Re: AUT: KPD (S) KAPD, councilists, etc

["Kurasje Archive" <kurasje@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hey again,

Neil:

My remark about waiting for the CAN-wbsite to put Ratcleff's work into the open was just a kidding directed at Curtis to have him keep the promise made on his web-site of doing so. Steve's following story of Ratcleff's own opinion on the fate of the book only stresses that point. :)

Neil and Steve:

Well  -  when we 'zoom in' on the details of the russion revolution I think that we all agree. Of course the workers were very active and participating in the events culminating in the October Revolution   -  and for the following month into the spring of 1918.

I haven't read these things for the last decade or more either, but know of Rabinowitch. Other even more local studies were that of S.A. Smith: 'Red Petrograd' and D. Koenker: 'Moscow Workers and the 1917 Revolution'. In German we had also important studies made by Oscar Anweiler and a translation from Russian of an old peace by A.M Pankratova (1923) on the council movement on factory level. And of course all the 'anarchist' stuff from P. Arschinoff, Maximoff, Volin etc.

'Zoomed in' on the detailed level the Russian Revolution had of course a very clear and important element of working class initiative and involvement. And   -  yes Niel  -  as such the Russian Revolution had a clear proletarian charecter. I admit that.

But 'zooming out' again I find the later Council Communist overall charecterisation of this piece of history as a bourgeois revolution not only understandable but also fully justified.

The importance of the proletarian participation in the Russian Revolution is there, but not much different that the similar importance of the 'proletarian' participation in the French Revolution. Such revolutions are not possible without mass participation. Still  -  the participation of masses of poor people in political changes does not determine the outcome and the overall meaning of the events.

I agree in most of your arguments, but have in mind an old saying by the philosopher Hegel and repeated by Friedrich Engels  -  which I cannot find now, but goes something like this: There is a special historical tragedy about revolutionary parties gaining power before history is ready for their programms  -  they cannot do the things that they want to and are forced to do the things that they were allways against  -  Engels' version: they cannot represent the class that they come from, but are forced to represent the interests of the enemy classes against its own (something like that).

That's the trap that Bolsheviks ended in.

And  -  'zooming up' from details  -  that was the message that the Council Communists of the second generation and later wanted to stress when calling the Russian Revolution bourgeois.

One should remember also that in the 30'ies and still more in the 40'ies and beginnings of the 50'ies the council communists (like anarchists and others) were caught between 'brown' and 'red' fascism. Things had to be spelled out very clearly. And punishment were there too: the stalinists didn't hesitate to kill opponents of the USSR, even in the West.

I dont think for a second that Rühle, Pannekoek, Mattick or others would disagree on the 'zoomed in'-discussion of the Russian Revolution as having an important proletarian element. On the 'zoomed-out' and more popular level of discussion I fully agree with their calling the whole affair bourgeois. The late Rühle-sloogan was clear and right: The struggle against faschism beginns with the struggle against bolshevism.

------

A few other remakrs on this list recently needs comments too:

1. It is correct that Paul Mattick was somewhat confusing in his 60'ies work on Keynesianism and 'Mixed Econmy'. In this otherwise very important book Mattick seemed to drop the characterisation of the USSR as State Capitalist in favour of some more or less Castoriady-like theory of a historically new system between capitalism and socialism/communism. Later on he corrected that again.

2. It is not correct that all the scandinavian Council Communists of the 70'ies and 80'ies followed the theories of Castoriadis and 'Socialisme ou Barbarie' on the question of the Russian Revolution and the USSR. Some of the Swedish 'Arbeitermakt'-circles did, but not those in Denmark or Norway.  -  This myth is properbly an old one from the ICC, with which we had some but totally unfruitfull discussions at that time. They were completely unable to discuss such matters as the Russion Revolution in the way that we have just done it. Just imagine for yourselves: we just mentioned the word 'bourgeois nature' of 1917 and at least 3 ICC's started hours and hours of defending the 'holy bolshevic truth' against us poor degenerated semi-anarchist deviations. As we didn't accept the completely moral/ideological concept of the 'decadency of capitalism' either we were soon left as confused 'councillists'. I'm sure a lot of this list wil recognize the picture.  -  In some way it is both sad and funny at the same time.

So much for now
:)

With regards
jens

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