BHA: Reply to Tim on Bhaskar's politics

["Sean Creaven" <seancreaven@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Friday 16 Feb, Tim wrote:

'Andrew's objection to Lenin's practice in some ways (though not in
its invocation of existentialism) seems to be like Kautsky's: the
situation was such that willy-nilly the bolsheviks will be forced to take
strongly anti-democratic measures simply because of the relative
backwardness of the Russian economy and society that they inherited. By
substituting themselves for a capitalist class as the leading social force
behind industrialization, the bolsheviks condemned themselves to be
oppressors. It seems to me that there is some truth here: the
transformations necessary were going to be to a greater or lesser degree
ugly.'

Thanks for your interesting contribution, Tim. But Andrew is not saying that
unfavourable circumstances explain Stalinism, because there is always a
'choice', to terrorise or not. Instead he wishes to say that Lenin's
politics are fundamentally flawed. I have dealt with the substance of this
argument already, and will have no more to say about it here.

As for your own point, you would be right if it were true that the Bolshevik
strategy was 'socialism in one country'. But the revolutionary strategy of
Lenin, basing himself on Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, was that
the October revolution, by breaking the 'imperialist chain' of states at its
weakest point, would ignite the touchpaper of revolt across recession and
war ravaged Europe, this allowing the possibility of the more developed
states of Germany, France and Britain 'going socialist' and coming to the
fraternal aid of backward Russia.

This strategy was not a utopian one. In response to imperialist war and the
Bolshevik revolution, a revolutionary wave did sweep Europe, the most
important example of which was the German Revolution of 1918-23. The British
state was scared witless by the wave of class struggle which broke out in
1919, and was expecting a revolution. There were attempted insurrections in
Hungary and Austria, massive class struggles in France and Italy.
Unfortunately, due to poor leadership and tactics, the revolutions failed,
and Russia had to stand alone. This made the move towards authoritarian
hyper-centralisation a more or less necessary result. This said, however, I
do not think Stalinism as such was inevitable from this point.

Karl Kautsky's contribution to the debate on October was a contradictory
one. He did argue that an isolated Bolshevik revolution would inevitably
degenerate. But he also conceded that the Bolshevik perspective on
'permanent revolution' made a strong case. In his words:

'The Bolsheviks must not be blamed too much for expecting a European
revolution. Other socialists did the same, and we are certainly approaching
conditions which will sharply accebntuate the class struggle. and if the
Bolsheviks have till now been in error in expecting a revolution, have not
Babel, Marx, and Engels cherished a like delusion? This is not to be denied'
(Kautsky 1964: 64).

Kautsky also questioned the legitimacy of the October revolution, because in
practice he had departed from a revolutionary perspective, though he wished
to claim otherwise in theory. Thus, having described the Bolshevik
revolution as 'voluntarist' and 'premature', because it took place in
underdeveloped Russia, Kautsky might have been expected to support the
revolution in 'advanced' Germany. Not a bit of it! Blissfully unaware
(apparently) of the contradiction between his critique of Luxemburg and his
critique of the Bolshevik revolution, he had this to say about the German
revolution:

'We cannot slavishly imitate the Bolshevik revolution here, because the
objective conditions are completely different. Russia is a peasant country
... Only 10% of the population are industrial workers. Germany, on the other
hand, is a developed, industrialised state which needs food supplies. The
majority of its population are proletarians'.

Alas, here there exists a 'theory/practice inconsistency', and one which
probably helped condemn the Russian people to Stalinism.

Regards

Sean
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