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THEORY INDEX

The Monumental Forerunner
of World Socialist Revolution

Sixty-Year Anniversary of the Russian Revolution [1977]

Written by Hiroyoshi Hayashi ('Spark' Sep-Dec, 1977)
(Translated by Roy West)


Contents

  1. The Bearers of the Chinese Revolution
  2. Lenin's Theory of the Russian Revolution --- Hegemony of the working class in the democratic revolution
  3. Abstract "World Revolution": Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution
  4. Theories Tested in the 1917 Revolution
  5. Brest-Litovsk Treaty and the Debate on Labor Unions
  6. Wartime "Communism" to NEP-the "inevitability" of capitalism in Russia
  7. The Secret of the Stalin System
  8. What Was The Russian Revolution --- Its Meaning and "Limits"

1. The Russian Revolution's "Contradictions" as a Proletarian Revolution

This year [1977] marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution. In this essay we will consider its significance for the history of humanity.

The Russian Revolution represents the greatest revolution in the history of mankind; an epoch-making event in the course of human development. At the same time, however, it was a revolution which contained many contradictions. Humanity has not yet necessarily been able to fully solve this "riddle". Precisely because we are attracted to the greatness of the Russian Revolution, fully recognize its historical significance, and draw an infinite number of lessons from it, we have nothing in common with those (not only Stalinists, but often Trotskyists) who uncritically glorify or dogmatically absolutize it.

This past year the Japanese Communist Party (Stalinists) made a 180-degree turn from their previous dogmatic absolutist position, and have now set about the task of creating a thoroughly relativistic theory of the Russian Revolution. This is simply the reverse error of their previous dogmatism that doesn't reveal the real significance and lessons of the Russian Revolution.

What, then, were the contradictions of the Russian Revolution? In general, it can be said that every occurrence involves contradiction, and for this very reason develops and unfolds. However, the contradiction of the Russian Revolution is not contradiction in this general sense, but the contradiction of the Russian Revolution as a proletarian revolution (or as a revolution led by the most revolutionary and conscious Marxist Party historically speaking). This contradiction is reflected in the theories of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, as well as in Trotsky's theories, and is at the basis of the debates between these tendencies.

The Russian Revolution is often referred to as a proletarian socialist revolution. In general, we have no objection to this conclusion. In the Russian Revolution, the proletarian party took power, overthrew feudal rule and the power of capital, nationalized all the means of production, and declared the principles of socialism. Here it appears that there is, and can be no "contradiction".

Actually, however, saying that the Russian Revolution was a proletarian socialist revolution is a mere abstraction. After the revolution, Lenin often admonished Trotsky and others by insisting on this. "Comrade Trotsky speaks of a "workers' state". May I say that this is an abstraction…The whole point is that it is not quite a workers' state…ours is not actually a workers' state but a workers' and peasants' state."

Moreover, when Lenin returned to Russian, after the outbreak of the February revolution, he emphasized that in Russia the "leap" to socialism could not be directly made, and that only a few steps towards socialism, not the introduction of socialism, was possible. He called the type of government which could be established a revolutionary democratic government. Furthermore, it was Lenin himself who introduced NEP (one type of capitalism). This clearly demonstrates that even though the Russian Revolution was able to be a proletarian revolution, it was unable to be a socialist revolution. This represents one of the contradictions.

Marx repeatedly emphasized that the victory of socialism was unattainable without the relatively high growth of productive power; i.e., the development of industrial production. In the preface to his "Criticism of Political Economy" he wrote the following.

"In the social production of their lives men enter into relations that are specific, necessary and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a specific stage of development of their material productive forces…A social formation never comes to an end before all the forces of production which it can accommodate are developed, and new, higher relations of production never come into place before the material conditions of their existence have gestated in the womb of the old society…but at the same time productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois society create the material conditions for the resolution of this antagonism. With that social formation the pre-history of human society draws to a close." (Marx selected writings, Oxford University, pp. 160-1)

Furthermore, in "The Poverty of Philosophy" we can find the following passage.

"Social relations are closely bound up with productive forces. In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production; and in changing their mode of production, in changing the way of earning their living, they change all their social relations. The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist." (International Publishers, pp. 80-81)

In "The Principles of Communism", written at the same time as the "Communist Manifesto", Engels poses the question why "private property could not have been abolished earlier", and responds that the high level of productive power conforming to socialism, and incompatible with private property, had yet to be generated.

Clearly they sought the conditions for socialism in the development of a high degree of productive power. This productive power was only attainable as the result of capitalistic development. Therefore, they recognized and highly regarded the historical and progressive significance of capitalistic production.

If socialism is only possible as a result of the development of industry and a high level of productive power, in addition to the growth of the working class resulting from capitalistic development, then it is not difficult to point out the significant difficulty the Russian Revolution had as a proletarian revolution. From the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, Russia was suffering from a social contradiction, but this was not the contradiction born from the development of capitalism, what Marx called the contradiction between "modern production and the bourgeois form of production" ("Class Struggles in France").

Rather, this was the contradiction between the old, backward feudal system, and a rapidly developing capitalism; the contradiction arising from the combination of the old and new systems; not a proletarian socialist revolution, but rather the contradiction stemming from the need to construct bourgeois rule by sweeping away feudalistic relations and ensuring the development of capitalism.

The working class represented only one tenth of the population, while the vast majority were peasants oppressed by the feudalistic landlords and the Czarist system. The workers were concentrated in relatively large-scale industries and were class-conscious. These are the governing social relations that cannot be overlooked.

The contradiction of the Russian revolution as a proletarian revolution-it is in this sense that we speak of the contradiction of the Russian revolution-stems from the fact that in a country lacking the objective conditions for socialism, a proletarian party grabbed power and advanced, and had no choice but to advance, towards the goal of socialism. In the next section we will consider the significance of the Russian revolution and its contradictions through a discussion of the debate among Russian revolutionaries. This is one clue to understand contemporary Soviet society.

2. Lenin's Theory of the Russian Revolution
--- Hegemony of the working class in the democratic revolution

There was heated debate among Russian revolutionaries on the nature and content of the approaching revolution.

Initially, there was a debate between the Marxists and the Narodniks (populists). Whereas the Marxists considered the Russian revolution to be a bourgeois revolution, the Narodniks viewed it as a socialist revolution on the basis of the idea that socialism could be built through the division of land from an agricultural revolution.

Subsequently, a heated debate arose within the ranks of the Marxists, i.e. within the Social-Democratic Party. This was the conflict between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. On the basis of the shared assumption that the coming Russian Revolution was a bourgeois revolution, the debate covered a wide range of problems including which class would gain hegemony (leadership), the character of the new government after the victory of the revolution, whether or not the Social-Democratic Party should participate in the government, and the difference in class struggle between a democratic and a socialist revolution.

The Mensheviks argued that the coming revolution was a bourgeois revolution and the liberal bourgeoisie would (or should) assume hegemony. Therefore, the Social Democratic Party (i.e. the working class) should not play the leading role in the revolution, but rather an auxiliary role, and not alarm or paralyze the bourgeoisie with their own revolutionary character. Furthermore, since the revolution was a bourgeois one, even if the revolution were to be victorious, the Social Democratic Party should not participate in the government, but remain the "party of extreme revolutionary opposition". The overall theory of the Mensheviks boils down to an alliance with the liberal bourgeoisie.

In opposition to the Mensheviks subservience to the liberals, Lenin insisted on the hegemony of the working class in the "democratic revolution". Lenin was primarily concerned with how the working class could positively and subjectively participate in the coming democratic revolution.

"Marxism teaches the proletarian not to keep aloof from the bourgeois revolution, not to refuse to take part in it, not to allow the leadership of the revolution to be assumed by the bourgeoisie but, on the contrary, to take a most energetic part in it, to fight resolutely for consistent proletarian democracy, to fight to carry the revolution to its completion. We cannot jump out of the bourgeois-democratic boundaries of the Russian revolution, but we can enormously extend those boundaries." ("Two Tactics" p. 41 International Publishers)

The fact that the coming revolution was a bourgeois one did not limit the assumption of hegemony to the bourgeoisie. Already in the revolution of 1848, the bourgeoisie in the European countries, frightened by the appearance of the working class, compromised with feudal power instead of seriously fighting against it, and revealed their own treacherous nature. Similarly in Russia, the bourgeoisie, due to its weakness, colluded with Czarism instead of leading the bourgeois revolution, and hoped that this would lead in a bourgeois direction.

Thus, the Mensheviks' idea of a democratic revolution led by the bourgeoisie was an unrealistic fantasy. The option is thus either the impossibility of a democratic revolution or its possibility only under the hegemony of the working class.

The Mensheviks criticized Lenin's strategy as "a bourgeois revolution without the bourgeoisie." However, did Lenin really propose a "bourgeois revolution without the bourgeoisie?"

On the contrary, Lenin certainly did not ignore bourgeois elements. Lenin emphasized that the true victory of the democratic revolution was only possible from the moment that the peasants, who along with the workers formed the vast majority of the population, rose up. Lenin strongly criticized the Mensheviks for flattering the liberal bourgeoisie, while not valuing the revolutionary peasant movement. Furthermore, the peasants themselves are also a kind of bourgeoisie, i.e. "radical bourgeoisie". If the central content is a peasant revolution, doesn't this represent a bourgeois revolution?

Therefore, the revolutionary government could only be a "democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants", not the socialist dictatorship of the working class. This revolutionary government should carry out policies to firmly wipe out all feudalistic power and relations, and prepare the way for a constitutional system.

Lenin's standpoint could be said to contain a contradiction, but this is the contradiction of the Russian revolution itself.

The standpoint of advancing the class struggles of the workers to the end in a bourgeois revolution is not contradictory in itself. Indeed, advancing the workers' class struggle to the end is nothing but the struggle for socialism itself.

If the working class assumes hegemony in the bourgeois revolution, does it still remain simply a bourgeois revolution? To explain this dilemma, Stalin, after the revolution, came up with the dogma of Lenin's "two stage revolution theory". According to this theory, the revolution begins first with the "democratic" revolution, and then rapidly "transforms" into a socialist revolution. Stalin called this Lenin's theory of revolutionary strategy, but this is merely a "metaphysics of revolution" which bears no relation to Leninism. Stalin's metaphysical theory of revolution has now become the possession of Communist Parties throughout the world.

Lenin called on the workers to participate actively in the democratic revolution, but this position was based on the evaluation of the politico-economic development of Russia and the character of the Russian Revolution at the time, not on the basis of the metaphysics of revolution. Lenin clearly stated that if the period of democratic revolution comes to an end in Russia, the goal of the workers would already become the development of the class struggle for socialism, instead of being the "advance guard for democracy".

However, from within the Social Democratic Party, an important dissident voice arose against the Mensheviks and Bolshevik-Lenin faction, who viewed the coming Russian revolution as a bourgeois revolution. This was Trotsky's theory of "permanent revolution" which we will examine next.

3. Abstract "World Revolution": Trotsky's Theory of Permanent Revolution

Trotsky argued that both the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were incorrect in calling the coming Russian Revolution a "democratic" revolution. He argued the proletariat would probably gain power, and that once they had assumed power they would be compelled to advance towards a socialist revolution without being able to stop halfway. However, within the reality of Russia, this would lead to resistance from the wide stratum of peasantry. Thus, to maintain proletarian power, it would be necessary for the revolution to spread to Europe (i.e. world revolution). -Trotsky called this train of thought the theory of "permanent revolution".

By saying that there was no hope for the Russian workers government apart from world revolution, Trotsky also recognizes that the conditions for socialism do not exist within Russia (Trotsky goes so far as to say that it is impossible to build socialism in any single country regardless of the level of capitalist development, but we do not have space here to touch on this dogma). Nevertheless, through the glorification of an abstract "world revolution", he called for the establishment of proletarian power in Russia.

Trotsky "completed" Lenin's standpoint of maintaining the independence of the class struggle of the workers within the "democratic revolution" by reasoning that since the class struggle must be advanced to the end, the coming revolution must therefore be a socialist one.

Marx, Engels as well as Lenin recognized that for late developing countries to attain the victory of socialism, it is necessary to receive aid from the advanced proletariat states. However, even in this case they set the following conditions.

"The true liberation of the proletariat in Germany and France, the complete elimination of all class differences, as well as the complete concentration of the means of production, would require, the cooperation of England, and at least the doubling of production means existing currently in Germany and France." (Engels "Perspectives and Conditions on the War of the Holy Alliance", passage and title translated from Japanese.)

There is no reason for us to interpret Engels literally here when he says, "the means of production must be doubled". This is likely the idea that the efforts of England alone are insufficient, and that Germany and France also need to increase their own productive power and develop industrial production. This is different from Trotsky's conception of "permanent revolution" which argues Russia must rely on Europe since the conditions for socialism do not exist within the country.

Lenin criticized the resolution of the Mensheviks presented in the organ of the new Iskra-ists, which was written in the spirit of Trotsky. The Menshevik resolution was the following.

"Only in one event should Social-Democracy, on its own initiative, direct its efforts towards seizing power and retaining it as long as possible, namely, in the event of the revolution spreading to the advanced countries of Western Europe where conditions for the achievement of socialism have already reached a certain [?] state of maturity. In that event, the restricted historical scope of the Russian revolution can be considerably extended and the possibility of striking the path of socialist reforms will arise."

Lenin criticized this view:

"The basic idea expressed here is the same as that repeatedly formulated by Vperyod, when it stated that we must not be afraid of a complete victory for Social-Democracy in a democratic revolution, i.e., the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry, for such a victory will enable us to rouse Europe, and socialist proletariat of Europe will then throw off the yoke of the bourgeoisie and in its turn help us to carry out a socialist revolution…The resolution (of the Mensheviks) fails to grasp this connection between our (not in the new Iskra sense) and the revolution in Europe, and therefore refers, not to the tasks of the proletariat, not to the prospects of its victory, but to one of the possibilities in general; ‘in the event of the revolution spreading." (Two Tactics p. 69)

The Mensheviks resolution was intended to demonstrate that the Social-Democratic Party should not assume power. They only allowed the assumption of power in the case where revolution would spread to Western Europe, and the workers in those countries would aid the Russian Revolution, thereby creating the possibility for socialistic reforms in Russia. Trotsky's theory is the reversal of this: since there will probably be assistance from Europe, proletarian socialist revolution in Russia is possible.

Lenin opposed the abstraction of a "proletarian socialist government" holding out for foreign aid. "Surely the possibility of retaining power in Russia must be determined by the composition of the social forces in Russia itself, by the circumstances of the democratic revolution which is now taking place in our country." (Ibid p. 70)

At the basis of Lenin's argument, as before, was the fundamental recognition of the "absurd, semi-anarchist ideas (of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and Trotsky) that (…) the conquest of power for a socialist revolution can be immediately achieved." "The present degree of economic development of Russia (an objective condition) and the degree of class consciousness and organisation of the broad masses of the proletariat (a subjective condition indissolubly connected with the objective condition) make the immediate, complete emancipation of the working class impossible. Only the most ignorant people can ignore the bourgeois character of the present democratic revolution." (Ibid. p.19)

Unlike Trotsky, Lenin could not support the dogma which started from the idea that proletarian revolution would be possible if revolution spread to Europe and the European proletariat were to provide assistance, (i.e. to absolutize one possible situation among all others). This would represent leaping over the class relations determined by the stage of social development in Russia by means of a concept.

But didn't Trotsky say that the proletariat would have to assume power? Didn't he start from this acute insight-gained from the practical experience of 1905?

Lenin, however, was opposed to the abstraction of "proletariat power" isolated from socio-economic conditions. Moreover, he thought that when the working class gained power through cooperation with the considerably more numerous peasants, this could not simply be called a proletarian government aiming for the construction of socialism.

Generally, Trotskyists regretfully say that Trotsky was defeated by Stalin in the inner-Party struggles in Russia because his theory appeared to be incorrect following the collapse of revolution in Germany and elsewhere. However, this actually represented the bankruptcy of Trotsky's theory of unconditionally depending on, and pinning all the hopes of the Russian class and political struggle on the revolution in Europe. The fact that the Russian Revolution did not lead to the victory of revolution in Europe must be viewed historically without mixing in one's hopes (or seeing it simply from the "betrayal-perspective of history). For this task, we take the following quotation from Marx as a clue.

"While, therefore, the crises first produce revolutions on the Continent, the foundation for these is, nevertheless, always laid in England. Violent outbreaks must naturally occur rather in the extremities of the bourgeois body rather than in its hear, since the possibility of adjustment is greater than there. On the other hand, the degree to which Continental revolutions react on England is at the same time the barometer which indicates how far these revolutions really call in question the bourgeois conditions of life, or how far they only hit their political formations." ("Review", Collected Works Vol. 10, pp. 509-10.)

The Russian experiment was not immediately accepted in Europe. One reason was that Europe had a greater "possibility for adjustment", and more powerful opportunism. Anototr reason was that the lessons of Russia, which did not have the experience of democratic parliamentary governments or a legal workers movement, could not immediately gain the acceptance of the European working class. This is the problem of the content of the Russian Revolution as a "proletarian revolution". The workers of Europe felt more than a little dissatisfaction with a revolution which shifted from war communism to NEP, and allowed the rule of Stalinism=bureaucratization. This reaffirms the bankruptcy of Trotsky's strategy and his theory of permanent revolution.

The "level of the effect" on Europe of the Russian Revolution was insufficiently strong to bring about a revolution there.

4. Theories Tested in the 1917 Revolution

The 1917 Russian Revolution tested and verified in practice all of the theories of revolution, and measured their "effectiveness". Nearly everything that can be called a theory cannot escape from this sort of fate.

In the turmoil from February to October, needless to say the bourgeois liberals (Cadets), as well as the petty bourgeois socialists (Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries- the equivalent of the Socialist and Communist Parties in Japan) revealed their bankruptcy. After the February Revolution, the Cadet Party, which had assumed power with the aid of the petty bourgeois socialists, turned their back on land reform, continued the imperialist war, and abandoned the masses. The Socialist-Revolutionary Kerensky government, which subsequently appeared, was also unable to meet any of the expectations of the working people, and in July suppressed the workers struggles, conspired with General Kornilov for the creation of a Bonapartist regime, but this only hastened Kornilov's insurrection. The government collapsed with the October 7th workers insurrection, and Kerensky went into exile abroad.

The Mensheviks' policy reached its conclusion in the coalition government they formed with the liberal bourgeoisie. Aiding the bourgeoisie (Cadet Party) to gain power was the inevitable culmination of their many years of opportunistic tactics. Up to that point, they had said that the bourgeoisie would take power and the Social-Democratic Party would not go farther than being the "party of extreme revolutionary opposition", but when the bourgeois government was realized, they hurriedly entered the government, assumed Ministry positions and their opportunism deepened to the point of Millerand-ism (entering the cabinet). The Russian Revolution thus dramatically revealed that the basis of the Menshevik program (read: Japan Socialist and Communist Parties) was trust in and cooperation with the bourgeoisie.

The Socialist-Revolutionary Party, which had claimed to based on "laborers" [workers and peasants] in general, rather than simply the proletariat, and had even glorified terrorism, also collaborated with the bourgeoisie together with the Mensheviks, thereby exposing that their emphasis on "socialist" revolution was nothing but a dead letter.

Only the Bolsheviks were able to consistently maintain the class position of the working class and oppose the bourgeoisie as well as feudal power. Still, before Lenin returned to Russia at the beginning of April, there was some fluctuation within the ranks. "Old Bolsheviks" such as Stalin and Molotov advocated "unity" instead of severing ties with the bourgeois-allied Mensheviks. Moreover, they forced on the workers the strategy of "applying pressure" to the coalition government born after the February revolution for the creation of "democratic" and "peaceful" policies. In Switzerland, Lenin was alarmed by this and seized with a sense of crisis telegraphed the following message: "Our tactics: no trust in and no support of the new government; Kerensky is especially suspect; arming of the proletariat is the only guarantee…no rapprochement with other parties." (Collected Works Vol. 23, p. 292.)

Later Trotsky argued that the vacillation of the "old Bolsheviks" was the fault of Lenin's "theory of a democratic revolution", and that they could not understand Lenin's abandonment of his old theory. In other words, this is the idea that due to his adherence to the theory of "democratic revolution", the bourgeois revolution stopped at the level of the February revolution, and Stalin was unable to propose the task of advancing towards proletarian revolution, and inevitably inclined towards a coalition with the bourgeoisie and Mensheviks.

However, if Stalin's vacillation is explained from Leninism, how do the Trotskyists explain the fact that Lenin himself had a different policy from Stalin's collaborationism? Their answer is the self-congratulatory idea that Lenin had revised his previous standpoint at that stage to come closer to the position of Trotsky.

Of course, we don't intend to insist obstinately that Lenin never altered his own thinking. However, fundamentally speaking Lenin's way of thinking did not change. For example, this is clear from his "Farewell Letter to Swiss Workers" published just before he left Switzerland, in which he emphasized that: ""Russia is a peasant country, one of the most backward of European countries. Socialism cannot triumph there directly and immediately." (Collected Works Vol. 23, p. 371.) Moreover, at the Seventh (April) National Congress and in his "April Theses" he wrote, "It is not our immediate task to ‘introduce' socialism, but only to bring social production and the distribution of products at once under the control of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies." (Collected Works Vol. 24, p. 24.) And he maintained the "old" slogan of a revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the workers and peasants. Lenin pointed out [in "Letter on Tactics"] the errors of the "old Bolsheviks" who argued that the bourgeois revolution is not completed because there is no "dictatorship of the workers and peasants" and couldn't understand that the "revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry has already been realized, but in a highly original manner, and with a number of extremely important modifications." (Collected Works Vol. 24, p. 45.)

Moreover, clearly thinking of Trotsky, Lenin wrote: "But are we not in danger of falling into subjectivism, of wanting to arrive at the socialist revolution-which is not yet completed and has not yet exhausted the peasant movement? I might be incurring this danger if I said: ‘No, Tsar, but a worker's government.' But I did not say that, I said something else. I said that there can be no government (barring a bourgeois government) in Russia other than that of the Soviet of Workers', Agricultural Labourers, Soldiers' , and Peasants' Deputies." (Ibid. p. 48.)

It is clearly more accurate to say that Stalin's vacillation was due less to the theory of "democratic revolution" than, as Lenin points out, the absence of revolutionary proletarian standpoint based on the living, concrete conditions of reality. From 1903, the Bolsheviks consistently carried out a thoroughgoing factional struggle with the Mensheviks (i.e. bourgeois liberal faction). Bearing this in mind, it is impossible to blame Stalin's collaborationism on Leninism. Rather, there is the question why Trotsky, who formed one wing of the Mensheviks, severed his ties with the Mensheviks. Isn't this also a type of vacillation (vacillation to the left is still vacillation)?

At any rate, at this stage as well, Lenin regarded the fundamental task of the Russian Revolution to be a democratic one. This represented a stark difference from Trotsky's view that the bourgeois tasks are subordinate tasks to be explained by proletarian socialists revolution. By focusing on the difference in their views in the Brest-Litovsk treaty and the trade union debates, we can further consider the question "What was the Russian Revolution?".

5. Brest-Litovsk Treaty and the Debate on Labor Unions

The debate on the Brest-Litovsk Treaty immediately after the war, and the debate on trade unions which raged in the transition period from war communism to NEP, were a presentiment of the conditions of the Russian revolution and the socio-economic system of the near future.

There is not space here to consider in detail the controversy concerning the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. Essentially it involved the question of whether Soviet Russia should wage a "revolutionary war" against German imperialism, or retreat and "stall for time"; i.e., to compromise or fight. Lenin called for immediate peace, while on the other hand, "left-wing" Bolsheviks and the left Socialist-Revolutionaries called for a "revolutionary war". Trotsky, while emotionally agreeing with the latter, postponed peace by advocated the position of "no war and no peace"

Trotsky thought that by drawing out the negotiations and exposing German imperialism during the negotiations, Russia could escape the "humiliation" of submitting and compromising with German imperialism. On the other hand, Lenin thought that revolution might break out in Europe, but argued that one could not declare that this would happen from 1922-23, and that the victory of the revolution should not be wagered on a hopeful outlook, and insisted that the treaty should be accepted. It was clear that just a couple months after the Revolution, Russia was unable to fight head on with a German imperialism armed to the teeth. This was not simply a fight with imperialist interventionists, but a "formal" struggle with an imperialist state. For the Russian Revolution to survive, it was necessary to reach a separate peace with Germany. Trotsky recognized this, but expected revolution would soon break out in Europe, and was led by the emotional impulse of wanting to avoid submission to the imperialists, and thus continued to oppose immediate peace. The outcome of this position was that a less advantageous peace was forced on the Russian revolutionary state.

The Brest-Litovsk peace brought to light the weakness of the Russian revolutionary state. This brought to light the international power relations wherein the Soviet state had to submit to imperialist pressure and make a major compromise in order to survive. This was an inauspicious sign for the future of the young Soviet state.

On the other hand, the trade union debate from 1920-21, brought to the fore the most fundamental question of the future political and economic system in the post-revolutionary Soviet Union. It is certainly no accident that this debate took place during the process of the shift from war communism to the New Economic Policy (NEP).

Already around the spring of 1920, Trotsky proposed the "military organization of labor" in connection with economic reconstruction. Trotsky's theory was the following-Socialism is a system of compulsory labor, and since compulsory labor is impossible without force, this necessitates the military organization of labor.

"Without the foundation of the military organization of labor formed through government compulsion, replacing the capitalist economy with a socialists economy is purely utopian." (Translated from Japanese edition of Trotsky's Collected Works Vol. 12, p. 185)
"Concerning the workers, it is fundamentally mistaken for the unions serve in place of militarization. The unions should not replace the functions of militarization, but rather realize this, and be its organizational expression." (Translated from Japanese edition of Collected Works Vol. 13 p. 169)

Trotsky was able to test out his theory from summer until autumn 1920 in the war with Poland. Trotsky's system of orders and compulsion achieved great results during the emergency period of the crisis of "foreign threats". He was able to "flog" the transportation workers union, and transportation was secured.

However, without realizing that this was only a temporary method, he raised it to the level of a general principle of socialism, and called for all of the labor unions to be "reformed" with this type of militaristic method. Trotsky robbed the labor unions of their autonomy, and demanded that they be turned into one part of the state mechanism. As a result, the famous trade union debate took place concerning the position, role and significance of trade unions under the socialists state.

Lenin opposed Trotsky and called for resistance to the militarized bureaucratic form of labor, and defended trade union democracy. He also opposed Trotsky's abstraction of calling the Russian state a "proletarian state", and said that the Soviet state is a "workers and peasants state" not a workers state. Moreover, he emphasized that under a bureaucratically deformed state, the unions should be given the right to protect workers' interests and standpoints against the state.

On the other hand, Lenin opposed the views of the so-called "workers opposition league" who said that the unions and factory committees should manage the entire economy, calling this position syndicalism. But Lenin added that if the party and state were heading towards extinction after revolution, then the views of the leftwing oppositionists would be justified and there would be no basis to criticize them as syndicalism. The fact that these views were rejected reveals the ultimate limits of the Russian revolution, which it attempted to but could not overcome. It might be said that Trotsky's theory was an ironical expression of dissension against this reality.

In this debate, Lenin (although he had written "State and Revolution" just the preceding year) could not indicate that the prospect for the extinction of the state. Lenin emphasized a theory of the "agreement" between the state and working class. The prospect of the withering away of the state was only insisted on by the so-called "workers' opposition" led by Shlyapnikov and Kollontai. However, Russian reality made this utopian, just the talk of syndicalism Under the terrible conditions of Russia at the time, only Lenin's view was realistic-although when compared to the later Stalinists system, it was Trotsky's system of "compulsion and orders" that was truly realistic and inevitable.

Just as in the 1930's when he applied Trotsky's "united front tactics" and made use of his opportunism, in domestic construction as well, Stalin literally implemented Trotsky's theory of "compulsory labor" and constructed a sort of dictatorial state in Russia.

6. Wartime "Communism" to NEP-the "inevitability" of capitalism in Russia

In the last Congress of the Comintern that he would attend (November 1922), Lenin explained to comrades throughout the world the necessity for the shift from wartime "communism" to NEP (the recognition of the peasants' free commerce, and the switch from forced requisition to an tax on provisions).

After the civil war was overcome in 1921, the Bolshevik government faced a domestic political crisis, that is, the peasants (as well as workers) were dissatisfied and there was a succession of peasant revolts. This reached a peak with the Kronstadt. Lenin explained the cause of this in the following way.

"The reason for it was that in our economic offensive we had run too far ahead, that we had not provided ourselves with adequate resources, that the masses sensed what we ourselves were not then able to formulate consciously but what we admitted soon after, a few weeks later, namely, that the direct transition to purely socialist forms, to purely socialist distribution, was beyond our available strength, and that if we were unable to effect a retreat so as to confine ourselves to easier tasks, we would face disaster. The crisis began, I think, in February 1921. In the spring of that year we decided unanimously-I did not observe any considerable disagreement among us on this question-to adopt the New Economic Policy. ("Five Years of the Russian Revolution And The Prospects of the World Revolution" Collected Works Vol. 33 pp. 421-422)

NEP was introduced in order to cooperate with the peasants and compromise. However, this was not merely a "policy", but also practically revealed that in Russia one type of capitalism (state capitalism) could not be avoided. Without NEP, there is no question that the Bolshevik government would have "perished" under the peasant revolts.

When Lenin proposed NEP in the spring of 1921, he could already recall the emphasis on the progressiveness of state capitalism in Russia in the debate with left-wing communism in April 1918. In the report from 1918 "Immediate Tasks Facing the Soviet Government" or in "Left-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder", Lenin emphasized the foolishness of calling state capitalism reactionary when compared to abstract socialism and state capitalism, and said that it should be clear that in Russia where the great majority of people are small peasant producers, that state capitalism is progressive and the first step in the direction of socialism and a necessary thing.

Still, during the civil war-the period when "militaristic methods were used in the economy" in which free commerce was "forbidden", and food provisions were forcibly requisitioned from the peasants-Lenin's idea was completely forgotten. However, with the end of the civil war, it again came to light, and indeed had to. This was because it was the only realistic and inevitable path in Russia.

But doesn't the shift from wartime "communism" to a type of capitalism represent a terrible decline and breakdown for the proletarian state? Isn't it strange or contradictory for the Communist Party to recognize the "freedom of commerce"? Such expressions of unease and doubt could be heard among the Bolsheviks and workers-especially among the ranks of the leftwing. Faced with these misgivings, Lenin emphasized that wartime "communism" cannot be considered as real communism, and that the forced requisition of the peasants' products has nothing to do with communism. Rather, this was a temporary measure taken in the midst of the severe conditions of civil war. He stressed that in Russia unavoidable capitalism could not be generated naturally, and had to take the path of state capitalism, which would be a more progressive system than wartime "communism" and only this path could make possible the shift to socialism. Furthermore, communism and the recognition of free commerce were in contradiction, but the question was one of "degree".

NEP was not simply the recognition of the freedom of peasants to sell their products, but also signified the transition to large-scale business planning for industrial production. At the time of NEP, the Bolshevik government tacitly assumed that by giving some socialistic tinges to simple commodity exchange (i.e. the exchange of products without the mediation of money) and through the exchange of industrial and agricultural products, in the near future it would be possible to revive the heavy industry which would make socialism possible. But commodity exchange inevitably (as Marx's Das Kapital shows!) takes the form of sales and purchases, and generates commerce. Already in the autumn of 1921, Lenin gave the following overview at the Moscow conference.

"We must admit that we have not retreated far enough, that we must make a further retreat, a further retreat from state capitalism to the creation of state-regulated buying and selling, to the money system. Nothing came of commodity exchange; the private market proved too strong for us; and instead of the exchange of commodities we got ordinary buying and selling, trade." "Now we find ourselves in the position of having to retreat even a little further, not only to state capitalism, but to the state regulation of trade and the money system. Only in this way, a longer way than we expected, can we restore economic life. Unless we re-establish a regular system of economic relations, restore small-peasant farming, and restore and further expand large-scale industry by our own efforts, we shall fail to extricate ourselves from the crisis." (Seventh Moscow Gubernia Conference of the Russian Communist Party"Collected Works Vol. 33 pp. 96-7)

Under NEP, even national businesses could purchase raw materials from other state or private industries without State approval, and sell products in the same way. This was based, not on a "system of consultation" (of "specialist" business leaders, labor unions or the Party), but rather managed by the "independent" responsibility system of the business leaders.

NEP was the "New Economic Policy" of the Bolshevik government, but more than simply a policy, it also revealed the inevitability of capitalism in Russia regardless of its form. This new economy was progressive when compared to the petty bourgeois economy. Still it was not socialism, but in fact its opposite, and capitalism no matter how it was organized. Above all, NEP eloquently speaks of the inability, economically, for the Russian Revolution to overcome the bourgeois limits-which the Russian Marxists had already firmly emphasized at the end of 19th century against the Narodniks.

7. The Secret of the Stalin System

In the previous section we explained that in Russia, even after the revolution, a type of capitalism was necessary, and that this was NEP (New Economic Policy). However, before even lasting ten years, a shift was made from NEP to the Stalinist system of forced industrialization and collectivized agriculture.

Stalin called this "the victory of socialism", but in fact this was essentially the revival of wartime "communism". This was achieved not through the militaristic methods to manage victory in the civil war, but in order to achieve rapid industrialization and economic construction.

Why was the shift from NEP to the Stalinist System necessary? What exactly did this signify? In the course of the 1920's, it became clear that the policy of NEP could not ensure the satisfactory development of Russian industry. The peasants who had become rich under NEP grew increasingly reluctant to supply grain to the proletarian state. On the other hand, industry was also unable to provide adequate supplies of industrial goods to the peasants. The famous "scissor phenomenon" appeared in which the price of industrial goods rose while the price of agricultural goods dropped. Due to insufficient supply from the peasants, the government had to cancel exports of grain to foreign countries, and consequently had to terminate its foreign orders for machinery and raw materials. In the cities there was a shortage of food, and the price of bread rose, among other problems. There was thus a rise again in the tensions between city and country.

From the mid-Twenties, a fierce debate waged within the Bolshevik party concerning what policies should be taken towards the conditions of NEP (what to do about NEP-men and rich farmers), as well as the future direction of economic policy (the form and tempo of industrialization).

On the one hand were those who advocated a policy to develop heavy industry and accumulate "capital" for this purpose, while on the other hand were those who wanted to broaden the compromise with the peasants and deal with pressing problems. The former was more or less the position of those allied with Trotsky and later represented by the political program of the "Left Opposition", while latter was represented by Bukharin and Stalin.

Preobrazhensky, who had the support of Trotsky, argued that currently Russia was in a "period of primitive socialist accumulation", and developed a theory that surplus value should be exploited from the peasants in order to accumulate capital for industrialization. This theory appears to have been the "forerunner" to Stalin's policy in the 1930's.

In fact, Stalin followed Trotsky and "stole" the program of the Trotskyists, abandoned his former expressions of camaraderie towards the peasants, and rapidly headed towards a policy of agriculture collectivization and heavy industry, thereby creating a "planned economy", i.e., a heavily centralized government. As in the former period of wartime "communism", an economic system appeared wherein the "natural economy" was dominant while currency faded into the background. It appeared as if the society Lenin referred to as being governed by "commodity exchange" without sales and businesses had appeared..

Clearly, it was a tremendous task for post-revolutionary Russia to build heavy industry through its own power. Already in 1922, Lenin said: "The economic history of capitalist countries shows that heavy industry in backward countries can only be developed with the aid of long-term loans of hundreds of millions of dollars or gold rubles. We did not get such loans, and so far have received nothing." ("Fourth Congress of Communist International", Collected Works Vol. 33, p. 425.)

The necessity of the Stalinist system arose from the need to completely incorporate the peasants into the system of state capitalism, and develop heavy industry and the national economic development at a high tempo through the exploitation of the peasants who made up the bulk of the population, while forcing of compulsory labor on the workers. Stalin called his own system "socialism" because NEP had been overcome, and expected that exchange of products which was only taking place in the sector of the "production means" of state industries, would eventually spread to the entire national economy, and cover all production and distribution. He declared that the fact that the products of national industry had prices and business calculations were employed was "all merely formality".

However, in the 1960's, the "liberalization" of the economy revealed that the "exchange of products" and business calculations, which Stalin had viewed as an outward appearance, were in fact something more essential. It could appear that Russia under the Stalinists system had overcome NEP and state capitalism because this was hidden by an excessive system of compulsion and orders, and because the most fundamental thing for the production commodity and capital was suppressed. For example, state industries ignored calculations and sold products at the lowest price because the free market was forbidden and the state centralized and controlled the entire economy, and because of assistance from the state. In this was the Stalinists system was able to build heavy industry in Russia through the sacrifices of the working people. This was the historical task of this system.

"Liberalization" revealed the hidden nature of the Stalinists system. This was not socialism which had overcome Lenin's state capitalism, but the one-sided implementation of militaristic methods of state capitalism to force economic construction. In this sense, the Stalinist system is one historical form of state capitalism.

In this "liberalization", just as in 1921 when the bureaucracy and centralization of wartime "communism" was negated, the compulsory system and bureaucratic inefficiency of the Stalinist system were rejected, and "profit" was granted citizenship, so to speak, and the role of "profit" was introduced as a means to measure economic efficiency. Companies gained greater autonomy, and their character as businesses was strengthened. This revealed that the Stalinist system was also a bourgeois system (even though this was severely repressed within the system of a strong state).

Lenin called state capitalism the eve of socialism, and said that Russia could only move to socialism by means of state capitalism. Despite any number of errors within Lenin's view, this basic idea itself is correct. It is still not clear what shape the shift from state capitalism to socialism will take, but the necessity of such a shift is certain.

8. What Was The Russian Revolution --- Its Meaning and "Limits"

We have now come to the stage where we must give an overall summary of the Russian revolution.

It is clear that the Russian working class overthrew, not only the feudal government, but also the power of capital and attained power. -However, this was not the full extent of the matter. That is, this did not represent the ascension to power of the workers as the dominant force with a segment of the petty bourgeoisie trailing behind. Rather, power was literally shared (and indeed had to be) with the petty bourgeoisie (peasants). Herein lies the glory and tragedy of the Russian working class. The Russian Revolution propelled the workers into power, but blocked the path for the workers to realize socialism. While giving priority to the interests of the peasants and themselves, they were unable to construct socialism.

The fact that the political and economic content of a revolution can be divided to a certain degree can often be seen throughout history, particularly in the Jacobin rule in the French Revolution. Because the rule of the Jacobins overreached its own epoch, it was bound to collapse. On the other hand, while the rule of the Bolsheviks did not collapse, it did fundamentally change. What is the difference between the Jacobin and Bolshevik rule? They are the same in terms of being, in a certain sense, governments ahead of their time. The Jacobins acted as a historical lever to fundamentally wipe out feudal power, and thereby open the path for the development of capitalism. This was completely impossible under rule of a moderate bourgeois party. The rule of the Bolsheviks also performed a similar function, while at the same time introducing some socialistic politicians and stamping the revolution with proletarian marks. Furthermore, by compromising with the peasants, the Bolsheviks were able to incorporate capitalism within their system, and thus avoid the fate of collapse and destruction. However, in the course of wartime "communism" and NEP, the Bolshevik government was forced to transform in a bureaucratic and petty bourgeois fashion.

There is the question of what might have happened had a world revolution broken out at the end of the 1910's or in the 1920's. It is often said that both Lenin and Trotsky (especially the latter) expected a world revolution, and that Brest-Litovsk and NEP were only measures to "buy time". It is said that if a revolution were to have occurred in Germany, then the fate of Russia (and the entire world) would have changed, and the "use" of capitalism (NEP) would have probably ended as "use" only. However, this sort of prediction is meaningless. In reality, the state capitalism of the Soviet Union has significance as one historical society, and is "fixed" as this sort of thing. Moreover, even if proletarian revolution were to occur now in Europe, North America or Japan, this does not mean that the Soviet bureaucrats would automatically move towards socialism.

By calling his system "socialism", Stalin concealed from the eyes of the workers throughout the world the essence of the post-revolutionary state, and the true content of the Russian Revolution. In the inner-party debates with Trotsky in the Twenties, Stalin tried to characterize the Russian Revolution against Trotsky's theory of "permanent revolution".

In his essay on Lenin ("Foundation of Leninism"), Stalin sophistically argued that in "Two Tactics", Lenin "depicted the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the socialist revolution as two links in the same chain, a single and integral picture of the sweep of the Russian revolution." (Stalin Collected Works Vol. 6 p. 30.) However, by merely expediently combining Lenin's view to the outcome of the Russian Revolution he only ends up distorting Leninism because his argument is based on a different idea than Lenin's view around 1905 [the time he wrote "Two Tactics"] that the approaching revolution in Russia would be a democratic revolution. When Lenin spoke of socialist revolution, it is perfectly clear that he was referring to the prospect after the democratic revolution had been completed (and this was not the short period from February to October, but a longer period of years or decades). If Lenin had thought that bourgeois democratic revolution and socialist revolution were "two links in the same chain", then the content of "Two Tactics" would have been entirely different.

By distorting Lenin's thought, Stalin forced upon the workers of the world his dogma that "the idea of the bourgeois revolution passing into the proletarian revolution" was "one of the cornerstones of the Leninist theory of revolution." (Ibid. p. 31.) This theory of the "extension" of the revolution is now the "common property" of all the Communist Parties in the world.

Stalin's explanation of Lenin is carried out from a completely Trotskyist perspective. This amounts to the equation of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution with Lenin's theory since it borrows the idea from Trotsky that a bourgeois revolution, according to the logic of political struggle, must turn into a proletarian revolution. Tailing after Trotsky's theory-completely natural for the totally unoriginal Stalin-Stalin attacks Trotsky for "ignoring the role of the peasants", not his theory of the continuation of the revolution, and thereby avows his own "pro"- Trotskyist position.

The view of Trotsky=Stalin, which ignores the economic content of the Russian Revolution, and draws the conclusion, from the political process only, that the theory of "extended" revolution was proven correct because the February revolution was bourgeois while the October revolution was a socialist revolution, is completely one-sided and dogmatic. This approach cannot not scientifically elucidate the true meaning and significance of the Russian Revolution, or its limitations.

The Russian Revolution was a monumental revolution, and without question the great forerunner of modern socialist revolution; as long as the class struggles of workers aiming for socialism continue, its significance will only grow larger. Still, while recognizing the significance of this revolution, we must also look squarely at its limitations (which appeared with NEP and as the Stalinists system). The idea of Russian Marxists that the coming revolution was a bourgeois one to open the path for capitalist development, was not a simple mistaken theory-as Trotskyists often claim-but rather a profound observation on the basis of the materialist conception of history.

The task of the working class in Japan, is to decisively wipe out Stalinism which has spread confusion and opportunism to the working class of the world for decades through the distortion of the experience of the Russian Revolution; to inherit the ideal and desire for socialism that the Russian working class tried, but could not accomplish, and realize it in Japan and throughout the entire world.



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