviet reality"</i>
as the Bolsheviks <i>"rapidly created their own [state] apparatus to wage the 
political and economic offensive against the bourgeoisie and capitalism. As 
the functions of the state expanded, so did the bureaucracy"</i> and so 
<i>"following the revolution the process of institutional proliferation reached
unprecedented heights . . . a mass of economic organisations [were] created or
expanded."</i> [Richard Sakwa, <b>Soviet Communists in Power</b>, p. 190 and 
p. 191] This was a striking confirmation of the anarchist analysis which argued 
that a new bureaucratic class develops around any centralised body. This 
body would soon become riddled with personal influences and favours, so 
ensuring that members could be sheltered from popular control while, at 
the same time, exploiting its power to feather their own nest. Overtime, 
this permanent collection of bodies would become the real power in the state, 
with the party members nominally in charge really under the control of an 
unelected and uncontrolled officialdom. This was recognised by Lenin in 1922:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"If we take Moscow with its 4,700 Communists in responsible positions,
and if we take that huge bureaucratic machine, that gigantic heap, we
must ask: who is directing whom? I doubt very much whether it can 
truthfully be said that the Communists are directing that heap. To tell 
the truth, they are not directing, they are being directed."</i>
[<b>The Lenin Anthology</b>, p. 527]
</blockquote></p><p>
By the end of 1920, there were five times more state officials than 
industrial workers (5,880,000 were members of the state bureaucracy). 
However, the bureaucracy had existed since the start. In Moscow, in 
August 1918, state officials represented 30 per cent of the workforce 
there and by 1920 the general number of office workers <i>"still 
represented about a third of those employed in the city"</i>
(200,000 in November, 1920, rising to 228,000 in July, 1921 and, by 
October 1922, to 243,000). [Sakwa, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 191-3] 
And with bureaucracy came the abuse of it simply because it held 
<b>real</b> power:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"The prevalence of bureaucracy, of committees and commissions . . . 
permitted, and indeed encouraged, endless permutations of corrupt 
practices. These raged from the style of living of communist 
functionaries to bribe-taking by officials. With the power of 
allocation of scare resources, such as housing, there was an 
inordinate potential for corruption."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 193]
</blockquote></p><p>
The growth in <b>power</b> of the bureaucracy should not, therefore, 
come as a major surprise given that it had existed from the start in 
sizeable numbers. Yet, for the Bolsheviks <i>"the development of 
a bureaucracy"</i> was a puzzle, <i>"whose emergence and properties 
mystified them."</i> It should be noted that, <i>"[f]or the Bolsheviks, 
bureaucratism signified the escape of this bureaucracy from the will 
of the party as it took on a life of its own."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
p. 182 and p. 190] This was the key. They did not object the usurpation 
of power by the party (indeed they placed party dictatorship at the 
core of their politics and universalised it to a general principle 
for <b>all</b> "socialist" revolutions). Nor did they object to the 
centralisation of power and activity (and so the bureaucratisation 
of life). As such, the Bolsheviks failed to understand how their own 
politics helped the rise of this new ruling class. They failed to 
understand the links between centralism and bureaucracy. Bolshevik 
nationalisation and centralism (as well as being extremely inefficient) 
also ensured that the control of society, economic activity and its 
product would be in the hands of the state and, so, class society would 
continue. Unsurprisingly, complaints by working class people about the 
privileges enjoyed by Communist Party and state officials were widespread.
</p><p>
Another problem was the Bolshevik vision of (centralised) democracy. Trotsky 
is typical. In April 1918 he argued that once elected the government was to 
be given total power to make decisions and appoint people as required as it is 
<i>"better able to judge in the matter than"</i> the masses. The sovereign 
people were expected to simply obey their public servants until such 
time as they <i>"dismiss that government and appoint another."</i> Trotsky
raised the question of whether it was possible for the government 
to act <i>"against the interests of the labouring and peasant masses?"</i> 
And answered no! Yet it is obvious that Trotsky's claim that <i>"there 
can be no antagonism between the government and the mass of the 
workers, just as there is no antagonism between the administration 
of the union and the general assembly of its members"</i> is just 
nonsense. [<b>Leon Trotsky Speaks</b>, p. 113] The history of trade 
unionism is full of examples of committees betraying their membership. 
Needless to say, the subsequent history Lenin's government shows that 
there can be <i>"antagonism"</i> between rulers and ruled and that appointments
are always a key way to further elite interests.
</p><p>
This vision of top-down "democracy" can, of course, be traced back to 
Marx and Lenin (see sections <a href="secH3.html#sech32">H.3.2</a> and 
<a href="secH3.html#sech33">H.3.3</a>). By equating centralised, 
top-down decision making by an elected government with "democracy," the 
Bolsheviks had the ideological justification to eliminate the functional 
democracy associated with the soviets, factory committees and soldiers 
committees. The Bolshevik vision of democracy became the means by which 
real democracy was eliminated in area after area of Russian working 
class life. Needless to say, a state which eliminates functional 
democracy in the grassroots will not stay democratic in any meaningful 
sense for long. 
</p><p>
Nor does it come as too great a surprise to discover that a government 
which considers itself as <i>"better able to judge"</i> things than the people
finally decides to annul any election results it dislikes. As we discussed
in <a href="secH5.html">section H.5</a>, this perspective is at the heart 
of vanguardism, for in
Bolshevik ideology the party, not the class, is in the final analysis 
the repository of class consciousness. This means that once in power 
it has a built-in tendency to override the decisions of the masses it 
claimed to represent and justify this in terms of the advanced position 
of the party (as historian Richard Sakwa notes a <i>"lack of identification 
with the Bolshevik party was treated as the absence of political consciousness 
altogether"</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 94]). Combine this with a vision of 
"democracy" which is highly centralised and which undermines local 
participation then we have the necessary foundations for the turning of 
party power into party dictatorship.
</p><p>
Which brings us to the next issue, namely the Bolshevik idea that the 
party should seize power, not the working class as a whole, equating 
party power with popular power. The question instantly arises of what 
happens if the masses turn against the party? The gerrymandering, 
disbanding and marginalisation of the soviets in the spring and 
summer of 1918 answers that question (see <a href="secH6.html#sech61">last section</a>). 
It is not a great step to party dictatorship <b>over</b> the proletariat from 
the premises of Bolshevism. In a clash between soviet democracy and party power, 
the Bolsheviks consistently favoured the latter - as would be expected 
given their ideology. 
</p><p>
This can be seen from the Bolsheviks' negative response to the soviets of 
1905. At one stage the Bolsheviks demanded the St. Petersburg soviet accept 
the Bolshevik political programme and then disband. The rationale for 
these attacks is significant. The St. Petersburg Bolsheviks were convinced that 
<i>"only a strong party along class lines can guide the proletarian political 
movement and preserve the integrity of its program, rather than a political 
mixture of this kind, an indeterminate and vacillating political organisation 
such as the workers council represents and cannot help but represent."</i> 
[quoted by Anweiler, <b>The Soviets</b>, p. 77] In other words, the soviets 
could not reflect workers' interests because they were elected by the workers!
The implications of this perspective became clear in 1918, as are its obvious 
roots in Lenin's arguments in <b>What is to be Done?</b>. As one historian
argues, the 1905 position on the soviets <i>"is of particular significance in 
understanding the Bolshevik's mentality, political ambitions and <b>modus 
operandi.</b>"</i> The Bolshevik campaign <i>"was repeated in a number of 
provincial soviets"</i> and <i>"reveals that from the outset the Bolsheviks
were distrustful of, if not hostile towards the Soviets, to which they had at 
best an instrumental and always party-minded attitude."</i> The Bolsheviks 
actions showed an <i>"ultimate aim of controlling [the soviets] and turning 
them into one-party organisations, or, failing that, of destroying them."</i> 
[Israel Getzler, <i>"The Bolshevik Onslaught on the Non-Party 'Political 
Profile' of the Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies October-November 1905"</i>, 
<b>Revolutionary History</b>, pp. 123-146, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 124-5]
</p><p>
That the mainstream of Bolshevism expressed this perspective once in power
goes without saying, but even dissident Communists expressed identical views. 
Left-Communist V. Sorin argued in 1918 that the <i>"party is in every case 
and everywhere superior to the soviets . . . The soviets represent labouring 
democracy in general; and its interest, and in particular the interests of 
the petty bourgeois peasantry, do not always coincide with the interests 
of the proletariat."</i> [quoted by Sakwa, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 182] As
one historian notes, <i>"[a]ccording to the Left Communists . . . the party 
was the custodian of an interest higher than that of the soviets."</i> 
Unsurprisingly, in the party there was <i>"a general consensus over the 
principles of party dictatorship for the greater part of the [civil] war. 
But the way in which these principles were applied roused increasing 
opposition."</i> [Sakwa, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 182 and p. 30] This consensus 
existed in all the so-called opposition (including the <b>Workers' Opposition</b> 
and Trotsky's <b>Left Opposition</b> in the 1920s). The ease with which the 
Bolsheviks embraced party dictatorship is suggestive of a fundamental flaw 
in their political perspective which the problems of the revolution, combined 
with lost of popular support, simply exposed.
</p><p>
Then there is the Bolshevik vision of socialism. As we discussed in 
<a href="secH3.html#sech312">section H.3.12</a>, the Bolsheviks, like
other Marxists at the time, saw the socialist economy as being built 
upon the centralised organisations created by capitalism. They confused 
state capitalism with socialism. The former, Lenin wrote in May 1917, 
<i>"is a complete <b>material</b> preparation for socialism, the 
threshold of socialism"</i> and so socialism <i>"is nothing but the 
next step forward from state capitalist monopoly."</i> It is 
<i>"merely state-capitalist monopoly <b>which is made to serve the 
interests of the whole people</b> and has to that extent <b>ceased</b> to 
be capitalist monopoly."</i> [<b>Collected Works</b>, vol. 25, p. 359 and 
p. 358] A few months later, he was talking about how the institutions of 
state capitalism could be taken over and used to create socialism. 
Unsurprisingly, when defending the need for state capitalism in the 
spring of 1918 against the "Left Communists," Lenin stressed that he 
gave his <i>"'high' appreciation of state capitalism . . . <b>before</b> 
the Bolsheviks seized power."</i> And, as Lenin noted, his praise for state 
capitalism can be found in his <b>State and Revolution</b> and so it was 
<i>"significant that [his opponents] did <b>not</b> emphasise <b>this</b>"</i> 
aspect of his 1917 ideas. [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, vol. 27, p. 341 and p. 354] 
Unsurprisingly, modern-day Leninists do not emphasise that element of Lenin's
ideas either.
</p><p>
Given this perspective, it is unsurprising that workers' control was not 
given a high priority once the Bolsheviks seized power. While in order to 
gain support the Bolsheviks <b>had</b> paid lip-service to the idea of 
workers' control, as we noted in <a href="secH3.html#sech314">section H.3.14</a> 
the party had always given that slogan a radically different interpretation
than the factory committees had. While the factory committees had
seen workers' control as being exercised directly by the workers and
their class organisations, the Bolshevik leadership saw it in terms 
of state control in which the factory committees would play, at best,
a minor role. Given who held actual power in the new regime, it is 
unsurprising to discover which vision was actually introduced:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"On three occasions in the first months of Soviet power, the [factory] 
committee leaders sought to bring their model into being. At each point 
the party leadership overruled them. The result was to vest both 
managerial <b>and</b> control powers in organs of the state which were 
subordinate to the central authorities, and formed by them."</i> [Thomas 
F. Remington, <b>Building Socialism in Bolshevik Russia</b>, p. 38] 
</p><p></blockquote>
Given his vision of socialism, Lenin's rejection of the factory 
committee's model comes as no surprise. As Lenin put it in 1920, the
<i>"domination of the proletariat consists in the fact that the landowners 
and capitalists have been deprived of their property . . . The victorious 
proletariat has abolished property . . . and therein lies its domination 
as a class. The prime thing is the question of property."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
vol. 30, p. 456] As we proved in <a href="secH3.html#sech313">section H.3.13</a>,
the Bolsheviks had no notion that socialism required workers' self-management
of production and, unsurprisingly, they, as Lenin had promised, built from 
the top-down their system of unified administration based on the Tsarist 
system of central bodies which governed and regulated certain industries 
during the war. The <b>Supreme Economic Council</b> (Vesenka) was set up 
in December of 1917, and <i>"was widely acknowledged by the Bolsheviks as 
a move towards 'statisation' (ogosudarstvleniye) of economic authority."</i> 
During the early months of 1918, the Bolsheviks began implementing their
vision of "socialism" and the Vesenka began <i>"to build, from the top, its 
'unified administration' of particular industries. The pattern is informative"</i> 
as it <i>"gradually took over"</i> the Tsarist state agencies such as the 
<b>Glakvi</b> (as Lenin had promised) <i>"and converted them . . . into 
administrative organs subject to [its] direction and control."</i> The
Bolsheviks <i>"clearly opted"</i> for the taking over of <i>"the
institutions of bourgeois economic power and use[d] them to their own
ends."</i> This system <i>"necessarily implies the perpetuation of 
hierarchical relations within production itself, and therefore the 
perpetuation of class society."</i> [Brinton, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 22, 
p. 36 and p. 22] Thus the Supreme Council of the National Economy <i>"was 
an expression of the principle of centralisation and control from above which 
was peculiar to the Marxist ideology."</i> In fact, it is <i>"likely that the 
arguments for centralisation in economic policy, which were prevalent among 
Marxists, determined the short life of the All-Russian Council of Workers' 
Control."</i> [Silvana Malle, <b>The Economic Organisation of War Communism, 
1918-1921</b>, p. 95 and p. 94]
</p><p>
Moreover, the Bolsheviks had systematically stopped the factory committee 
organising together, using their controlled unions to come <i>"out 
firmly against the attempt of the Factory Committees to form a national
organisation."</i> The unions <i>"prevented the convocation of a planned
All-Russian Congress of Factory Committees.</i> [I. Deutscher, quoted by
Brinton, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 19] Given that one of the key criticisms of
the factory committees by leading Bolsheviks was their "localism", this 
blocking of co-ordination is doubly damning. 
</p><p>
At this time Lenin <i>"envisaged a period during which, in a workers' 
state, the bourgeoisie would still retain the formal ownership and 
effective management of most of the productive apparatus"</i> and 
workers' control <i>"was seen as the instrument"</i> by which the 
<i>"capitalists would be coerced into co-operation."</i> [Brinton, 
<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 13] The Bolsheviks turned to one-management in 
April, 1918 (it was applied first on the railway workers). As the 
capitalists refused to co-operate, with many closing down their 
workplaces, the Bolsheviks were forced to nationalise industry and 
place it fully under state control in late June 1918. This saw 
state-appointed "dictatorial" managers replacing the remaining 
capitalists (when it was not simply a case of the old boss being 
turned into a state manager). The Bolshevik vision of socialism as 
nationalised property replacing capitalist property was at the root 
of the creation of state capitalism within Russia. This was very 
centralised and very inefficient: 
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"it seems apparent that many workers themselves . . . had now come to 
believe . . . that confusion and anarchy [sic!] <b>at the top</b> were 
the major causes of their difficulties, and with some justification. The 
fact was that Bolshevik administration was chaotic . . . Scores of 
competitive and conflicting Bolshevik and Soviet authorities issued 
contradictory orders, often brought to factories by armed Chekists. 
The Supreme Economic Council. . . issu[ed] dozens of orders and pass[ed] 
countless directives with virtually no real knowledge of affairs."</i> 
[William G. Rosenberg, <b>Russian Labour and Bolshevik Power</b>, p. 116] 
</blockquote></p><p>
Faced with the chaos that their own politics, in part, had created, like 
all bosses, the Bolsheviks blamed the workers. Yet abolishing the workers' 
committees resulted in <i>"a terrifying proliferation of competitive and 
contradictory Bolshevik authorities, each with a claim of life or death 
importance . . . Railroad journals argued plaintively about the 
correlation between failing labour productivity and the 
proliferation of competing Bolshevik authorities."</i> Rather than 
improving things, Lenin's one-man management did the opposite, 
<i>"leading in many places . . . to a greater degree of confusion and 
indecision"</i> and <i>"this problem of contradictory authorities clearly 
intensified, rather than lessened."</i> Indeed, the <i>"result of replacing 
workers' committees with one man rule . . . on the railways . . . was 
not directiveness, but distance, and increasing inability to make 
decisions appropriate to local conditions. Despite coercion, orders 
on the railroads were often ignored as unworkable."</i> It got so bad that 
<i>"a number of local Bolshevik officials . . . began in the fall of 1918 
to call for the restoration of workers' control, not for ideological 
reasons, but because workers themselves knew best how to run the line 
efficiently, and might obey their own central committee's directives 
if they were not being constantly countermanded."</i> [William G. Rosenberg, 
<b>Workers' Control on the Railroads</b>, p. D1208, p. D1207, p. D1213 and 
pp. D1208-9] 
</p><p>
That it was Bolshevik policies and not workers' control which was
to blame for the state of the economy can be seen from what happened
<b>after</b> Lenin's one-man management was imposed. The centralised 
Bolshevik economic system quickly demonstrated how to <b>really</b> 
mismanage an economy. The Bolshevik onslaught against workers' control 
in favour of a centralised, top-down economic regime ensured that the 
economy was handicapped by an unresponsive system which wasted the local 
knowledge in the grassroots in favour of orders from above which were 
issued in ignorance of local conditions. Thus the <b>glavki</b> <i>"did 
not know the true number of enterprises in their branch"</i> of industry. 
To ensure centralism, customers had to go via a central orders committee, 
which would then past the details to the appropriate <b>glavki</b> and, 
unsurprisingly, it was <i>"unable to cope with these enormous tasks"</i>. 
As a result, workplaces often <i>"endeavoured to find less bureaucratic 
channels"</i> to get resources and, in fact, the <i>"comparative efficiency 
of factories remaining outside the <b>glavki</b> sphere increased."</i> In 
summary, the <i>"shortcomings of the central administrations and <b>glavki</b> 
increased together with the number of enterprises under their control"</i>.
[Malle, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 232, p. 233 and p. 250] In summary: 
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"The most evident shortcoming . . .  was that it did not ensure central
allocation of resources and central distribution of output, in accordance 
with any priority ranking . . . materials were provided to factories in 
arbitrary proportions: in some places they accumulated, whereas in others 
there was a shortage. Moreover, the length of the procedure needed to 
release the products increased scarcity at given moments, since products 
remained stored until the centre issued a purchase order on behalf of a 
centrally defined customer. Unused stock coexisted with acute scarcity. 
The centre was unable to determine the correct proportions among necessary 
materials and eventually to enforce implementation of the orders for their 
total quantity. The gap between theory and practice was significant."</i>
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 233]
</blockquote></p><p>
Thus there was a clear <i>"gulf between the abstraction of the principles 
on centralisation and its reality."</i> This was recognised at the time and, 
unsuccessfully, challenged. Provincial delegates argued that <i>"[w]aste 
of time was . . . the effect of strict compliance of vertical administration 
. . . semi-finished products [were] transferred to other provinces for further 
processing, while local factories operating in the field were shut down"</i> 
(and given the state of the transport network, this was a doubly inefficient). 
The local bodies, knowing the grassroots situation, <i>"had proved to be 
more far-sighted than the centre."</i> For example, flax had been substituted 
for cotton long before the centre had issued instructions for this. Arguments
reversing the logic centralisation were raised: <i>"there was a lot of talk 
about scarcity of raw materials, while small factories and mills were stuffed 
with them in some provinces: what's better, to let work go on, or to make
plans?"</i> These <i>"expressed feelings . . . about the inefficiency of 
the <b>glavk</b> system and the waste which was visible locally."</i> 
Indeed, <i>"the inefficiency of central financing seriously jeopardised local 
activity."</i> While <i>"the centre had displayed a great deal of conservatism 
and routine thinking,"</i> the localities <i>"had already found ways of rationing 
raw materials, a measure which had not yet been decided upon at the centre."</i> 
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p.269, p. 270 and pp. 272-3]
</p><p>
This did not result in changes as such demands <i>"challenged . . . the 
central directives of the party"</i> which <i>"approved the principles 
on which the <b>glavk</b> system was based"</i> and <i>"the maximum 
centralisation of production."</i> Even the <i>"admission that some of 
the largest works had been closed down, owning to the scarcity of raw 
materials and fuel, did not induce the economists of the party to 
question the validity of concentration, although in Russia at the time
impediments due to lack of transport jeopardised the whole idea of 
convergence of all productive activity in a few centres."</i> The party 
leadership <i>"decided to concentrate the tasks of economic reconstruction 
in the hands of the higher organs of the state."</i> Sadly, <i>"the <b>glavk</b> 
system in Russia did not work . . . Confronted with production problems,
the central managers needed the collaboration of local organs, which 
they could not obtain both because of reciprocal suspicion and because 
of a lack of an efficient system of information, communications and
transport. But the failure of <b>glavkism</b> did not bring about a 
reconsideration of the problems of economic organisation . . . On the 
contrary, the ideology of centralisation was reinforced."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
p. 271 and p. 275]
</p><p>
The failings of centralisation can be seen from the fact that in September 
1918, the Supreme Economic Council (SEC) chairman reported that <i>"approximately 
eight hundred enterprises were known to have been nationalised and another 
two hundred or so were presumed to be nationalised but were not registered 
as such. In fact, well over two thousand enterprises had been taken over 
by this time."</i> The <i>"centre's information was sketchy at best"</i>
and <i>"efforts by the centre to exert its power more effectively would
provoke resistance from local authorities."</i> [Thomas F. Remington, 
<b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 58-9] This kind of clashing could not help but 
occur when the centre had no real knowledge nor understanding of local 
conditions:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"Organisations with independent claims to power frequently ignored
it. It was deluged with work of an ad hoc character . . . Demands
for fuel and supplies piled up. Factories demanded instructions on
demobilisation and conversion. Its presidium . . . scarcely knew what
its tasks were, other than to direct the nationalisation of industry.
Control over nationalisation was hard to obtain, however. Although the
SEC intended to plan branch-wide nationalisations, it was overwhelmed
with requests to order the nationalisation of individual enterprises.
Generally it resorted to the method, for want of a better one, of
appointing a commissar to carry out each act of nationalisation.
These commissars, who worked closely with the Cheka, had almost 
unlimited powers over both workers and owners, and acted largely
on their own discretion."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 61-2]
</blockquote></p><p>
Unsurprisingly, <i>"[r]esentment of the <b>glavki</b> was strongest 
where local authorities had attained a high level of competence in 
co-ordinating local production. They were understandably distressed 
when orders from central organs disrupted local production plans."</i>
Particularly given that the centre <i>"drew up plans for developing or 
reorganising the economy of a region, either in ignorance, or against 
the will, of the local authorities."</i> <i>"Hypercentralisation"</i>,
ironically, <i>"multiplied the lines of command and accountability,
which ultimately reduced central control."</i> For example, one small 
condensed milk plan, employing fewer than 15 workers, <i>"became the 
object of a months-long competition among six organisations."</i> 
Moreover, the <b>glavki</b> <i>"were filled with former owners."</i>
Yet <i>"throughout 1919, as the economic crisis grew worse and the war 
emergency sharper the leadership strengthened the powers of the 
<b>glavki</b> in the interests of centralisation."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
p. 68, p. 69, p. 70 and p. 69] 
</p><p>
A clearer example of the impact of Bolshevik ideology on the fate of 
the revolution would be hard to find. While the situation was pretty 
chaotic in early 1918, this does not prove that the factory committees' 
socialism was not the most efficient way of running things under the 
(difficult) circumstances. Unless of course, like the Bolsheviks, 
you have a dogmatic belief that centralisation is always more efficient. 
That favouring the factory committees, as anarchists stressed then and
now, could have been a possible solution to the economic problems being 
faced is not utopian. After all rates of <i>"output and productivity began 
to climb steadily after"</i> January 1918 and <i>"[i]n some factories, production 
doubled or tripled in the early months of 1918 . . . Many of the reports 
explicitly credited the factory committees for these increases."</i> 
[Carmen Sirianni, <b>Workers' Control and Socialist Democracy</b>, p. 109]
Another expert notes that there is <i>"evidence that until late 1919, some 
factory committees performed managerial tasks successfully. In some regions
factories were still active thanks to their workers' initiatives in securing 
raw materials."</i> [Malle, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 101]
</p><p>
Moreover, given how inefficient the Bolshevik system was, it was only
the autonomous self-activity at the base which keep it going. Thus the 
Commissariat of Finance was <i>"not only bureaucratically cumbersome, but 
[it] involved mountainous accounting problems"</i> and <i>"with the various 
offices of the Sovnarkhoz and commissariat structure literally swamped 
with 'urgent' delegations and submerged in paperwork, even the most committed 
supporters of the revolution -  perhaps one should say <b>especially</b> the 
most committed - felt impelled to act independently to get what workers and 
factories needed, even if this circumvented party directives."</i> [William 
G. Rosenberg, <i>"The Social Background to Tsektran,"</i> pp. 349-373, 
<b>Party, State, and Society in the Russian Civil War</b>, Diane P. Koenker, 
William G. Rosenberg and Ronald Grigor Suny (eds.), p. 357] <i>"Requisition 
and confiscation of resources,"</i> as Malle notes, <i>"largely undertaken 
by the <b>glavki</b>, worked against any possible territorial network of 
complementary industries which might have been more efficient in reducing 
delays resulting from central financing, central ordering, central supply 
and delivery."</i> By integrating the factory committees into a centralised 
state structure, this kind of activity became harder to do and, moreover, 
came up against official resistance and opposition. Significantly, due to 
<i>"the run-down of large-scale industry and the bureaucratic methods applied 
to production orders"</i> the Red Army turned to small-scale workplaces to 
supply personal equipment. These workplaces <i>"largely escaped the 
<b>glavk</b> administration"</i> and <i>"allowed the Bolsheviks to support 
a well equipped army amidst general distress and disorganisation."</i> 
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 251, p. 477 and p. 502]
</p><p>
Needless to say, Lenin never wavered in his support for one-man management 
nor in his belief in the efficiency of centralism to solve all problems, 
particularly the problems it itself created in abundance. Nor did his 
explicit call to reproduce capitalist social relations in production 
cause him any concern for, if the primary issue were property and not 
who <b>manages</b> the means of production, then factory committees 
are irrelevant in determining the socialist nature of the economy. 
Equally, if (as with Engels) all forms of organisation are inherently 
authoritarian then it does not fundamentally matter whether that 
authority is exercised by an elected factory committee or an 
appointed dictatorial manager (see <a href="secH4.html">section H.4</a>). 
And it must be noted that the politics of the leading members of the 
factory committee movement also played its part. While the committees 
expressed a spontaneous anarchism, almost instinctively moving towards 
libertarian ideas, the actual influence of conscious anarchists was 
limited. Most of the leaders of the movement were, or became, Bolsheviks 
and, as such, shared many of the statist and centralistic assumptions 
of the party leadership as well as accepting party discipline. As such, 
they did not have the theoretical accruement to resist their leadership's 
assault on the factory committees and, as a result, did integrate them 
into the trade unions when demanded.
</p><p>
As well as advocating one-man management, Lenin's proposals also struck 
at the heart of workers' power in other ways. For example, he argued that 
<i>"we must raise the question of piece-work and apply it and test in 
practice; we must raise the question of applying much of what is scientific 
and progressive in the Taylor system"</i>. [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, vol. 27, p. 258] 
As Leninist Tony Cliff noted, <i>"the employers have at their disposal a 
number of effective methods of disrupting th[e] unity [of workers as a 
class]. One of the most important of these is the fostering of competition 
between workers by means of piece-work systems."</i> He added that these were 
used by the Nazis and the Stalinists <i>"for the same purpose."</i> [<b>State 
Capitalism in Russia</b>, pp. 18-9] Obviously piece-work is different when Lenin 
introduces it!
</p><p>
Other policies undermined working class collectivity. Banning 
trade helped undermine a collective response to the problems 
of exchange between city and country. For example, a delegation 
of workers from the Main Workshops of the Nikolaev Railroad to 
Moscow reported to a well-attended meeting that <i>"the government 
had rejected their request [to obtain permission to buy food collectively] 
arguing that to permit the free purchase of food would destroy its efforts 
to come to grips with hunger by establishing a 'food dictatorship.'"</i> 
[David Mandel, <b>The Petrograd Workers and the Soviet Seizure of Power</b>,
p. 392] Bolshevik ideology replaced collective working class action with 
an abstract "collective" response via the state, which turned the workers 
into isolated and atomised individuals. As such, the Bolsheviks provided 
a good example to support Malatesta's argument that <i>"if . . . one means 
government action when one talks of social action, then this is still the 
resultant of individual forces, but only of those individuals who form 
the government . . . it follows. . . that far from resulting in an increase 
in the productive, organising and protective forces in society, it would 
greatly reduce them, limiting initiative to a few, and giving them the 
right to do everything without, of course, being able to provide them 
with the gift of being all-knowing."</i> [<b>Anarchy</b>, pp. 38-9] Can it 
be surprising, then, that Bolshevik policies aided the atomisation of 
the working class by replacing collective organisation and action by 
state bureaucracy?
</p><p>
The negative impact of Bolshevik ideology showed up in other areas of the
economy as well. For example, the Leninist fetish that bigger was better
resulted in the <i>"waste of scare resources"</i> as the <i>"general 
shortage of fuel and materials in the city took its greatest toll on 
the largest enterprises, whose overhead expenditures for heating the plant 
and firing the furnaces were proportionately greater than those for smaller 
enterprises. This point . . . was recognised later. Not until 1919 
were the regime's leaders prepared to acknowledge that small enterprises, 
under the conditions of the time, might be more efficient in using 
resources; and not until 1921 did a few Bolsheviks theorists grasp 
the economic reasons for this apparent violation of their standing 
assumption that larger units were inherently more productive."</i> 
[Remington, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 106] Given how disrupted transport was 
and how scare supplies were, this kind of ideologically generated mistake 
could not fail to have substantial impact.
</p><p>
Post-October Bolshevik policy is a striking confirmation of the anarchist 
argument that a centralised structure would stifle the initiative of the 
masses and their own organs of self-management. Not only was it disastrous 
from a revolutionary perspective, it was hopelessly inefficient. The 
constructive self-activity of the people was replaced by the bureaucratic 
machinery of the state. The Bolshevik onslaught on workers' control, like 
their attacks on soviet democracy and workers' protest, undoubtedly 
engendered apathy and cynicism in the workforce, alienating even more the 
positive participation required for building socialism which the Bolshevik 
mania for centralisation had already marginalised. The negative results of 
Bolshevik economic policy confirmed Kropotkin's prediction that a revolution 
which <i>"establish[ed] a strongly centralised Government"</i>, leaving it 
to <i>"draw up a statement of all the produce"</i> in a country and <i>"then 
<b>command</b> that a prescribed quantity"</i> of some good <i>"be sent to 
such a place on such a day"</i> and <i>"stored in particular warehouses"</i> 
would <i>"not merely"</i> be <i>"undesirable, but it never could by any 
possibility be put into practice."</i> <i>"In any case,"</i> Kropotkin 
stressed, <i>"a system which springs up spontaneously, under stress of 
immediate need, will be infinitely preferable to anything invented between 
four-walls by hide-bound theorists sitting on any number of committees."</i> 
[<b>The Conquest of Bread</b>, pp. 82-3 and p. 75]
</p><p>
Some Bolsheviks were aware of the problems. One left-wing Communist, Osinskii, 
concluded that <i>"his six weeks in the provinces had taught him that the 
centre must rely on strong regional and provincial councils, since they were 
more capable than was the centre of managing the nationalised sector."</i>
[Remington, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 71] However, Marxist ideology seemed to preclude 
even finding the words to describe a possible solution to the problems faced by
the regime: <i>"I stand not for a local point of view and not for bureaucratic 
centralism, but for organised centralism, - I cannot seem to find the actual 
word just now, - a more balanced centralism."</i> [Osinskii, quoted by 
Remington, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 71] Any anarchist would know that the word 
he was struggling to find was federalism! Little wonder Goldman concluded 
that anarcho-syndicalism, not nationalisation, could solve the problems 
facing Russia:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"Only free initiative  and popular participation in the affairs of the 
revolution can prevent the terrible blunders committed in Russia. For instance, 
with fuel only a hundred versts [about sixty-six miles] from Petrograd there 
would have been no necessity for that city to suffer from cold had the workers' 
economic organisations of Petrograd been free to exercise their initiative for 
the common good. The peasants of the Ukraina would not have been hampered in 
the cultivation of their land had they had access to the farm implements stacked 
up in the warehouses of Kharkov and other industrial centres awaiting orders 
from Moscow for their distribution. These are characteristic examples of Bolshevik 
governmentalism and centralisation, which should serve as a warning to the workers 
of Europe and America of the destructive effects of Statism."</i> [<b>My 
Disillusionment in Russia</b>, p. 253]
</blockquote></p><p>
If Bolshevik industrial policy reflected a basic ignorance of local conditions
and the nature of industry, their agricultural policies were even worse. 
Part of the problem was that the Bolsheviks were simply ignorant of peasant 
life (as one historian put it, <i>"the deeply held views of the party on class
struggle had overcome the need for evidence."</i> [Christopher Read, <b>From
Tsar to Soviet</b>, p. 225]). Lenin, for example, thought that inequality 
in the villages was much, much higher than it actually was, a mistaken 
assumption which drove the unpopular and counter-productive "Committees 
of Poor Peasants" (kombedy) policy of 1918. Rather than a countryside 
dominated by a few rich kulaks (peasants who employed wage labour), 
Russian villages were predominantly pre-capitalist and based on 
actual peasant farming (i.e., people who worked their land themselves). 
While the Bolsheviks attacked kulaks, they, at best, numbered only 5 to 7 
per cent of the peasantry and even this is high as only 1 per cent of the 
total of peasant households employed more than one labourer. The revolution 
itself had an equalising effect on peasant life, and during 1917 <i>"average 
size of landholding fell, the extremes of riches and poverty diminished."</i> 
[Alec Nove, <b>An economic history of the USSR: 1917-1991</b>, p. 103 and
p. 102]
</p><p>
By 1919, even Lenin had to admit that the policies pursued in 1918, against 
the advice and protest of the Left-SRs, were failures and had alienated
the peasantry. While admitting to errors, it remains the case that it was
Lenin himself, more than anyone, who was responsible for them. Still, there 
was no fundamental change in policy for another two years. Defenders of the
Bolsheviks argue that the Bolshevik had no alternative but to use violence 
to seize food from the peasants to feed the starving cities. However, this 
fails to acknowledge two key facts. Firstly, Bolshevik industrial policy made
the collapse of industry worse and so the lack of goods to trade for grain 
was, in part, a result of the government. It is likely that if the factory 
committees had been fully supported then the lack of goods to trade may been 
reduced. Secondly, it cannot be said that the peasants did not wish to trade 
with the cities. They were, but at a fair price as can be seen from the fact 
that throughout Russia peasants with bags of grains on their backs went to 
the city to exchange them for goods. In fact, in the Volga region official
state sources indicate <i>"that grain-hoarding and the black market did not
become a major problem until the beginning of 1919, and that during the
autumn the peasants, in general, were 'wildly enthusiastic to sell as
much grain as possible' to the government."</i> This changed when the state
reduced its fixed prices by 25% and <i>"it became apparent that the new 
government would be unable to pay for grain procurements in industrial
goods."</i> [Orlando Figes, <b>Peasant Russia, Civil War</b>, p. 253 and p. 254]
Thus, in that region at least, it was <b>after</b> the introduction of 
central state food requisition in January 1919 that peasants started to
hoard food. Thus Bolshevik policy made the situation worse. And as Alec 
Nove noted <i>"at certain moments even the government itself was compelled 
to 'legalise' illegal trade. For example, in September 1918 the wicked
speculators and meshochniki [bag-men] were authorised to take sacks 
weighing up to 1.5 poods (54 lbs.) to Petrograd and Moscow, and in this 
month . . . they supplied four times more than did the official supply 
organisation."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 55]
</p><p>
Yet rather than encourage this kind of self-activity, the Bolsheviks 
denounced it as speculation and did all in their power to suppress it 
(this included armed pickets around the towns and cities). This, of course, 
drove the prices on the black market higher due to the risk of arrest and 
imprisonment this entailed and so the regime made the situation worse: 
<i>"it was in fact quite impossible to live on the official rations, 
and the majority of the supplies even of bread come through the black 
market. The government was never able to prevent this market from 
functioning, but did sufficiently disrupt it to make food shortages 
worse."</i> By January 1919, only 19% of all food came through official 
channels and rose to around 30% subsequently. Official sources, however,
announced an increase in grain, with total procurements amounting to 30
million poods in the agricultural year 1917-18 to 110 million poods in 
1918-19. [Nove, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 55 and p. 54] Needless to say, the 
average worker in the towns saw nothing of this improvement in official 
statistics (and this in spite of dropping urban populations!).
</p><p>
In the face of repression (up to and including torture and the destruction 
of whole villages), the peasantry responded by both cutting back on
the amount of grain planted (something compounded by the state often
taking peasant reserves for next season) and rising in insurrection. 
Unsurprisingly, opposition groups called for free trade in an attempt
to both feed the cities and stop the alienation of the peasantry from
the revolution. The Bolsheviks denounced the call, before being forced
to accept it in 1921 due to mass pressure from below. Three years of
bad policies had made a bad situation worse. Moreover, if the Bolsheviks
had not ignored and alienated the Left-SRs, gerrymandered the Fifth 
All-Russian Congress of Soviets and pushed them into revolt then their 
links with the countryside would not have been so weak and sensible 
policies which reflected the reality of village life may have been 
implemented. 
</p><p>
Nor did it help that the Bolsheviks undermined Russia's extensive network 
of consumer co-operatives because they were associated with the moderate 
socialists. It should also be noted that the peasants (or "kulaks") were 
blamed for food shortages when problems on the transport network or general 
bureaucratic mismanagement was the real reason. That there is <i>"is
little evidence to support the Leninist view"</i> that kulaks were
behind the peasant resistance and revolts resulting from the Bolshevik
food requisition policies should go without saying. [Figes, <b>Op.
Cit.</b>, p. 155]
</p><p>
Given all this, it is not hard to conclude that alternatives existed to 
Bolshevik policies - particularly as even the Bolsheviks had to admit in 1919 
their decisions of the previous year were wrong! The New Economic Policy
(NEP) was introduced in 1921 (under immense popular pressure) in conditions
even worse than those in 1918, for example. Since NEP allowed wage labour, 
it was a step backwards from the ideas of the peasantry itself, peasant 
based parties like the SRs and Left-SRs as well as such rebels as the Kronstadt 
sailors. A more socialistic policy, recognising that peasants exchanging the 
product of their labour was <b>not</b> capitalism, could have been implemented 
much earlier but Bolshevik ignorance and disdain for the peasantry combined 
with a false belief that centralised state control was more efficient and more
socialist ensured that this option was unlikely to be pursued, particularly
given the collapse of industrial production Bolshevik state capitalist 
policies helped deepen.
</p><p>
The pre-revolution Bolshevik vision of a socialist system was fundamentally 
centralised and, consequently, top-down. This was what was implemented 
post-October, with disastrous results. At each turning point, the Bolsheviks 
tended to implement policies which reflected their prejudices in favour of 
centralism, nationalisation and party power. Unsurprisingly, this also 
undermined the genuine socialist tendencies which existed at the time 
and so the Bolshevik vision of socialism and democracy played a key 
role in the failure of the revolution. Therefore, the Leninist idea that 
politics of the Bolsheviks had no influence on the outcome of the revolution, 
that their policies during the revolution were a product purely of objective 
forces, is unconvincing. This is enforced by the awkward fact that the 
Bolshevik leaders <i>"justified what they were doing in theoretical terms, 
e.g. in whole books by Bukharin and Trotsky."</i> [Pirani, <b>The Russian 
Revolution in Retreat, 1920-24</b>, p. 9]
</p><p>
Remember, we are talking about the ideology of a ruling party and so it
is more than just ideas for after the seizure of power, they became 
a part of the real social situation within Russia. Individually, 
party members assumed leadership posts in all spheres of social life 
and started to make decisions influenced by that ideology and its 
prejudices in favour of centralisation, the privileged role of the 
party, the top-down nature of decision making, the notion that socialism
built upon state capitalism, amongst others. Then there is the hierarchical
position which the party leaders found themselves. <i>"If it is true that 
people's real social existence determines their consciousness,"</i>
argued Cornelius Castoriadis, <i>"it is from that moment illusory to 
expect the Bolshevik party to act in any other fashion than according 
to its real social position. The real social situation of the Party is 
that of a directorial organ, and its point of view toward this society 
henceforth is not necessarily the same as the one this society has toward 
itself."</i> [<b>Political and Social Writings</b>, vol. 3, p. 97] 
</p><p>
Ultimately, the Bolshevik's acted as if they were trying to prove Bakunin's
critique of Marxism was right (see <a href="secH1.html#sech11">section H.1.1</a>).
Implementing a dictatorship of the proletariat in a country where the majority
were not proletarians failed while, for the proletariat, it quickly became a
dictatorship <b>over</b> the proletariat by the party (and in practice, a few 
party leaders and justified by the privileged access they had to socialist
ideology). Moreover, centralisation proved to be as disempowering and inefficient 
as Bakunin argued. 
</p><p>
Sadly, far too many Marxists seem keen on repeating rather than learning 
from history while, at the same time, ignoring the awkward fact that 
anarchism's predictions were confirmed by the Bolshevik experience. It 
is not hard to conclude that another form of socialism was essential for the 
Russian revolution to have any chance of success. A decentralised socialism 
based on workers running their workplaces and the peasants controlling the 
land was not only possible but was being implemented by the people themselves. 
For the Bolsheviks, only a centralised planned economy was true socialism 
and, as a result, fought this alternative socialism and replaced it with a 
system reflecting that perspective. Yet socialism needs the mass participation
of all in order to be created. Centralisation, by its very nature, limits
that participation (which is precisely <b>why</b> ruling classes have always 
centralised power into states). As Russian Anarchist Voline argued, state 
power <i>"seeks more or less to take in its hands the reins of social life. 
It <b>predisposes the masses to passivity</b>, and all spirit of initiative 
is stifled by the very existence of power"</i> and so under state socialism 
the <i>"tremendous new creative forces which are latent in the masses
thus remain unused."</i> [<b>The Unknown Revolution</b>, p. 250] This 
cannot help have a negative impact on the development of the revolution
and, as anarchists had long feared and predicted, it did. 
</p>

<a name="sech63"><h2>H.6.3 Were the Russian workers "declassed" and "atomised"?</h2></a>

A standard Leninist explanation for the dictatorship of the Bolshevik 
party (and subsequent rise of Stalinism) is based on the <i>"atomisation"</i> 
or <i>"declassing"</i> of the proletariat. Leninist John Rees summarised 
this argument:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"The civil war had reduced industry to rubble. The working class base 
of the workers' state, mobilised time and again to defeat the Whites, 
the rock on which Bolshevik power stood, had disintegrated. The Bolsheviks 
survived three years of civil war and wars in intervention, but only at
the cost of reducing the working class to an atomised, individualised 
mass, a fraction of its former size, and no longer able to exercise the 
collective power that it had done in 1917 . . . The bureaucracy of the 
workers' state was left suspended in mid-air, its class base eroded and 
demoralised. Such conditions could not help but have an effect on the 
machinery of the state and organisation of the Bolshevik Party."</i> 
[<i>"In Defence of October,"</i> pp. 3-82, <b>International Socialism</b>, 
no. 52, p. 65]
</p><p></blockquote>
It should be noted that this perspective originated in Lenin's arguments 
that the Russian proletariat had become "declassed." In 1921 it was the 
case that the proletariat, <i>"owning to the war and to the desperate 
poverty and ruin, has become declassed, i.e. dislodged from its class 
groove, and had ceased to exist as proletariat . . . the proletariat has 
disappeared."</i> [<b>Collected Works</b>, vol. 33, p. 66] However, 
unlike his later-day followers, Lenin was sure that while it <i>"would 
be absurd and ridiculous to deny that the fact that the proletariat is 
declassed is a handicap"</i> it could still <i>"fulfil its task of 
winning and holding state power."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, vol. 32, p. 412] 
Since Lenin, this argument has been utilised repeatedly by Leninists to
justify his regime as well as explaining both its authoritarianism
and the rise of Stalinism.
</p><p>
It does, of course, contain an element of truth. The numbers of industrial
workers <b>did</b> decrease dramatically between 1918 and 1921, particularly
in Petrograd and Moscow (although the drop in both cities was exceptional,
with most towns seeing much smaller reductions). As one historian summarises,
the <i>"social turmoil at this time undeniably reduced the size of Russia's 
working class . . . . Yet a substantial core of urban workers remained in 
the factories, and their attitudes towards the Bolsheviks were indeed 
transformed."</i> [Donald J. Raleigh, <b>Experiencing Russia's Civil War</b>, 
p. 348] This core was those with the least ties with the countryside - the 
genuine industrial worker. 
</p><p>
Nor can it be maintained that the Russian working class was incapable of
collective action during the civil war. Throughout that period, as well as 
before and after, the Russian workers proved themselves quite capable of taking 
collective action - against the Bolshevik state. Simply put, an <i>"atomised, 
individualised mass"</i> does not need extensive state repression to control 
it. So while the working class <b>was</b> <i>"a fraction of its former size"</i> 
it <b>was</b> able <i>"to exercise the collective power it had done in 1917."</i> 
Significantly, rather than decrease over the civil war period, the mass protests 
<b>grew</b> in militancy. By 1921 these protests and strikes were threatening 
the very existence of the Bolshevik dictatorship, forcing it to abandon key 
aspects of its economic policies. 
</p><p>
Which shows a key flaw in the standard Leninist account - the Russian working 
class, while undoubtedly reduced in size and subject to extreme economic problems, 
was still able to organise, strike and protest. This awkward fact has been 
systematically downplayed, when not ignored, in Leninist accounts of this period. 
As in any class society, the history of the oppressed is ignored in favour of the 
resolutions and decisions of the enlightened few at the top of the social pyramid. 
Given the relative lack of awareness of working class protest against the 
Bolsheviks, it will be necessary to present substantial evidence of it.
</p><p>
This process of collective action by workers and Bolshevik repression started 
before the Civil War began, continued throughout and after it. For example, 
<i>"[t]hroughout the civil war there was an undercurrent of labour militancy 
in Moscow . . . both the introduction and the phasing out of war communism 
were marked by particularly active periods of labour unrest."</i> In the 
Moscow area, while it is <i>"impossible to say what proportion of workers 
were involved in the various disturbances,"</i> following the lull after 
the defeat of the protest movement in mid-1918 <i>"each wave of unrest was 
more powerful than the last, culminating in the mass movement from late 
1920."</i> [Richard Sakwa, <b>Soviet Communists in Power</b>, p. 94 and 
p. 93] This was the case across Russia, with <i>"periodic swings in the 
workers' political temper. When Soviet rule stood in peril . . . [this] 
spared the regime the defection of its proletarian base. During lulls in 
the fighting, strikes and demonstrations broke out."</i> [Thomas F. Remington, 
<b>Building Socialism in Bolshevik Russia</b>, p. 101] Workers' resistance 
and protests against the Bolsheviks shows that not only that a "workers' 
state" is a contradiction in terms but also that there was a social base 
for possible alternatives to Leninism. 
</p><p>
The early months of Bolshevik rule were marked by <i>"worker protests, 
which then precipitated violent repressions against hostile workers. Such 
treatment further intensified the disenchantment of significant segments of 
Petrograd labour with Bolshevik-dominated Soviet rule."</i> [Alexander 
Rabinowitch, <b>Early Disenchantment with Bolshevik Rule</b>, p. 37] The 
first major act of state repression was an attack on a march in Petrograd in
support of the Constituent Assembly when it opened in January 1918. Early May 
saw <i>"the shooting of protesting housewives and workers in the suburb 
of Kolpino"</i>, the <i>"arbitrary arrest and abuse of workers"</i> in 
Sestroretsk, the <i>"closure of newspapers and arrests of individuals who 
protested the Kolpino and Sestroretsk events"</i> and <i>"the resumption of 
labour unrest and conflict with authorities in other Petrograd factories."</i> 
This was no isolated event, as <i>"violent incidents against hungry workers 
and their family demanding bread occurred with increasing regularity."</i> 
[Alexander Rabinowitch, <b>The Bolsheviks in Power</b>, pp. 229-30]  The 
shooting at Kolpino <i>"triggered a massive wave of indignation . . . Work 
temporarily stopped at a number of plants."</i> In Moscow, Tula, Kolomna, 
Nizhnii-Novoprod, Rybinsk, Orel, Tver' and elsewhere <i>"workers gathered to 
issue new protests."</i> In Petrograd, <i>"textile workers went on strike for 
increased food rations and a wave of demonstrations spread in response to still 
more Bolshevik arrests."</i> This movement was the <i>"first major wave of 
labour protest"</i> against the regime, with <i>"protests against some form of 
Bolshevik repression"</i> being common. [William Rosenberg, <b>Russian Labor and 
Bolshevik Power</b>, pp. 123-4] 
</p><p>
This general workers' opposition generated the Menshevik inspired, but independent, 
Extraordinary Assembly of Delegates (EAD). <i>"The emergence of the EAD"</i>, 
Rabinowitch notes, <i>"was also stimulated by the widespread view that trade unions, 
factory committees, and soviets . . . were no longer representative, democratically 
run working-class institutions; instead they had been transformed into arbitrary, 
bureaucratic government agencies. There was ample reason for this concern."</i>
To counter the EAD, the Bolsheviks organised non-party conferences which, in 
itself, shows that the soviets had become as distant from the masses as the 
opposition argued. District soviets <i>"were deeply concerned about their 
increasing isolation . . . At the end of March . . . they resolved to convene 
successive nonparty workers' conferences . . . in part to undercut the EAD 
by strengthening ties between district soviets and workers."</i> This was done 
amidst <i>"unmistakable signs of the widening rift between Bolshevik-dominated 
political institutions and ordinary factory workers."</i> The EAD, argues 
Rabinowitch, was an expression of the <i>"growing disenchantment of Petrograd 
workers with economic conditions and the evolving structure and operation of 
Soviet political institutions"</i>. [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 224, p. 232 and p. 231]
</p><p>
Anarchists should be not too surprised that the turning of popular organisations 
into parts of a state soon resulted in their growing isolation from the masses. 
The state, with its centralised structures, is simply not designed for mass 
participation - and this does doubly for the highly centralised Leninist state. 
</p><p>
These protests and repression continued after the start of the civil war. <i>"At 
the end of May and beginning of June, a wave of strikes to protest the lack of 
bread swept Nivskii district factories"</i> and <i>"strikes followed by bloody 
clashes between workers and Soviet authorities had erupted in scattered parts 
of central Russia."</i> On June 21, a general meeting of Obukhov workers 
<i>"seized control of the plant"</i> and the next day the assembled workers 
<i>"resolved to demand that the EAD should declare political strikes . . . to 
protest the political repression of workers."</i> Orders were issued by the 
authorities <i>"to shut down Obukhov plant"</i> and <i>"the neighbourhood 
surrounding the plant was placed under martial law."</i> [Rabinowitch, 
<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 231 and pp. 246-7] However <i>"workers were not so 
readily pacified. In scores of additional factories and shops protests 
mounted and rapidly spread along the railways."</i> [Rosenberg, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
pp. 126-7] 
</p><p>
Faced with this mounting pressure of spontaneous strikes, the EAD declared 
a general for the 2nd of July. The Bolshevik authorities acted quickly: 
<i>"Any sign of sympathy for the strike was declared a criminal act. More 
arrests were made. In Moscow, Bolsheviks raided the Aleksandrovsk railroad 
shops, not without bloodshed. Dissidence spread."</i> On July 1st, <i>"machine 
guns were set up at main points throughout the Petrograd and Moscow railroad 
junctions, and elsewhere in both cities as well. Controls were tightened in 
factories. Meetings were forcefully dispersed."</i> [Rosenberg, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
p. 127] Factories were warned <i>"that if they participated in the general 
strike they would face immediate shutdown, and individual strikes were 
threatened with fines or loss of work. Agitators and members of strike 
committees were subject to immediate arrest."</i> Opposition printing 
presses <i>"were sealed, the offices of hostile trade unions were raided, 
martial law on lines in the Petrograd rail hub was declared, and armed 
patrols with authority to prevent work stoppages were formed and put on 
twenty-four hour duty at key points around the city."</i> Perhaps 
unsurprisingly, given <i>"the brutal suppression of the EAD's general 
strike"</i>, it was not successful. [Rabinowitch, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 254 
and p. 259] 
</p><p>
Thus <i>"[b]y the early summer of 1918"</i> there were <i>"widespread anti-Bolshevik 
protests. Armed clashes occurred in the factory districts of Petrograd and other 
industrial centres."</i> [William Rosenberg, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 107] It should 
also be noted that at the end of September of that year, there was a revolt by 
Baltic Fleet sailors demanding (as they did again in 1921) a <i>"return to 
government by liberated, democratic soviets - that is, 1917-type soviets."</i> 
As after the more famous 1921 revolt, the Left-SR controlled Kronstadt soviet 
had been disbanded and replaced by a Bolshevik revolutionary committee in July 
1918, during the repression after the Left-SR assassination of the German 
ambassador. [Rabinowitch, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 352 and p. 302] 
</p><p>
As well as state repression, the politics of the opposition played a role 
in its defeat. Before October 1918, both the Mensheviks and SRs were in 
favour of the Constituent Assembly and Dumas as the main organs of power, 
with the soviets playing a minor role. This allowed the Bolsheviks to portray 
themselves as defenders of "soviet power" (a position which still held popular 
support). Understandably, many workers were unhappy to support an opposition 
which aimed to replace the soviets with typically bourgeois institutions. Many also 
considered the Bolshevik government as a "soviet power" and so, to some degree, their 
own regime. With the civil war starting, many working class people would also have 
been uneasy in protesting against a regime which proclaimed its soviet and socialist 
credentials. After October 1918, the Mensheviks supported the idea of (a democratically 
elected) soviet power, joining the Left-SRs (who were now effectively illegal after 
their revolt of July - see <a href="secH6.html#sech61">section H.6.1</a>). However, 
by then it was far too late as Bolshevik ideology had adjusted to Bolshevik practice 
and the party was now advocating party dictatorship. Thus, we find Victor Serge in 
the 1930s noting that <i>"the degeneration of Bolshevism"</i> was apparent by that
time, <i>"since at the start of 1919 I was horrified to read an article by Zinoviev 
. . . on the monopoly of the party in power."</i> [<b>The Serge-Trotsky Papers</b>, 
p. 188] It should be noted, though, that Serge kept his horror well hidden throughout
this period - and well into the 1930s (see <a href="secH1.html#sech12">section H.1.2</a>
for his public support for this monopoly).
</p><p>
As noted above, this cycle of resistance and repression was not limited to 
Petrograd. In July 1918, a leading Bolshevik insisted <i>"that server measures 
were needed to deal with strikes"</i> in Petrograd while in other cities 
<i>"harsher forms of repression"</i> were used. For example, in Tula, in 
June 1918, the regime declared <i>"martial law and arrested the protestors. 
Strikes followed and were suppressed by violence"</i>. In Sormovo, 5,000 
workers went on strike after a Menshevik-SR paper was closed. Violence was 
<i>"used to break the strike."</i> [Remington, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 105] 
</p><p>
Similar waves of protests and strikes as those in 1918 took place the following
year with 1919 seeing a <i>"new outbreak of strikes in March"</i>, with the 
<i>"pattern of repression . . . repeated."</i> One strike saw <i>"closing of 
the factory, the firing of a number of workers, and the supervised re-election 
of its factory committee."</i> In Astrakhan, a mass meeting of 10,000 workers 
was fired on by Red Army troops, killing 2,000 (another 2,000 were taken 
prisoner and subsequently executed). [Remington, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 109] 
Moscow, at the end of June, saw a <i>"committee of defence (KOM) [being] formed 
to deal with the rising tide of disturbances."</i> The KOM <i>"concentrated 
emergency power in its hands, overriding the Moscow Soviet, and demanding 
obedience from the population. The disturbances died down under the pressure 
of repression."</i> [Sakwa, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 94-5] In the Volga region,
delegates to a conference of railroad workers <i>"protested the Cheka's arrest 
of union members, which the delegates insisted further disrupted transport. It 
certainly curbed the number of strikes."</i> [Raleigh, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 371]
In Tula <i>"after strikes in the spring of 1919"</i> local Menshevik party 
activists had been arrested while Petrograd saw <i>"violent strikes"</i> at
around the same time. [Jonathan Aves, <b>Workers Against Lenin</b>, p. 19 and 
p. 23] As Vladimir Brovkin argues in his account of the strikes and protests 
of 1919:
<blockquote><i>
"Data on one strike in one city may be dismissed as incidental. When,
however, evidence is available from various sources on simultaneous
independent strikes in different cities an overall picture begins to
emerge. All strikes developed along a similar timetable: February,
brewing discontent; March and April, peak of strikes: May, slackening in
strikes; and June and July, a new wave of strikes . . . 
</p><p>
"Workers' unrest took place in Russia's biggest and most important 
industrial centres . . . Strikes affected the largest industries,
primarily those involving metal: metallurgical, locomotive, and 
armaments plants . . . In some cities . . . textile and other workers
were active protesters as well. In at least five cities . . . the 
protests resembled general strikes."</i> [<i>"Workers' Unrest and the 
Bolsheviks' Response in 1919"</i>, pp. 350-373, <b>Slavic Review</b>, 
Vol. 49, No. 3, p. 370]
</blockquote></p><p>
These strikes raised both economic and political demands, such as 
<i>"free and fair elections to the soviets."</i> Unsurprisingly, in 
all known cases the Bolsheviks' <i>"initial response to strikes was to
ban public meetings and rallies"</i> as well as <i>"occup[ying] the striking
plant and dismiss[ing] the strikers en masse."</i> They also <i>"arrested
strikers"</i> and executed some. [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 371 and p. 372]
</p><p>
1920 saw similar waves of strikes and protests. In fact, strike action 
<i>"remained endemic in the first nine months of 1920."</i> Soviet 
figures report a total of 146 strikes, involving 135,442 workers for the
26 provinces covered. In Petrograd province, there were 73 strikes with 
85,642 participants. <i>"This is a high figure indeed, since at this time . . . 
there were 109,100 workers"</i> in the province. Overall, <i>"the geographical
extent of the February-March strike wave is impressive"</i> and the 
<i>"harsh discipline that went with labour militarisation led to an 
increase in industrial unrest in 1920."</i> [Aves, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 69, 
p. 70 and p. 80] 
</p><p>
Saratov, for example, saw a wave of factory occupations break out in June 
and mill workers went out in July while in August, strikes and walkouts 
occurred in its mills and other factories and these <i>"prompted a spate 
of arrests and repression."</i> In September railroad workers went out 
on strike, with arrests making <i>"the situation worse, forcing the 
administration to accept the workers' demands."</i> [Raleigh, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
p. 375] In January 1920, a strike followed a mass meeting at a railway 
repair shop in Moscow. Attempts to spread were foiled by arrests. The 
workshop was closed, depriving workers of their rations and 103 workers 
of the 1,600 employed were imprisoned. <i>"In late March 1920 there were 
strikes in some factories"</i> in Moscow and <i>"[a]t the height of the 
Polish war the protests and strikes, usually provoked by economic issues 
but not restricted to them, became particularly frequent . . . The assault 
on non-Bolshevik trade unionism launched at this time was probably 
associated with the wave of unrest since there was a clear danger that 
they would provide a focus for opposition."</i> [Sakwa, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
p. 95] The <i>"largest strike in Moscow in the summer of 1920"</i> was 
by tram workers over the equalisation of rations. It began on August 
12th, when one tram depot went on strike, quickly followed by others 
while workers <i>"in other industries joined in to."</i> The tram 
workers <i>"stayed out a further two days before being driven back 
by arrests and threats of mass sackings."</i> In the textile manufacturing 
towns around Moscow <i>"there were large-scale strikes"</i> in November 
1920, with 1000 workers striking for four days in one district and a 
strike of 500 mill workers saw 3,000 workers from another mill joining 
in. [Simon Pirani, <b>The Russian Revolution in Retreat, 1920-24</b>, 
p. 32 and p. 43]
</p><p>
In Petrograd the Aleksandrovskii locomotive building works <i>"had seen 
strikes in 1918 and 1919"</i> and in August 1920 it again stopped work. 
The Bolsheviks locked the workers out and placed guards outside it. The 
Cheka then arrested the SRs elected to the soviet from that workplace as 
well as about 30 workers. After the arrests, the workers refused to 
co-operate with elections for new soviet delegates. The <i>"opportunity 
was taken to carry out a general round-up, and arrests were made"</i> at 
three other works. The enormous Briansk works <i>"experienced two major 
strikes in 1920"</i>, and second one saw the introduction of martial law 
on both the works and the settlement it was situated in. A strike in Tula 
saw the Bolsheviks declare a <i>"state of siege"</i>, although the repression 
<i>"did not prevent further unrest and the workers put forward new demands"</i> 
while, in Moscow, a strike in May by printers resulted in their works 
<i>"closed and the strikers sent to concentration camps."</i> [Aves, 
<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 41, p. 45, p. 47, pp. 48-9,  pp. 53-4 and p. 59]
</p><p>
These expressions of mass protest and collective action continued in 1921,
unsurprisingly as the civil war was effectively over in the previous autumn.
Even John Rees had to acknowledge the general strike in Russia at the time,
stating that the Kronstadt revolt was <i>"preceded by a wave of serious but 
quickly resolved strikes."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 61] Significantly, he
failed to note that the Kronstadt sailors rebelled in solidarity with those
strikes and how it was state repression which <i>"resolved"</i> the strikes. 
Moreover, he seriously downplays the scale and importance of these strikes,
perhaps unsurprisingly as <i>"[b]y the beginning of 1921 a revolutionary 
situation with workers in the vanguard had emerged in Soviet Russia"</i> with 
<i>"the simultaneous outbreak of strikes in Petrograd and Moscow and in other 
industrial regions."</i> In February and March 1921, <i>"industrial unrest 
broke out in a nation-wide wave of discontent or <b>volynka</b>. General 
strikes, or very widespread unrest"</i> hit all but one of the country's 
major industrial regions and <i>"workers protest consisted not just of 
strikes but also of factory occupations, 'Italian strikes', demonstrations, 
mass meetings, the beating up of communists and so on."</i> Faced with this 
massive strike wave, the Bolsheviks did what many ruling elites do: they 
called it something else. Rather than admit it was a strike, they <i>"usually 
employed the word <b>volynka</b>, which means only a 'go-slow'"</i>. 
[Aves, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 3, p. 109, p. 112, pp. 111-2]
</p><p>
Mid-February 1921 saw workers in Moscow striking and <i>"massive city-wide 
protest spread through Petrograd . . . Strikes and demonstrations spread. 
The regime responded as it had done in the past, with lock-outs, mass 
arrests, heavy show of force  - and concessions."</i> [Remington, 
<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 111] As Paul Avrich recounts, in Petrograd these 
<i>"street demonstrations were heralded by a rash of protest meetings"</i> 
workplaces On the 24th of February, the day after a workplace meeting, 
the Trubochny factory workforce downed tools and walked out the factory. 
Additional workers from nearby factories joined in. The crowd of 2,000 
was dispersed by armed military cadets. The next day, the Trubochny 
workers again took to the streets and visited other workplaces, bringing 
them out on strike too. In the face of a near general strike, three-man 
Defence Committee was formed. Zinoviev <i>"proclaimed martial law"</i> 
and <i>"[o]vernight Petrograd became an armed camp."</i> Strikers were
locked out and the <i>"application of military force and the widespread 
arrests, not to speak of the tireless propaganda waged by the authorities"</i> 
was <i>"indispensable in restoring order"</i> (as were economic concessions). 
[<b>Kronstadt 1921</b>, pp. 37-8, p. 39, pp. 46-7 and p. 50] 
</p><p>
In Moscow, <i>"industrial unrest . . . turned into open confrontation and
protest spilled on to the streets"</i>, starting with a <i>"wave of strikes 
that had its centre in the heart of industrial Moscow."</i> Strikes were 
<i>"also spreading outside Moscow city itself into the surrounding provinces"</i>
and so <i>"Moscow and Moscow province were put under martial law".</i> [Aves,
<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 130, p. 138, p. 143 and p. 144] This strike wave started 
when <i>"[m]eetings in factories and plants gathered and criticised government 
policies, beginning with supply and developing into general political criticism."</i> 
As was typical, the  <i>"first response of the civil authorities to the disturbances 
was increased repression"</i> although as <i>"the number of striking factories 
increased some concessions were introduced."</i> Military units called in
against striking workers <i>"refused to open fire, and they were replaced by 
the armed communist detachments"</i> which did. <i>"That evening mass protest 
meetings were held . . . The following day several factories went on strike"</i> 
and troops were <i>"disarmed and locked in as a precaution"</i> by the government 
against possible fraternising. February 23rd saw a 10,000 strong street demonstration 
and <i>"Moscow was placed under martial law with a 24-hour watch on factories 
by the communist detachments and trustworthy army units."</i> The disturbances 
were accompanied by factory occupations and on the 1st of March the soviet 
called on workers <i>"not to go on strike."</i> However, <i>"wide-scale arrests 
deprived the movement of its leadership."</i> March 5th saw disturbances at the 
Bromlei works, <i>"resulting in the now customary arrest of workers. A general 
meeting at the plant on 25 March called for new elections to the Moscow Soviet. 
The management dispersed the meeting but the workers called on other plants to 
support the calls for new elections. As usual, the ringleaders were arrested."</i> 
[Sakwa, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 242-3, p. 245 and p. 246]
</p><p>
The events at the Bromlei works were significant in that the march 25th mass
meeting passed an anarchist and Left-SR initiated resolution supporting the 
Kronstadt rebels. The party <i>"responded by having them sacked en masse"</i>. 
The workers <i>"demonstrated through"</i> their district <i>"and inspired some 
brief solidarity strikes."</i> Over 3000 workers joined the strikes and about 
1000 of these joined the flying picket (managers at one print shop locked 
their workers in to stop them joining the protest). While the party was willing 
to negotiate economic issues, <i>"it had no wish to discuss politics with 
workers"</i> and so arrested those who initiated the resolution, sacked the 
rest of the workforce and selectively re-employed them. Two more strikes were 
conducted <i>"to defend the political activists in their midst"</i> and two 
mass meetings demanded the release of arrested ones. Workers also struck on 
supply issues in May, July and August. [Pirani, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 83-4]
</p><p>
While the Kronstadt revolt took place too late to help the Petrograd strikes,
it did inspire a strike wave in Ekaterinoslavl (in the Ukraine) in May, 1921. 
It started in the railway workshops and became <i>"quickly politicised,"</i> 
with the strike committee raising a <i>"series of political ultimatums that 
were very similar in content to the demands of the Kronstadt rebels"</i> 
(many of the resolutions put to the meeting almost completely coincided with 
them). The strike <i>"spread to the other workshops"</i> and on June 1st the 
main large Ekaterinoslavl factories joined the strike. The strike was
spread via the use of trains and telegraph and soon an area up to fifty 
miles around the town was affected. The strike was finally ended by the 
use of the Cheka, using mass arrests and shootings. Unsurprisingly, the 
local communists called the revolt a <i>"little Kronstadt."</i> [Aves, 
<b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 171-3]
</p><p>
Saratov also saw a mass revolt in March 1921, when a strike by railroad 
workers over a reduction in food rations spread to the metallurgical 
plants and other large factories <i>"as workers and non-workers sent 
representatives to the railroad shops."</i> They forced the Communists 
to allow the setting up of a commission to re-examine the activities of 
all economic organs and the Cheka. During the next two days, <i>"the 
assemblies held at factories to elect delegates to the commission
bitterly denounced the Communists."</i> The <i>"unrest spilled over into 
Pokrovsk."</i> The commission of 270 had less than ten Communists and 
<i>"demanded the freeing of political prisoners, new elections to the 
soviets and to all labour organisations, independent unions, and freedom 
of speech, the press, and assembly."</i> The Communists <i>"resolved to 
shut down the commission before it could issue a public statement"</i> and 
set up a Provincial Revolutionary Committee which <i>"introduced martial 
law both in the city and the garrison"</i> as well as arresting <i>"the 
ringleaders of the workers' movement."</i> The near general strike was 
broken by a <i>"wave of repression"</i> but <i>"railroad workers and 
dockworkers and some printers refused to resume work."</i> [Raleigh, 
<b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 388-9]
</p><p>
Post-<b>volynka</b>, workplaces <i>"that had been prominent in unrest were 
particularly hit by . . . purges . . . The effect on the willingness of 
workers to support opposition parties was predictable."</i> However, 
<i>"the ability to organise strikes did not disappear"</i> and they 
continued to take place throughout 1921. The spring of 1922 saw <i>"a 
new strike wave."</i> [Aves, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 182 and p. 183] For
example, in early March, <i>"long strikes"</i> hit the textile towns 
around Moscow. At the Glukhovskaia mills 5000 workers struck for 5 days, 
1000 at a nearby factory for 2 days and 4000 at the Voskresenskaia mills
for 6 days. In May, 1921, workers in the city of Moscow reacted to supply
problems <i>"with a wave of strikes. Party officials reckoned that in a 
24-day period in May there were stoppages at 66 large enterprises."</i> 
These included a sit-down strike at one of Moscow's largest plants, while 
<i>"workers at engineering factories in Krasnopresnia followed suit, and 
Cheka agents reported 'dissent, culminating in strikes and occupation' 
in Bauman."</i> August 1922 saw 19,000 workers strike in textile mills 
in Moscow region for several days. Tram workers also struck that year, 
while teachers <i>"organised strikes and mass meetings"</i>. Workers usually
elected delegates to negotiate with their trade unions as well as
their bosses as both were Communist Party members. Strike organisers,
needless to say, were sacked. [Pirani, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 82, pp. 111-2 
and p. 157]
</p><p>
While the strike wave of early 1921 is the most famous, due to the
Kronstadt sailors rebelling in solidarity with it, the fact is that this
was just one of many strike waves during the 1918 and 1921 period. In 
response to protests, <i>"the government had combined concessions with 
severe repression to restore order"</i> as well as <i>"commonly resort[ing] to 
the lock out as a means of punishing and purging the work force."</i> Yet, 
<i>"as the strike waves show, the regime's sanctions were not sufficient to 
prevent all anti-Bolshevik political action."</i> [Remington, <b>Op. Cit.</b>,
p. 111, p. 107,  and p. 109] In fact, repression <i>"did not prevent strikes 
and other forms of protest by workers becoming endemic in 1919 and 1920"</i>
while in early 1921 the Communist Party <i>"faced what amounted to a 
revolutionary situation. Industrial unrest was only one aspect of a more 
general crisis that encompassed the Kronstadt revolt and the peasant rising 
in Tambov and Western Siberia."</i> This <i>"industrial unrest represented a 
serious political threat to the Soviet regime . . . From Ekaterinburg to Moscow,
from Petrograd to Ekaterinoslavl, workers took to the streets, often in support 
of political slogans that called for the end of Communist Party rule . . . 
soldiers in many of the strike areas showed themselves to be unreliable [but] 
the regime was able to muster enough forces to master the situation. Soldiers
could be replaced by Chekists, officer cadets and other special units where 
Party members predominated."</i> [Aves, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 187, p. 155 and 
p. 186]
</p><p>
Yet, an <i>"atomised"</i> and powerless working class does not need martial 
law, lockouts, mass arrests and the purging of the workforce to control it. As 
Russian anarchist Ida Mett succinctly put it: <i>"And if the proletariat was 
that exhausted how come it was still capable of waging virtually total general 
strikes in the largest and most heavily industrialised cities?"</i> [<b>The 
Kronstadt Rebellion</b>, p. 81] The end of the civil war also saw the Bolsheviks 
finally destroy what was left of non-Bolshevik trade unionism. In Moscow, this 
took place against fierce resistance of the union members. As one historian 
concludes:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"Reflecting on the determined struggle mounted by printers, bakers and
chemical workers in Moscow during 1920-1, in spite of appalling economic
conditions, being represented by organisations weakened by constant 
repression . . . to retain their independent labour organisations it
is difficult not to feel that the social basis for a political alternative
existed."</i> [Jonathan Aves, <i>"The Demise of Non-Bolshevik Trade Unionism 
in Moscow: 1920-21"</i>, pp. 101- 33, <b>Revolutionary Russia</b>, vol. 2, 
no. 1, p. 130]
</blockquote></p><p>
Elsewhere, Aves argues that an <i>"examination of industrial unrest after the 
Bolshevik seizure of power . . . shows that the Revolution had brought to the 
surface resilient traditions of organisation in society and had released 
tremendous forces in favour of greater popular participation . . . The 
survival of the popular movement through the political repression and 
economic devastation of the Civil War testifies to its strength."</i> 
[<b>Workers Against Lenin</b>, p. 186] The idea that the Russian working 
class was incapable of collective struggle is hard to defend given 
this series of struggles (and state repression). The class struggle in 
Bolshevik Russia did not stop, it continued except the ruling class had 
changed. All the popular energy and organisation this expressed, which 
could have been used to combat the problems facing the revolution and 
create the foundations of a genuine socialist society, were wasted in 
fighting the Bolshevik regime. Ultimately, though, the <i>"sustained, 
though ultimately futile, attempts to revive an autonomous workers' movement, 
especially in mid-1918 and from late 1920, failed owing to repression."</i>
[Sakwa, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 269] Another historian notes that <i>"immediately 
after the civil war"</i> there was <i>"a revival of working class 
collective action that culminated in February-March 1921 in a widespread 
strike movement and the revolt at the Kronstadt naval base."</i> As such,
the position expounded by Rees and other Leninists <i>"is so one-sided
as to be misleading."</i> [Pirani, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 7 and p. 23]
</p><p>
Nor is this commonplace Leninist rationale for Bolshevik rule particularly 
original, as it dates back to Lenin and was first formulated <i>"to justify 
a political clamp-down."</i> Indeed, this argument was developed in response 
to rising working class protest rather than its lack: <i>"As discontent amongst 
workers became more and more difficult to ignore, Lenin . . . began to argue 
that the consciousness of the working class had deteriorated . . . workers had 
become 'declassed.'"</i> However, there <i>"is little evidence to suggest that 
the demands that workers made at the end of 1920 . . . represented a fundamental 
change in aspirations since 1917."</i> [Aves, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 18, p. 90 
and p. 91] So while the <i>"working class had decreased in size and changed 
in composition,. . . the protest movement from late 1920 made clear that it was 
not a negligible force and that in an inchoate way it retained a vision of 
socialism which was not identified entirely with Bolshevik power . . . Lenin's 
arguments on the declassing of the proletariat was more a way of avoiding this 
unpleasant truth than a real reflection of what remained, in Moscow at least, a 
substantial physical and ideological force."</i> [Sakwa, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 261] 
</p><p>
Nor can it be suggested, as the Bolsheviks did at the time, that these strikes
were conducted by newly arrived workers, semi-peasants without an awareness
of proletarian socialism or traditions. Links between the events in 1917 and 
those during the civil war are clear. Jonathan Aves writes that there 
were <i>"distinct elements of continuity between the industrial unrest 
in 1920 and 1917 . . . As might be anticipated, the leaders of unrest 
were often to be found amongst the skilled male workers who enjoyed 
positions of authority in the informal shop-floor hierarchies."</i> Looking 
at the strike wave of early 1921 in Petrograd, the <i>"strongest reason for 
accepting the idea that it was established workers who were behind the 
<b>volynka</b> is the form and course of protest. Traditions of protest 
reaching back through the spring of 1918 to 1917 and beyond were an 
important factor in the organisation of the <b>volynka</b>".</i> In fact, 
<i>"an analysis of the industrial unrest of early 1921 shows that 
long-standing workers were prominent in protest."</i> [Aves, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
p. 39, p. 126 and p. 91] As another example, <i>"although the ferment touched 
all strata of Saratov workers, it must be emphasised that the skilled 
metalworkers, railroad workers, and printers - the most 'conscious' workers -
demonstrated the most determined resistance."</i> They <i>"contested repression 
and the Communists' violation of fair play and workplace democracy."</i> 
[Raleigh, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 376] As Ida Mett argued in relation to the 
strikes in early 1921:
</p><p><blockquote>
<i>"The population was drifting away from the capital. All who had 
relatives in the country had rejoined them. The authentic proletariat 
remained till the end, having the most slender connections with the 
countryside.
</p><p>
"This fact must be emphasised, in order to nail the official lies 
seeking to attribute the Petrograd strikes . . . to peasant elements, 
'insufficiently steeled in proletarian ideas.' The real situation 
was the very opposite . . . There was certainly no exodus of peasants 
into the starving towns! . . . It was the famous Petrograd proletariat, 
the proletariat which had played such a leading role in both previous 
revolutions, that was finally to resort to the classical weapon of the 
class struggle: the strike."</i> [<b>The Kronstadt Uprising</b>, p. 36]
</p><p></blockquote>
As one expert on this issue argues, while the number of workers
did drop <i>"a sizeable core of veteran urban proletarians remained 
in the city; they did not all disappear."</i> In fact, <i>"it was 
the loss of young activists rather than of all skilled and 
class-conscious urban workers that caused the level of Bolshevik 
support to decline during the Civil War. Older workers had tended 
to support the Menshevik Party in 1917"</i>. Given this, <i>"it 
appears that the Bolshevik Party made deurbanisation and declassing 
the scapegoats for its political difficulties when the party's own 
policies and its unwillingness to accept changing proletarian attitudes 
were also to blame."</i> It should also be noted that the notion of
declassing to rationalise the party's misfortunes was used before 
long before the civil war: <i>"This was the same argument used to 
explain the Bolsheviks' lack of success among workers in the early 
months of 1917 - that the cadres of conscious proletarians were 
diluted by nonproletarian elements."</i> [Diane P. Koenker, 
<i>"Urbanisation and Deurbanisation in the Russian Revolution 
and Civil War"</i>, pp. 81-104, <b>Party, State, and Society in the 
Russian Civil War</b>, Diane P. Koenker, William G. Rosenberg and 
Ronald Grigor Suny (eds.), p. 96, p. 95, p. 100 and p. 84]
</p><p>
While there is still much research required, what facts that are available 
suggest that throughout the time of Lenin's regime the Russian workers took 
collective action in defence of their interests. This is not to say that 
workers did not also respond to the problems they faced in an individualistic 
manner, often they did. However, such responses were, in part (as we noted 
in the <a href="secH6.html#sech62">last section</a>), because Bolshevik 
policy <b>itself</b> gave them little choice as it limited their ability 
to respond collectively. Yet in the face of difficult economic circumstances,
workers turned to mass meetings and strikes. In response, the Bolshevik's
used state repression to break resistance and protest against their regime. In 
such circumstances it is easy to see how the Bolshevik party became isolated
from the masses they claimed to be leading but were, in fact, ruling. This
transformation of rebels into a ruling elite comes as no great surprise 
given that Bolshevik's aimed to seize power themselves in a centralised and
hierarchical institution, a state, which has always been the method by which
ruling classes secured their position (as we argued in 
<a href="secH3.html#sech37">section H.3.7</a>, this perspective flowed from
the flawed Marxist theory of the state). Just as they had to, first, gerrymander 
and disband soviets to regime in power in the spring and summer of 1918, so the 
Bolsheviks had to clamp down on any form of collective action by the masses. As
such, it is incredulous that latter day Leninists justify Bolshevik authoritarianism
on a lack of collective action by workers when that authoritarianism was often 
driven precisely to break it!
</p><p>
So the claim by John Rees that the <i>"dialectical relationship between the 
Bolsheviks and the working class was broken, shattered because the working
class itself was broke-backed after the civil war"</i> leaves a lot to be
desired. [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 22] The Bolsheviks did more than their fair 
share of breaking the back of the working class. This is unsurprising for 
a government which grants to the working class the greatest freedom undermines 
its own power by so doing. Even a limited relaxation of its authority will allow 
people to organise themselves, listen to alternative points of view and to act 
on them. That could not but undermine the rule of the party and so could not 
be supported - nor was it.
</p><p>
For example, in his 1920 diatribe against Left-wing Communism, Lenin pointed 
to <i>"non-Party workers' and peasants' conferences"</i> and Soviet Congresses 
as means by which the party secured its rule. Yet, <b>if</b> the congresses of 
soviets were <i>"<b>democratic</b> institutions, the like of which even the 
best democratic republics of the bourgeois have never know"</i>, the Bolsheviks 
would have no need to <i>"support, develop and extend"</i> non-Party conferences 
<i>"to be able to observe the temper of the masses, come closer to them, meet 
their requirements, promote the best among them to state posts".</i> [<b>The 
Lenin Anthology</b>, p. 573] How the Bolsheviks met <i>"their requirements"</i> 
is extremely significant - they disbanded them, just as they had with soviets 
with non-Bolshevik majorities in 1918. This was because <i>"[d]uring the 
disturbances"</i> of late 1920, <i>"they provided an effective platform for 
criticism of Bolshevik policies."</i> Their frequency was decreased and they 
<i>"were discontinued soon afterward."</i> [Sakwa, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 203] 
</p><p>
In the soviets themselves, workers turned to non-partyism, with non-party groups 
winning majorities in soviet delegates from industrial workers' constituencies 
in many places. This was the case in Moscow, where Bolshevik support among 
<i>"industrial workers collapsed"</i> in favour of non-party people. Due to 
support among the state bureaucracy and the usual packing of the soviet with
representatives from Bolshevik controlled organisations, the party had, in 
spite of this, a massive majority. Thus the Moscow soviet elections of 
April-May 1921 <i>"provided an opportunity to revive working-class participation. 
The Bolsheviks turned it down."</i> [Pirani, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 97-100 and 
p. 23] Indeed, one Moscow Communist leader stated that these soviet elections 
had seen <i>"a high level of activity by the masses and a striving to be in 
power themselves."</i> [quoted by Pirani, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 101]
</p><p>
1921 also saw the Bolshevik disperse provincial trade unions conferences in 
Vologda and Vitebsk <i>"because they had anti-communist majorities."</i> 
[Aves, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 176] At the All-Russian Congress of Metalworkers' 
Union in May, the delegates voted down the party-list of recommended candidates 
for union leadership. The Central Committee of the Party <i>"disregarded
every one of the votes and appointed a Metalworkers' Committee of its own. 
So much for 'elected and revocable delegates'. Elected by the union rank
and file and revocable by the Party leadership!"</i> [Brinton, <b>Op. Cit.</b>,
p. 83]
</p><p>
Another telling example is provided in August 1920 by Moscow's striking tram
workers who, in addition to economic demands, called for a general meeting 
of all depots. As one historian notes, this was <i>"significant: here the 
workers' movement was trying to get on the first rung of the ladder of 
organisation, and being knocked off by the Bolsheviks."</i> The party 
<i>"responded to the strike in such a way as to undermine workers' 
organisation and consciousness"</i> and <i>"throttl[ed] independent 
action"</i> by <i>"repression of the strike by means reminiscent of 
tsarism."</i> The Bolshevik's <i>"dismissive rejection"</i> of the demand 
for a city-wide meeting <i>"spoke volumes about their hostility to the 
development of the workers' movement, and landed a blow at the type of 
collective democracy that might have better able to confront supply
problems."</i> This, along with the other strikes that took place, showed 
that <i>"the workers' movement in Moscow was, despite its numerical weakness
and the burdens of civil war, engaged with political as well as industrial 
issues . . . the working class was far from non-existent, and when, in 1921, 
it began to resuscitate soviet democracy, the party's decision to make the 
Moscow soviet its 'creature' was not effect but cause."</i> [Pirani, 
<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 32, p. 33, p. 37 and p. 8] 
</p><p>
When such things happen, we can conclude that Bolshevik desire to remain in 
power had a significant impact on whether workers were able to exercise 
collective power or not. As Pirani concludes:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"one of the most important choices the Bolsheviks made . . . was to turn 
their backs on forms of collective, participatory democracy that workers 
briefly attempted to revive [post civil war]. [Available evidence] challenges 
the notion . . .  that political power was forced on the Bolsheviks because the 
working class was so weakened by the civil war that it was incapable of wielding 
it. In reality, non-party workers were willing and able to participate in 
political processes, but in the Moscow soviet and elsewhere, were pushed out 
of them by the Bolsheviks. The party's vanguardism, i.e. its conviction that 
it had the right, and the duty, to make political decisions on the workers' 
behalf, was now reinforced by its control of the state apparatus. The working 
class was politically expropriated: power was progressively concentrated in the 
party, specifically in the party elite."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 4]
</blockquote></p><p>
It should also be stressed that fear of arrest limited participation. A sadly 
typical example of this occurred in April 1920, which saw the first conference 
of railway workers on the Perm-Ekaterinburg line. The meeting of 160 delegates 
elected a non-Party chairman who <i>"demanded that delegates be guaranteed 
freedom of debate and immunity from arrest."</i> [Aves, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 44] 
A Moscow Metalworkers' Union conference in early February 1921 saw the first 
speakers calling <i>"for the personal safety of the delegates to be guaranteed"</i> 
before criticisms would be aired. [Sakwa, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 244] Later that 
year dissidents in the Moscow soviet demanded <i>"that delegates be given immunity 
from arrest unless sanctioned by plenary session of the soviet."</i> Immediately 
afterwards two of them, including an anarcho-syndicalist, were detained. It was 
also proposed that delegates' freedom of speech <i>"included immunity from 
administrative or judicial punishment"</i> along with the right of any number of
delegates <i>"to meet and discuss their work as they chose."</i> [Pirani,
<b>Op. Cit.</b> p. 104] Worse, <i>"[b]y the end of 1920 workers not only 
had to deal with the imposition of harsh forms of labour discipline, they 
also had to face the Cheka in their workplace."</i> This could not help 
hinder working class collective action, as did the use of the Cheka and 
other troops to repress strikes. While it is impossible to accurately 
measure how many workers were shot by the Cheka for participation in labour 
protest, looking at individual cases <i>"suggests that shootings were employed 
to inspire terror and were not simply used in the occasional extreme case."</i>
[Aves, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 35] Which means, ironically, those who had seized 
power in 1917 in the name of the politically conscious proletariat were in fact 
ensuring their silence by fear of the Cheka or weeding them out, by means of 
workplace purges and shooting.
</p><p>
Perhaps unsurprisingly, but definitely significantly, of the 17,000 camp detainees 
on whom statistical information was available on 1 November 1920, peasants and
workers constituted the largest groups, at 39% and 34%  respectively. Similarly, 
of the 40,913 prisoners held in December 1921 (of whom 44% had been committed 
by the Cheka) nearly 84% were illiterate or minimally educated, clearly, therefore, 
either peasants of workers. [George Leggett, <b>The Cheka: Lenin's Political 
Police</b>, p. 178] Needless to say, Lenin failed to mention this aspect of his 
system in <b>The State and Revolution</b> (a failure shared by later Leninists). 
Ultimately, the contradictions between Bolshevik rhetoric and the realities of 
working class life under their rule was closed by coercion.
</p><p>
Such forms of repression could not help ensure both economic chaos and push the 
revolution away from socialism. As such, it is hard to think of a more incorrect
assertion than Lenin's 1921 one that <i>"[i]ndustry is indispensable, democracy 
is not. Industrial democracy breeds some utterly false ideas."</i> [<b>Collected 
Works</b>, vol. 32, p. 27] Yet without industrial democracy, any development 
towards socialism is aborted and the problems of a revolution cannot be solved
in the interests of the working masses. 
</p><p>
This account of workers' protest being crushed by the so-called workers'
state raises an important theoretical question. Following Marx and Engels,
Lenin asserted that the <i>"state is nothing but a machine for the suppression 
of one class by another"</i> [<b>Collected Works</b>, vol. 28, p. 259] Yet
here is the working class being suppressed by "its" state. If the state is
breaking strikes, including general strikes, by what stretch of the imagination
can it be considered a "workers' state"? Particularly as the workers, like 
the Kronstadt sailors, demanded free soviet elections, <b>not</b>, as the Leninists 
then and now claim, "soviets without Communists" (although one soviet historian 
noted with regards the 1921 revolt that <i>"taking account of the mood of the 
workers, the demand for free elections to the soviets meant the implementation 
in practice of the infamous slogan of soviets without communists."</i> [quoted 
by Aves, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 123]). If the workers are being repressed and 
denied any real say in the state, how can they be considered the ruling class?
And what class is doing the <i>"suppression"</i>? As we discussed in 
<a href="secH3.html#sech38">section H.3.8</a>, Bolshevik ideology adjusted
to this reality by integrating the need for party dictatorship to combat 
the "wavering" within the working class into its theory of the state. Yet it 
is the party (i.e., the state) which determines what is and is not wavering.
This suggests that the state apparatus has to be separate from the working
class in order to repress it (as always, in its own interests). 
</p><p>
So anarchists argue that the actual experience of the Bolshevik state shows 
that the state is no mere <i>"machine"</i> of class rule but has interests 
of its own. Which confirms the anarchist theory of the state rather than
the Marxist (see <a href="secH3.html#sech37">section H.3.7</a>). It 
should be stressed that it was <b>after</b> the regular breaking of 
working class protest and strikes that the notion of the dictatorship of the 
party became Bolshevik orthodoxy. This makes sense, as protests and strikes 
express "wavering" within the working class which needs to be solved by state 
repression. This, however, necessitates a normal state power, one which is 
isolated from the working class and which, in order to enforce its will, 
<b>must</b> (like any state) atomise the working class people and render them 
unable, or unwilling, to take collective action in defence of their interests. 
For the defenders of Bolshevism to turn round and blame Bolshevik authoritarianism 
on the atomisation required for the party to remain in power and enforce its will 
is staggering.
</p><p>
Finally, it should be noted that Zinoviev, a leading Bolshevik, tried to 
justify the hierarchical position of the Bolshevik party arguing that 
<i>"[i]n time of strike every worker knows that there must be a Strike 
Committee - a centralised organ to conduct the strike, whose orders must 
be obeyed - although this Committee is elected and controlled by the rank 
and file. <b>Soviet Russia is on strike against the whole capitalist world. 
The social Revolution is a general strike against the whole capitalist system. 
The dictatorship of the proletariat is the strike committee of the social 
Revolution.</b>"</i> [<b>Proceedings and Documents of the Second Congress 
1920</b>, vol. 2, p. 929]
</blockquote></p><p>
In strikes, however, the decisions which are to be obeyed are those of the 
strikers. They should make the decisions and the strike committees should 
carry them out. The actual decisions of the Strike Committee should be 
accountable to the assembled strikers who have the real power (and so power 
is <b>decentralised</b> in the hands of the strikers and not in the hands of 
the committee). A far better analogy for what happened in Russia was provided 
by Emma Goldman:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"There is another objection to my criticism on the part of the Communists. 
Russia is on strike, they say, and it is unethical for a revolutionist to 
side against the workers when they are striking against their masters. 
That is pure demagoguery practised by the Bolsheviki to silence criticism.
</p><p>
"It is not true that the Russian people are on strike. On the contrary, the 
truth of the matter is that the Russian people have been <b>locked out</b> and 
that the Bolshevik State - even as the bourgeois industrial master - uses the 
sword and the gun to keep the people out. In the case of the Bolsheviki this 
tyranny is masked by a world-stirring slogan: thus they have succeeded in 
blinding the masses. Just because I am a revolutionist I refuse to side with 
the master class, which in Russia is called the Communist Party."</i> [<b>My
Disillusionment in Russia</b>, p. xlix]
</blockquote></p><p>
The isolation of the Bolsheviks from the working class was, in large part, 
required to ensure their power and, moreover, a natural result of utilising 
state structures. <i>"The struggle against oppression - political, economic,
and social, against the exploitation of man by man"</i> argued Alexander 
Berkman, <i>"is always simultaneously a struggle against government as
such. The political State, whatever its form, and constructive revolutionary
effort are irreconcilable. They are mutually exclusive."</i> Every revolution 
<i>"faces this alternative: to build freely, independently and despite of the
government, or to choose government with all the limitation and stagnation
it involves . . . Not by the order of some central authority, but organically
from life itself, must grow up the closely knit federation of the industrial,
agrarian, and other associations; by the workers themselves must they be
organised and managed."</i> The <i>"very essence and nature"</i> of the 
socialist state <i>"excludes such an evolution. Its economic and political
centralisation, its governmentalism and bureaucratisation of every sphere of
activity and effort, its inevitable militarisation and degradation of the
human spirit mechanically destroy every germ of new life and extinguish
the stimuli of creative, constructive work."</i> [<b>The Bolshevik Myth</b>, 
pp. 340-1] By creating a new state, the Bolsheviks ensured that the mass 
participation required to create a genuine socialist society could not be 
expressed and, moreover, came into conflict with the Bolshevik authorities 
and their attempts to impose their (essentially state capitalist) vision of 
"socialism". 
</p><p>
It need not have been that way. As can be seen from our discussion of labour 
protest under the Bolsheviks, even in extremely hard circumstances the Russian 
people were able to organise themselves to conduct protest meetings, demonstrations 
and strikes. The social base for an alternative to Bolshevik power and policies 
existed. Sadly Bolshevik politics, policies and the repression they required 
ensured that it could not be used constructively during the revolution to 
create a genuine socialist revolution. 
</p>

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