Shane Mage wrote: > The Bolsheviks never supported Kerensky > (although the police infiltrator Stalin > had supported Kerensky's predecessor, > Prince Lvov, before Lenin returned to > set matters to rights).
The Bolsheviks were not Lenin. In February (Russian calendar), Lenin was abroad. He then tried to rush back to Russia. Trotsky was also abroad and not yet a Bolshevik. Stalin *was* a Bolshevik on the ground. Lenin was caught by surprise by the events in Russia. He fired letters to his party comrades, trying to set the line of march "from afar." But the Bolsheviks, as a party on the ground, had been part of the de-facto coalition that led to the tsar's abdication from power in February. Before February, Lenin wasn't opposed to the Bolsheviks joining forces with other anti-tsar forces: Mensheviks, social revolutionaries, KDTs, and a few freelancers. After February, Lenin developed his arguments on the fly. His directives in, say, his April Theses, to convince the Bolsheviks to demand all power to the soviets, agitate for peace, bread, and land (by means of patiently gaining influence on the soviets) didn't get immediate traction. In July, under a repressive climate and the threat of Kornilov's coup, even the CC was divided about the proper ways to advance. The very fact that Lenin was so adamant in his opposition to supporting Kerensky in his communiques is indicative by implication of the fact that members of his own party, on the ground, were not entirely aligned with his thinking, let alone the workers and soldiers. To the Bolsheviks in Russia and a few in the exile, let alone the workers under Bolshevik influence, Lenin's April Theses appeared as a drastic shift in Bolshevik policy. This is the picture you find in the accounts of, say, Gerard Walter or Isaac Deutscher. In the April Theses, Lenin said explicitly that the approach to taking power was to "explain patiently" to workers and peasants that the only way out was the transfer of all the power to the soviets. It wasn't an immediate call for the provisional government to dissolve. It wasn't a call to stage an insurrection against Kerensky. It was a call for the provisional government to break with the war and be accountable to the soviets. If the Bolsheviks had to explain things patiently to the workers and soldiers, Lenin had first to explain things patiently to his comrades in the CC. Again, it's well documented the difficulties that Lenin faced in July to convince the CC that the Bolsheviks had to take power virtually alone, *because* the provisional government wasn't up to the task of defending democracy. The issue of the insurrection proper came about not when the provisional government continued the war, which they did right away, but when they refused to confront Kornilov's threat. Even in September, after Kornilov's plot had been disabled, but under fear of a regrouping of the Kornilovists, Lenin himself offered again a compromise to Kerensky. The Bolsheviks would renounce to demanding the dissolution of the provisional government (and Lenin would stop plotting to take power) if the provisional government broke with the capitalists on the war and accepted to be accountable to the soviets' council. If I had time, I'd fetch Lenin's exact article in which he makes the argument that, in order to preserve the democratic conquests of the revolution, the Bolsheviks had to take power. As convinced as Lenin was of his approach, even he hesitated about the right opportunity to attack frontally the provisional government. Yes, Lenin's propaganda and agitation eroded the support for the provisional government, but effectively, until Kornilov's threat, there was an implicit compromise to settling the dispute with Menshevisk and social revolutionaries via the soviets. At some point, it is documented that Lenin even doubted that the soviets were fit to the task. I have no doubt that Lenin's argument to prompt an insurrection was developed as a result of Kornilov's plot, and not without hesitation and false starts, and not only with regards to proper timing. Consider the circumstances in which Lenin called to break with the provisional government. Internationally, a bloody war had engulfed capitalist Europe, with imperialist blocs clashing. The war had already raged for three years interrupting a long period of relatively stable and relatively global capitalist growth. During decades, socialist parties influenced by the doctrines of Marx and Engels had become formidable political forces in Europe and Russia, with a tremendous intellectual and moral influence among vast masses of workers most everywhere. In Russia, a society deeply divided, under a calamitous mixture of backward and modern capitalist social, economic, and political conditions, the social democrats (later divided into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks) had reached a degree of maturity as political representatives of the Russian urban working class after at least two decades (punctuated by two widespread revolutions) of organized work, propaganda, agitation, struggle for workers' rights, for democracy, against the tsar's autocracy. As a result of their experience in the exile in Europe and America, engaged in a bunch of doctrinal and political disputes, deemed as peers by their European counter-parties, the Russian social democrats had become a savvy bunch. The Russian workers themselves had reached a high level of political participation, their enthusiasm heightened by the February revolution. The revulsion against the war was at its height. The soviets, which emerged in 1905, had re-emerged in 1917 as effective mechanisms of direct popular democracy, in de facto opposition to the provisional government. There was a power duality. Under such fluid conditions -- Lenin was fond of saying -- mass learning and the historical tempo in general accelerated. Back to the present here. Compare that historical experience to the circumstances we now face in the U.S. Compare the international conditions. Compare recent history. Think of all that happened after 1917 in the U.S. and the world. Compare the ideological climate, the international and domestic influence of socialism as a doctrine with roots in the workers' and popular movement. Compare the degree of independence and initiative of workers as a mass political force. Think of the particular intersection of race and class in U.S. society today. The most outstanding leaders of the radical wing of Marxist socialism in the United States, comrade Louis Proyect, deeply disturbed by Obama's victory, has formulated his November Theses in a paragraph: > There are 2 ways at looking at the > question of TINA (There is no > alternative.) First, you can accept > the objective conditions and not go > off on an ultraleft binge like the > sectarian "Marxist-Leninist" groups > for whom it is always 1917. We > don't want to go there. Secondly, > you can persist--no matter how > unpopular it is--to point out that > Obama is basically a Rockefeller > Republican, just like Clinton and > Carter. I advocate that stance. However, skeptical minds wonder how denouncing Obama as a Rockefeller Republican (along with Clinton and Carter!) is supposed to overturn the political conditions and lead anywhere but to greater political insignificance. There's nothing wrong with continuing serious radical *propaganda* against imperialism, capitalism, market relations, the two-party system, the Democrats, and even Obama. That we need. But as far as agitation and tactics, comrade Proyect's theses are utterly unconvincing. I can only wonder what your stance is, since you seem similarly disturbed by Nader's crushing defeat and Obama's victory. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
