[Marxism] Lenin, Trotsky and Permanent Revolution (was Bolivia Discussion)

["Michael Karadjis" <mkaradjis@xxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect, in reply to my post where I said Lenin's and Trotsky's
formulations re the coming Russian revolution were basically similar in
1905-6, tried to counterpose them with a partial quote from Lenin from
his article 'A Revolution of the 1789 or the 1848 Type?'(which Josh Saxe
also thought "hit the nail on the head"). I assume it was Louis himself
who cut out much of Lenin to make him mean the opposite of what he
meant. Louis quotes:

"In other words, are we to have a revolution of the 1789 type or of the
1848 type? (We say type in order to dispose of the preposterous idea
that there can be any repetition of the irrevocably vanished social,
political, and international situations of 1789 and 1848.) "That a
Social-Democrat must want and work for the former, of this there can
hardly be any doubt."

"The complete revolution means seizure of power by the proletariat and
the poor peasantry. These classes, once in power, cannot but strive for
the socialist revolution. Ergo, seizure of power, from being at first a
step in the democratic revolution, will, by force of circumstances, and
against the will (and sometimes without the awareness) of its
participants, pass into the socialist revolution. And here failure is
inevitable."

Louis leaves the last sentence hanging there to suggest that was Lenin's
view. But I'm not sure what Louis wants to turn Lenin 1905 into a
Menshevik. Even from the above, one must be suspicious, because after
all, who can deny that "a complete revolution" and "the seizure of power
by the proletariat and the poor peasantry" is precisely what Lenin was
arguing for. Louis quote makes it look as if Lenin was opposed to this,
because it would lead to a failed socialist revolution. Let's look at
what Lenin actually said here:

"An important question in connection with the Russian revolution is the
following: I. Will it go on to the complete overthrow of the tsarist
government and the establishment of a republic? II. Or will it limit
itself to a curtailment of tsarist power, to a monarchist constitution?
In other words, are we to have a revolution of the 1789 type or of the
1848 type?[1] (We say type in order to dispose of the preposterous idea
that there can be any repetition of the irrevocably vanished social,
political, and international situations of 1789 and 1848.) That a
Social-Democrat must want and work for the former, of this there can
hardly be any doubt."

In other words, by "work for the former", he meant a complete revolution
not simply a curtailment of tsarist power, as the bourgeoisie wanted,
and as the Mensheviks adapted to.

Lenin continues:

"Yet Martynov's way of stating the issue reduces itself wholly to a
tail-ender's desire for a more modest revolution. In (this) type the
"danger", so frightening to the Martynovs, of the proletariat and the
peasantry seizing power is entirely eliminated. In this case
Social-Democracy will unavoidably remain "in opposition"-even to the
revolution; this indeed is what Martynov wants-to remain in opposition
even to the revolution. The question is, which type is the more
probable?" (followed by a couple of paragraphs weighing up
possibilities)

>From Louis account you wouldn't know the article was a critique of
Martynov and the Mensheviks. He continues (with my comments):

"Only history, of course, can weigh these pros and cons in the balances.
Our task as Social-Democrats is to drive the bourgeois revolution onward
as far as it will go, without ever losing sight of our main task-the
independent organisation of the proletariat.

"THIS IS WHERE MARTYNOV GETS MUDDLED. The complete revolution means
seizure of power by the proletariat and the poor peasantry (ie, what
Lenin is in favour of - MK). These classes, once in power, cannot but
strive for the socialist revolution. Ergo, seizure of power, from being
at first a step in the democratic revolution, will, by force of
circumstances, and against the will (and sometimes without the
awareness) of its participants, p a s s   i n t o the socialist
revolution (ie, this is a consequence of the course Lenin advocates -
MK). And here failure is inevitable. If attempts at the socialist
revolution are bound to end in failure, we must (like Marx in 1871, when
he foresaw the inevitable failure of the insurrection in Paris) advise
the proletariat not to rise, but to wait and organise, reculer pour
mieux sauter.[2] "SUCH, IN SUBSTANCE, IS MARTYNOV'S IDEA (AND THAT OF
THE NEW ISKRA, TOO), had he been able to reason it out to its logical
end."

Ie, it is "Martynov's idea" that "failure is inevitable and hence the
Social Democrats must advise the proletariat and peasantry not to rise
up and seize power, not Lenin's.

RE some other comments.

Charles Brown tends to agree that Lenin was more correct in 1905 than
Trotsky, but the reasoning is his, not Lenin's. Charles says Lenin was
smart, in kind of allowing the bourgeoisie to do the work of
overthrowing the Tsar, to divide the enemies, and allow the proletariat
to then strike later. Yet this is the opposite of Lenin was saying: all
along he stressed that the bourgeoisie were incapable of leading any
struggle against Tsarism, and would cower in terror at the revolutionary
uprising and bloc with Tsarism, and only the proletariat and the
peasantry were able to consistently drive through the democratic stage
of the revolution (which Lenin saw as the opening of "a series of
intermediary stages of revolutionary development" which would lead to
the socialist revolution in a  process called "uninterrupted
revolution").

David Walters clarifies that he does think Lenin's and Trotsky's views
in 1917 converged with the April Thesis, and he believes Trotsky's
1905-6 views were superior to Lenin's. To clarify, David, I wasn't
suggesting you thought any differently, I was just acknowledging that at
least you clearly rejected, in your post, the historic fiction that
Lenin adopted Trotsky's theories of 1905-6 in his April Thesis.

Others noted that Lenin did carry out a major reorientation in April
1917 and in doing so came into conflict with the line of Stalin and
Kamenev who had adapted to the bourgeois provisional government. So
what? Parties often carry out "reorientations". He reoriented to the
concrete conditions. I think Luko Williams puts it perfectly - Lenin
claimed the "revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat
and peasantry" had already come into being in the form of workers,
soldiers and peasants Soviets, but were ceding power to a bourgeois
provisional government. The task was for this revolutionary dictatorship
to seize power for itself. That does not break one iota from his general
strategy of 1905-6. On the contrary, he calls for its implementation. I
strongly agree with Luko that comrades should actually read the April
Thesis.

In early 1917, Stalin-Kamenev led a semi-Menshevik style adaptation to
the bourgeois provisional government, of the type Lenin was so fiercely
polemicising against in 1905. It takes an amazing stretch of the
imagination to claim that by doing in early 1917 the opposite of what
Lenin was advocating in 1905 that somehow they were being misled by
Lenin's theory. Opportunism is not necessarily caused by 'theories', but
by material circumstances. If anyone really thinks the Stalin-Kamenev
revisionism of early 1917 was due to what some comrades imagine to be
the "pre-1917" Lenin's theory, then you may as well conclude that the
mid-1920s revisionism by Stalin and his supporters was caused by what
you imagine to be "post-1917" Leninism.

Just how does a call by Lenin in 1905 (check Louis' second piece he sent
from Two Tactics) for a "revolutionary dictatorship" of workers and
peasants to crush the resistance of the Tsarists, the landowners, the
capitalists etc have anything in common with adaptation to a bourgeois
government in 1917, and the refusal to call for such a revolutionary
dictatorship of workers and peasants, by Stalin-Kamenev? In no way
whatsoever.

Later Louis posts an excerpt from Lenin's 'Two Tactics' which includes a
number of formulations that are confusing and not very well put. I think
you need to read the entirety of what Lenin wrote in 'Two Tactics' and
throughout the revolutionary upsurge in 1905-6, and put this excerpt
together with all the rest he wrote: that there would be no 'Chinese
wall' between the democratic and socialist revolutions, that they would
be connected by "a series of intermediary stages of revolutionary
development", ie, not a formal stable bourgeois "stage" as in
Menshevik-Stalinist theory, that the Bolsheviks stand for "uninterrupted
revolution", that the more complete the completion of
bourgeois-democratic tasks, the more rapidly the revolution can pass
over into its second, socialist, phase. Put some of the less well
formulated pieces from that particular part of Two Tactics together with
Richard Fidler's post from Lenin in 1921 re the kinds of democratic
tasks that the Bolshevik revolution completed very rapidly in 1917-18
and we get a good idea of what Lenin was talking about.

A final point that needs much greater clarification. In the piece from
Two Tactics Louis posted, he notes the difference between a big
capitalist who is a 'bourgeois-democrat' and a radical peasant who is
also a 'bourgeois-democrat', saying the proletariat's ally was the
second. We cannot understand the concept of the revolutionary democratic
stage of workers and peasants government without taking into account
that in Russia at the time, and in many 3rd world countries now, the
peasantry are the bulk, or a major part, of the population, and even the
urban working class is largely composed of semi-proletarian,
semi-peasant layers in the informal petty economy. While the most
organised sections of the working class may well follow the seizure of
power with immediate nationalization, a large part of the economy may
not follow immediately, and above all the peasantry's seizure of land is
a democratic, not a socialist task, and there is no guarantee of
hurrying it up. The peasants will run their own petty bourgeois economy,
based essentially on market relations, for an undefined period, and this
may lead to new class differentiations, as Lenin thought in 1905. Even
if it doesn't, this land fragmentation is not a feature of socialism,
but combined with greater working class political and economic power of
the working class, it can be gradually led in a socialist direction,
through voluntary cooperatisation etc. This is an extremely difficult
process and there are no models for any sound working of this. Any
attempt by the proletariat to enforce a "socialist" land policy will be
catastrophic. In this sense above all the intermediate stage if indeed
"democratic" and does involve a certain "development of capitalism" or
petty capitalism, in parts of the economy.

And this is precisely where Trotsky was weak in 1905-6 - his
formulations that the peasant would turn his reactionary face to the
proletariat, whose seizure of power could thus only be saved from the
peasant counterrevolution by the international socialist revolution, and
the working class must immediately go to the village and forment class
struggle to lead to agricultural proletariat against various other
layers in the village, even if such class struggle or even distinctions
are as yet unclear, is exceptionally dangerous and adventurist. And if
you don't believe that's what Trotsky wrote, go back and re-read
'Results and Prospects' with an open mind. Lenin was hardly alone in
having certain formulations far from perfect.

MK

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