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At Leninism
Ron Taber

D -■ At-
A Look
At Leninism

\

A Look
At Leninism
by
Ron Taber
ASPECT FOUNDATION/NEW YORK/1983

copyright © 1967, 1988
Revolutionary Socialist League, Box 1268 GPO, New York, NY 10116
copyright 1986 ASPFCT FOUNDATION, New York, New York	
First printing	October 1988	/jf\
Printed by Grass Roots Press, Raleigh, North Carolina ®
Library of Congress Caialoging-in-Publication Data
Taber, Ron, 1947-
A look at Leninism / by Ron Taber.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-939073-36-6 : $3,50
1. Communism— Soviet Union—History—20th Century. 2. Lenin.
Vladimir Il'ich, I870-I924, 1. Title.
HX3I3.T24 1988	88-8169
335.43'0947—dc 19	CIP

Contents
Preface ..	       vii
Introduction 	    1
1.	What Kind of Revolution?  	  9
2.	Party, Class and Socialist Consciousness  	  25
3.	The “Ethos" of Bolshevism	    37
4.	State and Revolution  	    52
5.	Lenin’s Theory ol Knowledge—	Part I 	67
6.	Lenin’s Theory of Knowledge —Part II  	    78
Conclusion  	  93

Preface
T
 HE book in your hands was originally written as a series of
articles in (lie Torch/La Antorcha, a newspaper published by
the Revolutionary Sod a list League, in 1987 and early 1988, The
ideas presented in these articles had been germinating in my mind
for quite some lime. They were, in particular, an offshoot of work
on a previous book, Trotskyism and the Diktnma af Sodtrffrrm
(with Christopher Z. Hobson), a history of Trotskyism and a cri-
tique of Leon Trotsky's theory of the nature of the Soviet Union,
During the course of writing that book, it became dear to me
that Trotsky’s tendency to lay the blame for the totalitarian evolu-
tion of the Soviet regime solely at die hands of Joseph Stalin, and
to exonerate Lenin of any responsibility, was, at the very least,
one-sided. The question: What role did Bolshevik Party founder
and leader, V,l, Lenin, and his theories and practical activity play
in the establishment or that oppressive society fwhieh we call state
capitalism)?—thus presented itself.
The resuk was a considerable amount of additional reading on
the October Revolution, the Civil War and its aftermath, various
philosophical questions, and a re-reading of a number of works of
Lenin himself. Partial conclusions from this program were recorded
in a number of rough drafts of documents intended for internal
discussion in the Revolutionary Socialist League and in a talk pre-
sented at the 1986 convention of that organization. 1 was not satis-
fied with any of these presents! ions or my conclusions, however.
At a cerlain poinl in my reevaluation of Leninism, it occurred to
me that the fundamental outlook and mentality of Lenin and the
Bolshevik ParLy as a whole were overwhelmingly authoritarian, and
1 could no longer square my acceptance of Leninism with my more
fundamental commitment to a revolutionary libertarian socialism.
As a major leader of the RSL. I could not in good conscience

keep this conclusion to myself. The series of articles now compiled
in this book was my attempt to explain and motivate my thinking.
Since they were written over a period of 13 months, for a news-
paper and hence for a fairly broad audience, and often under the
pressure of deadlines, the articles are occasionally repetitive, while
some issues are covered somewhat simplistically. Moreover, a num-
ber of topics—the attitude of Lenin toward the peasantry, for ex-
ample— were omitted for reasons of time and space Despite this,
the articles represent an accurate enough presentation of my cur-
rent evaluation of Leninism to warrant re-publication in book
form. It is hoped that whatever weaknesses the resulting book ex-
hibits do not prevent it from being of some value for those looking
for a political outlook and strategy that are both revolutionary and
anti-authoritarian.
I would particularly like to thank Bruce Kala for his time and
patience both in typesetting the original articles and inserting the
various minor editing changes made since then. All errors, of
course, are solely my responsibility.

Introduction
I
N the discussion that follows, Leninism is taken 10 mean the
theory and practice of the political tendeney/facti on/party with-
in the Russian revolutionary movement led by V.I. Lenin, from
around 1900, through the October Revolution of 1917, to the early
years of the Bolshevik regime. Although other individuals played
prominent roles in various phases of the Bolshevik tendency, Lenin
was by far the dominant personality, as theoretician, organizer and
overall leader. Bolshevism was overwhelmingly his idea. And while
Lenin’s ideas and policies changed during the course of his political
career, there is sufficient unity and continuity among them to justify
describing and analyzing them as Leninism.
This series is not meant to he a complete work on Leninism,
Nor is it intended to be a "balance sheet,” a careful weighing of
pluses and minuses. Having considered ourselves Leninists for the
length of our history as a tendency, our task now is not to look at
ihe positive but, in the interests of ait insightful analysis, to focus
on the negative, to look for the weaknesses in Leninism. A discus-
sion of the pluses — in the light of the negatives — and a balance
sheet can come later.
Our unifying theme, though, is not negativity per se, but a par-
ticular question or problem. This can be described roughly as fol-
lows: What responsibility does Leninism /Bolshevism have for the
social system, and the crimes, of what we have- loosely called Sta-
linism and more accurately labelled stale capitalism?
As most readers of the Torch/La Antorcha are aware, we do
not believe that the social systems that exist in Russia. China,
Cuba, Eastern Europe. Vietnam, etc.. are socialist, moving toward
socialism, workers' states or even progressive. Instead, we consider
them to be highly statifkd variants of capitalism—state capitalism.
In these societies, the workers and other oppressed people, deprived

of political rights and power over the state, are exploited by a bu-
reaucratic elite built around the party/state economic, political and
military apparatus.
I do not intend to argue for, let alone try to prove, this position
here, (We have discussed it many times elsewhere.) It is a premise
of the series. Taking it as a starting point, I am particularly inter-
ested in the establishment of the very first state capitalist regime—
that in Russia—which was the outcome of the October (Bolshevik)
Revolution of 17. This revolution and regime were not only the
inspiration and mode! for I he revolutions and processes that estab-
lished the other stale capitalist systems. In addition, because of the
nature of the October Revolution itself, the insurrection and the
Bolshevik regime it established have been key factors supporting
the illusion that Lhe state capitalist regimes are socialist.
We believe that the October Revolution was, to a considerable
degree, a revolution carried out by the working class and supported
by the peasantry. The Bolshevik Party, which led the revolution
(along with the Left Social Revolutionaries and various anarchist
organist ions} had won majorities in the soviets (workers’ councils
set up by the workers themselves after the revolution in February),
the factory committees and other mass organizations. Most of
these soviets had passed resolutions calling for ‘All Power to the
Soviets” some weeks before the revolution.
The uprising itseif was effected by a fairly broad number of
workers’, soldiers’ and sailors’ organisations, most of which were
not part of the Bolshevik Party or even under its firm control.
Moreover, after i( had occurred, the insurrection was approved by
an All-Russian Congress of Soviets and by other mass organisa-
tions. (The insurrection was also supported de facto—indeed, made
possible—by the mass of peasants, who rose up and seized and di-
vided the landed estates during the summer and fail of 1917,)
The October Revolution, in other words, was not simply a Bol-
shevik coup d’ftai, carried out against the wishes and behind the
backs of the workers and peasants.
Despite the popular nature of the insurrection, however, the re-
gime that finally emerged from the revolution, the Civil War and
Stalin’s consolidation of power was a frightful totalitarian dictator-
ship that had deprived the workers of any control over the facto-
ries, had taken the land back from the peasants, had deprived both
of them of control over the state, as well as virtually ail political
rights, and had killed millions of people in the process.

In the past, we tended to pin the responsibility for [his develop-
ment on 1) Joseph Statin, who look over the leadership of the Bol-
shevik (Communist) Party after Lenin’s illness and death, and 2)
objective conditions. In other words, paraphrasing Leon Trotsky’s
analysis, we believed that certain objective conditions—the failure
of workers in other countries to carry out successful revolutions,
the counter-revolutionary attempts and imperialist interventions in
Russia, Russia’s historical backwardness and poverty, along with
the disruption and devastation brought about by World W*r I, the
revolutions and Civil Wat — prevented the Bolshevik government
from evolving into a healthy proletarian dictatorship {’"a state that
is already becoming a non-state.” a “Commune-type state,” etc.).
Instead, they enabled a bureaucracy, led grd organized by Stalin,
to seize power, eliminate the last vestiges of workers’ control over
the economy and state, smash the peasants and consolidate itself as
a state capitalist ruling class.
Vet, is this the whole story? Is it realty possible to place the
responsibility/blamc soiely on objective conditions and Stalin, and
to leave ihe Bolsheviks and Lenin blame-freC? I don’t think so.
There arc a number of questions whose very posing suggests that
the Bolsheviks themselves (meaning Lenin and the party as a whole
prior to Stalin establishing his stranglehold over it) have at least
some responsibility for what happened. For one thing, how did
Stalin get to be the head of the party? Why was a man like that in
the parly in the first place? What kind of party would enable
someone like Stalin to thrive in it, be a major leader for many
years and finally establish himself as its key leader?
Why did Lenin appoint Sialin to the Organization Bureau and
Secretarial of the Party, let alone appoim him, or allow him to be-
come, General Secretary of the Party? Why did so many Bolshe-
viks line up with Stalin against Trotsky and against, so it would
seem, the original ideals of Bolshevism? What enabled Stalin so
easily to don the mantle of Leninism? Why didn’t more Bolsheviks
organize to stop Stalin? Why did they allow themselves to be “liq-
uidated’' by him without a serious struggle?
AH these questions suggest, at least to me, that there was some-
thing in the theory and practice of the Bolshevik Party, its politics
and methods, its atmosphere and “ethos” that ]) gave rise to Sta-
lin and 2) helped create the circumstances that allowed him to con-
solidate state capitalism in Russia,
Holding Letiin and the Bolsheviks (and Leninism) at least par-

tially responsible for the establishment of state capitalism flows not
just from the above questions about Stalin and the party, but even
more from an objective took at the state and society that had been
established in Russia at the conclusion of the Civil War (when
Lenin was still alive and well).
By this time, the Soviet government was a one-party regime, run
totally by the Bolsheviks, The parly dominated the soviets, which
had become little more than vehicles for carrying out policies the
Bolsheviks decided rather than the arena in which the workers de-
termined policies and chose and controlled their leadership. Nor did
the workers run the factories or any other part of the economy.
The factory committees had long been superseded by “one-man
management” — Bolshevik appointees in no way elected or con-
trolled by, or responsible to, the workers.
Almost all other political parties were either outlawed or barely
tolerated (until 1922 when they tvene outlawed) and harassed by the
Cheka (political police). After the ban on internal factions in the
Bolshevik Parly was adopted in March 1921, the Cheka hounded
opposition forces even within the party. The trade unions were al-
most exclusively arms of the state and while some strikes were legal
under the NEP (New Economic Policy, adopted in 1921), strikes
were strongly discouraged and strikers, and especially strike leaders,
were harassed and arrested.
More broadly, the Bolshevik Party was isolated from the popular
classes, including the overwhelming majority of the workers and
peasants. This is indicated by the Bolsheviks’ suppression of the
uprising at the Kronstadt naval fortress, the mass peasant uprisings
in a number of provinces (e.g., Tambov) and the near general
strike in Petrograd, which had long been the Bolsheviks’ chief po-
litical base—all of which occurred at the close of the Civil War in
early 1921. In short, while the Soviet state was nowhere near the
Stalinist nightmare it was to become, by 1922, the foundations of a
state capitalist regime had been constructed, replete with censorship
(libraries were periodically purged to eliminate “offensive” material,
including outdated Bolshevik writings), secret police, labor camps,
etc.
The point here is not that the post-Civil War regime in Russia
was fully state capitalist and totalitarian. Nor is it that the Bolshe-
viks were Lotally responsible for the establishment of such a regime
and therefore the Bolsheviks were nothing but a state capitalist po-
litical force. (1 think the question is more complicated than this.) It

is to indicate that an objective loo]; at the problem suggests that
the Bolsheviks have to be held at least partially responsible for the
establishment of state capitalism, and the Stalinist hell-hole, in
Russia. {Hopefully, just how responsible will emerge from the
series.)
Why is the question of Leninism and its relation to Stalinism/
state capitalism so important to 0$ There are two interrelated rea-
sons. 1} When the Revolutionary Socialist League was founded, we
defined ourselves essentially as "orthodox Trotskyists*1 with a slate
capitalist position on the nature of Russia and the other so-called
“socialist countries." Our Trotskyism included a belief in an ortho-
dox leninism and Marxism, more or less eis defined by Trotsky.
We rarely posed it precisely this way, but this is what we meant
when we defined Trotskyism as the “continuity" of Marxism and
Leninism.
Unlike other left groups, however, we were not content to define
ourselves In a certain “orthodox" way and then leave our politics
alone. For a variety of reasons (one of which was the impact of
[he women’s and the lesbian and gay liberation movements), we
subjected our politics to a continual questioning. In particular, we
began to investigate Trotskyism in some detail
A key impetus for this process was internal to our theory. Spe-
cifically, we began to realijtc that if Trotsky had been wrong about
the nature of Russia, this error was not likely to have been an iso-
lated one, without effect on other aspects of his politics and meth-
ods, Among other things, we recognised that in addition to what
we saw as the positive, pro-socialist aspects of Trotsky’s politics
(leading hint ultimately lo call for a revolution against Stalin and
to advocate a multi-party democracy under a workers’ state), there
were what we called "state capitalist" aspects or tendencies, tenden-
cies that justified or implied state capitalism, it was these tendencies
that led Trotsky’s followers in the Fourth International, after the
expansion of state capitalism into Eastern Europe following World
Wat 11, lo capitulate and become apologists for stale capitalism.
(As this suggests, the most obvious stale capitalist aspect of Trot-
skyism was Trotsky’s position that Russia under Staiin was a “de-
generated workers’ state,’’ and its implied corollary that a state can
be a workers* state even though it is not eontrolled by—indeed, ac-
tually oppresses—the workers,)
In short, we decided that there were definite state capitalist as-
pects to Trotskyism and that we should discard those, retain the

“pro-socialist” aspects, modify the others as needed, and generally
move away from an “orthodox” (formalistic, dogmatic) conception
of politics toward a more synthetic (some might say eclectic) ap-
proach. The latter includes looking at, and borrowing from, other
left-wing political traditions, such as anarchism.
As part of our developing critique of Trotskyism, we began to
pay special attention to the period from the October Revolution,
through the Civil War, to Lenin’s incapacitation and de facto re-
tirement in late 1922-23. This was the period, according to Trotsky,
in which the Bolshevik regime was a relatively healthy workers’
state (it had “bureaucratic distortions,” in I.enin’s phrase). It be-
came clear to us, however, that this was far from the case, espe-
cially if viewed from the Marxist ideal of a state already beginning
to wither away, etc.
As has already been indicated, the soviet regime by this time was
significantly bureaucratized (stale capitalist), and much of this was
the direct result of the measures taken by the Bolsheviks them-
selves: centralizing economic and political power in their own
hands, eliminating direct workers’ control of the factories, sup-
pressing other political tendencies, requisitioning grain from the
peasants by force, establishing a secret police, building an army
along hierarchical/bourgeois lines, etc. However much these meas-
ures were taken in reaction to the equally harsh, if not harsher,
measures taken by the Bolsheviks’ opponents, they were neverthe-
less extremely bureaucratic, coercive and brutal. In addition, the
Bolsheviks justified and even glorified them, and made no serious
effort lo reverse them (except for forced requisitions), after the
Civil War was over.
Most important, these measures, for whatever reason they were
taken, whether justified or not, involved the de facto destruction of
the workers’ control over the economy and state. A consideration
of this fact at least posed the question that I am now proposing to
discuss: How much responsibility for state capitalism lies with Len-
inism; or, how much state capitalism is there in Leninism?
There is a more general reason for our concern with the question
of Leninism, and it is something that has motivated our theoretical
interest from before the foundation of the RSL. This is another
question: How did revolutionary socialism, a world-view and move-
ment that claim to be for the liberation of humanity through a
revolution by ils most oppressed classes, wind up creating one of
the more oppressive, less liberatory social systems the world has

seen? Whatever the achievements of the state capitalist countries
(which we don’t propose to dispute or discuss here), these gains
have come at the suffering and deaths of millions of people, (The
estimates of the people who died as a result of Stalin’s forced
“collectivization” and the resulting famine, along with the massive
purges—not counting deaths in World War 11—range upward from
20 million. See Robert Conquest, The Honest of Sorrow, Oxford,
1986, and The Great Terror, Macmillan, 1968. Estimates of those
who died in Mao’s Great Leap forward and the Cultural Revolu-
tion in China run in the many millions.)
Moreover, the results of this incredible human sacrifice are not
dynamic and prosperous social systems in which people live in
abundance and security, (With one exception, these countries are
now stagnating; the exception, China, is saving itself from stagna-
tion, at least for now, by adopting free market, i.e., traditional
capitalist, policies.) Nor are these countries models of, or even
moving toward, socialist democracy.
These facts are something that revolutionary socialists, particu-
larly those who consider themselves Leninists, must face up to and
take responsibility for. It will not do to pretend that the Stalinist/
Maoist atrocities didn't happen, to downplay their extent and grav-
ity, to consider them merely temporary “aberrations," or to fool
oneself into believing that they cannot happen again. To those with
open eyes and open minds, the problem remains: The concrete his-
torical result of the program of socialist revolution has not led to
what it promised; instead, it has resulted in a stupendous human
tragedy, (The relatively benign character of the Cuban and Sandi-
nisia revolutions should not blind us to the realities of Russia, Chi-
na and,.. Kampuchea.)
Whatever the rest of the left may do, we in the Revolutionary
Socialist L eague feel we have a deep political, and moral, responsi-
bility lo investigate as thoroughly as we can why this happened.
How can we propose a way forward for workers and other op-
pressed groups, or say we have a solution to their problems and to
the crisis of world capitalism, without investigating the reasons for
the historic failure of revolutionary socialism? It is easy to be
against things—poverty, racism and sexism, the waste and brutality
of capitalism, the destruction of tremendous human resources and
the environment, the moral corruption, etc.—without doing much
theorizing. But to advocate a profound social transformation and
the creation of a new social system, and lo do this in a responsible

manner, one oughi lo have done a greal deal of thinking about
what it is one is for and whether and under what circumstances ii
will work- Simply appealing to “historical laws” or the “science”
of historical materialism is the same as the Pope appealing to
“faith” and “revelation,” and equally dangerous.

-ONE-
What Kind of Revolution?
I
N this installment of our series, we will foeus on the question
of broad strategy, particularly—what kind of revolution did the
Bolsheviks advocate and prepare themselves for during the period
prior to the October Revolution?
Most people not very familiar with Marxist history tend to as-
sume that people and organizations that call themselves Marxist or
Communist always advocate and try to carry out sociatisi revolu-
tions^ revolutions to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism
Yet, while such revolutions have usually been declared the '‘ulti-
mate goal” of such groups, Marxian socialists in so-called "under-
developed" countries have generally advocated bourgeois (capitalist)
revolutions as the "first Stage" of the revolutionary process in their
respective countries. The Russian Marxists were no exception. Up
until April, 19)7, the entire Marxist movement, including Lenin and
the Bolsheviks, advocated and sought to carry out a bourgeois
(‘'bourgeois democratic”) revolution in Russia.
This position was consistent with, atid an essential part of, what
was considered to be "orthodox Marxism" at the time. This ortho-
doxy was largely defined by the major theoretician of the interna-
tional Marxist movement of the time (the Second, or Socialist.
International), Karl K am sky.
Based on a mechanical reading of the major texts of Marxism
and a generally formalistic mode of thought, this orthodoxy in-
sisted that each and every country in the world had to go through
all of what were considered to be the necessary stages—modes of
production—of human society between primitive communism and
social ism/comm un ism. These were ancient slave society, feudalism,
and capitalism.
Russia around the turn of the century clearly did not have a de-
veloped form of industrial capitalism—there was a king, the Tsar, a

landed nobility, peasants only recently freed from serfdom and still
bound to the land by debts, a lack of political rights, etc. The
Marxists of the period considered Russian society to be, or to have
just emerged from, a form of feudalism. And the revolution they
felt the country was moving toward, and which they advocated and
readied themselves for, was a bourgeois one. That is, the revolu-
tion would overthrow the Tsar, destroy the landed gentry, free the
peasants and set up some kind of bourgeois democratic political
system that would guarantee political rights, including the rights to
strike and form political parties, freedom of the press, etc.
Not least, the revolution would pave the way for the fullest de-
velopment of capitalism. Only after a period of capitalist develop-
ment of undetermined length, during which the country would be
industrialized and the working class would grow, organize itself
and become conscious of its position in society and of the need to
establish its own rule, would a second, socialist revolution take
place. Since, according to Marxist theory, socialism requires mod-
ern industry and material abundance, and a socialist revolution
could only be carried out by a modern working class, the Marxists
in Russia, ironically, found themselves advocates of a bourgeois
revolution and... capitalism.
With almost no exceptions (Leon Trotsky, after 1905, was one),
the entire Marxist movement in Russia subscribed to one form or
another of this theory. They not only believed it themselves, but
argued vehemently against — that is, denounced — those who dis-
agreed with them, including anarchists and populists, who after
1902 were organized in the Social Revolutionary Party. Marxism,
the “science of society,” “scientific socialism”—they contended—
deemed that Russia, feudal, semi-feudal, or recently emerged from
feudalism, could not “jump over” the “historical stage” of capi-
talism. And anyone who said it could was a dreamer, a muddle-
head or, worse, a utopian. The coming revolution in Russia was
going to be, and had to be, a bourgeois one.
In all the debates—polemics—Lenin carried out with other indi-
viduals, tendencies and parties, up to 1917, he never called the
bourgeois nature of the Russian revolution into question. For ex-
ample, in Lenin’s debates with his main Marxist opponents, such
as the "Economists” and the Mensheviks, the question of the fun-
damental (bourgeois) nature of the coming revolution was never
explicitly at issue.
In Lenin’s various books and articles on the “agrarian question,”
f

on which Lenin was an expert, one of his main aims was to advo-
cate measures that would guarantee the greatest development of
capitalist relations in agriculture. Significantly, in much of the peri-
od between 1905 and 1917, the Bolsheviks’ main agitational slogans
(directed toward the "broad masses”), known as the “three
whales” were, roughly, the eight-hour day, land to the peasants,
and a democratic republic. These are all bourgeois-democratic de-
mands.
It was only in early 1917, after the February Revolution had
overthrown the Tsar, that the Bolsheviks adopted the point of view
that the revolution they sought to carry out would be a socialist
one. (Some have argued that Lenin had come to this position as
far back as late 1914. While Lenin’s thinking changed significantly
beginning at that time—the outbreak of World War I and the col-
lapse of the Second International—it is not clear that his view of
the revolution had changed prior to late 1916-carly 1917, In any
case, Lenin was isolated from most of his followers during this
period and the changes in his thinking were not likely to have af-
fected many Bolsheviks prior to his. and their, return Lo Russia af-
ter the February Revolution.)
I do not wish to argue the substance of the question here, that
is, whether the Russian Marxists were right or wrong in their con-
ception. The point 1 wish to stress is that throughout the entire
formative period of Bolshevism as a political tendency/mo ve-
inent/party, it advocated and sought to implement not a socialist
revolution, but a bourgeois one. Given this, is it really very surpris-
ing that the revolution that the Bolsheviks did carry out in Russia,
when judged in terms of its long-term outcome, was basically a
bourgeois one, that is, il created a kind of capitalist society, not a
socialist one?
I don’t mean to be playing with words here, or to be making
cheap arguments. I am making a fundamental point. A political
movement is defined not only by its long-term proclaimed goal but
also, and even more so, by what it organizes itself around in thc
presenl and the near- and middle-term future. What it does is more
important than what it sags it is "ultimately” for.
Revolutionary Marxists, including Leninists, have always recog-
nized the validity of this point when applied to the parties of the
Second International. Although these parties advocated socialism in
the long run, by and large, their day-to-day functioning was that
of reformist socialist organizations. They ran the trade unions and

other mass organizations, Fought for pro-labor and other progres-
sive legislation in parliament, etc. Socialism was primarily for
speeches on May Day and oilier working class holidays.
Thus, while Lenin was surprised when the Second International
collapsed at the beginning of World Wat 1 (most of its constituent
parties supported the predatory war aims of "their” respective rul-
ing classes, instead of opposing the war as a whole), we. looking
back, can see that this was the most likely development. And some
astute contemporary observers, such as Rosa Luxemburg, long a
left-winger in the German Social Democratic Party (the SPD), had
realized the true nature of the majority of the movement as early
as 1910.
If the argument is vaiid vis-i-vls the Social Democracy, why does
it suddenly become false when applied to the Bolsheviks? Por most
of their history, I repeat, they advocated and prepared themselves
lo carry out a bourgeois revolution. Is this significant?
The question is not whether the Bolsheviks were really reformists
rather than revolutionaries, but what kind of revolutionaries they
were, socialist or bourgeois. Jf we arc to be consistent with our
analysis of the Second International, 1 Lhlnk wc have to answer, or
at least be open lo the idea, that the Bolsheviks were a kind (a
special kind, to be sure), of bourgeois revolutionary!
I am not raising this argument here to prove that the Bolsheviks
were really bourgeois rather than socialist revolutionaries, bur to
establish the plausibility of the contention, To me, the fact that
throughout virtually their entire history prior to the October Revo-
lution they advocated and prepared themselves to carry out a kind
of bourgeois revolution is highly suggestive. Among other things, it
makes the apparent paradox of how socialist revolutionaries wound
up creating a form of bourgeois society less paradoxical.
A number of arguments can be raised against the point i am
trying lo establish- One is that the composition of the Bolshevik
tendency/movement/party was primarily working class. Actually,
this was only true in certain limes, such as revolutionary upheavals.
At other times, the “class character” of the movement cannot sim-
ply be considered to be proletarian. It had members from the
working class, but it also had many members who were part of the
intelligentsia, a stratum of intellectuals from different backgrounds,
roughly the equivalent of the modern middle class. There is also
the question of what to consider someone from a working class
background who is a full-time party functionary. On balance,

throughout much of its history the class character of the Bolshevik
movement would have to be considered as declasse, that is, as out-
side the class structure of Russia.
In any case, the nature of a political movement/party is not pri-
marily defined by the class its members and supporters arc part of.
Most of the members of the Democratic Party in the United States
today, for example, are probably workers, but that doesn’t make
the party a working class party.
Another argument against my hypothesis that the Bolsheviks
were (despite themselves) bourgeois revolutionaries is that they
thought of themselves as Marxists, studied Marxism, made it clear
10 the workers that'they were socialists, recruited people to be so-
cialists, etc. But calling yourself a Marxist doesn't automatically
make you one. Nor does being a Marxist automatically make you
a socialist, in the revolutionary libertarian meaning of the term.
Most tendencies which today call themselves Marxist we consider
to be state capitalist, and their vision of socialism really a form of
state capitalism. How do we know what the Bolsheviks’ vision of
socialism was? Perhaps they did recruit people to be socialists, hold
study sessions, etc. on socialism. But if their vision of socialism
was to any significant degree contaminated by state capitalist ideas
— for example, that one parly (theirs) will make the decisions for
the workers—their advocacy oT what they called socialism does not
make them socialists.
In fact, it is not clear how much discussion of, or education
about, the nature of socialism the Bolsheviks regularly conducted.
The Bolsheviks, like the entire Marxist movement going back to
Marx and Engels, were impatient with discussions or investigations
about what socialism would concretely look like. This was in part
a reaction lo the utopian socialists, Robert Owen. St. Simon,
Fourier, etc., who drew up detailed plans (down to who would live
where) about what the ideal society would look like, and, in some
cases, actually tried to set up such communities, Correctly sensing
the totalitarian nature of such projects (the people in those com-
munities don’t decide how the community will be set up; it is de-
cided beforehand, by someone else), Marx and Lngcls eschewed
elaborating, or even discussing very much, their vision of socialism.
This bent was also motivated by a conviction (with its own totali-
tarian implications, as we will discuss later) that socialism was the
necessary (inevitable) outcome of history; since socialism was going to
happen, there was no point in figuring out what is would look like.

For whatever reason, then, the Marxist movement Up to and
through the period we are discussing did not generally discuss or
elaborate its conception of socialist society. Given the Bolsheviks’
contention that the revolution “on the agenda?1 in Russia was a
bourgeois one, and given the fact that for most of their history
they were an illegal, persecuted group, it is nol likely that they had
many in-depth, detailed discussions about the concrete nature of a
socialist society,
A third argument against the contention that the Bolsheviks' ad-
vocacy of a bourgeois revolution in Russia was a significant, defin-
ing element of Bolshevism is that the Bolsheviks did, prior lo the
October Revolution, explicitly discuss and change their conception
of the nature of the revolution they aimed to lead. This refers to
the discussion held in the Bolshevik Party after Lenin’s arrival in
Russia in early April, 1917, and to the decision of the party,
adopted at the so-called "April Conference,” a few weeks later, to
seek to seize state power at the head of a working class socialist
revolution, based on the soviets {the workers1 councils established
by the workers during and after the February Revolution), They
did, of course, have this discussion and make such a decision,
among others. But,	how	deep	or thorough	was this discussion?
How long did it go	on?
Lenin arrived in Russia after his long exile in Western Europe on
April 3 (old-style Russian calendar), a litdc over a month after the
February Revolution, Prior to his arrival, most Bolsheviks (there
were a handful who	disagreed),	believed that	the Bolsheviks1 main
strategic task was to	carry	the bourgeois revolution to completion,
not to carry out a socialist revolution. And when Lenin first ar-
rived he shocked most Bolsheviks who heard him (again, minus a
handful) with his new position, expressed in his "April Theses,”
that (he Bolsheviks should seek to carry out a socialist revolution.
This was considered by almost ail Bolsheviks, particularly the long-
time members, the "Old Bolsheviks,” to be very unorthodox, here-
sy, even anarchism.
By the end of April, however, the Bolshevik Party conference
(April 24-29) voted overwhelmingly to endorse Lenin’s point of
view, The discussion over Lenin’s (unorthodox and heretical) point
of view' took ail of... three weeks. What kind of discussion could
they have had in this lime? Could il have been very deep? Could it
have been very thorough? Could the Bolsheviks have even begun
lo discuss what the new position really entailed? Did they use the

months between April and the October Revolution (October 25) to
continue this discussion on an ever-deepening basis? I think the
answers to these questions must be “no,'1
The Bolsheviks were in the middle of a political and social mael-
strom and had a million things to do; they were undoubtedly
spending most of their time feverishly agitating and organizing in
the midst of hectic conditions,
Lenin did, during this period (he was in hiding, mid-July-late
October), write a number of works, mostly short pamphlets, ex-
plaining what a Bolshevik government based on the Soviets would
look like and what it would do. In particular, during this period
Lenin wrote what n^any consider to be his greatest work, The Slate
and Revolution, which discusses his view of the nature of the dic-
tatorship of the proletariat, the withering away of the state, etc.
Yet, given the complexity of these issues, these investigations were
really not very detailed. Equally important The State and Revolu-
tion was never finished and was nol published until the following
year. It is quke unlikely, therefore, that the Bolshevik Party had a
full discussion of either The State and Revolution or Lenin’s
pamphlets.
In short, I believe the Bolsheviks never had a thorough discus-
sion of the change of position adopted at the April Conference;
what it really meant, what a society based on the soviets would
look like, what would be the relationship between the soviets, fac-
tory committees and trade unions, for example, a question that
was to loom very large soon after the October Revolution, And the
course of the revolution, specifically the success of the October in-
surrection, seemed to make such a discussion irrelevant.
Probably the strongest argument that might be leveled against
the tine of thought I am outlining here is the fact that throughout
most of their history prior to 1917 the Bolsheviks did not advocate
a “typical” bourgeois revolution, that is, one led by the capitalists
and their representatives among the intellectuals, etc. Instead, be-
ginning around 1905, the Bolsheviks advocated a bourgeois-demo-
cratic revolution that was lo be carried out by the workers and
peasants against the Tsar, the landed gentry and (paradoxically) the
capitalists (the bourgeoisie).
As a result, this argument would run, since the Bolsheviks had,
since 1905, advocated a revolution carried out by the workers and
peasants against the capitalists, as well as the Tsar, landlords, etc.,
and had always tried to build a base among the working class, to

build a working class party, to make the workers class conscious,
etc., the switch in strategic conceptions in 1917 was not such a big
deal. Indeed, some have argued, this fact goes a long way to ex-
plain why Lenin could change the party’s mind, so to speak, on
this question so easily.
On one level, this appears to be a substantial argument. Yet, a
careful look at the issues involved will, I believe, support and even
strengthen my contention. Let’s look at the question more closely.
Although almost all Russian Marxists agreed that the revolution
they advocated and felt was coming would be a bourgeois-demo-
cratic one, they disagreed over the roles different classes would
play in the revolution and specifically over the tasks Social Demo-
crats should seek to accomplish, (They all called themselves Social
Democrats then; Lenin and the Bolsheviks took up the older name
Communists in 1917,) In fact, after questions of organization, it is
fair to say that the major differences between Bolsheviks and Men-
sheviks through most of their history were disagreements over the
configuration of the (bourgeois-democratic) revolution in Russia
and the role Marxists should play in it,
(For those who don’t know, or remember, the terms Bolshevik
and Menshevik come from the Russian words Bol'shinstvo and
Men’shinstvo, meaning majorityites and minorityites, respectively.
At the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor
Party, the official name of the Marxist organization, in 1903, the
delegates to the congress split into two hostile factions, largely over
questions of party organization, questions we will get to later. On
one of the crucial votes, the forces led by Lenin won a majority.
As a result, Lenin and his followers were called, and called them-
selves, Bolsheviks. Those who had lost the vote were called Men-
sheviks. This split was never healed, and the Marxist movement in
Russia largely consisted of two factions, with often separate news-
papers and structures, coexisting uneasily. The two factions were
formally in the same party until 1912, when the Bolsheviks formed
their own party. It is typical of Lenin’s genius, and the Mensheviks
ineffectiveness, that Lenin and his supporters kept the name Bol-
sheviks, which implies strength, while the Mensheviks were saddled
with a name denoting weakness, even though the Menshevik fac-
tion was often larger than the Bolshevik.)
The key differences between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks
on the question of bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia cen-
tered on the role they expected the Russian bourgeoisie to play in

the revolution and, therefore, the attitude the working class and
Marxists should take toward it,
A mechanical, formalistic conception of a bourgeois-democratic
revolution would entail the view that, by definition, a bourgeois-
democratic revolution will be led by the bourgeoisie. Specifically,
the bourgeoisie, which by nature and class interests prefers a demo-
cratic republic, will lead the other progressive forces, including the
peasants, the workers and the middle class, in a struggle against
the monarch (king, queen, Tsar or whatever), the landed nohiiity
and other feudalist forces, [t would aim to do away with feudal
privileges and all forms of servitude, to set up a democratic repub-
lic and to establish the conditions for the fullest and freest develop-
ment of capitalism.
This was essentially the view of the Mensheviks. They therefore
advocated that the chief role of the working class and the Social
Democrats was to help the bourgeoisie carry out such a revolution,
to push ii from behind, as il were. Although advocating the inde-
pendent organisation of the workers in unions, a social democratic
party and, during the 1905 revolution, soviets (there is some evi-
dence that the Mensheviks were ihc first jwlitical group to call for
a mass, city-wide strike committee in St, Petersburg, which eventu-
ally became the Petersburg Soviet), the Mensheviks basically felt
that the workers should subordinate themselves to the bourgeoisie,
that the latter should have overall leadership of the revolution.
Some even warned of the danger of the workers pushing loo hard
(e.g., striking loo much for higher wages, threatening to take over
and run the factories, etc.), that this would frighten the bourgeoisie
and make ti pull back from a militant struggle against the Tsar,
gentry, etc.
The Bolsheviks, while accepting the bourgeois-democratic charac-
ter of the revolution, saw things differently. Instead of starting
from an abstract model of the bourgeois revolution, Lenin began
with a concrete analysis of the economic, social and political situa-
tion in Russia at the time. He was particularly aware of certain
“peculiarities” of Russian historical development: I) The Russian
slate, certaitily since around 1500, had been very strong and tended
to dominate Russian society, 2) Since the Lime of Peter the Great,
roughly 1700, the state had sought to encourage economic develop-
ment, through borrowing technology from Western Europe, as a
means of defending itself, 3} As a result, much of Russian industry
was built by and/or with the support of the state, and much was

state-owned, 4) Russian industry tended lo be concentrated in huge
enterprises, often employing thousands of workers (such as (he
giant Pulilov metalworking plant in St. Petersburg),
The result of these factors was that the Russian bourgeoisie
tended to be small, weak and greatly dependent upon the Tsarist
state, while the working class, in contrast, was proportionately
large and wcli-concentrated. Consequently, Lenin reasoned, rather
than leading the bourgeois-democratic revolution against the Tsar,
the bourgeoisie, at the first sign of independent and mi ii tan I mobi-
lisation of the workers and peasants, would side with the Tsar and
the nobility against the workers and peasants and the revolution as
a whole, (All hough the capitalists were frightened of the large,
concentrated and oppressed working class, they also feared the mil-
lions upon millions of even more oppressed peasants, waiting to
wreak vengeance upon the landlords and seize the [and, and quite
willing to set fire to large portions of the countryside to do so.
This is what they did in 1917,)
The leadership of the revolution, Lenin concluded, would fall lo
the working class and, to a lesser degree, the peasants. It would be
they who would carry out the bourgeois-democratic revolution, not
only against the Tsar and the landlords, bat aiso the bourgeoisie.
In the eyes of the Bolsheviks, then, the bourgeois-democratic
revolution was defined primarily hy the tasks that needed to be
carried out. e.g., overthrowing the Tsar, seizing the [and from the
landlords, establishing a democratic republic, etc., rather than by
being led by the bourgeoisie.
The specific vehicle for carrying out these tasks would be what
Lenin called the "revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the pro-
letariat and peasantry.” This was to be, roughly, a centralized,
revolutionary government, made up of parties representing the
workers and peasants respectively, and based on and supported by
the masses of workers and peasants. This dictatorship would be es-
tablished by armed insurrection. (The Bolsheviks actually attempted
such an uprising during the 1905 revolution, in Moscow in Decem-
ber of 1905.)
Although Lenin devoted many of his writings to various aspects
of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia, aside from a very
broad sketch, he never put forward a worked out conception of
what the "revolutionary democratic dictatorship” would Look like.
His failure, or refusal, to do so appears to have been motivated
mostly by the belief that il would be impossible to predict precisely

what would happen in the course of the revolution, that revolu-
tionaries should not try to cram the class struggle into some nar-
rowly-conceived mold and that, in any case, the Bolsheviks should
remain flexible.
Yet, in light of the detail Lenin wont into on questions of pro-
gram (e.g., the “agrarian” and "national” questions), party struc-
ture (he called for a reorganization of the party during 1905), and
tactics (a major focus of Bolshevik'activity during 1905 was the
formation of armed squads of workers), the failure to elaborate
the structure of the “revolutionary democratic dictatorship” is sig-
nificant. It is particularly noteworthy that the relationship between
the political parties, supposedly "representing” the proletariat and
the peasantry on the one hand, and the mass organizations of
these classes on the other, was never seriously raised or investi-
gated,
Lenin was also not very clear about what would happen to this
dictatorship once it had "carried the bourgeois-democratic revolu-
tion through to completion,” to paraphrase the Marxist language
of the period. He seems to have had two scenarios in mind, both
of which can be inferred from 71vo Tactics of Social Democracy in
the Democratic Revolution, a major work devoted to his concep-
tion of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia.
In one, the "revolutionary democratic dictatorship” would carry
out various steps (e.g.. overthrowing the Tsar, seizing the land
from the landlords, enacting the eight-hour workday) on its own
initiative, after which it would organize for elections, based on
direct universal suffrage, to a Constitucnt Assembly. Once this
assembly had gathered, approved the revolutionary measures
already taken and drawn up a constitution for a (bourgeois) demo-
cratic government, the parties constituting the "revolutionary dem-
ocratic dictatorship” would step down, in favor of a newly-elected
parliament and government. That Lenin took this scenario serious-
ly is suggested by various of his writings on the agrarian question
in which he advocates the relatively long-term development of Rus-
sian agriculture on U-S.-style (small, independent capitalist farmer)
rather than on Prussian (commercial landed estates) lines.
The second scenario follows the first, up to a point. Very tenta-
tively, and using only the most general terms, Lenin in Two Tactics
writes that if the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia were
preceded, accompanied, or soon followed by one or more socialist
revolutions in Western Europe, the revolutionary parties making up

the revolutionary democratic dictatorship should seek to retain
power and begin taking up socialist tasks, e.g., expropriating the
capitalists, etc.
In other words, Lenin raises, very gingerly to be sure, the possi-
bility that under certain circumstances the bourgeois-democratic
revolution in Russia might begin to “grow over” into a socialist
revolution. Although this conception would later (during Stalin's
fight against Trotsky in the 1920b) become recognized "Bolshevik”
orthodoxy, from the lime it was written to early 1917, it had hardly
even been considered by the majority of Bolsheviks,
Our point in discussing Lenin’s conception of the "revolutionary
democratic dictatorship” was to assess to what degree this weakens
my argument that the Bolsheviks had generally advocated and pre-
pared themselves to carry out a bourgeois revolution, and that this
had a crucial impact in determining the politics and methods of the
Bolshevik Party,
Specifically, it can be argued that since the Bolsheviks had, since
1905, advocated a particular version of a bourgeois-democratic rev-
olution, that is, one led by the workers and peasants against the
bourgeoisie, it is not quite true to say that they had always planned
to carry out a bourgeois revolution in Russia,
Indeed, it can be argued that the bourgeois-democratic revolu-
tion as conceived by the Bolsheviks was a lot closer to a concep-
tion of a socialist revolution than a bourgeois one. This is why, so
Trotsky insisted, the Bolshevik Party was won so easily to Lenin’s
new perspective in April, 1917.
t would contend, however, that the stronger arguments go in the
other direction: I) That despite the new elements in Lenin's per-
spective of 1917 what he advocated remained largely within the
framework of his earlier conception, in other words, a bourgeois-
democratic revolution that, under certain circumstances, “goes be-
yond” the bourgeois-democratic "phase”; and 2) that what the
Bolsheviks actually did, looking at not just 1917, but the entire pe-
riod from 1917 to 1921, was to implement a version of the "revo-
lutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry,”
that is, to carry out a very specific, and very radical, kind of bour-
geois-democratic revolution.
As we know, in late October, 1917, the Bolsheviks, in alliance
with the Left Social Revolutionaries, seized political power at the
head of a workers’ insurrection (made possible by the peasants’
spontaneous seizure of the land), and set up a centralized dictator-

ship. Although this revolutionary government at first rested on and
was supported by the workers’ and peasants’ mass organizations, it
was not actually controlled by them. Believing that they were going
beyond the bourgeois-democratic revolution, the Bolsheviks sane*
tioned the workers’ seizure of the factories and then expropriated
the capitalists altogether. They dispersed tiie Constituent Assembly
and, after the Left SRs revolted against the terms of the Brest-
Litovsk peace treaty, concentrated all power into their own hands.
They also, in June, 1918, launched a campaign against the so-called
“middle peasants” in the name of extending the class struggle to
the countryside. In this sense, they did go beyond the “typical”
bourgeois-democratic revolution. But tlvey did not succeed in creat-
ing a true proletarian dictatorship, that is, a government actually
run by the workers for themselves. Instead, the Bolsheviks built a
government they believed was acting “in the interests” of the
workers, which is by no means the same thing,
(i may have rested upon the organizations of the workers, but in
its methods, e.g., its commitment to extreme centralization, its use of
a secret police to hunt counterrevolutionaries, and in its conception
of regimented, centrally-controlled economy run by decree from the
top, it was far closer to a Jacobin dictatorship (the dictatorship of
Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety, supported by the
oppressed “sans culottes” of Paris during the most radical phase of
the French Revolution) than to a true workers' government.
The fallacy in the Bolsheviks’ theory and practice, it seems to
me, is that (even within the framework of Marxism) the methods
and structure of a socialist revolution are not merely the logical ex-
tension of the structure and methods of the bourgeois-democratic
revolution. The dictatorship of the proletariat, supported by the
peasantry, is not merely the “revolutionary dictatorship of the pro-
letariat and the peasantry” going beyond the limits of the bour-
geois-democratic revolution.
Concretely, in a bourgeois-democratic revolution, the tasks
“appropriate to” that revolution can be carried out by a party, or
parties, that claim to represent the “non-feudal” classes, the bour-
geoisie, the peasants and the workers, if they exist. A government
of revolutionary intellectuals, for example, as long as it is sup-
ported by mobilized masses (sans culottes, peasants, workers) can
eliminate a monarchy, sanction the peasants’ seizure of the land,
the establishment of the eight-hour day, the calling of a constituent
assembly, etc.

In tliis sense, [his government, and the parlies participating in it,
if there are any, can be said to represent the progressive classes.
Once “feudal” or “semi-feudai” institutions arc dismantled or sig-
nificantly weakened, once the major obstacles to commodity pro-
duction and the accumulation of capital are eliminated, capitalism
develops spontaneously, ensuring the ultimate defeat of the reac-
tionary forces. Thus, during ihe Trench Revolution, many if not
most of the radical measures taken were not implemented by the
bourgeoisie, per se, but by essentially middle class intellectuals,
supported by the peasants and sans culottes, acting independently
of the bourgeoisie, And despite ihe fact that the Jacobins were
eventually overthrown and (he monarchy restored, the period of re-
action was temporary; capitalism conlinucd to develop and ihe
monarchy was eventually overthrown.
But in a socialist revolution, it is not sufficient for a party that
claims to represent (he working class to enact measures that are
supposedly in the workers’ interests and to concentrate ail power in
its own hands, it is not, in other words, sufficient for a dictator-
ship of one party to be supported by members of the class in
whose interests it claims to be acting, i.e., to rest on the mass or-
gan izaiions of the workers, such as soviets,
This government, if it is to remain or, better, become, a true
proletarian diclatorship, must increasingly come under the control
of the mass, democratic organizations of the workers. Instead, the
Bolsheviks believing they represtmcd the ini crests of the workers,
subordinated ihe soviets (and the factory committees} to them-
selves, withoul recognizing what I his meant. The result was not a
revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasan-
try moving toward being (he diclatorship of (he proletariat, but the
revolutionary democratic dictatorship that consolidated its own
power over and above the classes u claimed to lead.
Unlike the Jacobins, the Bolsheviks managed to fight off the
counterrevolution externally and internally, and also to defeat the
efforts of the workers and peasants to free themselves from the
dictatorship that claimed lo represent them {Kronstadt, the Petro-
grad strikes, the peasant uprisings of 1921). The result, in other
words, was a kind of permanent Jacobin dictatorship, a permanent
“revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat and ihe the peasan-
try,” rather than the dictatorship of the proletariat or the triumph
of the old reactionary classes.
Tims, a deeper look al the third and best argument against my

proposition (the anti-bourgeois nature of Lenin's "revolutionary
democratic dictatorship") in fact reinforces my main point, that
the Bolsheviks advocated and sought to carry out a bourgeois revo-
lution throughout most of their history, and that this perspective
remained the Bolshevik de facto strategy even after the April Con-
ference in 1917.	*
So, we return to our main starting point, F believe it is correct to
say that throughout the overwhelming part of its history prior to
the October Revolution, the Bolshevik faction /party advocated and
planned to carry out a bourgeois revolution and that, despite
Lenin’s new perspective of 1917 and the discussions in the party,
this never really changed. Moreover, I would argue that the funda-
mental nature of the party, its methods, ethos and style, were con-
sistent with, if not determined by, this. As we have discussed, the
party was never truly prepared to carry out a socialist revolution,
not just in the sense of a working class seizure of power but Lhe
construction of a true workers* state; it never even had a serious
discussion of the question.
More concretely, the party’s advocacy of a bourgeois-democratic
revolution had to have affected its composition. How many people
were attracted to the party specifically because they wanted to car-
ry out a bourgeois-democratic, rather than a proletarian, revolu-
tion? (To put it the other way around, how many people were
alienated from the Bolsheviks, as well as the Mensheviks, because
of their insistence that the revolution had to be bourgeois-demo-
cratic; how many people joined the various populist organizations,
such as the SRs, or the anarchists, because these advocated a full
socialist, or “social,” revolution?)
How many people joined the Bolsheviks because they were basi-
cally for economic growth and industrialization, which they per-
ceived to be the way to solve Russia’s poverty and backwardness,
and never gave two hoots about a truly worker-run society? How
many people were attracted merely by the thought of having power
and prestige, something that was totally closed off to them in Tsar-
ist Russia? How many had their vision of socialism distorted, at
the very least, by the failure of the Bolsheviks (and the Menshe-
viks) lo elaborate a conception of a revolutionary democratic
socialist society? How many people joined the Bolshevik Party, re-
mained active in it through the October Revolution and the Civil
War, participated in the post-war reconstruction, and joined in the
persecution of Trotsky, only to perish at Stalin’s hands because

they were never clear about what was the difference between a
workers’ state and a dictatorship of revolutionary intellectuals
believing they are acting “in the interests of’ the workers and
peasants?
The point is not to try to answer these questions specifically. The
point is to recognize that the Bolsheviks’ program, what it included
and what it excluded, had to have had an impact on who was at-
tracted to the parly, who remained with it, who got power in it,
etc. If we keep these questions and the point they imply in mind,
we can begin to get some answers to some of the questions raised
in the First installment, such as, how did Stalin get to be General
Secretary of the Party? why was he able to stand under Lenin's
mantle? why did so few Bolsheviks oppose him? etc., etc.
The answer, I think, lies in the recognition that the Bolsheviks
ultimately carried out what they had planned to ...a unique, very
radical type of bourgeois revolution.

-Two-
Party, Class
and Socialist Consciousness
T
HE subject of this article is the question of socialist conscious-
ness, the revolutionary party and the working class, and the
relationship among them. We will specifically focus on some of the
conceptions put forward in What Is To Be Done?, one of Lenin’s
most important writings and a major “text’1 of Leninism/Bolshe-
vism. It is true that Lenin discussed the issues raised in What Is To
Be Done? in other writings and even wrote things that appear to
contradict major ideas in the book. We will lake up this question
below, but for now, we wii! direct our attention to What Itt To Be
Done?
To understand what Lenin is getting at in his book, especially in
relation to our chief interest—socialist consciousness, the working
class, and the revolutionary party—it is essential to understand the
context in which the work appeared, what Lenin was trying to ac-
complish and what those who disagreed with him were saying.
What Is To Be Done?, published in early 1902, was a crucial
part of the debate among Russian Marxists over iiow to build a
revolutionary parly, specifically, the Russian Social Democratic La-
bor Party (RSDLP), in the Russian empire in ihe eariy years of the
current century. To build such a party was not so easy, since virtu-
ally all political activity, and certainly anything liberal, let alone
revolutionary, was outlawed. Revolutionaries of all persuasions
were subject to arrest, imprisonment, and exile in remote, forbid-
ding places.
At the time What Is To Be Done? was written, a revolutionary
Marxist party did exist, but only in name, in reality, the Russian
Marxist movement remained what it had been for nearly ten years,
a melange of iocai committees. These were mostly study circles and
groups devoted to carrying out “economic*' agitation, that is, dis-
tributing material focusing on the workers’ wages, working condi-

lions, etc., and supporting various strikes. They were generally iso-
lated from each other and carried out their activities autonomously.
In essence, the movement at this time was a milieu, not a party.
Earlier, four years before What Is To Be Done? was written, an
attempt had been made to remedy this situation. At the so-called
First Congress of the RSDLP, held in Minsk in March 1898, a
manifesto was adopted, a structure was decided upon, leaders were
elected and a decision to publish a party newspaper was made. But
the Tsarist political police (the Okhrana) arrested (he participants
of the congress soon afterwards and, as a result, the state of the
movement remained virtually unchanged. (None of the nine dele-
gates to that First Congress played a major role in later Russian
events.)
This aitcmpt to organize a party occurred against the background
of a growing wave of workers' strike activity. Beginning in the early
1890s, the still small and very young working class in the Russian
empire launched strike struggles that eventually shook the major
cilies, Working conditions were terrible: hours were dreadfully long,
pay was hardly existent, maiming accidents were common, the
workers were subject to fines for "poor work” and other infrac-
tions, the overseers were brutal, etc. Spurred in part by an economic
upturn in the 1890s, desperate workers went out on strike to im-
prove their conditions. These strikes were "spontaneous,” insofar as
they were not planned or led by organized revolutionaries, although
individual revolutionaries undoubtedly look pan.
It was in (his situation that a young (25 years old) Lenin had
played his first major role in the Russian Marxist movement. In
1895 he and Julius Martov, the future leader of the Mensheviks,
put together a 22-person group that soon called itself the Si. Pe-
tersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of Labor. Lenin
urged his immediate colleagues and other Marxists to orient toward
the workers' mass strike movement, writing broad agitational liter-
ature directed at the workers. (Prior to this, most Marxist activity
had consisted of study circles among a very small number of
"worker-intellectuals,” some of whom opposed the orientation to
mass agitation.)
In December 1895 Lenin and nine others in the group were ar-
rested and tried. Lenin was senicnecd to one year in prison fol-
lowed by Lhree years in Siberia. He was released in January 1900
and went into exile in Western Europe. There he met with the
"founding fathers” of Russian Marxism, specifically G.V. Plekhanov,

Vera Zasulich, atid Paul Akselrod, in order to win them over to
his plan to rebuild the RSDLP following the disastrous aftermath
of the First Congress,
Lenin's plan, first pul forward publicly in some articles in 1900,
liad a number of aspects. Probably most important, he proposed
to rebuild the RSDLP around an “All-Russian" newspaper. This
was to be a newspaper directed to all the nationalities and regions
of the Russian empire, in contrast to local journals directed toward
single cities. This paper would be written and published abroad, in
the safety of exiie, and smuggled into Russia by various means.
Such a newspaper would provide the Marxists in Russia and those
others who read it with a national (in fact, transnational, since
Russia consisted of many nations) poim of view, rather than a
local one.
Equally, this All-Russian newspaper would provide the basis to
build an organizational structure, an apparatus, around which to
rebuild the RSDLP. Specifically, Lenin proposed [hat this appara-
tus focus on smuggling the paper into Russia and distributing it to
the workers and other interested people. The nuclei of this network
would be local committees, all of whose members would be under-
ground, that is, without legal identity, and would be paid, meager-
ly to be sure, by the party. This network/apparatus would be as
centralized as possible and united by an “iron discipline" (firm ad-
herence to agreed-upon rules of operation). Overall national (All-
Russian) positions on various political and programmatic questions
would be determined by periodic delegated congresses and, between
these gatherings, by elected leaders living abroad, not by local and
regional committees.
Lenin was particularly concerned Lo build a strong, well-func-
tioning organization that could resist Tsarist repression. He attrib-
uted the failure to build a party up to that point to what he
considered the "amateurishness” of the Russian Marxists, including
parochialism, sloppy methods, lack of a serious division of labor,
etc. To counter this, he called for “professIonaiism" and a party
of professional revolutionaries. This was meant in two distinct but
interrelated senses. One was the general meaning of professional—
using unified, tested methods, training experts in various phases of
revolutionary activity. The second sense of “professionalism" was
narrower and quite literal. As we noted, the parly, at least initially,
would consist exclusively of underground operatives, full-time peo-
ple, paid by the party and living clandestinely.

An additional aspect or Lenin’s strategy was that the All-Russian
newspaper, and the party as a whole, would emphasize what Lenin
called '‘political agitation”: articles and exposes addressed primarily
to political, a$ opposed to “economic” issues (wages, working con-
ditions, strike struggles), A focus on political questions, Lenin
argued, would tend to raise the workers' consciousness from its
current level (the workers were, after all, already carrying out
spontaneous strikes over local “economic” issues) to a higher,
more political level, and at the same time encourage them to think
in terms of the whole Russian empire, nol just their own locality.
With the support of Plekhanov, Akselrod and Zasulich, Lenin,
Martov and V, Potresov launched (his All-Russian newspaper,
called Jsfcra (Sjpav*X in December 1900, and began to build a fol-
lowing, and an apparatus. A companion theoretical journal, Zarya
(Dawn), was launched in April 1901,
Of course, not all of the people, committees, etc,, in the Russian
Marxist movement agreed with Lenin’s conception. To simplify, we
can note titai ihe opposition to the ideas of the Zskm-ists focused
on two points. One was that the Iskrp-isis ignored the “economic”
struggle — the workers’ struggles over wages, working conditions,
etc. The other was that the Iskitfrisft? emphasis on centraiized
structure and decision-making violated ihe autonomy of ihc local
committees, (hat is. that it was undemocratic.
We do not wish to debate here the merits and demerits of (he
Lenin/fsfrra-ists’ strategy nor of the arguments of their opponents.
Our concern is to sketch the context in which What Is To Be
Done? was written and within which its contents must be under-
stood, What Is To Be Done? was an attempt to defend the ideas
behind the Iskgists’ strategy and to win supporters to it; a second
congress of the RSDLP was being planned for the following year
and Lenin fell very strongly (as he did about nearly everything),
that the approach he advocated was the only way to build, and
maintain, a truly revolutionary Marxist party in Russia. What Is
To Be Done?, then, was both a defense of his strategic/organiza-
tional conception for building the RSDLP and an elaboration of it.
Typical of the Marxist polemics of this period (and most others),
Lenin’s arguments about how to build the parly are buttressed by
discussions of fundamental theoretical questions, such as the nature
of socialist consciousness and how it is created, to which we now
turn.
(Incidentally, the name of the book, What Is To Be Done?,

tomes from the title of a famous novel, written by the Russian
populist N.G. Chernyshcvsky in 1362, considered one of the key
manifestos of Russian populist thought.)	%
l7or otir purposes, tiic chief import of What Is Tp Be Done? is
that it elaborates a conception of the political consciousness of the
working class and how it develops, and the rofc of a revolutionary
party in that process, that had a fundamental, indeed defining, im-
pact on the development of Leninism/Bolshevism, Although, as we
mentioned, Lenin occasionally said other things about the question,
the theory elaborated in What Is To Be Done? represented a major
ideological assumption of Bolshevism, underpinning the Bolsheviks’
conception of the nature of the party, its relationship to the work-
ing class, its strategy, tactics and methods. This conception, more-
over, remained central despite the various changes in Lenin’s/the
Bolsheviks’ ideas. And, I would argue, this conception has a fun-
damentally l otali tar ian/state capitalist implication.
The relevant passage from What Is To Be Done? is as follows:
Wt have said that there could not yet be Social-Democrat tic con-
sciousness among the workers. Ji could only be brought to them from
without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, ex-
clusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union con-
sciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions,
fight the employers and strive to compel the government to pass neces-
sary labour legislation, etc, (Trade unionism does not exclude ‘‘poli-
ties” altogether, as some imagine- Tirade unions have always conducted
some political |but not Social-Democratic] agitation and struggle.) The
theory of Socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical
and economic theories that were elaborated by the educated representa-
tives of the propertied classes, the intellect Hals.
There are two distinct, but related, points here. One is that the
working class, by itself, meaning the mass of workers in the ab-
sence of an organ nation of Marxist revolutionaries, is only capable
of developing trade unionist consciousness, e.g., understanding the
need to organize unions, 10 organize and strike for higher wages,
better working conditions and other benefits. By themselves, in
other words, I he majority of workers will not, and cannot, come
to socialist conclusions, that is, recognize the need to unite as a
class and to rise up, overthrow capitalism and build a socialist
society.
The second key point is that “social democratic" consciousness,
what we call revolutionary socialist consciousness, something dcvel-

oped and maintained by socialist intellectuals, must be brought to
the workers from "without,” from a party that stands on these
ideas, that is, a Social Democratic Party,
Before proceeding to our discussion of the state capitalist impli-
cations of these theses, it is worth making a number of preliminary
comments about them. First, these ideas were not unique to Lenin,
As he himself said, this was the conception of the major theoreti-
cal leader of the international Marxist movement of that time, Karl
Kaulsky, Lenin, seeking to convince the majority of Russian Marx-
ists of his strategic and organizational ideas, sought to justify them
with arguments of the most "orthodox” of Marxists. Whether or
not ail, or even most, members of the Social Democratic move-
ment agreed with Kautsky is a different matter. It was convenient
to quote from tiie "Pope of Marxism,”
Second, we doubt that Karl Marx would have agreed precisely
with Kautsky’s formulation. Although Marx well knew how much
work socialist intellectuals (particularly himself) had put into elabo-
rating socialist ideas and theory, I suspect he fell that wliat lie had
done was to recognize, elaborate and put into writing something
that was happening, or would happen, independently of his con-
sciousness, that is, among the working class Itself, But this is a
point for another, much larger, discussion.
Third, there is some truth in what Kautsky/Lenin wrote. During
nun-revolutionary periods„ that is, outside of mass revolutionary
upheavals, most workers are not revolutionary socialist (we are ac-
cepting, for the moment, the equation between "social democratic”
and "revolutionary socialist”).
During "normal” times, most workers are trade unionist, if they
are that, and many workers may not even recognize that they are
members of a common social stratum, (In the U.S. most workers
probably consider themselves part of an amorphous "middle class.”)
At best, only a small number of workers consider themselves revolu-
tionary socialists and they are, by and large, outside the ongoing life
of the majority of workers. Insofar as they, along with middle class
revolutionaries, convince other workers to be revolutionary social-
ists, they are bringing socialist consciousness to the workers " from
without.” Even in revolutionary periods, the revolutionary
consciousness that many workers develop may not be "truly” revo-
lutionary, in the Marxist sense. It might be anarchist, anarcho-syndi-
calist. revolutionary populist, or some other kind of consciousness
that most Marxists have considered to be not "proletarian."

Fourth* a!though the conception that Lenin defends has strong
state capitalist/totalitarian implications* it does have a positive, that
is, democratic and even libertarian, aspect as well. (This is proba-
bly one of the things that has helped obscure the state capitalist
implications for many people, including this writer.) This is the
idea that socialists should be open and straightforward about what
they believe. They should try to convince people (workers and oth-
ers) to be revolutionary socialists, openly and honestly. They
should not hide their ideas, pretend to be something else, and
come up with some trick or scheme that will convince people to be
socialists in the absence of dialogue and rational argument. In this
sense, revolutionary socialists do, and should, bring socialist con-
sciousness to the workers. As [.eon Trotsky said, revolutionaries
should “say what is,” i.e., tell the truth to the woi^rs.
This is in contrast to other approaches which are, Tn fact, dis-
honest and manipulative, One of these is the reformist approach
Lenin argued against in What Is To Be Done?, that if the workers
are just encouraged to fight reform struggles they will automatical'
ly come to socialist conclusions. In this conception, there is no
need for socialists to argue openly and explicitly for (perhaps un-
popular) socialist ideas, and to convince people. Rather they should
pretend to be simply “militant unionists” or militant whatevers,
that is, something other than what they are. (In fact, if you cease
to advocate socialism and function like a reformist, you become a
reformist, regardless of what you call yourself.) Not only is this
dishonest, it winds up strengthening reformist ideas among the
workers and building a reformist workers’ movement, not a revolu-
tionary one. In titis sense Lenin’s conception was superior to that
of his reformist (“Economist”) opponents.
Another approach which doesn’t argue openly for socialism mo-
tivates many people who pursue a terrorist strategy. People are
asleep, this reasoning often goes, numbed by the mass media, hab-
it, fast food or “repressive desublimatton” (in the conception of
Herbert Marcuse), and the job of revolutionaries is lo wake them
up. Hence, the use of bombs. One doesn’t argue for socialism, one
tries to “galvanize” the people.
Both these approaches* in failing to openly argue for socialist
ideas, failing to "bring socialist consciousness to the working class”
(using these words loosely) are dishonest and manipulative. They too
have a state capitalist implication: the workers are too stupid to be
convinced; an elite has to trick them into fighting for socialism.

All this being said, we now turn to the question of the state cap-
italist/totalitarian implications of Lenin’s formulations on socialist
consciousness and the role of the party in What Is To Be Done?
By state capitalist/totalitarian implications we mean explicit or hid-
den conceptions and/or tendencies that imply, point to, or justify
state capitalism—the rule of an elite over the working class in the
name of socialism.
Perhaps the best way to approach this is to list a number of in-
terrelated ideas that follow from the What Is To Be Done? formu-
lations. If the workers are able, by themselves, to come only to
trade union consciousness, and socialist consciousness must be
brought to them from “without,” by revolutionary inteliectuals/tbe
revolutionary party, then:
t. The source, repository and guarantee of socialist consciousness
are socialist intellectuals/the revolutionary party, not the working
class.
2,	 What ultimately matters, in terms of a socialist revolution, is
that state power is seized by the revolutionary party; the bottom
line of what constitutes socialism/the dictatorship of the proletariat
is that the slate is ruled by a revolutionary party.
3,	 In any conflict between the revolutionary party and the work-
ing class, the revolutionary party is right, and the party has the
right, even the duty, to rule "in the name of,” "in the interests
of,” the working class.
Prior to the seizure of power by a revolutionary party, these
state capitalist/totalitarian implications are not very clear; they rep-
resent a kind of hidden potential. After all, the party is trying to
"reach" the working class, carry out propaganda and agitation,
form various organizations, etc.—in general, trying to create social-
ist consciousness among the workers. If the workers don’t care to
listen, if they refuse to be socialists, the parly remains relatively
isolated and small. Moreover, one can conceive, in theory, of a re-
lationship between the working class and the revolutionary party,
during and after the seizure of power, in which the party does not
mle over the working class, but provides the leadership for the
class rule of the workers.
But things are always more complicated in reality than in theory.
Socialist theory, in particular, has a tendency to assume that the
workers' "true” or "appropriate” consciousness (truly "proletarian
consciousness”) is socialist ideology. This leads directly to the idea
that once the working class becomes socialist, certainly once a

working class insurrection is carried out. the workers will not have
any fundamental disagreements with the revolutionary party.
But what if this isn’t true? What if, after certain developments
following a workers’ insurrection, the workers no longer fully sup-
port the revolutionary party? What if they cease being revolution-
ary? What if they remain revolutionary, but their notion of being
revolutionary differs from that of the revolutionary party? What if
workers and the party remain in basic agreement, but develop stra-
tegic, tactical or organizational differences, which in conditions of
upheaval, can become divisive and quite bitter?
In all these circumstances, the logic of Lenin’s formulations in
What Is To Be Done? implies, points toward, and justifies, the rule
of the party over the workers. In other words, it implies, points to-
ward, and justifies state capitalism. In shorty the state capitalist/to-
talitarian implications of these formulations can become explicit
once a working class insurrection takes place.
This is not inevitable. As wre noted, one can conceive of a demo-
cratic/socialist relationship between the working class and one revo-
lutionary party during and after the seizure of power. But a state
capitalist ouicome is highly probable.
This is especially true if the party has been built around the idea
that it, and only it, is the true repository and guarantee of socialist
consciousness, and that every other political organization is, at bot-
tom, ultimately bourgeois and counterrevolutionary. Unless the rev-
olution goes almost perfectly and is beset by few obstacles (and
this is not likely), almost aJI the training and ways of thinking and
acting of its members will push that party toward ruling “in the
name of,” “in the interests of,” the working class.
In fact, the state capitalist/totalitarian implications of the ideas
in What Is To Be Done? go deeper than this. While What Is To Be
Done? says that the revolutionary intellectuals/the revolutionary
party is the source of socialist consciousness, it also defines the
revolutionary parly as “professional revolutionaries,” the full-time
party apparatus. Adding this thought into the hopper, we get the
additional implication that the ultimate source, repository and
guarantee of socialist consciousness is the party apparatus, the
functionaries. And, by logical extension, after the seizure of power,
the only guarantor of the proletarian or socialist nature of the state
is the rule of the party apparatus, the bureaucrats.
This implies that when conflicts develop between the party and
the mass organizations of the working class {the workers’ councils

(soviets), factory committees, trade unions, workers’ militia, etc.).
the party is right and takes precedence. It has the right to make
the decisions and rule over the working class. And, in turn, when
conflicts develop between the party apparatus and other sections of
the party, the party apparatus is right and takes precedence. It has
the right to make the decisions and rule over the rest of the party
(and, of course, the working class). This is what happened in Rus-
sia after the October Revolution.
One does not need to argue that Lenin explicitly held and de-
fended the state capitalist/totalitarian conceptions that are implied
in What Is To Be Done? (He probably thought that once the work-
ers had become socialists and had followed the party in carrying
out the revolution, the issue of the party ruling over the workers
would never even arise.) For now, all wc need to note is that the
formulations in What Is To Be Done? do contain such implica-
tions.
In fact, Lenin elsewhere wrote things that implied the direct op-
posite of the passages in What Is To Be Done? In an article called
The Reorganization of the Party, written in late 1905, just after the
most radical events of the (unsuccessful) 1905 Revolution, Lenin
wrote: "The working class is instinctively, spontaneously social
democratic,” (Once again, this meant revolutionary socialist, since
Lenin and the Bolsheviks still called themselves Social Democrats).
This article was written to argue for admitting workers "at the
bench” (workers who had normal jobs, like in factories) into the
party, and reorganizing and broadening the party accordingly, Len-
in was trying to overcome the resistance of some party members
who were afraid that admitting members who were not full-time,
paid functionaries would dilute the revolutionary character of the
party,
That Lenin would write something tike the sentence cited above
during the 1905 Revolution makes perfect sense. There was a revo-
lution going on and the workers, without any help from the
revolutionary organizations, had become quite militant and revolu-
tionary. (All the revolutionary organizations, including the Bolshe-
viks, were small and relatively marginal to the revolutionary goings
on. Leon Trotsky played an important role as chairman of the St.
Petersburg soviet, but as an individual figure, not as a member of
a party-type organization.)
The Bolsheviks at this time were still organized as an under-
ground apparatus of professional operatives. Hence Lenin’s pro-

posal to open up the party to “non-professionals.” Hence, Loo, his
argument against those who resisted his proposal, in essence, “the
workers are already revolutionary.”
Despite this article, the conception put forward in What Is To
Be Done? remained, I would contend, the dominant one among
the Bolsheviks. What Is To Be Done? was essentially the founding
document of the Bolshevik faction/party, with elaborate discussions
of fundamental issues in socialist theory and practice. The Reor-
ganization of the Party was in no way comparable; it was a minor
piece. While we do not know for sure, we can guess that new
members of the Bolshevik faction/party were urged, probably re-
quired, to read What Is To Be Dorse? soon after, maybe even be-
fore, joining. Older members probably went back and reread it, to
refresh their memories. It is almost certain, however, that this was
not true of The Reorganization of ihe Party.
Maybe even more important, central leaders of the Bolshevik
Party, including many “Old Bolsheviks” such as Joseph Stalin,
were trained in the ideas and practices of What Is To Be Done?
Some went back to the original Iskra period and the period from
the Second Congress of the RSDLP in 1903 to the 1905 Revolu-
tion. Others were trained in the years after 1905-06 when the
workers became politically quiescent and conservative and all the
revolutionary organizations shrank drastically. The Bolsheviks, as
much by necessity as by choice, became little more than a profes-
sional underground apparatus, and sometimes barely this. This
remained the case roughly until the outbreak of the February Rev-
olution in 1917.
Later Bolshevik leaders, recruited and seasoned under these con-
ditions, would almost automatically agree with the conceptions in
What Is To Be Done? And all would be prone to act according to
its implications before, during and after the October Revolution.
The most convincing evidence of the impact of Ihe state capital-
isL/totalitarian implications of the ideas in What Is To Be Done? is
whai actually happened after the October Revolution, particularly
during the Civil War. As we have mentioned the Bolsheviks cen-
tralized all political power in their own hands. This included subor-
dinating the soviets, factory committees, unions, militias, and other
mass organizations {where these had not been disbanded) to their
direci control and “discipline.” These measures were certainly tak-
en under specific conditions, including internal counterrevolutionary
uprisings, foreign intervention, incredible devastation and poverty.

And perhaps the Bolsheviks would have preferred not to have tak-
en them (although many of the measures were praised, even glori-
fied, by N.I. Bukharin, the party’s major theoretician).
Yet, the steps taken were totally consistent with the conceptions
put forward in What Is To Be Done? They were justified by lead-
ing Bolsheviks, including the not very “Old Bolsheviks” Leon
Trotsky and Karl Radck.
The party [is] entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictator-
ship temporarily clashes] with the passing moods of the workers’
democracy It is necessary to create among us the awareness of the
revolutionary, historical birthright of the party. The parry is obliged to
maintain its dictatorship, regardless of temporary wavering in the spon-
taneous moods of the masses, regardless of the temporary vacillations
even in the working class. (Trotsky)
The Party is the politically conscious vanguard of the working class.
We arc now at a point where the workers, at the end of their endurance,
refuse any longer to follow a vanguard which leads them into battle and
sacrifice Ought we to yield to ihe clamours of workingmen who
have reached the limit of their patience but who do not understand their
true interests as we do? Their state of mind is frankly reactionary. But
the Party has decided that we must not yield, that we must impose our
will to victory on our exhausted and dispirited followers. (Radck)
And needless to say, these steps were warmly embraced by Stalin
and other “Old Bolsheviks” who took the ball and kept running.
Is this purely a coincidence?

-THREE-
\
The “Ethos” of Bolshevism
I
N this article, 1 will discuss what might be called the "ethos” of
Bolshevism, By “ethos,” I mean the overall outlook, attitudes
and style—the culture, roughly—of the faction and party that has
come to be known as Bolshevik. "Ethos" is a somewhat vague
term. Nevertheless, there are certain fairly definite characteristics of
the Bolsheviks, both as individuals and as a tendency/party, and of
their political outlook, that can be discerned.
One of the most salient aspects of the ethos of the Bolshevik
tendency is what might be called the cult of the "hards.” The Bol-
sheviks prided themselves on their toughness. They even referred to
themselves as “the hards.” This was in contrast to what they de-
rided as the “softness” of the Mensheviks. As the Bolsheviks saw
it, they were strong, tough and unvsciHating: the Mensheviks weak,
soft and indecisive. The Bolsheviks prided themselves on their skill
in functioning “underground” and on their willingness to endure
the hardships this entailed. They considered the Mensheviks as less
capable of working under conditions of clandcsiinity and too anx-
ious to function legally, no matter what restrictions this entailed.
The Bolsheviks also saw themselves as more proletarian than the
Mensheviks, whom they considered more middle class (even when
this was not strictly true).
Even more important, the Bolsheviks viewed themselves as being
more politically intransigent than the Mensheviks, more hostile to
the Tsar, landlords and capitalists, more suspicious of the bourgeois
liberals.
This intransigence, or political “hardness,” referred both to po-
litical stance and to the question of methods. In general, the Bol-
sheviks* political program was more radical than the Mensheviks;
they had a more radical position on the agrarian question, one of
the main issues in Russia,

The Bolsheviks were also more willing 10 advocate and use vio-
lent tactics. During the 1905 Revolution, for example, one of the
Bolsheviks* main emphases was on organizing armed fighting
squads with the idea of carrying out an armed insurrection.
In this cull of “hardness,” political position and pcrsonai style,
faction policies and personal characteristics, were considered inte-
gjally connected, even if this was not true of every individual in
the faction. (For example, Grigorii Zinoviev, a leading Bolshevik,
was well-known among the Bolsheviks for his vacillating tempera-
ment and even cowardice.)
However true or false this conception was in general, it did tend
to reflect the personal characteristics of the main leaders of the
Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, Yuli Martov and V,L Lenin, respec-
tively, Manov appeared to be physically weak, somewhat slovenly,
overly cautious politically and an undisciplined thinker and speaker.
Lenin, on the other hand, gave the impression of personal strength
and energy; he was also neat, very decisive politically and an inci-
sive thinker and speaker.
The Bolsheviks* conception of themselves as the "hards” re-
flected their ideal, or model. This was, as we discussed in our last
article, the professional, full-time revolutionary. He (and, by and
large, he was a he) was illegal. He lived and worked "under-
ground,” without permanent home, hiding and often running from
the police. He subsisted on very little and could look forward to
periods of jail and exile. He was totally devoted to his work. He
was a professional, a skilled operative.
Almost anybody who survived such an existence for any period
of lime had to be, or had to become, "hard,” or tough. (The Bol-
sheviks, by the way, tended to wear black leather jackets and
coats, which became kind of a badge with them.)
There are two aspects of the question of "hardness” that are
worth noting. One is the question of "discipline.” This was meant
both in a political or party sense, and in a personal and Individual
sense. Discipline in the political sense meant a total commitment to
the principles and the policies of the party. Whatever one might
think of these, even if one had disagreements with the policies, or
“line,” of the party, one firmly defended them and carried them
out. Raising one’s differences was reserved for specific periods, and
even then, solely within the party or faction. The Bolsheviks often
used the term "iron discipline” as something to strive for.
Another aspect of "discipline*’ consisted of pcrsonai dedication

and single-mindedness. This included a kind of asceticism, a pride
in being able to do without luxuries and things most people take
for granted, including family and a social life.
This asceticism was not something we merely point to in hind-
sight; it was explicitly held up as an ideal, Lenin was known for
his frugality, his lack of affectation and a willingness to live with-
out luxuries. {He did live considerably better than mast peasants
and workers, however.)
Significantly, the name of Lenin’s book What Is To Be Done?, as
we mentioned, was borrowed from the title of a book by N.G, Cher-
nyshevsky. Written in solitary confinement in (862, this book was
virtually the biblc of the young, mostly middie-class and upper-class
radicals of the 1860s who “went to the people” (the peasants) to
bring them enlightenment and radical ideas. A striking figure in the
book is a young man, Rakhmetov. Of plcbian origins, Rakhmetov is
a tower of strength. He believes only in the cause and is totally de-
voted to the “people,” Not least, he prepares himself for the coming
struggle (implicitly, a vast upheaval) by sleeping on a bed of nails and
otherwise toughening his body and mind. The connection between
Rakhmetov's style and that of the Bolsheviks was no accident.
Now, there is much that is positive about the Bolsheviks’ stress
on “hardness,” both politically and personally. It is good for revo-
lutionaries to be radical, intransigent, decisive and loyal to one’s
organization and its policies. It is also positive to be dedicated,
skillful and willing to endure hardships, lo suffer for the cause.
“Hardness," in this sense, is one of the things that enabled the
Bolsheviks to survive the stresses of Tsarist repression and the revo-
lution, to lead the October Revolution and prevail during the Civil
War. Certainly, any serious revolutionary organization needs a
good dose of this.
Yet, “hardness” can be taken loo far. And a cuit of “hardness”
can lead to serious distortions. On a minima! level, it can become
a kind of revolutionary purhanism which condemns even modest
common comforts as luxuries and frivolities, and sneers at people
who want lo live normal lives, not totally dedicated to the cause,
Il may also entail a hostility toward the “loo open” expression
of the “positive” emotions—love, joy, happiness, etc. —and to a
denigration of pleasurable activities as “decadent” or "bourgeois.”
It can thus become very “macho,” implicitly or explicitly looking
down on women, gay people, and on anything we might call sex-
ual liberation.

A cult of “hardness” can also lead to a willingness to advocate,
even prefer, brutal, coercive methods, and to an insensitivity to hu-
man suffering.
Had '‘hardness” remained a question of individual style or alti-
tude, or had it been part of an ethos of a party that remained out
of power, a cult of “hardness” might not amount to much. What
makes a cult of "hardness” in a political organization potentially
dangerous is the possibility that it becomes part of a state ideology.
If a party priding itself on its "hardness” becomes the sole polit-
ical power in a state, the party may tend to impose its hardness on
everybody else. Then what started out as the personal puritanism
of members of a faction or party before the revolution becomes a
kind of state puritanism, imposed by the various means at the dis-
posal of a state afterward. The result can be regimentation and a
punitive attitude toward classes, groups and individuals who op-
pose or do not fully agree with the goals and methods of the rul-
ing party.
More generally, just as the “puritan ethic” of the 16th and 17th
centuries reinforced the capitalist dictum “accumulation for the
sake of accumulation” on the part of individual capitalists, so does
a state puritanism lend itself to the same dictum on the part of the
state. This, in fact, is the ethic of state capitalism.
Most ominously, a state cull of “hardness” can lead quite logic-
ally to the idea that if brutal coercive methods are justified before
and during a revolution, they are also justified afterwards. But the
ability to utilize such methods will have been enormously increased,
since the party now has the vast power of the state (police, prisons,
armies, etc.) at its disposal. Thus, if it is okay to sacrifice individu-
als in the name of the cause, it is also okay, and possible to justify
sacrificing even more people, perhaps whole classes, if it serves the
interests of the great cause of socialism and the liberation of hu-
manity.
Another aspect of the “ethos” of Bolshevism worthy of note is
what can be called a cult of centralism and centralization.
Generally speaking, the Bolsheviks strongly favored centralism
over deceniralism, which they saw in a negative light. This attrac-
tion to centralism had a number of roots, noi all of which are
clear. As an organizational principle for their faction/party, the
Bolsheviks advocated what they called "democratic centralism.”
This was, in fact, a necessity largely imposed on them by the cir-
cumstances under which they operated for most of their history':

they were an outlawed group, subject to arrest, imprisonment, ex-
ile, etc., if caught. To build a strong organization that could resist
repression, that is, survive, they adopted centralism.
Yet, the Bolsheviks revered centralism far beyond the necessities
of underground existence. They seemed to have considered it nol
only stronger organizationally than dccemr&lism but also inherently
more democratic. Some of the Bolsheviks* reverence for centralism
appears to have come from their admiration of capitalist*industrial
technique and structure. One of their main criticisms of Russia was
its backwardness —what we would call the underdeveloped charac-
ter of its economy. The Bolsheviks saw the capitalist factory, run
on a centralized basis, as a progressive institution, technically
speaking.
Lenin, for example, constantly held up the highly centralized and
hierarchical German postal system and German industry as a whole
as an example for the Russians to adopt. Thus, after the October
Revolution, Lenin defined the creation of a highly centralized eco-
nomic apparatus as a major goal of the Soviet state.
The organization of accounting, the control of large enterprises, the
transformation of the state economic mechanism into a single huge ma-
chine. into an economic organism that will w ork in such a sway as to ena-
ble hundreds of millions of people to be guided by a single plan—such
was the enormous organizational problem that rested on our shoulders,
(Political Report of the Central Committee to the Extraordinary Sev-
enth Congress of the RCP(B), delivered March 7. 1918. Collected
Works, Vol. 27. pp. 90-9!.]
Lenin’s commitment to, virtuai adoration of, centralism can be
seen in his fairly frequent recommendation that the economy, revo-
lutionary army, and soviet state be “subordinated to a single will”
{presumably his, but that, for the moment, is nol the point we are
stressing).
Here il is worth citing a fairly long passage in order to get a rel-
atively broad feel of Lenin’s thinking on the question.
.. .it must be said that large-scale machine industry—which is
precisely the material source, the productive source, the foundation
of socialism — calls for absolute and strict unity of wilt, which
directs the joint labours of hundreds, thousands and tens of thous-
ands of people. The technical, economic and historic necessity of
this is obvious, and all those who have thought about socialism
have always regarded it as one of the conditions of socialism. But
how can strict unity or will be ensured? By thousands subordinat-
ing their will to the will of one.

Given ideal class-consciousness and discipline on the part of those
participating in the common work, this subordination would be some-
thing like the mild leadership of a conductor of an orchestra, II may
assume the sharp forms of a dictatorship if ideal discipline and class
consciousness are lacking. But be that as it may, unquestioning subordi-
nation to a single will is absolutely necessary for the success of processes
organised on the pattern of large-scale machine industry. ("The Imme-
diate Tasks of the Soviet Government" written March-April, 1918. Col-
lected Works, Vol. 27, pp. 268-269.J
In the previous paragraph, Lenin writes “There is, therefore,
absolutely no contradiction in principle between Soviet (that is, so-
cialist) democracy and the exercise of dictatorial powers by individ-
uals.” [P. 268,1
Thus, in Lenin's view, extreme, even absolute, centralization was
far from being antithetical to socialist democracy. It was perfectly
compatible with it, in some sense, its perfect embodiment.
(t is not my point, here, to prove that a commitment to central-
ism, seeing it as an intrinsically progressive and even proletarian
form, is per se state capitalist. But it is fairly easy to see that a po-
litical party whose commitment to centralism became virtually a
point of principle would resort to extreme centralist measures
(backed by “iron discipline”) to preserve what it considered to be
the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is also easy to see why such a
party would not recognize that extreme centralism would eventually
destroy—by choking off real workers' control and democracy—the
proletarian state they thought they were defending. And why, later
on, such a party would revert to extreme centralist measures as the
main way to industrialize the country.
Part of the Bolsheviks’ cult of centralism was an infaiuaiion
with (economic) planning. To the Bolsheviks, and to all too many
Marxists, the essence of socialism is economic planning. This is in
contrast to capitalism which, on ihe whole, is chaotic, working
through the free, or partially free market.
But there is planning and there is planning. It depends on who is
doing it and how it is done. Today’s Russian economy is supposed-
ly planned, bu! anyone who knows anything about how it actually
works knows that it is an unplanned mass of chaos. What is
“planned” and what happens have little relation to each other.
Planning by a bureaucratic state capitalist class that exploits the
working class is not the same as democratic, socialist planning by

llie workers. The Bolsheviks were never clear about this and tended
to conflate the two ideas.
Part of the responsibility for this rests with Marx and Engels
themselves. They contrasted the chaos and anarchy of the capitalist
market to the supposedly planned nature of production inside tiic
factory.
Perhaps a small factory, the kind that Engels managed for many
years, is really planned. But a huge capitalist combine, such as
General Motors, has many divisions, sub-divisions, bureaucracies,
etc., competing for resources, recognition, etc.. While more
planned than the market, it is not truly planned. Like the modem
Russian economy as a whole, such a firm is closer to marginally
managed chaos than real planning. And to the degree any given
Factory is planned, such planning is based on brutal regimentation.
A whole society built around the bureaucratic and hierarchical
principles of a capitalist corporation would not be planned; it
would be a stifling, bureaucratic nightmare.
Like Marx and Engels, the Bolsheviks tended to equate socialist
planning with the planning typical of capitalist firms. Planning was
to be done by economic expens in a supposedly “scientific” man-
ner, based on the complete nationalization (centralization) of indus-
try. It was not supposed to be a question of politics subject to
discussion and debate by the workers.
As a result, workers' control of factories and industry as a whole,
which the Bolsheviks advocated during 1917, was seen by them as a
stepping-stone, a transitional measure, lo something else, something
“more socialist”: nationalization of industry and so-called “social-
ist" planning. The Bolsheviks did not conceive of socialist planning
as being compatible with the direct workers’ control of the factories,
which they saw as an anarchist idea. They were therefore for “work-
ers’ control” during 1917 only insofar as it led "further” (and
because during and after the February Revolution the workers had
occupied the factories and established their control).
Thus, as soon as they were able, the Bolsheviks subordinated the
factory committees to other institutions (the trade unions) and ulti-
mately effectively did away with them altogether. They were re-
placed by “one-man management.” While this has often been
explained as motivated by necessity (the onset of the Civil War, the
drastic decline of the economy, etc.), and this is true to a degree, it
was also totally consistent with the Bolsheviks' pre-existent ideas
and leanings, particularly their idolization of centralism.

As we have mentioned, one source of the Bolsheviks’ commit-
ment to centralism was a belief in the inherent progressiveness of
bourgeois technology. Bourgeois technology, and its corollary, in-
dustrialization, were also virtual cult objects on the part of the
Bolsheviks.
Although they were fiercely opposed to traditional capitalism,
capitalist corporations and banks and individual capitalists, the
Bolsheviks were extremely fond of bourgeois technology, particu-
larly the techniques of capitalist industry.
But their attachment was not limited to merely the industrial
processes, as such— technology in the narrow sense of the term—
but to the overall methods and even structure of capitalist industry.
This included the centralization, the hierarchical structure of man-
agement, piecework and other facets of {bourgeois) “scientific
management” (e.g., Taylorism).
Lenin actually believed that the overall structure and methods of
capitalist industry could be taken over, in toto, by a proletarian
state. To Lenin, all that mattered to make this type of structure
proletarian was that it be controlled by a state based on soviets.
Thus, in May, 1918, Lenin wrote:
Here (in Germany) we have "the last word" in modern large-scale
capitalist engineering and planned organization, subordinated to Jun-
ker-bourgeois imperialism. Cross out the words in italics, and in place
of the militarist. Junker, bourgeois, imperialist state put also a state,
but of a different social type, of a different class content — a Soviet
slate, that is, a proletarian state, and you will have the sum total of the
conditions necessary for socialism. {"‘Left-wing* Childishness and the
Petty Bourgeois Mentality," Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 334,1
(It is worth noting that many of the arguments in Lenin’s arti-
cles and speeches we have cited, as well as others from the period,
were intended to refute those, both outside the Bolshevik party and
inside it, who disagreed with the course Lenin advocated. This is
an indication that not ail Bolsheviks agreed with Lenin, and that
the specific aspects of the Bolshevik ethos we have been discussing
do not comprise the sum total of Bolshevism.)
Lenin did not see that industrial technique, organizational struc-
ture and methods are not purely scientific questions, politically
neutral; he did not realize that they have a definite class content.
Specifically, Lenin did not recognize that the German industry, and
capitalist industry as a whole, of his time, was a thoroughly bour-
geois institution in every facet. Merely subordinating a capitalist

economic apparatus to soviets (assuming the soviets are controlled
by the workers), does not automatically make the appparatus pro-
letarian. It has to be thoroughly revolutionized by the workers
themselves.
It is understandable why the Bolsheviks would consider bour-
geois industry to be progressive in and of itself. From their posi-
tion within Tsarist Russia, the main problem was the poverty,
ignorance, disease, etc., of the workers and peasants. And this, it
appeared to them, was caused primarily by the economic, political
and cultural backwardness of Russia. Within this context, capital-
ist technology and capitalist mangerial techniques, etc., were easily
seen as progressive per se. What Russia needed, so it seemed, was
a thorough-going economic transformation, a basically capitalist in-
dustrialization.
This was one motivation for the view they held throughout most
of their history that the revolution on the order of the day in Rus-
sia was a bourgeois one, not a socialist one. And, as we saw in the
second installment in this series, the main goal of this revolution
would be to dear the way for the fullest development of capitalism
in Russia.
When the Bolsheviks altered their straiegy in April, 1917, and
oriented themselves toward a working class revolution and the es-
tablishment of what they saw as a proletarian dictatorship, their
commitment to bourgeois technology — industrial methods and
managerial structure—did not really change. They felt: 1) since in-
dustry, etc., was now controlled by a soviet government, that is, a
workers’ slate, it ipso facto served the interests of the working
class (and peasants), 2) the main task within Russia was to build
up the industrial apparatus and the economy in general, to indus-
trialize the country. This would lay the material basis for establish-
ing socialism and, eventually, communism.
As a result, they became even more committed to the centraliza-
tion, hierarchy and discipline of capitalist industry, and paid no at-
tention at all to developing a system of direct working class control
over the economy. If anything, the fact that this industry was now
under their control, which they assumed meant the control of the
working class, led them to discard whatever objections to centrali-
zation, hierarchy and dictatorial management they might have have
had.
The Bolsheviks did not merely justify these steps by citing the
intensification of the economic crisis and [he onset of the Civil War

in 1918. They also advocated, justified anti defended them as a
point of principle, as steps toward socialism. One of N.I. Bukhar-
in’s main theoretical works written during the Civil War, The Eco-
nomics of the 7raflir/ozm<jr/£M? Period, was a virtual hymn to cen-
tralization, And Bukharin was the Bolsheviks’ major theoretician.
Here we can see a direct basis for both Lhe aims and the meth-
ods of Stalin’s program of forced industrial teat ion. Once it became
clear that the post-war wave of workers’ revolutions iiad been de-
feated, and since the working class as a whole had “shown” that it
lacked (he revolutionary will (the Kronstadt uprising, the Pelrograd
genera! strike), it seemed logical that the chief task of the party
was to force the workers and peasants to industrialize the country.
Based on bourgeois technology and centralized planning, indus-
trialization, Stalin thought, would create abundance, the material
basis for communism, thus opening up the road to the next stage
of human society. But with the workers and soon the peasants de-
prived of any control over the means of production, the cults of
centralism and bourgeois technology and, as we will soon discuss,
coercive methods, left them subordinated, exploited and decimated.
Given Stalin’s assumptions, many of which were taken over from
Bolshevism, the result was, and could only have been, a state capi-
talist industrialization.
An additional feature of the Bolshevik ethos was a belief in the
efficacy, even desirability, of coercive, brutal methods. I mentioned
this above in tiie section on the cult of hardness, but there are ad-
ditional points to be made.
When I refer to the Bolsheviks’ attraction to coercive methods, 1
am not just repeating the standard bourgeois reproach of Marxism
that “(he end justifies the means.’’ (In fact, (he capitalists them-
selves believe that the end, e.g., profits, the defense of capitalism,
does justify the means — injurious working conditions, the death
penalty, chemical warfare, nuclear weapons—but this is too long a
discussion to embark upon here.) Nor do f reject violent methods
in tvtoi I am not a pacifist. In general, 1 accept Marx’s conception
that a revolution necessarily entails violence, but by and large this
is, or should be, the violence of the overwhelming majority against
a very small minority of exploiters and their agents. So, the prob-
lem is not one of coercion/violence in the abstract.
There seems to me to be two issues involved. The first is wheth-
er those who are resorting to coercive measures are aware that us-
ing them entails a cost: that they can undercut the goal they are

purpnrttdly being used to reach, and that at some point such
measures can actually preclude the reaching of that goal.
What I am getting at is that brutal methods tend to demoraliie
and dehumanize those who employ them. It seems to me that if we
seek to buitd a more humane society than capitalism, then we
should always attempt Lo use methods that are more, rather than
less, humatte than those of the capitalists.
The other issue involved in the question of the use of coercion/
violence by revolutionaries is: against whom are the coercive meas-
ures directed? If the vast majority of workers and other oppressed
people use violence against the capitalists and their hangers-on, that
is one thing, if a relatively smail minority of revolutionaries winds
up employing brutal methods against large numbers of workers,
etc., then this is something else.
All this being said, 1 would argue: 1) that the Bolsheviks were
overly inclined to advocate coercive/brutal methods, in general;
2) that they seemed to be unaware that this might undermine the
very goal they claimed to be fighting for; and, 1) that, at least im-
plicitly, ihese coercive measures would logically wind up being di-
rected against members, even large sectors, of the working class,
whose vanguard the Bolsheviks claimed to be.
Since this is such a strong charge {and a charge typically raised
by opponents of socialism), it is worth citing some passages from
Lenin's writings and speeches to substantiate it, The three 1 have
chosen were written or spoken in April and May of 1918, This was
after the October Revolution but before the onset of the Civil War
(which was really to get underway in June, 1918),
In this period, the new Soviet government, consisting of the Bol-
sheviks and the Left Social Revolutionaries, was faced with fairly
rapid economic decline and [he onset of social and economic
chaos. The government had also recently signed the onerous Brest-
Litovsk treaty with the Central Powers, which had entailed the loss
of a great deal of Russian territory and industry. We say this both
to give the context of Lenin’s comments as well as to present them
in the best possible light.
In ”Left-wing" Childishness and the Petty Bourgeois Mentality
(May 5, 1918 Collected Works, Vol. 27, p, 344) Lenin wrote: “An-
other thing is that the courts are not sufficiently firm, Instead of
sentencing people who take bribes to be shot, ihcy sentence them
to six months’ imprisonment."
Here. Lenin is demanding that people who take bribes be shot.

The death penalty for taking bribes certainly appears very harsh to
me, especially since it is nol ipso facto an act of active counter-rev-
olutionary behavior.
Even more important, it is worth recognising that at this point
in the Russian Revolution, bribe-taking was pandemic to Russian
society. (The normal practices of peacetime had been greatly ex-
tended by the World War, the revolution and a devastating eco-
nomic crisis.) To shoot all those who accepted bribes wouid be to
execute a heli of a lot of people, not all of who were actively
counterrevolutionary or even bourgeois.
Moreover, it is reasonable to assume that Lenin thought similar
punishment should be meted out to other "people who infringe the
measures passed by the Soviets” (quote from the same passage).
Well, by ihis time, the soviets had outlawed private trade, Bui with
the breakdown of the economy, and the little time since the seizure
of power, ihc state trade network was very new and extremely inef-
ficient. In fact, it hardly existed. In this situation, many ordinary
workers and peasants engaged in private trade just to survive. So
we can see that Lenin is advocating, however implicitly, shooting a
very, very large number of people.
Perhaps Lenin thought such "firm" measures would actually
suppress bribe-Laking. If so, he was only deluding himself. In con-
ditions of extreme scarcity and chaos, people will do what they
have to do to eat and feed their families, even if they face the su-
preme penally if caught. They did so in Russia.
So, here we see an example of Lenin's preference for brutal
methods, coupled with a belief in their effectiveness. Not only is
his choice of methods excessively brutal, il also entails coercion
against workers and peasants, not just a handful of oppressors.
Even more frightening, such measures have a tendency to create
enemies of [hose who use them.
Thus in the above example, as f have indicated, most of those
who look bribes or engaged in private trade were not counterrevo-
lutionaries. At most, to use Bolshevik terminology, they were only
"objectively” counterrevolutionary.
But, I would argue, shooting people engaged in bribe-taking or
private trading is the surest way lo turn those not yet caught into
"subjective” counterrevolutionaries, And this is indeed what hap-
pened.
Beginning in Ihe summer of 1918, the Bolsheviks "brought the
revolution to the countryside’* (as they called it), and began the

forced requisitioning of grain front the so-called middle and rich
peasants. This measure turned millions of peasants against the new
Soviet regime, led to a vast contraction of cultivated land and food
production, and a consequent famine, and resulted in a bloodbath
in the countryside.
Of course, the Bolsheviks were not solely to blame for this. The
White armies were probably even more brutal than the Bolsheviks,
But the Bolsheviks’ policy of trying to suppress all private trade
shared a great deal of the responsibility for what happened. It also
made it virtually certain that the vast majority of peasants would
be, and would remain, deeply hostile to the Bolshevik regime.
(The Bolsheviks’ agrarian policy, as well as others pursued by
the Bolsheviks in the early years of the revolution, is discussed and
criticized by the basically pro-Soviet Russian dissident historian,
Roy Medvedev, in his recent book, The October Revolution.)
Another passage from Lenin’s writings and speeches in this peri-
od illustrates the problem even more clearly.
In his speech in the Moscow Soviet of Workers’, Peasants’ and
Red Army Deputies, of April 23, 1918, Lenin said:
This country, which the course of history has advanced to the fore-
most position in the arena of the world revolution, a country devastated
and bled while, is in an extremely grave situation and we shall be
crushed if we do not counter ruin, disorganisation and despair with the
iron dictatorship of the class conscious workers. We shall be merciless
both to our enemies and to all waverers and harmful elements in our
midst {emphasis added] who dare to bring disorganisation into our dif-
ficult creative work of building a new life for the working people. |Co/-
lected H'orks, Vol. 27, p. 233.]
Here, two points are worth stressing. First, not only arc the Bol-
sheviks to be “merciless” toward their enemies, they will also be so
toward “waverers” and “harmful elements in our midst.’’ “Wavcr-
ers” and “harmful elements” arc very broad words and, in the cir-
cumstances of the time, probably encompassed a lot of people.
And Lenin is not only threatening (at least implicitly) many ordi-
nary workers and peasants with Bolshevik mcrcilessness (probably
execution), he is also threatening those elements within the Bolshe-
vik Party who disagree with the need for this kind of “merciless-
ncss.” This is merely the broad version of Lenin’s demand to
shoot those caught taking bribes and engaging in private trading.
Second, in this passage, Lenin advocates the “iron dictatorship
of the class conscious workers.” Here, in Lenin’s mind, Marx’s

conception of the dictatorship of the proletariat (a dictatorship of
the entire, or almost the entire, working class), has become the dic-
tatorship of part of the proletariat, the “class conscious” workers,
who are, by Lenin's definition, the members of the Bolshevik Party.
And the task of these workers is to impose their “iron dictator-
ship” not only on class enemies (capitalists, landlords, Tsarist offi-
cers, etc.), but also on those workers who are not class conscious,
as the Bolsheviks define such consciousness. That is, on those
workers who do not agree with what they are for. That is, the rest
of the working class.
Right here is the theoretical blueprint for what was to exist by
the end of the Civil War in early 1921. By that time, the Bolsheviks
had imposed their “iron dictatorship” on the rest of the working
class, supposedly in the interests of that class. But these workers
did not agree about who represented their true interests: in March,
1921, to show their opposition to Bolshevik "mercilessness,” they
paralyzed Petrograd, the capital, with a general strike.
The next passage (a short one), I wish to cite poses Lenin’s atti-
tude toward the question of methods quite succinctly. It is also
from "Left-iving" Childishness and the Petty Bourgeois Mentality,
“,. .we must not hesitate to use barbarous methods in fighting
barbarism.” (P. 340.)
To me, this pretty much sums up the issue underlying all the
questions we have been discussing. It sums up all too much of
what I have called the Bolshevik “ethos.” And, it sums up what
was, and I think could only have been, the logical outcome of a
revolution led by a parly with that “ethos.” For, it seems to me, if
one sets out to use barbarous methods to fight barbarism, the re-
sult can only be...barbarism.
The main point I have been trying to establish is that there were
many aspects of the style and culture of the Bolshevik Party that
pointed in the direction of stale capitalism. These were tendencies
that implied the establishment of a dictatorship of a self-pro-
claimed socialist elite over the workers and peasants “in the inter-
ests of* those classes and “in the name of” socialism and commu-
nism.
It is not that objective conditions—poverty, the destruction of war
and revolution, political isolation—did not play a part in the estab-
lishment of such a dictatorship. They certainly did. But what the
Bolsheviks thought and did (and did very' aggressively), greatly con-
tributed, in the context of those conditions, 10 that same outcome.

For example, if one effect of the objective conditions is to un-
dermine (he institutions of workers’ ooniroi over the economy and
state, then what the Bolsheviks did in the context of those condi-
tions worked to further those tendencies rather than to counter
them.
Moreover, once ihe dictatorship of tiie Bolshevik Party had been
established, it is not clear to me that, even had there been success-
ful workers’ revolutions in Western Europe, the Bolsheviks would
have reestablished real proleiarian democracy, including legalizing
other left tendencies. Nor is it obvious that, given their infatuation
with centralization and "scientific” planning, they would have tried
to set up real workers’ control of the factories and the economy as
a whole. In the past, 1 used to think so, Today, I am not so sure.
Fn sum, I believe that the Bolshevik ethos, and particularly the
mind-set of Lenin, its creator and major leader, was laced with
tendencies, altitudes and conceptions that pointed in the di reel ion
of state capitalism. Even if they do not add up to state capitalism
entirely, they certainly helped lay the basis, and provided the justi-
fication, for the direction Stalin took after Lenin's death.
In conclusion, let me quote, once again, from Lenin’s writings
from the spring of J918- (We have already cited a part of this pas-
sage.)
White the revolution in Germany is still slow in "coming forth," our
task is to study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort,
in copying it and not shrink from adopting dictatorial methods to
hasten the copying of it. Our task is to hasten this copying even more
than Peter |Tsar Peter the Great—Ri] hastened the copying of Western
CulLure by barbarian Russia, and wc must not hesitate to use barbarous
methods in fighting barbarism.
With or without the objective conditions, this looks to me like a
recipe for slate capitalism.

-FOUR-
State and Revolution
T
HIS installment of our series on Leninism will focus on The
State and Revolution. Written in the summer of 1917 during
the Russian Revolution itself, this is one of Lenin’s most important
works.
In many ways, this installment is the most difficult for me to
write. The State and Revolution was one of the first, if not the
first, of the works of Lenin I ever read. This relatively small book
had a profound effect on a teenager coming of age in the early
’60s.
While my family was radical (the word used then was “progres-
sive”), The State and Revolution convinced me to become a Lenin-
ist and to want to be a professional revolutionary "when I grew
up.” Here, it seemed to me, was a revolutionary and democratic
vision worth devoting my life to. t read The State and Revolution
at least once a year for many years thereafter
And in many ways, The State and Revolution is Lenin’s most
libertarian work. Here was Lenin breaking decisively with the ref-
ormist and statist conceptions of the Second (Socialist) Internation-
al, demanding a return to the much more radical ideas put forward
by Karl Marx in his writings on the Paris Commune. Here was
Lenin elaborating a notion of a revolutionary society based on so-
viets (workers’ councils) and other institutions of direct workers’
rule. Here was Lenin emphasizing that the ultimate goal of prole-
tarian revolution is the withering away of the state.
For many years, 77ie State and Revolution was the foundation
stone on which I elaborated my politics. It was what I pointed to
in arguing against liberal and reformist positions. It was what I
used as the starting point for fighting my own (and others’) illu-
sions in the so-called “socialist countries.” And it was what I kept
coming back lo in an attempt to develop a revolutionary, demo-

cratic conception of socialism that remained within the overall
framework of Leninism (via Trotskyism, for example),
ft was also the one work of Lenin’s in which I had the most diffi-
culty discovering whal I have been calling "state capitalist tenden-
cies." The book seemed so revolutionary, so anti-stale, that for the
longest time I could not see any foreshadowings of Stalinism/state
capitalism in it. It was probably this, as much as anything else, that
prevented me from recognizing the role that Lenin (and Leninism)
had in creating Stalinism Atate capitalism. After all, if Lenin’s vision
of 1917 was as democratic and anti-slate as it seemed, then it seemed
logical to blame what happened in Russia on "objective condittotis"
— and on Stalin. That is, on anybody and anything but Lenin.
Yet, recognizing the state capitalist tendencies in The State and
Revolution is crucial to coming up with a realistic assessment of
Leninism, if Leninism is significantly statist, it ought to be appar-
ent, or at icasr discernible, in this book. If it is not, then perhaps
Leninism isn’t as statist as the anarchists, anti-authoritarians and
libertarians contend.
The often heard argument from many anarclnsts, libertarians,
etc., that Lenin stole the ideas in The State and Revolution from
the anarchists only muddies the waters, ft accepts that the book is
a truly libertarian document and then avoids a serious analysis of
how Lenin, the arch-statist, could come up with it by claiming that
he really didn’t.
A meaningful analysis would at least attempt to siiow the differ-
ent degrees of continuity and discontinuity between The State and
Revolution and Lenin’s other works. It would also analyze the cir-
cumstances that would induce Lenin to write such a work and,
most important, would attempt to elucidate whatever slate capital-
ist tendencies are present in the book, however modest or hidden
they may be.
On its own terms, the argument that l^nin lifted much of The
State and Revolution from Lhe anarchists seems implausible to me,
I do not mean to deny the possibility that Lenin might have been
influenced by anarchist ideas in this period (he certainly began to
see the ulterior motives behind the reformists’ attacks on anar-
chism). But I don’t think this teils us much. Unfortunately, Lenin
had little but contempt for anarchism, the anarchist movement and
anarchist thinking: he generally debunked it as a form of petty
bourgeois ideology, whatever he might have thought of individual
anarchist militants.

The genesis of The State and Revolution is more reasonably ex-
plained by (wo factors:
J. The collapse of the Second {Socialist) International at the out-
set of World War I caused Lenin to take a very critical look at
what had been considered "orthodox Marxism” at the time. In
this rethinking, involving a reading of some of the works of the
philosophical forerunner of Marx, GW.F. Hegel, Lenin broke out
of the mechanistic siage-ism of Social Democracy,
He began to see Russia as a part of a world capitalist system
that was suffering a serious global crisis. This opened him up to
the idea that the Russian Revolution need not be limited to a bour-
geois-democratic stage until the victory of one or more socialist
revolutions in Europe and led him to think in terms of a worker-
led revolution in Russia that would be the first battle in an interna-
tional socialist revolution.
2, Equally important, the form of this revolution in Russia, and
of the revolutionary government that would emerge from it, was
suggested by the course of the class struggle itself. By the time
Lenin arrived in Russia in early April 1917, the workers and sol-
diers had not only (spontaneously) toppled the TSar. They had also
set up mass democratic instituLions (soviets, factory committees,
etc.), and were, to a considerable extent, running Russian society
through them. Between his theoretical reconsiderations of basic
questions of Marxism and the imposing reality of the achievements
of the Russian workers, Lenin did not need to borrow, or steal,
from the anarchists, to come up with The State and Revolution,
In my opinion, then, 77ie State and Revolution is the organic re-
sult of the development of Lenin’s thinking. That it is as libertari-
an as it is is a reflection of the libertarian impulse in Marxism and
the even greater libertarian impulse of masses of workers attempt-
ing to carry out a social revolution.
Despite all this, however, there are state capitalist tendencies in
The State and Revolution. And those who want to evaluate Lenin-
ism from a libertarian point of view ought to be able to reveal
them and analyze them.
One reason The Stare and Revolution appears to be so libertari-
an is that it proclaims that the main goal of Marxists is the estab-
lishment of a stateless and, of course, classless society. The goal of
the socialist revolution, Lenin insisted, was the establishment of
communism, a society without social classes and without a state of
any kind. Nor was this meant to be in the far distant future. Be-

cause of the world crisis of imperialism, this goal was an immedi-
ate, practical one.
This may seem obviously Marxist to those who have read Marx
and Engels. But at the time, Lenin’s assertion was seen as quite
radical because the Socialist International had quietly shelved such
ideas (reserved for May Day speeches, at best) as part of the “uto-
pian ” and unrealistic dreams of Marx and Engels in their younger
years. The actual goal of Social Democracy was increasingly a
democratic capitalist welfare stale. For Lenin to resurrect and even
to emphasize Marx and Engels’ radical and apparently anti-statist
vision (and to call attention to the fact that this was expressed as
“late” as 1871 in Marx’s writings on the Paris Commune) was al-
most heretical.
Despite how anti-statist the call for a revolution to establish a
classless and stateless society may sound, a careful reading of 77ie
State and Revolution shows that the book is not nearly as anti-
state as it seems. In fact, it is quite pro-state, but in a hidden sort
of way.
The source of this paradox is the notion of the withering away
of the state. In Marxist theory, the state, after a successful socialist
revolution, is not abolished. It withers away: it disappears gradual-
ly. This flows, supposedly, from the very nature of the form of
government established by a successful proletarian uprising. The
proletariat rises up, smashes the old bourgeois state, and builds a
new state based on workers’ councils and other democratic institu-
tions of the working class and other oppressed classes. The job of
this state is primarily to defeat counterrevolutionary attempts, to
complete the destruction of the bourgeois slate, lo finish suppress-
ing the capitalist class and other oppressor classes, and to draw the
masses of workers and other oppressed people into the day-to-day
management of society. To the degree these tasks are accomplished,
and relative scarcity, the material basis of class society and the
state, is overcome, there is no need for such a state and it will
gradually wither away.
This flows from the nature of the state itself. Under class socie-
ties, such as ancient slave systems, feudalism, capitalism, etc., the
state is an instrument of a tiny minority to maintain its rule over
the exploited majority. Given the disparity in the sizes of the op-
pressor and oppressed classes respectively, this task requires a large
and elaborate apparatus ultimately based on coercion and consist-
ing of “bodies of armed men, prisons, etc.”

The stale after a successful proletarian revolution, on the 01 her
hand, is not an instrument of a tiny minority over the vast majori-
ty, but the reverse. It is a weapon of the vast majority to suppress
the former ruling and exploiting minority. Thus, as its tasks are
completed, it no longer has any purpose and gradually disappears.
While this seems to make sense, in fact it contains a number of
fallacies. In order to SCO them, it is worth considering what this
conception of the nature of the revolutionary stale and its eventual
withering away means in terms of the tasks facing revolutionaries.
In other words, how would revolutionaries holding to this theory
of the slate and Its eventual elimination think of what they should
do during and after a revolution?
The practical application of this theory, it seems to me, is that
the key job of revolutionaries after a successful proletarian re volu-
tion is not to do away with the state, but to build a nevr one.
Moreover, in order to suppress the bourgeoisie and the other ex-
ploiters most efficiently, this state should be as strong and alt-em-
bracing as possible. Finally, since this new "proletarian” state will
"inevitably” wither away once the exploiters and counterrevolu-
tionaries are suppressed and the workers are drawn into admin-
istering society, there is no need to safeguard the workers, the
revolution or the revolutionaries themselves from "their own”
state.
This is the crux of the paradox I mentioned above. The very
revolutionaries who claim that they are against the state, and for
eliminating the state, who say they are the only ones who can do
away with the slate, etc., see as their central task after a revolution
to build up a state that is more solid, more centralized and more
all-embracing than the old state.
This, it seems to me, is the key problem with The State and
(ievolution and, in fact, the entire Marxist theory of the state. In
this theory, the key goal for one of them), the elimination of the
state, supposedly happens by itself; it is taken care of by the "his-
toric process,” Human beings don’t have to worry about it; what
they have <o worry aboui is building up a new state.
Bui what if the historic process doesn’t work out as Marx and
Engels and Lenin thought it would? What if, instead of withering
away, the revolutionary slate sticks around? What if some individ-
uals or groups of individuals in powerful positions in that slate de-
cide they don’t want the state, and ihcir power, to wither away?
The result, even under optimal conditions, is likely to be a "rev-

olutionary” society governed by a large, power fill and omnipresent
stale apparatus, which is justified by the absurd notion that the
purpose of such a state is to eliminate the state, We call this state
capitalism.
On one level, the underlying fallacy in the theory of the state
put forward in The State and Revolution can be described by the
common phrase “St looks good on paper, but,.,,” In other
words, it is wishful thinking; it assumes the best.
On a somewhat deeper level, the problem is the belief that the
theory has captured the full reality of the state, its essence, pur-
pose, and historical direction. And since the theory declares that
the *■logic” of this essence, purpose and historical direction is that
the state will eventually be eliminated, “negated,” “transcended”
via a “dialectical” (apparently contradictory) process, this is what
will inevitably happen. The fallacy, in other words, is that the the-
ory has reduced historical development to a (dialectical) logic that
it declares to be inevitable, even if this may not be so.
Those who delect a criticism of Hegelian thinking here are cor-
rect. In my view, the Marxist theory of (he state and its eventual
withering away is essentially Hegelian. Although Man: and Engels
felt that they had broken decisively with their philosophical mentor,
the Marxist world view—from its conception of history, to Capital
to its underlying philosophical outlook—is fundamentally Hegelian,
And even though Marx and Engels described their viewpoint as a
materialism, in contrast to Hegel's idealism, their world view re-
mained, in my opinion, as idealistic as Hegel's, although uncon-
sciously so.
The so-cailed “laws of history,” as expressed in “historical mate-
rialism,” are a kind of logic, or thought. Artd it is this logic that
ultimately determines human history. This is idealism.
Marx and Engels, or maybe just Engels, occasionally described
what they had done as turning Hegel on his head, or standing an
upside-down Hegel on his feet. But Hegel turned upside down or
right side up is still Hegel.
Lenin’s (and Marx and Engels’) theory of the state, to repeal, is
based on the notion that the (dialectical) logic of the state (and of
history) guarantees that (he slate under a revolutionary society will
disappear.
But what if this dialectical logic is too neat? What if this view of
the state (and history, human society, etc.), ignores or etefines oui
of existence other aspects of the slate (and history, human society,

etc.), that are not reducible lo logic {even dialectical logic)? If,
however brilliant it might be, the theory is not lOCWo correct {and
no theory can ever be KXWo correct), the stage might just be set
for Marxist revolutionaries, fervently believing Marxist theory, and
organized in an extremely disciplined and well-organized party, to
create a “dictatorship of the proletariat” that might not wither
away as it was supposed to.
1 think this is, at least in part, what happened after the October
Revolution. The Bolsheviks sought to buiid up a strong state appa-
ratus, based on the soviets, trade unions and factory committees.
Convinced that the stronger, more efficient and more centralized
this apparatus was, the easier it would be to smash the old state
and ruling classes, defeat the counterrevolutionary attempts and
draw the workers into administering society, and convinced that
once these tasks were accomplished and other revolutions had suc-
ceeded in the West, the state would wither away, the Bolsheviks
gave no thought to the other, supposedly higher goal of doing
away with the state. Although they proclaimed their goal to be the
elimination of the state, their de facto goal was to build a new,
more efficient, more centralized one. They succeeded.
The point is not that the workers and other oppressed people
should not build up a strong set of organizations during and after
a revolution to manage the economy and socieiy, defend their
gains and suppress the exploiters, etc. But they also need to take
steps to prevent a new state from arising and oppressing them.
That is, they need to figure out concretely how they arc going to
build a stateless society.
The Marxist theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, as
elaborated in Thu State and Revolution, “arms” the revolutionary
party with the need to build up a new, revolutionary state, but it
disarms the workers about the need to fight against a new state
forming.
At this point (if they haven't already), someone will protest that
Lenin, citing Marx, talks about the dictatorship of the proletariat
being a state of the armed workers, the proletariat organized as the
ruling class, a state that is already beginning to wither away, a
state that is already in the process of becoming a non-state, etc.
Yes, someone else will say, and he also included detailed discus-
sions of various measures lo maintain the workers’ control over
their state, for example, having the soviets combine legislative and
executive powers, having the workers’ delegates be subject to im-

mediate recall, having all mate officials receive no more than an
average worker’s salary, etc.
This is certainly true, although how detailed these discussions are
and how effective the measures proposed would be can be disputed
(leaving aside the question of whether the Bolsheviks ever seriously
tried to implement them).
The problem, however, is not that Lenin gave no thought to
how the workers might control the new state apparatus, but that
his very conception of that apparatus was bourgeois. In the previ-
ous installment of this series, I discussed Lenin’s infatuation with
bourgeois technology, centralization, technocratic planning, etc.
Lenin seemed to assume that capitalist industry, managerial tech-
niques, etc., were class-neutral, that is. that what made them bour-
geois was that they were controlled by the bourgeoisie and were
used to further its interests.
He iherefore assumed that after a revolution, the workers could
lake over this industry, technology, etc., more or less as is, and put
it to work for themselves. Ail that was necessary, he thought, was
that the workers needed to be able lo control it (although by 19 IS,
in my opinion, he seemed to think that control by the Bolshevik
party was sufficient to guarantee working class control; in 1922-23,
he seems to have changed his mind, but by that time it was too
late).
It did not occur to him that capitalist industry, technology, man-
agerial techniques, etc., are bourgeois through and through, in
their very structure. The same mistake is apparent in The State and
Revolution.
To be specific: as we know, Lenin was very impressed with the
German postal system and believed that its class content did not
reside in its form of organization, but in the fact that it was subor-
dinated to a landlord-Junker state. This idea appears in The State
and Revolution. It is worth citing a passage at some length:
A wiuy German Social-Democrat of the seventies of the Iasi century
called the postal service an example of Ihe socialist economic system.
This is very true. At ihe present the pasta! service is a business organised
on the lines of a state-capitalist monopoly. Imperialism is gradually
transforming all trusts into organisations of a similar type, in which,
standing over the "common1" people, who are overworked and Starved,
one has the same bourgeois democracy. Bui the mechanism of social
management is here already to hand. Once we have overthrown the Cap-
italists, crushed the resistance of these exploiters with the iron hand of
the armed workers, and smashed the bureaucratic machine of the mod-

em stale, we shall have a splendidly-equipped mechanism. Treed from
the “parasite,” a mechanism which can very well be set going by the
united workers themselves, who will hire technicians, foremen and ac-
countants, and pay them all, as indeed all "state” officials in general,
workmen’s wages. Here is a concrete practical task which can immedi-
ately be fulfilled in relation to all trusts, a task whose fulfillment will rid
the working people of exploitation To organise the whole economy
on the lines of the postal service.. .all under the control and leadership
of the armed proletariat—this is our immediate aim. This is Ihe state and
this is the economic foundation we need. (Collected Works, Vol. 25,
pp. 426-7, emphasis in original.)
Reading this in light of everything thai has happened in the
state capitalist countries (and refusing to give Lenin the benefit of
the doubt, as I used to do), I find this passage truly frightening.
Lenin wanted to organize all society along the lines of the Ger-
man postal system, replete with bourgeois technicians, foremen,
etc., under the illusion that this structure could be effectively con-
trolled by the workers. Even if all the measures Lenin proposed
were implemented, this apparatus would eventually wind up dom-
inating the workers rather than the other way around.
This is because the apparatus itself, the way it is organized, its
structure, its mode of operation, etc., is bourgeois (the German
postal system was probably partly feudal). And as it operates, it
reproduces bourgeois social relations within it; this is the very
condition of its operation. Even granting Lenin the best inten-
tions, an entire society built along the lines he is describing looks
more like a bureaucratic nightmare than a society moving toward
eliminating the stale.
Unfortunately, this was the model Lenin and the Bolsheviks
used to reorganize Russian society in the spring of 1918 and after.
It explains why they subordinated the factory committees to the
trade unions, why they instituted one-person management, why
they built a standing army with traditional discipline, officered by
Tsarist generals, etc., etc. You cannot blame this all on the eco-
nomic crisis, the counterrevolution, the revolt of the Left SRs,
etc. While the specific measures may have been determined by
these objective conditions, the overall bent, the overall orienta-
tion, is present in The State and Revolution, written when Lenin
was optimistic about the Russian Revolution and the international
revolution.
A few other passages from The State and Revolution will help
to flesh out Lenin’s vision of the revolutionary state/society.

'‘Until the higher phase of communism arrives, the socialists de-
mand the strictest control by society and by the state over the
measure of labour and the measure of consumption.*..” (Page
470, emphasis in original.)
According to Lenin, the "vital and burning qustion of present-
day politics” is: 11 the expropriation of the capitalists, the conver-
sion of at! citizens into workers and employees of one huge syndi-
cate— the whole state.*.,” (Page 470.)
A few pages later Lenin predicts: “The whole of society will
have become a single office and a single factory...." (Page 474.)
To be sure, Lenin always emphasizes that the “control” must be
exercised "not by a slate of bureaucrats, but by a state of armed
workers.(page 470), that the work of the “syndicate” be com-
pletely subordinated “to a genuinely democratic stale, the state of
the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers* Deputies" (page 470), etc.,
etc.
But ihe point made earlier about the German postal system ap-
plies here as well, if the institutions of the revolutionary society,
such as the economy, are organized along what are essentially
bourgeois lines (one huge factory, one huge office, with foremen,
accountants and bourgeois lechnicians), then that society will re-
main bourgeois. Ft will be only a matter of time before the bour-
geois social relations, continually reproduced and reinforced within
the very heart of society, will undermine the control of the “armed
workers** and the “Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.”
At ils best, the workers’ oomrol that Lenin talks about is entire-
ly external to the apparatus. But if the workers continue to live
and, even more important, wor* in an environment, in a structure,
that is bourgeois, their own activity and their consciousness will re-
vert to being bourgeois. Although true social liberation cannot be
achieved all at once, it cannot be compartmentalized either.
If the workers arc to control the post-re voiutionary society, they
have to control it at all levels, especially at the immediate levels of
their own lives. Lenin seems to believe the workers can continue to
work under what are essentially bourgeois conditions while some-
how exercising control over this bourgeois apparatus. This is. at
best, wishful thinking.
Although 1 think the ihcoretical point has been made, I cannot
resist the temptation to point out what kind of vision these pas-
sages suggest. Although L-cnin talks jn democratic terms, his con-
ception is very hierarchical and very regimented. There is virtually

no room for individual difference and creativity, let alone people
just goofing off- With the whole of society organised as one big
factory and one big office, liberation is defined as being a disci-
plined member of an industrial army,
This jibes with the infatuation with economic growth and mod-
ernization that i discussed in our last installment as being central
to the Bolshevik ethos. It also points directly toward Stalin's com-
mitment to industrialization “by any means necessary." It is not
yet, not explicitly, as inhumane as Stalin's, but it certainly gels the
ball rolling in that direction.
This brings me to the next slate capitalist aspect of The State
and Revolution that I wish to discuss here. This is the fact that al-
though Lenin talks about workers’ control, winning the battle for
democracy, the proletariat organized as the ruling class, uniting leg-
islative and executive functions in individual governing bodies, etc,,
nowhere in the work do we get an idea that ihe workers will dis-
cuss, decide and carry out political decisions. If anything, Lenin
seems to think that after the revolution, the questions facing the
workers will be overwhelmingly administrative.
Accounting and control — that is mainly what is needed for the
"smooth working.’’ for the proper functioning, of ihc/irar phase of
communist society, (Page 473.)
When the majority of people begin independently and everywhere to
keep such accounts and exercise such control over the capitalists {now
converted into employees) and over the intellectual gentry who preserve
their capitalist habits, this control will really become universal, general
and popular-... (Pages 473-4.)
From the moment all members of society, or at least the vast majori-
ty, have learned to ad minister the state themselves, have taken this work
into their own hands, have organised control over the insignificant capi-
talist minority, over the gentry who wish to preserve their capitalist
habits and over the workers who have been thoroughly corrupted by
capitalism—from this moment the need for government of any kind be-
gins to disappear altogether. (Page 474. emphasis in original,)
Throughout this lengthy passage, and throughout The State and
Revolution as a whole, there is no mention of the need for the
mass of workers to make political decisions. The workers’ tasks, it
seems, are predominantly to suppress and/or "control’’ the Former
capitalists, the gentry, etc., and to “keep accounts." These are bas-
ically administrative tasks. Somehow, political decisions, political
discussion and debate are absent. Lenin seems to assume thai once
the dictatorship of the proletariat is established, political discussion

— political debate, political conflict, politics period — is tran-
scended, (Either that or political decisions are reserved exclusively
Tor ihc revolutionary party, the truly class conscious workers.)
As with much of The State and Revolution, it is not obvious
that Lenin's conception is undemocratic. It looks democratic: he
talks of workers’ control, workers administrating the state, a state
of the armed workers, etc., etc., but the meat, the content—work-
ers directly and immediately running society, workers, not bour-
geois specialists and political leaders, making the political and
economic decisions — is just not there.
This helps to explain one of the outstanding features of The
State and Revolution, in this case an omission. There is no discus-
sion of the revolutionary party in this work, let alone of a multi-
party system. 1 think this is very significant.
After all, Lenin spent most of his adult life building, or trying
to build, a revolutionary party. Building such a party was the cen-
tral strategic task of revolutionaries short of carrying out a success-
ful working class revolution. In fact, the existence of such a party
was, for Lenin, the necessary condition for such a revolution to
succeed.
Moreover, it is the revolutionary party, we will remember, that is
the source and guarantor of socialist consciousness. Without the
party, Lenin wrote in What Is To Be Done?, the working class can
only attain trade unionist, reformist consciousness. For Lenin to
omit a discussion of the revolutionary party in as central a work as
The State and Revolution means something,
There arc, among others, two plausible explanations for this.
One, Lenin felt that the revolutionary party would continue to ex-
ist and lead the workers. Indeed, its authority would be undis-
puted, owing to the success of the revolution, etc. Two, Lenin felt
that the party would not be needed and would dissolve.
I personally feel that the first explanation is the likely one. Given
Lenin’s entire conception of consciousness and leadership, I do not
think he could conceive of the dictatorship of the proletariat with-
out the "leading role" of the revolutionary party.
But on some level, it really doesn’t matter which explanation is
more plausible because they both imply the point made earlier—in
Lenin’s conception the mass of workers do not make political deci-
sions, either because they are reserved for the party (the workers’
delegates can "discuss" and approve party decisions in the soviets),
or because they no longer need to be made.

It is tempting to belabor this point, to try to prove it rather than
just suggest it. But 1 don't think it can be proven directly. Those
who fed that Lenin believed in true workers’ democracy, where the
workers discuss and carry out the political and economic decisions
of society, will read The State and Revolution in that light, After
many readings of the book, and much thought, t do not believe
Lenin believed in what we would call workers' democracy. Direct
workers' control over the factories and workers’ democracy are, to
Lenin, stepping stones, part of a transitional stage, toward a very
abstract "higher democracy,” what is in fact a very centralized,
hierarchical, bureaucratie. regimented "dictatorship of the proletar-
iat,”
This point can perhaps be belter made the other way around.
Lenin docs not seem to recognize that the socialist revolution must
involve, at its very core, a change in social relations, a change in
how people relate to each other. This change has to start right
from the beginning; it cannot be delayed until some indefinite
point in the future, say, the so-called "higher phase” of commu-
nism.
Under capitalism, people by and large relate to each other in a
competitive, alienated manner. Cooperation exists, of course, but it
tends to be subordinated to the competitive, hierarchical structure
and ethos of capitalism. Social ism is a society in winch cooperation
— people helping each other, trying to work together, trying to live
together — becomes predominant. People still compete, but this
competition is primarily constructive, it remains within the frame-
work of people cooperating.
During a revolution, the new. cooperative social relations have to
begin appearing among the workers and oppressed classes right
away. The workers have to learn how to relate to each other in
this new way. They learn this through reorganizing their work situ-
ations, and through directly governing society at all levels, They
have to learn how to manage all of their affairs through coopera-
tion. And they (we) can only learn this by doing it directly.
This dimension of the socialist revolution seems to be totally lost
on Lenin. The socialist revolution, in his conception, is largely a
change in form. But much of the content of the old society—bour-
geois technology, bourgeois managerial techniques, hierarchical
structures, factory discipline and, 1 would suggest, bourgeois social
relations — remains.
In fact, the whole human dimension is lacking from The State

and Revolution. True, Lenin is writing theory and theory is ab-
stract. Bul somehow his theory about what ought to be one of the
profoundcst transformations of human society, of human social re-
lations, of the human personality is disturbingly flat, non-human.
At times, Lenin seems to get excited, but his vision is so abstract
that it ail rings hollow to me, at least now.
1 suspect that this flatness reflects a far deeper problem in his
thinking and in much of Marxist theory in general. Somehow, peo-
ple, concrete human beings, are not quite real. The real reality is
the social and historical categories, social classes, states, forces and
relations of production, modes of production.
These categories may or may not be useful in analyzing history
and human society. But they are nol themselves that history, that
society, that human reality. Human beings (and human history)
cannot be reduced to purely logical categories. They arc more com-
plicated than that, This is what makes them interesting, unique,
lovable, hateabie, etc. And it’s what mates human beings and hu-
man societies ultimately unpredictable- Without this unpredictabili-
ty, without the special dimension of people that cannot be reduced
to categories, to abstractions, there is no bfe.
The fundamental fallacy of 77ie State and Revolution, much of
Marxism and much of most of what passes for sociology and so-
cial theory, then, is that it takes iiself too seriously. It believes that
the abstractions, the categories, the theories are the real reality, and
the concrete, the non-reducible, is some kind of epiphenomenon,
something derivative and not quite real. These theories may or may
not be true (meaning, roughly, approximately true), but they are
nol the reality. Concrete people, concrete history—life—is the reality,
Seeing Marxist theory as the underlying reality, Lenin, in The
State and Revolution and elsewhere, conceived of a vision of the
revolutionary society that constrains human beings and human life
within what arc ultimately dead abstractions. With a fundamental
approach and mindset like this, is it any wonder that the move-
ment Lenin buiit and ted created a society that squelches out life in
the interest of dead structures, categories and ideology?
By way of conclusion, 1 want to repeat a point I've made peri-
odically. I am not trying to prove ihat everything Lenin did or
wrote is undemocratic, state capitalist or totalitarian. Nor am 1
suggesting that Lenin willfully, knowingly, was an undemocratic
person (like, say, Adolf Hitter, who knew exactly what he was do-
ing). 1 ihink Lenin saw himself as being very democratic, very

committed to workers’ rule, etc. Yet, his underlying conception and
vision of the dictatorship of the proletariat, or a worker-run socie-
ty, were undemocratic.
A lot of the reason for this had to do with the fact that he was
a product of his lime and place; backward, undemocratic Russia of
the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with a tiny, very young
working class surrounded by millions of illiterate peasants, etc.
Part of the reason had to do with Lenin’s own upbringing and per-
sonality.
But I think most of the reason for Lenin’s ultimately undemo-
cratic vision was his belief that Marxism was a science, which, lo
him, meant that it was absolutely true. If the theory is True, and it
says that a workers’ revolution and a workers’ society will take
such and such a form and do such and such a thing, then there is
no place for real democracy. Since it is all inevitable, there is no
room for choice or, if there is choice, it is the prerogative of Lhose
who understand the Science, who have access to the Truth, that is,
the revolutionary party. This will be the theme of the next install-
ment.

-FIVE-
LeniiTs Theory of Knowledge
Part I
I
N this installment of our series on Leninism, I propose to take
up Lenin’s conception of human knowledge and truth.
This is a complicated subject which would be very difficult to
write about even if I were an expert. Since I am not, and since I
am writing to an audience made up of readers with different levels
of philosophic (and other) knowledge, and since 1 am writing a
newspaper article, not a hook, my task is not easy. I say this by
way of an apology right at the outset: 1 am sorry if my discussion
is not as lucid as it might be.
However, I really have no choice but to make the attempt to ex-
plain these matters since I believe they are the heart of the problem
this series is meant to Investigate.
And this is, to repeat, to what degree is the theory and practice
of Leninism responsible for the establishment of state capitalism in
Russia? Or, putting the question somewhat differently, what aspects
of the theory and practice of Leninism point to, or presage, state
capitalism?
Contrary to my usual procedure, I will slate my conclusions
first,
I am convinced that Lenin and the Bolshevik Party as a whole
believed: 1) that there is an absolute truth (I mean by this that re-
ality is determined and predictable); 2) that absolute knowledge,
that is, perfect knowledge of that truth, is possible; 3) that such
truth and knowledge exist in respect to human society and history;
4) that Marxism is the knowledge of this truth; and 5) that within
Russia, Lenin and the Bolsheviks were the only real Marxists.
I am also convinced that these propositions are the philosophical
foundation of state capitalism, that they, when combined with the
Marxist call to carry out its program through the seizure of state
power, point directly to the establishment of state capitalism. I do

not insist that a parly holding to these or similar propositions wilt
inevitably create state capitalism, only that if il does seize stale
power, it is highly probable that it will.
If there is one and only one (political! truth, and if your party,
by virtue of its ideology and program, is the sole possessor of that
truth, then you are not going to think very highly of political de-
bate, political pluralism, and the right of other parties and organi-
zations to exist, organize themselves and openly propagate their
views. You might not always be against these things, but they will
never be the top priority.
Since you already have the truth, politically and otherwise, you
don’t need a dialogue/debate with other forces to obtain it. And if
you have seized power and things gel rough, political pluralism and
debate will seem like downright luxuries that can, and should, be
done away with, if “only temporarily," Which, to a great degree,
was done by the Bolsheviks under Lenin’s leadership, not Stalin's,
in Russia.
I do nol contend that Leninism and Marxism are the only world
views that hold to notions of absolute truth and knowledge. Prob-
ably most people in the world—certainly in the West — believe in
absolute truLh and knowledge, in the sense that there L? an absolute
truth, and absolute knowledge of that truth, at least in some do-
mains, is possible.
I am also not arguing that a belief in absolute truth and knowl-
edge necessarily equals a totalitarian ideology. Albert Einstein, the
author of Lhe theory of relativity, believed that the uni verse is de-
terministic, that is, that there is an absolute truth in respect to the
structure of the universe. He also believed that science is capable
of comprehending it, in other words, that an absolute knowledge
of that structure is possible. Yet, Albert Einstein was one of the
[east totalitarian-minded people of lit is century.
I do suggest, however, that the belief in absolute truth and
knowledge is the kernel of a totalitarian ideology and that every
world view or ideology based on such a belief has a totalitarian
potential.
The chief Western religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are
good examples. They are al! based on a belief in both absolute
truth and absolute knowledge of this truth (nol that they are al-
ways internally consistent about this). And they all contain totali-
tarian potentialities.
Look at Islam, not only in Iran, whose current rulers hold to a

particularly fundamentalist version of tltat religion, but elsewhere,
book at Judaism, not only right-wing famics, such as Meir Ka-
hane, but also mainstream Zionism. Look, too, at the fundamen-
talist Christian groups in the U.S. which, taken as a whole, are
very large, very rich and very powerful anti scare me to death: they
want to impose their very narrow and reactionary ideology on
everybody in the country.
Not least, look at the Cathoiic Church. For a variety of reasons,
the totalitarian potential of Catholicism (which, as such, is neither
greater nor less than that of Protestantism, Islam or Judaism} is
particularly apparent. Catholicism has a dictator (the Pope, God’s
representative), a very defined and narrow dogma and regulations,
from which dissent is not allowed (Pope John Pau! 11 reminded
U.S. Catholics of this in his recent tour), a huge political appara-
tus, including courts and a secret police.
In the past, the Church also attempted to set up actual totalitari-
an societies. In Western Europe during the Middle Ages, it came
quite close to doing so, at least as close as one could get given the
limited technology available. It owned between '/j and Yi of the
land and exploited thousands of serfs. It imposed a nearly com-
plete ideological (religious) monopoly on the entire society. Jews
were sometimes tolerated (under special restriction), but often mas-
sacred, as during the Crusades, Pagan traditions were snuffed out
or coopted. And the Inquisition, in its various versions, investi-
gated, exposed, tortured and killed heretics.
In fact, the Church, under the aegis of the arch fanatical Jesuits
(the Society of Jesus), did build a totalitarian society in Paraguay,
where it ruled over and exploited large numbers of the indigenous
people (in the interests of their salvation, of course).
These examples suggest, at least to me, that the belief in absolute
truth and knowledge is the underlying core of totalitarian world-
views. In and of itself, however, such a belief does not necessarily
add up to totalitarianism, in order for a world view to be such, it
must also believe that absolute truth and knowledge are possible in
respect to human society, that is, economics and politics, that it (the
particular world view} itself embodies the sole knowledge of that
truth, and that this world view, and an economic, political and social
program reflecting it, should be imposed on society.
Although 1 believe all these characteristics pertain to Leninism, I
would particularly like to focus on one, Lenin's conception of
truth and knowledge.

Lenin, like most people of his day, believed in absolute truth
and knowledge, that is, that the world has a definite, determined
structure, and that precise, absolute knowledge of that truth is pos-
sible. He wrote an entire book devoted to defending this proposi-
tion (although he hedged his words), along with his interpretation
of dialectical materialism, which he considered to be the philoso-
phy of Marxism.
The book is Materialism and Empirio-cnlicism, published in
1909, and it is this work that i wish to discuss at some length.
Materialism and Empirio-critkism was written as a polemic
against Anatoly Bogdanov and Aleksandr Lunacharsky, two Bol-
sheviks who were attracted to the ideas of Ernst Mach and Richard
Avcnarius, Henri Poincare and other scientists, mathematicians and
philosophers who were the precursors of a school of philosophy
called logical positivism. Bogdanov and Lunacharsky had been in-
terested in the ideas of Ernst Mach (the most influential of these
thinkers) for some lime and in 1903 published a book that con-
tained contributions from Mach and others. Lenin went to London
in that year, spent a lot of time studying the literature and came
out with Materialism and Empirio-criticistn the following year.
Although Lenin had expressed concern about Mach's influence
earlier In the decade, his decision to write a book attacking him
was motivated primarily by internal Bolshevik factional politics.
(When Bogdanov and Lunacharsky agreed with Lenin—indeed, for
a wrhile they were his main stalwarts—you can be sure he did not
publicly attack them for philosophical heresy. It was only when
they disagreed with him that he did so. What this means about
Lenin’s methods 1 will leave to the reader’s interpretation.)
The circumstances of the dispute were these. In the aftermath of
the Revolution of 1905, which was defeated, a great demoralization
set in among the working class and the revolutionary movement.
The Bolsheviks were not unaffected by this. Like the other groups,
they lost their mass base, were hit by mass defections and dwindled
away almost to nothing. The Bolsheviks’ underground apparatus
almost ceased to exist.
During this period, Lenin sought to take advantage of whatever
scraps of legal activity ihe Bolsheviks could engage in. One of
these was running for and participating in the Duma, a semi-legis-
lative body, elected in a highly indirect and undemocratic manner,
that Tsar Nicholas II had conceded at the height of the revolution.
At first, Lenin opposed running in the elections for the Duma

and participating in its deliberations. The Mensheviks, who were
still in the same party, generally favored participation. Later, when
it had become dear that the revolution was over and a reactionary
period had sot in, Lenin changed his mind and wanted the Bolshe-
viks to participate to gain whatever space for conducting revolu-
tionary agitation this allowed, no matter how limited.
Within the Bolshevik faction, Lenin was isolated, opposed by his
former allies, including Bogdanov and Lunacharsky. (There were a
variety of tendencies among the Bolsheviks on this issue. Some
favored an out-and-out boycott of the elections and the Duma it-
self. Some favored participating in the elections, but then, after
presenting some kind of ultimatum, walking out. Later some
wanted to recall the delegates that had been elected. But the differ-
ences are not very significant, at least not today.) Since Lenin fell
strongly about the issue, the discussion was heated.
In addition lo their “boycottism,” Lunacharsky and Bogdanov,
along with others, including (he writer Maxim Gorky, were playing
around with creating a kind of proletarian religion, as a way of
competing with the established churches for ihe minds of the de-
moralised workers.
Lenin opposed this “God-building," along with "boycoiiism.”
Writing Materialism and Empirto-criltdsm was thus a convenient
way to discredit Bogdanov and Lunacharsky. It was also a good
way lo defend what he saw as Marxist orthodoxy and thus firm up
the faithful during a particularly rough period.
Although Materialism and Empirio-eritkism is directed against a
number of thinkers, i would like to focus on Ernst Mach (1838-
1916), since he was probably the most important of Lenin’s targets.
Mach was an Austrian scientist and philosopher, and the author
of a number of well-respected books on such topics as dynamics
and optics. Like most physical scientists of his day, Mach was par-
ticularly concerned about a number of contemporary developments
that violated the striclures of the accepted physics of his era. In
fact, these developments were to lead to the collapse of the entire
edifice of classical physics (built up over a period of over three
hundred years), and a conceptual revolution in science, exemplified
by the theories of relalivity and quantum mechanics.
Mach’s proposal to deal with the developing crisis was to radi-
cally apply what has long been a fundamental postulate of scientif-
ic thinking — economy of thought—e.g., a simple theory is better
than a complex one; if a particular idea is not essential to explain

something, discard it; the less speculation the better, etc. (The
French mathematician and scientist Laplace, when asked by Napo-
leon why he had not included God in his theory of planetary mo-
tions, replied that he “had no need of that hypothesis.")
Mach proposed to take this dictum as far as possible, doing
away with all conceptions that were not capable of direct experi-
mental verification. He was, in fact, skeptical of all scientific laws,
which he considered at worst to be improvable metaphysical specu-
lations, and, at best, convenient devices for organizing data that
the human mind was too lazy to remember in any olher way,
Mach was particularly critical of theoretical mechanical models,
such as the etherial continuums that were then used to explain the
phenomena of light, electricity and magnetism. Insofar as he ac-
cepted scientific laws, these were mathematical/statistical models,
such as the laws of thermodynamics, which establish general rela-
tionships among observed phenomena, without necessarily entailing
a specific model of what actually happens on the micro level.
Mach, for example, never accepted the atomic theory' of matter,
since he couldn't sec atoms and their existence had not yet been
experimentally demonstrated. In this, he was to be proven dread-
fully wrong.
However, Mach also rejected the idea of absolute space and
time, a fundamental tenet of classical (Newtonian) physics. The
young Albert Einstein was a follower of Mach and even though he
eventually abandoned Mach’s approach, Mach had a profound in-
fluence on the development of the theory of relativity. (Ironically
but consistently, Mach never accepted that theory.)
Philosophically speaking, what Mach’s approach entailed was to
establish immediate sense experience, that is, what we sense, in the
most immediate and narrow terms, with our eyes, ears, senses of
taste, smell and touch (and, by extension, through experimental ap-
paratuses), as the only basis of real knowledge, the only reality
that we are justified in accepting or discussing. Since one can’t tru-
ly know anything beyond our immediate sense data, it is futile, in-
deed self-indulgent, to try to conceptualize it.
The idea, however, leads to, or implies, that there is no reality
beyond what our senses immediately perceive. This, in lurn, implies
that being and perceiving are inextricably linked. Put another way,
Mach’s approach implies (hat nothing exists unless it is perceived,
that there is no objective reality separate and apart from a perceiv-
ing subject.

Now (his, in its essence, was ihe position of the Anglican Bish-
op, George Berkeley, an Iflih-ceniury cleric and philosopher, who
based a proof of the existence of God on it, (Nothing exists unless
it is perceived. Since there are clearly things that continue to exist
when human beings cease to look at them, this is the proof that
there exists an omnipresent perceiver—a mind that perceives every-
thing, that is, God.)
(It is worth noting, before we go on, that the idea that being
and perception are inexorably linked, that at least on the subatom-
ic level the aet of perception determines to some degree what is be-
ing perceived is—rightly or wrongly, philosophically-spiking—a
fundamental conclusion of the most widely accepted interpretation
—the so-called "Copenhagen interpretation”—of quantum mechan-
ics, one of the chief pillars of 20ih century physics,
(El is also worth noting that in contemporary theoretical physics,
mathematical models have replaced mechanical ones. This is partic-
ularly true of atomic physics: Werner Heisenberg, a major figure in
(he development of quantum mechanics, wrote in 1945: "The atom
of modem physics can be symbolized only through a partial differ-
ential equation in an abstract space of many dimensions. All its
qualities are inferential; no materia! properties can be directly attrib-
uted to it. That is to say, any picture of the atom that our imagina-
tion is able to invent is for tliat very reason defective,” [Quoted in
A History of the Sciences, by Stephen F, Mason, p, 502.1
(In short, whatever we may think of the philosophical implica-
tions of Mach’s ideas, they have become far more influential in
20th century science (han Lenin could have surmised.)
The implied logic of Mach’s ideas that 1 have sketched was, in
fact, (he main target of Lenin’s attack on him and the other “cm-
pirio-erideists” (the term was Avenarius’) in Materialism and Em~
pirio-criticistn. Mach’s assertion that all (hat we can know is the
immediate data of experience (only the facts” are real), Lenin ar-
gued, leads directly to the rejection of objective reality (a reality
that exists independently of a perceiving subject —a fundamental
proposition of Marxism) and to the philosophy of Berkeley and re-
ligion (what Lenin calls “fideism,” from Latin for "faith”), Jf one
gives one inch of ground to (he ideas of Mach, Avenarius and the
others, Lenin insists, one abandons dialectical materialism in favor
of one or another variety of idealism and bourgeois philosophy.
1 believe Lenin’s specific critique of Mach’s position is basically
valid. Yet, in attacking Mach, Lenin goes too far in the opposite

direction. Where Maeii grams scientific laws only a pragmatic, mil*
itarian validity (i.e., they are convenient for organizing the facts or
data), Lenin sets up scientific laws as virtually absolute, as directly
reflecting (or corresponding to) objective reality. Despite many ca-
veats and obfuscations, in other words, Lenin argues for the possi-
bility of absolute knowledge.
A careful reading of one of the key passages of Materialism and
Empirio-critieism will show this, The following paragraph (from
VI. Lenin, Codec ted Works, Vo! 14, Progress Publishers, Moscow,
J9>68, p. 326) is a kind of summation, a brief statement of what
Lenin is advocating in Materialism and Empirio-eriticism and else-
where:
Materialism in general recognises objectively real being (matter) as
independent of the consciousness, sensation, experience, etc., of hu-
manity. Historical materialism recognises social being as independent
of the social consciousness of humanity. En both eases consciousness is
only the reflection of being, at best an approximately true (adequate,
perfectly exact) reflection of it. From (his Marxist philosophy, which is
cast from a single piece of steel, you cannot eliminate one basic premise,
ore essential pan, without departing from objective truth, without fall-
ing a prey to a bourgeois-reactionary falsehood.
To me, the most striking thing about [his passage is its dogma-
tism. Immediately after writing that consciousness (and hence,
knowledge) can only "at best” approximate "being” (reality),
Lenin pens what can essentially be paraphrased as "and If you
question one phrase of what J have wristCd here (that is, my inter-
pretation of Marxism), you are wrong, have dcparied from 'objec-
tive trudT and are promoting 'bourgeois-reactionary falsehood,’ "
Irt other words, while consciousness/knowledge in general may
be only approximately true, Marxism (rather, Lenin's interpretation
of it) is absolutely true. And Materialism and Empirio-critkism as
a whole is written to discourage or prevent any questioning of
Marxism in light of the developments in physics that were to cul-
minate in a profound revolution in scientific though!. This, I ar-
gue, is the real message of the book. (In fact, there is a lot wrong
with Lenin's paragraph, even from a Marxist framework, but we
will get to that laler.)
Elsewhere, Lenin lets the cat out of the bag: "Human thought
then by its nature is capable of giving, and does give, absolute
truth, which is compounded of a sum-total of relative truths. Each
step in the development of science adds new grains to the sum of

absolute truth, but the limits of the truth of each scientific proposi-
tion are relative, row expanding, now shrinking with the growth of
knowledge." (P. 135.) On the next page, Lenin writes: “Front the
standpoint of modern materialism, i.e., Marxism, the limits of
approximation of our knowledge to objective, absolute truth are
historically conditional, but the existence of such truth is uncondi-
tional, and the fact that we are approaching nearer to it is also un-
conditional,”
These passages are Lenin's attempts to elucidate a passage he
has just cited from Frederick Engels’ AnlhDuMng, Although our
purpose here is not to discuss Engels’ (or Marx’s) views of truth
and knowledge, it is worth citing the critical passage at some
length. What follows are Engels’ words as quoted by Lenin (Mate-
rial ism and Empirio-criricisrn, same edition, pp. 133-134):
“Now we come lo ihe question whether any, and if so which, prod-
ucts of human knowledge ever can have sovereign validity and an un-
conditional claim {Anspntch) to truth" (5th German cd, p. 79). And
Engels answers the question thus:
"The sovereignty of thought is realised in a scries of extremely inisov-
ercigrtly-thinking human beings; the knowledge which has an uncondi-
tional claim to the truth is realised in a series of relative errors: neither
the one nor ihe other (i.e., neiiher absolutely true knowledge, nor sov-
ereign thought) can be fully realised except through an unending dura-
tion of human existence.
"Here once again we find the same contradiction as we found above,
bciween the character of huntan thought, necessarily conedved as ab-
solute, and its reality in individual butitan beings, all of whom think
only limitedly. This is a contradiction which can only be (solved in ihe in-
finite progress, in what is—at leasi practically for us—an endless suc-
cession of generations of mankind- In this sense human t ho tight is only
as much sovereign as not sovereign, and ils capacity for knowledge just
as much unlimited as limiied. It is sovereign in its disposition (Antage),
its vocal ion, its possibilities and its historical ultimate goal; it is not sov-
ereign and it is limited in its individual realisation and in reality at each
particular moment."
Without analyzing this passage in any depth, it is necessary to
note that Engels, while admitting the possibility of absolute, "sov-
ereign" knowledge, hedges his bets quite a bit. (In my opinion, he
fudges the question,) To say that absolute knowledge is possible
through an "unending duration of human existence" and/or the
“endless succession of generations of mankind,” or that “human
Ihougbt is only as much sovereign as not sovereign” is not making
a very decisive case. And il quite a bil diffcrenl from saying that

"Human thought then by its nature is capable of giving, anti does
give, absolute truth, which is compounded of a sum-total of rela-
tive truths.”
Although Engels is pushed in the direction of saying that ap-
proaching the truth ‘'in the infinite progression” (that is, say, the
way a hyperbola approaches its asymptotes) eventually adds up to
absolute knowledge, he tries to hold himself back. Lenin, on the
other hand, at best gives Lip service to the idea that knowledge at
any given time is relative, and jumps over the “asymptotic gap” as
if it had no relevance whatever,
Engels at least had an excuse for believing that knowledge eouid
be compared to a smooth curve, that it increasingly approached
absolute truth. He was living in the last stage of an era that had
seen the sciences expand more or less continuously and smoothly
for a few hundred years. Until the latter part of his life, and cer-
tainly during his formative period, scientific developments seemed
to fit neatly into the general framework that had reached a pol-
ished asid elegant form at the time of Isaac Newton (1642-1727),
Of course absolute knowledge, as the gradual addition of relative
truths, seemed possible.
Lenin, living at the time of a scientific revolution that would
overturn the old framework, had no such excuse. And despite this,
his views are less tempered than Engels'.
Further on, Lenin is even more explicit. In discussing	the	role	of
practice, and after a typical caveat to the effect that practice can
never “...either confirm or refute any human idea completely"
(his emphasis), Lenin writes: “If what our practice confirms is the
sole, ultimate and objective truth, then from this must follow the
recognition that the only path to this truth	is ihe path	of	science,
which holds the materialist point of view"	(p. 141),
And still further, denouncing Bogdanov’s willingness to recognize
Marx’s theory of the circulation of money as an objective truth
only for “our time,” and refusing to attribute to this theory a
“superhistorically objective truth,” Lenin tells the whole story (all
emphasis is Lenin’s):
The correspondence of this theory lo practice cannot be aliercd by
auy future rircumsiances, for the same simple reason that makes it an
eternal truth ihaL Napoleon died on May 5, 1821- Hut inasmuch as the
criterion of practice, i.e.. the course of development of all capitalist
co uni lies in Ihe last few decades, proves only the objective trillh of
Mara's whole social and economic theory in general, and not merely

one Or the other of its parts, formula!ions, etc., it is clear that to talk
here of the "dogmatism” of the Marxists is to make an unpardonable
concession to bourgeois economics. The sole conclusion to be drawn
from the opinion held by Marxists ihai Marx's iheory is an objectiee
iruth is that by folio wing the path of Marxian theory we shall draw clos-
er and closer to objective truth (without ever exhausting it); bui by fol-
lowing any other path wc shali arrive at nothing but confusion and lies.
fP. 143.)
This, I believe, should be enough to demonstrate that Lenin be-
lieved in absolute truth (if the words ihemselves don’t convince
you, the tone ought to), not only in general, bill also that Marxism
is shm truth, in particular.

-SIX-
Lenin’s Theory of Knowledge
Part II
I
N our last installment or this series, I began to discuss the question
of absolute truth and knowledge and Lenin’s attitude toward it.
In particular, 1 mentioned that I feel that a belief in absolute
knowledge represents a ‘‘totalitarian kernel,” a potential for a to-
talitarian ideology. And through a cursory sketch of Lenin’s book
on the question of knowledge, Materialism and Emplrio-triticiSm, I
showed that despite some hedging Lenin did believe in absolute
truth and the possibility of absolute knowledge.
What 1 would like to do in this installment is to discuss Lenin’s
theory of knowledge, particularly its failure to recognize that the
mind/knowledge is active; sketch how this conception led him to
misunderstand, and in fact to oppose, the scientific revolution
going on at the time; and suggest how his belief in absolute knowl-
edge {embodied, at least as far as society and history are con-
cerned, in Marxism) helped pave the way for the establishment of
state capitalism in Russia.
in Materialism and Etnpirio-cririciim, Lenin puts forward a the-
ory of knowledge that, at least at that time, underlay his belief in
absolute truth and knowledge. This theory can be expressed in a
few propositions: I) reality is nothing but matter in motion; 2) hu-
man knowledge is a reflection of that reality and corresponds to it;
3) the truth of any given thought, idea, theory, etc., is proven or
disprovcn through experiments that test predictions deduced from
[he iheory, as well as the general success of the theory in terms of
developing technology and furthering science.
Despite the apparent plausibility of this view (it is a kind of
common-sense viewpoint), it really can’t stand up to a serious in-
vestigation of the issue.
In the first place, it is contradicted by other ideas about knowl-
edge and consciousness that Lenin himself held. Lenin, like most
78-79

Marxists, believed in the notion of “false consciousness.'’ This is a
consciousness (a view of the world, a set of values, etc.), held by
certain people in society that does not “correspond" to their class
position.
For example, to Marxists, the “true” consciousness of members
of the working class, true “proletarian consciousness,” is Marxism,
or at least some commitment to revolution and socialism. Yet,
most workers are not revolutionary socialists; they do not have
“proletarian consciousness.” Instead, they share the world views of
other, non-proletarian classes, such as the ruling class or sections
of the middle class. The workers have “false consciousness.”
This is not just the result of the bourgeois media, bourgeois edu-
cation, etc., although they certainly contribute. It also is more than
the effect of the “hegemony” (a kind of cultural leadership) of the
ruling class, in the sense described by the Italian Marxist, Antonio
Gramsci.
The workers' “false consciousness" comes from the on-going
reality of their daily lives, that they are workers who work at such
and such workplaces, sell their labor-power for wages, etc., and
enter into certain relations with their co-workers, management,
merchants, representatives of the state and (more indirectly) other
capitalists. Their “false consciousness” flows out, is a part of, the
web of day-to-day social relations that they arc enmeshed in. Their
consciousness “reflects” these relations.
But this raises a bit of a problem. If “false consciousness” is a
reflection of (social) reality, how do we get knowledge, if it, loo, is
a reflection of reality? Or, if knowledge is the result of the reflec-
tion of reality in the mind, where does “false consciousness” come
from? Clearly, there is something missing, some “middle term," in
Lenin's theory of knowledge. Lenin has two poles, reality and
knowledge, one of which reflects the other. But the nature of that
reflection must be different between true knowledge on the one
hand and false knowledge on the other. Why and how this hap-
pens have to be explained.
tn fact, the iheory of knowledge that Lenin puts forward is
considerably less sophisticated than that of Karl Marx, whose theo-
ry Lenin thought he was propounding. (Lenin’s conception is basi-
cally a throwback to the French materialists—Diderot, d’Alembert,
for example—of the 18th century.)
To Marx, reality (natural or social) and consciousness/know ledge
are not two polar terms with nothing between them (one merely re-

fleeting ihe other). He saw them as different aspects, two facets, of
a social process ("practice,” or “praxis” in Greek), in which hu-
manity transforms both itself and reality through work.
(Lenin talks about ‘‘practice’* in Materialism and Empirio-criti-
cism, but he tends to reduce it to a narrow form and to ignore its
fundamental content for Marx, the social process through which
humanity creates itself.)
In Lenin’s presentation, reality is basically given, stolidly present;
human consciousness just reflects it. For all of his talk about dia-
lectical materialism, Lenin fails to see the “dialectic” where it can
most truly be said to exist—in the process of the reciprocal trans-
formation of humanity and nature through labor,
Marx, in contrast, realized that reality, natural as well as social,
is as changed by this process as human beings are. One aspect of
this change is obvious; society evolves, and as il does so the world/
nature is transformed by the development of technology, the im-
pact of human society on nature (nol always to the good, clearly),
etc.
But there is another facet to this idea, one not so easily grasped.
And this is that nature, as it is present to human beings, as human
beings perceive and confront it, changes. The nature that primitive
peoples perceived, their image of it, is different from that of mod-
ern humanity. Some of this change is immediately technical; the
universe that contemporary humanity perceives through modern in-
struments, including radio telescopes, planetary1 probes, etc., is a
lot different from the universe primitive people could see with the
naked eye.
But there is a social/cultural difference as well. The universe (hat
was populated and moved by specific gods and spirits is a different
universe from that conveyed by the idea that space is most accu-
rately presented as a non-Euclidean geometry' and sub-atomic parti-
cles by a series of partial differential equations.
It is not that the “ultimate nature” (whatever that might be) of
the universe has necessarily changed, only that nature, “reality,” is
not just given—presented in toto and as it "really is”—to humani-
ty, so that the human mind simply reflects it. What Lenin didn't
understand (at least when he wrote Materialism and Empirio-criti-
cism) is that the human mind (human coasciousness, knowledge),
taken individually and socially, is active. It does not just passively
reflect reality; it changes how reality is presented to it, how it per-
ceives reality.

We can clarify this some more by looking ai the question a bit
differently, Lenin says that the mind reflects reality, but a look at
how an individual (or a group of individuals) perceives reality at
any given level suggests that this view is simplistic.
Even if we assume that the mind is like a camera, in that it re-
cords without alteration the (visual) information it receives, we can
easily see that it is not purely passive. A camera has to be pointed
in a certain direction; and, with all but primitive cameras, it also
has to be focused (manually or automatically). In other words, we
have to choose to look at something. We don't just open our eyes
and take everything in in 360 degrees, at all distances, etc. This
choosing is active. It is not purely passive, like a mirror.
In fact, this activity involves processes a lot more complicated
than aiming and setting a focal length. For example, the mind has
to interpret what it sees, to arrange the infinite amount of data
that enters it into patterns. A baby not only has to learn how to
point his/her eyes in a certain direction and to focus them, lie/she
also has to learn whai the patterns of different colors and shapes
mean, which of those colors and shapes “belong together" (e.g.,
as a material object, as a person, etc.).
Even after we have learned how to recognize patterns and
shapes, there always remains the question of relevance. At any
given time and place, we have to decide which of all the things wc
see arc relevant to us. If we are in a coffee shop and are sealed at
a table, the styrofoam cup in front of us is more important than
the moving cars in the street outside. But when we are crossing
that street a bit later, we'd better be paying more attention to the
cars than to Ihe styrofoam cup lying in the gutter.
Just considering the question of one sense, that of sight, we can
recognize that a lot more is involved than the eye merely reflecting
reality. The visual function involves, requires, the selection and in-
terpretation of the data that impinges on the eye. This is an active
process, not a passive process of reflection.
In a recent discussion about his participation in a group of sci-
entists and others searching for fossils in East Africa, Stephen Jay
Gould, the Harvard paleontologist and science writer, expresses this
point in a somewhat different context. Explaining that while some
searchers have a sharp eye for fossil fragments and others can
piece them together, he only finds snails, Gould writes:
All field naturalists know and respect the phenomenon of "search
image”—Ihe best proof that observation is an interaction of mind and

nature, not a fully objective and reproducible mapping of outside upon
inside, done in the same way by all careful and competent people- In
short, you see whai you arc I rained 10 view—and observation of differ-
ent sorts of objects often requires a conscious shifl of focus, not a total
and indiscriminate expansion in the hopes of seeing everything* The
world is too crowded with wonders for simultaneous perception of a Li;
we learn our fruitful selectLvitics. (Natural History, May, J9&7, p, 27.)
Jf the operation of a single sense is active, isn’t it obvious that
processes as complex as consciousness and knowledge entail activi-
ty? Scientists do not just take in all the data thal present them-
selves to them* They have to choose what data are relevant lo
them* At the broadest level, this involves choosing the very field
any given scientist will study dnd investigate, or ihe given problem
within the field he/she will investigate.
More specific still, as they seek to investigate a specific phenom-
enon, scientists have to choose a way of approaching the investiga-
tion. to decide What kinds of experiments they wiil carry out to
collect what kind of data* And even when these experiments have
been carried oul and the data recorded, the collected data does not
in and of itself suggest Ihe new concept or theory thal will explain
the phenomenon under investigation.
At tiiis point what is required Is an intuitive leap, an inspired
guess, that posits a new conception, a new way of looking at the
problem, no matter how far-fetched, Albert Einstein described the
process this way:
For the creation of a theory, the mere collcciion of recorded phenom-
ena never suffices—there musi always be added a free invention Of the
human mind ihat attacks the heart of ihe matter- (The Cosmic Code, by
Heini R. PagcLs, p 141*)
Now. science is a social process; it involves many |>cople com-
municating with each other, over extended periods of time. As
such, it is subject to social and cultural influences. Scientists, like
the rest of us, live in the societies of their time and place. They
have been, by and large, members of specific social classes, etc.
And they live in, and to a great extent are created by, specific cul-
tures. All these influences affect scientific knowledge.
Thus, it is not an accident that the physics (hat emerged from
the so-called Copernican Revolution envisaged the universe largely
in mechanical terms, as, say. a huge clock that was created and set
going by a Creator who then sat back to watch the clock work in
a beautiful simplicity and regularity. This particular physics was de-

vttoped during the early stages of Lhe development of capitalism,
itself based cm Lhe creation and utilization of mechanical devices*
The society, (he technology and the science were pari of a single,
very1 complex social process, each creaiing the means for the devel-
opment of the others.
1'he conceptions of the sciences in ihal period did not just reflect
nature, they actively conceptualized nature in a certain way. Such
conceptualizations vary greatly in different Limes, Today, the domi-
nant conceptions of physics are no longer mechanical,
Specifically, by the latter part of the 19th century, mechanistic
explanations of phenomena were no longer sufficient to answer the
problems that physicists confronted. A new revolution in physics
took place lhai < ho roughly changed the way scientists look at the
universe. As a result, today the predominant conceptions of physics
are mathematical, Space (Einstein called it space-time) is conceived
as a (non-Euclidean) geometry; the structure of the atom as a set
of complex mathematical equations.
The main point I am trying to establish here is that the mind,
human consciousness, taken individually and collectively, is active,
not passive. It chooses to look at /investigate certain things and not
others. 11 sees some things as more important, more relevant than
others, ft interprets what it secs; indued, the very act of seeing en-
tails this interpreting. As a result, all knowledge has a degree of
subjectivity that cannot be eliminated.
This is why different people see reality differently (sec a "differ-
ent reality"). Older people, on balance, see reality differently from
young ones. Artists tend to see reality differently from scientists.
People in die ruling class see reality differently from working class
people. People whose goal in life is to make money see reality dif-
ferently from people who live for a cause. Not least, people from
different countries and cultures sec reality differently from each
other.
Scienlists, unlike artists, have a mutually agreed-upon method of
determining which theory, which interpretation, is right. This is
through experimentation and other forms of testing theory. As a
result, science often appears to embody or to approach absolute
knowledge (at least until the next scientific revolution occurs). Nev-
ertheless, even in science, the subjective element of knowledge, I he
effect of the fact that the mind is active, is not eliminated.
If the mind/human consciousness is active in the sense 1 have
discussed, what does it mean to say, as Lenin does, thai knowledge

"reflects” reality? Not a whole lot. Obviously, there is some con-
ncclion, some '‘correspondence” between reality and knowledge
(otherwise, the hitman race would probably be extinct). But it is
certainly not mere reflection. Lenin could put forward his view
that knowledge was a simple reflection of reality because he did
not understand that the human mind, individually and collectively,
as consciousness in general and specifically as science, is active.
Lenin's one-sided and mechanical conception of human con-
sciousness/knowledge (and his dogmatism) is what made him miss
the significance of the scientific developments that were going on at
the very lime he was writing. Yes, he does have a chapter (Chapter
Five) on the “recent revolution in natural science” in Materialism
and Empino-chticism. But Lenin denies that the revolutionary de-
velopments in the natural sciences of his time in fact represent any
real challenge to traditional scientific conceptions.
Instead, he accuses those scientists grappling with Lite meaning
and implications of these new developments of failing, when they
philosophize, to abide by what Lenin considered to be the de facto
dialectical materialism they practice when they function as scien-
tists. In other words, Lenin charges them with a kind of failure of
nerve.
Lenin basically believed that the philosophical answers to the
problems the physicists and other scientists were struggling with
had already been given (by dialectical materialism), and that if the
scientists stopped being tempted by idealism and “fideism” every-
thing would work out fine. But il was precisely the traditional con-
ceptions of science, including Lenin’s (and Frederick Engels’)
notion of dialectical materialism, that could no longer provide
satisfactory answers to the questions being posed by the latest sci-
entific discoveries. As a result, Lenin winds up denying the very
existence of the revolution in the natural sciences Lhai he claims to
be discussing.
That Lenin did not understand what was actually happening in
physics al Lite time is revealed by his attempts lo discuss them con-
cretely. Consider the following two sentences:
Natural science was seeking, both in 1872 and 1906, is now seeking,
and is discovering—nr least it is groping its way towards—tlic atom of
electricity, the electron, in ihrcodintcnsional space. Science docs not
doubt that the substance it is investigating exists in three-dimensional
space and, hence, that Ihe particles of that substtmcey although they be
so small that we cannot see litem, must also “necessarily’’ exist in this

three-dimensional space. (Materialism and Empirio-crUicism, pp, ISO-
181.)
Leaving aside ihe question of "substance," Lenin was as wrong
as he could be regarding the question of three-dimensional space,
Lenin was writing after Albert Einstein had published his paper on
the Special Theory of Relativity (1905) which posited the local-ness
and variability of time, thus establishing it as a kind of fourth di-
mension. (Locations in space—what Einstein called space-time—are
defined mathematically by four numbers, three representing the
traditional dimensions plus a fourth representing time.) Today, eos-
mologists, those who investigate and speculate about the ultimate
structure of the universe, are thinking in terms of theories that pos-
it that the universe has many more than four dimensions. How
about, say, 10?
(Is it perhaps unfair to berate Lenin for not being totally up-to-
date about the developments of physics of the time, particularly
when Einstein’s theory' was relatively little known, unaccepted and
in no way confirmed? I don’t think so. Who asked Lenin to write
a book about problems of philosophy in light of the scientific rev-
olution then underway? Lenin hangs himself because he raised the
issue.)
Not accidentally, the person Lenin is polemicizing against with
the sentences quoted is none other than Ernst Mach, whom Ein-
stein credited as being one of his major early influences. Although
1 cannot do it justice in so limited a space, it is worth looking at
the issue more closely. This is because the question Macli was rais-
ing was to become a fundamental concern of 20tli century physics.
In this section of his book, Lenin is discussing Mach’s rather
hesitant suggestion that physicists should question, and perhaps
abandon, the Newtonian conception of absolute space and time:
In modern physics, he [Mach — rt| says, Newton’s idea of absolute
time and space prevails (pp. 442-444), of time and space as such. This
idea seems "to us” senseless, Mach continues..,. Bui in practice, he
claims, this view was harmless (unschadlieh. S. 442) and therefore for a
long time escaped criticism. (Materialism and EmpiriCKritkism, p. 179.)
To Lenin, this suggestion is “harmful” and must be rejected.
Why? Because "Mach’s idealist view of space and time.. .opens
the door for fideism and., .seduces Mach himself into drawing re-
actionary conclusions,” (Materialism and Empirio-crUicism, p. 179.)
Just what are these reactionary conclusions?
For instance, in 1872 Mach w rote that "one does not have to conceive

of The chemical elements in a space of three dimensions." (Erhattung
dec Arbeit, S. 19, repeated or S. 55.1 To do so wouid be "to impose an
unnecessary restriction upon ourselves. There is no more necessity to
think of what is mere thought (das bloss Gcdachle) spatially, that is to
say, in relations to the visible and tangible, than there is to think of it in
a definite pitch.” (27) "The reason why a satisfactory theory of electric-
ity has not yet been established is perhaps because we have invariably
wanted to explain electrical phenomena in terms of molecular processes
in a three dimensional space" (20). (Materialism andBmpfr/o-criiicism,
p. ITO.)
To Lenin this is an absurdity.
The argument from the standpoint of the straightforward and un-
nutddled Machism which Mach openiy advocated in 1872 is quite indis-
putable: if molecules, atoms, in a word, chemical elements, cannot be
perceived, they arc "mere thought" (das bloss Gedachic). If so, and if
space and time have no objective reality. It is clear that it is not essential
to think of atoms spatially\ Let physics and chemistry “restrict them-
selves” to a three-dimensional space in which mailer moves; for the ex-
planation of electricity, however, we may seek its elements in a space
which is not three-dimensional! (jMaterialism and Emptrhycriiiclsm,
p. 130.)
In fact, wherever he was coming front philosophically, Mach’s
suggestion (remember he writes “perhaps”) that scientists not re-
strict themselves to the traditional Newtonian conception of space
and time was profoundly propbeiic. Today, it is a fundamental
tenet of physics. The theory of relativity, with its positing of lime
as a fourth dimension, was, as we have said, directly influenced by
Macli. In quantum dynamics and its later embodiments (quantum
electrodynamics, quantum chromodynamics). atoms and their con-
stituent parts cannot be conceived spatially, time is reversible and
traditional logic does not apply.
What would Lenin say?
The point is not that Maeh's philosophy was right and that Len-
in's was wrong. The point is I) Lenin was not cognizant of the
true nature of the "revolution in natural science’1 that he was writ-
ing about and which so concerned the people he was polcmiciiing
against.
2) Even more important, Lenin allowed his philosophical precon-
ceptions to prevent him from even considering, let alone accepting,
an idea (hat would become a fundamental tenet of this century’s
physics. Hecause, in Lenin’s view, Mach’s view "opens the door
for fideism" and ’seduces Mach himself into drawing reactionary

conclusions,” Lenin condemns out-of-hand Mach’s suggestion that
scientists “not restrict themselves” to the traditional view of space
and time and refuses even to consider that reality might have other
than three dimensions*
(I think this is the germ of the attempt to use ideology to tell
scientists what to do and how to think that would run rampant in
Russia under Joseph Stalin (with resultant punishment, including
execution, for those scientists who would not buckle under). If a
given theory, proposition or assumption is not consistent with
(someone’s conception of) dialectical materialism and/or if it leads
to “reactionary conclusions,” it is a priori wrong and cannot even
be considered. In the name of science, ideology is raised above sci-
ence and presumes to dictate to it,
(Whether Lenin himself ever tried to tell scientists how to think
and what to do is not relevant. What is, is that when a party with
Lenin’s conception of philosophy and science comes to power, it is
highly likely thai someone in that party will, sooner or later, try to
tell scientists what to do and how to think.)
But Lenin’s comment about reality only having three dimensions
involves more than ignorance and (can 1 say it?) arrogance. It im-
plies a certain conception of the relation between knowledge and
truth, theory and reality.
This is a tendency toward what I like to call the “hypostatiza-
tion of theory,” By this huge word (1 can barely pronounce it) I
mean a tendency to believe that theory, concepts, are more real,
have more substance, than the reality they purport to explain.
This is the opposite of the way Ernst Mach tended to lean,
Mach thought of scientific concepts and theories as “mere
thought,” as kinds of conveniences, ways for the human mind to
organize sensations, or data; the question of whether they were
true or not, in the traditional sense of the term, was irrelevant.
The only meaningful question to ask is—Docs a given theory or-
ganize the data conveniently? Or, negatively, does any of the data
fall outside the confines of the theory? This is a kind of denigra-
tion of theory, a denial of the reality or truth of theory.
In contrast lo this, Lenin tends to ascribe to theory' a greater
truth or substantiality than it can reasonably claim. Once a given
theory or concept has been proven "true,” in Lenin’s view, it has
more truth to it than the reality it is meant to describe.
This can be seen in his view that reality is, and can only be three
dimensional. That reality could have more than three dimensions

seems totally bizarre lo him. This is because Lenin doesn’t realize
that dimensionality is a concept—specifically, a geometry—an in-
vention of the human mind.
(“Ordinary” reality, that is, reality that is generally present to
human beings, may be almost perfectly definable/explainable in
terms of three dimensions. But that doesn’t mean that reality has,
and can only have, three dimensions. By the same token, the uni-
verse can today best be described by the theory of relativity that
describes space (spaec-timc) in terms of four dimensions, but that
doesn’t mean reality has, and can only have, four dimensions.)
Lenin takes the concept (in this case, three dimensionality) and
makes it the reality; This tendency to "hvpostatize theory” can be
also seen in his comment, cited in our last installment, about
Marx’s theory' of money having an eternal truth comparable to the
fact that Napoleon died on May 5, 1821, (We shall leave aside a
discussion of the question of how well this latter “fact” stands up
in terms of the theory of relativity: what was a specific date for
the Earth and its vicinity was many different dates for other parts
of the universe. In some parts of the universe, Napoleon has not
yet died. In others, he has not yet been born.)
Now, Marx’s theory of money is a brilliant theory (as is his
analysis of capitalism, in my opinion), but to claim it has an eter-
nal truth, isn't that going a bit too far? Even Marx, arrogant as he
was, only claimed a kind of “epochal” truth for his theory, that
is, that it is only valid for a specific historical epoch.
But, assuming that Lenin basically meant Lhat Marx’s theory of
money is absolutely true, I don’t think this can be seriously main-
tained today, For one thing, it has a philosophical content (about
the nature of human beings, that the existence or money reflects
their alienation from each other and this true nature), which can
neither be proved nor disproved.
Far more important, I don’t think the existence of absolute truth
and knowledge (which, of course, is what saying Marx’s theory of
money has eternal truth means) can be reasonably asserted.
This is suggested by one of the main achievements of physics in
this century, the theory of quantum mechanics, which has been
very successful in explaining and predicting atomic and sub-atomic
phenomena. One of the tenets of this theory' is that it is impossible
simultaneously to exactly measure the velocity and position of a
sub-atomic particle, for example, an electron (or a photon of elec-
tromagnetic radiation). The more accurately one measures its posi-

lion, the greater variability of values for its velocity one gets. If
one measured an electron’s velocity exactly its position could not
be measured at all.
This is not, according to the theory, simply something that re-
sults from tlie limitations of our minds and our ability to measure.
There is a certain randomness, a certain indeterminism in the na-
ture of atomic and sub atomic phenomena. The more one attempts
10	 gain certainty about one aspect, the less certain others become.
Another aspect of the theory is that sub-atomic p.triicles have a
two-sided character Some or their behavior can be explained by
assuming they are particulate, that they are simply panicles. Other
aspects of their behavior arc explainable by assuming that they
have wave characteristics. Moreover, these distinct behaviors/char-
acteristics are not eombinubie. They either exhibit one form of be-
havior/characteristic or the other; they never exhibit both ai the
same time. Which characteristic is exhibited depends on the experi-
ment one carries out to look for it.
One explanation for this confusing situation, the one that seems
to be the most accepted by modern physicists (insofar as they con-
ceptualize these things: one can simply use the equations—we’re
talking high level math here—without worrying about what they
"mean"), is that the wave characteristics represent an indication of
the probability of finding a given particle there at any given time.
The main point is that at the atomic and sub-atomic level, there
is a degree of randomness or uncertainly about what goes or at
any given lime. At least at this level, reality is not determined.
There is no absolute truth; reality is not precisely this and not that,
11	 can be both and/or neither.
And where there is no absolute truth, in the sense that reality is
not precisely determined, there can be no absolute knowledge. Ail
one can have is approximate knowledge. One cannot know for cer-
tain what will happen, all one can have is varying degrees of prob-
ability that something will happen. This probability may be very
high, but it is always a question of probability, not certainLy.
Now, while this to me implies that all of natural reality exhibits
probabilistic behavior and that knowledge of “macro” phenomena
can also oniy approximate (in many cases, the variability is too
small to be of practical impact), many physicists appear to
compartmentalize reality. On the sub-atomic level, there is indeter-
minism and probabilities. On the supra-atomic level, there is deter-
minism and absolute predictability. Yet, in the past few years.

physics has become more concerned wfth [he investigation of ran-
dom processes, processes that are inherently random and unpredict-
able, * 'chaotic." J suspect that over ihe nest few years more and
more processes previously perceived as being determined and prt-
diclable will wind up in the random or at least somewiial irsdeicr-
mitied category.
What I am really trying to get at here is that between the inde-
termined, probabilistic nature of reality and ihc I initiations of our
ability to measure and our minds, all knowledge of the natural
world is, at best, approximate, probabilistic. There is no absolute
knowledge. One gets greater or lesser probabilities. In some cases,
the probability is so high as to be almost certain, but it is si ill not
certain.
At the risk or simplifying, perhaps ii is better to say that reality
is always more complicated than any given theory. Reality entails
change, novelty. Theory, perhaps because of the nature of the hu-
man mind, entails uniformity, or to use a term very much in vogue
in physics these days, symmetry. Now, there is clearly symmetry in
nature, otherwise scientific theories would no! be as successful as
ihey have been.
But whai if (as I suspcel) realhy is nol totally symmetrical?
What if it is not uniform? What if at some basic level it is asym-
metrical? Then, there will always be some aspecL of reality that will
not be incorporate into theories whicii, by their nature imply uni-
formity, symmetry, even if it is a 11 broken” one. If so, this means
that at some point any given theory, no mailer how successful in
predicting phenomena, no matter how perfect it may appear, will
eventually come across some kind of phenomenon which it has noi
explained or predicted and cannot do so. Or, to pul it the oihcr
way around, sooner or later scientists will discover a phenomenon
which is unexplainable by, and incompatible with, current theory.
(If this is so. Lenin's hyposlatization of theory is in fact a form
of that very idealism that Lenin hated so much. Theory is an idea,
a concept. To believe that seiemifit iheories represent the real reali-
ty, truer than ihe concrete reality we see, hear, and iouch, is to be-
lieve that ultimate reality is ideal, not material.
(Lenin says unite rial reality consists of ” matter in mol ion,” But
ihe mol ions of this matter are governed by the “laws of motion”
discovered by science. In other words, ihe structure of this mailer,
and the structures that are comprised of mailer, are determined by
those "laws of motion.” But these laws of motion are a kind of

logit. To Lenin, then, the real reality, the de tilling structure of re-
ality, is the logic defined by these "laws of motion.” This is a
form of objective idealism. Unbeknownst to himself, Lenin was an
idealist.)
Now, if on the level of natural reality, all knowledge is approxi-
mate, probabilistic, are we to seriously think that absolute knowledge
is possible when it comes to social reality, to history, economics,
politics, etc.—in short, lo people? I don’t think so. In fact, 1 think
the very idea is absurd.
It is precisely the development of the human mind/human con-
sciousness, which so greatly multiplies the complexity of motivation
(including doing things out of spite, out of sheer perversity, just
for the hell of it, etc.), that makes people so unpredictable. As a
result, absolute knowledge of human beings and human society is
out of the question.
But Lenin did believe such a knowledge is possible, indeed, that
il existed...in the form of Marxism.
Prom this Marxist philosophy, which is cast from a single piece of
steel, you cannot eliminate one basic premise, one essential part, with-
out departing from objective truth, without falling prey to a bourgcois-
reactionarv falsehood. (Materialism and Empirio-cnticism, Collected
Works* Vol. 13, p. 326.)
,. .the criterion of practice, i.e., the course of development of all
capitalist countries in the last few decades, proves only the objective
iruih of Marx’s whole social and economic theory in general, and not
merely one or the olhcr of its parts, formulations, etc (P. 143)
And this, as 1 wrote in our last issue, is the philosophical root
of state capitalism. If a party which believes that its ideology is the
absolute truth (and every other ideology is a "bourgeois reaction-
ary falsehood”) comes to power in an armed revolution, it will not
put loo much of a priority on maintaining the democratic rights of
other political parties.
More than this, if the rule of that party is threatened, it will not
set too great a priority on maintaining the democratic rights of the
class that it claims to represent especially if or when members of
that class start to behave in a way they arc nol "supposed to.” Af-
ter all, it is Lhai party that represents the “true consciousness” of
the working class. Thus, those workers who support olhcr parties
of organizations will be “under the influence of non-proletarian
ideologies.”

And their political rights will have to bo repressed in order to
defend the "rule of the working class.”
And if the entire working class ceases to support that party, the
party will politically disfranchise it in the name of the “historic in-
terests of the working class.” In other words, the ideal, abstract
working class of Marxist theory will be elevated above the concrete
workers and will become an instrument in the workers’ re-cnslave-
mcnt. This, in a nutshell, is what 1 believe happened in Russia.
Postscript. During World War I, Lenin read I-legeL, particularly
his Logic. While this study was to have a significant impact on
Lenin’s thought, it is not likely to have lessened his belief in the
possibility of absolute knowledge. If anything, it probably strength-
ened it, Hegel’s philosophy is centered around the idea that not
only is absolute knowledge possible, but that Hegel’s system is that
absolute knowledge.

Conclusion
B
Y now, J suspect ihat my general assessment of Leninism is
pretty clear, Wiiile t believe that Leninism is not entirely,
KKWa authoritarian, that is, that there are some truly libcratory
and democratic impulses, 1 believe these impulses are Tar out-
weighed by those that point toward and imply state capitalism.
Moreover, these latter are so strong that they distort the democratic
impulses themselves, rather than merely overshadowing them. For
example, the advocacy of a classless and stateless society in The
Siate and Revolution is turned into its opposite by Lenin’s concep-
tion of how to achieve it, e.g., through braiding a strong central-
i?jcd state modeled after the German postal system.
Even (hough most of the series focused on the state capitalist
elements in Leninism, it is probably worth summarizing my views
or them, i believe that of the various tendencies within Leninism
that point toward state capitalism, the most important are three:
First is (he fact that although Leninism advocates (he establish-
ment of a stateless society, ii not only proposes to use the state to
achieve this goal, h sees the use of the state as the main way to ac-
complish this. Not least, although ihis state is said to be a proletar-
ian state, a dictatorship of the proletariat, il is (0 be structured,
with relatively minor exceptions, along hierarchical and bureaucrat-
ic. that is, capitalistic, principles. Given this, is il any wonder that
the outcome of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 was not classless,
stateless societies, but monstrous, class divided, stale-dominated,
social systems?
The second state capitalist tendency within Leninism that 1 be-
lieve to be decisive is its advocacy of coercive, ruthless methods.
While some kind of armed force/coercion is inevitable in almost
any revolution, Lenin almost revels in it: tiie need to be ' ‘ruthless
toward our enemies,” “not to shrink from the most ruthless meas-

ures,” lo “shoot and shooi and shoot some more.” Since morality
lies within, is immanent in, history, that is, morality finds its frui-
tion in the outcome of history (as Marx, following Hegel, argues),
there is no need to act morally, there is no morality, in the sphere
of politics. But outside of Marxian/Hegelian (or any other compar-
able) metaphysics, how can moral neutralism lead to a moral socie-
ty? It can’t and hasn’t.
The third fundamental state capitalist tendency in Leninism, and
tying alt three together, is Lenin’s belief in determinism and abso-
lute knowledge. Physical and social/historical reality is absolutely
determined, Marxism represents true knowledge of this reality (it
ever increasingly approaches this reality), the Bolshevik faction/
party holds the only correct interpretation of Marxism —these are
fundamental tenets of Bolshevik thinking. And they point directly
toward the establishment of a dictatorship of the party over the
proletariat in the name of the proletariat itself. If the Bolsheviks
alone understand Marxism, then only they have true proletarian so-
cialist consciousness; they are the spiritual representatives of the
proletariat. When the proletariat disagrees with the Bolshevik Par-
ty, it has come under the influence of non-proletarian classes; il no
longer is the true proletariat. With this idea firmly engraved in
their minds, the Bolsheviks’ suppression of all opposition parties
and the outlawing of opposition factions even within the Bolshevik
Party was almost inevitable.
This last factor looms even larger when it is realized that this at-
titude, this total belief that they and only they represent the prole-
tariat — history, morality and truth — was fundamental to the
mentality of the Bolsheviks. It created a psychological and moral
culture—a ruthless, party-oriented fanaticism—that engulfed every-
thing and drained of all content even the formally democratic as-
pects of Bolshevik theory. It was from this culture that a man like
Stalin emerged, and it is because of this culture that the Bolshevik
Party was not able to stop him. While Stalin is of the past, the
possibility of new Stalins remains because the intellectual/moral
culture of Leninism remains what it has always been.
These three tendencies (along with the others discussed in previ-
ous articles), explain what I believe to be the fundamental problem
with the strategy and tactics the Bolsheviks pursued after the Octo-
ber Revolution. This was a failure to maintain, a failure even to
try to maintain, what 1 call tiie united front character of the Rus-
sian Revolution.

The Russian Revolution, including ihe February Revolution and
the one in October, had a united front character. By this I mean
that like ail popular revolutions, it was the outcome of more or
less distincl movements of different classes, groups and political or-
ganizations thal joined forces to overthrow an oppressive regime
and social order. The main classes were the workers and ihe peas-
ants. Many different nationalities, e.g., Ukrainians, While Rus-
sians, Finns, Georgians, etc., etc., fought for freedom from Great
Russian rule. Various jxrliiica! organizations were involved.
While this was obviously true of ihe February Revolution, it was
also lrue of the October “Bolshevik” Revolution, Whiie workers
and soldiers {mostly peasants in uniform) carried out the revolution
in the cities, ihe peasanls, intensifying an uprising that had begun
during the summer, carried oul the insurrection in the countryside,
running out the landlords, burning their estates and seizing the
land. {The importance of this part of the struggle is not always
recognized.)
The revolution also entailed the continuation of the revolt of Live
oppressed nationalities. And the organized political forces that led
the revolution, insofar as it was led at all, consisted of nol only
the Bolshevik Party, but the left wing of the Social Revolutionary
Party (the "Left SR’s”), and various other left socialist and anar-
chist organizations.
Although it is nol clear whether the revolutionary forces could
have held out, given the revolution's isolation, the poverty of the
country, etc.. the key to their survival, it seems to me now, lay in
ihe maintenance of ihe revolution’s united front character, that is,
its character of being a kind of coalition of different classes, na-
tionalities, and organizations. This would have meant working out
certain rules for political functioning in the soviels, workers’ coun-
cils, and other mass organizations. Most important, it would have
required a commitment on (lie part of the major political parties,
particularly the Bolsheviks, not to try to squeeze out or suppress
the other organizations.
Unfortunately, the Bolsheviks did not pursue such a policy. They
didn’t even try lo pursue it. From virtually the very beginning, the
Bolsheviks worked to concentrate as much political power in their
hands as possible. Although they maintained the formal uni Led
front with the Left Sft’s for seven or eight months, ii seems to me
that they expected this alliance to fall apart at some point and
made little effort to keep it together.

The fLrsj major dispute between ihe Bolsheviks and the Lefi
SR’s was over the signing of a peace treaty with the Germans and
Austrians in [he late winter of 1918. In the polhiciil debates wiihin
the Bolshevik Parly over signing a treaty (the party almost split
over the issue), little or no consideration was given, by Lenin or
anyone else, over what (lie impact would be on the Left SR's, who
opposed signing a treaty, In fact, in Lenin's speeches and writings
on the question, he virtually assumes that the Left SB’s arc irrele-
vant and that it is only a matter of time before the alii a nee breaks
down.
The Left SR’s were pretty sectarian themselves, however, and
since the whole question of whether to sign the treaty is problemat-
ical, how ihe Bolsheviks behaved on this issue doesn't prove a
great deal, Bui a lot more can be said about the way the Bolshe-
viks related to the peasants in the Sate spring and early summer of
1918,
As we noted above, the October Revolution was the outcome of
a dual struggle, carried out by the workers (about three million},
on the one hand, and the peasants (many millions), on the other.
The Bolsheviks tried to cement this alliance right after the October
insurrection by decreeing that the land belonged to the peasants,
(They really had no choice. The peasants had seized the land them-
selves and the Bolsheviks had almost no organization or base of
support in the countryside,)
It seems to me that the only potential guarantee for the revolu-
tionary regime to survive was to maintain the alliance between the
workers and the peasanls. But, beginning in June of 1918, the Bol-
sheviks, under the guise of "bringing the revolution to the country-
side," launched a broadside attack on the peasants. In the belief
that the kulaks (the better-off peasants, wealthy enough to hire
other peasants as laborers), were hoarding grain Rom the cities
threatened with starvation, the Bolsheviks led armed detachments
of workers out to the villages to sei2e supposedly hoarded grain by
force, The Bolsheviks also believed that there was a substantial lay-
er of poor peasants (peasants who did not have enough land and
who, as a result had to hire themselves out as laborers to the ku-
laks) who would support the Bolshevik policy. But in fact, after
the land seizures of late 1917, almost all the peasants were so-called
middle peasants (peasants who had enough land lo maintain them-
selves and their families, but who were not wealthy enough to hire
outside help). There were virtually no kulaks or poor peasants,

The Bolsheviks’ policy, as il turned out, was not to “bring the
class straggle to the countryside,” but an ou I right assault on the
vast majority of peasants and a severing of the alliance between
the workers in the cities and the peasants in the countryside. It was
this tactic that finally broke the Bolsheviks’ alliance with [he Left
SR’s and gave the counterrevolutionary forces (at that point virtu-
ally defeated) a maw base of support.
The result was a bloody civil war that lasted over two and a half
years, virtually destroyed the Russian economy, and devastated the
countryside. When the Bolsheviks finally won (the peasants pre-
ferred them, who at least lcl them keep the land, to the White
counterrevolutionaries who, when they conquered a territory, took
it away), they were hated by almost everybody.
St has sometimes been argued that the Bolsheviks had no choice
but to seize the grain because the people in the cities were starving
and had nothing to sell to the peasants in exchange for the grain.
But the answer to this is that in 1921, after the civil war, after the
country was bid waste, when the cities had even less to offer the
peasants in exchange for the grain, the Bolsheviks, at Lenin's urg-
ing, adopted the New Economic Policy (NEB) that allowed the
peasants the right to trade grain freely, after they had paid a “tax
in kind” to the staLo, Had this policy been pursued in 1918, much
if not most of the destruction of the civil war would have been
avoided! The counterrevolutionary forces would have been without
a substantial base of support.
In my view, the Bolsheviks’ course was not just an error. It
llowcd logically out of the Bolsheviks’ basic outlook and politics,
particularly the state capitalist tendencies mentioned above, Tiic
Bolsheviks* main concern after the October Revolution was nol to
maintain the united front character of the revolution, Their main
interest was to consolidate as much political power in their bands
as possible and to hold onto it by any means necessary, whether or
not such means undermined the popular democratic character of
ihe revolution itself.
Since, in their view, the working class is the only consistently
revolutionary class, since only [he Bolsheviks, with the only true in-
terpretation of Marxism, really represent the working class, since
ihc chief political task is the seizure and maintenance of state
power, and since brutal methods are not only allowed but pre-
ferred. the Bolsheviks, after the October Revolution, subordinated
every other concern to one—to maintain their hold over the state.

I used to believe that the main reason the Bolsheviks did what
they did was the result of external factors, particularly the poverty
of the country, the fact that there were no successful workers’ rev-
olutions in the more economically developed countries, etc. I now
believe that had there been such revolutions, the outcome, at least
in Russia, would not have been much different than it was. The
country would not have been destroyed and perhaps Bolshevik rule
would have beer more benign. But Russia would still have been
ruled by the Rolshcvifcs and the social system that would have been
established would be state capitalism, not a libertarian socialism.
This is because the fundamental, underlying politics of the Bolshe-
viks, particularly the focus on using the state and their belief that
they possessed absolute knowledge of history, society and politics,
were state capitalist.
It is one thing to analyze and criticize Leninism, however, it is
another to come up with a new set of political ideas, one that
avoids the regressive tendencies of the past. This new task that the
Revolutionary Socialist League faces is made a bit feasible If we
recognire one fundamental characteristic of the history and evolu-
tion of our organ bat ion. This is the fact that while our politics
have evolved, the underlying set of values that our politics have
been meant to represent have remained the same, or to be more
accurate, have evolved at a far slower pace. To put it perhaps a bit
simplisticaily, 1 still believe, and I hope the RSL still believes, that
world capitalism is both an unjust and dangerous system that
needs to be, and can only be, eliminated by an international revo-
lution carried out by the vast majority of working and oppressed
people. The goal of this revolution is to set up a democratic and
egalitarian social system, a society governed directly and democrat-
ically by the members of the formerly oppressed classes, that has
eliminated the extremes of wealth characteristic of previous social
systems and in which the state and other authoritarian institutions
have been eliminated.
Up until two years or so ago, I believed that Lenin's interpreta-
tion, theory and practice, of Marxism represented an embodiment
of this ideal that was both loyal to the ideal and also represented a
practical meaas of achieving it, I did not see Leninism as perfect,
but given the alternatives, as J understood them, it seemed to offer
the best foundation upon which to elaborate a consistem set of
politics.
Such an elaboration is wltat I think the RSL has tried to do over

the last 15 years. In short, we sought to develop an interpretation
of Leninism (we never accepted anyone else’s) that both represen-
ted otir fundamental ideals and yet stayed within the formal
bounds of Leninism,
I don't think this was all wrong, totally inconsistent or ridicu-
lous. It is easy to look back after you've been through some expe-
riences and say that what we used to believe was silly. But that
type of thinking ignores the very process of learning that has ena-
bled one to transcend the earlier ideas.
Given where we were coming from (in the sense of coming out
of the student movement of the 1960s), and the fact that there was
no significant organized libertarian trend (either revolutionary dem-
ocratic socialist or anarchist/anti-authodtarian), our political orien-
tation and evolution make a lot of sense. And our politics were, I
still believe, the best around. Perhaps if we had been political gen-
iuses we would liave been able to come up with a totally new set
of politics that went way beyond the political material that we had
to work with. But virtually no set of ideas evolves this way; even
the greatest of intellectual achievements is synthesized out of previ-
ous currents.
With the benefit of hindsight, 1 think out main theoretical error
was to misread Lenin in a revolutionary democratic direction. We
tended to overemphasize those elements in Lenin’s outlook and
practice (which do exist) that point in a democratic direction and
underplay or explain away the authoritarian elements.
For example, we gave greater weight to The State and Revalu-
rion than it actually had for the Bolsheviks themselves. We also
tended to overlook or downplay those aspects of that work that
are authoritarian.
White this was, I now think, a misinterpretation of Leninism, it
was not totally wiihout merit, methodologically speaking. Again,
given where we were coming from and what the apparent alterna-
tives were, to try to "bend” the framework of our formal politics
lo accommodate an increasingly consistent libertarian instinct is
quite logical, even prudent. Eventually, however, one must resolve
contradictions that have become ever more glaring. One must make
some "large” decisions. This is how I think we should look at our
political evolution.
if the RSLs history is seen in this light, 1 think certain things
follow: One, the way to proceed is not to throw everything up for
grabs and try to deveiop a set of politics totally from scratch-

There are a lot of things we have long believed and which I si ill
believe to ihis day.
As 1 mentioned above in a different form, i don’l ihink capital-
ism is a fair or very viable system. I don’t think it can be re-
formed. 1 think humanity needs and ought to try to establish a
iruly democratic, cooperative and egalitarian social system.
If we sit down and think Ihrough the implications and ramifica-
tions of these few sentences, 1 tiiiiik we’li soon realize how much
of our previous politics we in fact retain. I would certainly describe
them differently than we liave in the past and place ourselves dif-
ferently in terms of historical political currents. Hut if we look for
it, I think we will see a great deal of continuity in our political
thinking and evolution. I, for one. am not ready to become a
Christian socialist or a pacifist, even though 1 believe we have
things to learn from and should be willing to work with people in
these currents.
The second point I think we should keep in mind as we redefine
ourselves is that we should resist moving to the right. Riglu now
ihe political climate in the United States and internationally is con-
servative, although that is beginning to change.
(One of the reasons for this conservatism is that previous radi-
cal! /ations were based on ideologies, such as the various forms of
Leninism, that were in fact authoritarian and hence ultimately con-
servative. The radicali stations thus laid the basis for their Own de-
mise.)
In such a period, a political current like ours, especially when it
seeks to redefine itself, comes under great but often invisible pres-
sure to move right. This rightward pressure can affect a political
tendency in a number of ways. Since in periods like the one we are
in. radical and revolutionary ideas in general are in small favor,
there is a lot of pressure to discard maximal, “utopian” visions
and to advocate piecetneal reforms. Since so few people today be-
lieve that a global classless and democratic society is possible, il
sometimes seems easier to agree with people on the need for some
“realistic” changes. In short, in limes such as these there is a lot
of pressure to become reformist, to lessen one’s revolutionary op-
position to capitalism (as well as state capitalism). I think we
should resist this.
Given the crisis of AIDS, there Is also a strong pull to become
more conservative on sexual/gender questions and related issues
that are generally perceived as "civil libertarian.”

Lastly, given the quiescence of the working class, especially the
poorest layers of especially oppressed groups (Latins, Blacks, wom-
en, gays, the physically afflicted), it is easy to get influenced by the
(usually self-centered) fads of the middle class (New Age idiocy, an
obsession with personal health, the assault on smokers). Whatever
individuals think or however they want to live their lives, we
should resist having such concerns shift our focus away from the
basic source of social ills, capitalism, and the struggle to overthrow
it.
The chief way to resist the pressure toward the right, in my
opinion, is to move the organization to the left. This is also consis-
tent with our revaluation of Leninism. In my view, the problem
with Leninism is not that it is too radical, too revolutionary, It’s
that it is not radical or revolutionary enough. It makes too many
compromises with capitalism, embodies too many capitalist ways of
thinking and acting to be a truly revolutionary force.
For example, although it claims to want to abolish the state in
the long run, it seeks to build it up and strengthen it in the short.
It claims to want to build a society that is democratic and coopera-
tive, but emphasizes methods that are authoritarian and coercive.
Most important, while it claims to wish to establish a truly free
society, it believes that its ideology, its interpretation of Marxism,
represents the sole correct interpretation of history (and everything
else), thus rejecting the ultimate foundation of freedom, the right
to think and believe differently—intellectual and spiritual freedom,
I think the way to proceed in redefining ourselves politically is
three-fold. First, we should elaborate a vision of freedom, to devel-
op our conception of what a truly democratic, cooperative and
egalitarian society might look like, (including alternative solutions
to various problems).
In fact, we have done this throughout our history (e.g., our
achievements in the area of gender and sexual liberation), although
wc have nol always been conscious of what this has meant. More
recently, we have more consciously developed our vision of a liber-
tarian society. We should continue to develop our ideas in this area
and to publicize them in various ways.
This elaboration of a vision of a free society is quite definitely
anti-Marxist, In opposition to the so-called Utopian Socialists,
Marx and Engels refused to elaborate a vision of the future socie-
ty. This was primarily because, in their view, the future society
would emerge out of the class struggle: that society, to use philo-

sophica! jargon, is immanent in history. This view was closely
linked to Marx and Engels’ belief that history is determined and
that the establishment Of socialism is “historically necessary,” in
the sense of being inevitable. If it is, why bother to elaborate a vi-
sion?
Today, 1 no longer believe this. 1 do not believe history is deter-
mined and even if it is, 1 don't believe we can know what it is that
will happen, lit other words, 1 don’t believe I here is absolute
knowledge. Moreover, if history were determined and socialism in-
evitable. the result would not be freedom, because inevitability, his-
torical necessity, does not result in freedom but enslavement to the
historically necessary. A free society can only be possible if there is
the possibility of choice, of humanity choosing to be free rather
than enslaved or annihilated.
The result of all this, it seems to me, is that socialists who be-
lieve in a libertarian socialism, must believe in freedom, must be-
lieve that there is choice ill history, that history is not determined
or “necessary,” Socialism can only happen if the majority of hu-
manity decide to want such a society and consciously and demo-
cratically set out to build it. The job of socialists^ therefore, ts to
try to convince workers and other oppressed people that they
should fight to establish a libertarian socialism. Essential to this is
to develop a vision of such a society that shows, as concretely as
possible, how such a society could be run, and how various prob-
lems bequeathed to us by capitalism might be solved.
The second part of redefining ourselves is to think ihrough our
strategy, tactics, organizational principles and methods and modify
them so that they are consistent with our vision, in my opinion,
the main change that this involves vis-^-vis our former conception
is in the taclie of the united front. To Leninists, (lie united front,
along with the corresponding tactic of critical support, is meant to
win over the base of a rival political organization and to discredit
and destroy the rival political leadership. In other words, it’s a pol-
icy of trying to stab some people in the back, in some cases, e.g.,
reformist bureaucrats, this is warranted. Bui the Bolsheviks be-
lieved that only they represented the true interests of the workers
and therefore arty rival organization, no matter how revolutionary,
was ultimately an agent of Lhe bourgeoisie.
Today, since we no longer believe in absolute truth and that we,
by ourselves, have access to it, we should see the united front as a
way to work together with other organizations and individuals, to

engage in a dialogue with them, and to seek to leam from them.
Perhaps we will team more from them than vice versa.
Lastly, and flowing from the above, we should look for organi-
zations, groups and individuals who share our overall vision (de-
fined relatively broadly), and seek to develop on-going relations
with them, trying to build greater theoretical and practical unity
over time. This may well mean substantia] changes in the form of
our organization.
1 personally believe that most such groups and people will be
found in the anarchist/libertarian milieu rather than In the Marxist
or social democratic milieus. The latter are too burdened with stat-
isTTi, the bclici" in the inherent progress!veness of nationalized prop-
erty and stale planning and various other baggage that points
toward state capitalism.
A basic methodological rule of thumb is that our political work,
theoretical and practical, should avoid being determined by abstract
political categories, .lust because some groups or persons define
themselves differently than we do or use a different political termi-
nology should not be a basis for rejecting entering into a dialogue
and joint work with them.
Or, conversely, just because people define themselves as we do
and use the same language should not mean we automatically
agree. Intellectual categories, especially political ones, can be mis-
leading and intellectually crippling- For years, we called ourselves
(Marxist-Leninist} Trotskyists, but did not agree with the funda-
mental values, let alone the less important things, of the groups
that called themselves Trotskyists. This should be a lesson for us,
in this light, I don’t see what 1 have been proposing that (he or-
ganization try to do as a drastic '‘turn” or reorientation of our
politics, i see it as a kind of continuation of the political search
lhaL lias defined our existence from (he very beginning. This search
—a search for a road to freedom—haft taken us across (he boun-
daries of traditional political categories. The search has been con-
sistent and, in fact, more or less in the same direction. It just
hasn’t let itself be determined, or aL least nol for long, by other
people's categories,
Once, we were Marxists and Leninists, but not Trotskyists. For a
while we were Trotskyists who thought Trotsky was wrong, insuffi-
ciently libertarian, about Russia. Now, in my opinion, we have
passed the line that demarcates Trotskyism and Leninism into
something else, something that we need to define. We should let

other people remain imprisoned by rhcir categories and continue 10
determine our own, to he our own.
I think the main thing that has changed, the main thing that we
have learned, is that there is no absolute knowledge. Before, we
looked for some kind of system, some kind of ideology, that an-
swered all questions. Now we know that that doesn’t exist and that
systems and ideologies that claim to embody absolute knowledge,
to answer all the questions, are inherently dangerous.
Today, we know that the (relative, clianging) truth can only be
found through a dialogue, a discussion among different groups and
individuals. Humanity can only solve its problems if it can discuss
them, talk about them and arrive at democratic decisions. Lenin,
following Marx (who in turn followed Hegel), subsumed dialogue
in the dialectic of history (which eventually arrives at socialism)
and an absolute knowledge of that history, Marxism.
Although Lenin was subjectively for freedom, he helped snuff it
out, because he believed that historical truth was embodied in the
Bolshevik Party, We have to recognize that only a dialectic that
never ceases, a dialogue among human beings, can lead to free-
dom.

ISBN 0-939073-36-6