Lenin and Trotsky ideologized the October Revolution as the beginning of the world revolution. However, this was definitely not the case. So far, after all the historical experience, the global social revolution can consist only of a continuous series of destruction of national States. So, how could the forming and development of Soviet Russia as a State capitalist nation could be a part of the world revolution?! Objectively, Soviet Russia has always been a part of world capital and, accordingly, an enemy of the world proletariat – regardless of the intra-capitalist bickering between the world bourgeoisie and the State capitalist bureaucracy of Soviet Russia. Thus, the orientation of Lenin and Trotsky towards the world revolution was completely ideological and socially demagogic, i.e. it was about self-deception and misleading of the world proletariat.

The “Communist” International as part of the global social reaction

The social-demagogic megalomania of the Russian “Communist” Party (Bolsheviks) has led to the fact that it imagined to be the vanguard of not only the Russian proletariat, but the entire world. The result was the founding on March 2nd, 1919, in Moscow of the “Communist” International (Comintern, 3rd International). This International consisted of newly set up “Communist” parties of different countries, which were radical splits from the Social Democracy. The Russian “Communist” Party (Bolsheviks) was from the very beginning the dominant nucleus of this International. At that time, R“C”P (B) was already a political organization that organized the State capitalist exploitation of the Russian proletariat and in conjunction with this it was part of the global capitalist counterrevolution. How could the International, in which this party played the leading role, not be counter-revolutionary?! Thus, the “Communist” International from the very beginning was part of the global social reaction.

However, according to the will of Lenin and Trotsky, the Comintern was also to become the vanguard of the world revolution that they expected. This despite the fact that for both Bolshevik leaders the “world revolution” was nothing else than an uninterrupted chain of “October Revolutions” all over the world. In fact, at the end of the First World War, revolutionary upheavals occurred not only in Russia, but also in Germany, Austria, Hungary and Italy. Nevertheless, in these countries the revolutionary situation did not lead neither to the victory of a real social revolution, nor to the formation of “communist”-party-led State capitalist regimes. A genuine social revolution did not take place in these countries because the bourgeoisie in these countries, unlike Russia in 1917, was too strong, and the proletariat was too weak and did not possess the necessary experience. In addition, in capitalist industrial States, an independent seizure of power by the “communist” party through a coup d’état was impossible, because unlike Russia in 1917, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat there were already both main classes of the society, and there was no free space for the action of petty-bourgeois radical professional politicians. Thus, an independent “communist”-party-led seizure of power against the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in highly developed industrial countries was impossible. Even if in the West one of the “C”P, taking advantage of excessive weakening of the bourgeoisie and with the existence of a class-fighting proletariat oriented towards the “communist” party, could have accomplished an “October Revolution”, this victory would be short-lived. Because “October” would be followed by “Cronstadt”. However, Cronstadt in a highly developed industrial country would most likely lead to the victory of the social revolution and would be the beginning of a world revolution.

Thus, the policy of the “communist” parties within the Third International in the highly developed industrial countries under the command of Lenin and Trotsky was not only socially reactionary, but, in comparison with the objectives, absolutely unsuccessful. For example, the “communist” party bureaucracy in East Germany managed to seize political power only thanks to the victory of Soviet imperialism in World War II. By the time of Stalin’s regime for the sake of his then anti-fascist-democratic accomplices in the imperialist World War II he had since long liquidated the “Communist” International, a contradictory legacy of the early Lenin’s and Trotsky’s Bolshevik regime, consisting of ideology and reality. This was in 1943. Before that, the “Communist” International still had provided a great service to Soviet imperialism in that it supported an alliance between the USSR and private capitalist nations against other private capitalist nations. So, from 1939 to 1941 the Comintern defended the pact between Hitler and Stalin, and later the alliance between the USSR and Western democracies against fascism. The “Communist” International as an instrument of Soviet imperialism was an abominable warmonger and a foe of the global proletariat.

Source in Russian: «Коммунистический» интернационал против мирового пролетариата
Original Source in German: Die „Kommunistische“ Internationale als Teil der globalen Sozialreaktion

As we have already noted in our previous articles, the Bolshevik coup d’état in October 1917 was initially based on the illusions of the proletarian masses. Likewise at first, many subjectively revolutionary proletarians in the private capitalist Western countries were allies of the Bolsheviks and members of the national sections of the “Communist” International. However, the policy of the Comintern was objectively socially-reactionary. The process of radicalization of social-revolutionary intellectuals and proletarians in the West in the course of time had to inevitably lead to conflicts with Moscow, this self-proclaimed center of the “world revolution”.

The direction of the Comintern in Moscow made from Bolshevik politics an example for imitation for all international sections. In our article “Is the October Revolution a proletarian revolution or a putsch of petty-bourgeois radicals?”, we made clear that the Bolshevik policy before the establishment of a State capitalist regime was a mixture of parliamentary and trade-union social reformism with tactics of a coup on the basis of proletarian and small-scale peasant illusions in the initial stages. In the Bolshevik policy there was and could not be anything revolutionary, because the social revolution can only be the abolition of politics. However, the Bolshevik policy was successful for the party apparatus. It managed to seize the State apparatus and eventually merge with it. The Bolshevik policy was successful because of the weakness of the bourgeoisie, parliamentarianism and petty-bourgeois democracy, i.e. Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries.

Thus, the Bolshevik party could take part in the parliamentary elections and then, during the establishment of the State capitalist dictatorship, liquidate the parliamentary democracy. Prior to the seizure of power, they managed to conclude a “tactical united front” with the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries against Kornilov – and then after the end of the Civil War to ban the activities of both parties.

However, in the private capitalist Western countries, the bourgeoisie, parliamentarianism and Social Democracy had strong and fundamental positions. Even at the time of Lenin and Trotsky, the direction of the Comintern demanded that communists abroad join a united front with a frankly counter-revolutionary Social Democracy. However, through the conclusion of a united front, the “communist” parties in the West weakened themselves and strengthened the positions of the Social-Democratic parties by increasing the illusions of the proletariat towards the Social Democracy. Trade unions within the framework of private capitalist in the West were powerful counterrevolutionary apparatuses that, especially during the First World War and the revolutionary postwar crisis in Western Europe, became joint managers of capitalist exploitation. However, the Moscow direction of the “Communist” International demanded that the West-European communists to fight for having an influence within the ranks of the trade union bureaucracy. In short, the Bolshevik tactics, which, due to the weakness of the bourgeoisie in Russia, were crowned with success, failed in the private capitalist Western countries because of the power of the bourgeoisie.

In the industrially developed countries, only the self-organized revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat could and can defeat the bourgeoisie. “Communist” party’s politicians, like all the other politicians, are in no way interested in the revolutionary self-organization of the proletariat. Therefore, in their parties they introduce a social-reactionary bureaucratic discipline. The victims of this discipline in the “communist” parties in the West are many subjectively honest social-revolutionary proletarians and intellectuals.

Thus, at the constituent congress of the CP of Germany in December 1918, the revolutionary majority, despite the pressure of professional politicians within the party, managed to defend the anti-parliamentary position. Among the professional politicians who wanted to impose the KPD to participate in the parliamentary elections were Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. Also in Germany began to develop the movement of the Workers’ Councils, which was a class-fighting social-revolutionary alternative to the trade unions. The Workers’ Councils opposed the conclusion of collective agreements with the bourgeoisie and fought against the policy of social partnership of the production councils. Many convinced proletarian revolutionaries, who were still partly members of the KPD, were active in the Workers’ Councils.

Moscow and the German “communist” bureaucrats took an active part in the campaign of persecution of revolutionary proletarians and intellectuals. The result was the exclusion of “left radicals” from the party at the Heidelberg congress in September 1919. Because the basis of the party consisted of a revolutionary majority, the chairman of the Central Board, Paul Levy, had to act bureaucratically from above. In fact, this action of the “Communist” International transformed the KPD into “K”PD. In order not to be misunderstood: communist parties cannot exist by definition in the nature, because parties are the organizational form of bourgeois politics. But in the young KPD, many social-revolutionary workers and intellectuals were active, who in the beginning determined the character of this party. In April 1920, these subjectively honest revolutionary forces also founded the Communist Workers’ Party of Germany. In terms of membership numbers, the KAPD surpassed the “K”PD. This party stood on anti-union, anti-parliamentary and anti-national positions, instead of just on internationalist positions. Of course, it also rejected the tactics of the united front with counter-revolutionary Social Democracy. In Holland, there was also such a party – the KAP of the Netherlands. Leading theorists of both KAP were Hermann Gorter and Anton Pannekoek. Later, Pannekoek became one of the most important theoreticians of the communist movement of the workers’ councils, which completely freed itself from the remnants of party Marxism. The followers of the communist movement of workers’ councils in Germany around Franz Pfefffert and Otto Rühle already broke with the KAPD in October 1920; they recognized that parties cannot objectively be socially revolutionary. Rühle was also the first sharp revolutionary-Marxist critic of State capitalist Soviet Russia. This criticism was still too radical for Pannekoek, but in the end he also adopted it.

Thus, the demarcation with Moscow of social-revolutionary proletarians and intellectuals in the West was possible with the rejection of the tactics of the “Communist” International in private capitalist countries. Then there was a transition towards the criticism of State capitalism in Soviet Russia/USSR and Leninism as well. In April/May 1920, Lenin wrote his counterrevolutionary pamphlet “Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder”, which was directed against social revolutionaries in the West.

Source in Russian: Москва против «левых радикалов»
Original Source in German: Moskau gegen die „Ultralinken“