(7) October Revolution and civil war: a sample of the bottomless sea of polemics over the event

It wouldn't be right to do a whole series of posts on the October Revolution and not offer up a sample of Leninist polemics. The October Revolution became not only an object of endless arguments between supporters and opponents of the revolution. They also became the topic of a bottomless pit of polemics among Marxists and pretty much everyone else on the political spectrum to this day. Some actually scholarly, some purely political polemics not worrying excessively about historical accuracy, some just slogans.

I'm starting here from an article by Israel Getzler, Lenin's Conception of Revolution As Civil War Slavonic and East European Review 74:3 1996) And I'm picking out a part where he discusses a 1917 polemic between Lenin and the main Menshevik leader at the moment, L. Martov (Yuly Osipovich Tsederbaum). The Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks were the two main factions of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP), though by 1917 the two factions were functioning as de facto separate parties.

The polemic in this case involves Lenin's view on civil war. Getzler argues that Lenin saw civil war as a desirable thing from the standpoint of a socialist revolution. Getzler argues:

... what distinguished Lenin from other revolutionaries (for example Martov - his 'repressed alter ego') was not so much his intense revolutionism or his absolute conviction that a European socialist revolution was within reach, but rather his simplistic, narrow and brutal understanding of revolution as civil war tout court [i.e., and nothing else]. It was that understanding, and the corresponding strategy and tactics, mentality and modus operandi, which he injected into his 'belligerent party' of Bolsheviks. With that credo of civil war he marched the Bolsheviks into the October revolution and the construction of the Soviet state. And it was that revolutionary Soviet state power, which he defined as merely 'a tool of the proletariat in its class struggle, a special bludgeon, rien de plus!', that he bequeathed to his Bolshevik heirs. [my emphasis in bold]

This argument reflects on several important historical points, such as Mensheviks vs. Bolsheviks, the relationship of Lenin's "war communism" to later Soviet governance, even worldwide polemics in the 1960s between Maoists and Soviet-line Marxists. This is one reason that processing any aspect of the Soviet experience can quickly come to feel like dashing through field of thorns with a large animal in pursuit.

I've tried in this series of posts to highlight the ways that the October Revolution needs to be understood as part of the experience and outcome of the First World War. The scale and murderous effectiveness of the were was unprecedented in history at that time. The war also meant that a lot of people, most of them men, had weapons and training in how to use them.

There had been a prewar general consensus among the social-democratic parties of the Second International that the monopoly capitalism that had come to dominate the advanced capitalist nations was inherently expansionist. Some, including Lenin, even used "imperialism" as a synonym for monopoly capitalism. Formal resolutions of the International committed the social democrats of each country to oppose their "own" imperialisms and block them from starting a war. The Moroccan crises of 1905-6 and 1911 had already given real-world warnings of how a major war among major capitalist powers could break out.

Infamously, once war came the ruling groups in Europe found it fairly easy to persuade the socialist parties to support their ruling classes. But there were splits in the socialist parties between those who did support "their" wars and those who opposed them. That split is sometimes thought to be the beginning of the later split between Communist and Social Democrats. That's not entirely wrong. But it's also a serious over-implication of the process. In Germany, for instance, Eduard Bernstein, the creator of Marxist "revisionism," sided with the generally more radical opponents of the war.

Lenin was emphatically in the antiwar camp. But he didn't take a pacifist position. On the contrary, he promoted the slogan of turning the "imperialist war" into a "civil war," i.e., socialist revolutions against the capitalist rulers of the belligerent countries.

The more immediate background to the Martov-Lenin polemic we're focusing on here is that after the February Revolution of 1917 in Russia that brought the Karensky government to power, there ensued months of "dual power," in which the formal government of Kerensky was facing a competing quasi-government based in the soviets, i.e., the workers and soldiers councils that had been the driving popular force in the revolution. In July, there were spontaneous attempts by some militant workers to overthrow Kerensky that are remembered as the July Days, sometimes called the July Uprising. "Spontaneous" in this case meaning not centrally organized as a coup attempt. (Unless otherwise specified, the dates here are Old Style.)

Rex Wade describes the July events in The Russian Revolution (2017):

The July Days were not, as the Bolsheviks’ opponents immediately asserted (and later mythology repeated), an abortive planned Bolshevik coup. They represented a genuine outburst of popular discontent. They were a demand for a more radical and effective government – an all-socialist government – which would fulfill popular aspirations for peace, economic reform and solutions to the many problems wracking the country. The Bolsheviks were the major party supporting these demands and their harsh criticism of the government helped focus worker and soldier discontents on the demand for Soviet power as the solution to their problems. This, and the deep involvement of Bolshevik activists, forced the Bolsheviks to attempt a belated leadership role in the demonstrations. Ironically, the latter also concentrated attention on the Bolsheviks’ role in fomenting the demonstrations while ignoring the very important role of the Left SRs [Social Revolution party] and anarchists as well as of popular grievances. This focus on the Bolshevik leaders distorted interpretations of the July Days, both at the time and later. It allowed Provisional Government and Revolutionary Defensist leaders to avoid coming to grips with the genuineness of popular discontent and the implications of growing political support for the notion of Soviet power. As a result they did not move to deal with those discontents, which helps explain the rapid revival of leftist, including Bolshevik, popularity soon thereafter, despite repressive measures against the Bolsheviks. (p. 184) [my emphasis]

"July Days" demonstration in Petrograd, 1917

In addition, the Kornilov Affair of August 27-31 was a rightwing attempt by Gen. Lavr Georgiyevich Kornilov to overthrow the Kerensky regime. Kerensky had appointed Kornilov as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Kerensky's government, with some timely assistance from railway workers, thwarted this attempt and arrested Kornilov. "For the left – moderate and radical – Kornilov became the symbol of counter revolution," writes Rex Wade:

Now, however, Kerensky was rescued by the very Soviet and the workers and soldiers he had intended to move against. The socialist parties, always on the lookout for counterrevolution, responded energetically, calling on the workers and soldiers to rally to defense of the revolution. Arms were distributed to the Red Guards, which now expanded dramatically, and the more revolutionary Petrograd garrison regiments were called out. Even before they had to act, however, railway workers hindered the advance of Krymov’s troops, while agitators from Petrograd and local towns filtered into the soldiers’ ranks to warn them that they were being used for counterrevolution. The soldiers stopped and refused to go further. General Krymov, after a tumultuous meeting with Kerensky, retired to the apartment of a friend where, after declaring that “The last card for saving the homeland has been beaten – living is not worthwhile any longer,” he shot himself.52 By August 31 Kornilov’s effort collapsed and he and several associates were placed under arrest near the front military headquarters (though guarded by Kornilov’s own loyal bodyguard unit). (p. 203)

General Lavr Georgiyevich Kornilov (1870–1918) 

Here is how Getzler frames Lenin's dispute with Martov as showing Lenin's seeming obsession with the need for civil war:

In August and September, preparing for the plunge into the October revolution, Lenin again raised the banner of civil war. Taking advantage of Martov's warning against civil war, he told him that such a self-denying ordinance would be tantamount to

a manifest rejection of any form of class struggle, of any revolution [ ... ] who does not know that the world history of all revolutions shows that class struggle turns inevitably and not just by accident to civil war.

Almost at the same time, he repeated that point in 'The Russian Revolution and Civil War', where he extolled the blessings of civil war:

Gentlemen, do not frighten us with civil war [ ... ] it is inevitable [ ... ] it gives victory over the exploiters, land to the peasants, peace to the nations, it opens up the road that leads to the victorious revolution of the international socialist proletariat.

It was with that credo of civil war and revolutionary dictatorship that Lenin took his Bolsheviks into the October revolution and into a 'homogeneous', that is, a one-party Bolshevik government.

I find this to be a strained interpretation.

The first document he cites is from August 19, a published text by Lenin called "They Do Not See the Wood for the Trees" Collected Works, Vol. 25:

Martov implies that a Marxist or even just a revolutionary democrat had the right to reject a slogan correctly expressing the interests of the people and those of the revolution on the grounds that the slogan could be realised “only in the course of a civil war”. But this is an obvious absurdity, an obvious renunciation of the whole class struggle, the whole revolution. For everyone knows that the history of all revolutions the world over reveals an inevitable rather than an accidental transformation of the class struggle into civil war. Everyone knows that it was after July 4 that we in Russia saw the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie starting civil war, the disarming of regiments, executions at the front, and assassination of Bolsheviks. Civil war is “impermissible” for revolutionary democrats, if you please, just when the course of events has inexorably brought about a situation in which the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie have started civil war. (p. 256) [my emphasis]

That document is a polemic of September 1917, when the political situation was one of intense turmoil. This was after the July Days and after Kornilov was appointed defense minister but before the Kornilov Affair.

The second Lenin article fronm which Getzler quotes is The Russian Revolution And Civil War (Collected Works Vol. 26, p. 28):

This experience, similarly to the experience of all European revolutions, from the end of the eighteenth century on shows that civil war is the sharpest form of the class struggle, it is that point in the class struggle when clashes and battles, economic and political, repeating themselves, growing, broadening, becoming acute, turn into an armed struggle of one class against another. More often than not - one may say almost always - in all more or less free and advanced countries the civil war is between those classes whose antagonistic position towards each other is created and deepened by the entire economic development of capitalism, by the entire history of modern society the world over—civil war is between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

During the past half year of our revolution, we have experienced very strong spontaneous outbursts (April 20-21, July 3-4) in which the proletariat came very close to starting a civil war. On the other hand, the Kornilov revolt was a military conspiracy supported by the landowners and capitalists led by the Cadet Party, a conspiracy by which the bourgeoisie has actually begun a civil war.

Such are the facts. Such is the history of our own revolution. More than anything we must learn from this history, we must give a great deal of thought to the course it has taken and to its class significance. [my emphasis] (p. 29)

Lenin at this time was not writing out religious catechisms or formulating a philosophy of history for academic editing and publication. It was in the middle of a revolutionary process in which he was a key player and the stakes were literally life-and-death for him and his closest collaborators. And for many others, as well. Both these polemics with Martov, the Menshevik leader, show Lenin arguing for a seizure of power by the Bolsheviks and their supporters on behalf of a socialist order against the unpopular and failing Kerensky government. Technically, Kerensky provided over four different governments during his short time in power, because of the restructurings necessitated by his regime's precarious hold on power during the entire period.

And Lenin here is plainly arguing that it would be ridiculous to back down from taking power under the threat that it would cause a civil war. As he says there, the real possibility of a civil war was already manifesting itself in real time. As events played out, the Bolshevik takeover on late October itself took place with relatively little violence in the capital of Petrograd (St. Petersberg), although hundreds were killed in street fighting in Moscow.

Here is another point where remembering the wartime context is important. Kerensky refused to sue for peace and was pursuing the already massive violence of the war against Germany. And that continuation of the international warfare was extremely unpopular. As the historian Manfred Hildermeier puts it, "The vital question of the [Kerensky] regime remained the war."

The civil war really got under way a few months into 1918 with a wide variety of players. It would be difficult to argue that it was solely based on the actions of the Bolshevik government, unless one takes the point of view that its very existence was itself the justification for civil war. Maybe that is the perspective that lies behind Getzler's argument. Certainly, in 1918 the Woodrow Wilson Administration and its French and British allies in the war thought the existence of Lenin's government was sufficient cause to encourage the civil war, including with direct military intervention on the side of the Whites (counter-revolutionaries).

Does the real history justify Getzler's contention that Lenin was operating from a "simplistic, narrow and brutal understanding of revolution as civil war tout court"? Whatever criticism that can legitimately be leveled at Vladimir Lenin, arguing that he took a "simplistic" view of politics, revolutionary or otherwise, is one of the most unlikely. Did Lenin want a civil war in order to establish the kind of regime he wanted? The only way to know with reasonable certainty would be in the counterfactual case that his government had a protracted period of a year or more in which civil war and active foreign intervention had not been pursued by their enemies. If Lenin and his Soviet Communist government had really had the opportunity for such a period in which they could rule without military conflict, would they have really rejected the opportunity? Even as pure speculation, that is hard to imagine.