History of the Russian Revolution—Volume 1

 

By Leon Trotsky

Published by Haymarket Books

Reviewed by Steven Halpern

I’ve read many books about the history of the world. In my opinion, Leon Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution is not only unique, but highly relevant to the politics of the world today. Why do I say this?

Trotsky was not someone who merely studied Russian history. He was a central leader of the Revolution and dedicated his life to the liberation of the working class. So, why was Trotsky’s analysis so different from the methods used by prominent historians?

Anyone who experienced the so-called educational system in the United States is familiar with the arguments that system exposes students to. The basic argument is that the United States is a great and democratic nation that is unique in the world. Yes, there were some bumps in the road, but the greatness of this country has overcome whatever problems there might have been in the past.

Then, there is the book Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen. This book demystified most of those arguments. The authors Howard Zinn and Adam Hochschild are two authors who also demystified the history of this country. However, Leon Trotsky looked at history from a different perspective.

For Trotsky, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels were pioneers of a movement that analyzed the capitalist system and worked to advance a movement to liberate humanity from the ravages of capitalist exploitation. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin continued the work of Marx and Lenin and was the central leader of the Russian Revolution.

The basic Marxist argument is that the essence of the capitalist system is a conflict between capital and labor. The working class has produced literally every commodity that has ever been produced in the world. Yet, for each and every one of those commodities, capitalists took a share of the wealth that was produced. While the capitalists produce nothing, they are the ones who control the environment workers experience on the job every day. 

I’m writing this blog in October and November is the so-called election time of year. This means that everyone is being barraged with claims by capitalist politicians arguing that they are dedicated to supporting our interests. While they make these nonsensical claims, there are 42 million people in the United States who do not have enough food to eat. Yet, there are four individuals who each own over $100 billion in assets. 

So, while politicians spend a lot of money arguing that they are our friends, in reality their priority is to support the interests of the billionaires who never produce any of the goods and services we need or want. In fact. Every penny of their wealth comes from the labor of workers all over the world.

Leon Trotsky understood this profound contradiction. He wasn’t about merely reporting the events of history. Trotsky took the side of workers, farmers, and soldiers. In his reporting the events of the Russian Revolution, he analyzed what was happening from the perspective of the working class and their allies.

Russia before the Revolution

Trotsky believed that it was essential to understand the peculiarities of the reality of Russia before the Revolution. In the East, Russia was made up of a highly underdeveloped region that was influenced by the Asian monarchies of China and Japan. In the West, Russia was influenced by Europe, and there were highly advanced factories that employed thousands of workers in the cities of St. Petersburg and Moscow. 

This meant that industrial workers were ruled by a feudal monarch known as the tzar. In the year 1905 the contradictions of this system came to a head. Thousands of workers went on strike, and many demonstrated demanding that the tzar make some basic concessions. The tzar responded by calling out the cavalry known as the Cossacks. That military confrontation led to the murder of hundreds or thousands of workers. 

In the United States we haven’t seen that kind of repression. Yes, police have been known to fire tear gas at demonstrators. In the rebellions in the Black community in the 1960s many people were murdered by the National Guard. However, demonstrations erupted protesting the murders of George Floyd and many others by the police. While the police brutally responded to some of those demonstrations, we didn’t see mass murdered as there was in St. Petersburg in 1905.

While we protest abuses by the police today, vicious abuse by the police in tzarist Russia was routine. Members of the secret police known as the Okhrana routinely attended meetings held by people or organizations that protested the rule of the tzar. By merely saying things that might be interpreted as being critical of the tzar, one could be arrested, convicted in a court, and sent to Siberia. Lenin and Trotsky both served time in Siberia because of their political activities.

Farmers known as peasants routinely lived under the thumbs of the landowners. Those landowners disciplined peasants with a whip known as the knout. It was also legal for a landowners to murder peasants.    

These were some of the reasons for the Russian rebellion of 1905. These were also the years of an international crisis for the capitalist system of the world. Just as there was a rebellion in Russia, rebellions also erupted in China, Mexico, and Iran. 

Then, in 1914 the tzar ordered the Russian military to join in the allied powers in the war against Germany and Austria-Hungary in the First World War. Millions of Russian soldiers would be murdered in that war, more than in any other country. The war also caused widespread famine.

This is how Trotsky described the reality faced by those who lived in the Russian cities. “The standard of living of the city masses oscillated between undernourishment and hunger.”

Faced with these conditions, the Czarina Alexandra Feodorovna gave to her husband the Czar Nicholas II the following advice. “Bring your fist down on the table. Be the boss.” “Everything is getting quiet and better, but the people want to feel your hand. How long they have been saying to me, for whole years, ‘Russia loves to feel the whip. That is their nature.’”

Then, after the Russian Revolution erupted in 1917 The Czar was the one who felt the hand of the working class. As he attempted to flee the capital Petrograd, workers express their outrage at his rule and arrested him.

Then, the new Chairman of the Provisional Government Alexander Kerensky, offered to take the Czar to Britain where he would be protected. However, the workers who were guarding the Czar refused to release him. How and why did this profound change take place.

The February Revolution

So, here we can begin to see why there was a profound change in the consciousness of the working class, the peasantry, and the rank-and-file soldiers. In the year 1905, Cossacks murdered hundreds of workers who protested the conditions they faced. That effectively put an end to the 1905 rebellion. This is not what happened in February of 1917 in Petrograd.

Trotsky argued against historians who argued that what happened in February of 1917 was a spontaneous uprising. This is what Trotsky had to say.

“The crowd is not only bitter, but audacious. This is because, in spite of the shooting, it keeps its faith in the army. It counts on victory and intends to have it at any cost.” 

Why did Russian workers have so much faith in the army? This is what Trotsky had to say.

“The authorities said that the revolution intoxicated the soldier. The soldier it seemed, on the contrary, that he was sobering up from the opium of the barracks. Thus, the decisive day was prepared—the 27th of February.” 

Out of this atmosphere Trotsky makes the following conclusion.

“But, out of this complicated web of material and psychic forces, one conclusion emerges with irrefutable clarity: the more the soldiers in their mass are convinced that the rebels are really rebelling—that this is not a demonstration after which they will have to go back to the barracks and report, that this is a struggle to the death, that the people may win if they join them, and this winning will not only guarantee impunity but alleviate the lot of all—the more they realize this, the more they are willing to turn aside their bayonets, or go over with them to the people. In other words, the revolutionists can create a break in the soldiers’ mood only if they themselves are actually ready to seize the victory at any price whatever, even the price of blood.
And this highest determination never can, or will, remain unarmed.”

Dual Power

After the February Revolution removed the Czar from power, the ruling forces in the country were the Soviets (workers’ councils) and the Provisional Government. Several political parties that claimed to have a socialist orientation dominated the Soviet. The Bolsheviks were in a small minority. The Provisional Government was dominated by political parties that supported capitalist interests.

The fundamental problem at this time was that while a revolution had been successful, those forces who had power were determined not to make any fundamental change. The war that cost the lives of millions, continued. Famine continued to be a fact of life. There was no redistribution of the land that the peasants were demanding.

However, the capitalists continued to demand that the provisional government support their interests. In fact, Trotsky quoted a capitalist who had the same perspective as the Czarina. He argued, “only a firm hand can save Russia.”  

Trotsky gave this analysis of the reality of the property owners after the February Revolution. “The property holders, deprived of the possibility of using their property, or protecting it, ceased to be the real property holders and became badly frightened philistines who could not give any support to the government for the simple reason that they needed support themselves. They soon began to curse the government for its weakness, but they were only cursing their own fate.”

While the capitalists were demanding that the Provisional Government defend their interests, workers and farmers were demanding, “Peace, Bread, and Land.” Kerensky, who was one of the leaders of the Provisional Government responded to that reality with the following words. “The policies of the revolutionary government ought never to offend anybody unnecessarily.” 

Lenin returns and transforms the revolution

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was living in Switzerland when the revolution erupted in February of 1917. At this time, Germany was at war with Russia and Lenin along with several of his comrades received permission from the German government to travel through enemy lines and return to their homeland. 

Lenin was welcomed by the workers in Petrograd when he arrived in April of 1917. While his organization, the Bolsheviks, were a relatively small party, the workers of the city gave Lenin a resounding welcome. This was based on the fact that while the Bolsheviks were a small Party, they had a consistent record of support for the workers movement. 

At that time, the Bolsheviks had a position that was similar to the other political parties. They believed that Russia needed to go through a capitalist period before socialism would be a possibility. In fact, the leading Bolsheviks argued for a block with parties like the Mensheviks because they believed that their programs were similar.

On his return to Russia, Lenin argued, “the people will turn their weapons against the capitalist exploiters… The Russian Revolution achieved by you has opened a new epoch. Long live the worldwide socialist revolution!” He also made it clear that he favored an end to the war. 

Stankevich, a supporter of the Provisional Government who listened to Lenin’s speech had this to say. “A man who talks that kind of stupidity is not dangerous. It’s a good thing he has come. Now he is in plain sight…Now he will refute himself.”

Lenin’s ideas were indeed new. Even leading Bolsheviks had been promoting a completely different political course. Many workers who welcomed Lenin would eventually oppose his demand for ending the war. 

Lenin eventually won the Bolsheviks to his political orientation. He argued that what was necessary was to patiently explain. Within just a few months rank and file workers, farmers, and soldiers became ardent defenders of the Bolsheviks. Trotsky summarized this transition with the words, “A revolution teaches, and teaches fast.”

In the following passage Trotsky showed how the Bolsheviks were different from the Mensheviks who claimed to be socialists. “The Bolsheviks took the lead in arresting tzarist officials; The Mensheviks opposed ‘excesses.’ The Bolsheviks energetically undertook the creation of a workers’ militia; the Mensheviks delayed the arming of the workers, not wishing to quarrel with the bourgeoisie.”

Conclusion

These are some the ideas in Trotsky’s first volume of the History of the Russian Revolution. The second and third volumes will concentrate of how the Bolsheviks organized to lead the October 1917 Russian Revolution.

In this first volume there is a considerable amount of information that I believe is relevant to the world today. This book shows how many opponents to the tzar who favored socialism became obstacles to the demands of workers, farmers, and soldiers. 

Today politicians like Bernie Sanders claim to be friends of labor. He has spoken at strikes and demonstrations by workers. 

However, Bernie Sanders is a millionaire, and he didn’t get that money because he is a friend of labor. While he makes statements that appear to be friendly to the aspirations of workers, he never argues for a workers’ government that would work to replace the capitalist system we live with today. The Russian Revolution was a clear example of why that kind of government is necessary.  

Joseph Stalin betrayed the Russian Revolution at a time when that nation was experiencing it most difficult years. Stalin was one of the leaders of the Bolsheviks who favored forming a block with the Mensheviks before Lenin’s return to Petrograd. During the time when Lenin became incapacitated, Stalin continued to support a Menshevik perspective without saying so openly. Eventually he would argue that the thought of Russia supporting the international revolution was “nonsense.” 

Today Vladimir Putin’s horrendous invasion of the Ukraine is just one example of where the politics of Joseph Stalin will lead. Stalin mislead people into believing that he supported the politics of Lenin. Putin makes no such claim and has made it clear that he hates everything Lenin stood for. 

Before I go on to read the second and third volumes of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution, I will be reading Adam Hochschild’s new book American Midnight—The Great War, a violent peace, and democracy’s forgotten crisis. This book looked at the unvarnished history of the United States during the same years as the Russian Revolution. By looking at the information in this book, perhaps I can put the Russian Revolution in a bit of an international perspective.

What’s Going On: Then and Now

 

By Steve Halpern

This December I will be celebrating my 70th Birthday. During my life, I’ve seen many changes in the world. Recently I’ve thought about the difference between the political atmosphere in the 1970s and today. 

I believe that one clear difference comes from the state of the capitalist economy then and now. From the end of the Second World War to the early 1970s, the United States industrial economy dominated the world. Today we see much of the manufacturing in the world has shifted to other nations. In order to think about the dramatic changes that have taken place, I think it is useful to look at the reality of then and now. First, I’ll look at the way things used to be.

1945 - 1971

Labor

During the depression of the 1930s, working people barely had enough of an income to sustain themselves. At that time workers found it difficult to feed their families. They might live in a one or two room cold water flat.

Then in the 1930s Unions started to win important labor battles. After the Second World War hundreds of thousands of workers went on strike. These strikes forced employers to come up with significant concessions. As a result, there was a significant improvement in the standard of living that peaked around the year 1970.

Black liberation

From the years 1877 to the mid-1960s, the United States government effectively denied Black people citizenship rights in this country. The legal basis for this denial of rights was known as Jim Crow segregation. Jim Crow was always a flagrant violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. However, the Supreme Court, as well as the members of the other branches of government violated their Oath of Office by flagrantly violating the Constitution. This indifference to Constitutional law allowed Jim Crow segregation to be a fact of life for decades. 

Then the Black community and their allies made a determined effort to defy the Jim Crow laws. That mass effort effectively forced the government to enact laws that did away with Jim Crow. We should keep in mind that Jim Crow segregation was always a violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.

Vietnam and the world

William Blum wrote a book published in 1995 titled: Killing Hope – U.S. military and CIA interventions since World War II. This book gives a detailed history of all the U.S. interventions in the world after the Second World War. At the end of the book there is a nine-page list that summarized U.S. interventions that took place before the year 1945. 

Recently Democratic Party politicians expressed outrage about the attack on the capitol on January 6, 2021. This outrage stemmed from the idea that the attackers attempted to unseat the elected government. 

However, when we read Blum’s book, we see how the United States government has made it their routine policy of overthrowing elected governments all over the world. We have seen this with the overthrow of Mohammed Mosaddegh in Iran, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, Salvador Allende and Chile, and Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti. 

However, in Vietnam the United States government had a serious problem in their attempt to install a compliant government. President Lyndon Baines Johnson ordered the U.S. Air Force to carry out operation Rolling Thunder. This was a massive bombing campaign aimed at coercing the Vietnamese people to submit to the will of the United States government. 

Then, after the U.S. armed forces had been thoroughly demoralized and defeated, President Nixon ordered the Air Force to carry out the bombing campaigns he called Linebacker I and Linebacker II. These massive bombing raids included targets that were not affected in the Rolling Thunder genocidal mission. Only after millions of people died because of this mass murder, did the United States withdraw their forces from Vietnam. 

However, aside from their defeats in Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba, the United States government was able to install ruthless dictatorships in nations all over the world. For a time, those dictatorships established relative stability.

Women’s liberation

Back in the 1960s women in this country didn’t have many of the rights they have today. Most women worked as secretaries or housekeepers. Women were, for the most part, kept out of many of the occupations they have today. Dress codes prohibiting women from wearing pants were rigidly enforced. Sexual harassment on the job was routine and rarely challenged. 

Then in the year 1971 women demonstrated in cities all over this country. They demanded basic rights they were being denied. Because abortion was illegal, thousands of women died or were mutilated because of unsafe procedures known as back-alley abortions. 

The Supreme Court responded to this movement with their Roe v. Wade decision that gave women a limited right to abortion. We should keep in mind that this decision was not based on an enforcement of the 14th Amendment to the constitution that argued for equal protection under the law. Had that been the case, reversal of Roe v Wade would have required a Constitutional Amendment.

Today

Labor

Since the 1970s much of the manufacturing of the United States has either left the country or was made obsolete by automation. There have been many recent union battles. Two of those battles were at Amazon and Starbucks. Some of the workers at those corporations voted to join unions. However, even after unions won elections, corporate officers refused to negotiate with the elected union representatives. 

In other battles against corporate power, unions have won concessions. However, after about fifty years of a deteriorating standard of living, the percentage of workers who are in unions has significantly decreased.

Black Liberation

Since the overturn of Jim Crow segregation, Michelle Alexander wrote her book The New Jim Crow – Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. This book documents how the prison population has exploded in recent decades. Alexander showed how the Black population in the prison system is grossly disproportionate to the percentage of the Black population in this country.

The world

With the decline of the U.S. economy in the world, there is now a clear state of instability in every area of the planet. There have been uprisings of women in Chile and Iran, of farmers in India, of the residents of Hong Kong, Ukrainians are defending themselves from a Russian invasion.

Today, the United States isn’t the only dominant capitalist power in the world. Just as there was development in this country in the years after the Second World War, today we have seen massive capitalist development in China. In other words, the stability and domination that U.S. capitalism once had in the world is over.

Women’s liberation

Recently the Supreme Court overruled the Roe v. Wade decision. This ruling allows individual states to enact their own laws regulating or outlawing women’s right to abortion. Effectively this ruling prevents many women from having the right to decide if and when they become mothers. In other words, the Supreme Court argued that women do not have the intelligence to make judgements concerning the control over their bodies. The court believes that state government officials should have the power to dictate to women that when they become pregnant, they must give birth whether they like it or not.

We might think about the fact that affluent women will continue to have the right to abortion. They have always had the resources to go to places where they can get a safe abortion. The government is clearly indifferent to this gross discrimination against working class women.

The most affluent 9.9 percent

Matthew Stewart wrote a recent book titled: The 9.9 Percent: The New Aristocracy that is Entrenching Inequality and Warping Our Culture. Stewart gives the statistics showing that the most affluent 9.9 percent of the population of this country owns at least $1.2 million in assets. There are over thirty million people who are in this most affluent 9.9 percent. Although they are under-represented, there are many Black people and Latinos in this group. We might also assume that about half of these people are women.

I believe we can assume that many of these relatively affluent people are opposed to the discrimination against women, Latinos, Blacks, and Native Americans. Many might contribute to causes aimed at preventing the destruction of the environment. 

However, in my opinion most of the affluent people in this group have a fundamental problem. The only way we can do away with poverty, discrimination, and the destruction of the environment will be with a socialist worker’s government. Clearly many in this group are not hostile to the idea of socialism and believe that nations like Sweden are socialist. 

In my opinion, the only way to have genuine socialism is with a dictatorship of the proletariat. The routine functioning of the capitalist system dictates that corporate profits are the top priority. The most affluent 9.9 percent of the population benefits from this state of affairs. With a dictatorship of the proletariat, the priority is no longer profits, but the human needs of people who live all over the world. We can see how people who own enormous amounts of wealth will not be friendly to this idea. 

On the other hand, the working class in this country has seen our standard of living deteriorate during the past fifty years. Our lives have become more and more unstable. So, I believe that the large majority of the population will be friendly to a political orientation arguing for lifetime rights to food, housing, health care, and education. Only a worker’s government has the potential to make that idea a reality.

Education

James Loewen wrote his book Lies My Teacher Told Me. This book documented many of the falsifications contained the American History textbooks that most children are exposed to. So, when we consider this reality, we see how the educational system in the United States has always had severe problems. 

However, President Donald Trump argued that he would end funding to educational systems that exposed students to the ideas of critical race theory. I do not support all the arguments of critical race theory. Clearly there are arguments critical of all versions of history. However, the proponents of critical race theory argue that racist attitudes and discrimination have been a constant in the history of this country. That view, in my opinion, is an accurate assessment of the history of this country. This is the point of view that enrages Donald Trump who wants to make America “great again.”  

While Trump’s ideas about education are repugnant, his liberal critics aren’t any better. Because of automation and the flight of manufacturing out of this country, the workforce is changing. A larger percentage of the workforce has jobs where few skills are required. So, the government has made it a requirement for schools to concentrate their efforts on teaching students to pass basic literacy and math tests. This is a clear change from the past when students at least had an introduction to the arts and sciences.

Today, many students want to do the higher paid skilled jobs. To be qualified for those jobs, parents are paying astronomically expensive tuition fees at private schools. This is just one more example of how there is a growing divide between those who have and those who struggle to survive. 

Conclusion

So, when we look at the contrast between the past and the present, I believe there are similarities and differences. Capitalist politicians have always been hostile to genuine progressive change. However, in the past social movements effectively forced the government to come up with significant concessions. Today the government and corporations are more determined to prevent any kind of progressive change.

This state of affairs is driving people to look for alternatives to capitalism. We have seen this with the massive demonstrations protesting murders by police, support for women’s right to abortion, protests against the destruction of the environment, and in solidarity with the Palestinian people. This sentiment means that more and more people don’t just want the kind of concessions made in the past. Today people are thinking about genuine and fundamental change.