Arthur Rosenberg 1934
On the outbreak of the World War Lenin left Galicia and took up his residence in Zürich on the neutral soil of Switzerland. He was accompanied by his colleague Zinoviev, a brilliant orator and writer, but not his equal in political ability. From November 1914 to the beginning of 1917 Lenin and Zinoviev collaborated in editing and publishing a Russian newspaper called The Social-Democrat.
Lenin was convinced that Russia’s participation in the war was only the prelude to the revolution in Russia itself. Since, however, the revolution would arise out of special conditions created by the war, it was necessary for him to study carefully the war and its effects upon society at large, and then to draw the necessary conclusions. Lenin was successful in bringing his study of the war to an end within a few months of its outbreak. The result of his meditations and studies was the brilliant essay that appeared in the spring of 1915 entitled Imperialism as the Latest Stage in Capitalism. In order that this pamphlet might evade the Russian censorship Lenin expressed himself with great caution. The reader was left to glimpse its revolutionary purport between the lines. If read in conjunction with his other writings at this period, this essay on imperialism affords a clear insight into Lenin’s opinions.
Lenin distinguished between two stages in the development of capitalism. Early capitalism was based upon free competition. This was replaced in the later stages by trusts, cartels and syndicates. The production of vital necessities for entire countries, and even for an entire hemisphere, was concentrated in a single organisation. Free competition had been superseded by monopolies. In early capitalism the industrialist had been the propulsive element; now he was replaced by the great banks and financial concerns. The industrial trusts allied themselves with the great banks. Production became secondary to the financing of production. Thus the typical capitalist of the later stages in capitalist development was no longer the industrial pioneer but the wealthy speculator. Capitalism had brought into existence a parasitic class of rentiers living upon tribute exacted from humanity at large. The progressive element in capitalism came to an end with the emergence of this parasitic monopolism. Capitalism no longer had any interest in increasing production and was content to assure itself of its profits by forcible methods. A modern great power is nothing but a collection of great financial institutions within national frontiers. Modern international politics are no more than the struggle between these centres of financial power for domination over all countries and all races.
The appearance of monopolistic capitalism destroyed the liberal and tolerant character of the capitalistic middle class. Moreover, the state as an expression of monopolistic capitalism can only maintain itself internally and externally by an unscrupulous use of force. The newest form of capitalism involved of necessity the maintenance of great armies and navies. It compromised with the monarchical system of government; it enlisted into its service the bureaucratic civil service; and it turned to its own account the last vestiges of feudalism.
Thus it came about that an agriculturally backward state like Tsarist Russia fitted in admirably with the modern imperialist system. For during the years 1906-14 that saw the counter-revolution in Russia industrial and financial capitalism made mighty strides forward in that country and were helped in their advance not a little by the millions loaned by France to Russia. The corrupt and avaricious ruling class was now composed both of the old feudal elements and the new financiers and industrialists. The Duma was the scene of a compromise between these two forces. In Russian eyes the World War was a predatory expedition on the part of this imperialist ruling class from which the nobles hoped to gain new estates and the financiers still greater profits.
The outbreak of war seemed superficially to strengthen immeasurably the power of capitalism. In Lenin’s opinion, however, it also created entirely new possibilities for revolution. At first the war united all forces in the nation in the hands of the ruling caste. Wartime economics meant the triumph of the monopoly system. The entire economic life of the country was absorbed into one gigantic organisation which controlled everything, according to definite regulations, from St Petersburg down to the tiniest village. The state had become the finished and most complete expression of centralised authority and could not tolerate any form of ‘freedom’ within its boundaries.
In the Anglo-Saxon countries the middle-class order of society had up to this allowed the individual a certain liberty of movement and thought. The war made an end to this in England and later in the United States, both of which became centralised governmental machines under the political dictatorship of capitalism and the all-powerful unitary system of wartime economy. The imperialist ring round the world had been completed and no longer showed a single gap. Each month of war, however, saw an intensification of the burden placed by monopolistic capitalism upon the masses. In times of peace capitalism had been able to distribute largesse to the populace from its ample profits. Indeed, in countries like England and Germany, the profits earned by the great capitalist organisations were so great that it was possible to admit the intellectual and official classes, the agriculturists, and even some of the industrial proletariat, to a share in them. This had the result, in Lenin’s opinion, of raising the standard of living of these classes and of giving them an interest in the continuance and prosperity of imperialism.
The war dissolved these illusions. The vast majority of the townsfolk and the peasantry were driven into the trenches and forced to sacrifice their lives on a scale unprecedented in history. At the same time food control and famine made their appearance among the civilian populations. The oppression of the masses on the part of capitalism knew no limits and became unbearable. The only road to salvation left to the proletariat was revolution.
These theories on being applied to Russia strengthened Lenin in the beliefs he had entertained in 1905. The alliance between the working class and the lower middle class for the purpose of achieving a democratic revolution had become closer than ever before. The whole burden of the war was borne by the villages and the peasant-soldiery. If the revolutionary proletariat pointed the way to salvation, it would be followed by the entire nation. The gulf separating the workman at a machine and the workman behind a plough, the poverty-stricken man deprived of all means of production and the poverty-stricken man in possession of only the barest possible means of production — this gulf had been bridged by their common misery. And they possessed in common one single enemy — the Tsar and the imperialist ruling class.
The Russian socialist workers’ party could only lead a successful national revolution on condition that it did not allow itself to become enmeshed in the imperialist machinery of war. This machinery embraced the army, the administration and the entire economic life of Russia; and it had its own peculiar ideology — that of the defence of the fatherland and of a political truce between the parties. The ruling and imperialist class taught the masses of the people that they must obey and suffer for the sake of the fatherland. If they were to refuse to obey, then the defence of the country would no longer be possible and the country itself would become a prey to the enemy. Every individual Russian would in that event find himself in such a condition of misery that it would make the sufferings of war appear as nothing by comparison.
Lenin combated this imperialist ideology with might and main. He staked his all upon the argument that in an imperialist war Social-Democracy must overthrow the government in every country and transform the war against the external foe into a war against the enemy within the gates. How is this extremist notion to be reconciled with the acceptance of nationalism by Marx in 1848 — that Marx to whom Lenin looked as to his great exemplar? In 1848 Marx and Engels did not advocate the defeat of Germany; they demanded, on the contrary, the victory of Germany in a revolutionary war against Russia. What, then, was Lenin’s attitude to the problem of nationality during the years 1914 to 1917? It is obvious that the greatest figure and leader of the Russian democratic revolution must accept the Russian nation. Here Lenin could not divest himself of the pure and original Marxist doctrine. On 12 December 1914, Lenin wrote a brilliant article, ‘The National Pride of the Greater Russians’, in which he said inter alia:
Is the emotion of national pride foreign to the Greater Russian class-conscious proletariat? Certainly not. We love our language and our native land. It is we who strive most strenuously to uplift her [Greater Russia’s] workers, that is, nine-tenths of her population, to living the class-conscious existence of class-conscious socialists. It is we who are most distressed by beholding our native country subjected to the violence and oppression of Tsarist hangmen, landowners and capitalists. We are proud that this violation should have met with resistance in our midst, in the heart of Greater Russia... that the large Russian working class has organised a powerful revolutionary party out of the masses, and that the peasant in Greater Russia has at the same time begun to become democratic and to free himself from the priests and the landowners.
We are filled with national pride and it is for that reason especially that we regard with a peculiar hatred our past of serfdom... our present serfdom... A nation cannot itself be free whilst it oppresses other peoples — such was the teaching of the great representatives of logical democracy in the nineteenth century, Marx and Engels, who have become the teachers of the revolutionary proletariat. And we Greater Russian workmen, because we are filled with national pride, want to see a free and independent, a democratic and republican and proud Greater Russia whose relations with its neighbours shall be inspired by the humanitarian principle of equality and not by the servile principle of prior or exclusive rights degrading to every great nation.
Here Lenin is speaking the language of national revolution, the language of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, and that of the revolution of 1905. It is clear that the theories Lenin built up from his observation of the World War are not to be explained by his rejection of the principle of nationality any more than it is possible to give a moral content to Bolshevik wartime policy. It was not moral indignation with imperialism and its allies that caused Lenin to demand the overthrow of his own government. Lenin invariably regarded political problems from a realistic standpoint and in his eyes the end justified the means. He would have allied himself with the Devil in order to serve the cause of the revolution. And it is nothing less than absurd to declare that Lenin advocated the dissolution of the International out of moral indignation with the patriotic socialists. For the same reason Lenin steadily refused to be associated with so-called pacifism in so far as that implied the rejection of the use of force in disputes. Like Marx and Engels, Lenin was an advocate of the use of force and weapons to the end of his life. Hence it is impossible to explain Lenin’s attitude during the World War on any other than the realist ground of the interests of revolution and more especially of the Russian Revolution. Lenin did not work for the downfall of his own government — the Tsarist government — because it was a bad government or because the war it was waging was an indefensible war. He sought to effect its overthrow because without that there was no possibility of success for revolution.
A party that adopts the motto ‘Down with the Government’ in a country that is waging war without at the same time possessing the means and the energy to accomplish a revolution is acting foolishly. It is merely helping the enemy to conquer its own country. If in a world war powerful political parties in every belligerent country were to proclaim the same end without seeking to promote a revolution their action would amount to criminal folly. If all states were to ‘lose’ in the war, what would be the ultimate outcome? Lenin’s action would have been senseless if it had not been the first step to revolution. A party cannot carry out a revolution in time of war without overthrowing its own government and the administrative and military machine of that government. To do that is tantamount to promoting the defeat of its own country, or at least its temporary defeat, by disorganisation of the conduct of the war. Such a result is the inevitable consequence of such an action. At the time of the French Revolution the Mountain risked the defeat of France in overthrowing the Girondist government. It was only thanks to the feeble resistance offered to the Mountain by the Girondins that the defence of the country did not collapse. If in 1848-49 the German democrats had successfully carried out the revolution preached by Marx and Engels the resultant problem would have been the same. The military and civil administration of Prussia and Austria would first have been destroyed. Since Prussia was then at war with Denmark and also engaged in putting down a Polish rebellion, and since Austria was fighting against Italy and Hungary, this would have involved the defeat of both those countries. After their seizure of power the revolutionaries cannot at first alter the situation.
Suppose that a revolutionary party accuses the government of conducting war badly and half-heartedly and declares that were it to come to power matters would take on a very different aspect. It is always possible for the government to retort that the activities of the party itself have paralysed the military conduct of the war, and that notwithstanding their loud protestations of patriotism, they themselves have been guilty of treason and of bringing the possibility of defeat upon their own country. Similar reproaches can be brought by a government in time of war against such groups in the opposition as criticise the actions of the government and continue their political activity even without entertaining any revolutionary plans. These groups can be accused of disseminating mistrust, promoting civil dissension, and destroying the will of the people to prosecute the war. The whole object of a political truce in time of war is to heighten the national determination to pursue the struggle by artificially suppressing all political differences of opinion within the nation. Every opposition, or indeed revolutionary party, in a belligerent state must be prepared to take upon itself the responsibility for a disturbance of the political truce that may result in paralysing the military conduct of the war and even lead to national defeat. Every determined oppositional group in a belligerent state acts at least temporarily as if no war were in progress. For the overthrow of the government can only be effected by breaking the political truce and ignoring the patriotic obligations imposed upon all parties by the existence of a state of war. When Lenin as a Russian came forward in 1914 with his battle-cry ‘Down with the Tsar’, that did not mean that he desired the victory of William II in any form whatsoever. It did mean that in Lenin’s opinion the real interests of the Russian nation demanded that the revolt against the Tsar should be carried on at this instant by every possible means.
If the defeat of the Russian armies should result from this revolutionary action, such a defeat must be regarded as the lesser of two evils; and in any case the victorious Russian revolution would subsequently settle accounts with the German emperor under very different circumstances.
There is indeed another way in which a revolutionary party can seize the reins of government in time of war. It can support the conduct of the war and participate in it to such an extent that it eventually excludes all other elements in the nation from the control of the nation’s destiny. This would seem to be the way in which Engels visualised the German Social-Democrats seizing power in the course of a world war. Many liberals and democrats in Russia entertained similar notions long before the outbreak of the World War and therefore sought to incite the Tsarist government to the pursuit of an aggressive foreign policy and even to war. In such an event they believed that the Tsar at any rate would be overthrown. If Russia were to suffer a defeat, the government would collapse. It was only necessary to recall what had happened after the Russo-Japanese War. Even if the war were to end in a Russian victory, it would nevertheless involve the entire nation in such an expenditure of blood and energy, and impose such a strain upon all the national forces, that the Russian people would no longer tolerate the old type of Tsarist government. The transformation of Russia into a middle-class and liberal state would be the inevitable consequence of such a tremendous conflict. For this reason far-sighted Russian conservatives invariably advocated a pacific policy in the interests of Tsarism and feudalism and declared that the Pan-Slav movement was nothing else than a revolutionary movement in disguise. The fact that during the World War the entire liberal middle class, virtually the whole of the completely democratic ‘popular’ movement, and also some Social-Democrats, ardently supported the prosecution of the war and the defence of the country did not mean that they did not believe that in any eventuality Tsarism was doomed. Nevertheless, Lenin resolutely refused in 1914 and the succeeding years to have anything to do with this plan of achieving a revolution by prosecuting the war to a successful end. According to Lenin it was imperative to distinguish sharply between nationalism and imperialism and between nationalist wars and imperialist wars.
It is clear that the Russian nation, the French nation, the British nation, etc, existed as such in 1914. Nevertheless, they were to some extent the prisoners of the imperialist system. The war which was conducted by the imperialist machine was not a war of nations; it was a war of conquest on the part of the ruling classes. Once more the phrase ‘A workman has no country’ acquired fresh meaning since the imperialists ‘had’ a country. A national war on the part of Germany or Russia would only be possible after the mass of the population had regained their country through revolution. Moreover, the imperialist war-machine could only be broken by those who refused to become involved in its cogs. Anyone who allowed himself to be captivated by the imperialist ideology became the prisoner of the imperialist system. In Lenin’s opinion it was impossible for a labour leader to aid in defending his country in an imperialist war and at the same time organise a revolution. For with every revolutionary action he injured that effective defence of his country which he held to be of primary importance. Lenin indeed thought that the Russian proletariat should refuse its support to all who assisted in the defence of the country or the maintenance of the political truce throughout the World War. A supporter of the war was in Lenin’s eyes identical with a counter-revolutionary. Hence he preached a ruthless crusade against the Narodniki and those Social-Democrats who supported the political truce. Nor was he any less rigorously opposed to the Mensheviks and the group led by Trotsky, who refused to participate in a fight to the finish with the democrats and the socialist supporters of the political truce, although they themselves were opposed to this truce.
A new grouping of the left parties in Russia resulted from the outbreak of the World War. In 1905 the Mensheviks refused to participate in a democratic revolutionary government, in contrast to the Bolsheviks, who were prepared to cooperate. Now, in 1914-15, the position was reversed — the Bolsheviks stood alone and the Mensheviks were prepared to cooperate with the socialist supporters of the political truce, and, above all, with the democrats. In 1905 Lenin’s conception of the path to be followed by the revolution was wholly different from that which he entertained in 1914-16. In 1905 he believed that the overthrow of the Tsar could be effected by means of a great coalition of the democratic and Narodniki parties. In the World War he believed that the supporters of the political truce had become prisoners of imperialism and therefore were no longer capable of revolution. It remained for the Bolsheviks to set aside the democratic leaders and to obtain control over the masses themselves.
The Mensheviks indeed never assigned to themselves, either in 1905 or subsequently, the leadership of the Russian revolution. In 1905 they were prepared to fight in the revolutionary ranks and to leave to the middle class the task of governing the middle-class and democratic state that was to be established on the ruins of Tsarism. During the World War the old and recognised Menshevik leaders living in exile carried on their struggle against Tsarism. The Mensheviks who continued to work within Russia itself were divided in their opinions. Although the Menshevik leaders were determined to support with all their might any new revolution that might occur as a result of the war, they refused on account of the different opinions held as to the nature of the war itself to split the Russian working class into two inimical camps. Nor did the difference between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks undergo any real change; it merely took on new guises at different times for tactical reasons. The Mensheviks felt themselves to be representative of the Russian working class with their small range of influence in relation to the political life of the vast Tsarist empire. The Bolsheviks felt themselves to be the leaders of a national Russian revolution. When, in February 1917, the revolution overthrew the Tsar, the great majority of the Russian nation, including the Russian working class, followed the lead of the Mensheviks and Narodniki; and despite the possibility that was now theirs of indulging freely in propaganda, the Bolsheviks remained in the minority. It was the fateful course taken by events in 1917 that first placed Lenin at the head of a majority of the Russian nation.
On 11 October 1915, Zinoviev published an important article entitled ‘The War and the Revolutionary Crisis in Russia’. Throughout the entire period of their sojourn in Switzerland from 1914 to 1917 Zinoviev was Lenin’s mouthpiece and never once wrote anything that did not tally completely with Lenin’s opinions. In this article Zinoviev drew up a balance-sheet for the fifteen months of war. He began by showing how the victory of Russian arms in Galicia in 1914 increased the authority of the Tsar and promoted the idea of a political truce. In 1915 came a change. That year saw an overwhelming defeat of the Russians by the German armies, the loss of Galicia, and the conquest of Poland and Vilna. The immediate result was an outbreak of violent recriminations between the Russian government and the liberals. Strikes took place and the peasantry rose in rebellion. Some democratic leaders like Kerensky and Plekhanov raised the battle-cry ‘Revolution for Victory’. In those days Kerensky was the most respected and powerful man in the Narodniki movement, and Plekhanov was a celebrated Social-Democrat, a founder of Russian Social-Democracy, who before 1914 had on many occasions collaborated with Lenin. On the outbreak of the war Plekhanov declared himself in favour of defending his country from its enemies. Thenceforward Lenin regarded him with irreconcilable enmity. Kerensky and Plekhanov were of the opinion in 1915 that Tsarism could be destroyed by being made to appear as the chief obstacle to victory and that Russia could only be saved from defeat by revolutionary democracy. On the subject of their views Zinoviev wrote: ‘Kerensky and Plekhanov raise the cry of “Revolt for Victory,” clothe themselves in the toga of revolutionary Jacobinism, and light-heartedly summon from the shades the ghosts of the great leaders of the Wars of Revolution. But in truth they are bondmen of the Tsar.’
Such tactics during an imperialistic war were in Lenin’s opinion sheer folly and those who pursued them became the slaves of the imperialistic system. The Mensheviks had put forward their plan of a constituent national assembly which received Zinoviev’s approval with the reservation that it did not go far enough. Now was the time in which to set the goal of a republic and an expropriation of the great estates before the masses of the people. Zinoviev concluded his article by saying:
Today as yesterday revolutionary socialist democracy continues the struggle for a democratic revolution in Russia. The imperialistic World War has indissolubly united the cause of revolution in Russia with that of the growing proletarian socialist revolutionary movement in the West... The interests of the millions of lower middle classes and semi-proletarian classes in Russia are irreconcilable with monarchy and with a landed aristocracy that is a relic of the age of serfdom... It is not the task of the proletariat to neglect the democratic interests of the masses but to free the masses from the influence of the middle class and to confute former liberal and present-day patriotic illusions by the teachings of experience. Long live the second democratic revolution in Russia that opens the age of the proletarian world revolution! Long live the victory over the Tsar that leads to the continuance of the proletarian and socialist revolution in the West and not to victory over Germany! These are the mottoes inscribed on the banners of Russian Revolutionary Socialist Democracy.
On 13 October 1915, Lenin took up his pen and beneath the modest title ‘Some Ideas’ laid down eleven principles that should serve as guiding-lines in the work of Russian revolutionaries. This essay ranks among the greatest of Lenin’s writings.
As his first principle he declared that a ‘constituent assembly’ alone did not suffice as a solution of the revolutionary problem. It depended upon who was to elect this constituent assembly. If, for example, the possibility was left open to the Tsar himself of calling a national assembly into life, then that would place an obstacle in the path of the revolution. Instead of adopting a constituent assembly as the revolutionary motto Lenin advised the adoption of the three demands: a democratic republic, confiscation of great estates, and an eight-hour working day.
His second principle was that the workers should not participate in the committees that had been set up with a view to speeding up production in munition factories and other industries supplying war materials.
In his third principle Lenin advocated the extension of Social-Democrat propaganda to the agricultural proletariat, the poor peasantry and the army. Moreover, strikes must be encouraged and a demand made for the immediate conclusion of peace. Among other demands put forward by the proletariat must be one for the liberation of the Bolshevik members of the Duma whom the government had banished to Siberia shortly after the outbreak of the war.
His fourth principle ran:
Councils of workers’ delegates and similar bodies must be looked upon as instruments of revolt and of revolutionary power. These bodies can only be of use in conjunction with a development of political strikes on a large scale and with revolts, and only in proportion to the preparation, development and progress of each individual strike or revolt.
It is clear that Lenin did not at that time entertain any notions that the councils would become the organic bodies in a future democratic or even socialist state.
The fifth and sixth principles were concerned with the social character of the coming revolution. Lenin remained faithful to the convictions he had held in 1905, that the coming revolution in Russia must be of a middle-class character and not destructive of the right to private ownership.
In his seventh and eighth principles Lenin sought to make clear to his party in Russia the reasons that had led him to alter his theory of a possible coalition that he had held in 1905:
It is to be regarded as permissible for Social-Democracy to enter a provisional revolutionary government in company with the democratic lower middle classes; but not with the chauvinists of the revolutionary movement... Revolutionary chauvinism is based upon the situation of the lower middle class as a class. This class always fluctuates between the middle class and the proletariat. At the present moment it is hesitating between chauvinism and proletarian internationalism — and it prevents the former from being truly revolutionary in the sense of a democratic republic.
Thus the Bolsheviks might enter into a coalition with the democratic parties only upon the condition that these parties were opposed to chauvinism, that is, the imperialist system. In the then circumstances this amounted to a refusal to join a coalition, since the Narodniki, as well as the Social-Democrats under Plekhanov, favoured the prosecution of the war and the Mensheviks would not participate in any government whose policy was directed against the other democratic parties. By ignoring the actual facts Lenin thus daringly designated his own supporters as the only true proletarians in Russia and branded the Mensheviks, Plekhanov’s party, etc, as lower-middle-class. In reality, both then and until 1917, the majority of the Russian proletariat were members of the so-called lower-middle-class parties, while the intellectual strength of Bolshevism itself was not among the workmen but in a small circle of revolutionary intellectuals.
The events of 1917 lend a great importance to Lenin’s ninth principle:
If the revolutionary chauvinists were to gain the upper hand in Russia, we should be opposed to a defence of their country in this war. Our battle-cry is ‘Down with the chauvinists, even if they are also revolutionaries and republicans; and support for the union of the proletarians of the nations in the name of the socialist revolution!’
Lenin here takes into consideration the possibility that a revolution in Russia might not only destroy the Tsardom but also the liberal middle class. The government would then fall into the hands of the Narodniki, Kerensky’s party, the Social Revolutionaries, etc. In 1905, and indeed in any similar situation up to 1913, Lenin would have welcomed such a government and have offered to cooperate with it. Now he was prepared to fight it as he fought the Tsarist government. Before the war a coalition government of Narodniki and socialists would have been the expression of a true revolution and have signified the assumption of power by the broad masses of the people. A democratic government, however, at the time of the World War, that simply continued to wage war, seemed in Lenin’s eyes to be a pure farce.
For such a government would be forced in the defence of the country to collaborate with the former Tsarist officers and the industrialists. It would be compelled to maintain law and order by means of the former Tsarist police force and it could not attempt to carry out any serious democratic reforms. For this reason Lenin saw in such a government only a screen behind which the feudal and capitalistic imperialist system would continue to govern. Hence the necessity for combating it like every other imperialist Russian government.
If the situation as between the various parties in Russia were actually as depicted by Lenin, then the Bolsheviks would obviously have to reckon seriously with the possibility that they would have to effect a democratic revolution alone and in opposition to every other party. Hence Lenin in his tenth principle says: ‘To the question whether it is possible for the proletariat to play a leading part in a middle-class revolution in Russia the answer must be as follows. Yes, it is possible. But only if the lower middle class inclines towards the left at the decisive moment.’ As a political force the proletariat is here identified by Lenin with the Bolsheviks. A movement towards the left on the part of the lower middle class would mean that the peasantry would abandon the Narodniki and join themselves to the Bolsheviks in some way or other.
The last and eleventh principle already contains the entire plan for a so-called world revolution:
To the question what would be the attitude of the proletarian party in the event of its attaining to power through a revolution during the present war, the answer must be: we would propose peace to all belligerents on condition that all colonies and all oppressed, enslaved and dependent nations received their freedom. Under their present governments neither Germany nor England nor France would accept this condition. As a consequence of their refusal we would be forced to prepare and wage a revolutionary war. In other words — we would not only carry out with the most ruthless methods the least part of our programme [the demands put forward by Russian Social-Democracy for the creation of a democratic republic], but we would stir up all the peoples oppressed by Greater Russia as well as all colonies and dependencies in Asia, India, China, Persia, etc, and, above all, incite the socialist proletariat of Europe, in spite of the chauvinists among it, to rebellion against its governments.
It is first of all necessary to explain here in what fashion the revolutionary war which Lenin proposed to wage as a consequence of the rejection of his peace proposal by Germany and the other powers, differs from that which Kerensky and Plekhanov were then engaged in preaching. For Lenin himself thought of Russia as a radical middle-class democratic state and not as a socialist state. And in this he was in agreement with Kerensky and Plekhanov. The fact that events followed another course after the assumption of power by the Bolsheviks in 1918 is not of material importance here. Even Lenin in 1915 only contemplated achieving a middle-class revolution in Russia. The difference between Lenin’s revolutionary war and that of Kerensky is to be explained as follows. On taking over the reins of government Lenin proposed to destroy completely the whole imperial system of government with its officers, civil servants, police and war organisations, even at the risk of temporarily paralysing the further conduct of the war. On the other hand, Kerensky and Plekhanov wished to continue the fight with the old governmental machine in order to avoid any breakdown in the military apparatus. It would in that event be impossible for them to revolutionise Russia. After their own victory Russian democracy would have to fight two imperialistic groups of powers — Germany and the Entente. In order to do this it would be necessary for them to secure the help of two allies — the oppressed nations of the East and the socialist workmen of the West. Far from repudiating the idea of nationality Lenin desired to make of it the chief weapon in his warfare. And in this he reveals himself a true middle-class revolutionary of the 1848 type.
In the first place Lenin proposed to raise in rebellion the oppressed peoples of Tsarist Russia — Ukrainians, Poles, Finns, Caucasians, Turkistanis — and to make of the middle classes in all these nations (peasants, manual labourers, intelligentsia, etc) allies of the great Russian democracy. A renunciation of the forcible methods of government employed by the Tsars would not injure Greater Russia in a national sense, since she would occupy a far more secure position than formerly at the head of a federation of liberated peoples. Revolutionary-democratic movements had followed in Asia upon the Russian Revolution of 1905 that had for their common characteristic a nationalist opposition to European rule. China became a republic. Parliaments were set up in Persia and Turkey. In India opposition to English rule increased. After the fall of the Tsar, and in the crisis produced by the World War, these movements would be reduplicated. In all Asiatic lands, however, only nationalist and democratic, and nowhere proletarian and socialist, revolutions were possible. The revolt of the millions of Asia would, nevertheless, strike at the heart of European imperialism. For such a revolt would mean the loss to the parasitic monopolistic capitalists, especially in England, of the tribute which they had hitherto drawn from the East. Here Lenin’s theory of imperialism as the latest manifestation of the capitalistic age once more reveals itself. The tribute-paying slaves of imperialism are not only the European factory-hands but 90 per cent of mankind. Hence imperialism could only be overthrown by a world revolution that would only be proletarian in a small degree.
According to Lenin it was the task of Russian democracy to organise a world revolution against imperialism. The nationalist peasantry of Russia were to attract to their side the Asiatic peoples, and the Russian proletariat was to make allies of the Western European working class. The idea of a European revolution current in 1848 had developed by 1915 into that of a world revolution. The basic ideal remained unchanged — the liberation of mankind. The proletarian class interests of the Western European working class were satisfied with common action with the working class in Russia, India and China. It is indeed open to question whether the European working class is called upon to sacrifice itself for the establishment of middle-class nationalist states in Asia or for the prosperity of the Russian peasantry. Such problems, however, were in 1915 only matters of academic interest for Lenin and the Bolsheviks. The immediate task was the overthrow of Tsarism — all else must be left to the future. Throughout the years 1914-17, in which he was in Switzerland, Lenin was denied all opportunity for conducting a propagandist campaign in Asia. But he was in the centre of Western Europe and therefore devoted his energies, in addition to planning the Russian revolution, to indoctrinating Western European socialism with his ideas. It will be necessary in the next chapter to examine the extent of the success which attended Lenin’s endeavours in this sphere of action.
Although the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks were strongly opposed to each other from 1903 to 1917, they shared the conviction that the coming revolution in Russia could only be a middle-class revolution; and this opinion was also held by the Russian Social-Democrats who supported the prosecution of the war. There was, however, another and very remarkable socialist theory as to the form to be assumed by the approaching revolution in Russia; its spokesman was Trotsky.
In the course of the nineteenth century Marxism had undergone two changes. The first was the organisation of the workers for the purpose of completing the middle-class democratic revolution. At this stage in the development of Marxism the working class acted under the direction of a small group of professional revolutionaries sprung from the radical middle-class intelligentsia. This was the Marx–Engels and Bolshevik type of revolution. In the next stage the working class had so far developed as to have a voice in their own organisations and to seek to improve their condition as a class within the middle-class and capitalistic organisation of society. The revolutionary ideal faded into the background and, in countries in which a middle-class revolution was imminent, the working class followed in the footsteps of the middle class. This type of revolutionary movement is represented by the Western European groups in the Second International and by the Mensheviks in Russia. A logical forecast of the further development of the proletarian movement leads to a third stage in which the working class consciously determines its own fate. It is now no longer concerned with the improvement of its condition within middle-class society and seeks to attain to power through revolution. This revolution, however, is no longer the radical democratic revolution of the first stage; it is now a socialist revolution with the object of substituting communal for private ownership of property. In such a revolution the workers would not merely execute the commands of their party leaders but would act on their own independent initiative.
This third stage is the realisation of the Marxist ideal. It is the fulfilment of Marx’s dream of a society freed from class distinctions. In order to render the attainment of this third stage possible an immense development of capitalism must first take place, and those classes that stand between the middle class and the proletariat must also be destroyed. The disappearance of these plebeian classes renders unnecessary the pursuit on the part of the proletariat of a policy of cooperation on a nationalist and democratic basis, and leaves the tiny minority of capitalist exploiters face to face with the overwhelming majority of the exploited. Moreover, the attainment of this third stage necessitates the development of a very highly-trained proletariat capable through intelligence and self-discipline of building up a new world for themselves.
The European working class at the time of the World War was not yet capable of achieving this third stage. For this reason the idealists and political leaders who were the embodiment of this third stage were only able to gather round them a very small band of supporters. These leaders and their groups were in Russia, Trotsky; among the Polish and German Social-Democrats, Rosa Luxemburg and her followers; and, finally, Gorter’s band of Marxists in Holland. All the great working-class parties in Central and Western Europe were at this time led by men embodying the second stage in development, whilst it was men of the first stage who achieved the middle-class revolution in Russia. Since the historic task of the proletariat is to progress from the second to the third stage in development (it is impossible today to say when and in what manner this advance will be made), the idealists who embody this third stage play a very important part in the evolutionary process. For despite the many ideological and political mistakes they may make individually these men are the living presentation of its future to the present-day proletariat. It is indeed true that in the future the task of the historian in judging Trotsky will be rendered more difficult by the fact that in 1917 he became formally a member of the Bolshevik Party. Some years later occurred the inevitable break between Trotsky and the party leaders. Since then Trotsky has maintained that he, and not the rulers of Russia, represents true Bolshevism. This thesis advanced by Trotsky for reasons of political tactics cannot seriously affect the judgement of history.
As early as the Russian Revolution in 1905 and as late as 1917 Trotsky maintained that no truly revolutionary element existed in Russia outside the proletariat. He believed that the liberal middle class would at once combine with the forces of Tsarism were a radical revolution likely to prove victorious. The Narodniki democracy was equally an illusion since its sole support was in the backward and divided peasantry which was incapable of conducting a revolution by itself. Hence there were in Trotsky’s opinion only two real political forces in Russia: the Tsar with his feudal and capitalistic supporters and the socialist working class. And if the latter were successful in overthrowing the former it should not pursue the phantom of a democratic dictatorship and a middle-class revolution but should immediately set up a truly socialist state in Russia. In an article which he wrote in 1909 Trotsky made clear his attitude towards this problem:
The Mensheviks have never clearly defined their attitude towards the Russian revolution as a whole. In common with the Bolsheviks they speak of carrying out the revolution to its conclusion, which both interpret to mean in a purely formal sense the achievement of our minimal programme, after which an epoch should follow of capitalist exploitation under a democratic organisation of society. The carrying out of the revolution to its conclusion presupposes the defeat of Tsarism and the seizure of power in the state by a revolutionary class. Which? The Menshevik answer is ‘the middle-class democracy’. The Bolshevik answer is ‘the proletariat and the peasantry’. What is this ‘middle-class democracy’ of which the Mensheviks speak? This is no definite, tangible and actually existent force. It is a category unknown to history and evolved by journalists by means of deduction and analogy!’
The Menshevik theory would mean in practice that the workers would become the hangers-on of middle-class liberalism in a revolution and would therefore be incapable of achieving anything. The theory put forward by Lenin was, in Trotsky’s opinion, no less mistaken. According to Lenin, the working class was to seize power without making any use of it and to content itself with the achievement of middle-class reforms. Such an act of renunciation on the part of a victorious proletariat Trotsky regarded as an absurdity, and he believed Lenin’s ideal of a democratic dictatorship would reveal itself within a few days after the victory of the revolution as impracticable. Strikes would be the immediate consequence of a successful revolution on the part of the Social-Democrats. Employers would close their factories and lock out the work-people. Factory-owners would say to themselves: ‘Our property is not in danger since it is clear that the proletariat is for the moment bent on setting up a democratic dictatorship and not a socialist state.’ Would a victorious proletariat be content to be shut out from employment? Would it not forcibly open the factories and work them itself to the exclusion of capitalist owners? If, for example, a coalition government in the sense envisaged by Lenin were established in which democratic representatives of the peasantry sat side by side with Social-Democrats, it is clear that the moment the nationalisation of industry was proposed a life and death struggle would begin between the workers and the peasants. Either the peasants, and with them the counter-revolution, would triumph, or the work-people and socialism. In no circumstances would Lenin’s ‘democratic dictatorship of workers and peasants’ prove workable.
Trotsky indeed admitted that in a backward agricultural country like Russia the victorious socialist workers could not alone and permanently maintain themselves in power as against the enormous majority of peasants and lower middle class. From this dilemma only one way of escape remained — the extension of the socialist revolution to Western Europe. If the socialist workers’ revolution is confined to a single country, it is doomed; it can only maintain itself by advancing from country to country. That is Trotsky’s famous theory of the permanent revolution. In 1909 Trotsky wrote:
As the result of a victorious revolution power must come to those parties whose support is in the armed populations of the towns — the proletarian militia. On attaining to power Social-Democracy finds itself confronted by a profound paradox that is not to be overcome by a simple statement that it is a purely democratic dictatorship. A policy of renunciation on the part of the workers’ government for the purpose of establishing a republic would be tantamount to a betrayal of the unemployed, of the strikers, and, finally, of the proletariat as a whole. The victorious revolutionaries will find themselves confronted by definite socialist tasks whose execution will of necessity bring them at a certain point into conflict with the economic backwardness of the country. A national revolution provides no way of escape from this conflict of interests. From the day of its accession to power the workers’ government is faced with the task of uniting all its forces with those of the socialist proletariat in Western Europe. It is only in this way that its temporary revolutionary rule will prove to be the prelude to a socialist dictatorship. The permanent revolution is necessary in order that the Russian proletariat may defend itself as a class.
About the time that Lenin drew up his principles for revolutionary activity in Russia, Trotsky was also formulating his standpoint. On 17 October 1915, in the Russian newspaper Nash Slovo, published in Paris, Trotsky wrote as follows:
In any debate on the subject of the character of the revolution, and the tactics to be pursued by the proletariat, the chief historical question to be discussed is: is middle-class democracy in Russia stronger or weaker than it was in 1905? ... Our reply is: a national middle-class revolution is an impossibility in a Russia in which there is no true revolutionary middle-class democracy. The age of national revolutions, like that of national wars, is past in Europe... The longer deceit, enfeeblement, discontent and embitterment are permitted to continue among the lower classes of townsfolk and peasantry, the worse will be the results. That does not, however, signify that the independent force of revolutionary democracy would be serviceable alongside the proletariat. Neither the leaders nor the social material for such a democracy are to hand. It is, nevertheless, indisputable that the profound discontent of the lower classes will spur on the proletariat in its revolutionary offensive. An ever-increasing discontent exists among the townspeople and the peasantry. But as a revolutionary force capable of utilising this discontent there is only the proletariat — and in a far higher degree than in 1905... Hence it is not simply a question of setting up a temporary revolutionary government — a shapeless block that will at some later date in evolution be given form — but of establishing a revolutionary workers’ government in order to secure power for the proletariat in Russia.
Ever since 1903 Trotsky had been at variance with other members of the Bolshevik Party in questions of organisation. Thus he was opposed to the dictatorship of a small circle of leaders over the workers. Lenin, however, had not adopted this method out of any love of power, but because it was necessary to effect a coalition of the workers with the lower middle classes in a middle-class democratic revolution. Only a trained and autocratic body of leaders, and not the masses themselves, could carry out so complicated a revolution. Trotsky for his part did not believe in the capacity for revolution of these lower middle classes any more than he believed in the appeal of the ideal of nationality — an ideal that he held to be outworn in an imperialist age. Trotsky is a pure proletarian internationalist. If the workers could carry through their revolution alone and without the help of the peasantry and the inspiration of the national democratic ideal, and solely inspired by their own socialist ideal, then there would be no need for a dictatorship on the part of their leaders. Trotsky favoured democracy among the workers at the same time as he advocated the suppression of all other classes by the proletariat. Lenin favoured a broad national Russian democracy within the limits considered desirable by the leaders of the governing Bolshevik Party.
Moreover, Lenin and Trotsky were at variance in their opinions as to the position of a revolutionary Russia in the comity of nations. In Trotsky’s opinion the Russian revolution was a failure if the permanent revolution was not a success, and if it was not possible to accomplish a victorious revolution on the part of the Western European workers. In event of that failure the revolution in Russia must collapse. Lenin saw a way of escape from the consequences of this eventuality. It is true that a democratic and republican Russia, in the form desired by the Bolsheviks, would have been isolated among the imperialistic powers and would have been confronted with many difficulties. Nevertheless, there was no a priori reason why such a democratic dictatorship of peasants and workers should not be able to maintain itself in a middle-class order of society in the event of the defeat of the world revolution. Thus Lenin was ready with plans for retreat in face of a defeat of the world revolution. Trotsky had none.