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An Anarchist FAQ - Was there a real alternative to Kronstadt's "third revolution"?
Another Trotskyist argument against Kronstadt and in favour of the Bolshevik repression is related to the country was exhausted argument we discussed in the last section. It finds its clearest expression in Victor Serge's argument:
"the country was exhausted, and production practically at a standstill; there was no reserves of any kind, not even reserves of stamina in the hearts of the masses. The working-class elite that had been moulded in the struggle against the old regime was literally decimated. The Party, swollen by the influx of power-seekers, inspired little confidence . . . Soviet democracy lacked leadership, institutions and inspiration . . . "The popular counter-revolution translated the demand for freely-elected soviets into one for 'Soviets without Communists.' If the Bolshevik dictatorship fell, it was only a short step to chaos, and through chaos to a peasant rising, the massacre of the Communists, the return of the emigres, and in the end, through the sheer force of events, another dictatorship, this time anti-proletarian." [Memoirs of a Revolutionary, pp. 128-9]
Serge supported the Bolsheviks, considering them as the only possible means of defending the revolution. Some modern day Leninists follow this line of reasoning and want us to believe that the Bolsheviks were defending the remaining gains of the revolution. What gains, exactly? The only gains that remained were Bolshevik power and nationalised industry -- both of which excluded the real gains of the Russian Revolution (namely soviet power, the right to independent unions and to strike, freedom of assembly, association and speech for working people, the beginnings of workers' self-management of production and so on). Indeed, both "gains" were the basis for the Stalinist bureaucracy's power.
Anarchists and libertarian Marxists who defend the Kronstadt revolt and oppose the actions of the Bolsheviks are not foolish enough to argue that Kronstadt's "third revolution" would have definitely succeeded. Every revolution is a gamble and may fail. As Ante Ciliga correctly argues:
"Let us consider, finally, one last accusation which is commonly circulated: that action such as that at Kronstadt could have indirectly let loose the forces of the counter-revolution. It is possible indeed that even by placing itself on a footing of workers' democracy the revolution might have been overthrown; but what is certain is that it has perished, and that it has perished on account of the policy of its leaders. The repression of Kronstadt, the suppression of the democracy of workers and soviets by the Russian Communist party, the elimination of the proletariat from the management of industry, and the introduction of the NEP, already signified the death of the Revolution." [Op. Cit., p. 335]
No revolution is guaranteed to succeed. The same with Kronstadt's "Third Revolution." Its call for soviet power may have lead to defeat via renewed intervention. That is possible -- just as it was possible in 1917. One thing is sure, by maintaining the Bolshevik dictatorship the Russian Revolution was crushed.
The only alternative to the "third revolution" would have been self-reform of the party dictatorship and, therefore, of the soviet state. Such an attempt was made after 1923 by the Left Opposition (named "Trotskyist" by the Stalinists because Trotsky was its main leader). John Rees discusses the Left Opposition, arguing that "without a revival of struggle in Russia or successful revolution elsewhere" it "was doomed to failure." [Op. Cit., p. 68] Given the logic of Serge's arguments, this is the only option left for Leninists.
How viable was this alternative? Could the soviet dictatorship reform itself? Was soviet democracy more of a danger than the uncontrolled dictatorship of a party within a state marked by already serious levels of corruption, bureaucracy and despotism? History provides the answer with the rise of Stalin.
Unfortunately for the Left Opposition, the bureaucracy had gained experience in repressing struggle in breaking the wave of strikes in 1921 and crushing the Kronstadt rebellion. Indeed, Rees incredulously notes that by 1923 "the well-head of renewal and thorough reform -- the activity of the workers -- had dried to a trickle" and yet does not see that this decline was aided by the example of what had happened to Kronstadt and the repression of the 1921 strike wave. The Left Opposition received the crop that Lenin and Trotsky sowed the seeds of in 1921.
Ironically, Rees argues that the Stalinist bureaucracy could betray the revolution without "an armed counter-revolutionary seizure of power" (and so "no martial law, no curfew or street battles") because of "the atomisation of the working class." However, the atomisation was a product of the armed counter-revolutionary activities of Lenin and Trotsky in 1921 when they broke the strikes and crushed Kronstadt by means of martial law, curfew and street battles. The workers had no interest in which branch of the bureaucracy would govern and exploit them and so remained passive. Rees fails to see that the Stalinist coup simply built upon the initial counter-revolution of Lenin. There was martial law, curfew and street battles but they occurred in 1921, not 1928. The rise of Stalinism was the victory of one side of the new bureaucratic class over another but that class had defeated the working class in March 1921.
As for the idea that an external revolution could have regenerated the Soviet bureaucracy, this too was fundamentally utopian. In the words of Ida Mett:
"Some claim that the Bolsheviks allowed themselves such actions (as the suppression of Kronstadt) in the hope of a forthcoming world revolution, of which they considered themselves the vanguard. But would not a revolution in another country have been influenced by the spirit of the Russian Revolution? When one considers the enormous moral authority of the Russian Revolution throughout the world one may ask oneself whether the deviations of this Revolution would not eventually have left an imprint on other countries. Many historical facts allow such a judgement. One may recognise the impossibility of genuine socialist construction in a single country, yet have doubts as to whether the bureaucratic deformations of the Bolshevik regime would have been straightened out by the winds coming from revolutions in other countries." [Op. Cit., p. 82]
The Bolsheviks had already been manipulating foreign Communist Parties in the interests of their state for a number of years. That is part of the reason why the Left-Communists around Pannekoek and Gorter broke with the Third International later in 1921. Just as the influence of Lenin had been a key factor in fighting the anti-Parliamentarian and libertarian communist tendencies in Communist Parties all across the world, so the example and influence of the Bolsheviks would have made its impact on any foreign revolution. The successful revolutionaries would have applied such "lessons" of October such as the dictatorship of the proletariat being impossible without the dictatorship of the communist party, centralism, militarisation of labour and so on. This would have distorted any revolution from the start (given how obediently the Communist Parties around the world followed the insane policies of Stalinism, can we doubt this conclusion?).
Not that the Left Opposition's political platform could have saved the revolution. After all, it was utopian in that it urged the party and state bureaucracy to reform itself as well as contradictory. It did not get at the root of the problem, namely Bolshevik ideology. The theoretical limitations of the "Left Opposition" can be found in more detail in section 3 of the appendix on "Were any of the Bolshevik oppositions a real alternative?". Here we will restrict ourselves to looking at The Platform of the Opposition written in 1927 (unless otherwise specified all quotes come from this document).
It urged a "consistent development of a workers' democracy in the party, the trade unions, and the soviets" and to "convert the urban soviets into real institutions of proletarian power." It states that "Lenin, as long ago as in the revolution of 1905, advanced the slogan of soviets as organs of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasants." The Kronstadt sailors argued the same, of course, and were branded "White Guardists" and "counter-revolutionary". At the same time as this call for democracy, we find affirmation of the "Leninist principle" ("inviolable for every Bolshevik") that "the dictatorship of the proletariat is and can be realised only through the dictatorship of the party." It repeats the principle by mentioning that "the dictatorship of the proletariat demands a single and united proletarian party as the leader of the working masses and the poor peasantry." It stresses that a "split in our party, the formation of two parties, would represent an enormous danger to the revolution." This was because:
"Nobody who sincerely defends the line of Lenin can entertain the idea of 'two parties' or play with the suggestion of a split. Only those who desire to replace Lenin's course with some other can advocate a split or a movement along the two-party road. "We will fight with all our power against the idea of two parties, because the dictatorship of the proletariat demands as its very core a single proletarian party. It demands a single party. It demands a proletarian party -- that is, a party whose policy is determined by the interests of the proletariat and carried out by a proletarian nucleus. Correction of the line of our party, improvement of its social composition -- that is not the two-party road, but the strengthening and guaranteeing of its unity as a revolutionary party of the proletariat."
We can note, in passing, the interesting notion of party (and so "proletarian" state) policy "determined by the interests of the proletariat and carried out by a proletarian nucleus" but which is not determined by the proletariat itself. Which means that the policy of the "workers' state" must be determined by some other (unspecified) group and not by the workers. What possibility can exist that this other group actually knows what is in the interests of the proletariat? None, of course, as any form of democratic decision can be ignored when those who determine the policy consider the protests of the proletariat to be not "in the interests of the proletariat."
This was the opinion of Trotsky, who argued against the Workers' Opposition faction of the Communist Party who urged re-introducing some elements of democracy at the Tenth Party Conference at the time of the Kronstadt uprising (while, of course, keeping the Communist Party dictatorship intact). As he put it, they "have come out with dangerous slogans. They have made a fetish of democratic principles. They have placed the workers' right to elect representatives above the party. As if the Party were not entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship clashed with the passing moods of the workers' democracy!" He continued by stating that the "Party is obliged to maintain its dictatorship . . . regardless of temporary vacillations even in the working class . . . The dictatorship does not base itself at every moment on the formal principle of a workers' democracy." [quoted by M. Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control, p. 78]
Thus the call for democracy is totally annulled by other arguments in the Platform, arguments which logically eliminates democracy and results in such acts as the repression of Kronstadt (see section 15).
The question, of course, arises as to how democracy can be introduced in the soviets and unions when party dictatorship is essential for the "realisation" of the "proletarian" dictatorship and there can only be one party? What happens if the proletariat vote for someone else (as they did in Kronstadt)? If "proletarian" dictatorship is impossible without the dictatorship of the party then, clearly, proletarian democracy becomes meaningless. All the workers would be allowed to do would be to vote for members of the same party, all of whom would be bound by party discipline to carry out the orders of the party leadership. Power would rest in the party hierarchy and definitively not in the working class, its unions or its soviets (both of which would remain mere fig-leafs for party rule). Ultimately, the only guarantee that the party dictatorship would govern in the interests of the proletariat would be the good intentions of the party. However, being unaccountable to the masses, such a guarantee would be worthless -- as history shows.
Kronstadt is the obvious end result of such politics. The starting point was the disbanding of soviets which had been elected with a majority of "wrong" parties (as the Bolsheviks did in early 1918, before the start of the civil war). While the Platform may be useful as an expression of the usual Leninist double-think on the "workers' state", its practical suggestions are useless. Unlike the Kronstadt Platform, it was doomed to failure from the start. The new bureaucratic class could only be removed by a "third revolution" and while this, possibly, could have resulted in a bourgeois counter-revolution the alternative of maintaining Bolshevik dictatorship would inevitably have resulted in Stalinism. When supporters of Bolshevism argue that Kronstadt would have opened the gate to counter-revolution, they do not understand that the Bolsheviks were the counter-revolution in 1921 and that by suppressing Kronstadt the Bolsheviks not only opened the gate to Stalinism but invited it in and gave it the keys to the house.
The Platform, moreover, smacks of the re-writing of history Trotsky correctly accused Stalinism of.
It argues, for example, that the urban soviets "in recent years have been losing importance. This undoubtedly reflects a shift in the relation of class forces to the disadvantage of the proletariat." In fact, the soviets had lost their importance since the October revolution (see section 2 for details). The "shift" in the relation of class forces started immediately after the October revolution, when the real gains of 1917 (i.e. soviet democracy, workers' rights and freedom) were slowly and surely eliminated by the bureaucratic class forming around the new state -- a class who could justify their actions by claiming it was in the "interests" of the masses whose wishes they were ignoring.
As regards the Communist Party itself, it argues for introducing ("in deeds and not words") "a democratic regime. Do away with administrative pressure tactics. Stop the persecution and expulsion of those who hold independent opinions about party questions." No mention, of course, that these tactics were used by Lenin and Trotsky against Left-wing dissidents after the October revolution.
The Left-Communists in early 1918 were subject to such pressure. For example, they were ousted from leading positions in the Supreme Economic Council in March 1918. After their views were denounced by Lenin a "campaign was whipped up in Leningrad which compelled Kommunist [their paper] to transfer publication to Moscow . . . After the appearance of the first issue of the paper a hastily convened Leningrad Party Conference produced a majority for Lenin and 'demanded that the adherents of Kommunist cease their separate organisational existence.'" The paper lasted four issues, with the last having to be published as a private factional paper. The issue had been settled by a high pressure campaign in the Party organisation, backed by a barrage of violent invective in the Party press and in the pronouncements of the Party leaders. [Maurice Brinton, Op. Cit., pp. 39-40]
Similarly, the Workers' Opposition three years later also experienced them. At the Tenth Party congress, A. Kollontai (author of their platform) stated that the circulation of her pamphlet had been deliberately impeded. "So irregular were some of these that the Moscow Party Committee at one stage voted a resolution publicly censuring the Petrograd organisation 'for not observing the rules of proper controversy.'" The success of the Leninist faction in getting control of the party machine was such that "there is serious doubt as to whether they were not achieved by fraud." [Brinton, Op. Cit., p. 75 and p. 77] Victor Serge witnessed the rigging of an election to ensure Lenin's victory in the trade union debate. [Memoirs of a Revolutionary, p. 123] Kollontai herself mentions (in early 1921) that comrades "who dare to disagree with decrees from above are still being persecuted." [our emphasis, The Workers' Opposition, p. 22]
The Platform states that "the dying out of inner-party democracy leads to a dying out of workers' democracy in general -- in the trade unions, and in all other nonparty mass organisations." In fact, the opposite causation is correct. The dying out of workers' democracy in general leads to a dying out of inner-party democracy. The dictatorship of the party by necessity clashes with the "democratic dictatorship of the working masses and the poor peasantry." As the party dictatorship replaces the working masses, eliminating democracy by the dictatorship of a single party, democracy in that party must wither. If the workers can join that party and influence its policies then the same problems that arose in the soviets and unions appear in the party (i.e. voting for the wrong policies and people). This necessitates a corresponding centralisation in power within the party as occurred in the soviets and unions, all to the detriment of rank and file power and control.
As Ida Mett argued:
"There is no doubt that the discussion taking place within the [Communist] Party at this time [in early 1921] had profound effects on the masses. It overflowed the narrow limits the Party sought to impose on it. It spread to the working class as a whole, to the solders and to the sailors. Heated local criticism acted as a general catalyst. The proletariat had reasoned quite logically: if discussion and criticism were permitted to Party members, why should they not be permitted to the masses themselves who had endured all the hardships of the Civil War? "In his speech to the Tenth Congress -- published in the Congress Proceedings -- Lenin voiced his regret at having 'permitted' such a discussion. 'We have certainly committed an error,' he said, 'in having authorised this debate. Such a discussion was harmful just before the Spring months that would be loaded with such difficulties.'" [The Kronstadt Uprising, pp. 34-5]
Unsurprisingly, the Tenth Congress voted to ban factions within the Party. The elimination of discussion in the working class led to its ban in the party. Having the rank-and-file of the Party discuss issues would give false hopes to the working class as a whole who may attempt to influence policy by joining the party (and, of course, vote for the wrong people or policies).
Thus the only alternative to Kronstadt's "Third Revolution" and free soviets was doomed to failure.
Lastly, we should draw some parallels between the fates of the Kronstadt sailors and the Left Opposition.
John Rees argues that the Left Opposition had "the whole vast propaganda machine of the bureaucracy . . . turned against them," a machine used by Trotsky and Lenin in 1921 against Kronstadt. Ultimately, the Left Opposition "were exiled, imprisoned and shot," again like the Kronstadters and a host of revolutionaries who defended the revolution but opposed the Bolshevik dictatorship. [Op. Cit., p. 68]
As Murray Bookchin argued:
"All the conditions for Stalinism were prepared for by the defeat of the Kronstadt sailors and Petrograd strikers." ["Introduction", Ida Mett, The Kronstadt Uprising, p. 13]
Thus, the argument that Kronstadt was "utopian" is false. The third revolution was the only real alternative in Bolshevik Russia. Any struggle from below post-1921 would have raised the same problems of soviet democracy and party dictatorship which Kronstadt raised. Given that the Left Opposition subscribed to the "Leninist principle" of "the dictatorship of the party," they could not appeal to the masses as they would not vote for them. The arguments raised against Kronstadt that soviet democracy would lead to counter-revolution are equally applicable to movements which appealed, as Rees desires, to the Russian working class post-Kronstadt.
In summary, the claim that Kronstadt would inevitably have lead to an anti-proletarian dictatorship fails. Yes, it might have but the Bolshevik dictatorship itself was anti-proletarian (it had repressed proletarian protest, organisation, freedom and rights on numerous occasions) and it could never be reformed from within by the very logic of its "Leninist principle" of "the dictatorship of the party." The rise of Stalinism was inevitable after the crushing of Kronstadt.
