Is 'Socialism in One Country' possible?

Clearly not, but that doesnt stop certain platformist idiots from harping on about an 'Anarchist Ireland', whatever the fuck that means.

There will be no anarchist Essex, not as long as we do the sensible thing and keep nuclear arms (under workers' control, obviously) after the revolution.

Anyway, I fail to see how this:

Constitutes a simple matter of Bolshevik policy.

I think it's perfectly feasible that worldwide revolution could occur only to have a new group take on the structural role of the ruling class depending on how things happen. Insofar as that goes I do think that communist politics matter in the sense that we ought not have the wrong ones.

I agree with the distinctions you are drawing about "success" but you may be over-analyzing semantics at the same time. I think that usually someone just refers to "the Russian revolution" as such because it's the generally accepted term for the historical events we're talking about here. "The proletarian upheaval which began in such and such a place and ultimately failed to internationalize and mature into a true revolution" is a bit cumbersome.

But as far as your actual theoretical point about worldwide extention goes, I'd generally agree, although I do think that what "communists" do matters - exactly because it does impact the development and extension of revolution, often negatively.

I'd agree with this statement 100%. I just think that to whatever extent communist politics do matter in the development of revolution, we ought rightly to be critical of "communist" politics like leninism or maoism.

“If the bolsheviks had not taken power then the revolution could have succeeded. If the revolution had begun to organise itslef in Russia and continued to act on the basis of international solidarity ie working towards revolution in other countries rather than suppressing dissent at home to better organise a war economy then yes, it could have succeeded. With Germany on the brink of revolution (there were several as I imagine you know) and britiish and french armies refusing en masse to fight revolutionaries then there was a good chance that it would hav spread”.

Slothjabber is completely right on this thread. The unavoidable issue is the extension of the revolution, and all analyses which subordinate this consideration to their criticisms of the Bolsheviks – rather than criticising the Bolsheviks in the context of the global revolution first and foremost – logically end up downplaying the primordial importance of spreading the world revolution.

I intended to respond to jef’s post when I first read it because it seemed to encapsulate elements of the classical ‘anarchist’ approach to the problem – even though jef has to a certain extent been ‘contaminated’ by the communist left, which begins from a different standpoint. I’ve been away so haven’t had time up till now.

The first point to make is about jef’s assumption that what happened in October 1917 was that the ‘Bolsheviks took power’. This is then contrasted to the possibility of the ‘revolution organising itsef’, which would have spread the revolution to other countries.

But the Bolsheviks, jef goes to claim, instead of trying to take that course took the decision to suppress all dissent within the revolution and to build up a war economy.

The question of who took power in October 1917 has been the subject of animated polemic since the event itself. According to the anarchists, but also according to the open defenders of capitalist democracy, the insurrection can be reduced to a plot by a fanatical, well-organised minority, aimed only at bolstering their own power. The Stalinist view of October is not that different either: the party was above all superbly organised because it had the most brilliant leaders in Lenin and, close by his side, the Man of Steel himself. All these views deny that the well organised uprising was a momentous achievement of the working class organised in soviets, armed militia, sailors and soldiers councils, and factory committees – with the active participation of the Bolshevik party and other revolutionary minorities (including the best of the anarchists).

There is no doubt that to some extent this first experience of proletarian insurrection on a national scale was distorted by a lack of clarity about the relationship between party and class. But this played its most important role not during the insurrection – in which, for example, Lenin’s initial idea that the party itself should take the power was rejected in favour of the insurrection being organised by a soviet organ – but after it, with the formation of a soviet government based on party majorities, a concession to bourgeois parliamentarism which would contribute to the disaster of the Bolshevik party becoming fused with the new soviet state apparatus. Thus the notion that the ‘Bolsheviks took power’ in October 1917 is at best a gross oversimplification, and requires a serious discussion rather than a blunt assertion.

We then come to jef’s next blunt assertion: that the Bolsheviks chose to suppress dissent in order to set up a war economy, with the added implication that they did this instead of trying to spread the revolution. But the war economy jef is referring to is not the war economy established through the 5 year plans in the late 20s and 30s and justified by the ideology of soicalism in one country, but the system of war communism that was a desperate resort taken in the context not only of civil war against those within Russia who wanted to restore the old regime or a parliamentary version of it, but against an armed invasion of several imperialist armies. It’s perfectly true that many of the troops dragooned into these armies succumbed to internationalist propaganda and refused to fight. But it was precisely the Bolsheviks who continued to pay a leading role in disseminating those internationalist appeals, just as they had done during the First World War. If jef’s scenario is correct, they would have welcomed this invasion because it would have given them the exact pretext they needed to carry out their real designs: the establishment of a war economy.

It is perfectly true that the war communism period took a terrible toll on the capacity of the working class to retain power through the soviets. The Bolshevik leadership (opposed by many currents within the party) actively contributed to this by concluding that it was necessary to subordinate the principles of the revolution, the principles of the Paris Commune, to the war effort, and this included the unjustified repression of opposition movements from within the working class. But the war effort itself was forced on them by the actions of world capital and they knew perfectly well that the only thing that could save the revolution from this attack was its international extension. Hence the paradoxical situation where the Bolsheviks were already carrying out many anti-working class actions ‘at home’ while still struggling for the extension of the revolution beyond Russia, at least until around 1920. The weight of managing the state in Russia increasingly undermined the internationalist priorities of the Bolshevik party after that, but the paradox was only finally resolved by the adoption of the policy of ‘socialism in one country’, which signified the definitive abandonment of the world revolution.

yes, you're right, active participation is only one element of the role of the communist party; it also has to play of role of orientation, of political leadership. The point I wanted to stress was that in October this role was played without any 'substitution' of party for the general organs of the class.

In what sense do you think the struggle of 1918-20 against the white guards and the invading armies was a "bourgeois war"?

One other point from jef's post is that he seems to imply that the revolution didn't spread. Actually, it did. There was a Soviet republic in Hungary and a whole series of revolutionary clashes in Germany. In many respects, we're posing the question in the wrong manner. The world revolution wasn't defeated in Russia even if that was where it died its final death - the real defeat came in Germany.

there were a number of defeats apart from Germany in that period, probably most crucial were the ones in Italy, Hungary and Austria