Since the 1917 Russian Revolution, it has been generally accepted on the left that a revolutionary party, in the sense of a 'van-guard', is necessary for a successful revolution. Anarchist criticism has been shrugged off as coming from a numerically insignificant group of purists, who, unlike the Leninists, have never carried out a successful revolution. However, the denunciation of Stalin by Khruschev, and the crushing of the Hungarian revolt in 1956 (among other things) has made it manifestly clear to all but the most blinkered that the revolution in Russia has been a failure. It might have been thought that Leninism would have been completely discredited, but myths about Stalin have been replaced by myths about Mao or Castro, or in the case of the Trotskyists the myth that the revolution could have been successful, if it had the 'correct' leadership. Leninism, in its Stalinist or Trotskyist forms, remains the dominant ideology of the revolutionary left, partly because the emphasis on authority and leadership is more comprehensible to people raised in an authoritarian society than is the Anarchist rejection of authoritarianism. Anarchism has often gained ground after a revolution, when people resent attempts to reimpose authority on them. But though in the present situation in Britain, the Anarchists are numerically even more insignificant than the Trotskyists, our ideas remain important since they not only raise the question of the nature of post revolutionary society, but also the related problem of how to launch a successful revolution. This is seen above all in the Anarchist rejection of the revolutionary party in its Leninist sense.

The main argument of this article is that the party is the reflection of the society it seeks to create. In looking at the major left groupings - social democratic, Stalinist, Leninist, Trotskyist - there is obviously a certain simplification. For instance, I ignore theories put forward by Gramsci and Luxembourg as well as groupings like the left of the Labour Party (a peculiar amalgam of Methodism, Social Democracy and Stalinism). A lack of space does not allow as complete a discussion of the problem as I would like, and certainly people like Gramsci should not be ignored. However, at this time it is necessary to concentrate on the main party groupings.

1. Social democracy

In bourgeois democratic society the structure of these political parties which support the existing social order - conservative or reformist - are mirrors of a hierarchical authoritarian society. In the same way it can be said that those organisations which seek to transform society in the interests of the working class reflect within their structure the type of society they wish to create. The social democratic party, for example, derives its structure from its attitude towards bourgeois authority. Social democrats seek to create a socialist society on behalf of the working class, but fail to challenge the institutions of bourgeois democracy. Since social democrats accept the authority of the bourgeois state and law, they become agents of that authority. They make the mistake of assuming that the state stands above the class conflict, to be captured at elections by the representatives of the bourgeoisie or the proletariat. In fact the State is in the midst of the class struggle, operating as the armed wing of the ruling class. This can be seen not only in this country, but also in other European Social Democratic parties (e.g.. the French socialists under Mollet sent troops on an imperialist expedition to Suez in 1956 - and justified it in Marxist terms. The German social democrats have a long history of acting as instruments of bourgeois authority, from their suppression of the Spartakist revolt to their support for the West German emergency laws). The contradictions of social democracy - a result of its attitude to authority - resolve themselves into the position of undermining the revolutionary potential of the working class.

The social democratic vision of a new society - essentially same as the old one in all respects but with the exception that the people are ruled with a beneficial paternalism which will end inequalities - is mirrored in its organisational structure. The leadership is a small bureaucracy running a mass party. The most important section of the leadership - the parliamentary party - is completely out of control of the mass organisation. Nominations for parliamentary candidature must be approved by the leadership. In Britain, the Labour Party group which draws up policies for the next election (the National Executive Committee) is elected by non mandated conference delegates, and is thus out of control of the membership. When left wing policies are forward they are ignored (e.g.. Gaitskell over CND in 1960 and Wilson during and after government office). The mass membership of the party has all the abstract freedoms of bourgeois society - freedom of speech, freedom to hold radically different ideas etc., - so that Trotskyist 'entrist' groups like the Revolutionary Socialist League can co-exist with rightists like Woodrow Wyatt (and millionaire capitalists like Robert Maxwell) without upsetting the party. The parallels with bourgeois society are made complete by the fact that as soon as 'subversive' groups begin to pose a serious threat, as did the Communist Party in the 20's or the SLL in the 60'; they are expelled en masse. Of course this does not mean that social democratic parties are any more free of mass pressures than are the ruling class. They need to win elections, and are often driven to absurd promises, like calling for a price freeze in a capitalist society caught in the throes of international inflation - a policy made more absurd and phoney by the fact that it is proposed by Wilson and Callaghan, instigators of the 1966 wage freeze. We can see from this that the institutionalised formal democracy of social democratic parties - a form without any substance - is a mirror of the social democrat's vision of socialism as a bourgeois society without the bourgeoisie.

2. The Stalinist parties

Unlike the social democrats the Stalinists (and I do not count the British CP as Stalinist but as left social democrat) seek to challenge bourgeois authority. However, they do not do so in the interests of democratic liberty, but in the interests of an opposing authority which claims to be more efficient than the bourgeoisie. Capitalist 'anarchy' will be replaced by bureaucratic planning which will end bourgeois exploitation and inequality of distribution. The Stalinist view of a socialist society - a bureaucratic State on the model of the USSR, with a monolithic ideology, where a small leadership dictates policy to the masses, - is reflected in the structure of the Stalinist parties. Because of its historic origins in Leninism, the party is committed to democratic centralism but real democracy is absent, because of the banning of factions, and the demand that the membership must submit completely to the policies worked out in the Central Committee. The Stalinists' subjection to the need to defend Russia often leads to a situation where it can be revolutionary (eg. the big strike called by the Communists in France and Italy in 1947/48) or, more usually, counter-revolutionary (eg. Stalinist opposition to the Spanish revolution of 1936, their attitude to the May revolt in France in 1968). The contradictions of Stalinism attempting to change society are no less great than those of social democracy.

3. Lenin's concept of the party

Unlike social democracy and Stalinism, Leninism seeks to challenge bourgeois authority in the name of revolutionary freedom. Lenin in 'State and Revolution' called for a society where the State - defined as an instrument of class oppression - would eventually disappear. The paradox emerges when a Leninist government suppressed freedom and smashed the attempt of the Russian working class to free itself from rulers. This paradox is made clear only if we keep in mind that the revolutionary party is a reflection of the social order it seeks to create. It is significant that Chris Harman should write that: "It is important to note that for Lenin the party is not the embryo of the workers' state."1 , while at the same time attributing the failure of the Russian revolution to the fact that it took place in a non-industrialised country racked by Civil War and international bourgeois intervention, While nobody can underestimate the tremendous consequences of such 'external' factors it would be completely misleading to ignore 'internal' factors such as the Leninist theory of the Party and the relationship between the party and the working class.

Lenin's theory of the party is derived from his view of the nature of revolution and the role of revolutionaries. Revolution, Lenin correctly saw, is of necessity authoritarian. As Engels wrote: "A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is: it is an act whereby one part of the population imposes its will on the other by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon all of which are highly authoritarian means."2 (This does not mean of course that a revolution cannot be the most liberating thing there is). From this arises the idea that a transitional regime - the dictatorship of the proletariat - is needed to smash any attempt by the bourgeoisie to destroy the revolution. The role of the revolutionary party in this situation is the role of political leadership of the working class. "There could not have been social democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from without...the working class exclusively by its own efforts is able to develop only trade union consciousness"3 . Lenin later modified this position to take account of the undeniable spontaneity of the class. ("The economists have gone to one extreme. To straighten matters out one had to pull in the other direction, and this is what I have done"4 . Lenin often pointed out that the proletariat was sometimes more revolutionary than the party. But the primary role of creating consciousness lies in the party: "The working class is instinctively, spontaneously social democratic, and more than ten years of work put in by social democracy has done a great deal to transform this spontaneity into consciousness."5 Leadership is absolutely necessary for revolutionary success because of the fragmentation of consciousness and the organisation of the ruling class. But the nature of this leadership is more than mere persuasion and raising of consciousness. Such leadership is inevitable in any situation where many people are confused because they have never thought about the issues and listen to someone who has - who is in that sense a leader. An organisation which seeks to link local struggles and explain a future course is, whether we like it or not, necessary. But the Leninist party is not only concerned with ideological leadership. It seeks political leadership of the State, since the proletariat, unlike a democratic centralist party, does not necessarily have the 'concrete view' even after a revolution. Even in his most 'libertarian ' text Lenin writes: "By educating the workers' party, Marxism educates the vanguard of the proletariat, capable of assuming power and leading the whole people to socialism"6 Lenin later explains the reason for this vanguard of the proletariat: "We are not Utopians, we do not dream of disposing at once with all administration, with all subordination.... No, we want the socialist revolution with subordination, control and foremen and accountants."7 Any notion of self emancipation and self education is missing in Lenin. Realising the strength of the authoritarian culture he attacks and underestimates the speed with which many people overthrow authoritarian ideology in a revolutionary situation. He fails to see that ".. if the proletariat itself does not know how to create the necessary prerequisites for the socialist organisation of labour, no one can do this for it and no one can compel it to do this.. Socialism and socialist organisation will be set up by the proletariat itself, or they will not be set up at all. Something else will be set up - State capitalism"8 .

4. Leninist substitutionism

Just as in the transitional regime of 'proletarian' dictatorship the hierarchy of authority and subordination remains, so in the party there is in the Central Committee and its policies. There is a hierarchy of authority. District and factory circles, local and territorial committees are elected and their decisions are then communicated from the top down. Opposition from the subordinates is quashed, or at best tolerated. In Russia the Left Communists were hounded out of existence in 1918. From the Democratic Centralists and the Workers' Opposition were frowned upon, and eventually, in 1921, after a party Congress which oppositionists claimed had rigged delegations, all factions were banned within the party (like most permanent bans, this was 'temporary'). The Cheka was then used against the oppositionists forced to illegally [operate underground?]. Trotsky summed up Leninist ideas vividly in 1924 when he said: "...the Party in the last analysis is always right, because the Party is the single historical instrument given to the proletariat for the solution of its basic problems... I know that one must not be right against the party. One can be right only with the Party, and through the Party for history has no other road for being in the right."9 Ironically it was Trotsky himself who, in 1904 had pointed out the danger of such ideas. Before he became a Leninist he [said?] in a polemic against Leninist views of the Party: " The organisation of the party substitutes itself for the party as a whole, when the central committee itself for the organisation, and finally the dictator substitutes himself for the central committee."10

This substitutionism in the party was reflected in the society the Bolsheviks - created. The rule of the party (or rather, its Central Committee) was substituted for the rule of the proletariat. The workers' committees running industry were castrated in 1917-1918 (before the civil war, the devastating effects of which are the constant excuse for Trotskyist and Stalinist apologists) in preparation for one man management. By the summer of 1918 elections to the Soviets had become a farce. In 1918 the Red Army, originally a democratic militia, was transformed by Trotsky into a non-democratic army on the bourgeois model, with saluting, different living quarters for officers, the death penalty for desertion etc.. In 1920 Trotsky (supported at first by Lenin) called for the militarisaton of labour - labour armies to be used as scabs - and the substitution of Party controlled production unions for genuine Trade Unions. The nature of the Party after 1914 (when it was broadened by many who agreed with Lenin only on the need to turn the imperialist war into a civil war) meant that these proposals came under fire from a significant minority (and in the case of the militarisation of labour possibly a majority). But as we have seen this opposition, and even the right to organise opposition, was effectively ended with the 1921 Party Congress.

Thus the original paradox, that Leninism, a doctrine calling for revolutionary freedom destroyed that freedom, can be seen not to be a paradox at all. Lenin's talk of proletarian democracy, and freedom from authority in 'State and Revolution' remained just that - talk. By removing such notions to a vague future, Lenin banished them to the realm of abstraction. What remained was the immediate task of overthrowing capitalism and establishing a transitional regime. Bourgeois authority was not challenged by the authority of a revolutionary proletariat (which alone would have laid the real preconditions for the abolition of authoritarianism) but by the authority of a political party - self proclaimed 'vanguard of the proletariat'. Precisely because, as one prominent Left Communist proclaimed "socialism and socialist organisation will be set up by the proletariat itself, or they will not he set up at all', the 'transitional' regime of 1917/18 remains with us today, more powerful than ever.

5. The Trotskyist attitude

The Trotskyist never learned anything from failure of the Russian revolution. Trotsky himself was never to make more than a partial break with the USSR., and was led into the contradictory position of defining Russia as a degenerated workers' state. Leninist organisation with its hierarchies, its authoritarianism and its notions of leadership and subordination remained. "The leading cadre plays the same decisive role in relation to party that the party plays in relation to the class"11 writes Cannon, leader of the largest of the American Trotskyist groups, the Socialist Workers' party. There is the same intolerance to opposition: "Those who try to break up the historically created cadre of the Trotskyist parties are in reality aiming to break up the parties and to Iiquidate the Trotskyist movement. They will not succeed. The Trotskyist parties will liquidate the liquidators, and the SWP has the high historic privilege of setting the example."12 These are the madmen that claim to be our leaders! The authoritarian structure of the parties is a reflection of the society they seek to create.

Another Trotskyist leader, Ernest Mandel, writes: "Anyone who believes that the mass of the imperialist countries are ready today to take over the running of the economy at once, without first passing through the school of workers ' control is deceiving himself and others with dangerous illusions."13 More explicitly he writes: "The production relations are not changed so long as the private employer has merely been replaced by the employer state, embodied in some all power manager, technocrat or bureaucrat.... The classical solution is the succession of phases: workers' control (i.e. supervision of the management by the workers), workers participation in the management; and workers self -management."14 Like Lenin, the Trotskyists wish democracy and freedom away to a vague future 'when the workers are ready for it'. They also reduce it to an abstraction.

6. Leninism - the I.S. variant

The one revolutionary group in Britain which seemed to many to have learned the lessons of the failure of the Russian revolution, and attempted to be both Leninist and libertarian, was the International Socialists.[WM note - This group is now the Socialist Workers Party] Their emphasis on democracy within the party is shown in a book by three of their most prominent members - Party and Class. Here Duncan Hallas writes that a revolutionary party cannot possibly be created except on a thoroughly democratic basis, that unless in its internal life vigorous tendencies and shades of opinion are represented, a socialist party cannot rise above the level of a sect. "Internal democracy is not an optional extra. It is fundamental to the relationship between party members and those amongst whom they work."15 In the same book Tony Cliff writes: "because the working class is far from being monolithic, and because the path to socialism is uncharted, wide differences of strategy and tactics can and should exist in the revolutionary party. The alternative is the bureacratised party or the sect with its leader... Scientific socialism must live and thrive on controversy".16 It seems odd that such democratic sentiments should co-exist with a total support for the Bolshevik practice during the Russian revolution. Even those members of I.S. who, like Peter Sedgewick argued that the degeneration of the revolution had occurred by 1918, attribute the decay to the "military depredation and economic ruin which wrought havoc in an already enfeebled Russia."17 No mention of the Leninist view of the Party. Libertarian socialism and Leninism are incompatible - and the I.S. group has remained Leninist, and we have recently begun to see the results.

The stress on democracy within the group has been exposed as hollow. As early as 1971, the I.S. leadership reversed a national conference decision that the group should take a principled abstentionist position on Britain's entry into the E.E.C. Instead, they adopted a position of opposition to entry. The way in which the opposition groups like Workers Fight and the "Right Opposition" were expelled is startling in view of the groups previous emphasis on faction rights. Tony Cliff has abandoned his earlier position in "Party and Class" that "wide differences in strategy and tactics can and should exist in the revolutionary party"18 , and now holds that "I.S. is a voluntary organisation of people who disagree or agree within narrow limits"19 .

The libertarian rhetoric of a society based on workers' councils remains, but it is nothing more than a rhetoric. Certain questions are never raised, let alone answered. Will the factories be under workers' self-management during the 'transitional period"? Will the Workers' State be a federation of workers' councils, under the direct control of the working class (a libertarian idea) or will it be a centralised bureaucracy co-existing with workers councils on the Yugoslav model (a Leninist idea)? What happens if there is a conflict between the centralised authority and the workers' councils? (When such a conflict occurred in Russia in 1917/18 and in Spain 1936/37 it was the councils who lost out). Above all, what will be the relationships of the vanguard party to the State, the Workers' Councils, and the working class? How will it avoid substitutionism? Cliff's argument in 'Party and Class' that substitutionism can be stopped by a diligent leadership is completely inadequate.

7. The Libertarian position

Nobody denies that the condition for revolution in Britain will be different from those that prevailed in Russia. However, the idea of a vanguard party remains, as does the danger that the "transitional period" will prove far from transitional. The idea that the working class can be liberated by a party - no matter how correct its line - is an abstraction. All that would happen would be the creation of a new ruling class, as has been seen in Russia and other "socialist" countries. The working class must liberate itself, as called for by Marx, and in doing so it will create the preconditions for the liberation of all oppressed groups from authority.

Our relationship to Leninist theory must be made clear. Leninism has its strengths as well as its weaknesses. Its recognition that working class consciousness is fragmented and generally under the hold of bourgeois ideology is essentially correct. While he underestimates how quickly workers can free themselves from authoritarian ideology, Lenin did recognise the importance of leadership. Anarchists must overcome their fear of the idea of leadership, and recognise that in any situation where people are confused, an anarchist will provide leadership where he or she advocates libertarian solutions. The difference is that whereas anarchist leadership consists of persuasion and agitation, the Leninist vanguard party seeks to go beyond agitation to actual political leadership through its control of the state. For the purpose of agitation on a national scale some type of organisation is necessary, and here also Leninism should be looked at more carefully. Lenin saw that the organisation of the party was determined by the authoritarian society in which it existed (though he did not see that the structure of a vanguard party determined the society which it created), and tried to solve the problem by adopting democratic centralism. Democratic centralism is suited for a vanguard party, but libertarianism must reject such a form of organisation which usually turns out to be more centralised than democratic. What is needed is an organisation with a high degree of theoretical clarity and a fully developed sense of responsibility towards other comrades, while at the same time maintaining a maximum of political discussion within the organisation. A central co-ordinating body is vital, though there must be complete and absolute control over it by the membership and its task should be minimal and clearly defined. Some anarchists have criticised Lenin for his ruthlessness, but I believe that such a criticism should be rejected. Any successful revolution will be faced with the possibility of civil war and tremendous economic difficulties which it will be forced to meet ruthlessly if the revolution is to survive. In doing this it may be necessary to do some horrifying things such as killing ordinary workers who are fighting for the counter-revolution. But there will be qualitative differences between the libertarian and the Leninist attitudes. We are fighting for different aims, and so must reject policies like creating a secret police, prison camps and "red terror". Such policies would destroy revolutionary freedom. We must be prepared to accept defeat rather than engage in such actions.

Finally, we must recognise with Lenin that authority can only be defeated by authority. Lenin recognised that the State is an instrument of coercion by one class against another, and pointed out that a Workers' State will be necessary in the turmoil of revolution in order to coerce the bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, we must differentiate ourselves from Lenin's view of the State. To Lenin the state was a centralised republic co-existing with workers' councils, with the vanguard party controlling the centre. To libertarians, it is a decentralised federation of workers' councils under the direct and absolute control of the working class. Such a state is one that begins to cease being a state almost immediately. It is not the institutionalisation of class oppression like the Leninist state, but the foundations of liberation. Since the concept of a workers' state is now fully associated with Leninism, and it is thereby simplified to become merely class oppression rather than being simultaneously the institutions of liberation, which necessitates the dissolution of the state anarchists reject the [idea that?] revolutionary society will have a state in its initial phase.

One thing we must reject clearly is the notion of a centralised vanguard party. The division of labour between those who rule and those who are ruled has lasted too long, and can only be ended by the self-emancipation of the working class. It is absolutely necessary that anarchists clarify their relationship to this self-emancipation, and the debate on organisation within the libertarian movement must develop in a clear and realistic direction.

by Geoff Foote

• 1Chris Harman - Party and Class.
• 2Engels - On Authority.
• 3Lenin - What is to be done
• 4Lenin - Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
• 5Lenin - The Re-organisation of the Party.
• 6Lenin - The State and Revolution.
• 7ibid.
• 8Osinsky - On the building of Socialism in Kommunist
• 9Trotsky - Thirteenth Party Congress.
• 10Trotsky - Our Political Tasks.
• 11James Cannon - Factional Struggle and Party Leadership, in S.W.P. pamphlet In defence of the Revolutionary Party.
• 12Ibid
• 13Mandel - Workers Control and Workers Councils.
• 14Mandel - Marxist Economic Theory. Vol. 2
• 15Duncan Hallas Towards a Revolutionary Socialist Party in Party and Class
• 16Tony Cliff - Trotsky on Substitutionism in Party and Class.
• 17Peter Sedgwick - Victor Serge on Party and Class in International Socialism 50.
• 18Tony Cliff - Party and Class.
• 19Cliff and Nagliaiti - Main features of the programme we need in I.S. Internal Bulletin Jan 1973.

The Two Octobers (1927)
by Piotr Archinov

The victorious revolution of the workers and peasants in 1917 was legally established in the Bolshevik calendar as the October Revolution. There is sane truth in this, but it is not entirely exact. In October 1917 the workers and peasants of Russia surmounted a colossal obstacle to the development of their Revolution. They abolished the nominal power of the capitalist class, but even before that they achieved something of equal revolutionary importance and perhaps even more fundamental. By taking the economic power from the capitalist class, and the land from the large owners in the countryside, they achieved the right to free and uncontrolled work in the towns, if not the total control of the factories. Consequently, it was well before October that the revolutionary workers destroyed the base of capitalism. All that was left was the superstructure. If there had not been this general expropriation of the capitalists by the workers, the destruction of the bourgeois state machine - the political revolution - would not have succeeded in any way. The resistance of the owners would have been much stronger. On the other hand, the objectives of the social revolution in October were not limited to the overthrow of capitalist power. A long period of practical development in social self-management was before the workers, but it was to fail in the following years.

Therefore, in considering the evolution of the Russian socialist Revolution as a whole, October appears only as a stage - a powerful and decisive stage, it is true. That is why October does not by itself represent the whole social revolution. In thinking of the victorious October days, one must consider that historical circumstance as determined by the Russian social revolution.

Another no less important peculiarity is that October has two meanings - that which the working' masses who participated in the social revolution gave it, and with them the Anarchist-Communists, and that which was given it by the political party that captured power from this aspiration to social revolution, and which betrayed and stifled all further development. An enormous gulf exists between these two interpretations of October. The October of the workers and peasants is the suppression of the power of the parasite classes in the name of equality and self-management. The Bolshevik October is the conquest of power by the party of the revolutionary intelligentsia, the installation of its 'State Socialism' and of its 'socialist' methods of governing the masses.

The workers' October

The February Revolution caught the different revolutionary parties in complete disarray and without any doubt they were considerably surprised by the profound social character of the dawning revolution. At first, no one except the anarchists wanted to believe it. The Bolshevik Party, which made out it always expressed the most radical aspirations of the working-class, could not go beyond the limits of the bourgeois revolution in its aims. It was only at the April conference that they asked themselves what was really happening in Russia. Was it only the overthrow of Tsarism. or was the revolution going further - as far as the. overthrow of capitalism? This last eventually posed to the Bolsheviks the question of what tactics to employ. Lenin became conscious before the other Bolsheviks of the social character of the revolution, and emphasised the necessity of seizing power. He saw a decisive advance in the workers' and peasants' movement which was undermining the industrial and rural bourgeoisie foundations more and more. A unanimous agreement on these questions could not be reached even up to the October days. The Party manoeuvred all this time in between the social slogans of the masses and the conception of a social-democratic revolution, from where they were created and developed. Not opposing the slogan of petit- and grand-bourgeoisie for a Constituent Assembly, the Party did its best to control the masses, striving to keep up with their ever-increasing pace.

During this time, the workers marched impetuously forward, relentlessly running their enemies of left and right into the ground. The big rural landowners began everywhere to evacuate the countryside, fleeing from the insurgent peasantry and seeking protection for their possessions and their persons in the towns. Meanwhile, the peasantry proceeded to a direct re-distribution of land, and did not want to hear of peaceful co-existence with the landlords. In the towns as well a sudden change took place between the workers and the owners of enterprises. Thanks to the efforts of the collective genius of the masses, workers' committees sprang up in every industry, intervening directly in production, putting aside the admonishments of the owners and concentrating on eliminating them from production. Thus in different parts of the country, the workers got down to the socialisation of industry.

Simultaneously, all of revolutionary Russia was covered with a vast network of workers' and peasant soviets, which began to function as organs of self management. They developed, prolonged, and defended the Revolution. Capitalist rule and order still existed nominally in the country, but a vast system of social and economic workers' self-management was being created alongside it. This regime of soviets and factory committees, by the very fact of its appearance, menaced the state system with death . It must be made clear that the birth and development of the soviets and factory committees had nothing do with authoritarian principles. On the contrary, they were in the full sense of the term organs of social and economic self-management of the masses, and in no case the organs of state power. They were opposed to the state machine which sought to direct the masses, and they prepared for a decisive battle against it. "The factories to the workers, the land to the peasants" - these were the slogans by which the revolutionary masses of town and country participated in the defeat of the State machine of the possessing classes in the name of a new social system which was founded on the basic cells of the factory committees and the economic and social soviets. These catch-words circulated from one end of workers' Russia to the other, deeply affecting the direct action against the socialist-bourgeois coalition government.

As was explained above, the workers and peasants had already worked towards the entire reconstruction of the industrial and agrarian system of Russia before October 1917. The agrarian question was virtually solved by the poor peasants as early as June - September 1917. The urban workers, for their part, put into operation organs of social and economic Self-management, having seized from the State and the owners the organisational functions of production. The October Revolution of the workers overthrew the last and the greatest obstacle to their revolution the state power of the owning classes, already defeated and disorganised. This last evolution opened a vast horizon for the achievement of the social revolution putting it onto the creative road to socialist reconstruction of society, already pointed at by the workers in the preceding months. That is the October of the workers and the peasants. It meant a powerful attempt by the exploited manual workers to destroy totally the foundations of capitalist society, and to build a workers' society based on the principles of equality, independence, and self-management by the proletariat of the towns and the countryside. This October did not reach its natural conclusion. It was violently interrupted by the October of the Bolsheviks, who progressively extended their dictatorship throughout the country.

The Bolshevik October

All the statist parties, including the Bolsheviks, limited the boundaries of the Russian Revolution to the installation of a social-democratic regime. It was only when the workers and peasants of all Russia began to shake the agraro-bourgeois order, when the social revolution was proved to be an irreversible historical fact, that the Bolsheviks began discussing the social character of the Revolution, and the consequent necessity of modifying its tactics. There was no unanimity in the Party on questions of the character and orientation of the events which had taken place, even up to October. Furthermore, the October Revolution as well as the events which followed developed while the Central Committee of the Party was divided into two tendencies. Whilst a part of the Central Committee, Lenin at its head, foresaw the inevitable social revolution and proposed preparation for the seizure of power, the other tendency, led by Zinoviev and Kamenev, denounced as adventurist the attempt at social revolution, and went no further than calling for a Constituent Assembly in which the Bolsheviks occupied the seats furthest to the Left. Lenin's point of view prevailed, and the Party began to mobilise its forces in case of a decisive struggle by the masses against the Provisional Government.

The party threw itself into infiltrating the factory committees and the soviets of workers' deputies, doing its best to obtain in these organs of self-management the most mandates possible in order to control their actions. Nevertheless, the Bolshevik conception of, and approach to, the soviets and the factory committees was fundamentally different from that of the masses. While the mass of workers considered them to be the organs of social and economic self-management, the Bolshevik Party looked on them as a means by which it was possible to snatch the power of the sinking bourgeoisie and afterwards to use this power to serve the interests of the Party. Thus an enormous difference was revealed between the revolutionary masses and the Bolshevik Party in their conceptions and perspectives of October. In the first case, it was the question of the defeat of power with the view of reinforcing and enlarging the already constituted organs of workers and peasants self-management. In the second case, it was the question of leaning on these organs in order to seize power and to subordinate all the revolutionary forces to the Party. This divergence played a fatal role in determining the future course of the Russian Revolution.

The success of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution - that is to say, the fact that they found themselves in power and from there subordinated the whole Revolution to their Party is explained by their ability to substitute the ides of a Soviet power for the social revolution and the social emancipation of the masses. A priori, these two ideas appear as non-contradictory for it was possible to understand Soviet power as the power of the soviets, and this facilitated the substitution of the idea of Soviet power for that of the Revolution. Nevertheless, in their realisation and consequences these ideas were in violent contraction to each other. The conception of Soviet Power incarnated in the Bolshevik state, was transformed into an entirely traditional bourgeois power concentrated in a handful of individuals who subjected to their authority all that was fundamental and most powerful in the life of the people - in this particular case, the social revolution. Therefore, with the help of the "power of the soviets" - in which the Bolsheviks monopolised most of the posts - they effectively attained a total power and could proclaim their dictatorship throughout the revolutionary territory. This furnished them with the possibility of strangling all the revolutionary currents of the workers in disagreement with their doctrine of altering the whole course of the Russian Revolution and of making it adopt a multitude of measures contrary to its essence. One of these measures was the militarisation of labour during the years of War Communism - militarisation of the workers so that millions of swindlers and parasites could live in peace, luxury and idleness. Another measure was the war between town and country, provoked by the policy of the Party in considering peasants as elements unreliable and foreign to the Revolution. There was, finally, the strangling of libertarian thought and of the Anarchist movement whose social ideas and catchwords were the force of the Russian Revolution and orientated towards a social revolution. Other measures consisted of the proscription of the independent workers movement, the smothering of the freedom of speech of workers in general. All was reduced to a single centre, from where all instructions emanated concerning the way of life, of thought, of action of the working masses.

That is the October of the Bolsheviks. In it was incarnated the ideal followed by decades by the revolutionary intelligentsia, initially realised now by the wholesale dictatorship of the All-Russian Communist Party. This ideal satisfies the ruling intelligentsia, despite the catastrophic consequences for the workers; now they can celebrate with pomp the anniversary of ten years of power.

The Anarchists

Revolutionary Anarchism was the only politico social-current to extol the idea of a social revolution by the workers and peasants, as much during the 1905 Revolution as from the first days of the October Revolution. In fact, the role they could have played would have been colossal, and so could have been the means of struggle employed by the masses themselves. Likewise, no politico-social theory could have blended so harmoniously with the spirit and orientation of the Revolution. The interventions of the Anarchist orators in 1917 were listened to with a rare trust and attention by the workers. One could have said that the revolutionary potential of the workers and peasants, together with the ideological and tactical power of Anarchism could have represented a force to which nothing could be opposed. Unhappily, this fusion did not take place. Some isolated anarchists occasionally led intense revolutionary activity among the workers, but there was not an Anarchist organisation of great size to lead more continuous and co-ordinated actions, (outside of the Nabat Confederation and the Makhnovchtina in the Ukraine). Only such an organisation could have united the Anarchists and the millions of workers. During such an important and advantageous revolutionary period, the Anarchists limited themselves to the restricted activities of small groups instead of orientating themselves to mass political action. They preferred to drown themselves in the sea of their internal quarrels, not attempting to pose the problem of a common policy and tactic of Anarchism By this deficiency, they condemned themselves to inaction and sterility during the most important moments of the Revolution.

The causes of this catastrophic state of the Anarchist movement resided in the dispersion, the disorganisation and the absence of a collective tactic - things which have nearly always been raised as principles among Anarchists, preventing them making a single organisational step so that they could orientate the social revolution in a decisive fashion. There is no actual advantage in denouncing those who, by their demagogy, their thoughtlessness, and their irresponsibility, contributed to create this situation. But the tragic experience: which led the working masses to defeat, and Anarchism to the edge of the abyss, should be assimilated as from now. We must combat and pitilessly stigmatise those who in one way or another, continue to perpetuate the chaos and confusion in Anarchism, all those who obstruct its re-establishment or organisation. In other words, those whose actions go against those efforts of the movement for the emancipation of labour and the realisation of the Anarchist-Communist society. The working masses appreciate and are instinctively attracted by Anarchism, but will not work with the Anarchist movement until they are convinced of its theoretical and organisational coherence. It is necessary for everyone of us to try to the maximum to attain this coherence.

Conclusions and Perspectives

The Bolshevik practice of the last ten years shows clearly the counter-revolutionary [role] of their dictatorship of the Party. Every year it restrains a little more the social-and political rights of the workers, and takes their revolutionary conquests away. There is no doubt that the 'historic mission' of the Bolshevik Party is emptied of all meaning and that it will attempt to bring the Russian Revolution to its final objective : State Capitalism of the enslaving salariat, that is to say, of the reinforced power of the exploiters and at the increasing misery of the exploited. In speaking of the Bolshevik Party as part of the socialist intelligentsia, exercising its power over the working masses of town and country, we have in view its central directing nucleus which, by its origins, its formation, and its life-style has nothing in common with the working class, and despite that, rules all the details of life of the Party and of the people. That nucleus will attempt to stay above the proletariat, who have nothing to expect from it. The possibilities for rank and file Party militants, including the Communist youth, appear different. This mass has passively participated in the negative and counter-revolutionary policies of the Party, but having come from the working-class, it is capable of becoming aware of the authentic October of the workers and peasants and of coming towards it. We do not doubt that from this mass will come many fighters for the workers' October. Let us hope that they rapidly assimilate the Anarchist character of this October, and that they come to its aid. On our side, let us indicate this character as much as possible, and help the masses to reconquer and conserve the great revolutionary achievements.

Translated by Nick Heath for
North London Organisation of Revolutionary Anarchists
for Libertarian Communist Review
No. 1 Winter 1974