Bolshevism and Menshevism

[page 33]

Alan Woods continues his history of the Bolshevik party with an account of the split in the Rus. sian Social Democratic Party which developed in 1903-1904.

Bolshevism and Menshevism

The growing divide

'THE NEWS of the split hit us like a bolt from the blue. We knew that the Second Congress was to witness the concluding moves in the struggle with Workers' Cause (the Economists, AW), but that the schism should take a course which was to put Martov and Lenin in opposing camps and that Plekhanov was to 'split off' midway between the two-none of this so much as entered our heads.

«The first clause of the Party statutes... was this really something that justified a split? A reshuffle of jobs on the editorial board-what's the matter with those people abroad, have they gone mad"?

1 I The reaction of Lunacharsky, who was to become one of Lenin's principal lieutenants in the next couple of years' was a faithful reflection of the reaction of the majority of Party members to the split at the Second Congress. The prevailing mood was against the split, the real significance of which was not even clear to the principal protagonists.

Ruthless

In the months after the Congress, the supporters of the Minority raised a hue and cry about Lenin's alleged "dictatorial tendencies" and "ruthless centralism". These outbursts, which had not the slightest basis in fact, served as a smokescreen to cover the anarchistic behaviour of Martov's group, who, despite the pledges given by them at the Congress, refused to submit to the decision of the majority and waged a disloyal campaign against the leadership democratically elected at the Congress. Breaking the most elementary norms of conduct which apply in any party, they demanded that the Minority should decide, and effectively tried to sabotage the work of the Party, by refusing to collaborate with its elected organs.

Far from adopting a "ruthless" attitude, Lenin, as we shall see, made every attempt to heal the split after the Congress, and repeatedly expressed his willingness to compromise and make concessions, even to the extent of retreating from the positions adopted by the Congress. Lenin, in fact, leaned over backwards to accommodate the Minority, in spite of their completely irresponsible conduct.

34

Of course, a revolutionary party is not a discussion club, but a fighting organisation. Nevertheless, the idea of the Bolshevik Party as a monolithic structure, where the leaders order and the rank and file obey, is a malicious falsehood. On the contrary, the Bolshevik Party was the most democratic party in history. Even in the most difficult periods of underground work, in the heart of the revolution and in the most dangerous days of the civil war, the internal regime, and especially its highest expression, the Congress, was the arena of open and honest discussion, with the clash of different ideas. But there is a limit for all things. At the end of the day, a party which seeks, not only to talk, but also to act, must reach decisions and carry them into practice.

The worker learns discipline in the everyday experience of factory life. On the other hand the notion of organisation and discipline is difficult for the intellectual to grasp. He or she tends to see the party precisely as a gigantic discussion group, in which to expound his views on each and every topic. However erudite, however well read, the intellectual who has not placed himself personally on the standpoint of the working class, comes to a full stop precisely where the real task of Marxism begins, that is, in the realm of action. "Philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways," as Marx explained, "the point is, however, to change it."

The anarchistic individualism of the Minority reflected, at bottom, the petitbourgeois standpoint with its organic incapacity for discipline and its tendency to mix up personal questions with political principle.

The lines of demarcation were still confused. Plekhanov, the future socialpatriot, initially stood with Lenin. Trotsky, the future founder of the Red Army, found himself temporarily in the camp of the "Minority". Contrary to the Stalinist slander that Trotsky was a "Menshevik"

from 1903 onwards, he broke with Martov's group in September 1904 and thereafter formally remained outside both factions until 1917. Politically, Trotsky

always stood far closer to the Bolsheviks,

but, organisationally, he had the illusion

that it was possible to unite both wings

of the Party. History finally showed this

to be impossible. But Trotsky was not

alone in this error, as we shall show.

In the months following the Congress,

Lenin himself made repeated attempts to re-establish unity, and even offered to make a series of concessions which, in effect, represented the abandonment of the positions won by the majority at the Congress. In her Memoirs of Lenin, Krupskaya recalls that:

"After the Congress Vladimir Ilyich did not object when Glebov suggested coopting the old editorial board-better to rough it the old way than to have a split. But the Mensheviks refused. In Geneva Vladimir Ilyich tried to make it up with Martov, and wrote to Potresov, reassuring him that they had nothing to quarre about. He also wrote to Kalmykova (Auntie) about the split, and told her how matters stood. He could not believe that there was no way out." ¿

The caricature of Lenin as a "ruthless dictator" and cynical manoeuverer, ruthlessly trampling on his former colleagues in order to concentrate power in his hands, does not correspond to the facts. Krupskaya gives a vivid picture of Lenin in agonising over the split with Martov.

Rupture

"At times he saw clearly that a rupture was unavoidable. He started a letter to Clair (Krzhizhanovsky, AW) once, saying that the latter simply could not im agine the present situation, that one had to realise that the old relations had radically changed, that the old friendship with Martov was at an end, old friendships were to be forgotten, and that the fight was starting. Vladimir Ilyich did not finish that letter or post it. It was very hard for him to break with Martov. Their work in St Petersburg and on the old Iskra had drawn them close together...Afterwards Vladimir Ilyich had fiercely fought the Mensheviks, but whenever Martov's line showed a tendency to right itself, his old attitude to him revived. Such was the case, for example, in Paris 1910 when Vladimir Ilyich and Martov worked together on the Editorial Board of Sotsial Demokrat (Social- Democrat). Coming home from the office, Vladimir Ilyich often used to tell me in a pleased tone that Martov was taking a correct line and even coming out against Dan. Afterwards in Russia, Vladimir IIyich was very pleased with Martov's stand during the July Days (in 1917, AW) not because it was any good to the Bolsheviks, but because Martov bore

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himself as behoves a revolutionary.

«Vladimir Ilyich was already seriously ill when he said to me once sadly: "They say Martov is dying too.' " 3

This was typical of a side of Lenin's character which is too often overlooked. Completely devoid of sentimentality, Lenin never allowed himself to confuse personal likes and dislikes with questions of political principle. But Lenin knew how to recognise talent in other people and did not easily give them up as a lost cause. Personal spitefulness was completely foreign to this man who all his life showed the greatest loyalty to other comrades.

If it would have been up to Lenin, the split could have been quickly resolved. But the almost hysterical reaction of the Minority made an agreement impossible. Defeated at the Congress, they launched a series of violent attacks against Lenin and the Majority. Martoy published pamphlet accusing Lenin of causing a "State of Siege" in the party. A heated atmosphere was engendered, out of all proportion to the importance of the issues apparently at stake. Osip Pyatnisky, who was in charge of the distribution of Iskra in Berlin, recalls the surprise and consternation in the ranks at the report-back from the Congress:

"We listened to the reports of both sides about the Congress, and then immediately began the agitation in favour of one or the other trend. I felt sorry that offence had been caused to Zasulich, Potresov and Axelrod, removing them from the Editorial board of Iskra...On the other hand, I was wholly in favour with the organisational structure of the Party proposed by Lenin. My logic was with the Majority, but my feelings, so to speak, were with the Minority."

The confusion of the rank-and-file was understandable. At this stage there were no obvious political differences between the Majority and the Minority. However deplorable the behaviour of the Martovites, whose spiteful attacks and boycotting of the work of the party reflected the hurt pride of individualist intellectuals, unwilling to submit their personal inclinations to the will oi the majority, the real differences beiween Bolshevism and Menshevism were far from being clearly defined at this stage. It is true that the germs of these differences were already present in 1903. But for the moment they had no yet acquired a definite political content.

Rather it was a difference in attitudes as reflected in Lenin's characterisation of the two trends as the "hards" and the "softs" . However, the clash of these two trends undoubtedly foreshadowed the future split between Bolshevism and Menshivism, which only finally took place in 1912. After nearly a decade of ceaseless attempts on the part of Lenin to unite the

The young Trotsky, left, and Rosa Luxemb

party on a principled basis, Lenin himself explained the reason for the split in the following passage: 'Examining the behaviour of the Martovites since the Congress, their refusal to collaborate on the Central Organ (although officially invited by the editorial board to do so), their refusal to work on the Central Committee, and their propaganda of a boycott—all I can say is that this is an insensate attempt, unworthy of Party members, to disrupt the Party—and why? Only because they are dissatisfied with the compostition of the central bodies; for speaking objectively it was only over this that our ways parted, while their subjective verdicts (insults, affronts, slurs, oustings, shutting out, etc) are nothing but the fruits of offended vanity and a morbid imagination." › (emphasis in the original).

Split

Refusing all Lenin's attempts at reconciliation, the Martovites pressed on with their campaign of agitation. They were particularly strong abroad. They had money and close contacts with the leaders of the European Social Democracy. In september 1903, Martor's group took the urs: step in the direction of a split by setding up a "Bureau of the Minority", with the aim of capturing the Party's leading bodies ty an available means. They began to publish. the: oun factional literature for distribution E. Russia.

Despite all this. Lenin still pinned his hopes on reconciliation. On 4 October 1903 a meeting was held between Lenin, Plekhanov and Lengnik, for the Majority and Martov, Alexrod, Zasulich and Potresov, for the Minority. The Majority were willing to make concessions, but when the Minority reacted by demanding

a total overturn of the Congress decisions, it became clear that agreement was impossible. To accept such a demand would mean putting the clock back to the situation which prevailed before the Second Congress.

Factional struggle has a logic of its own. By repudiating the Second Congress, and defending organisational formlessness under the guise of an alleged "struggle against centralism" , the Minority's position on organisational questions was gradually becoming indistinguishable from the views of the "Economists" with whom, only yesterday, they had been at loggerheads. The accidental "bloc" of the "softs" with the Economist right wing at the Congress, which Lenin had already pointed out, by degrees turned into a fusion. The extreme Economist Akimov, with malicious irony, noted the approximation of the Minority to the old opportunist views of Economism:

"Even at the (Second) Congress, the Union's delegates (ie Economists, AW) supported the Mensheviks and voted for Martov's formulation. Today all the members of the former Union (ie the Economist-controlled Union of Russian Social Democrats Abroad, AW) regard the tacties of the "softs" as more correct, and as a concession to their own viewpoint. When it disbanded, the Petersburg Workers' Organisation (Economist) declared itself at one with the Mensheviks." • (my emphasis, AW).

The differences came to a head at the 2nd Congress of the League of Russian Revolutionary Social Democracy Abroad held in Geneva in October 1903. Lenin delivered the report-back of the Party Congress in measured terms, but was answered by a slashing attack by Martov, which poisoned the atmosphere from the

35

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MIR Summer 1987: Bolshevism Part Six

outset.

At the Second Congress of the Party it had been decided that the League would be the official overseas organisation of the Party, with the same status as a local party committee in Russia. This clearly meant that it would be under the control of the CC. But the Minority, which controiled the League, would not accept this, and approved new rules giving the League independence from the CC with a view to turning it into a base for factional work against the Majority. Lengnik moved that this be referred to the CC and when this was turned down, the representatives of the Majority, incensed, walked out of the congress.

At a hastily improvised meeting in a nearby cafe, Plekhanov indignantly denounced the behaviour of the Minority and proposed a plan of action for a struggle against them. Nevertheless, in private, Plekhanov was filled with misgivings. Initially firm in defence of Lenin's position, which he knew to be correct, as soon as it became clear that an unbridgeable gap was opening up between the Majority and his old friends and colleagues, Plekhanov's nerve began to falter. Had he done the right thing in siding with Lenin? Was it worth tearing the party apart for the sake of a few rules? Lenin and he had made every possible concession to the Minority, but the latter demanded total surrender. What of that? What was so terrible about co-opting all the old editors back on for the sake of peace? After, the old system, for all its faults, was better than this.

Concessions

Lenin, too, was in favour of concessions, even of co-opting the former editors. But experience showed that every offer of concessions merely increased the intransigence of the Minority. Reluctantly, Lenin picked up the gauntlet the other side had thrown down, because further retreats would do harm to the cause of the Party. The break with Martov had been extremely painful, even traumatic, for Lenin, who confessed to Krupskaya that this was the most difficult decision of his life. But for Lenin the interests of the party, the working class and socialism were more important than any personal considerations.

Plekhanov was a different type altogether. Worn out and disorientated by long years of exile, Plekhanov proved unable to make the transition to the new historical period, a period of revolution which made new demands on the party and its leadership. What was truly amazing was not so much that he capitulated, but that he had sided with Lenin in the first place. It is a tribute to the man that he at least attempted to make the transition, and not only on this occasion. Later, 36

in 1909, he again turned to the left and entered a bloc with the Bolsheviks. But that was his last attempt before finally veering to the right, to end up tragically in the camp of patriotic reaction in the last few years of his life.

Trotsky once remarked that, in order to be a revolutionary, it is not enough to have a theoretical understanding. It is also necessary to have the necessary willpower. Without this, a revolutionary is like "a watch with a broken spring." That phrase accurately describes Plekhanov's weak side, which, despite his tremendous contribution, finally undermined and destroyed him.

The evening of 18 October (31) saw the break with Plekhanov. At a meeting of the Majority, only days after he had proposed an all out struggle against the Martovites, Plekhanov did an 180° degree turn and argued for peace at any price: "I cannot fire against my own comrades. Better a bullet in the brain than a split," he exclaimed, 'There are times when even the autocracy has to give in." He presented his demands in the form of an ultimatum: either they were accepted, or he would resign from the Editorial Board.

Plekhanov's defection was a heavy blow to the Majority. With serious misgivings, but still hoping to facilitate unity, Lenin resigned from the Editorial Board shortly afterwards.

However, far from uniting the Party, Plekhanov's move had the opposite effect. The Martovites merely used their success to press new demands: the cooption of Minority supporters onto the Central Committee and the Party Council and the recognition of the decisions taken at the 2nd Congress of the League of Social Democrats Abroad. Having capitulated once, Plekhanov now gave in to all these demands, which, in effect, would overturn all the decisions of the Party Congress.

The position of the Majority looked extremely bleak. The "Minority" now controlled the central organ, Iskra, the League Abroad and the Party Council. Only the Central Committee remained, theoretically, with the Majority. But the Majority was deprived of a voice. Gradually, Iskra ceased to publish the articles and letters sent in by the supporters of the Majority. Meanwhile, the Mensheviks exploited to the full their contacts and personal friendships with the leaders of the Socialist International. The Bolsheviks had a poor time of it in the international socialist press.

Lyadov, in his memoirs, recalls a conversation he had with Kautsky in which the latter gave voice to his exasperation: 'What do you want? We don't know your Lenin. He's a new man to us. Plekhanov and Axelrod we all know very well. We are accustomed to finding out about the state of affairs in Russia only

through their explanations. It goes without saying that we cannot believe your assertion that suddenly Plekhanov and Axelrod have become opportunists. That's absurd!" ^

When Lyadov approached the editor of the German Social Democratic newspaper Vorwärts with a request to publish correspondence on the situation in the Russian party he was told that Vorwärts "could not spare much space for the movement abroad, especially the Russian, which is still so young and can give so litile to the German movement." "

In the haughty, condescending tone of this German "apparatchik", tinged with national narrow-mindedness, the outline of future developments can already be discerned. These German party "practicos" had no interest in theory. While paying lip-service to Marxism, they were immersed in the daily routine of party and trade union tasks. What could the German party with its powerful trade unions and parliamentary fraction learn from the internal disputes of a small foreign party? Already to a significant section of the German leaders, internationalism was a book sealed with seven seals.

The same "Realpolitik" which twenty years earlier had led them to support Lavrov and the Narodniks against Plekhanov, now led them to support Plekhanov against Lenin. They preferred the well-known leaders and "big-names" But basically, they were uninterested the issues involved.

in

Rosa Luxemburg

Particularly damaging to the Bolshevik cause was the attitude of the left wing of the German party. Right up to 1914, Lenin regarded himself as a supporter of Karl Kautsky, the leader of the "orthodox left" of the SDP. Yet Kautsky refused to allow Lenin space in his journal die Neue Zeit to put the case of the Bolsheviks. In a letter, Kautsky wrote: 'W'hile there remains even the shadow of hope that the Russian Social Democrats will themselves overcome their disagreements, I cannot be in favour of the German comrades finding out about these differences. If they find out about them from another source, then, of course, we will have to take a definite position."

Under the pressure of the Mensheviks, Kautsky came out against Lenin. But he did so cautiously. So long as the split in Russia did not disturb the internal life of the German party, there was no need to make much of it, hoping that things would "sort themselves out." After all, if the German Party could accommodate everybody from Bernstein on the right to Rosa Luxemberg and Parvus on the left, the Russian comrades ought to manage to get along without splitting over "trivial" questions.

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In this way, only the arguments of the Mensheviks were heard in the Western European Socialist Parties. Misled by the Mensheviks, false and tendentious accounts of the differences, Rosa Luxemberg had written an article which Kautsky published in Neue Zeit under the neutral title: "Organisational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy. " This article has been republished in English under the misleading and mischievous title never used during Rosa Luxemburg's lifetime— "Leninism or Marxism?" In this article, Rosa Luxemburg repeats the nonsense of the Mensheviks about Lenin's alleged "ultra-centralism" and "dictatorial methods." It was precisely Lenin's reply to this article which Kautsky refused to print. In his reply, Lenin explodes, one after the other, the myths created by the Mensheviks about his ideas on organisation-myths which have been assiduously cultivated ever since by both bourgeois and Stalinist historians. "Comrade Luxemburg says, for example, that my book (''One step forward (wo steps back," AW) is a clear and detailed expression of the point of view of 'intransigent centralism'. Comrade Luxemburg thus supposes that I defend one system of organisation | another. But actually that is not so. From the first to the last page of my book, I defend the elementary principles of any conceivable system of party organisation. My book is not concerned with the difference between one system of organisaton and another, but with how any system is to be maintained, criticised and rectified in a manner consistent with the party idea." "'

Rosa Luxemburg's stand was no accident. For many years she had been conducting a stubborn struggle against the bureaucratic and reformist tendency in the German Social Democratic Party. She watched with alarm the consolidation of a vast army of trade union and party functionaries into a solidly conservative bloc. She knew this phenomenon better than anyone else, even Lenin, who had not had much first hand experience of the German party model, particularly in the form of its "left" wing led at the time by Kautsky. She understood that this enormous bureaucratic apparatus could become transformed, at a decisive moment in the class struggle, into a gigantic brake on the masses. And so it proved to be in August 1914, when all of Rosa Luxemburg's worst fears were confirmed Even a cursory glance at Rosa Luxemburg's pamphlet suffices to show that what she was really polemicising against was not the ideas of Lenin (with which she was only acquainted in the caricature form presented by the Mensheviks), but the kind of bureaucratic-reformist degeneration with which she was only too well acquainted in her own party, the Ger- How relevant to the present situation in the British Labour Party and its European equivalents are the words of this great revolutionary! "With the growth of movement", she 'parliamentarianism springboard for political careerists. That is why so many ambitious failures from the bourgeoisie flock to the banner of the socialist parties. Another source of contemporary opportunism is the considerable material means and influence of organisations.

"The party acts as a bulwark protecting the class movement against digression in the direction of more bourgeios parliamentarism. To triumph these tendencies must destroy the bulwark.

They must dissolve the active, class conscious sector of the proletariat in the amorphous mass of an 'electorate.'" (my emphasis, AW) '?

Of course, the struggle for the socialist transformation of society does not rule out participation in elections or in parliament. On the contrary, the working class of all countries has been to the forefront of the fight for democratic rights and will use every legal and constitutional right in order to improve its position and place itself in a commanding position to change society. The building of powerful trade union organisations, too, is a vital part of the preparation of the working class for the carrying out of its historic task. Alien But this process has two sides. The working class and its organisations do not exist in a vacuum. Under the pressure of alien classes, organisations which have been created by the workers for the purpose of transforming society have become deformed and degenerated. The pressure of capitalist "public opinion" bears down upon the leading layers. The ruling class has developed a thousand and one ways of corrupting and absorbing the most honest and militant shop steward if he or she lacks a firm base in Marxist theory and perspectives. The separating out of a layer of full-time trade union officials, increasingly divorced from the shop floor and with all kinds of little perks and privileges, tended to create a distinct and alien mentality, particularly when the workers were not involved in mass struggle which tends to act as a check on the But in a long period of decades of relative prosperity, full employment and "class peace"

predominant trend is for the rank-and-file not to participate actively in their organisations, to trust their leaders and officials to "get on with the job." This was the situation in Germany for almost two decades prior to the catastrophe of World War One, when a conservative bureaucracy, "Marxist" in words, but reformist in practice, by degrees consolidated its hold on the labour movement in Germany, France and every other country in Western Europe.

What was true of the unions was a hundred times more true of the parliamentary fraction in the Reichstag. Dominated by intellectuals and professional people, with a standard of living different to the millions of workers they represented, the Social Democratic leaders in parliament moved to the right, escaped the control and eventually of the working class became transformed into a privileged and conservative caste.

As a reaction against this, Rosa Luxemburg laid heavy stress on the spontaneous movement of the working class, elevating the idea of a revolutionary general strike almost to the level of a panacea. This over-reaction undoubtedly led her into a series of errors. One can say that in all of her disagreements with Lenin, including this one, Rosa Luxemburg was in the wrong. Yet it is equally undeniable that all these mistakes can be traced back to a genuine revolutionary instinct, a boundless faith in the creative power of the working class and an implacable hostility to the careerists and bureaucrats who represent, in the words "the most conservative force in the whole of society."

Rosa Luxemburg's misgivings about Lenin's alleged "pitiless centralism" were shared, for the same reason, by other German lefts, such as AL Gelfand, generally known by his pen-name Parvus, whose works were greatly admired by Lenin, and also, at the time, by Trotsky. After breaking from the Mensheviks, Trotsky, for a while, worked closely with In later years, Trotsky admitted that he had been wrong and Lenin correct on the organisational questions. His booklet Our Political Tasks, published in the heat of the factional struggle, contains many criticisms of Lenin which the author was later to describe as 'immature and erroneous." 13 Yet there are elements even in this work which contained more than a grain of truth in relation to a certain side of Bolshevism, namely the psychology and mode of conduct of the "committee- , that layer of party "practicos" and "organisation men and women" with whom Lenin himself was to enter into bitter conflict only a few months after the appearance of Trotsky's controversial Every political party, every stable organisation, necessarily has a conser- The need to provide the material means to pass from the realm of theory to that of practice demands the creation of an apparatus. The living prin-

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MIR Summer 1987: Bolshevism Part Six

ciple of an apparatus is routine: the thousand and one humdrum organisational tasks of collecting money, organising distribution and sales of literature and so on require a meticulous attention to detail. Without this, the construction of the party would be unthinkable. From the outset, a number of people must be dedicated to these tasks. As the party grows, their numbers increase. Unless special measures are undertaken to constantly raise the theoretical level of these comrades and enlarge their horizons, a certain organisational narrowness tends to creep in, which can play a harmful role under certain circumstances. Unconsciously or semi-consciously, the impression can be created of the primacy of organisation, whereas ideas, principles and theory are regarded as of secondary importance. The opinions, initiative and criticism of the workers, the "rank-andfile" are regarded as an unnecessary incumbrance, at variance with the principle of "centralism' , or control from "above", • That there were elements of this in the Bolshevik party (as in any other party) is undeniable. But the attempts by unscrupulous bourgeois historians to link this with the abominations of Stalinism and to blame Lenin's alleged "pitiless centralism" is a monstrous distortion of the truth.

'Commandism'

Looking back on this period at of his life, Trotsky summed up position in the following way:

•Lenin understood better than anyone else the need for a centralised organisation: but he saw in it, above all, a lever for enhancing the activity of the advanced working men. The idea of making a fetish of the political machine was not only alien but repugnant to his nature." 1*

Of course, it would be entirely wrong to compare the Bolshevik "committeemen" , most of whom were dedicated, self-sacrificing revolutionaries, to the corrupt bureaucrats of the Second International or to the monstrous totalitarian caste which rules Russia today. The Stalinist bureaucracy had to exterminate the Old Bolsheviks as the first condition for the consolidation of its rule as a privileged caste.

What we are dealing with is a different phenomenon: the emergence of a certain tendency towards "commandism", for lack of a better word, a certain formalistic cast of mind which existed in certain layers of the party against which Lenin was obliged to wage a more or less continuous struggle.

"The habits peculiar to a political machine," wrote Trotsky, "were already forming in the underground. The young revolutionary bureaucrat was already emerging as a type. The conditions of

38

the end Lenin's

conspiracy, true enough, offered rather meagre scope for such of the formalities of democracy as electiveness, accountability and control. Yet, undoubtedly the committeemen narrowed these limitations considerably more than necessity demanded and were far more intransigent and severe with the revolutionary workingmen than with themselves, preferring to domineer even on occasions that called imperatively for lending an attentive ear to the voice of the masses." 15

And Trotsky answers in advance the vile slander which seeks to find the "original sin" of Stalinism in Lenin's method of democratic centralism:

"In this connection," he adds, 'it is rather tempting to draw the inference that future Stalinism was already rooted in Bolshevik centralism or, more sweepingly, in the underground hierarchy of professional revolutionists. But upon analysis that inference crumbles to dust, disciosing an astounding paucity of historical content. Of course, there are dangers of one kind or another in the very process of stringentiy picking and choosing persons of advanced views and welding them into a tightly centralised organisation. But the roots of such dangers will never be found in the so-called 'principle' of centralism: rather they should be sought in the lack of homogeneity and the backwardness of the toilers-that is, in the general social conditions which make imperative that very centripetal leadership of the class by its vanguard. The key to the dynamic problem of leadership is in the actual interrelationships between the political machine and its party, between the vanguard and its class, between centralism and democracy. Those interrelationships cannot, of their very nature, be established 'a priori' and remain immutable. They are dependant on concrete historical conditions; their mobile balance is regulated by the vital struggle of tendencies, which, as represented by their extreme wings, oscillate between the despotism of the political machine and the impotence of phrasemongering." (my emphasis, AW) 1

Lenin had tried to avoid a fight, refusing to answer the continuous attacks made against him. But the outcome of

Plekhanov's action convinced him that no other solution was possible. This was made abundantly clear by an article, sign-

ed by Plekhanov in No 52 of Iskra, en-

titled Where not to begin, a shameful attempt to provide a "theoretical'' cover-

up for the author's capitulation. Under its new editors, Iskra was now transform-

ed into a factional organ of the Minority.

The Majority still controlled the Cen-

tral Committee. But having co-opted the

old editors onto the Editorial Board, the

Minority now had a majority on the Party

Council, the highest authority in the Par-

ty. By the end of the year, Lenin had

come round to the to resolve the crisis Congress.

As was to be expected, the supporters of the Minority who now controlled the Party Council turned down Lenin's proposal for a new Congress. However, when Lenin took his request to the CC, theoretically controlled by the Majority, he came up against unexpected resistance from his own supporters. In Lenin's Works we find letter after letter striving to convince the CC members of the correctness of this proposal. But the Bolsheviks on the CC shied away from what they saw as a final break with the Mensheviks. Lenin bitterly remarked: "I think that on our CC we really do have bureaucrats and formalists and not revolutionaries. The Martovites spit in their face and they wipe it off and read me lessons in the 'uselessness of struggle!" "'

view that the only way was to call a new Party

War with Japan

Lenin's decision to break with the Mensheviks at this point was not an accident. Up to this time, the central argument had centred on organisational questions. But now things began to take on an entirely new turn, reflecting a sudden and sharp turn in the political situation.

The student demonstrations, followed by the political strikes and demonstrations of the workers in 1902 were symptoms of a rapidly developing , prerevolutionary situation. A political general strike in July and August of 1903 was followed by a brief lull, only to be succeeded by a new strike wave in the summer of 1904. A rash of strikes occured in Petersburg, Ivano-Voznessensk, Nizhny Novgorod, and the Caucusus, where a major strike shook the oil centre Baku in December.

Under the pressure of the working class, the liberal bourgeois began to press their demands for a constitution. Feeling the ground shake under its feet, the regime was seized with panic. Plehve, Minister of the Interior, wrote cynically to General Kuropatkin, the Minister of Defence: 'In order to stave off revolution, what we require is a victorious little war."

Despite its backward, semi-feudal character, and its dependence upon Western capital, Tsarist Russia was one of the main imperialist nations at the turn of the century. Together with the other imperialist robbers, Britain, France and Germany, Tsarist Russia participated in the carve-up of the world into colonies and spheres of influence. Poland and the Baltic states, Finland, and the Caucasus, the Far Eastern territories and Central Asia, were, in effect tsarist colonies. But the territorial ambitions of tsarism were insatiable. The avaricious gaze of St

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Petersburg was fined upon Turkey, Persia and above all China, where the decaying Manchu dynasty was incapable of preventing the dividing up of the living of China by the imperialist brigands, especially after the defeat of the so-called "Boxer" uprising in 1900, when Russia occupied the whole of Manchuria. This predatory expansion in the Far East brought Russia up against the rising young power of Japan. The Japanese imperialists interpreted Russia's action as an attempt to block them on the mainland of Asia. In the summer of 1903, the War Party won the day in Tokyo. In the dead of the night in February 1904, the Japanese fell upon the Russian fleet in Port Arthur, using the very same tactics Pearl Harbour in 1941.

Japanese command of the seas was thus guaranteed and a bloody struggle began which was to lead to the fall of Port Arthur eleven months later with the loss of 28,200 Russian soldiers, half the garrison. Three weeks later, the first Russian Revolution had begun.

The forces unleashed by a war serve to put all parties, programmes and leaderships to the test. The calculations of the autocracy were based on cutting across the class struggle and forging a bloc based on "national unity"

• The liberals at once revealed their reactionary essence. Their dislike of the autocratic regime which denied them a slice of the state pie" struggled with their greed at the prospect of the big profits to be made out of the war and the acquisition of new colonies in the East. The ex-"Marxist" Struve urged the "patriotic" manifestos.

However, after initially weakening the revolutionary movement, the war soon gave it a powerful impetus.

humiliating military defeats made the war deeply unpopular not only with the masses, but also with the bourgeois liberals, who deftly switched from The sight of the allegedly mighty Russian army collapsing like a house of cards at the first serious test exposed the inner rotteness of the tsarist regime for all to see. Cracks began to open up in the very tops of the regime. The discontent of the student youth found its expression in the spread of terrorist moods. The reactionary Plehve was blown up by a Social- Revolutionary in July and hastily replaced by the "liberal" Prince Svyatopolk- Mirsky who began to make noises about Terrified of the threat of revolution from below, the regime began to make concessions to the bourgeois liberals. In the autumn of 1904, the liberal "Liberty ('Soyuz Osvobozhdeniya") issued a call for a campaign of banquets to put pressure on the government for reforms. Lawyers, doctors, professors journalists organised semi-legal meetings in the form of "dinner parties" where they would make speeches and toasts in favour of moderate constitu- The decisive difference between Bolshevism and Menshevism arose, not from the somewhat abstract discussions on organisational questions at the Second Congress, important as they were, but on the life-and-death issues posed by the development of the revolution: in particular, the attitude to the liberals and the attitude to the war.

Liberals The new Iskra, under Menshevik control, took an ambiguous position on the war, which smacked of pacifism, calling for "peace at any price." Lenin poured scorn on this idea, explaining that the victory of tsarism in the strengthen the whereas the military defeat of Russian would inevitably mean the outbreak of revolution. He subjected the Russian military campaign to a searing criticism, using it as a means of exposing the degenerate and corrupt essence of the regime-not tearful pacifism, not impotent appeals for "peace" but revolutionary defeatism was the position of "The cause of Russian freedom and of the struggle of the Russian (and the world) proletariat for socialism depends to a very large extent on the military defeats of the autocracy," he wrote in The Fall of Port Arthur. 'This cause has been greatly advanced by the military debacle which has struck terror in the hearts of all European guardians of the existing order. The revolutionary proletariat must carry on a ceaseless agitation against war, always keeping in mind, however, that wars are inevitable as long as class rule exists. Trite phrases about peace a la Jaures* are of no use to the oppressed class which is not responsible for a bourgeois war between two bourgeois nations, which is doing all it can to overthrow every bourgeoisie, which knows the enormity of the people's sufferings even in times of 'peaceful' capitalist exploitation." 1 (my emphasis AW).

Lenin's revolutionary internationalism, which sets out from a class analysis of war as "the continuation of politics by other means" stands out in stark contrast to the pacifist whining of the present-day leaders of the "Communist"

parties internationally, whose position on all fundamental questions is a million times worse than that of the Mensheviks.

Under the pressure of the bourgeois liberals, the leaders of the "Minority" were, in fact, moving away from the position of revolutionary Marxism. Their cloudy, semi-pacifist characterisation of the war was perhaps the first public expression of this fact.

Trotsky, in his autobiography, recalls how a section of the old leaders leaned towards the liberals: "The press was becoming more daring, the terrorist acts more frequent: the liberals began to wake up and launched a campaign of political banquets. The fundamental questions of revolution came swiftly to the front. Abstractions were beginning in my eyes to acquire actual social flesh. The Mensheviks, Lasulich especially, were placing great hopes in the liberals.

"Even before the (Second) Congress, after one of the editorial meetings in the cafe 'Landolt', Zasulich began to complain, in the peculiar, timidly insistent tone which she always assumed for such occasions, that we were attacking the liberals too much. That was a sore point 'See how eager they are about it,' she would say, looking past Lenin, although it was really Lenin whom she was aiming at. 'Struve demands that the Russian liberals should not renounce socialism, because, if they do, they will be threatened with the fate of the German liberals: he says they should follow the example of the French Radical Socialists.' ''We should strike them all the more,' said Lenin with a gay smile as if he were teasing Vera Ivanovna.

''That's nice!' she exclaimed in utter despair, 'They come to meet us and we strike them down!'

'I was with Lenin unreservedly in this discussion, which became more crucial the deeper it went. In 1904, during the liberal banquet campaign, which quickly reached an impasse, I put forward the question, 'What next?' and answered it in this way: the way out can be opened only by means of a general strike, followed by an uprising of the proletariat which will march at the head of the masses against liberalism. This aggravated my disagreements with the Mensheviks." 1› As Trotsky's example graphically shows, the elements of a certain conciliatory attitude towards the bourgeois liberals among the old editors of Iskra existed even before the 1903 split. But these tendencies rapidly became filled with a concrete political and class content under the implacable pressures of war and revolution, which mercilessly thrust aside all ambiguities, compelling every party and trend to define itself in practice. The Mensheviks came out publicly in support of the Zemstvo liberals' banquetting campaign. It was on this question that Trotsky formally broke with the Mensheviks in September 1904.

Answering the lie of the Stalinists that * Jean Jaurès (1859-1914) prominent leader of the reformist wing of the French Socialist

[page 39]

MIR Summer 1987: Bolshevism Part Six

he had been a Menshevik'

Trotsky explains:

"This connection with the minority in the second congress was brief. Before many months had passed, two tendencies had become conspicuous within the minority. I advocated taking steps to bring about a union with the majority as soon as possible, because I thought of the split as an outstanding episode but nothing more. For others, the split at the Second Congress was the beginnings of the evolution towards opportunism. I spent the whole year of 1904 arguing with the leading groups of Mensheviks on questions of policy and organisation. The arguments were concentrated on two issues: the attitude towards liberalism and that towards the Bolsheviks. I was for uncompromising resistance to the attempts of the liberals to lean on the masses, and at the same time, because of it, I demanded with increasing determination the union of the two Social Democratic factions." 2" (my emphasis AW).

The "crime" of Trotsky in these years was that of "conciliationism" , or, to use an unkind expression "unitymongering". This conciliationism, however, was an attempt to re-unite the party, a view shared by many within the Bolshevik camp and the party in general. It had nothing to do with a conciliatory attitude to the enemies of the working class—-the liberals and the so-called " progressive" bourgeoisie. That position, implacably criticised by Trotsky, was the position of the Mensheviks then and the leaders of the "Communist" parties today. It is an idea which Lenin spent his entire active life fighting against.

since 1903,

Independence

Trotsky's characterisation of the liberals was clear from an article which appeared in Iskra in mid-March 1904, where he described them as "halfhearted, vague, lacking in decision and inclined to treachery." 2' It was precisely this article which provoked Plekhanov to present the editors of Iskra with an ultimatum demanding Trotsky's removal from the editorial board. Thereafter, Trotsky's name disappeared from Iskra and his active collaboration with the Mensheviks to all intents and purposes came to an end.

The Mensheviks were clearly passing over from merely organisational differences to political ones. Right wing Mensheviks like Theodor Dan began to get the upper hand within the "Minority". The Mensheviks called upon the workers to support the liberal's banquet campaign, reducing the role of the proletariat to that of mere "cheer-leaders" of the liberals. In this way, the Mensheviks hoped to establish a "broad front for democracy" including "all pro- 40

gressive forces"

The entire psychology of the Mensheviks was impregnated with a lack of confidence in the revolutionary potential of the working class. The workers were enjoined not to demand too much, or express too extreme views which might "frighten' the liberals. Iskra published statements quite in the spirit of Professor Hobsbawn in Marxism Today when talking in hushed tones about the Liberal- SDP Alliance.

"If we take a look at the arena of strug gie in Russia then what do we see? Only two forces: the Tsarist autocracy and the liberal bourgeoisie, which is now organised and possesses a huge specific weight. The working mass, however, is atomised and can do nothing; as an independent force we do not exist; and thus our task consists in supporting the second force, the liberal bourgeoisie, and encouraging it and in no case intimidating it by presenting our own independent proletarian demands." :: (my emphasis AW).

And Zinoviev adds, quite correctly, that "the question of the attitude of the working class to the bourgeoisie again arose with particular acuteness-the same basic question with which we collided at every stage of the history of the party and to which in the end all our disagreements with the Mensheviks could be reduced."

No sooner had the Mensheviks publicly come out in favour of the liberals, then Lenin issued a blistering attack on the banquetting campaign. In his article The Zemvstvo Campaign and Iskra's plan, Lenin mercilessly flayed the advocates of class collaborationism and defended an independent revolutionary class policy:

"Afraid of leaflets, afraid of anything that goes beyond a qualified-franchise constitution," thundered Lenin, "the liberal gentry will always stand in fear of the slogan 'a democratic republic' and of the call for an armed uprising of the people. But the class-conscious proletariat will indignantly reject the very idea that we could renounce this slogan and this call, or could in general be guided in our activity by the panic and fears of the bourgeoisie." =*

Of course, under the extremely difficult conditions of tsarist dictatorship, one could not rule out temporary, episodic agreements even with the bourgeois liberals.

But the first condition for such agreements was always for Lenin the complete political independence of the working class and its party: no mixing up of banners, no political blocs, no compromise on programme or principles.

The Mensheviks, by contrast, were prepared to water down their demands so as not to "intimidate" the liberals, to sacrifice the party's independence for the sake of "unity" , in a word to subordinate the working class to the so-called "pro-

gressive" wing of the capitalists. This policy was later taken over by Stalin under the title of the "Popular Front." Under different names and guises it still remains, in essence, the policy of the 'Communist" parties today.

Lenin poured scorn on the very idea: "Can it in general be acknowledged correct in principle to set the workers' party the task of presenting to the liberal democrats or the Zemstvo-ists political demands 'which they must support if they are to have any right to speak in the name of the people'? No, such an approach is wrong in principle and can only obscure the class consciousness of the proletariat and lead to the most futile casuistry " !:

Political basis of

"conciliationism"

This, then was the real basis of the Bolshevik-Menshevik split, which did not emerge until over a year alter the Second Congress. This fact is attested to by no less a person than Theodor Dan, one of the main leaders of the Mensheviks, who states that:

...today, with historical hindsight, it

66 is scarcely necessary any longer to demonstrate that the organisational disagreements that, at the Second Congress divided the Iskra people into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were merely the cover for incipient intellectual and political divergences that were far more profound, and above all more persistent than the disagreements between the Economists and Iskra that had receded with the past and been completely liquidated by the congress. It was not an organisational but a political divergence that very quickly split the Russian Social Democracy into two fractions which sometimes drew close and then clashed with each other, but basically remained independent parties that kept on fighting with each other even at a time when they were nominally within the framework of a unitary party... But at that time, at the beginning of the century, the political character of the split was far from immediately apparent, not only to the spectators on the side lines but to the participants in the fractional struggle themselves." :" (my emphasis AW).

The real differences had nothing to do with "centralism" versus "democracy" or even, as Trotsky pointed out in his last work, of 'hards" versus "softs": 'True firmness and resoluteness predetermine a person to the acceptance of Bolshevism, he wrote, "Yet these characterisations in themselves are not decisive, there were any number of persons of firm character among the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. On the other hand, weak people were not so rare among the Bolsheviks. Psychology and character are not all there is to the nature of Bolshevism

[page 40]

which, above all, is a philosophy of

history and a political conception." 27 my

emphasis, AW).

The real difference between Bolshevism

and Menshevism was the difference bet-

ween class independence and class col-

laborationism, Marxism and Revisionism,

reformism and revolution. But it took

several years, and the experience of war,

revolution and counterrevolution, for the

real nature of these differences to become

absolutely clear.

Despite the fact that the political dif-

ferences between Bolshevism and Men-

shevism were now coming to the fore,

many leading Bolsheviks did not unders-

tand Lenin's position and tended to play

the differences down.

The predominant trend among the

Bolshevik tendency inside Russia was

"conciliationism." The great majority of

the party activists did not grasp the

reasons for the split, and rejected it. Even

Lenin's closest collaborators were, in ef-

fect, working against him. In February

1904, after a long period of vacillation,

the CC inside Russia rejected Lenin's call

for a congress by five votes against one.

This amounted to a public rebuff for

Lenin. Yet those who voted against—

Krzhizhanovsky, Krasin, Galperin,

Gusarov and Noskov (Zemlyachka voted

for) had worked closely with Lenin since

the founding of Iskra, or even earlier.

They had played a prominent role in

organising the revolutionary Marxist tendency in Russia. How could they behave in this way?

These were, in many ways, true "Bolshevik" types-tireless, dedicated party workers, good organisers, disciplined and self-sacrificing. But they were what might be called "practicos, " whose work consisted in a hundred and one detailed organisational tasks. Without such people, no revolutionary party can succeed. A party without an apparatus is like a knife without a blade. But there was also a negative aspect to the mentality of the Bolshevik "Committee-men, " as they were known: a certain organisational limitedness, a narrowness of outlook and restricted theoretical horizons. Such types as these inevitably tended to look with a certain disdain upon the finer points of theory and regarded such controversies as those that took place at the Second Congress as mere emigre squabbles, of no practical importance. If the majority of them had initially sided with Lenin and Plekhanov, this was not out of any deep ideological commitment, but because the organisational stand of the Majority struck them as being more in accord with the "Party spirit" which was the moving force of their lives.

But after Plekhanov's defection, things began to appear more complicated. The former Majority now looked very much like a minority, at least on the leading

Russian prisoners of war. The forces unleashed by the Russo-Japanese war put all parties, programmes and leaderships to the test.

bodies. Lenin's complete isolation seem-

ed to underline his weakness. And, to the "practicos," Plekhanov's arguments carried more weight. What was all this fuss really about?

Lenin attempted in his book One Step

Forward, Two Steps back to point out the issues of principle involved. But many of the "Committee-men" were unimpressed. In January 1904, Lenin had finally organised a Bureau of Majority Committees to agitate for a Congress. Two CC members, Lengnik and Essen, were sent to Russia for this purpose, but were arrested. Meanwhile, the majority of Bolshevik "conciliators" on the CC actually ousted Lenin's only supporter, Zemlyachka. The Bolshevik leadership was falling apart. Demoralised, Gusarov dropped out of activity, and Krzhizhanovsky resigned from the CC. The remaining CC members, Krasin, Noskov and Galperin-all Bolshevik conciliators-now proceeded to pull off an unprincipled coup.

Declaration

In the summer of 1904, when Lenin was convalescing in the Swiss Alps, the triumvirate held a secret meeting of the CC and passed what became known as the "July declaration", calling for reconciliation between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and, in effect, surrendering on the Minority's terms. They accepted the "unquestionable legality" of the new Editorial Board of Iskra and the "equally unquestionable superiority of the central organ in everything which concerns the defence and clarification of the basic principles of the international Social Democracy's programme and tactics." 28

These actions represented an explicit repudiation of Lenin, whom they relieved of the right to represent the CC

abroad. They even insisted on the right

to censor Lenin's writings ("the printing

of his writings... will be carried out on

each occasion with the agreements of the

members of the CC") 29 and prohibited

agitation in favour of a Third Congress.

Furthermore, Noskov was charged with

"re-organising" the party's technical

work abroad, which meant eliminating

such supporters of Lenin as Bonch-

Bruyevich, who had been involved in publishing Bolshevik material abroad, and Lyadov, who was in charge of finance. In addition, three more Bolshevik-conciliators, and then three Mensheviks, were co-opted onto the CC.

When Lenin finally found out what was going on, he wrote an angry letter to the CC challenging the legality of its actions. A further letter was sent to the members of the Bolshevik committees, exposing the activities of the CC. He even sent a letter to Iskra asking it not to publish the illegal declaration. But the editors eagerly pounced on the opportunity to publish it in No 72 under the title: Declaration of the Central Committee.

There was nothing left to Lenin but to break off all relations with the concilators. But the situation was now grim indeed. Everything which had been achieved by the Second Congress was now in ruins. One after the other, the leading bodies had been captured by the Minority. The Martovites appeared to have triumphed all along the line. Lenin seemed to be utterly isolated.

In reality, however, the Mensheviks' victory had been achieved by manoeuvering at the top. At grass roots level, Lenin still enjoyed considerable support. Many party committees were repelled by the manoeuverings of the conciliators on the CC. An increasing number of committees were coming out in favour of a new Congress as the only way of resolving the

41

[page 41]

MIR Summer 1987: Bolshevism Part Six

crisis. The Party committees in Petersburg, Moscow, Yekaterinoslay, Riga, the Northern Union, Voronezh, Nizhegorod, and, perhaps more surprisingly Baku, Batum and the Caucasian Union, declared their support. Even abroad, Social-Democrat groups in Paris, Genoa and Berlin, came out against the Mensheviks.

According to a letter written by Lyubinov to Noskov in the autumn of 1904: "On the question of the declaration (of the CC, AW) there has been such a row you can hardly make head or tail of it. Only one thing is clear: all the committees-except Kharkov, Crimea, Gornozavodsk and Don-are committees of the Majority... The CC has received a full vote of confidence from a very insignificant number of committees." 3" (my emphasis, AW).

Encouraged by the response inside Russia, Lenin convened a conference of 22 Bolsheviks in Switzerland in August 1904, which adopted his appeal To the Party, which became a rallying call for the convening of a Third Party Congress.

With uncompromising honesty, Lenin described the serious crisis through which the Party was passing, adding that: 'Nevertheless, we regard the Party's sickness as a matter of growing pains. We consider that the underiying cause of the crisis is the transition from the circle form to party forms of the life of Social- Democracy; the essence of its internal struggle is a conflict between the circle spirit and the party spirit. And consequently only by shaking off this sickness can our Party become a real party " 31 (my emphasis, AW).

Intelligentsia

Only now does Lenin explain the class forces which lay behind the split: 'Lastly, the opposition cadres have in general been drawn chiefly from those elements in our Party which consist primarily of intellectuals. The intelligentsia is always more individualistic than the proletariat, owing to its very conditions of life and work, which do not directly educate it through organised collective labour. The intellectual elements therefore find it harder to adapt themseives to the discipline of Party life and those of them who are not equal to it naturally raise the standard of revolt against the necessary organisational limitations, and elevate their instinctive anarchism to a principle of struggle, misnaming it a desire for 'autonomy', a demand for 'tolerance' etc.

«The section of the Party abroad, where the circles are comparatively longlived, where theoreticians of various shades are gathered, and where the intelligentsia decidedly predominates, was bound to be most inclined to the views of the 'Minority', which then as a result pro-

42

ved to be the actual majority. Russia, on the other hand, where the voice of the organised proletariat is louder, where the Party intelligentsia too, being in closer and more direct contact with them, is trained in a more proletarian spirit, and where the exigencies of the immediate struggle make the need for organised unity more strongly felt, came out in vigorous opposition to the circle spirit and the disruptive anarchistic tendencies." 32 (my emphasis, AW).

By the autumn, the prospects for the Bolsheviks were looking brighter. A new leading team was gradually being put together with new arrivals from Russia— people like Bogdanov, Lunacharsky, Olminsky. After his month in the Alps, Lenin's health was much improved. "It was as if he had bathed in a mountain stream and washed ott all the cobwebs of sordid intrigue," wrote Krupskaya. 33 Encouraging reports were being received from Russia, where To the Party had been clandestinely distributed to the Party committees.

According to Krupskaya, by mid- September, twelve out of 20 committees with full voting rights had come out in favour of a Congress, and the number was still growing. From this point on, the Bolsheviks were a serious organised force within Russia. By the end of the year a Bolshevik Organising Centre was established in the interior, with the backing of 13 Party committees.

Unlike their opponents, the Bolsheviks were extremely short of funds. The question of a newspaper was initially out of the question. As a temporary substitute, Lenin and Bonch-Bruyevich launched a "Publishing House for Social Democratic Party Literature" which from early September began to publish individual titles by Lenin and his collaborators. This was, at least, a start. But the Mensheviks held all the cards when it came to publica-

Footnotes 1) Lunacharsky— "Revolutionary Silhouettes p 36 2) Krupskaya- "Memories of Lenin" p 3) ibid pp 98-99 4) Pyarnitsky-Zapiski Bolshevika p 54 ) Lenin-Collected Works, Vol 7, p 34 J Akimov-A Short History of the RSDLP p 332 Party", SH Baron— "Plekhanov"

327 3) see Istoriya KPSS g) ibid, p 523 ral ibid, p 524 11) Lenin- Collected 1z) Rosa Luxemburg "Leninism or Marx- 2g) ibid

30/ ibid ism?' p 98 13) Trotsky, "Stalin 14) ibid 15/ ibid p 6l 16) ibid pp 61-62

Vol 1, p

Works

'Ler.

(Spanish

Vol ism

474 Mai

tions. Not only did they control the prestigious Iskra, but also had plenty of money from wealthy sympathisers. They did not hesitate to use this unscrupulously as a weapon in the factional struggle. Krupskaya recalls with a note of bitterness how the Mensheviks put pressure on sympathisers to stop giving assistance to the Majority: "Ilyich and I had some strong things to say about those 'sympathisers' who belonged to no organisation and imagined that their accommodation and paltry donations could influence the course of events in our proletarian party!" :* The question of funds from abroad was undoubtedly a factor in the capitulation of the Bolshevikconciliators" on the CC the emigre centre.

Forward

Despite their lack of resources, the Bolsheviks decided to launch a new paper called Vperyod (''Forward"'). At a meeting in Geneva on 3 December an editorial board was elected, composed of Lenin, VV Vorovsky, MS Olminsky and AV Lunacharsky, with Krupskaya as secretary. As usual, the lack of funds was made up for by personal sacrifice. Everyone scratched around for spare cash. Vorovsky handed over some author's fees he had just received. Olimsky parted with a gold watch. Somehow or other, 1,000 francs were scraped together-barely enough for one and a half issues. But nobody was deterred by this. The first issue of the truly first Bolshevik newspaper duly rolled off the press on 22 December 1904. Just over a fortnight later, the Russian emigres were startled to hear the raucous shouts of the newspaper boys of the streets on Geneva: 'Revolution in Russia! Revolution in Russia!"

Quoted in Istoriya KPSS Vol Lenin-Collected Works, Vol Trotsky, "My Life" p 166 ibid p 165 Quoted in Deutscher "The p 86 See Zinoviev "History of ty", pp 107-8 ibid p 108 Lenin-Collected Works, Vol ibid p 508 Dan, "The Origins of Bolshevi. Trotsky, "Stalin" p 50 Istoriya KPSS p 509 ibid ibid Lenin- Collected Works ibid pp 455-6 Krupskaya- "Lenin" p 106 ibid p 98

508 53

[page 42]

Book Reviews The Miners' Strike 1984-85 Loss without limit By M Adeney and J Lloyd.

Published by Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986 £14.95 Reviewed by Peter Jarvis THE YEAR-long miners' strike was the most important industrial dispute in recent British history. It clearly exposed the nature of the class divisions in society Since the strike, tonnes of printed material have been produced.

Miners' Strike 1984-85—Loss Without Limit is yet another contribution. This book, written by BBC reporter Martin Adeney and the then Industrial Editor of the Financial Times, John Lloyd, claims "not to give a chronological account...It is rather to understand."

The book is certainly not chronological account; but whether it achieves its aim is doubtful. The facts and background material contained in the book are useful. But readers wishing to analyse the events will need to draw their The book gives ample examples of the way the Tories and the class they represent prepared-how they even backed away in 1981 from an open confrontation because then the time was not right. Ourwardly the government gave the appearance of confidence. .

An unnamed government official said "tactically it was also wise in the early days to stay away and not give the aspect of a political strike." But in reality the actions of the NCB, the police and the courts all had the hand of the ruling class behind them. As Lloyd and Adeney report: "a committee of senior officials drawn from relevant departments to brief Walker on a daily basis as to the progress of the dispute was "Walker also operated in other forums. From Monday 16 April, a cabinet committee-Misc 101— of senior ministers-Mrs Thatcher, Walker, King, Tebbit, Brittan, with Sir Michael Havers the Attorney General, Michael Heseltine from Defence, Nigel Lawson the Nicholas Ridley the Chancellor, Transport Secretary and George Younger from the Scottish Office- was formed to monitor the dispute."

In other words a war council. The inclusion of Heseltine on such a body shows that the use of troops was not ruled out. The illusion that the press maintains: that industry, the forces of the state and SCOTLAND SANE CTIMISAIION HEINSTATE ALL SACRED NI its government are independent, is a sham that only the labour and trade union leaders accept. MacGregor was a political appointee. A certain David Hart, who was MacGregor's "closest advisor" told him 'the strike was political.' The connection between the various strands of the ruling class is shown a few sentences later 'Walker did not like what he heard of Hart's involvement, and may have resented his influence with the Prime Minister as well as the chairman." Second front Hart also had considerable influence with the National Working Miners' Committee, the body that tried to co-ordinate the return to work. "The committee was heavily influenced by Hart, who helped to raise funds for it. He persuaded the reclusive multi-millionaire John Paul Getty II, a patient in a London clinic, to contribute almost £100,000. In all, Hart raised several hundred thousand pounds for the committee, mostly for legal fees, but also to defray the cost of press advertisements, designed by Tim Bell." Tim Bell was an advertising executive with Saatchi and Saatchi, the same company that works for the Tories on their promotional efforts. John Paul Getty Il was given a knighthood at the same time as Bob Geldotf... for services to whom? The strike had to be kept in certain limits. There could be no second front. A lesson from the NGA dispute in November 1983 was that workers fighting separately would find it difficult to win. Arthur Scargill, who was fined £1,000 for contempt of court, had it mysteriously paid. There could be no martyrs. The government's fear is shown in the book. "John Gummer, a junior Employment Department Minister who was also chairman of the Conservative Party made it clear that BR should nod through its LADOUN PARTY.

annual pay agreement at a comfortable but not out of the ordinary five per cent, to prevent another industrial front opening up."

They even feared the power of individual railway workers. "British Rail was aware that its two main north-south lines had key sections controlled by signal boxes manned by very pro-miners signalmen- Warrington in the North- West and Doncaster on the East coast main line in the heart of the most militant mining territory. They were not challenged throughout the dispute until at the very end...

These few lines show the real power in society. The task is to harness the industrial muscle of the working class to change society. The trade union and Labour leaders are more frightened of this power than they are of the ruling The miners were forced to return to work in March 1985 but they were not broken. In the recent period only 15 of the 127 pits have not been involved in some form of action. Between January and November 1985, according to the Department of Employment, there were 153 stoppages in the coal industry, involving 175,700 workers and 4.14 million days were lost. The average age of the miners has now fallen to 34. The young miners are beginning the fight back and they will want revenge. They will become the champions for socialism.

Even the scab leaders oi the Nottingham based UDM are recommending strike action over the recent pay offer. The Nottingham miners are genuinely angered over the miserly pay offer. The motives of the UDM leadership are different. They need to stem the tide of desertions back to the NUM. Company unions occasionally have to bare their teeth or otherwise their usefulness to the bosses is exposed.

43

[page 43]

MIR Summer 1987: Book Reviews The miners that worked throughout the strike are now learning their real worth to the coal board. They served their purpose by dividing the union which allowed the strike to be defeated.

But journalists or TV reporters, however fair or good at their job, are not divorced from society. On wages, at that time, of £30,000 plus, even the most trained eye could not have really understood the miners' struggle or determination to see the dispute through to the end. The strike was a testament to the workers' capacity to struggle.

Treachery Inevitably the author's views colour their use of words. For instance they describe as "an act of great courage" the actions of Len Murray, the general secretary of the TUC during the Stockport Messenger dispute in 1983, meeting he "repudiated" a decision by the TUC's employment policy committee 'to take a 'sympathetic and supportive attitude' to the NGA's call for secondary, and probably unlawful, industrial action," when the NGA issued a call for its members to strike for 24 hours.

In fact in doing so Murray left isolated the NGA and prepared the way for their eventual defeat, giving the green light for the Tories and bosses to press their attacks against trade union rights. For the press and the media it was indeed 'courageous' and the Daily Mail, Express, et al sung his praises. Later he received his reward when he was given a coronet and ermine and was elevated into the House of Lords.

This act of treachery, to give it its correct name, had an important bearing on future developments. It confirmed to the ruling class that the trade union leaders would be unlikely to aid the miners in any conflict.

Instead the collaborationist policies being pursued meant that the TUC would inevitably police the rank and file rather than lead a campaign for solidarity action.

Following the defeat of the printers at Warrington, Murray's 'New Realism' became the fashion of the right: those mainly responsible for the defeat in the first place. Of course there was nothing new in this concept: in reality it was old fashioned class collaborationism.

Pessimism had gripped the minds of many trade union leaders following the 1983 election. They argued that the working class had shifted to the right and that large strikes were unlikely to occur and were impossible to win.

Even many miners' leaders doubted that there would again be a miners' strike. The young miners had been brought off with videos, cars and now had mortgages to pay, they argued. This impressionistic 44 and empirical approach blinded the trade union and Labour leaders to the long term processes developing inside society. Alone the Militant argued against the doom and gloom merchants. In the pamphlet written in August 1983, Crisis— Where is Britain going, Militant correctly predicted: "This winter, there will possibly be big battles in industry." So it was to be.

course since the defeat of the miners' strike the right-wing trade union officials are pushing 'New Realism' phase 2. John Lloyd, now the editor of the New Statesman, is a proponent of 'New , and not only in this book. In an article in the London Standard headed "Marching towards oblivion?" Lloyd clearly spells out his 'perspectives': ''There is the possibility that in many if not all advanced industrial, or more pertinently advanced consumer societies, unions may be slipping into oblivion or For Lloyd recent changes show that there is "nowhere for unions to go, at least in the short term, but down." TUC membership stands at 9.5 million, a fall of 22 per cent since 1979.

But this does not compare to previous declines. During the recession of 1920-23 trade union membership tell by 35 per cent. And in 1970 when Heath became Prime Minister the total membership of unions affiliated to the TUC stood at 10,022,000, not much more than today. Considerations of overall TUC membership were not foremost in the dockers' minds as they launched the call for solidarity strike action when their colleagues were jailed for contempt under Heath's Industrial Relations Act in 1972! Moreover, much of the membership loss has occurred with the decline of manufacturing employment. The unions, in some respects, are today stronger than in the past. Teachers, civil servants etc have all been engaged in recent industrial action, sections of society that scabbed during the 1926 general strike. But Lloyd continues: the decline of the "most marked in the United States and in France, where unionisation covers at best 15 per cent of workers in the States and something less than 10 per cent in France."

However, the history of trade unionism in both countries can give no confidence to the ruling class. In the USA the years 1934-36 saw the CIO develop from nothing to a body of 2 million, its growth based on industrial militancy. In France there has always been a low percentage in the trade unions. In the 1968 general strike it was estimated that out of 11 million strikers, only 2 million belonged to trade unions. Today in the Renault factory, known for its militancy, only 900 out of a workforce of 18,000 are in the trade unions.

It was also possible to point at the low number of strikes in France. In 1985 strikes were at the lowest level since 1946. But the recent explosions show the volatile nature of the present period. For John Lloyd and his co-thinkers the miners' strike marked an end of an era, the ending of trade union power and influence. In fact the miners' strike has ushered in a new chapter in trade union history. The strike exposed the chasm that now exists in society between the employing classes and the working class. The methods of conducting a strike in the 50s and 60s no longer correspond to the changed industrial and political climate. The miners, in their year-long battle, began the search for new ways, or rather a return to the methods of the pioneers. It is the change in the subjective situation, when the consciousness of the working class rejects the old society and begins to move along the path of socialist change, that represents the beginning of a revolutionary epoch. These processes and changes must be kept in mind to fully understand the facts in this book. The book asks such questions as "Would the strike have taken Scargill?...A mystery surrounds the beginning of the miners' strike. Was it a matter of accident? Or was it carefully planned by one side or another?"

Fudge The answer to these questions can only be found in the basic principle that when a society is unable to further develop the productive forces it is ripe for overthrow. Unfortunately, no ruling class of any decaying system ever gives up their privileges without a struggle. It is this that is the driving force behind the actions of the present Tory government. The trade unions are the principal form of defence for the workers. If the Tories are to succeed then they have to break the strength of the trade unions. The working class are to bear the burden of trying to correct the systems present economic ills.

The strike was rooted in the present period. It would have happened whether union. The election of Scargill as president with 70 per cent of the vote was a clear indication of what was going to come. It reflected a growing awareness by the miners that a battle was likely. Without Scargill, Lloyd and Adeney argue, it might "have lasted only a few weeks and been settled with a fudge." This may have been so but the 'fudge' would have only prepared the way for an were closed between February 1984 and November 1986 and the workforce was cut by 61,659 to 121,978. These figures

[page 44]

indicate that a bitter struggle had to break Scargill alone did not contribute to the longevity of the strike. The other key factor was the young miners. The strike was their strike. Arthur Scargill was their leader. Even Lloyd and Adeney are compelled to recognise that "For them, he expressed their best: he roused them to action in their own and others' defence of which they did not think themselves capable; he expressed and gave point to their feelings of resentment, of insecurity, of class hatred." The strike could not end either before they secured victory or could no longer see the possibility of victory. Even when it ended many would have been willing to continue. Can anybody seriously ask "was the strike an accident"? The ruling class carefully prepared for the confrontation: the book shows how meticulously their plans were laid. Smarting atter the deleat inflicted by the miners on the Heath government, the ruling class carefully examined their options and agreed a strategy. Vengeance may have played some part in their thinking but the driving force was the still developing economic crisis, that dictates that the unions must be tamed.

For instance new legislation would be required: what Heath had attempted with his Industrial Relations Act had to be Marxists have long tried again.

understood that the memory of the ruling class exists in its laws. New legislation is introduced to cope with any new circumstances. After the dockers broke Heath's Industrial Relations Act, it remained on the statute books, until repealed by the Labour administration in 1974. This time the Tories introduced the legislation bit by bit. "In a paper to the Shadow Cabinet at the end of 1977 Hoskyns (one of Thatcher's key strategists at the Centre for Policy Studies-PJ) posed the alternatives as he saw them; are you going to go into the next government pledged to do nothing about the unions? Or will you adopt a sensible, step by step approach of whittl ing away their power?"

The trade union leaders made similar noises of opposition in the early 70s and at conferences passed resolutions. But at crucial times they backed away. Fundamentally, there is really little difference in the nature of the trade union leadership in 1970 compared with today. Very few want to rally militant workers in action. It may go further than they would care.

During the movement that developed around the Pentonville 5 the leadership followed in the wake of the rank and file. Many view this period with growing affection—the time when the workers could fight and win. But if they took off their rose coloured glasses they would see Strike Free: New industrial relations in Britain.

By Philip Bassett.

Published by MacMillian, £6-95.

THIS IS another book heralding the imminent demise of the British trade union movement, after the defeat of the miners' strike. John Lloyd, Editor of the New Statesman, right-wing Labour supporter of Kinnock and backer of 'new realism' was formerly Labour editor of the Financial Times. Philip Bassett replaced him continued to foster arguments: that the industrial working class has been irrevocably weakened and the modern high-tech skilled workers that are replacing them are not interested in class struggle and 'old fashioned' trade unionism.

that the class struggle is on a much higher The real difference is the economic crisis. The actions of Thatcher, dictated by the dire straits of British capitalism, have had the effect of hardening the working class. It is no longer an easy option to go on strike. In the years of the boom when a strike occurred gains were made. There would be a return to work and everything would return to normal. Damocles' sword over workers' heads. Today a strike is likely to be both long and bitter. Nevertheless, strikes do occur. Teachers were engaged in action for two years. Recently the NCU had the first allout strike in its 100 years history. These are the harbingers of the future Broad Left The working class now weighs up all the options before taking action. In some cases it appears impossible to fight. This has a long term effect. It builds up the frustration among the workers and at the right time this will turn into anger and will result in an explosion.

The workers reluctance to fight has nothing what so ever to do with some 'shift to the right'. The low strike figures are also a result of wage increases for the skilled section of the workforce keeping apace with inflation. It would also be correct to say that there had been a turn towards the political plane.

The right trade union leaders, (the left followed because they had no serious alternative pushed the idea that their only salvation was with the return of a Labour government. At least for 1986 that seemed the most likely perspective. Again the working class doesn't fight if there appears to be a viable alternative. Now, with the Tory election victory, the trade union leaders cannot use that According to Bassett, the Tories have succeeded in taming the unions who now have to adjust away from strikes towards EETPU-type no-strike collaborationist policies with employers. His evidence is based on a sharp fall in strikes in 1985 and 1986. No doubt it is a 'theory' that will continue to grip the minds of the right wing in the labour and trade union movement after Labour's election defeat. This book is another example of how well-paid and well meaning journalists of the capitalist media, however observant, will never understand the strength of the class conflict that lies just beneath the surface in 'two-nation', two-class Britain. But if you want to know how far people like Eric Hammond and Gavin Laird have gone to sell out their members rights and conditions, with chapter and verse, then Bassett's book gives you the excuse any longer.

The motto that needs to be adopted by the miners is 'we prepare now for the next strike.' A hint of the method necessary to organise for the coming battle is given in the book, although the authors will not understand it: "the growing confidence of the left in Yorkshire was signalled by the inauguration of a regular series of meetings open to all the miners under the title of the Barnsley Miners' Forum, meeting monthly on Friday evenings. Scargill was one of the founders, and its secretary. The rather enclosed politics of the NUM left, all but monopolised by the Communist Party, had come out." Unfortunately, the idea of an open forum in every coalfield was never seriously taken up. The leading left officials met but there was no active rank and file involvement. However, following from the miners' strike there is now a national rank and file body, the Broad Left. It has roots in all coalfields and will undoubtedly grow in influence in the coming period.

The task that confronts the miners is to stop the wholesale butchering of the industry. The Tories want to turn the clock back to the days when the mines were privately owned. The gain of nationalisation will have to be defended. Capitalism is in deep crisis. The ruling class by their actions, will provoke further conflicts with the miners and other sections. These will result in even greater battles that will make the miners' year long strike look like a tea party. These processes are not understood by the authors so their book fails in its aim 'to understand."

authors quote AJ Cook, miners' leader during the 1926 general "There can be no peace with poverty and unemployment. There can be no peace with capitalism." The book at least illustrates why this is the case.

[page 45]

MIR Summer 1987: Book Reviews

A Future for All-Do we need a Welfare State

by

Malcolm Wicks.

Penguin Books, 95.

Published 1987,

This book is a timely look at the Tories record on social policy. Its contents should serve as a reminder to Labour's leaders that, under the Tories, millions of people have been abandoned by capitalism and eke out a subsistence in the nightmare world of pitiful social security payments, a collapsing National Health Service and Dickensian housing conditions. It is a far cry from the red rose logos and star studded efforts to capture the mythical middle ground, that seemed to preoccupy the leading representatives of the working class during the election.

Malcolm

Malcolm Wicks is Director of the

The Widening

Poor Today

Published by the Labour

Research Department, 1987,

£1.10.

THE NIGHTMARE of Tory Britain for millions of people is graphically illustrated by the facts, figures and examples contained in this pamphlet. It shows how the rich have benefited from Tory policies, while the poor have got poorer.

For example, in 1983, almost 9 million people were living on or below "supplementary benefit" level. In 1986, this had grown to 10.43 million, a 17 per cent increase since 1983.

Pensioners have been particularly hit by Tory cuts. Before 1979, pensions were increased according to the rise in prices or earnings, whichever was the higher. The Tories broke that link, and a single pensioner has lost £1,249.60 because of this change. A married couple have lost £1,960.20.

This pamphlet shows how employment has fallen, and which areas of the country have been hardest hit. For example, in Wales from 1979 to 1986, there was a 17 per cent fall in people in employment. In the South East, the figure was 2 per cent. Only one area, East Anglia, showed a growth in employment.

The judiciary, the Tory party and the top echelons of the civil service are still dominated by Oxbridge and the public schools. 80 per cent of High Court judges went to Oxbridge, as did 48 per cent of Conservative MPs and 66 per cent of top civil servants.

The collapse 46

public

Family Policy Studies Centre and was Labour's candidate for Croydon North West. Therefore, not surprisingly, his book is packed with illuminating statistics showing how the gap between rich and poor has widened into a chasm since 1979.

However, while the book is substantial in content it is very thin on conclusions. The author pays lip service to Labour's founding socialist principles, saying "a future Labour administration must never forget that its purpose is not to manage the existing order of society more efficiently than its political rivals, but rather to transform society." Yet Malcolm Wicks fails to grasp the nettle and make the connection between a socialist economic programme and a social policy. Because of this the reader will probably feel frustrated by its lack of firm solutions. Instead the author makes vague references to the need for an imaginative programme and the value of capturing

building programme has condemned millions to continue to live in overcrowded squalor: In 1975, 173,800 were started. In 1985, the total had fallen to 33,600.

The information on racialism, the courts and share ownership provided by the pamphlet are all equally valuable in condemning Tory policies.

However, the pamphlet does not cover the ownership of industry, and the control by the monopolies of British capitalism. Not does it offer any alter-

The Nature and Capitalism. By Heilbroner. Publish ton, 1985 £7.95.

Logic of

Robert

by Nor-

ed

Robert Heilbroner is a Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research, in New York, well known as being 'radical' by American standards for a university lecturer. He has written a number of books on economics and history which certainly take a 'radical' view. But is he a Marxist?

In opening this latest relatively short book which attempts to answer the question: what is capitalism, Heilbroner asks himself the personal question: is he a Marxist, ie. does he view modern capitalist economies in the same way as Marx?

He answers: "1 am myself at a loss to give a clearcut answer to the question" (p9), and unfortunately Heilbroner's mixture of the views of Marx, Keynes, and above all Schumpeter (an Austrian economist) does not allow him to give a clearcut answer to his other question: what is capitalism?

hearts and minds.

A Future for All may serve as a useful handbook for labour movement activists in exposing the record and ideology of the Thatcher government, but it does not explain why the attacks on the welfare state have taken place, but puts them down to a rennaisance of ideas in the Tory Party. Malcolm Wicks does not appear to understand that their basis lies in an ailing economic system and therefore, more importantly, he does not put forward any concrete programme for the future. This is an informative book, but what the labour movement is lacking is not information but the programme and political will to overcome all obstacles and transform society. If this issue is not addressed then this book may join too many others as simply dust-gathering literary monuments to the Thatcher years.

By Frances Walsh

native political programme or analyse the causes of the crisis of British capitalism; and the reasons for the monetarist policies introduced by the Tories.

Despite these omissions, The Widening Gap provides a wealth of agitational material invaluable for Marxists in explaining the crisis of capitalism. At £1.10 it is excellent value.

By Peter Lush

Heilbroner agonises long and hard, sweeping across a host of ideas and situations, without making it easy for the reader to see where he is travelling to. Nevertheless, on the way, we do gain some perceptive insights into the nature of capitalism.

For Heilbroner, capitalism is the 'regime of capital, and the single most important element in capitalism is the way in which the wealth produced by human beings is extracted ie in the form of capital, following Marx's famous formula M-C-M' or M-C-C'-M'. That formula demonstrates that under capital, production is not begun to make things people need, ie what Marx called production of use values. Production under capital is investment of capital in the form of money (M) in commodities of labour power and machinery and raw materials (C) in order to create more commodities with greater value (C) which can be sold for more money than originally invested (M'). That is the unique feature of capitalism. Money to produce more money, not production for human need.

As Heilbroner shows, capital the worker who

under modern produces the

[page 46]

wealth does not own it, but neither do the managers or even any one shareholder in the company that employs the workers and managers. The owner of the commodities is 'the company'. Capital has become totally impersonal in the way it appears to human beings.

Heilbroner makes many sweeping assertions about capitalism which are hard to accept. For him the key tendency in capitalism is the growing role of the state in maintaining and underpinning the infrastructure of capital enabling it to have a new lease of life, particularly since 1945. He marvels at the force of the boom since 1945. In the two centuries since 1776, the volume of world industrial production increased by over 500 times, and two thirds of this increase was between 1948 and 1971.

But was this growth really due to the

power of state intervention and Keynesianism as Heilbroner seems to suggest? As the MIR in many previous issues has argued, there are other reasons for the postwar economic boom related to the very accumulation process under capitalism, rather than Keynesian state intervention.

Gradualism

And there is certainly reason to expect that the very factors of high profitability, expanding world trade, new technology and a surfeit of money capital, will and have already begun to turn into their opposite as capitalist accumulation meets its final barrier-capital itself (as Marx put it and as Heilbroner refers to himself.

For Heilbroner, the Marxist economic law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is something he cannot grasp (he sees it as a long-term secular decline theory rather than as an expression of the crisis in the cycle of capitalist accumulation pl44). As a result, he still thinks the capitalist system of production could take the world's productive forces forward. For Heilbroner "the trend of capitalist society lies in the increased marshalling and deployment of the powers of the state, initially in support of the existing general structure of accumulation, later possibly as the vehicle by which the first tentative efforts may be made to go beyond that regime into another" p201. In other words state intervention could eventually lead to a gradual change of capitalism into..."a new, more 'constitutional' regime of democratic socialism'" p203. After all, he says, there has been a "dramatic long-term trend toward social democratic governments" p204.

This naive "gradualism" is nothing new- we used to hear it every day from Labour leaders espousing the social systems of Sweden or Austria as the social

democratic way forward. It never was convincing, and even less so now as one social democratic government after another finds itself in crisis as it fails to manage capitalism in crisis.

So it is surprising that Heilbroner should advocate a future of gradual movement to 'social democracy' today, as the spectre of economic slump and political class struggle yawns before most

activists in the international labour movement. But then Heilbroner's perspective is wrapped 'in a miasma of uncertainty' as he puts it—and perhaps that is not too surprising from an economics professor living in the USA.

By Bob Mckee

All - Do we need a welfare state?, by Malcolm Wicks, (reviewed above); Choose Freedom - The Future of Democratic Socialism, written by Roy Hattersley before the election; A Spy's Revenge by Richard Hall, an account of the Sydney Court case brought by the Tories to stop the publication of Peter Wright's memoirs; Acid Rain by Fred Pearce, which will be discussed in the Science and Socialism section of a future edition of the MIR; and Prospectus for « habitable Planet, edited by Dan Smith and EP Thompson - all priced at £3-95.

Edward Elgar have published The Economic Revival of Modern Britain: the debate between left and right at f9-95. Edited by Leeds University lecturers David Coates and John Hillard, it is a collection of articles and statements by politicians and 'experts' on various solutions to regenerate the British economy - a follow-up to an earlier collection which apparently aimed to examine the reasons for the long-term decline of British capitalism. Tories, Liberals, Social Democrats, Labour right and left-all views are represented, except those of Marxism. David Coates' timid 'critical' final essay is no substitute.

Similarly, Berg's Hitler and the collapse of Weimar Germany, £5.95 by Martin Broszat, while containing many interesting bits of information, for example, on the Nazis and their relations with the traditional capitalist parties and big business, falls down in clear explanation and analysis. Broszat rejects the academic "theory' that the rise of fascism can be explained by a totalitarian streak in German philosophy but he finds no alternative. For that it would be necessary to look at how the German workers were failed by their leaders from the defeats of 1918-19 and 1923 to 1933. This book should be treated like a curates egg: use the good parts only.

By Bob McKee

Booknotes

IF YOU can imagine the editor of Face and a contributor to Time Out writing a book on British Marxism, then you would not have high hopes of a worthwhile book on the subject. And that is certainly the case with Marxist in the USA: 1870 to toduy, published by Verso at £8-95, and written by Paul Buhle who is the editor of Radical America and a contributor to Village Voice in New York. This book, one of the titles received this quarter for review by the Militant International Review, is just plain bad: ignorant of the theory ot Marxism, rambling in its coverage of history, it is pretentious in style and concludes that 'proletarian class struggle is an outdated fundamental of Marxism'. Need we say more!

A far better book is The Crisis of Keynesian Economics by Geoffrey Pilling, published by Croom Helm, a well written critique of Keynesianism and modern economics. It is particularly effective in demolishing the arguments of pseudo-Marxist variants of Keynesianism like Joan Robinson and the 'permanent arms economy' theorists. However it does not develop all the points that could be made in a Marxist explanation of the crisis in world capitalism and the failure of Keynesianism. At £19-95 it should only be ordered from a library not a bookshop.

Also from Croom Helm our review office has recieved The Politics of Public Expenditure by Maurice Mullard; a compilation of essays edited by Jesmond Blumenfeld entitled South Africa in Crisis, published by Croom Helm for the Royal Institute of International Affairs; Political change in Greece - before and after the Colonels, edited by K.Featherstone and DK Katsoudas; and an interesting but again unfortunately expensive book, The Flight of International Capital - A Contemporary History, by Brendan Brown.

From Penguin has come A Future For

[page 47]

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