Founding of the Comintern - Then and Now

This is against libertarian communism and should not be on here.

jondwhite, Well the 'ABC of Communism' was recommended to me in my youthful membership of the spgb - an organisation which relied heavily on Kautsky and other of the early 2nd International Marxists for it's theoretical inspiration and even put in a good word for Lenin in his and other Bolsheviks opposition to the first World War. I'm not a fan of Lenin but you need to judge Lenin and the Bolsheviks in their historical context as part of a flawed Social Democratic political tendency. The ICT/CWO's retrospective defense of the 3rd International in it's brief early existence is open to criticism as a misplaced attempt to find some historical continuity with their own present day promotion of the future 'International Party' with some important 'lessons learned' from the subsequent counter revolutionary role of both the Russian 'Communist' Party and the 3rd International, but that doesn't make everything in this text incorrect from a broader communist perspective than that of the spgb. Make a proper detailed criticism of the text or don't bother.

Spikymike

Make a proper detailed criticism of the text or don't bother.

This. It's also quite hypocritical for jondwhite to pose as the gatekeeper of "libertarian communism" while at the same time subscribing to an impossibilist, electoral, perspective...

Yet that "electoral perspective" was also prescribed by Lenin & the Comintern for affiliating communist parties. This article is a whitewash insofar as it ignores the reformism advocated by Lenin & the Comintern - ie, that CPs should support parliamentarism and 'their' Labour parties - policies opposed from the start by Sylvia Pankhurst & Guy Aldred in the UK and others elsewhere. The article cites a few ultra-radical abstract phrases that were at complete odds with the practice and intentions of many participants - and which were the subject of heated debate. It ignores that dispute and portrays the speedy degeneration of Comintern as merely a tragic force of circumstance. Rather than the glorious flowering painted by the article it might be seen rather as the beginning of Bolshevik opportunism and counter-revolution worldwide. These articles deal with disagreement between Lenin/Comintern policy prescribed for UK communists and anti-parliamentarians such as Pankhurst, Whitehead etc;
https://libcom.org/files/Left-wing%20communism%20in%20Britain%201917-21.._0.pdf
https://www.marxists.org/archive/pankhurst-sylvia/1920/resolutions.htm
Insofar as the article is just a leninist apologist/revisionist view of history it does seem a bit pointless to host such things here - even if it is presented under the guise of a supposedly more lib com friendly, critical & radical left communist angle. Ironic to see on a libertarian communist site an article that actually airbrushes from history the more libertarian communist elements who criticised Comintern reformism.

Red Marriott, the Terms of Admission into Communist International, aka 21 Conditions for affiliating Communist Parties, were only adopted at the Second Congress. They specifically reject working with reformist parties (like Labour):

"7. It is the duty of parties wishing to belong to the Communist International to recognise the need for a complete and absolute break with reformism and “Centrist” policy, and to conduct propaganda among the party membership for that break. Without this, a consistent communist policy is impossible." (Comintern, 1920)

And where they do mention parliamentary factions, it states these should serve "revolutionary propaganda and agitation" and be purged of "unreliable elements", "reformists" and "centrists” (see points 2 and 11). So hardly an "electoral perspective", but the Second Congress did open the way for a further slip into parliamentarism later on. Here is what the article actually says regarding the Second Congress:

"The Second Congress, held a year later, was more representative of the forces that had rallied to, and were taking steps to organise as a result of, the revolutionary wave. It also has to be recognised that by 1920 the tide had begun to turn against the revolution and the start of the future degeneration of the Comintern was evident."

That last sentence says it well I think.

Onto Lenin. In 1919, the year of the First Congress, Lenin had the following to say to Pankhurst:

"What if in a certain country those who are Communists by their convictions and their readiness to carry on revolutionary work, sincere partisans of Soviet power (the “Soviet system”, as non-Russians sometimes call it), cannot unite owing to disagreement over participation in Parliament? I should consider such disagreement immaterial at present, since the struggle for Soviet power is the political struggle of the proletariat in its highest, most class-conscious, most revolutionary form. It is better to be with the revolutionary workers when they are mistaken over some partial or secondary question than with the “official” socialists or Social-Democrats, if the latter are not sincere, firm revolutionaries, and are unwilling or unable to conduct revolutionary work among the working masses, but pursue correct tactics in regard to that partial question. And the question of parliamentarism is now a partial, secondary question." (Lenin, 1919)

So while he personally advocated "revolutionary parliamentarism" (using parliament as a tribune to denounce capitalism), he saw his disagreement with the abstentionists as "immaterial", a "secondary question". A year later, in time for the Second Congress, he did change his mind:

"It is likewise quite obvious—and the foregoing arguments bear this out—that the advocacy, even if with reservations, by the Dutch and the other “Lefts” of refusal to participate in parliaments is fundamentally wrong and detrimental to the cause of the revolutionary proletariat. [...] Criticism—the most keen, ruthless and uncompromising criticism—should be directed, not against parliamentarianism or parliamentary activities, but against those leaders who are unable—and still more against those who are unwilling—to utilise parliamentary elections and the parliamentary rostrum in a revolutionary and communist manner." (Lenin, 1920)

Despite this however, the 21 Conditions did not attack the abstentionists (only the "reformists" and "centrists”). It wasn't really until the Third Congress that "revolutionary parliamentarism" became compulsory (although there were still tendencies challenging that). But even then, a distinction should be made between "revolutionary parliamentarism" and a purely "electoral perspective".

But even then, a distinction should be made between "revolutionary parliamentarism" and a purely "electoral perspective

Really? So which does the ICT practice? Leftist parties (though not the invariant SPGB) still use Lenin's views to justify their electoral perspective as a tactic for revolutionary goals.

The quotes from Lenin confirm my previous comments. Whether you agree with that view or not, it's clearly misleading and self-serving to omit from history that whole dispute; you say "the 1919 Congress is the starting point for revolutionary praxis today" yet gloss over the most "revolutionary praxis" of that era to try to perpetuate the myth of The Great Lenin and his Heroic Party.

The article says:

ICT/CWO

Such positions stem from the confused and increasingly counter-revolutionary policies of the Comintern from 1921 onwards.

But Left Wing Communism an Infantile Disorder, was written April 1920: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/index.htm

Open Letter to Comrade Lenin was also written in 1920, although not published until 1921 in Workers Dreadnought: https://www.marxists.org/archive/gorter/1920/open-letter/index.htm

Are we talking about only the 'official' policies adopted at congress, ignoring the de-facto leadership of the comintern's very clear demands to support the Labour Party electorally (albeit as an independent force, I guess 'vote labour with no illusions') in 1920, or was that a good idea at the time?

Red Marriott

Really? So which does the ICT practice?

The ICT is anti-parliamentarian.

That doesn't mean we conflate revolutionary parliamentarism with electoralism. They are not the same (even if we would disagree with both).

Red Marriott

Leftist parties (though not the invariant SPGB) still use Lenin's views to justify their electoral perspective as a tactic for revolutionary goals.

Yes. But most leftists have also slipped from revolutionary parliamentarism to straight up electoralism.

Mike Harman

Are we talking about only the 'official' policies adopted at congress, ignoring the de-facto leadership of the comintern's very clear demands to support the Labour Party electorally (albeit as an independent force, I guess 'vote labour with no illusions') in 1920, or was that a good idea at the time?

What was Lenin saying in 1920?

1. That "the Labour Party is a thoroughly bourgeois party, because, although made up of workers, it is led by reactionaries, and the worst kind of reactionaries at that." (Lenin, 1920)

2. That by calling workers to "vote for Henderson and against Lloyd George, [workers] will certainly give me a hearing. And I shall be able to explain in a popular manner, not only why the Soviets are better than a parliament and why the dictatorship of the proletariat is better than the dictatorship of Churchill (disguised with the signboard of bourgeois “democracy”), but also that, with my vote, I want to support Henderson in the same way as the rope supports a hanged man—that the impending establishment of a government of the Hendersons will prove that I am right, will bring the masses over to my side, and will hasten the political death of the Hendersons and the Snowdens just as was the case with their kindred spirits in Russia and Germany." (Lenin, 1920)

So in his 1920 approach you can already see the political manoeuvring that would become prevalent at the Third and Fourth Congresses and open up the way for opportunism. Through such manoeuvring many Trotskyists have eventually ended up as Labour Party cheerleaders. But that's not what Lenin was saying in 1919, when he upheld the view that "it would be sheer nonsense to think that the most profound revolution in human history, the first case in the world of power being transferred from the exploiting minority to the exploited majority, could take place within the time-worn framework of the old, bourgeois, parliamentary democracy." (Lenin, 1919)

The problem is that just like the so-called "Leninists" a lot of anarchists have built up this spectre of a monolithic and unchanging practice of Lenin, the Bolsheviks and of the Comintern. There is a difference even between 1919 and 1920. Let alone between 1919 and 1921. In order to understand the process of degeneration - of how the Comintern, from clearly agitating for a "World Federative Republic of Soviets", ended up becoming a tool of the Russian state - you got to tease out these differences. Dismissing Lenin, the Bolsheviks and the Comintern as "reformists", and as if all three were simply one and the same, does the opposite.

The problem is that just like the so-called "Leninists" a lot of anarchists have built up this spectre of a monolithic and unchanging practice of Lenin, the Bolsheviks and of the Comintern. There is a difference even between 1919 and 1920. Let alone between 1919 and 1921. In order to understand the process of degeneration - of how the Comintern, from clearly agitating for a "World Federative Republic of Soviets", ended up becoming a tool of the Russian state - you got to tease out these differences.

That’s cos the anarchists and non-leninist communists are generally more materialist in their analysis of these events than the self-proclaimed ‘historical-materialist’ Marxists. Rather than analyse merely by conference statements, Lenin’s pamphlets and other bureaucratese, they analyse what was actually happening within the concrete social relations of the time. There we see a consistent process of state-formation, Cheka repression, concentration of power within a party elite, banning of dissent both within and outside the Party, repression of workers strikes, Kronstadt etc. That is a more materialist analysis than your cherry-picking abstract phrases that never translated into reality.

Red Marriott

There we see a consistent process of state-formation, Cheka repression, concentration of power within a party elite, banning of dissent both within and outside the Party, repression of workers strikes, Kronstadt etc. That is a more materialist analysis than your cherry-picking abstract phrases that never translated into reality.

All of these developments happened within the borders of the RSFSR. Left Communists do not dismiss these - in fact, they were some of the first ones to analyse and criticise them (see for example the articles from the 1918 journal Kommunist that we are in the process of translating).

What is completely missing from your analysis is the international situation (the ebbing of the revolutionary wave by 1921, post-war capitalist reconstruction) and the material situation within the RSFSR (war and famine). Of course these are not convenient, because it seems you'd rather blame everything on the "reformism" of "Bolshevism" than look at the balance of class forces across the globe in years 1917-27.

Or, as the article puts it....

"Left isolated, with its productive capacity shattered, war and famine rampant and many of the best Communists dead, capitalism rapidly reasserted itself within the territory of RSFSR/Soviet Union. [...] By the mid 1920s the revolutionary wave had entirely ebbed away. Soviets existed in name only and official Communist parties had transformed into support mechanisms for the Soviet Union where capitalist restoration was proceeding inexorably with the party/state becoming the lead agent in generating and benefiting from state capitalism."

But then certain of the inherited ideas and organisational practices of Lenin and the Bolshevik tendency within Social Democracy were perhaps more likely to result in the promotion of 'the Party' and it's apparatus over independent working class organisation and activity in such 'unfavourable' objective circumstances than others?

Situations will always be 'unfavourable' for revolutions – that would equally true if, eg, autonomous soviets & workers committees had successfully defended themselves against Bolshevik domination or if the Makhnovist movement had done the same. But what is crucial to making revolution is the social relations one tries to create within it. As Spikymike notes the Bolsheviks imported wholesale the Kautskyist statist, hierarchical conceptions & practice that had been forged in decades of clandestinity and which defined their relationship to the working class and rest of society.

You appear to be saying ‘yes, we admit Lenin’s demanding that communists tail-end the Labour Party as a supposed consciousness-raising exercise to enlighten the proles was reformist but it was, alas, forced on him by international conditions’. But it didn’t force those reformist views on Pankhurst, Aldred, Whitehead etc who, with much more clarity and firsthand knowledge, argued against Lenin’s counter-revolutionary reformist orders.

This article serves only to try to legitimate and preserve in aspic the supposed purity of the Bolshevik ancestry/pedigree left communists are absurdly obsessed with protecting. Its deliberate omissions and evasions are far more revealing than the article itself.

Certain leftovers from the Second International did not help, I agree with that Spikymike. But ultimately it was the failure of the revolution to spread that gave birth to the monster that was the Soviet Union. All the communists at the time knew that with no revolution in other parts of the world the soviet experiment was gonna fail one way or another. "In Russia, the problem could only be posed. It could not be solved in Russia." Even if the Bolsheviks had pitch perfect politics, that would still have happened. Because socialism in one country is impossible.

Red Marriott, you are incorrect. The ebbing of the revolutionary wave did change the views of Pankhurst, Aldred and Whitehead. By the 1930s Pankhurst was a supporter of Haile Selassie and a Labourist, Aldred was standing in local elections and engaging in popular frontism, Whitehead simply became a fascist.

If, as you say, the original sin in Lenin, which pre-determined his political development, was "Kautskyism", then what was it in Pankhurst, Aldred and Whitehead? What was it that made them into monarchists, fascists and electoralists? Where did they inherit their "statist, hierarchical conceptions & practice" from?

Nothing like a bit of historical revisionism:

The International Workingmen's [sic] Association (later referred to as the First International) was founded in 1864 and effectively collapsed in 1872 when the Anarchist element, led by Bakunin, split from those maintaining a Marxist approach

Bakunin was expelled by a rigged conference organised by Marx and Engels. The bulk of the membership were federalists (proto-syndicalists) and so the "Marxist" rump died a death because all the active sections left in protest at Marx's imposing "a Marxist approach" -- which was, let us not forget, creating political parties using electioneering as their main tactic. And as predicted by Bakunin, this became reformist -- as the Second International proved beyond doubt.

As for:

the proletarian dictatorship in the form of council power

The soviet regime was by then a party dictatorship -- and had been for at least six months. At least Zinoiviev at second congress was more honest:

“Today, people like Kautsky come along and say that in Russia you do not have the dictatorship of the working class but the dictatorship of the party. They think this is a reproach against us. Not in the least! We have a dictatorship of the working class and that is precisely why we also have a dictatorship of the Communist Party. The dictatorship of the Communist Party is only a function, an attribute, an expression of the dictatorship of the working class... the dictatorship of the proletariat is at the same time the dictatorship of the Communist Party." (Zinoviev)

Which raises the question, why is this glorification of a conference held by the rulers of a state-capitalist party-dictatorship on a libertarian communist web-site?

Dyjbas

Certain leftovers from the Second International did not help, I agree with that Spikymike. But ultimately it was the failure of the revolution to spread that gave birth to the monster that was the Soviet Union.

So there is the failure of the revolution to spread in 1918, and there is also the failure of the revolution to spread in 1920. Lenin's attempt to impose parliamentary activity and tail-end the Labour Party in 1920 was obviously going to contribute to the 'failure of the revolution to spread' too, the KPD/KAPD split, the failure to support the Munich uprising etc..

Dyjbas

Red Marriott, you are incorrect. The ebbing of the revolutionary wave did change the views of Pankhurst, Aldred and Whitehead. By the 1930s Pankhurst was a supporter of Haile Selassie and a Labourist, Aldred was standing in local elections and engaging in popular frontism, Whitehead simply became a fascist.

By the mid-1930s Stalin was supplying Mussolini to support Italy's colonial war against Ethiopia - this geopolitical decision was closely related to the decision to support Weimar Germany with arms and supplies as early as 1920. You had people like CLR James organising against the Italian invasion in the 1930s London, without supporting Selassie, but Pankhurst's shift wasn't purely due to the failure of the revolutionary wave - it was initially an example of a (not properly internationalist) anti-war position. Lenin's Right to the Self-Determination of Nations, written in 1914, not 1920, has been used to justify similar positions for the last century, for everyone from Selassie to Mengistu.

Lenin

The bourgeoisie, which naturally assumes the leadership at the start of every national movement, says that support for all national aspirations is practical. However, the proletariat’s policy in the national question (as in all others) supports the bourgeoisie only in a certain direction, but it never coincides with the bourgeoisie’s policy. The working class supports the bourgeoisie only in order to secure national peace (which the bourgeoisie cannot bring about completely and which can be achieved only with complete democracy), in order to secure equal rights and to create the best conditions for the class struggle. Therefore, it is in opposition to the practicality of the bourgeoisie that the proletarians advance their principles in the national question; they always give the bourgeoisie only conditional support.

Ahhh conditional support.

Solidarity

The Reichswehr, which with the Freikorps, had been the main instrument for crushing the revolutionary workers in 1919 - 21 was not a completely unloved body; it had friends in Moscow.

The exact extent of Russian collaboration with the Reichswehr will probably never be known, but it is likely that preliminary contacts were established in 1919, and the German military negotiated as early as 1920 with Trotsky. During 1922 Reichswehr officers and pilots were training in Russia and Naval exchanges carried on between the two countries. An organisation of German military and industrial enterprises in Russia - GEFU - was established, and continued it's activities throughout the 1920's. Under its auspices shells, poison gas and aircraft were all manufactured in Russia for the Reichswehr before 1923. In April 1923 Menzel of the High Coommand concluded an agreement for the production of 33 million gold marks worth of war material in Russia for the German army.[30] These facts make Stalinist and Trotskyist denunciations of the contacts between the S.P.D. and the High Command in 1918 ring rather hollow.

https://libcom.org/history/spartakism-national-bolshevism-kpd-1918-24-solidarity

On the USSR and Mussolini: https://libcom.org/library/soviet-appeasement-collective-security-italo-ethiopian-war-1935-1936

I'm not going to defend the right of nations to self-determination, the dictatorship of the party, tactical manoeuvres, or stuff like the Treaty of Rapallo. These were features of the aforementioned degeneration of Soviet Russia and the Comintern (some forced by objective circumstances, some a result of political errors, some both). Listing off all these features is not particularly enlightening because I'm well aware of these as I'm sure are most of the people reading this.

The fundamental questions here really is whether one considers the formation of the Third International a key point in the development of revolutionary proletarian organisation (which doesn't mean taking it as a model to reproduce - but a lesson to learn from), or completely dismisses it as counter-revolutionary from the get go (which it seems is the position of Red Marriott, Mike Harman and Anarcho).

Different communist tendencies were expelled or left the Comintern at different points and for different reasons. For Pankhurst for example, the Comintern became an instrument of counter-revolution from the Second Congress (1920) onward. The KAPD left after the Third Congress (1921). It took longer for the Comintern to get rid of the Italian Left Communists (who had a majority in the PCd'I until 1924 and fought against degeneration from within the Comintern) - they were expelled in 1926. All these groups and individuals, despite eventually coming up against what the Comintern became, at one point did see it as a positive reference point towards world revolution.

While the article doesn't draw a clear cut off point (degeneration was a process after all), it does state (and I am repeating myself now) that already "by 1920 the tide had begun to turn against the revolution and the start of the future degeneration of the Comintern was evident" and that from 1921 onwards the Comintern adopted "confused and increasingly counter-revolutionary policies [which had] nothing in common with the proletarian internationalism of the First Congress [1919]."

Dyjbas

I'm not going to defend the right of nations to self-determination, the dictatorship of the party, tactical manoeuvres, or stuff like the Treaty of Rapallo. These were features of the aforementioned degeneration of Soviet Russia and the Comintern

Interesting trying to blame Lenin's Right to Nations of Self-Determination on the degeneration of Soviet Russia when it was written in 1914. In it he specifically argues that the working class should give conditional support to the national bourgeois. If we look at either the development of capitalism in Russia or China since, or the role taken by national bourgeois post-war (often joining forces with the colonial state to crush the local working class, before and after independence, such as in Kenya), and the support that Leninists have given for these 'leaders' over the past century, there is a direct line to many of these positions from this document, including the straw man he makes of Rosa's position.

Mike, I'm well aware that his theory of national self-determination predates 1917 - it was one of those leftovers from the Second International days which then came to play a negative role when it was adopted by the Third International (with much resistance from the Left).

Mm while I'm not entirely against this sort of thing being up on libcom I do think there should be some sort of introductory sentence noting that a) the account is partial b) not a libertarian communist perspective. Ideally I'd add c) has been repeatedly debunked in large part by the likes of Maurice Brinton, but obv that's a bigger job than just C&P with a quick intro.

Libcom's got a broad scope of what's in its library but articles revising history to, for example, write out the already increasingly suspicious attitude of anarchist groups such as FAUD and ignoring libertarian analysis in order to present 1919 as some sort of pre-snake revolutionary Eden should have such glaring shortcomings flagged.

It's clearly indicated that this is the blog of the ICT. And Brinton's book doesn't talk about the Comintern, so I'm not sure what exactly does it debunk here?

No offence but most casual readers won't read that bio or necessarily be clear on why ICT's such an anomaly on Libcom even if they do. Honestly I don't get why the admins gave you this space because it actively confuses what the site is about to have you using it, and I think if you were being a little more ethical rather than having your heads turned by the opportunities of a big platform you'd not have asked to be hosted on a libertarian-communist website in the first place, but nm.

I cite Brinton because he charts the mendacious approach, manipulative tactics and nasty ideological roots that characterised Leninism from the get go. His writing on the 1917-19 period makes it clear there was a direction of travel which was already fucking things up from well before the Comintern and debunks any idea that the gathering itself was entirely on the level. A view which was ably supported by Brinton and Goldman's reports on their experiences the following year, and underlined by the wholesale abandoning of the project by anarchists in favour of the IWMA by 1922.

Rob, if I remember right, we didn't ask to have a blog on libcom - we were approached by the libcom collective to set one up.

It's pretty clear this is an ICT blog. It says so at the top ("Internationalist Communist Tendency's blog") it says so in the info box on the right ("Blog of the Internationalist Communist Tendency"), it's in the tags, and it says so in the "posted by" bit. Don't know how much clearer you can get.

The Brinton text deserves a more in-depth response which I'm not gonna provide here. As a side note however, Bolsheviks and Workers' Control was proofread by a founding member of the CWO (who was then in Solidarity). The other text, Spartakism to National Bolshevism, linked here by Mike, was actually written by a founding member of the CWO (who, again, was then in Solidarity). So it's not like we're not familiar with these arguments....

Dyjbas

Red Marriott, you are incorrect. The ebbing of the revolutionary wave did change the views of Pankhurst, Aldred and Whitehead. By the 1930s Pankhurst was a supporter of Haile Selassie and a Labourist, Aldred was standing in local elections and engaging in popular frontism, Whitehead simply became a fascist.

I’m not talking about the ebbing aftermath, I’m talking about the debates occurring during the time that the Bolsheviks described as the eve of the world revolution and which is the article’s subject. During which Lenin was already prescribing reformist tactics and was correctly argued against by Pankhurst & co – who retained in that moment their radical view while Lenin & co didn’t. Which makes your vague explanation of greater historical forces excusing Lenin’s lapse unconvincing and imply a mechanical determinism denying agency to Lenin. What happened to Pankhurst & co in the following decades is a quite different question and I wouldn’t deny that they all were affected by receding revolutionary hopes over the decades.
Dyjbas

If, as you say, the original sin in Lenin, which pre-determined his political development, was "Kautskyism", ...

.. which you apparently agree with;
Dyjbas

Certain leftovers from the Second International did not help, I agree with that

Dyjbas

... then what was it in Pankhurst, Aldred and Whitehead? What was it that made them into monarchists, fascists and electoralists? Where did they inherit their "statist, hierarchical conceptions & practice" from?

While Lenin was a consistent statist and hierarch Aldred retained for decades a revolutionary outlook – unlike Lenin, he didn’t start spouting parliamentarism in 1920 during a revolutionary era at the first whiff of ‘unfavourable circumstances’. Iirc Pankhurst became an exiled pan-African nationalist or similar in later years. Whitehead was for decades a loyal Stalinist CP bureaucrat, so retaining his own warped conception of revolutionary optimism until cynicism with Stalinism led him into the Labour party and fascism in old age. Your question is really only a rhetorical diversion but one could suggest that each case is particular; of course a neat mechanical historical causation of an overarching History is ideologically tidier and more convenient but not always very useful.

For Pankhurst – after her activist life in the East End her growing distance from working class life probably had as much to do with it; marrying and running a tea shop in Epping Forest, then emigrating. Aldred remained a revolutionary for decades, increasingly obscure, in old age led into opportunist alliances with dubious funders. Whitehead, disillusioned with the cynical hypocrisy and manipulations of Stalinist bureaucracy, the Purges etc. The later lifestyles of bourgeois radical, marginalised impoverished activist & pamphleteer and Party bureaucrat probably created a distance for all three from working class life.

Other anti-parliamentarian critics of Lenin – eg, Pannekoek & Gorter - remained more politically consistent till their deaths. So such diversity doesn’t support your attempted defence of Lenin’s reformism. Why was Lenin unable at the crucial moment – the moment his Party believed was the brink of global revolution - to avoid lapsing into the worst reformism? That the international situation became less favourable may account for his choice but it doesn’t excuse, justify or even really explain it as you imply it does. It’s a mystical rather than materialist view.

But people are not mere puppets of an overarching determinist History, they have some agency and make varied choices. On the one hand Lenin & the Party are portrayed as the most clear sighted vanguard of 1917-1919, seizing History by the throat – but come 1920 they are helpless dupes of this same History. Plenty of critics of Bolshevism retained a revolutionary view during that period and Lenin argued against them; nobody was helpless before the tide of history – except, perhaps Lenin’s Cheka victims. But even one of those victims, Party veteran Miasnikov, http://libcom.org/tags/gavriii-llich-miasnikov still retained a revolutionary stance even as the Party set the Cheka dogs on him, jailed & exiled him – merely for daring to speak criticism to the Party from 1920. So to try to excuse Lenin as a victim of History is unconvincing and an insult to those who really did, for varying periods of time (all far longer than Lenin & co), retain a “revolutionary praxis” against the reformism, diktats and repression of the Bolsheviks. And as MH suggests above, the Bolshevik counter-revolution in policy & practice could only encourage the ebbing of the revolutionary wave. Genuine “revolutionary praxis” had to quickly oppose Bolshevism and it did; this article airbrushes that praxis for an idealised left-comm family pedigree to satisfy its obsession with its political bloodlines.

The bog-standard left-comm crap about the ‘sad historical tragedy of unfavourable circumstances’ as supposed ‘explanation’ for increasing Bolshevik repression & reformism is pathetic. After over 100 years, your Bolshevik apologetics and deceitful historical airbrushing echoes on the ideological terrain the counter-revolution begun by the Bolsheviks.

Perhaps the only good reason for its presence here is the critical shredding this lousy article has deservedly attracted. But its proper resting place should be in the dustbin of history.

Red, you're being a bit dishonest because all the individuals you draw on - Pankhurst, Aldred, Whitehead, Pannekoek, Gorter, Miasnikov - were in or around the Comintern. They all recognised it as a a key point in the development of revolutionary proletarian organisation - especially at the time of the First Congress.

With the exception of Aldred, they were not anarchists. They were Left Communists and for the most part, during the revolutionary wave, vehemently disagreed with anarchism.

So I'm afraid if you wanna put Left Communism into the dustbin of history, you gotta put your heroes there too.

These were features of the aforementioned degeneration of Soviet Russia and the Comintern

How was the right of nations to self-determination a "degeneration" of the USSR and Comintern? It was something Marx and Engels talked about, and Lenin put emphasis on during his entire militancy.

Red, you're being a bit dishonest because all the individuals you draw on - Pankhurst, Aldred, Whitehead, Pannekoek, Gorter, Miasnikov - were in or around the Comintern. They all recognised it as a a key point in the development of revolutionary proletarian organisation - especially at the time of the First Congress.

Another rhetorical diversion; yes, they initially saw it as "a key point" but revised their opinions quite quickly after encountering the reality and seeing its development. Pankhurst & Whitehead stopped being revolutionaries - but the rest all developed explicit critiques of Comintern policy, Bolshevism & Lenin. So who's being dishonest?

So I'm afraid if you wanna put Left Communism into the dustbin of history, you gotta put your heroes there too.

If you don't have better arguments than such feeble remarks, stop now. But you are mistaking a criticism of a poor article for a blanket condemnation of all left-communism; that may say more about your way of thinking than mine.

They "revised their opinions quite quickly after encountering the reality and seeing its development" - isn't the development the point? It's clear to me the article is saying 'started well, ended badly'. And Lenin and Trotsky's policies were among the things that made things go badly, but so were the actual material conditions existing in the world.

The question then is was it worth the attempt, as Pankhurst, Gorter and the rest believed, or was it not worth the bother?

If the question is 'why was Lenin wrong when other people managed to be right?' then I'd say that the Bolsheviks fusing themselves with the Russian state made it extremely difficult for the Bolsheviks to remain on a proletarian basis. Becoming managers of Russian national capital made them much more likely to privilege the short-term interests of the Russian state (and Russian national capital) over the world revolution. That isn't a problem Gorter or Pankhurst had to deal with. And it shouldn't need to be a problem, but it's one of the 'Second International' failings of the Bolsheviks in my view that they thought that it was a reasonable thing that they became a 'state party'. That isn't how the (majority of the) Communist Left now sees the relationship between the organisation of revolutionaries and the councils.

When the ComIntern was founded (2nd March 1919, new style), it was less than two years since the beginning of the Russian revolution (International Working Women's Day, 8th March 1917, new style). That's not a lot of time to adapt and work out the best way forward. We have massive clarity with hindsight and can see where a lot of wrong decisions were made, a lot of long wrong tactics formulated, a lot of opportunities missed and a lot of wrong conceptions promulgated. This article isn't saying 'the ComIntern was founded and afterwards everything is great'. It talks about 'increasingly confused and counter-revolutionary policies' and how there came to be 'pressures on Communist Parties to act as local agents for the Russian state rather than advocates of working class independence and international revolution'. I'll say again, this process of rapid degeneration was a result both of the failure of the world revolution and the policy decisions of the Bolsheviks. But those policy-decisions were themselves conditioned by the failure of the world revolution. Had the revolution successfully spread to Germany then the world, then the 'right of nations to self-determination' would have been consigned to the dustbin of history where it belongs, no matter what Lenin wrote in 1914, and arguments about whether the Labour Party should have been supported 'as the rope supports the hangman' would be moot.

But the revolution didn't spread; and that is what caused the degeneration of the ComIntern, the material conditions not 'bad ideas'.

The Bolsheviks should never have fused themselves with the state - surely we all agree on that? Having fused themselves with the state, they acted in a conservative manner - again, surely we agree there? Furthermore, the ComIntern became a tool of Russian foreign policy rather than world revolution - again, that is surely uncontroversial?

Left Comms would see these as being consequences of both the material conditions (isolated revolution leads to identification with the state as a proletarian bastion) and a lack of understanding about the role of the organisation of revolutionaries (fusion with state leads to abandonment of class terrain in favour of managing national capital and 'foreign policy' concerns).

Where I think we would be more generous to the Bolsheviks than most Anarchists would be is in saying that the Bolsheviks were making up their policy on the spot. Yes, Luxemburg was right about national self-determination and Lenin was wrong. The ICT and the ICC both support Luxemburg not Lenin on the rights of nations. Yes Gorter was right about the tactics Lenin advising for western Europe not being correct. The ICT and the ICC both have positions like Gorter's (and Bordiga's) not Lenin's. But this doesn't mean Lenin, or the Bolsheviks, or the ComIntern were wrong about everything. In 1919, the revolution in Russia had begun to degenerate and internationally, the moment had probably been lost for a successful revolution in Germany but the last few months of 1918 and the first few months of 1919 arguably mark the turning point. The world revolution had reached its highest point and was starting to fail. It produced some of the clearest and most revolutionary politics the world has ever seen, but as it peaked and started to flow backwards, all the mistakes and backward conceptions and compromises and failures to pick out the best path forward came to dominate both in Russia and in the ComIntern. Not that the failures were caused by these wrong conceptions, except in tangential ways. I think that the failure of the revolution in Germany, for example, has more to do with failures by Luxemburg and the German Lefts than failures by Lenin and Trotsky. Again the fact that Luxemburg was (in my opinion) 'wrong' on organisation doesn't mean she wasn't 'right' on national self-determination. The two aren't causally linked.

Well this has gone on far longer than I intended so I think I should stop there.

To be generous I'd say that some of our communist political tendencies have taken a lot longer than others to learn some of the lessons of the failure of the revolutionary wave referred to here (both objective and subjective) and seem still unable to let go of their past political heroes, placing more emphasis on claims to historical continuity than is justified today.... And since the UK Solidarity group was mentioned I recall that arguments about Lenin were still ongoing long after the departure of their Marxist critics as here: https://libcom.org/library/fresh-look-lenin-andy-brown

Good post slothjabber.

Red Marriott

Pankhurst & Whitehead stopped being revolutionaries - but the rest all developed explicit critiques of Comintern policy, Bolshevism & Lenin. So who's being dishonest?

Red, you do realise that our tendency, and Left Communism in general, developed out of the critique of Comintern policy, Bolshevism and Lenin right? A bunch of the material hosted on libcom about the Communist Left in Italy, Germany, Russia, Britain and Poland was written, translated and unearthed by us.

You seem to be ascribing positions to us which we don't actually uphold. Yes, unlike most anarchists, we don't dismiss the Comintern and the Bolsheviks as counter-revolutionary from the get go, but that doesn't mean we parrot and defend their every twist and turn either, and we do make it clear that it degenerated into a tool of counter-revolution. It means we critique where the Bolsheviks and the Comintern went wrong but also point out where they were right. At their best, Pankhurst, Aldred, Whitehead, Pannekoek, Gorter and Miasnikov did the same.

LeninistGirl

How was the right of nations to self-determination a "degeneration" of the USSR and Comintern? It was something Marx and Engels talked about, and Lenin put emphasis on during his entire militancy.

Because in the context of the imperialist epoch, national self-determination means the subordination of the proletariat to the national bourgeoisie. "In the era of the unleashing of this imperialism, national wars are no longer possible. National interests serve only as the pretext for putting the laboring masses of the people under the domination of their mortal enemy, imperialism." (Luxemburg, 1915)

The standpoint of Luxemurg is literately irrelevant to what I'm trying to say, it does not change if Lenin believed in the rights of nations to self-determination or not. He criticized Luxemburgs line way before the October Revolution and the formation of Comintern, so how was it a product of a "degeneration"? I'm not trying to argue if Lenin or Luxemburg was correct, I am saying that someone is pushing a false narrative on Lenin and the Comintern.

The point was I think that the adoption of Lenin's wrong ideas was a consequence of the degeneration of the world revolution and therefore one of the negative influences the Bolsheviks had on the ComIntern. Not that Lenin came to that position because of the degeneration of the revolution.

He came to that position because of an incomplete break with the politics of the previous epoch, when there was an argument for national self-determination, that Marx elaborated in regard to the possibility of Ireland breaking from Britain and Poland from Russia, for example.

But that is in the context of the 19th Century not the 20th. If the task of the working class is not to fight for reforms inside capitalism but to destroy it, then national self-determination doesn't come into it. There is no national road to socialism. Lenin couldn't see in this instance that what may have been correct in 1870 was not correct in 1919.

Slothjabber got it. Look at Turkey 1921 or China 1927 if you want to see the consequences of the Comintern's adoption of Lenin's ideas on national self-determination, of allying with the national bourgeoisie in the imperialist epoch.

Yes, slothjabber, I can agree with much of what you posted on the previous page but that is considerably more critical of Bolshevism than the article is. But then if there was such an speedy degeneration of the Comintern all it really boils down to is an obvious conclusion that ‘in principle it’s good to hold international meetings at high points of class struggle and revolution’. No one here has ever denied that.
Dyjbas

Red, you do realise that our tendency, and Left Communism in general, developed out of the critique of Comintern policy, Bolshevism and Lenin right? A bunch of the material hosted on libcom about the Communist Left in Italy, Germany, Russia, Britain and Poland was written, translated and unearthed by us.

Yes, I know all that. I even put some articles about/by left communists in libcom library some years ago; http://libcom.org/library/left-wing-communism-britain-1917-21an-infantile-disorder-bob-jones
http://libcom.org/library/theses-left-communists-russia-1918
http://libcom.org/library/communist-left-russia-after-1920-ian-hebbes
But I see your partial critique of Bolshevism as late and insufficient, as previously explained.

slothjabber

He came to that position because of an incomplete break with the politics of the previous epoch, when there was an argument for national self-determination, that Marx elaborated in regard to the possibility of Ireland breaking from Britain and Poland from Russia, for example.

But that is in the context of the 19th Century not the 20th. If the task of the working class is not to fight for reforms inside capitalism but to destroy it, then national self-determination doesn't come into it. There is no national road to socialism. Lenin couldn't see in this instance that what may have been correct in 1870 was not correct in 1919.

Lenin's position is not the same as Marx's though.

Marx's position is fairly clear here:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1870/letters/70_04_09.htm

And most important of all! Every industrial and commercial centre in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker he regards himself as a member of the ruling nation and consequently he becomes a tool of the English aristocrats and capitalists against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself. He cherishes religious, social, and national prejudices against the Irish worker. His attitude towards him is much the same as that of the “poor whites” to the Negroes in the former slave states of the U.S.A.. The Irishman pays him back with interest in his own money. He sees in the English worker both the accomplice and the stupid tool of the English rulers in Ireland.
[...]
England, the metropolis of capital, the power which has up to now ruled the world market, is at present the most important country for the workers’ revolution, and moreover the only country in which the material conditions for this revolution have reached a certain degree of maturity. It is consequently the most important object of the International Working Men’s Association to hasten the social revolution in England. The sole means of hastening it is to make Ireland independent. Hence it is the task of the International everywhere to put the conflict between England and Ireland in the foreground, and everywhere to side openly with Ireland. It is the special task of the Central Council in London to make the English workers realise that for them the national emancipation of Ireland is not a question of abstract justice or humanitarian sentiment but the first condition of their own social emancipation.

If we try to boil down Marx's main argument:

1. There was massive antagonism between English and Irish workers in the UK.
2. Irish workers had been impoverished by continued English colonial rule in Ireland
3. For there to be a social revolution in England, there needed to be proper solidarity between English workers and Irish workers against the English ruling class in Ireland rather than chauvinist support or indifference to colonial rule.

What Marx very specifically does not talk about there, is Irish workers siding with the Irish national bourgeois. Maybe he says that elsewhere, I'm sure someone else can find it if they're motivated. It seems quite possible for Marx to take that position, as he did supporting the North in the American Civil War, but in both cases the positions are based on what might increase working class solidarity, not Lenin's geopolitical opportunism and formalistic assertions.

Similarly, Spanish workers in the 1930s should have consistently supported the end of Spain's colonial domination over Morocco - had they done so, it's possible the Moors would have joined them in 1936-39, or at least sat it out instead of fighting for Franco.

Or British workers should have supported the end of British colonial control of Kenya (and Bahrain, and Jamaica, and everywhere else). Possibly if they'd done so in Kenya it would have been harder for the UK to break the massive strike wave in 1945-1950, put hundreds of thousands in concentration camps in the '50s, or send marines to crush a mutiny on behalf of Kenyatta under independence.

This is basic international working class solidarity, it does not tell anyone to line up with the new national bourgeois.

Lenin even admits this point in the pamphlet, although he claims Marx advocated for a cross class alliance later which seems uncited:

Lenin

At first Marx thought that Ireland would not be liberated by the national movement of the oppressed nation, but by the working-class movement of the oppressor nation. Marx did not make an Absolute of the national movement, knowing, as he did, that only the victory of the working class can bring about the complete liberation of all nationalities. It is impossible to estimate beforehand all the possible relations between the bourgeois liberation movements of the oppressed nations and the proletarian emancipation movement of the oppressor nation (the very problem which today makes the national question in Russia so difficult).

However, it so happened that the English working class fell under the influence of the liberals for a fairly long time, became an appendage to the liberals, and by adopting a liberal-labour policy left itself leaderless. The bourgeois liberation movement in Ireland grew stronger and assumed revolutionary forms. Marx reconsidered his view and corrected it. “What a misfortune it is for a nation to have subjugated another.” The English working class will never be free until Ireland is freed from the English yoke. Reaction in England is strengthened and fostered by the enslavement of Ireland (just as reaction in Russia is fostered by her enslavement of a number of nations!).

And, in proposing in the International a resolution of sympathy with “the Irish nation”, “the Irish people” (the clever L. Vl. would probably have berated poor Marx for forgetting about the class struggle!), Marx advocated the separation of Ireland from England, “although after the separation there may come federation”.

Should also add that Rosa is not against 'self-determination' in the colloquial sense of people being able to determine their own lives - she simply says this is not possible within the framework of capitalism. This nevertheless does not indicate either support or indifference to colonialism in the slightest - again this is clear when you read what she actually said rather than Lenin's response to it. i.e. I don't Rosa's position that national self-determination would be a sham (something that foreshadowed 'neo-colonial' independence half a century later) means that she wouldn't support opposition to the colonial state or national militaries in the slightest - something that is often attributed to people who 'oppose national self-determination', not really the position.

slothjabber

If the task of the working class is not to fight for reforms inside capitalism but to destroy it, then national self-determination doesn't come into it.

But what are mass strikes with mass meetings of thousands of people, self-organisation against state violence such as pass laws, strikes which face massacres by police, blockades and strike action against militarism? I'd personally say they comprise part of the task of the working class (even if not explicitly communist), both pure self-defence/international solidarity and opening up the possibility for the struggle to be extended.

slothjabber

They "revised their opinions quite quickly after encountering the reality and seeing its development" - isn't the development the point? It's clear to me the article is saying 'started well, ended badly'. And Lenin and Trotsky's policies were among the things that made things go badly, but so were the actual material conditions existing in the world.

The question then is was it worth the attempt, as Pankhurst, Gorter and the rest believed, or was it not worth the bother?

The vast majority of communists in the UK, Netherlands or Germany did not have first hand information on what was going on in Russia, second hand information was provided by Lenin/The Bolsheviks, the local bourgeois press, and I'm not sure who else.

So the impression of the revolution in 1917-1919 from outside Russia, and the reality of what was going on in Russia, would have been very different. This is why Emma Goldman's book is called 'My Disillusionment in Russia', nor 'Confirmation of my suspicions in Russia'.

Therefore while I think it makes sense to be strict with the chronology of the positions Lenin took both to Russia and internationally, people internationally were operating on partial information weeks, months, or years out of date - they might have been around at the time, but they had a lot less information than we do now.

Mike Harman

...

This is basic international working class solidarity, it does not tell anyone to line up with the new national bourgeois...

...
But what are mass strikes with mass meetings of thousands of people, self-organisation against state violence such as pass laws, strikes which face massacres by police, blockades and strike action against militarism? I'd personally say they comprise part of the task of the working class (even if not explicitly communist), both pure self-defence/international solidarity and opening up the possibility for the struggle to be extended.

I'd regard all of this as working class self-organisation; 'nationalism', or even the 'rights of nations to self-determination' doesn't come into it. Nationalism is allying with a bourgeoisie that speaks your language against workers who don't. Making common cause with workers who speak your language, against a bourgeoisie that also speaks your language, is not 'nationalism'. Even less so making common cause with workers who don't speak your language against a bourgeoisie that does.

Red Marriott

But I see your partial critique of Bolshevism as late and insufficient, as previously explained.

I think early signs of the degeneration were already visible by spring of 1918 and by 1921 the process of counter-revolution definitely begins. Is that too late? What do you think?

Bolsheviks tried to make the best of a bad situation. They knew that without world revolution, Soviet Russia was doomed. And after the revolution, each year of isolation brought them closer to doom.

Mike Harman

It seems quite possible for Marx to take that position, as he did supporting the North in the American Civil War, but in both cases the positions are based on what might increase working class solidarity, not Lenin's geopolitical opportunism and formalistic assertions.

While I agree that by the 1920s that's how the principle of self-determination came to be applied, Lenin originally formulated his theory in the context of the nations oppressed by the Russian Empire. For him the "Russian Socialists who fail to demand freedom of secession for Finland, Poland, the Ukraine, etc., etc.—are behaving like chauvinists, like lackeys of the blood-and-mud-stained imperialist monarchies and the imperialist bourgeoisie." (Lenin, 1916)

In other words, it was a tactical question. For Lenin, denying self-determination meant strengthening Russian chauvinism. Whereas for Luxemburg, accepting self-determination meant strengthening Polish nationalism.

Dyjbas

While I agree that by the 1920s that's how the principle of self-determination came to be applied, Lenin originally formulated his theory in the context of the nations oppressed by the Russian Empire.

Except once again, this is in 1914:

Lenin

This is not the first time that national movements have arisen in Russia, nor are they peculiar to that country alone. Throughout the world, the period of the final victory of capitalism over feudalism has been linked up with national movements. For the complete victory of commodity production, the bourgeoisie must capture the home market, and there must be politically united territories whose population speak a single language, with all obstacles to the development of that language and to its consolidation in literature eliminated. Therein is the economic foundation of national movements. Language is the most important means of human intercourse. Unity and unimpeded development of language are the most important conditions for genuinely free and extensive commerce on a scale commensurate with modern capitalism, for a free and broad grouping of the population in all its various classes and, lastly, for the establishment of a close connection between the market and each and every proprietor, big or little, and between seller and buyer.

Therefore, the tendency of every national movement is towards the formation of national states, under which these requirements of modern capitalism are best satisfied. The most profound economic factors drive towards this goal, and, therefore, for the whole of Western Europe, nay, for the entire civilised world, the national state is typical and normal for the capitalist period.

This is nothing to do with colonial oppression or international working class solidarity that might immediately precipitate a revolution, it's to do with bourgeois modernisation under a national leadership.

Lenin

There is no doubt that the greater part of Asia, the most densely populated continent, consists either of colonies of the “Great Powers”, or of states that are extremely dependent and oppressed as nations. But does this commonly-known circumstance in any way shake the undoubted fact that in Asia itself the conditions for the most complete development of commodity production and the freest, widest and speediest growth of capitalism have been created only in Japan, i. e., only in an independent national state? The latter is a bourgeois state, and for that reason has itself begun to oppress other nations and to enslave colonies. We cannot say whether Asia will have had time to develop into a system of independent national states, like Europe, before the collapse of capitalism, but it remains an undisputed fact that capitalism, having awakened Asia, has called forth national movements everywhere in that continent, too; that the tendency of these movements is towards the creation of national states in Asia; that it is such states that ensure, the best conditions for the development of capitalism.

Apart from anything else, the big problem here for Lenin, is that he sees colonies of the Imperialist countries as 'pre-capitalist' whereas colonisation had already brought those countries into the world capitalist system - usually via various forms of plantation forced or semi-free labour for cash crop export (sugar in the Caribbean, cotton in America, coffee in East Africa, rubber in Malaya). This is something that Marx had already noted in Capital, but which Lenin overlooks.

slothjabber

I'd regard all of this as working class self-organisation; 'nationalism', or even the 'rights of nations to self-determination' doesn't come into it. Nationalism is allying with a bourgeoisie that speaks your language against workers who don't.

OK me too, I think that trying to get pass laws revoked, or a mass strike for shorter hours or a pay rise, can be reasonably described as fighting for reforms - although we can distinguish these from reformism as such by calling them 'fighting for concessions' maybe.

So in that case would you consider Marx's remarks on Ireland - at least the ones I quoted, to be an expression of international working class solidarity rather than support for the 'rights of nations to self-determination'? There is plenty of Marx's international political opinions to disagree with (the French need a smashing or whatever), but I prefer to disagree with what he actually said, or note inconsistencies, as opposed to Lenin who misquotes him to make a completely different point.

The point being of course that if we think Marx mostly formulated British-Irish solidarity as a call for working class solidarity, then it provides an example of an early alternative framework for anti-colonial solidarity from that of 'the right of nations to self-determination'.

Mike Harman

Except once again, this is in 1914

But as it says in the article by Lenin that I linked to, "the difference between the revolutionary Social-Democrats of Russia and the Polish Social-Democrats on the question of self-determination came to the surface as early as 1903." I.e. a long time before 1914.

As a side note, you can trace the opposition of the Polish Social-Democrats to national liberation all the way back to the 1880s. See e.g. this and this.

Dyjbas

Mike Harman

Except once again, this is in 1914

But as it says in the article by Lenin that I linked to, "the difference between the revolutionary Social-Democrats of Russia and the Polish Social-Democrats on the question of self-determination came to the surface as early as 1903." I.e. a long time before 1914.

As a side note, you can trace the opposition of the Polish Social-Democrats to national liberation all the way back to the 1880s. See e.g. this and this.

The problem is that you (and Lenin) are conflating opposition to colonialism from workers in the colonialist/imperialist state, with support for the nationalist bourgeois in the colonised state, and calling both of these 'support for national liberation'. This is the rhetorical sleight of hand that Lenin uses to attack Rosa Luxemburg's position, and which forms much of the basis of Leninist support for national bourgeois right up until today. However you can see in the sections I quoted, that he somewhat admits that Marx took the 'oppose colonialism' position, not the 'support national bourgeois' one.

So it is not the case that Marx was correct in 1870 and Lenin was wrong in 1914 with identical positions, but that Marx and Lenin had different positions which Lenin pretends are the same to dishonestly attack Luxemburg.

If we can admit that Marx's position was not the same as Lenin, and whether it's perfect or not, it does point towards an anti-colonial internationalist solidarity, as opposed to a reactionary nationalist anti-imperialism, then we can ask to what extent does Marx's framework for understanding this question (primarily from the standpoint of the solidarity or lack of it between geographically/nationally stratified groups of workers) provides an alternative to Lenin's, rather than simply being 'of a different time'.

Mike Harman

The problem is that you (and Lenin) are conflating opposition to colonialism from workers in the colonialist/imperialist state, with support for the nationalist bourgeois in the colonised state, and calling both of these 'support for national liberation'.

I don't. There is a difference between opposition to national oppression and support for the national bourgeoisie.

Mike Harman

This is the rhetorical sleight of hand that Lenin uses to attack Rosa Luxemburg's position, and which forms much of the basis of Leninist support for national bourgeois right up until today.

I disagree with the so called "Leninist" support for national liberation. I think Luxemburg was on the right track.

Mike Harman

If we can admit that Marx's position was not the same as Lenin, and whether it's perfect or not, it does point towards an anti-colonial internationalist solidarity, as opposed to a reactionary nationalist anti-imperialism

What do you mean by "anti-colonial internationalist solidarity"? Like with "anti-imperialism", "anti-colonialism" is often code word for support for the national bourgeoisie.

slothjabber

I'll say again, this process of rapid degeneration was a result both of the failure of the world revolution and the policy decisions of the Bolsheviks. But those policy-decisions were themselves conditioned by the failure of the world revolution. Had the revolution successfully spread to Germany then the world, then the 'right of nations to self-determination' would have been consigned to the dustbin of history where it belongs, no matter what Lenin wrote in 1914, and arguments about whether the Labour Party should have been supported 'as the rope supports the hangman' would be moot.

But the revolution didn't spread; and that is what caused the degeneration of the ComIntern, the material conditions not 'bad ideas'. .

i think the idea that the revolution failed because it failed to spread is massively flawed, if the revolution had spread in the same from as in did in russia, the centralising tendencies would have still been there, the councils would have still been under the control of parties not the workers, the party that took power would have still sort to crush other organisations on the left, because those where things that happened from the start of the revolution, and if that form of revolution succeed across the world we'd still be in need of another one

Yes, if it had we would.

But why would it? Are workers incapable of revolting without bureaucrats telling them how?

Radicalgraffiti, for one, had the revolution been successful in Germany (which is what everyone was hoping for) the political makeup of the Comintern would have been different. In fact, the First Congress was originally to take place either in Berlin or in the Netherlands, but with the crushing of the Spartacist Uprising in January 1919, that plan had to be changed.

We can play "what-ifs" with history but had the revolution spread, it would not have spread in exactly the same way as in did in Russia (because the material conditions and the political forces involved were different in different countries). With successful revolutions in more than one country though, the Comintern would not have been so easily transformed into a tool of the Russian party and eventually the Russian state.

radicalgraffiti

the councils would have still been under the control of parties not the workers, the party that took power would have still sort to crush other organisations on the left, because those where things that happened from the start of the revolution

You are confusing the final outcome with a process of degeneration. The working class in Russia was in control of the soviets (it gradually lost it over the course of the Civil War), the Bolsheviks did work together with the Left SRs, Menshevik-Internationalists, Maximalists and various anarchists (relations with some of these groups only broke around spring 1918, after the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk).

Dyjbas

What do you mean by "anti-colonial internationalist solidarity"? Like with "anti-imperialism", "anti-colonialism" is often code word for support for the national bourgeoisie.

I gave specific examples above, which I don't believe you've responded to, here they are again:

Mike Harman

What Marx very specifically does not talk about there, is Irish workers siding with the Irish national bourgeois. Maybe he says that elsewhere, I'm sure someone else can find it if they're motivated. It seems quite possible for Marx to take that position, as he did supporting the North in the American Civil War, but in both cases the positions are based on what might increase working class solidarity, not Lenin's geopolitical opportunism and formalistic assertions.

Similarly, Spanish workers in the 1930s should have consistently supported the end of Spain's colonial domination over Morocco - had they done so, it's possible the Moors would have joined them in 1936-39, or at least sat it out instead of fighting for Franco.

Or British workers should have supported the end of British colonial control of Kenya (and Bahrain, and Jamaica, and everywhere else). Possibly if they'd done so in Kenya it would have been harder for the UK to break the massive strike wave in 1945-1950, put hundreds of thousands in concentration camps in the '50s, or send marines to crush a mutiny on behalf of Kenyatta shortly after independence.

This is basic international working class solidarity, it does not tell anyone to line up with the new national bourgeois.

Ok, but all you've said there is that

Mike Harman

Spanish workers in the 1930s should have consistently supported the end of Spain's colonial domination over Morocco

And that

Mike Harman

British workers should have supported the end of British colonial control of Kenya

That's all well and good, but it doesn't answer the question of what this support should have looked like. For many so called anti-colonialists it did mean supporting (mostly by words, sometimes by deeds) the rising national bourgeoisie. Whereas internationalists affirm that "the main enemy is at home" and that no support should be given to the bourgeoisie anywhere.

Dyjbas

Radicalgraffiti, for one, had the revolution been successful in Germany (which is what everyone was hoping for) the political makeup of the Comintern would have been different. In fact, the First Congress was originally to take place either in Berlin or in the Netherlands, but with the crushing of the Spartacist Uprising in January 1919, that plan had to be changed.

We can play "what-ifs" with history but had the revolution spread, it would not have spread in exactly the same way as in did in Russia (because the material conditions and the political forces involved were different in different countries). With successful revolutions in more than one country though, the Comintern would not have been so easily transformed into a tool of the Russian party and eventually the Russian state.

radicalgraffiti

the councils would have still been under the control of parties not the workers, the party that took power would have still sort to crush other organisations on the left, because those where things that happened from the start of the revolution

You are confusing the final outcome with a process of degeneration. The working class in Russia was in control of the soviets (it gradually lost it over the course of the Civil War), the Bolsheviks did work together with the Left SRs, Menshevik-Internationalists, Maximalists and various anarchists (relations with some of these groups only broke around spring 1918, after the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk).

i don't think i am
this came up before recently in fact i replied to you that time too
https://libcom.org/forums/history/how-did-bolsheviks-take-state-power-02012019#comment-611328
unless you have a better source, that also contradicts the one you cited last time then i think the evidence shows the workers were never in control of the 1917 soviets, from the start decisions were made by executive committees etc, obviously it got worse over time, but most of the problems were there form the start

this also why i don't think if the revolution had spread that would have solved every thing, cause a lot of wat was wrong wasn't about how isolated russia was or what resources where available

Radicalgraffiti, I responded to that very comment of yours on that thread (which you did not reply to).

Objecting to the existence of executive committees for bodies comprising hundreds, if not thousands, of workers is a bit ridiculous. You might as well object to strike committees as "authoritarian" too.

Dyjbas

Radicalgraffiti, I responded to that very comment of yours on that thread (which you did not reply to).

Objecting to the existence of executive committees for bodies comprising hundreds, if not thousands, of workers is a bit ridiculous. You might as well object to strike committees as "authoritarian" too.

you do understand what anarchist means right? i guess not

i agree with Mike Harman's responses on the other thread, i didn't really see the point in repeating them

Dyjbas

That's all well and good, but it doesn't answer the question of what this support should have looked like. For many so called anti-colonialists it did mean supporting (mostly by words, sometimes by deeds) the rising national bourgeoisie.

In Kenya the rising national bourgeoisie on the part of Kenyatta was trying to call off strikes in the 1940s and supporting a nominally non-racist pass law rather than its abolition. The British absolutely misunderstood him when they arrested him, when in fact he was from the start happy to manage Kenya on behalf of the British. He was an unpopular figure until his arrest and imprisonment.

The other significant proto-bourgeois faction in Kenya were the Chiefs, who were loyalists already integrated into the colonial state, they assisted the British with forced labour in the inter-war and WWII years, then during the State of Emergency in running concentration camps. After the State of Emergency Kenyatta helped to put down the last KLFA guerrillas just before and after independence and called in British troops to put down a mutiny.

For another example we could talk about the Saigon Commune: https://libcom.org/history/articles/saigon-commune-1945

The idea that the national bourgeois supports anti-colonial movements up and until independence, then crushes them, is itself a Leninist myth that does not apply in a large number of cases. All the way back to Haiti you have Toussaint attempting to negotiate with Napoleon to run Haiti as a plantation state (based on wage labour instead of slavery but still based on export of cash crops), maintaining trade with France, putting down plantation insurrections and acting militarily against the maroons.

Dyjbas

Whereas internationalists affirm that "the main enemy is at home" and that no support should be given to the bourgeoisie anywhere.

Amazing, I've been an admin on an internationalist website for nearly 15 years and I've never heard this! What would we do without the internationalist fraction of the communist left indeed!

In the case of Spain, the Spanish state was in control of Morocco, supporting the continued colonisation of Morocco was supporting the 'main enemy'. In Kenya the British state was in control. In Spain I think there was quite a lot of division over this question. In the UK as far as I've been able to tell there was complete indifference.

'Support' at the basic level can simply be publishing articles detailing what's happening to the extent possible, supporting working class organisation against both the British state and the emergent local ruling class. Surely you believe this is possible without giving support to the local bourgeois? Is supporting strikes and uprisings in Iran support for MEK?

Much more concretely (to give a hypothetical example for Kenya) would be things like blacking Kenyan goods from arriving in British ports or attempting to disrupt military recruitment/distribution lines. This all seems quite basic and I'm not sure why it's necessary to point it out unless you're really entirely incapable of discussing in good faith.

Mike, it does need pointing out, because, like I said above, people mean different things by "anti-colonialism" (to bring it back to the previous discussion, see for example Pankhurst and her support for Haile Selassie...). I agree with this:

Mike Harman

'Support' at the basic level can simply be publishing articles detailing what's happening to the extent possible, supporting working class organisation against both the British state and the emergent local ruling class.

Although I would say working class self-organisation (so not trade unions or modern social-democratic parties, which purport to be examples of working class organisation but ultimately act against the class).

In any case, as it stands this discussion has already been derailed enough from what the topic of the article actually is...

Politically, as an anarcho-syndicalist, I find this basically just bad politics.

That said, it has been a generally interesting conversation to follow.

Dyjbas

Mike, it does need pointing out, because, like I said above, people mean different things by "anti-colonialism"

The problem is though that to get any acknowledgement of you about international solidarity with working class self-organisation takes about 15 replies, where your main response is to point out that lots of people conflate anti-colonial with support for national bourgeois.

We should be able to do better than accepting Leninist framing of things, then purely rejecting their conclusions, but not the flawed analysis and ahistorical approach that accompanies both the initial framing and the conclusions. Or in other words there needs to be more than a reflexive anti-Leninism/anti-nationalism in order for there to be actual communist internationalism.

Given the comintern was the biggest single promoter of supporting national bourgeois during the 20th century, beginning with the 'national liberation' of Germany as early as 1920-23 (against the German working class) I don't think it's too far off the topic of the thread.

I think I've made it pretty clear that international working class self-organisation is absolutely key. So does the article - it also criticises the Comintern for its support for national liberation, in contrast to the internationalism of its First Congress.

Leninistgirl, there is no false narrative here but there is in your mind a confusion between Lenin and the organisations he was in. Lenin certainly held the view that the the right of self-determination should be supported but initially this was because of his opposition to Russian nationalism ("Great Russian chauvinism") BUT he was not supported by all Bolsheviks (Piatakov, Bosch and Bukharin especially) and the right of self-determination was not part of the Bolshevik programme in October (something Rosa Luxemburg did not understand since she blamed the Bolshevik policy of self-determination for the loss of Finland and Ukraine (when in fact the Bolsheviks simply were in no position to defend those territories). Lenin's instructions over Georgia were also ignored by Stalin who re-annexed the territory. However in the Comintern Lenin revived the slogan but this time on an international level (meaning support for "anti-colonial" bourgeois forces). His position was attacked by M N Roy and Sultanzadeh in the Comintern meetings but this policy prevailed and was to have murderous consequences for the proletariat in Turkey, China and elsewhere who were mowed down by bourgeois forces which had been supported by the Comintern.