Lenin's views on revolution were fundamentally different from Marx's
and when Leninist revolutionary theory is put into practice the result
has been not socialism but state capitalism as happened in Russia,
China, Cuba, etc. An examination of Lenin's theory of revolution will
prove our point.
The revolutionary elite
Very early in his political activity Lenin formulated two theories
that were always to remain central to his views. Firstly, he argued that
the working class by its own efforts was incapable of wanting and
understanding socialism. Secondly, following on from this, Lenin held
that socialist consciousness would have to be brought to the working
class from outside, from a tightly organised revolutionary organisation
under a strong centralised leadership. This party was to be composed of
full-tine professional revolutionaries, drawn mainly from the bourgeois
intelligentsia.
Lenin's view that workers by their own effort could only reach a “trade
union consciousness”, and that socialist consciousness could only cone
from outside the capitalist-worker class struggle, is in complete
contradiction to Marxism. Marx, as we've seen, always stressed that the
working class had to free itself, and that socialist understanding
developed in the working class as a result of workers' experiences and
struggles in capitalism . Similarly, Lenin's idea of an
exclusive,hierarchically organised revolutionary party, in which the
leadership would, have great power, goes completely against Marx's
advocacy of open democratic organisation.
We hold that the means used and the end aimed at are inextricably
linked. If elitist authoritarian means are used, then an elitist
authoritarian society will be the result. If an egalitarian democratic
society is aimed at, it can only be achieved by a self-conscious
majority, democratically organised without any leadership which could
become a future ruling class.
Bourgeois revolution for Russia
It is not too well known that in all his revolutionary activity up
to April 1917 Lenin was advocating, not a socialist revolution for
Russia, but a bourgeois revolution which would establish a capitalist
republic. Correctly applying Marx's materialist conception of history to
the Russian situation, Lenin rejected the possibility of an immediate
transition to socialism, because of the lack of economic development and
the insufficient degree of socialist consciousness among the workers.
Since he considered that the Russian capitalists were too weak to smash
Tsarism and its fetters on capitalist development themselves, Lenin
advocated that the Bolsheviks should take power, establish a bourgeois
republic with political democracy, and then become a revolutionary
opposition within that republic, building up support for socialism.
Distortions of Marxism
However in April 1917 Lenin declared himself to be in favour of the
viewpoint which he had previously scornfully rejected – adopting
Trotsky's “permanent revolution” theory, he urged that the Bolsheviks
prepare to seize power with the aim of immediately taking socialist
measures. Again, Lenin was rejecting the Marxist position. As he had
himself argued earlier, the degree of economic development and socialist
consciousness needed for socialist revolution did not exist. In
advocating socialist revolution for backward Russia Lenin was adopting
the policy of the 19th century insurrectionists whom Marx and Engels had
strongly criticised.
At the same tine as he took up the permanent revolution theory Lenin
introduced a distinction between Socialism and Communism. He stated that
the coming revolution would establish not communism, but socialist
society, a system which would persist into the foreseeable future, and
in which there would still be the state, the wages system, and
production for sale. This was of course a further distortion of Marx who
had used the terms socialism. and communism interchangeably. It does,
though, perhaps show that Lenin really still recognised the validity of
the Marxist argument that backward countries could not be the starting
point for socialist revolution. For,while he advocated the immediate
establishment of socialism, Lenin had now redefined socialism so as to
make it mean in effect a form of state capitalism – which was all that
could be established in Russia at that time. It was obvious that the
Bolsheviks could only seize power by an armed insurrection and Lenin
attempted to give this policy Marxist theoretical justification by
claiming that Marx considered it impossible for the proletariat to come
to power without smashing the state machine. In fact, as we've seen,
Marx recognised that in some circumstances the proletariat would be able
to peacefully capture the state machine and then smash/dismantle its
oppressive and undemocratic features.
The dictatorship of the proletariat = the dictatorship of the Bolsheviks
Marx sometimes referred to the political transition period between
capitalism and communism, in which the democratically organised working
class used political power to dispossess the capitalists, as the
dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin, in addition to differing from
Marx on the length of time that he envisaged the state existing after
the revolution, developed a completely different concept of the nature
of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Instead of the extremely
democratic set-up Marx advocated, he re-defined the dictatorship of the
proletariat as the dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party, which actually
meant the dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party leadership. Not long after
their seizure of power the Bolsheviks started to suppress all
opposition, left-wing as well as right-wing, and verbal and written
oppositions as well as anti-Bolshevik actions.
We, in contrast, while recognising that violence would have to be used
against a minority who first used violence against the socialist
majority, are in favour of the freest and fullest possible expression of
ideas both before and after socialist revolution. We totally oppose all
censorship. Thus, Lenin's views on the revolution are basically
contradictory to Marx's theory of revolution in many respects - even
though Lenin claimed to be a Marxist. How is this to be explained ?
The historical role of Leninism
Lenin's theory of revolution was developed in an industrially
backward, basically feudal society, that was ripe not for a socialist,
but for a bourgeois revolution. Lenin up to 1917 had advocated that the
Bolshevik Party should take power to carry through this capitalist
revolution.
In 1917 the Bolsheviks did take power, and though they did so
proclaiming that they were establishing socialism, they were prisoners
of Russia's backwardness and could do no more than develop capitalism,
as Lenin had earlier advocated. However, the Bolsheviks did not
relinquish power to a traditional capitalist government. Justifying
their rule on the grounds that it was the dictatorship of the
proletariat, the Bolsheviks have retained power, and over the years
their leaders became a new ruling class, collectively controlling and
thus in effect owning the means of production, and performing the same
role as the private capitalists in the West. Thus, historically Leninism
has been an ideology used in the building up of state capitalism in
backward areas of the world. Its insistence on the need for hierarchical
organisation and a revolutionary elite, and its denial of the
possibility of the working class itself developing mass revolutionary
consciousness, stamp it as belonging to the era of bourgeois
revolutions.
Lenin's concept of revolution has no relevance for socialist revolution
in modern industrially advanced capitalism – and if a Leninist party
seized power the only result could be the establishment of some type of
state capitalism.
Revolutionary change today
It is vital that when abolishing present-day exploitation we do not
substitute a new form of exploitation. The only sure guarantee against
this is a revolution made and controlled by the self conscious majority
of the working class.
As Marx put it "The emancipation of the working class must be the act of the workers themselves."
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