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i at n r i a hK s Len a rak Edit

P y b ed

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (1870-1924), better known as V.I. Lenin, was the foremost leader of the October 1917 Revolution in Russia. He was a communist revolutionary and theorist. He served as head of the government of the Russian Republic from 1917 to 1918, of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1918 to 1924, and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. His important books include, among many others, What is to be Done, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism and The State and Revolution. Prakash Karat is a member of the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its former General Secretary. He is the author of Language, Nationality and Politics in India (1972) and Subordinate Ally: The Nuclear Deal and Indo-US Strategic Relations (LeftWord, 2008), and has edited A World to Win: Essays on The Communist Manifesto (LeftWord 1999) and Across Time and Continents: A Tribute to Victor Kiernan (LeftWord 2003).

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i n i arat K n sh Le a k ra Edit

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Offset edition published in November 2017 Digital print edition, January 2020 LeftWord Books 2254/2A Shadi Khampur New Ranjit Nagar New Delhi 110008 INDIA LeftWord Books is the publishing division of Naya Rasta Publishers Pvt. Ltd. Introduction © Prakash Karat, 2017 This selection © LeftWord Books, 2017 leftword.com ISBN 978-93-80118-65-9

CONTENTS

Introduction by Prakash Karat Letters From Afar First Letter: The First Stage of the First Revolution Second Letter: The New Government and the Proletariat Third Letter: Concerning a Proletarian Militia Fourth Letter: How to Achieve Peace Fifth Letter: The Tasks Involved in the Building of the Revolutionary Proletarian State

7 25 40 53 66 73

[April Theses] The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution

76

The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution Draft Platform for the Proletarian Party

83

Lessons of the Crisis

124

War and Revolution A Lecture Delivered May 14 (27), 1917

128

The Foreign Policy of the Russian Revolution

151

Three Crises

154

The Political Situation

159

The State and Revolution Chapter 2: The Experience Of 1848-51 Chapter 3: Experience Of The Paris Commune Of 1871. Marx’s Analysis

162 175

The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It

195

The Tasks of the Revolution

239

The Crisis has Matured

249

Advice of an Onlooker

260

Letter to Central Committee Members

263

Letter to Comrades

266

Meeting of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies October 25 (November 7), 1917

288

6

Introduction Prakash Karat

V. I. Lenin’s role in 1917 captures a unique revolutionary moment. Lenin’s writings and speeches, between the February and the October Revolutions, embody what Georg Lukács called the “actuality of the revolution”.1 Lenin’s entire corpus of writings in the eight months between the two revolutions offers a concrete lesson on the theory and practice of revolution. There are hundreds of pages published that record the theses, tracts, resolutions, articles, letters and speeches from Lenin. Some of the articles and speeches are written with a cool analytical mind, and some are written in feverish haste. Together they provide a unique view of how the revolution unfolded. These writings—only a selection of which are available here— reveal the workings of Lenin’s mind, which was able—by his close connection to the Bolshevik rank and file and to the masses—to grasp all the events as a whole with all their contradictions. Lenin was able to analyse the nature of inter-imperialist contradictions, coolly assess the correlation of class forces in Russia, see how the peasant masses were moving towards the revolutionary movement and set the “line of march” for the proletariat which had to lead the revolution. This was possible, no doubt, because even in exile and even underground Lenin kept in close contact with his party workers and the mass leaders. Their views and their tempo informed his writings at each turn.2 These writings of Lenin represent the culmination of theoretical and practical work which marks out Lenin as the only creative Marxist of his time who took the theory of Marx forward—as a revolutionary strategist, audacious planner of the socialist revolution and one who could set out the contours of a new State and society after the revolution. It is an astonishing fact that Lenin could complete his important work

Georg Lukács, Lenin: A Study of the Unity of his Thought, London: New Left Books, 1970 (originally published in 1924). 2 For a window into Lenin’s relationship with the rank-and-file, see Cecilia Bobrovskaya, Rank-and-File Bolshevik. A Memoir, New Delhi: LeftWord Books, 2017. 1

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Revolution!

State and Revolution in August-September, while being underground, just weeks away from the revolution. Here is the example of a dialectical genius who could theorise from a revolutionary movement in progress and by that provide the blueprint for a revolutionary state. “Lenin in 1917” was not a sudden phenomenon. It was a product of an accumulation of revolutionary theory which combusted with the gathering mass discontent of the working class, the peasantry and the army of peasant soldiers on the war front. Lenin developed this theory over a period of nearly two decades in mainly four areas, which had a direct bearing on the October Revolution. First, Lenin analysed the nature of capitalist development in Russia, understood the role of the peasantry in Russia and studied carefully the differentiation of the peasantry and its potential for revolutionary struggles. This was done in The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1898). Second, Lenin looked carefully at the Russian bourgeoisie and concluded that it was not capable of carrying out a bourgeoisdemocratic revolution. The task had to be taken up by the workers and the revolutionary sections of the peasantry. He worked out these ideas in Two Tactics for a Social Democratic Revolution (1906). Third, Lenin precisely studied the international situation, looking at the question of finance capital and the growth of monopolies, at the emergence of inter-capitalist and inter-imperialist conflict and at the places where revolutionary change—the “weakest link”—might be possible. This was accomplished in his Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916). Finally, in two texts—What is to be done? (1902) and One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (1906)—Lenin worked out the role of the revolutionary party and the nature of its organisation as well as disassociated this kind of party from the revisionism that would make it unprepared for revolutionary times. Between the two revolutions, Lenin produced State and Revolution, which was—in a sense—the culmination of his theoretical endeavour. In other words, his analysis of capitalism and imperialism, of the national and colonial questions, his theory of revolution, and the role of the Communist Party in making the revolution, are not discrete ideas that Lenin came up with responding to contingent matters. His entire body of writings is part of a unified theoretical framework. 8

Introduction

II

When the February revolution occurred, Lenin was in exile living in Zürich. For his first comments on the revolutionary upheaval in Petrograd, Lenin had to rely on newspaper reports. Lenin’s “Letters from Afar”, were quite literally so, given the distance between Petrograd and Zürich. But in these five letters written in quick succession, Lenin sets out an audacious plan for a proletarian revolution. All the elements of the revolutionary theory, which would mark the full flowering of Leninism, are present in the letters. The February Revolution and the overthrow of tsarism, he wrote in the first letter in March 1917, required an “all powerful stagemanager”. This “all powerful stage-manager”, Lenin wrote, “this mighty accelerator was the imperialist world war”. Lenin had anticipated this in the text that he wrote between January and June 1916, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. The thesis of that book provided the impetus for Lenin’s breakthrough in theory and practice. Stunned by the betrayal of most of the European social democratic parties at the outset of the First World War in 1914, Lenin sought to uncover the true nature of the war and the forces that fuelled it. What he found was important: that modern imperialism was the outcome of the development of monopoly capitalism, that rival imperialist nations were fighting for control over territories and over the division of the spoils, that workers of one nation were being set up to fight against workers of another nation in an imperialist war. This was Lenin’s analysis of the war, one that set him against the “social chauvinists” of the Second International. Lenin’s assessment of the imperialist war led to his break with the German Social Democratic Party leader Karl Kautsky—his ideological mentor—and most of the other Social Democratic leaders such as Georgi Plekhanov (a leader of Russian Social Democratic Labour Party) and Emile Vandervelde (the leader of the Belgian Labour Party). Lenin and the Bolsheviks participated in the Zimmerwald conference in September 1915, where Lenin said that the socialists must “turn the imperialist war between the peoples into a civil war”.3 It was this

LCW, Vol. 21, 1977, p. 348.

3

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Revolution!

stance against the war that moved Lenin into his studies that produced Imperialism the next year. Tsarist Russia was an active participant in the imperialist war, being part of the Anglo-French entente. The Russian social democrats were divided over the war. Led by Lenin, the Bolsheviks opposed the war. But their allies in the social democratic camp—the Mensheviks— and the Socialist Revolutionaries did not oppose the war. A section of Mensheviks supported the war on the grounds of “national defence”. In 1915, Lenin wrote about the Bolshevik Party’s clear attitude towards the war: In each country, the struggle against a government that is waging an imperialist war should not falter at the possibility of that country’s defeat as a result of revolutionary propaganda. The defeat of the Government’s army weakens the Government, promotes the liberation of the nationalities it oppresses and facilitates civil war against the ruling classes. This holds particularly true in respect of Russia.4

Here is Lenin’s clear assessment—developed by his party—that “national defence” was a weak attitude towards the war, that the Russian socialists must try to convert the imperialist war into a civil war and that this warfare might sufficiently weaken the government and produce revolutionary conditions. This is precisely what occurred less than two years later. Lenin characterised the February 1917 revolution as a “bourgeois revolution” and the provisional government formed by Alexander Kerensky as a government of capitalists and landlords. The situation had changed. Tsarist autocracy had crumbled—weakened by war and by the uprising of the workers and the peasants. In Kerensky’s government, Alexander Guchkov was the new Minister of War, while Pavel Milyukov was the Foreign Minister. Neither wanted to take Russia out of the war. Lenin saw the changed situation clearly. In his third “Letter from Afar” (March 1917), he wrote, “Now we are in

10

“The Conference of the R.S.D.L.P. Groups Abroad” (March 1915), Lenin Collected Works (henceforth LCW), Vol. 21, p. 163.

4

Introduction

transition from the first stage of the revolution to the second, from coming to grips with tsarism to coming to grips with the GuchkovMilyukov landlord and capitalist imperialism”. Lenin had no illusions about the “capitalist landlord government” and its lack of will to end the predatory, imperialist war. In the fourth letter (March 1917), Lenin caustically remarked, “To urge the government to conclude a democratic peace is like preaching virtue to brothel-keepers”. The bourgeois revolution was not capable of being revolutionary, as Lenin had noted in Two Tactics for a Social Democratic Revolution. This was now positive proof. It was this revolutionary failure of the bourgeoisie that drew from Lenin his audacious leap. “The proletariat”, he wrote in the third letter, “if it wants to uphold the gains of the present revolution and proceed further to win peace, bread and freedom must smash—to use Marx’s expression—this ready-made state machine and substitute a new one”. Here we get from Lenin an intimation of the necessity of smashing the existing state, which he develops later that year in State and Revolution. What was necessary was not to support the Provisional Government of Kerensky and to preach revolutionary defeatism, but to prepare the workers, peasants and soldiers to set up a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. This could happen, Lenin argued, if the Soviets—the vehicle of the people’s aspirations—supplanted the Duma (the bourgeois parliament) and took power. With this revolutionary goal for a second, socialist revolution in view, Lenin called in his third letter for proletarian organisation. “You will not achieve durable victory in the next ‘real’ revolution if you do not perform miracles of proletarian organisation!”, he wrote. The Soviets and the people’s militia had to replace the old state. III

Lenin arrived at the Finland Station at Petrograd on the night of April 3. The next day, at two meetings, Lenin read out his April Theses. These took the Bolshevik leaders and other revolutionaries by surprise. Astonishment, stupefaction and plain confusion were the reactions to the political programme Lenin set out. 11

Revolution!

The April Theses called for no concession to “revolutionary defencism”, which meant the continuation of the imperialist war in defence of Russia. Lenin called instead for the revolutionaries to oppose the war and to end the rule of the “bourgeois-landlord government”. He rallied the workers, peasants and soldiers to make the Soviets the real seat of power. This was the essence of the April Theses that Lenin expounded first to the Bolsheviks and then to a meeting of the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. It was in these April Theses, which were published as “The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution”, that Lenin gave specific call for a second revolution. As he put it, “The specific feature of the present situation in Russia is that the country is passing from the first stage of the revolution—which placed power in the hands of the bourgeoisie—to its second stage, which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasantry”. Lenin recognised that the Bolsheviks—his party—were in the minority in the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies. The task for the proletariat was to convince the other socialist parties that they must come over to the side of the Bolsheviks. “It is necessary with particular thoroughness, persistence and patience to explain their error to them”, that is, to the broad sections of the masses who believe in revolutionary defencism. If the masses shift their view, then their representatives would be forced to follow. Patient work was required so that the masses could see that the Soviets of Workers Deputies are the only possible form of revolutionary government. What is of note here is that neither the Mensheviks nor the Socialist Revolutionaries nor any of the other socialist parties produced the kind of precise theory developed by Lenin and the Bolsheviks. None of the Menshevik leaders—neither Plekhanov nor Vera Zasulich, nor Fyodor Dan nor Julius Martov nor Alexander Potresov produced a coherent revolutionary theory. It is a sign of the confusion that prevailed amongst the other socialist parties, who put their faith in the provisional government and could not see the power of imperialism. None of these party leaders developed the kind of theoretical armour that Lenin had prepared since 1898 and that the Bolsheviks had developed in their struggles since the split with the 12

Introduction

Mensheviks in 1903. It was, therefore, possible for Lenin to call upon the proletariat to offer the Bolshevik theory to their class and to push the Mensheviks from below; no other socialist party had the theory to offer the proletariat at that time. The second part of the April Theses set out the new forms of State power, with Lenin indicating various policies that would need to be enacted by the second revolution’s state. The new state would not be a “parliamentary republic . . . but a republic of Soviets, Agricultural Labourers, Peasants”, with their deputies from throughout the country. It would be a state that would confiscate all landed estates, nationalise all lands and end predatory landlordism. There would be no need for a police force and an army, nor for a bureaucracy. The Soviets would set up a “Commune State”. The direction of the new politics broke the link between social democracy and the Bolsheviks. It was time to change the name of the party and call it a Communist Party. As Lenin put it, “you must take off your dirty shirt and put on a clean one”. He also called for the creation of a new International, not one that had been ground down by social democracy’s vacillation. The essential elements of Lenin’s new revolutionary strategy had been contained in his “Letters from Afar”. But these had not had a direct impact on the Bolshevik ranks. Only the first letter was published in the party paper, Pravda. The editorial board did not print the rest. They would only be published after the October Revolution. The April Theses, therefore, became the catalyst and the initiator of the second stage of the revolution, which would succeed in October. Lenin had to struggle to convince the Bolshevik Old Guard and party committees about the efficacy of the new theses. The innerparty struggle lasted just three weeks. On April 24, at the National Conference convened by the party, Lenin’s resolution was adopted. Here was a rare historical moment, when the sheer intellectual power of Lenin’s theory and practice set in motion a revolutionary vanguard to lead the revolutionary movement.

13

V.I. Lenin’s (1870-1924) role in 1917 captures a unique revolutionary moment. Lenin’s entire corpus of writings in the eight months between the two revolutions offers a concrete lesson on the theory and practice of revolution. Some of the articles and speeches are written with a cool analytical mind, and some are written in feverish haste. Together they provide a unique view of how the revolution unfolded. Lenin was able to analyse the nature of inter-imperialist contradictions, coolly assess the correlation of class forces in Russia, see how the peasant masses were moving towards the revolutionary movement and set the “line of march” for the proletariat which had to lead the revolution. This was possible because even in exile Lenin kept in close contact with his party workers and the mass leaders. Their views and their tempo informed his writings at each turn. These writings of Lenin represent the culmination of theoretical and practical work which marks out Lenin as a revolutionary strategist, audacious planner of the socialist revolution and one who could set out the contours of a new State and society after the revolution. Prakash Karat’s Introduction is a brilliant and lucid commentary on Lenin’s theoretical and strategic breakthroughs.

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