By Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
A review by Steve Halpern
Recently I attended an educational organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation on Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s pamphlet The State and Revolution. While I’ve read this pamphlet before, rereading this today I’ve found to be especially informative. The fact that about forty young people were also inspired to read and discuss this work only added to the experience. So, why is this 100-page pamphlet, written over 100 years ago, relevant to workers around the world today? To answer this question, first, I believe we need a bit of background.
Background to the Russian Revolution
Recently, there have been massive demonstrations protesting murders by the police, as well as the routine racist discrimination of this country. Thinking about that horrendous reality, we might imagine that the reality of Czarist Russia was significantly worse.
Russia was ruled by a feudal monarch known as the Czar. While in the United States there is the racist and terrorist outfit called the Ku Klux Klan, in Czarist Russia there were the Black Hundreds. The Black Hundreds organized raids into the Jewish communities where they murdered literally thousands. The Czar openly supported those raids that Jewish people called pogroms.
However, the Jewish community was only one of many nationalities in Russia that were routinely brutalized. That discrimination was also openly supported the Czar. Lenin understood that the only way his organization, known as the Bolsheviks, would ever have a chance of taking power was to support the unconditional liberation of all those oppressed nationalities. This is why the new nation established after the revolution was named the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
In fact, I happen to be Jewish and three out of four of my grandparents came to this country to escape the repression of czarist Russia. My grandparents were joined by literally millions who left Russia for similar reasons. Even Karl Marx recognized that czarist Russia was the most repressive regime in Europe.
Just as the Jewish community was brutalized, Russian peasants and workers suffered similar conditions. Russian landlords used a whip known as the knout to beat peasants whenever they felt like it. It was only a few decades before the revolution that peasants gained the right to travel to the cities and find work.
In those cities, thousands of workers toiled in huge factories for perhaps twelve hours per day. Mothers needed to keep their children in these factories while they worked. As a result, infants died under those horrendous conditions.
The police had the absolute right to beat, rape, and even murder whomever they chose to. Resistance to the police was met with prison sentences. We might also consider that the Chinese and Cuban people experienced similar conditions before the revolutions in those countries.
Then, there was the secret police organization known as the Okhrana. All the organizations who opposed the rule of the Czar knew that members of the Okhrana attended their meetings. So, members of those organizations developed a code language, so as not to be accused of opposition to the czar.
In fact, Lenin was arrested and exiled to Siberia for attending a meeting the authorities didn’t approve of. Lenin was one of many of the opponents to the Czar who escaped Siberia and lived in Europe. Even in Europe these revolutionaries had a difficult time because they continued to be hounded by the Okhrana.
Because workers didn’t have a government that even pretended to support their interests, they organized union federations or councils known as the Soviets. So, when a worker might be unjustifiably arrested, the Soviets would organize a political strike demanding his or her freedom. Political strikes were very rare in the history of the labor movement in the United States.
Lenin’s brother, Alexander Ulyanov, felt that the only way to effectively respond to these conditions was to participate in a plot to murder the czar. In a failed attempt, Alexander was arrested and executed because he refused to inform on his associates. Many workers who met Lenin felt that his brother attempt to murder the czar was indeed justified.
My opinion is that the example of Alexander Ulyanov had a profound influence on Lenin’s life. Lenin loved his brother, but understood that assassinating the czar would change nothing for workers and peasants. Lenin’s father was a leading educator in Russia. Lenin and his brother were both diligent students. For these reasons, Lenin became obsessed with advancing a political course that had the potential of liberating everyone who lived in Russia.
This background explains why Lenin broke from people who had worked with for several years, and organized the political party known as the Bolsheviks. Lenin argued that only a democratic centralized organization had any chance of effectively combatting the repression of the czar. The Bolsheviks held national meetings where a political line would be decided in a democratic discussion. However, after that line was voted on, all members needed to advance that political course. Lenin wrote about these ideas in his pamphlet What is to be Done?
The Mensheviks argued for a more decentralized organization where individual members would be able to advance whatever political orientation. The organization, Democratic Socialists of America, has a similar political outlook today.
The First World War and the Revolution
During the early years of the twentieth century, the British imperialist domination of the world was in a state of decline. There was the 1905 Revolution in Russia, as well as revolutions in Mexico, China, and Iran. Both Germany and the United States were the rising capitalist powers attempting to replace Britain as the world’s superpower. These were some of the conflicting interests that led to the deaths of about eleven million soldiers during the First World War. Most of the casualties were of soldiers who fought for czarist Russia.
As a result, the Russian people who lived in a nation that used to have plentiful supplies of food, began to experience famine. Babies died because mothers didn’t have enough food, and breast-feeding their children became impossible. Literally everyone experienced the horrors of that war in one way or another.
So, in February of 1917, workers in all the large Russian cities went on strike. In the past, the mounted soldiers, known as the Cossacks, attacked and murdered many who opposed the rule of the czar. However, in 1917 even the Cossacks became enraged by the reality they faced and refused to attack the protesters. As a result, the czar was deposed, and a new provisional government came to power.
At this time, Lenin learned that many people he worked with in the past became supporters of Germany in the war. Others who he worked with became supporters of the Russian military effort. Lenin had a consistent position that supported the interests of workers all over the world. This position prompted Lenin to advance the demands of Peace, Bread, and Land.
Because the people who dominated the Provisional Government supported capitalism, they refused to support those demands. As a result, the Provisional Government accused many Bolshevik leaders of treason and issued warrants for their arrest.
We might keep in mind, that before the Russian revolutions of 1917, Lenin and the Bolsheviks believed that Czarist Russia needed to go through a stage of capitalism before a socialist government would be possible. When Lenin looked at the reality of 1917, he began to realize that the Bolsheviks would need to take power. Failing to do this would mean there would be no significant change in the horrendous conditions the Russian people faced. So, the Bolsheviks demanded, “All power to the Soviets.”
At this point, I believe there is a legitimate question to be asked. In the year 1917, Russia experienced a profound crisis. All the Bolsheviks were demanding was Peace, Bread, and Land. So, since the Provisional Government was made up of people who considered themselves socialists, why did these modest demands appear to be treasonous?
I don’t have a good answer to that question. However, part of that answer might be found in Lenin’s pamphlet The State and Revolution. Lenin took many of the ideas of this pamphlet from Frederick Engels book Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. In this book, Engels looked at the societies that existed before capitalism. Then, he showed how the family, private property, and the state changed or originated with the emergence of capitalism.
With capitalism, the masses of workers began to be paid with wages. The craft guilds of the past were transformed into large scale factories dedicated to mass production for profit. However, from its very beginning, there was a severe problem.
Capitalists forced workers to toil in horrendous conditions for a meager wage, so they might gouge out super-profits. They would eventually call this system, free enterprise.
So, if we can imagine that there was no government or news media, there would only be capitalists and workers. Under those imaginary conditions, workers would eventually see there was something profoundly wrong. It wouldn’t be too difficult for the masses of workers to expropriate the capitalists, who are only a tiny minority of society.
If we consider what that reality might have been, we can also imagine why capitalists have an absolute need for the government, the police, the armed forces, and the press. This is why Lenin quoted Engels’ statement that capitalists use the government as an “instrument of repression.” So, while the news media and government officials argue that we live in a democracy, workers routinely experience a completely different reality.
When we go to work, we see the, “do it their way or hit the highway” kind of democracy. We see an environment where workers have absolutely no control over the enormous amount of wealth that we produce. We do have the right to pull levers in a voting booth one day per year. However, the news media routinely ignores candidates that are opposed to the capitalist system. So, the so-called elections are, in essence, about what politician will organize a support committee that was created to legitimize the theft of the enormous amounts of wealth that workers produce.
When I attended public school in Newark, New Jersey, my experience was like the experience of many students in this country. I usually found the lessons to be boring because those lessons didn’t appear to be relevant to my experience.
In the summer before I attended high school in 1967, the rebellions erupted in Newark. Black people became enraged by both the routine police brutality, and the indifference of the city government to routine racial discrimination. The governor ordered the National Guard to invade the city and they murdered about 21 people. We might call the invasions of Newark and many other cities by the National Guard to be pogroms.
However, at the beginning of each school day my teachers asked me to stand up, place my hand on my heart, and pledge allegiance to a flag they claimed represented “liberty and justice for all.” That wasn’t all they asked me to do. At times they asked all the students to sing the National Anthem that was written by the slave owner, Francis Scott Key. Some of the words to that anthem argued that we lived in, “the land of the free, and the home of the brave.”
While I was pledging allegiance to that flag and singing the National Anthem, the United States government was ordering young soldiers to carry out a war against Vietnam. That war cost the lives of literally millions. Perhaps we might argue that this is how the government works as an “instrument of repression.”
Lenin argued that the repressive nature of the state would not vanish with a proletarian revolution. However, while under capitalism the state is used to repress the working class, a worker’s government would actively repress capitalist interests, so the needs of workers would take priority over the capitalist drive to maximize profits.
Lenin understood that this point of view would be highly controversial. Aside from government officials and corporate officers, there are large numbers of people who spend their lives defending capitalist property relations. These include journalists, corporate lawyers, small business owners, as well as the police. A worker’s government would organize all large enterprises based on a plan where human needs and not corporate profit was the priority.
Because of the controversy around this idea, Lenin pointed to the early years of capitalism. Capitalism came into existence through revolutions. The French queen Marie Antoinette said that starving French workers should “eat cake,” while she lived in opulence. The revolutionaries who did away with the French monarchy, put Antoinette on trial. She was convicted and executed by means of the guillotine. Antoinette was not executed by communists, but by the pioneers of capitalism in France.
After the Cuban Revolution, the United States declared a trade embargo against that nation. Cuba then established trading relations with the Soviet Union. Ernesto Che Guevara asked executives from the oil company Esso (now Exxon) to refine Soviet oil at their refinery in Cuba. Those executives refused to refine that oil, so the Cuban government confiscated the Esso refinery.
Fidel Castro gave a speech where he argued that the United States government had carried out a similar confiscation in their history. After the revolution of the thirteen colonies, there were thousands of Tories who were loyal to the British and owned large tracts of land. Because of their loyalty to the British, the Tories left, and many went to Canada. The United States government confiscated the land that the Tories left behind.
After the Russian Revolution, there were employers who weren’t paying workers their Christmas bonus. When this happens in a capitalist country, a union might file a grievance and negotiate with the company. However, since there was a worker’s government in the Soviet Union, this situation was handled differently.
A Bolshevik leader informed the owners of this factory, that if they didn’t come up with the money for the Christmas bonus, they would be on a train the following day. That train would take the owners to a mine where they would be shoveling coal. The owners then found a way to come up with the money for the Christmas bonus. Lenin liked that story.
The Russian Revolution proved conclusively that workers have the potential to organize society. Since the workers and farmers produce all wealth, we are clearly capable of organizing society to advance our interests.
So, when we think of the billionaire, Jeffrey Bezos, who owns the Amazon corporation, we might ask the following question. How does society benefit from allowing Bezos to have literally $200 billion in assets? But a better question is: Why does humanity need capitalists as all?
Clearly there were a lot of problems with the American Revolution. Most Black people and Native Americans fought with the British against the Revolution because they understood that a revolutionary government would be even more hostile to their interests. However, after the Revolution, no group of people favored going back to British rule.
Today, after 244 years of history of this country, a slogan has been raised that galvanized demonstrations for 100 strait days. The demand is, BLACK LIVES MATTER. Thinking about that slogan, as well as Lenin’s pamphlet, we can make a simple statement. The only lives that matter to the United States government are the lives of capitalists. Government officials routinely give unlimited financial support to capitalists, and support their interests on literally every issue.
Black people have experienced routine racial discrimination for the entire history of this country. The brutality of the government against Black people went from chattel slavery, to Jim Crow segregation, to the Ku Klux Klan murder of thousands, to the police murder of thousands, to the system of mass incarceration. The government carried out those horrors while they claimed this is the “land of the free and the home of the brave.”
On the other hand, Malcolm X once argued that, “Either we will all be free, or no one will be free.” That sentiment is similar to Lenin’s argument that the Russian Revolution would have no chance of victory unless the Bolsheviks supported the unconditional liberation of all oppressed nationalities. This is why the revolutionary government named the new nation the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The difference between these two political systems couldn’t be more profound.
Cuba and the possibilities of a workers’ government
I had the opportunity of being in Havana, Cuba on May 1 in 2017 and 2019. I witnessed over one million Cubans enthusiastically celebrating their government. My opinion is that the reason for this enthusiastic support has something to do with the fact that the Cuban government has done everything in its power to support the interests of each and every person living on the island.
Today, the nations of Sweden and Cuba have roughly the same populations. While Swedish government officials claim to be socialist, the facts are that there are many large and sophisticated capitalist corporations in that country. I’m sure that there are Swedish doctors that are competent in many areas.
Cuba is a nation that has much fewer material resources than Sweden. Yet, Cuba has more doctors. Cuban health care workers have visited literally every Cuban. Cuban doctors have visited literally every Cuban to establish if they have symptoms of COVID-19. Cuban scientists developed a drug that prevents COVID-19 patients from getting the potentially fatal disease of pneumonia. So, while Cuba has fewer resources than Sweden, Sweden has had over 5,000 COVID-19 deaths, while Cuba has had 102. The United States has an even higher percentage of pandemic related deaths than Sweden.
These facts only give us a glimmer of what might be possible if there was a workers’ government in this country. Banks, insurance companies, advertising agencies, corporate law firms, as well as corporations would be seen as unnecessary. There would be a government that would make it their top priority to ensure everyone has the things we need for our entire lives. These would include, food, clothing, housing, education, health care, transportation, communication, and exposure to music, art, theater, film, dancing, sports, and recreation. This would mean that people could retire at a much earlier age and live more rewarding lives.
When we see the accomplishments of Cuba with respect to the pandemic, we can only imagine what nations like the United States would be able to do to combat this dreaded disease. Everyone would be tested on a regular basis. Workers wouldn’t be coerced to go to jobs because of financial necessity. Workers would provide essential services because they have an interest in serving humanity. The government would enforce rigorous standards to ensure that the work environment is safe. Resources would also be made available to ensure that everyone had access to both education and health care.
Clearly there are governments in the world that had socialist revolutions and have also had enormous problems. Those issues can be discussed at another time. Today, the nation of Cuba gives us clear evidence that a better world is possible.
