Bolshevism: e Road to Revolution Alan Woods Second edition Wellred Books, 2017 First published by Wellred Books 1999 Copyright © Wellred Publications All rights reserved UK distribution: Wellred Books, wellredbooks.net PO Box 50525 London E14 6WG [email protected] USA distribution: Marxist Books, Marxistbooks.com WR Books 250 44th Street #208 Brooklyn New York NY 11232 [email protected] Cover design by Daniel Morley. 1 Layout and proof-reading by Jack Halinski-Fitzpatrick and further proof-reading by Ali Arslan, Frankie McCunnell, Laurie O’Connel, Lilly Cockwill, Nat Arkwright and omas Soud. Ebook produced by Martin Swayne. Smashwords edition, published June 2018. All images used from the David King Collection. Purchased from David King by Tate Archive 2016, or from the public domain. ISBN: 978 1 900007 85 6 2 Table of Contents Preface to the second English edition e debate with Orlando Figes Bolshevism in Havana – and Caracas Trotsky’s Stalin Decisive role of the party List of Illustrations Why Study the History of Bolshevism? Is a Party Needed? About the Present Work How the Bourgeois ‘Explain’ October e Stalin School of Falsification ‘New Lies for Old!’ Leninism and the Future Explanatory Notes On Russian Weights and Measurements On the Russian Calendar On Spelling A Brief Glossary Part One: e Birth of Russian Marxism e Death of an Autocrat ‘Going to the People’ ‘Land and Freedom’ e Birth of Russian Marxism e Emancipation of Labour Group Combined and Uneven Development e Period of Small Circles From Propaganda to Agitation e Jewish Workers’ Movement e Petersburg League of Struggle ‘Legal Marxism’ Lenin and the Group for the Emancipation of Labour e Economist Controversy Rabochaya Mysl’ Bernstein’s Revisionism 3 e First Congress of the RSDLP Rabocheye Dyelo e Birth of Iskra What Is To Be Done? A New Awakening Tensions on the Editorial Board e Economists in Retreat e Second Congress e Real Meaning of the 1903 Split Confusion in the Ranks Rosa Luxemburg War with Japan Trotsky’s Break with the Mensheviks Part Two: e First Russian Revolution 9 January, 1905 ‘Zubatovism’ Father Gapon e Putilov Strike Bloody Sunday Revolution Begins e Shidlovsky Commission Lenin and the ‘Committeemen’ e ird Congress How the Party Financed Itself Revolutionary Flood Tide e Bulygin Duma e October Strike and the Soviet e Bolsheviks and the Soviet ‘Nicholas the Bloody’ Opening up the Party e Party Press Trotsky in 1905 e Moscow Uprising Defeat Part ree: e Period of Reaction ‘Woe to the Vanquished’ 4 e Struggle Against Unemployment Revolutionary Tactics Reunification e Debate on the Land Question Bolshevism and Menshevism e Peasants’ Revolt To Boycott, or Not to Boycott? Parliamentary Illusions e Duma Dissolved e Question of Guerrilla War Lenin’s Attitude to Guerrillaism e Stolypin Reaction e Fifth (London) Congress e Debate on the Bourgeois Parties e Permanent Revolution e 3 June Coup Liquidationism and Otzovism Mood of the Intelligentsia e Bolsheviks Split e Pro-Party Mensheviks Tensions in Proletary Trotsky and Conciliationism e January Plenum ‘Unity’ Breaks Down On the Eve Part Four: e Revival A Brief Interregnum Mass Work Under Conditions of Reaction e Prague Conference e Provocateur Malinovsky After the Conference A New Awakening Lenin and Pravda Elections to the Fourth Duma Bolsheviks in the Duma Tactics in the Duma 5 Revolutionary Upswing ‘e Masses Have Now Grown Up’ Split in the Duma Group e National Question Lenin on the National Question e Balkan Wars e Gathering Storm e Bolsheviks’ Influence Grows e Bolsheviks on the Eve of the War Part Five: e War Years e Collapse of the Second International e Social Roots of Chauvinism Tendencies in Russian Social Democracy Lenin’s Position e Mood of the Working Class e Party Decimated e Duma Fraction Vacillations Among the Bolsheviks e ‘Left’ Bolsheviks Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism e Trial of Bolshevik Duma Deputies Closed Frontiers German Intrigues How Did the Party Survive? Catastrophe at the Front Bolsheviks in the Armed Forces e Liberals Begin to Stir e Turn of the Tide Crisis of Tsarism Change of Mood Work Among Women Pacifist Gestures e Zimmerwald Conference e Kienthal Conference Part Six: e Year of Revolution e February Revolution 6 e Bolsheviks in February e Mensheviks and the February Revolution e Bolsheviks and the Provisional Government Lenin and Trotsky in 1917 Lenin Rearms the Party e First Coalition ‘All Power to the Soviets’ e June Days e July Days After the July Events Lenin Changes His Mind Trotsky and the Bolshevik Party e Kornilov Rebellion e Struggle for the Masses Tactics of the Insurrection Crisis of Leadership e Question of the Soviet Congress e Final Chapter e Seizure of Power Was October a Coup? e Triumph of Bolshevism e Struggle at the Congress Bibliography Minutes Periodicals Consulted 7 Preface to the second English edition No matter what one thinks of Bolshevism, it is undeniable that the Russian Revolution is one of the greatest events in human history, and the rule of the Bolsheviki a phenomenon of worldwide importance. (J. Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World, p. 13.) Nearly two decades have passed since the first English edition of Bolshevism: The Road to Revolution was published in 1999. e book had a very enthusiastic reception, even from people who are not necessarily in agreement with the political standpoint of its author. It has been translated into Spanish and Urdu. Now the second edition has made its appearance, and a number of new translations are being prepared in other languages, including Greek, Arabic and Bahasa-Indonesian. It is highly appropriate that the book should be republished to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of the October Revolution. From a Marxist point of view, the Bolshevik Revolution was the greatest single event in world history. Why? Because here, for the first time, if we exclude the heroic but tragic episode of the Paris Commune, the masses overthrew the old regime and began the great task of the socialist transformation of society. Karl Marx said that philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it. Under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky the Bolshevik Party changed the history of the entire world in such a way that its repercussions are still being felt today. erefore, no matter what one thinks about the Russian Revolution and the role of the Bolshevik Party, it is incumbent upon every thinking person to study what was, from any point of view, a most important historical phenomenon. Over a period of thirty years I collected the material for a comprehensive history of Bolshevism, for the simple reason that I had found no work that really did justice to this important subject. e bourgeois historians are quite incapable of writing a serious work about the Bolshevik Party or the October Revolution. ey are motivated by feelings 8 of hatred and spite, which they do not even attempt to conceal under the guise of a false and hypocritical academic ‘objectivity’. Needless to say, behind this hatred lies another emotion: fear of revolution, which under the present worldwide crisis of capitalism is threatening to reappear in one country after another. e debate with Orlando Figes e apologists of capitalism, and their faithful echoes in the labour movement, try to comfort themselves with the thought that the collapse of the USSR signified the demise of socialism. But what failed in Russia was not socialism but a caricature of socialism. Contrary to the oft-repeated slanders, the Stalinist regime was the antithesis of the democratic regime established by the Bolsheviks in 1917. Not so long ago I had occasion to witness this kind of ‘objectivity’ when I debated with Orlando Figes, Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London on the topic of ‘e Russian Revolution: Triumph or Tragedy?’ I must confess I had forgotten just how bad these bourgeois academics are. e high point of Figes’ contribution was when he informed me that I was brainwashed and suggested that my defence of the October Revolution was the product of ignorance as opposed to his own academic prowess. About the low point, the less said the better. e argument that the October Revolution was nothing more than a coup organised by a tiny and unrepresentative group of conspirators led by Lenin and Trotsky is so childish that I find it quite astonishing any intelligent person could repeat it. But repeat it Orlando did. I asked my opponent to provide me with the recipe for such an extraordinary feat, so that I could take power in Britain the following morning. Sadly, to this day I am still waiting for his reply. I explained in very simple language that the October Revolution was a mass popular movement of millions of workers and peasants coming onto the stage of history, to take their destinies into their own hands. Citing eyewitness accounts, and even Figes’ own book, I showed how the Bolsheviks, by October 1917, were the only party who worked among and 9