Kronstadt

Response to Devrim's post on the back-up thread http//www.punkt.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=111

Class consciousness develops in a contradictory manner. In the debate between different proletarian currents of the past, you can see this very clearly. For example, 1905 Luxemburg made an absolutely masterful analysis of the mass strike in Russia, and yet hardly noticed the soviets – on this question, Trotsky was in the vanguard. Or again, Lenin and Luxemburg during the first world war Luxemburg was in general far clearer on the national question and imperialism than Lenin, and yet Lenin could make valid criticisms of Luxemburg’s concessions to national defence in the Junius Pamphlet.

During the revolutionary wave, there's no doubt that on a number of vital questions, the German left was quicker at grasping the class position the capitalist nature of the USSR and of the trade unions in particular. But the KAPD's premature writing off of the Russian revolution was to have very serious consequences. There's a very interesting exchange between Korsch and Bordiga in 1926 which shows the difference in approach. Bordiga was very open to discussing what was happening in Russia, and considered the possibility of a counter-revolution, but he utterly refused to go along with a large part of the German left which was already rejecting the proletarian nature of the October revolution, and the Italian Fraction resolutely maintained this stance in the years that followed. All the theories about the 'bourgeois' nature of the Bolsheviks and the Russian revolution led towards anarchism and the abandonment of the very notion of a class party. They played a major role in the organisational disintegration of the German left in the ensuing period.

On Kronstadt itself again, Gorter did see the proletarian nature of the revolt more clearly, and it would take the Italian left over a decade to come to similar conclusions. But Gorter denied supporting the rebels, reflecting a more general ambiguity within the international communist left about the significance of the rebellion. But again, what is the theoretical heritage of the German left on this particular question, once it had succumbed to the ‘councilist’ standpoint? The denial of the proletarian nature of the October revolution and the Bolsheviks meant that there were no lessons at all to be drawn from the Kronstadt events. If the Bolsheviks were always bourgeois, then in March 1921 they were simply doing what all bourgeois parties do.

I realize that this is not your position – that you are saying that the Bolsheviks were indeed proletarian in 1917 and that Kronstadt was their death knell as a proletarian party. But I think there is still a weakness in your method. As I said before, by taking state power and arguing that the revolutionary party should defend that state under all circumstances, even in the face of working class discontent and rebellion, the Bolsheviks were not doing what the Socialist parties did in 1914 – they were not betraying already established proletarian principles. Instead, through their terrible errors, they were negatively establishing new principles which others would have to elaborate through reflection and debate on the defeat of the revolution. And if the principle lesson of Kronstadt is the necessity for the working class and its party to retain their independence from the transitional state, then again it was the Italian left current which drew the clearest lessons in the end, even if this also involved assimilating the best insights of the German left.

I also think that you are not grasping the significance of the huge struggles that took place in the Bolshevik party between 1921 and 1928. The shift of Lenin and Trotsky towards an oppositional stance towards the emerging Stalinist apparatus, and above all the struggle of the left fractions like those around Miasnikov and Sapranov, were in themselves signs that there was still a proletarian life in this party.

It was Lenin who sanctioned the persecution of Miasnikov and his group. You can't support Lenin and Miasnikov at the same time!!

Bit of a tangent, but I guess you guys would know, is it true Otto Ruhle initially voted for war credits too?

I'm basing this on having read that in 1914 only 1 person voted against them, and then Ruhle joined in voting against their extension in (I think) 1916 - and I doubt the German state held new elections that would allow Otto Ruhle to be elected between 1914-16...

Did Ruhle ever try and justify it later? Or did he just admit it was indefensible and he was totally wrong?

2nd, surely?

Oh I'm really not doing well today am I?

Jack, yes, it was the 2nd International, I've corrected that post. Thanks for pointing that out.

I didn't mean to imply that most of the SPD deputies were against the War. In fact, if I recall correctly, it was the parliamentary deputies for the most part that were at the heart of the reformist and class collaboration dynamic. I meant that "party discipline" was what induced Liebknecht and Ruhle to initially support the vote. The ideological justification used by the SPD as a whole was that the War was a defensive war. (All imperialist wars appear to be defensive, don't they? Bush's pre-emptive defence policy isn't that new really)

Kautsky, together with Bernstein, began to turn against the War in 1915 and by 1917 they had both left the SPD. He had previously been dismissed from his editorship of the SPD organ for his lack of "patriotism".

Despite his opposition to the War, he denounced the Russian Revolution on the same basis as the Mensheviks i.e. that Russia was undeveloped and the revolution was "anti-democratic".

Kautsky was fundamentally a centrist, vacillating between the proletariat and the ruling class, in a period when such a position was still possible. His opposition to the War seemed based more a moralistic pacifism than any clear proletarian conviction.

Sorry Paul, but the sociological origin of militants is no guarantee of the soundness or otherwise of their political positions.

It was the "petit-bourgeois" Lenin who was practically alone in calling for the Soviets to take power in April 1917. Even the Soviets themselves didn't see themselves as organs of power.

Incidentally, it was also Lenin who called for workers to outnumber "intellectuals" on key committees hoping it would prevent the degeneration of the "workers' state".

Well, I don't agree with either you or Lenin on this point I'm afraid. The Italian Left noted in the 30s that being a worker was no guarantee of resistance against Stalinism. In fact, Stalinised workers were a key element in the acceleration of the party's degeneration. It was also this kind of "workerism" that ensured the clearest elements of the German Left such as Luxemburg, were forced out of the Soviets during the German Revolution allowing the SPD to dismember the councils.

What matters, is not the sociological origin of this or that militant or even a whole party, but the political positions they defend.

"the sociological origin of militants is no guarantee of the soundness or otherwise of their political positions. "

No, of corse not, and I never said that it was-but when the leadership of a party that boasts that it defends and organises the working class is predominantly not proletarian then questions should be asked.

Sorry the accusation of workerism doesn't wash.

Sorry Battlescarred, looked at too many threads and got you confused with Paul Marsh. I think premature senility is creeping on! My humble apologies.

Lenin's father was a civil servant but he himself was a lawyer. If my definition of "petit-bourgeois" is not refined enough for you, that's okay. But none of that actually responds to the thrust of my argument that Lenin's sociological origins were irrelevent to the political positions he held.

The accusation of workerism stands because you're using sociological origin as a club to beat the Bolsheviks without considering their politics. The main reason that administrative positions in the party and the state were taken up by non-proletarians was because the shocking state of Russia meant that hardly any actual workers or peasants could read. Hence the reason why Lenin made increasingly desperate pleas throughout the 20s for the education of the proletariat and for suitably educated workers to form the majority on key committee in both party and state.

The SPGB's criticisms as to what made Russia State-capitalism were worse than useless.

Fitting, really.

Hi

Battlescared, this is precisely what they thought. May be they were ridiculous!

Lenin, Kommunist and Miasnikov all saw themselves a belong to the same party. Miasnikov's group worked within the party until it was expelled and then tried to carry on struggling to defend the party against the rise of the Stalinists.

Well it was authoritarian, and they were right to criticise it because of this. A lot of ultra-left analysis is far too focussed on the economics - other factors are also important.