By August Nimtz
2019 Haymarket Books
Reviewed by Steve Halpern
For quite a while millions of people from all over the world have asked the question: How can we begin to resolve the enormous problems we all face?
Every year, the press implores us to vote for political candidates who routinely fail to make any meaningful change in our lives. We have seen the massive demonstrations against police brutality all over the world, as well as the massive demonstrations in the Arabic world known as the Arab Spring. Yet while there have been a few changes, we continue to confront enormous challenges. In the United States there are about 42 million people who don’t have enough food to eat, while there are three people who personally own $300 billion in assets.
In his book, The Ballot or the Streets or Both, August Nimtz gives us a history of how three revolutionaries worked against seemingly impossible odds to create a movement that continues to be relevant today. Those three revolutionaries are Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
Marx and Engels
When many people think of the names Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, they think of two authors who wrote a comprehensive critical analysis of the capitalist system. Many are also aware that Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto. This pamphlet is a brief summary of how and why workers throughout the world have an interest in overthrowing the capitalist system and rebuilding the world on “new foundations.”
The Communist Manifesto was written in the year 1848. This was the year that revolutions were erupting in Europe. By the year 1850 Marx and Engels wrote about the lessons of those years to the Communist League. That speech by Marx and Engels written in 1850 is included in an appendix to this book.
We might consider that in the year 1850 much of Europe was ruled by feudal monarchs. So, Marx and Engels formed alliances with liberals who favored capitalist relations and an end to feudalism. However, they also argued that once capitalist relations became the norm, then it was absolutely necessary for working class parties to maintain complete independence from those supported capitalism.
By the time of the Civil War in the United States, Marx understood that the war to abolish slavery would be one of the most important events of his life. He postponed his writing of his three volumes of Capital so he could focus his attention on propagandizing in support of the Union army within Briton where he was living at that time.
Marx supported the war against the slave owners to end the horrors of slavery. He also felt that the interests of the working class would be compromised as long as chattel slavery continued. However, Marx argued that the working class could only achieve full liberation with a proletarian revolution.
Marx believed that while capitalism is an advance over feudalism, capitalism came into the world oozing from every pore with blood and dirt. Today we see the legacy of that birth when we go to work and follow the commands of employers, so they can maximize profits on their investments. So, while media pundits argue that we live in a democracy, in our day to day lives we see how this country is run by a tiny minority that has absolute control over the productive forces.
So, in their 1850 speech to the Communist League, Marx and Engels argued that the liberation of the working class would not come about because of decisions made by a capitalist parliament, or congress. Because the capitalist government will only support a minority of the population, the only way to establish genuine democracy is to arm the working class.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
During the past fifty years, I’ve attended many demonstrations in support of workers rights with respect to numerous issues. In one of those demonstrations, we were teargassed by the police, but no one lost their lives in those demonstrations. I should also mention that in the demonstrations against the war in Vietnam several people were murdered by the national guard and police agencies.
In the year 1905 there were demonstrations in the then Russian capital of Saint Petersburg demanding basic reforms. Mounted Cossacks attacked one of those demonstrations and murdered hundreds of the participants. This was an example of how Tzarist Russia was a place where absolute power by a feudal monarch was the norm.
However, the Tzar knew that when masses of people mobilized, they indeed had the potential to remove monarchs from power. Several feudal monarchs had been executed. So, as a result of the 1904 and 1905 rebellions, the Tzar allowed for an elected parliamentary congress known as the Duma.
Today we are all faced with a barrage of information about the elections. Clearly the right to vote was established with the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The government enacted this law because of the pressure of the civil rights movement. However, we can also say that while capitalist politicians implore us to vote for them, no significant changes happen because one or another candidate is elected to office.
For those reasons, there were many revolutionaries who opposed participating in the elections to the Duma. Lenin argued against this point of view and eventually won support from his comrades.
Clearly those who supported the Bolsheviks in the Duma were a small minority. However, by participating in the Duma large sections of the entire population began to appreciate the political orientation of the Bolsheviks.
That orientation demanded land for the majority of the Russian population who were peasants. When Russia entered the First World War, the Bolsheviks argued for no support for that war. The Bolsheviks also argued that the workers counsels known as the Soviets were better representatives of the workers and peasants’ interests than the Duma.
In advancing this perspective, Lenin learned something interesting. In those years, a fascist organization known as the Black Hundreds had their representatives in the Duma. The Black Hundreds carried out raids in the Jewish communities where they would murder hundreds or thousands. These raids were similar to the raids by the Ku Klux Klan in the Black communities in this country.
What Lenin discovered is that many people who agreed with the Bolsheviks with abandoned their working class orientation because they feared political victories by the Black Hundreds. Lenin argued that ultimately the only way to defeat the Black Hundreds would be by mobilizing the working class in an armed struggle to defend their rights.
Because Russia at that time was a monarchy, the Tzar had the power to dissolve the Duma and he did this several times. However, the Bolsheviks continued to advance a perspective aimed at establishing a worker’s government.
By the year 1917, a revolution forced the Tzar out of power. A provisional government took power. August Nimtz makes a convincing argument that Lenin’s electoral strategy was one of the necessary factors that prepared the Bolsheviks to take power.
Another important initiative was the fact that the Bolsheviks formed Soviets within the military. At that time, the Russian armed forces lacked necessary supplies and had no hope in defeating Germany. In all, millions of Russian soldiers would die in World War I. Under those conditions many soldiers were attracted to the Bolshevik demand to end the war. That demand was included in the slogan Peace, Bread, and Land.
So, by October of 1917, the masses of Russia’s population began to see that the only way out of the morass they experienced was to either support the Bolsheviks, or not to resist their coming to power. Because of this support as well as the support of large sections of the military, the October 1917 Russian Revolution had very few casualties.
Upon the Bolshevik victory, the demands of peace, bread, and land became the top priority of the government. A peace treaty was negotiated with Germany. Peasants received titles to land they worked. The government took extraordinary measures to ensure that everyone had access to food. So, while Russia experienced many hardships, including a Civil War supported by 14 nations, the Bolsheviks gained the popularity of the people.
However, the new Soviet Union was impoverished and isolated in the world. This led to the rise of Joseph Stalin who organized to betray the Russian Revolution. Literally all the leading members of the Bolsheviks were murdered because of the Stalinist purges.
Conclusion
Today, there are many people in this country who favor increased government regulations with respect to the ownership of guns. Clearly many people lost their lives because of murders that take place in this country.
However, there is another issue that the press rarely reports on. That is the fact that there are about forty-two million people in this country who don’t have enough food to eat. Yet, there are also three individuals who own $300 billion in assets.
Clearly there are many differences between the reality in this country today and the reality the Russian people faced in the year 1917. However, in both cases a tiny minority controlled and continues to control the politics and economics of Russia before the revolution, and the United States today.
Today we also see the profound instability of capitalism. In the years 2008 and 2020 millions of workers lost their jobs and homes. Anyone who sees this history, as well as the profound instability we all face today, will anticipate more profound crisis.
This means that increasing numbers of people will begin to organize to put in place a government that makes rational and necessary changes. As August Nimtz argued, this will require replacing all departments of the government, as well as the banks and corporations, as well as the news media. It will require the educational system to teach students that human needs are more important than the drive to maximize corporate profits.
As Malcolm X argued, this struggle will be waged by “any means necessary.”
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