87th Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution

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Monday November 08, 2004 21:57

by IRSP - Irish Republican Socialist Party

irsp at irsm dot org

Celebrate of the 87th Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution

On 6 November 1917 was the date of the Bolshevik Revolution. The Irish Republican Socialist Party recognizes this event as a watershed in human history and therefore pays tribute to the memory of the “ten days that shook the world”.

Irish Republican Socialist Party
5 November 2004

IRSP: Celebrate of the 87th Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution

On 6 November 1917 was the date of the Bolshevik Revolution. The Irish Republican Socialist Party recognizes this event as a watershed in human history and therefore pays tribute to the memory of the “ten days that shook the world”.

Accordingly, the IRSP’s International Department takes this opportunity to express our solidarity with socialists, communists, syndicalists, anarchists, and anti-imperialists throughout the world who are struggling, as we are, for the liberation of our nations and our class.

Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, the only experience the world had known of a working class revolution was the short-lived Paris Commune of 1871. The Paris Commune, despite the promise it demonstrated during its short existence, ultimately lasted only from 26 March until 28 May, too short a time to realise much of the potential it held. In contrast, the Bolshevik Revolution not only succeeded in taking state power in the name of the Russian working class, but also defended itself from attacks by the most powerful imperialist armies of the day and survived as a state for three-quarters of a century.

The revolution arose in circumstances that noone thought capable of producing a socialist revolt. Russia was the backward hinterland of Europe. Feudalism, long dead in western Europe still predominated in Russia. It was only in 1861 that the serfs were freed and prior to 1801 serfs could still be sold as chattel. Pre-revolutionary Russia was ruled by an almost absolute monarchy and peasants made up perhaps as much as 90 percent of the populace. However, the penetration of the Russian economy by foreign imperialists had transformed sections of the populace from peasants to industrial workers in modern factories. In the process, a large and militant workers’ movement was forged and the Bolsheviks were the left wing of that movement. In international socialist circles the Bolsheviks were often within the left wing of the international socialist movement as well, especially in the wake of the First World War.

The widespread radicalism of the Russian working class and the Bolsheviks’ reputation for unflinching revolutionary politics throughout the socialist movement won the ‘Great October Revolution’ widespread excitement and hope from socialists around the globe. (Illustrating the backward state of Russia at the time they were still using the old calendar, so despite the revolution occurring on what we know as the 6th of November, it was still October by the Russian calendar and the name of the revolution was retained, even after the calendar used throughout the west was adopted.)

But, a socialist revolution is above all else a transformation of the mode of production, distribution, and exchange, if it lives up to the title, and the Bolsheviks seizure of state power and their subsequent defense of the revolution against domestic reactionaries and foreign imperialists was not sufficient to overcome the reality of economic development in Russia. In less than five years, the workers’ councils (soviets in Russian) existed in name only, the trade unions had become instruments of state control in the workplace, and managers from the days of capitalism had been returned to the workplace. Likewise, the initial abolition of rank within the military was reversed and the Red Army was turned on the Kronstadt sailors, once held up as shining examples of revolutionary heroism. By 1921, the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin made plain his view that the best that could be salvaged from the revolution was what he termed “state capitalism” and the adoption of his New Economic Policy that year was intended to accomplish that.

The collapse of the USSR in 1990 has been heralded throughout the imperialist media as proof of the failure of socialism and the final refutation of Marxism. In actual fact, it is neither. In reality, despite returning to the claim of having created socialism in Russia, following Lenin’s death in early 1924, the Bolshevik leader’s understanding of revolution far exceeded those who followed him and state capitalism was what had been obtained. Accordingly, its fall in Russia at the close of the 20th century is actually a comment on the present instability of capitalism in all its forms around the globe today and says nothing about socialism.

While this may be true of the USSR for most of its history, it is not true for the Bolshevik Revolution itself, however, and that is why we in the IRSP celebrate the 87th anniversary of that event today. The Bolshevik Revolution and the emergence of the central role of the workers’ councils that characterised it, was soon mirrored in similar insurrections in Italy, Germany, Hungary, Austria, and many other nations, including the brief and localised experience of the Limerick Soviet here in Ireland. Unlike the Bolshevik Revolution, most of these other insurrections were short-lived, but like it, they craved the name of the working class boldly on the pages of human history and provided our class with important lessons to be learned and heroic examples of struggle, which provide continued inspiration to us.

Today, many struggles have lost heart and sought some form of compromise or accommodation within capitalism. We in the IRSP continue to believe that the only way forward for our class is to see the revolutionary transformation of society through to its conclusion. Sisters and brothers of all nations, comrades and fellow workers, look to the inspiration of the Bolshevik Revolution. Gain strength from the example of the heroes and martyrs of 1917. We still have a world to win; let us do so!

ENDS

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Comments (21 of 21)

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Accuracy

by Accuracy

Tue Nov 09, 2004 00:18

7 November 1917 or 25 October 1917!!!!!

working class-what working class??

by Realist

Tue Nov 09, 2004 01:39

The bosses of globalist capitalism are currently hell-bent on 1)replacing a formerly skilled indigenous workforce with cheap,exploited foreign unskilled labour and 2) exporting as many adminstrative jobs as possible to third-world countries.
In the circumstances the chances of working people making any advances towards industrial democracy would seem to be just about zero. The world isn't quite the same as it was in 1917,so I reckon the politics of that era are hardly suited to the modern age.If we really want to retain our national independence and secure a future for the working class we need a government committed to fighting the globalist menace with a protectionist economic policy and a committment to producing most of the goods we use locally.
We can't really talk about socialism in any shape or form until the trade unions start demanding worker representation on Boards of Directors,i.e. industrial democracy.
As for what happened in Russia in 1917 it was in reality more of a coup d'etat by a small group of extremist conspirators than socialism -not so much state capitalism as state terrorism which was reponsible for the deaths of millions of ordinary working class people.True socialism can only be achieved by peaceful persuasion of the electorate,not by overthowing democratically elected governments.

Indeed

by realism

Tue Nov 09, 2004 14:24

Good point realist. The Bolshevik coup and the horrors which followed have no more relevance to today than the English Civil War. Other than as a salutory lesson as to what happens when democracy and civil society is destroyed.

The real deal

by Anon

Tue Nov 09, 2004 14:36

If you want to know about the Bolshevik Revolution, start by the ignoring the above. Instead, check out your local swp branch/meeting and we'll give you a participatory democracy insight into what it was all about.

The IRSp are nationalists not Bolsheviks.!

"Overthrowing elected governments?"

by Historian

Tue Nov 09, 2004 14:47

Can anybody tell us what percentage of the vote the Czar got in the last general election before the overthrow of Russian Democracy in 1917?

Historian

by scholar

Tue Nov 09, 2004 15:08

Back to school for you my boy! No. The Czar was not elected. However, the Bolsheviks did manage to overthrow the Duma, Constituent Assembly AND the elected Soviets so less of the smartaleckry young man !!

by Ali H.

Tue Nov 09, 2004 17:29

He was being ironic

"He was being ironic" !!!

Tue Nov 09, 2004 17:32

Leonard Cohen is safe I reckon !

Czarist Duma

by (electoral) college student

Tue Nov 09, 2004 22:41

I'm sure our learned scholar would be pleased to oblige us with some information regarding the nature of the czarist Duma, how and by whom it was elected?

Soviets?

by Socialist

Tue Nov 09, 2004 23:19

Why did the Bolsheviks take the trouble to establish soviets, introduce universal direct suffrage, encourage industrial democracy and rights for the various ethnic and national groupsm in Russia etc. if the plan all along was to do asway with it all after a while and establish a dictatorship?
Those who want to scare people into resigning themselves to capitalism being without an alternative attempt to draw a straight unbroken line from Lenin to Stalin and demonise the revolution while talking up the czarist dictatorship, but the selective nature of the facts they choose to present is quite revealing.

State Caps - Reply to Anon

by Isaac Blank - WIL

Wed Nov 10, 2004 00:00

Strangely enough, Anon. SWP member, it seems that the IRSP's analysis of the Soviet Union isn't so different from you're own - they also believe it was state capitalism (although in fairness, I would say that Tony Cliff's explanation is a tad more theoretically satisfying than Gerry Ruddy's).

The only difference is that they say it happens earlier with the retreat to the NEP, which in a sense means taking your arguments to their natural conclusions. They take your formalistic and idealistic (in a philosophical sense) theory and just take it further capitalism = bad, socialism = good. Soviet Union 1917 = good, therefore = socialism. But Soviet Union 1921 (or mid 1920s if you ask the SWP, but don't ask them to pin it down) = not so good, therefore not equal to socialism, therefore = capitalism!

Formal logic eh? If only Trotsky had grasped it, orthodox Trotskyists wouldn't have had to bother to defend those elements of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe etc. which meant that it retained its character as a workers' state (however deformed or degenerated) - planned, nationalised economy, monopoly on foreign trade etc.! Damn all that materialism - (looking at reality) too, it must be so much easier to be able to wipe your hands of the Stalinist states in front of liberal young people ("oh well, you know that's actually capitalism too!")

Unfortunately for both the SWP and the IRSP, reality turned out to be much more complex than any of us could have imagined - yes the Soviet Union did degenerate, under the pressure of its isolation, witht the delay in workers' revolutions elsewhere, its working class atomized by the Civil War, 21 invading imperialist armies etc., and a bureaucracy able to lift itself above the workers and seize control of the state. That bureaucracy (personified by Stalin) was disgusting, undemocratic, rode roughshod over workers' rights, as well as being thoroughly inefficient in planning the economy because of the lack of democracy, and turned the Comintern and Communist Parties around the world from weapons of workers' revolution to tools of Stalinist foreign policy. The rise of that bureaucracy meant that the workers' state had degenerated. However, the bureaucracy was contradictory, because its privileges rested on the fact that there was a workers' state, they had no right to inheritance, couldn't sell off any property etc. So that bureaucracy, although eventually criminally responsible for counter-revolution, in the short to medium term wasn't able to accomplish a counter revolution in terms of the class nature of the state. It remained a workers' state, with a planned economy etc. - capitalism had been eliminated, the capitalist classes had been expropriated. Those elements which were progressive (nationalised planned economy etc) had to be defended by socialists around the world, at the same time as trying to build a political revolution in the Stalinist countries to overthrow the bureaucracy and re-instate workers' democracy.

State capitalism might be a nice simple idea, but it simply doesn't match up to the reality of what existed in the Soviet Union and miseducated a whole layer of socialist minded young people and workers.

Sorry for my rant, it's just seeing that the IRSP are state caps has surprised me, although I suppose it probably shouldn't, theory was never their strong point.

workers'state

by realist

Wed Nov 10, 2004 02:04

So a party which seizes power "in the name of" the working classes sets about abolishing civil society and the rule of law,"expropriating",i.e. commiespeak for murdering-vast numbers of people whose only "crime" was making a living for themselves and their families(many of those killed were peasant farmers who bravely resisted the seizure of their land by a totally unrepresentative "government" i.e dictatorship.)
The whole history of communism has been about forcing people(usually at gunpoint) to become in effect the slaves of bureaucrats who think they know what's best for everyone.
It always ends up with paramilitary "police"-(the cheka,the kgb,the sandinistas the anc, pol pot etc)oppressing,intimidating ,and murdering anyone who dares oppose them or question their twisted logic.
These so-called "workers states"may have attempted with varying degrees of success to plan their economies although they exercised complete control over the media to present a rosy picture of communism to the outside world when the reality was quite different.
They most certainly did not in any sense "abolish capitalism" as they came up against the hard fact that it is totally impossible to plan an entire economy -although most of their planning attempts were economic disasters-and of course they were never too proud to do business with foreign capitalists when it suited their purpose.
In short,the Bolshevik idea of socialism is not only the antithesis of democracy.It is utterly incapable of delivering a workable alternative to the liberal-democratic capitalist state.
The Soviet Union collapsed not because of western intervention or military superiority,but because the people in the "workers'states" had had enough of queuing for days for essential commodities,of being lied to and intimidated by their governments,of being sent to prison camps for "correction" when they didn't toe the party line.
The world we live in today has many faults, and living conditions in eastern europe are still comparatively harsh,but you can rest assured that the people of these countries will never allow the mistakes of the past to be repeated.
There is already a "Unite against Fascism "campaign.It's surely about time there was a "Unite against Communism" campaign as well,as the beast isn't quite dead yet.The peoples of North Korea,China ,Cuba etc who have fought this menace and paid with torture and imprisonment at the hands of ruthless left -wing dictatorships need the support and solidarity of libertarians everywhere.

Odd article

by Joe

Wed Nov 10, 2004 13:47

This is a rather odd article I can only presume its meant to indicate that the IRSP is returning to Leninism after its rather odd drift towards council communism of the last decade. But the responses are quite funny

Socialist for instance asks "Why did the Bolsheviks take the trouble to establish soviets, ..., encourage industrial democracy.. in Russia"

Perhaps he is unaware that the Soviets first came into existance in 1905 and were initally opposed by the Bolsheviks who told the workers that they should join the party instead. The soviets in 1905 and 1917 were a creation of the working class not of any party even if the Bolsheviks were smart enough to reverse their first line. And it is a matter of historical record that once the Bolsheviks had state power in early 1918 they began to close down soviets which failed to return Bolsheik majorities.

And as for industrial democracy! The factory committees were a mechanism created by the Russian working class to deal with keeping factories in production when the bosses fled. They then tried to expand their role to self-management of the economy. The Bolsheviks oppposed this and indeed Lenin argued against 'industrial democracy' and for one man management on the grounds of efficency. (Go read the Bolsheviks and Workers Control for a day by day account of that struggle, its the link below)

Better still is 'Isaac Blank - WIL' talking about "21 invading imperialist armies". How on earth do you get 21 imperialist armies, even if you count Poland (which is hardly imperialist in the Leninist sense) you don't get anywhere near 21. [And for those who don't know their history Lenin invaded Poland in 1920 in a colossal political and military blunder]

The actual truth of the civil war is a lot more difficult. Most of the real imperialist intervention (Britain, Japan, USA) involved very small numbers of troops and was restricted to tiny areas of land. The French navy was significant in transporting weapons to the white armies but the vast bulk of those fighting were not from the imperialist countries. They were Russian workers and peasants who had been so alienated by Bolshevik policies that they had been driven into the arms of the white. The civil war was not as much about imperialist intevention as a consequence of the liquadation of the gains workers and peasants had made for themselves in the period from July 1917 to early 1918.

If you think there were really 21 imperialist armies then please list them. Or even list 21 countries that would be imperialist under the Leninist definition of the term in 1918, I'm getting stuck at 11 even when I include Belgium the Netherlands and Spain.

This whole workers state stuff looked pretty silly even when you had 'actually existing socialism'. Today it just looks daft and its supporters end up repeating all sorts of absurdities. In terms of the IRSP version its odd that pick the NEP as in 1918 Lenin said the immediate task in Russia was to build state capitalism. As this was accompanied by the introduction of one man management, tailorism and concentration camps for those Trotsky reckoned were shirking work 1918 seems a better date.

Me? State Capitalist?

by Gerry Ruddy - irsp

Wed Nov 10, 2004 19:22

gerryruddy at eircom dot net

As my name has been dragged into this debate by someone I don’t know perhaps I might be allowed space to reply both on a personal level and as member of the IRSP.

Lets deal first with the outright lie naturally enough coming from the pumped up self important silly twat from the SWP, Anon saying “The IRSP are nationalists not Bolsheviks.” He/She obviously doesn’t read much apart from Socialist Worker and the Sunday World.
The IRSP are emphatically not nationalists. Read the literature on the web especially the Starry Plough and chase up my own speech in Barcelona in the summer speaking with the full authority of the IRSP.

Now for Issac Blank. If that person knows me, which I doubt, then if he/she ever had a political conversation with me he/she would know that I could never accept the Cliff analysis of State Capitalism in the USSR. I fundamentally disagree with the position taken in the statement released by the international department of the IRSP. The logical conclusion of the St
ate Capitalist position is that one ends up refusing to defend the gains of socialism. Well that is not for me. The IRSP defend the gains of the Cuban revolution made against tremendous odds. The SWP on the other hand have been consistent opponents of the Cuban revolution.

Furthermore I have always defended the gains of the Russian revolution while opposing the bureaucratic degeneration of the workers state.

Now as for Joe’s comment

“that the IRSP is returning to Leninism after it’s rather odd drift towards council communism of the last decade”.

That would surprise the majority of IRSP members. We most certainly have not taken a position on council communism as a party and I can only think of a few comrades who would hold that position. While I personally would be inclined towards the Leninist perspective that doesn’t mean that I would be in favor of imposing that position on the Party. That’s for the membership to decide in the fullness of time.

left sectarianism is pointless

by Terry - IRSP

Wed Nov 10, 2004 21:00

I feel that it's pointless to engage in sectarian bashing as has been done in this thread.

I personally don't favour leninism as I'm more of a left / syndicalist communist, but whatever mistakes were made by the Bolsheviks were committed under incredible circumstances. I agree with the Int'l Dept's statement but see no need to rehash very old discussions when what is needed is unity against imperialism and capitalism NOW.

Anyway, had the Bolsheviks not followed the course of action that they did, we can have little doubt that Russia would still be a province of a Nazi Empire.

"All of us are subject to the laws of history, and it is only internationally that the socialist order of society can be realized. The Bolsheviks have shown that they are capable of everything that a genuine revolutionary party can contribute within the limits of historical possibilities. They are not supposed to perform miracles. For a model and faultless proletarian revolution in an isolated land, exhausted by world war, strangled by imperialism, betrayed by the international proletariat, would be a miracle."
--Rosa Luxemburg

Oh no!!

by cueball

Thu Nov 11, 2004 10:46

Let's hope the Irps don't embark on another blood-letting over conflicting theories on the Soviet Union!

Sorry Gerry

Thu Nov 11, 2004 12:57

Apologies, I just presumed that was your position, given that you are General Secretary and the IRSP published a statement.

While we remember the bolshies?

by Cookstown

Thu Nov 25, 2004 00:35

Can we also remember the millions who died as a result of famine, genocide, war and general mismanagement that this form of government introduced?

Not to mention

by davey

Sun Dec 12, 2004 17:22

the millions of working class russians who perished in the gulags.

re:russian mistakes

by fogy

Sun Dec 12, 2004 23:04

without Democractic accountabilty there can be no real social progress. The peoples' voice must be listened to.

without Democractic accountabilty

by rooster

Mon Dec 13, 2004 14:10

without Democractic accountabilty

but bolsheviks by definition do not practice democracy!
So how can there be "democratic accountability" whatever that is.

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Comments (21 of 21)