The Russian “Terrorist” Trial (1936)

From the October 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Truth About A Great Frame-up

Last month we made some comments on the Russian trial based upon newspaper reports. We now have the official report of the trial contained in a special number of “International Press Correspondence,” Vol. 16, No. 41, September 10th, 1936.

The first thing that one notices after reading the dreary document is that it is not the report of the trial at all. All the accused pleaded guilty and the court proceedings that began on August 19th were simply means for them to publicly express their guilt, call themselves scum, traitors and various other names, and also, most importantly perhaps, blacken the character of Trotsky as much as possible.

The second thing one notices is that this alleged full report is not a full report at all but simply reads as piece of Stalinite propaganda, interspersed with some farcical statement, question and reply on the part of the public prosecutor and the accused.

The third thing that strikes one is that the proceedings that actually began several months earlier in secret. One of the accused, V. Olberg, was examined on February 21st. The public proceedings, according to the information contained in the report, did not commence until all the accused had been examined and re-examined and admissions of guilt extracted from them.

The report occupies 41½ large, costly-printed pages, which are apportioned as follows:-

The Indictment ………………                                                7 pages

Proceedings before the Military Collegium (the “Trial”) … 18 ,,

Speech of State Prosecutor Vishinisky ………                      12½ ,,

Final Statement of Accused ……………                                 2 ,,

Verdict ………………                                                              2 ,,

The proceedings commenced on August 19th at mid-day with the reading of the indictment. After this each of the accused repeated the statement he had made at the secret investigation admitting his guilt, and an exchange of question and answer took place. This was followed by Vishinsky’s speech and final statement by each of the accused. At mid-day on August 24th the verdict was given.

We are asked to believe that this was a properly constituted trial, but just consider the matter. Here were sixteen men, alleged to be on trial for their lives, and whole proceedings only lasted five days! The prosecutor, in his final speech (which occupied nearly a day), address the judges as follows:-

“With all thoroughness, you have subjected to investigation and judicial verification each of these proofs, every fact, every event, every step of the defendants, etc.” (Page 1125)

All this careful verification is supposed to have been done in three days of the trial, as the prosecutor was speaking at the beginning of the fourth, yet there are at least 28 volumes of evidence, as in one place “Vol. 28, file 112 of the Record,” is quoted! They certainly are fast workers! At mid-day of the 24th the accused were sentenced. They appealed. The appeal was disallowed and they were shot on the 25th. So the Court of Appeal must have done some fast work, too, if they also went through the volumes of evidence!

No Documents Produced at the Trial

The only evidence produced at the trial was the statement of the accused and the statements of two witnesses brought forward by the prosecution. One of these was Smirnov’s wife and the other was also a “suspect”! No documents were produced as evidence (apart from statements alleged to have been made by the accused in preliminary investigations). A letter is referred to as having been received from Trotsky and destroyed. An open letter that was not read. No information is given of how the authorities got wind of the “plot” and how they were able, for instance, to extract from V. Olberg on February 21st practically all the alleged details of the “plot.” We use the word “alleged” here for reasons that will appear later.

The lack of information on how the authorities knew of the “plot” is striking, because a good deal of it consisted of private conversations in cars, private apartments, etc. The value of the evidence of the accused may be gauged from the opening of the final statement of Yevdokimov:-

“How can anyone believe even a single word of ours? Begins the defendant Yevdokimov. Who will believe us, who played a base comedy at the fresh grave of Kirov whom we had killed, us who only accidentally and through no fault of ours failed to become the murderers of Stalin, and of other leaders of the people! Who would believe us who are facing the court as a counter-revolutionary bandit gang, as allies of fascism, of the Gestapo?” (Page 1137.)

In his final speech, the prosecutor, Vishinisky, also says of them:-

"But where is there proof of this, how can we believe them when they have surpassed all conceptions of treachery, of perfidy, deceit, betrayal, treason?”

And yet it is the words of the “perfidious”gang that is the only evidence of the plot and of their guilt – no other evidence was brought forward.

Let us consider the point. As there was no evidence but their own, how were they induced to give it? Remorse and repentance won’t fit, because if they are the type the prosecution makes out, they could not have suffered from either, and certainly they would not have deliberately asked to be shot! Of Zinoviev it is said:-

“In spite obstinate denial, the accused Zinoviev was compelled by the weight of evidence which was brought against him by the investigation authorities to admit that ‘The main object which the Trotsky-Zinovievite centre pursued was to kill the leaders of the C. P. S. U., and in the first place to kill Stalin and Kirov’,” (Page 1100.)

What was the “weight of evidence” that could compel a man of Zinoviev’s intelligence to admit the direction of a murder plot? The only evidence given in the report is the unsupported statements of people who “have surpassed all conceptions of treachery, of perfidy, deceit, betrayal, treason”! And all these statements were extracted at secret investigations conducted by the secret police!

One of the principal witnesses, the accused Bakayev, is alleged to have given details of a plot that implicated everybody, and made himself out to be an assassin. No information is given of how he came to do that, and yet Vishinsky describes him as follows:-

“Precisely, Bakayev, who is known as a man full of bitter hate, a resolute man, a man stubborn and persevering, with very great will-power, of strong character and endurance, a man who was capable of stopping at nothing to achieve these aims which he set himself!” (Page 1136.)

What dark and terrible means were employed to get such a man to make an abject confession and to end his final statement by declaring that he “realises the entire gravity of his crime and expects a just and deserved sentence from the proletarian court”? (Page 1138.) Perhaps some day we shall know.

“Confessions” that are Incredible

Let us take a look at the statement of one of the accused, remembering that he is also supposed to fit the prosecutor’s edifying description. While doing so the reader should try and imagine what means must have been employed to extract such abject and self-destroying admissions. Limits of space compel us to make our quotations as few as possible.

“During the cross-examination of Kamenev the court dealt in detail with the policy of double-dealing employed by the plotters in addition to terror in their struggle against the Party.

“Vishinsky: How is one to judge the articles and declarations which you wrote in 1933, and in which you expressed devotion to the Party? As deceit?

“Kamenev: No, worse than deceit.

“Vishinsky: Breach of faith?

“Kamenev: Worse.

“Vishinsky: Worse than deceit, worse than breach of faith. Do you find this word? Is it treachery?

“Kamenev: You have said it.

“Vishinsky: Zinoviev, do you confirm this?

“Zinoviev: Yes.

“Speaking of the motives of his conduct Kamenev stated: ‘I can only admit one thing, that having set myself the monstrous and criminal aim of disorganizing the government of the Socialist country, we used such methods of struggle as we considered corresponded with this aim and which were just as vile and contemptible as the aim we set ourselves.’

“Vishinsky: Was your struggle against the leadership of the Party and of the government inspired by low personal motives, by personal thirst for power?

“Kamenev: Yes by thirst for power by our group.

“Vishinsky: Do you not realize that this has nothing in common with social ideals?

“Kamenev: It has just as much in common as revolution and counter-revolution have in common.

“Vishinsky: Do you clearly realise that you are conducting the fight against Socialism?

“Kamenev: We clearly realise that we were struggling against the leadership of the Party and of the government which leading the country to Socialism.

“Vishinsky: Thus you are also against Socialism?

“Kamenev: You draw the conclusion of the historian and prosecutor.” (Page 1113)

Now, Reader, can it be possible that you are gullible enough to swallow the above as an example of a genuine confession? The thing is too utterly childish to pass.

According to the statements in the report, the accused are cross-examined. Here is another sample of the cross-examination, which surely speaks for itself:-

“Bakayev tries to make his responsibility appear less in his statement. He says that out of the whole terroristic activities of the Centre he only knew of the decision to murder Stalin and Kirov, and that the first he had heard of the other acts of terrorism, which were in course of being prepared, was from the indictment.

“Vishinsky: Bakayev, you were a member of the terrorist Centre? Is that correct?

“Bakayev: That is so.

“Vishinsky: In the year 1933, you were commissioned to organise the murder of Comrade Stalin. Is that so?

“Bakayev: Yes.

“Vishinsky: You adopted a number of practical measures in order to carry out this commission, that is to say, to organise several attempts, to organise an attack on Comrade Stalin, which miscarried through no fault of yours?

“Bakayev: That is correct.

“Vishinsky: In addition you took part in the murder of Comrade Kirov?

“Bakayev: Yes.

“Vishinsky: Moreover you went to Leningrad on behalf of the terrorist Centre to cheek up on the preparations for this murder?

“Bakayev: Yes.

“Vishinsky: On returning from Leningrad you reported that everything was in order, that the preparations for the murder were going forward successfully. During your visit you met Kotolinov, Rumiantzev and others?

“Bakayev: Yes.

“Vishinsky: In addition you met Nikolaiev, gave him directions for the murder, and satisfied yourself that Nikolaiev was a determined person and would be in a position to carry out the task which had been set him?

“Bakayev: Yes.

“During the further course of the examination, however, Bakayev tried to make his part smaller by stating that he was only a ‘co-organiser’ in the preparations for the dastardly murder of Comrade Kirov.

“Vishinsky: You give signals, you check up on the times, you checkup on everything that has anything to do with your signal, you carry through an act; does not all that mean being the organiser of the of the crime?

“Bakayev: Yes, that means being the organiser of the crime.

“Vishinsky: Therefore, we are right in saying that you were the organiser of the murder of Comrade Kirov?

“Bakayev: Well, yes, only I was not alone.

“Vishinsky: You were not alone, Yevdokimov was with you. Defendant Zinoviev, you also were an organizer of the murder of Comrade Kirov?

“Zinoviev: In my opinion Bakayev is right if he means that those principally responsible for the dastardly murder of Kirov were myself – Zinoviev – Trotsky and Kamenev, who organised the united terrorist Centre. In this Bakayev played big part, but by no means a preponderating one.

“Vishinsky: The decisive roles were played by yourself, Trotsky and Kamenev. Defendant Kamenev, do you agree with Zinoviev’s statement that you, Trotsky and Zinoviev, were the principal organisers, and that Bakayev played the part of practical organiser?

“Kamenev: Yes.” (Pages 111-12)

“Shoot the Reptiles”

This may be a fitting point to notice that the report is itself a piece of propaganda on behalf the Politburo – the leading members of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party. They are frequently eulogised in it, and whatever there may have been in the statements or attitude of the accused that would tell in their favour at all, no mention is made in the report. Smirnov is a case in point. According foreign journalists who were in Moscow at the time, his attitude at the trial was by no means as abject as the report conveys. The Manchester Guardian correspondent states that Smirnov refused to recant. (Manchester Guardian, August 24th, 1936).

The Moscow correspondent of the Daily Telegraph (August 21st, 1936) also gives a favourable idea of Smirnov’s attitude. This correspondent makes some further remarks that are worth quoting in full, as they throw an interesting light on the proceedings. In order to understand the opening remarks, we should mention that Sokolnikov, Rykov, Tomsky, Bukharin and Karl Radek had already been accused by the prisoners of complicity in the murder plot.

“Strangely enough, to-day’s newspapers suppress all reference to the charges made against these men, and Government officials state that, except for Sokolnikov, they are not yet under arrest. This adds to the general strangeness to the proceedings.

“To-day’s papers publish articles and resolutions headed “Shoot the Reptiles,” but nowhere do they mention where the trial is being held. Precautions have been taken to prevent the general public noticing arrivals and departures at the court house.

“The 300 people admitted to the court are for the most part newspaper representatives, officials and Secret Police, some in splendid uniforms and others in plain clothes. Some members of the Communist Youth Movement are also allowed to be present. Entirely contrary to all precedent, no photographs have been taken.”

This correspondent describes the arrival of Sofonova, who was brought from prison, where she awaits trial for conspiracy to murder Voroshilov.

“Sofonova, a grey-faced and hollow-cheeked woman of about 35, was dressed in a new drab beige frock with red facings. At the microphone, through which all the prisoners give evidence, she slowly repeated in a dull voice the charges she had made against Smirnov when under interrogation by the Secret Police.”

The prisoners’ evidence was considered sufficient to convict each other, and yet, although it was equally clear in the case of Bukharin and Rykov, we learn since that they have not brought to trial. Another instance of the fake nature of the business. Note in the above that the general public were not admitted to the trial, but some Communist youths were. Was this to give the latter a lesson or because they were too inexperienced to see through the business? Also a microphone was used. People could not see, but they were allowed to hear!

The description of Sofonova giving evidence in dull voice suggests the effects of the secret investigation and what means may have been used to terrify and cow the accused. The Evening Standard writes:-

“Most of the prisoners were near to collapse when the judge pronounced sentence.” (25/8/1936.)

Propaganda for Stalin

Another instance of the extent to which intimidation must have been carried is the obvious putting in the mouth of Kamenev the following self-condemnation and eulogy of the murderous clique at the head of Russia to-day:-

“The morning session of August 20th begins with an examination of the defendant L. B. Kamenev.

“‘The terrorist conspiracy was organised and led by myself, Zinoviev and Trotsky,’ testified Kamenev. ‘I came to the view that the policy of the Party, the policy of its leadership had won in the only sense in which a political victory is possible in the land of socialism, that this policy had been accepted by the toiling masses. Our attempt to speculate on the possibility of a split in the Party leadership also failed. We had reckoned on the Right group of Rykov, Bukharin and Trotsky. The elimination of this group from the leadership and the fact that it was discredited in the eyes of the toilers knocked this trump out of our hands too. We could not hope for any serious internal difficulties to overthrow the leadership which had carried the country through the most difficult stages, through industrialisation and collectivisation. There remained two roads: either honestly and completely to put an end to the struggle against the Party or to continue it, without any hope, however, for mass support, without a political platform, without a banner, i.e., by means of individual terror. We chose the second road. We were guided in doing this by boundless bitterness against the leadership of the Party and country and by a thirst for power to which we had once been near and from which we had been removed by the progress of historical development.’

“Replying to Vishinsky’s questions the defendant Kamenev related to the court how the Zinovievites had established a bloc with the Trotskyites with a view to organising a terrorist struggle against the Party and Soviet state.

“‘We conducted negotiations for a bloc with Smirnov, Mrachkovsky, Ter-Vaganyan not as with authors of independent political directives. They were of value to us as persons who were following with precision and directives of Trotsky. Knowing Smirnov and Mrachkovsky as active Trotskyites, knowing of Smirnov’s trip abroad and of the fact that he had established contact there with Trotsky, we were absolutely convinced that the directive regarding the terrorist policy conveyed by Smirnov and Mrachkovsky and defended by them was a precise directive from Trotsky. On the basis of this and owing to the fact that Trotsky’s directives for terrorism coincided with our own sentiments, we concluded what is referred to here as a “bloc,” and what should be called a close terrorist conspiracy. This conspiracy was built up in 1932 as an organised league which had no other platform and which took as its aim the capture of power by terrorist disorganisation of the government, by elimination and murder of Stalin as the leader of the Party and country and of his closest associates.’” (Page 1112)

The above is a fairly clear illustration of the propaganda side of the trial.

What Were the Secret Police Doing?

Let us now turn to some other points.

In December, 1934, and January, 1935, there were two trials in relation to the killing of Kirov. Kamenev, Zinoviev, Yevdokimov and Bakayev were charged in connection with this business and imprisoned, as were also several others. If there was a group of murder plotters then the government was obviously alive to it and secret police were on the job. In spite of this we are asked to believe that, as late as May, 1936, the plot was still being carried on, partly directed from prison, and that Fritz-David, Olberg, Berman-Yurin and company were still going ahead with the assassination project. Here is the statement from Berman-Yurin:-

“Berman-Yurin: In September, 1935, the congress was to have been convened. I gave Fritz David the Browning with the bullets, so that he would hide it in his apartment. But before the opening of the congress Fritz David informed me that he again was unable to obtain a ticket, but that he himself would be at the congress. We agreed that he then would commit the terrorist act.

“Several days later Fritz David and I met, and he said that he had been unable to shoot. He, Fritz David, had sat in a box; there were many people in a box and there was no possibility of shooting. Thus this plan of ours also failed.

“In December, Fritz David informed me that recently a messenger from Sedov and Trotsky had arrived, and asked for information why the terrorist action had not yet been carried out. Fritz David gave him exact information, and received instructions to seize some other opportunity, some interview for reception, to which I or Fritz David must without fail secure entry and there kill Stalin. In May, 1936, Fritz David informed Berman-Yurin that he had again had a messenger from Trotsky, a German, ‘who spoke extremely sharply with him, accused him of inactivity, of irresolution, of lack of courage, and literally demanded that he make use of any event to kill Stalin. It is necessary to hurry, no time must be lost,’ he said.

“‘At the end of May, 1936, I was arrested, and my terrorist activity was cut short.” (Page1119.)

As one writer has pointed out, the suggestion in the second paragraph above is that delegates at conferences are not allowed to move about freely.

While they were all under suspicion, and knew it, they are supposed to have been traveling freely back and forth reporting and plotting – and they all knew the ramifications and the power of the secret police!

No Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen

All through the business, efforts were made to link up Trotsky as the real director of the conspiracy. Here is Holzman’s statement:-

“After his arrival in Berlin, Holzman told the court, he rang up Sedov, and arranged to meet him at the Zoological Gardens. As Holzman and Sedov did not know one another, it was arranged that each should be carrying the copy of Berliner Tageblatt and the Vorwarts. After the two men met, Sedov proposed to Holzman they take a taxi.

“We drove in taxi – Holzman continues his disposition – but I do not remember the secret. Sedov took me into a flat; there was nobody in the flat. It was on the fourth floor. Here I gave him the report and code. … I met him like this six to eight times in the course of four months. ‘In November,’ Holzman continued, ‘I again ’phoned Sedov, and we met again. Sedov said to me: ‘As you are getting ready to go to the U.S.S.R., I would advise you to go with me to Copenhagen, where my father is.’”

“Vishinsky: That is?

“Holzman: That is, Trotsky.

“Vishinsky: You went?

“Holzman: I agreed, and told Sedov that in two or three days I would go to him in Copenhagen and stay at the Hotel Bristol, where we could meet. I went straight from the station to the hotel, and met Sedov in the lounge.” (Page 1120.)

Let us consider this statement.

The second paragraph states that Holzman went to a flat with Sedov, but Holzman could not remember the street, although he visited the flat “six to eight times in the course of four months.” How very curious?

The second line in the last paragraph is a misprint. Judging by the report printed in Moscow it should run" cealment we could not go together. I arranged with". This paragraph states that they met in 1932 at the Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen. Unfortunately for this statement the diplomatic correspondent of the Manchester Guardian (September 17th, 1936) points out that the Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen was pulled down in 1917! Possibly one of those who took part in preparing the case had been in Copenhagen during the War but did not know the dirty trick someone had played in 1917!

The above is an excellent specimen of the flimsiness of the evidence at the trial. The case is full of discrepancies and matters that are too much strain on the credulity of intelligent people.

It is worth remembering that in spite of the efforts of the Nazis in the German Reichstag Fire Trial in 1033, George Dimitrov was able to defend himself and eventually to get scot-free, and this was under what Communists are pleased to call “Bourgeois Justice.” Dimitrov did not appear before a packed court, and he was not subjected to the Russian methods of extracting “confessions.” The tone and nature of these confessions stamps them as the product of the Stalinite group and not of the accused.

This case should help to impress upon the workers’ minds the road Dictatorships, with their secret police, are bound to travel. Once free discussion is killed, Dictators have only one means of keeping in touch with mass opinion – secret police. The power wielded by those who control the latter enable them to perpetrate in safety what dark deeds they wish. Behind the scenes the Dictators struggle for control and it is woe for the loser. Ten years ago, Kamenev and Zinoviev united with Stalin to push out Trotsky. Today Nemesis has overtaken them.

The lengths to which the prosecution are prepared to go, in the effort to link up Trotsky with the German Secret Police, are shown in the case of Valentin Olberg, who is accused of obtaining a passport through the German Secret Police. The following dialogue also further illustrates how well the Russian Government have schooled their victims in self-vilification.

“Vishinsky: Who is Tukhalevsky?

“Olberg: ‘Tukhalevsky is director of the Slavonic Library of the Foreign Ministry in Prague. I learned from my brother that he was an agent of the German Secret Police. Tukhalevsky was informed of my visit and told me that he would endeavour to obtain for me the necessary documents. Thereupon I wrote to Sedov in Paris, informing him of the proposal the German Secret Police agent had made and asking whether Trotsky approved an agreement with such an agent. After some time I received a reply sanctioning my action, that is to say, my agreement with Tukhalevsky. Sedov wrote that the utmost secrecy was necessary, and that none of the other members of the Trotskyite organisation should be informed of this arrangement.

"Olberg received the passport through Tukhalevsky and certain Bend, from Lukas Parades, the Central Consul of Honduras in Berlin, who was staying in Prague at that time.

"Olberg: He sold me a passport for 13,000 Czech crowns. I received this money from Sedov.

“Vishinsky: Had any relations with the Republic of Honduras?

“Olberg: No, never.

“Vishinsky: Let me show this to you: Is this the passport? (The court commandant produces the passport.)” (Page 1117.)

Commenting on this the correspondent of the Manchester Guardian (August 29th) gives the following details on Olberg’s life:-

“Olberg’s father was Socialist who left the Soviet Union to settle in Germany. He took out German naturalisation papers, but in 1933 he had to leave Germany with his family, and was deprived of his German citizenship.

“Valentin Olberg settled in Prague with his wife, living in great poverty. He belonged to no political party, but was greatly attracted by the land of his childhood, Russia. He tried to get an academic post in Russia, and applied for a visa at the Russian consulate in Prague in 1934, but was told that he could not have visa unless he had a passport. It is possible to acquire the passports of certain States by purchase, and this has been done by émigrés who have been deprived of their own. Olberg succeeded in buying a Honduran passport for 7,000 Czech crowns (not 13,000 as ‘admitted’ in the trial). His wife’s parents also contributed a sum which they raised by the sale of old jewellery. That he obtained the passport from the Gestapo is, therefore, untrue.”

The correspondent, quite rightly, says that inaccurate “admissions” like this throw doubt on all admissions made by the prisoners.

Who Are the Next “Traitors”?

Vishinsky’s final speech is packed with fulsome flattery of Stalin and his associates – perhaps he also is thinking of his head! The following is a fair sample of it:-

“The whole country responded to the treacherous shot of December 1st, 1934, with a unanimous curse to the murderers. The whole country – millions and tens of millions of people were stirred and again demonstrated their solidarity and unity, their devotion to the great banner of the Party of Lenin-Stalin. Like an indestructible iron wall the whole land of the Soviets stood up in the defence of its chiefs and leaders, for each of whose hairs the criminal madmen will answer to us with their heads. In this boundless love of the millions of toilers for our Party, for the Central Committee, for our Stalin and his glorious companions, in this immeasurable love of the people lies the entire power of the defence and protection of our chiefs, the leaders, the country and the Party against traitors, murderers and bandits!” (Page 1125.)

If these words mean anything, is it not strange that the opposition should be pursued with such ferocity and disposed of with such haste? In such circumstances how was it possible to work up a dangerous conspiracy? And further, why the desperate anxiety to get hold of Trotsky to wipe him out also?

In conclusion let us note the names of the present leaders of Russia. The prosecutor gives them in the second paragraph of his final speech:-

“Terrible and monstrous is the chain of these crimes directed against our Socialist fatherland, crimes each of which deserves the severest condemnation and the severest penalty. Terrible and monstrous is the guilt of these criminals and murderers who raised their hand against the leaders of the Party, against Comrades Stalin, Voroshilov, Zdhanov, Kaganovich, Orjonikidze, Kosier, and Postyshev, against our leaders, the leaders of the Soviet state. Monstrous are the crimes of this band of people who not only prepared terrorist acts but killed one of the best sons of the working class, one among those most devoted to the cause of Socialism, one of the most beloved pupils of the great Stalin, the fiery tribune of the Proletarian Revolution, the unforgettable Sergei Mironovich Kirov.” (Page 1125.) (Italics ours.)

We now await news of the struggle between these six for power. We are not at present to prophesy which of them will be named as traitors!

Gilmac. 

Disarmament and the Working Class (1935)

From the August 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

Of the numerous problems which owe their existence to the normal development of Capitalism, that of Disarmament seems to have outstripped all others in the degree of popularity. For many years organisations from the League of Nations Union down to the Labour Party and Christian Peace Societies have wasted their time, money, and energies in conducting Peace by Disarmament Propaganda campaigns, passing futile resolutions, futile because they lacked effective backing, even if such were practicable, and generally calling upon the Government of the day to give a lead to the remaining capitalist world in the attainment of disarmament.

The Government, however, ignoring the pleas of the ardent pacifists, is busily engaged in making its contribution to world peace by preparing the armed forces for war.

This policy, together with the identical one now being pursued by the rest of capitalist States, has been instrumental in changing pacifist optimism into unprecedented pessimism.

Their failure to appreciate the function of Government and armed forces is the main cause of their defeat.

Whilst not agreeing with Bukharin in other matters, we can certainly endorse the following: —

It ought to be obvious from the foregoing considerations that armaments are an indispensable attribute of State power, an attribute that has a very definite function in the struggle among State capitalist trusts. Capitalist society is unthinkable without wars —the inevitableness of economic conflicts conditions the existence of arms.

This is why in our times, when economic conflicts have reached an unusual degree of intensity, we are witnessing a mad orgy of armaments. (“Imperialism and World Economy.” L. Bukharin. Martin Lawrence edition. P. 127.)

These economic conflicts are, in their turn, conditioned by the endeavour of the master classes to gain economic advantage in controlling or annexing commodity markets, trade routes, sources of raw material, and areas of investment.

To expect Disarmament to be accomplished whilst retaining capitalist private property relationships is Utopian in the extreme; the pacifists, however, have no notion of the fact that the above stated capitalist rivalry, and their armed forces are determined by these relations.

How, then, is Disarmament to be achieved ? In answering this question we shall begin by pointing out that such an objective is inseparably linked up with Socialism, and both of these tasks can only be accomplished by the working class.

The first step in this direction is by far the most important and difficult, namely, the converting of working-class opinion to Socialist knowledge.

The result of the spread of Socialist thought is organisation in the Socialist Party. Then, in the manner laid down in our principles, the working class conquers political power. In doing this they disarm the master class of their control of the armed forces.

With the necessary conversion of the machinery of Government, including these forces, into a suitable lever with which to achieve emancipation, the task of ushering in the new social system begins.

As the resistance of the ex-capitalists to the new order becomes weaker so the need to maintain the weapons with which to stamp out this resistance becomes ever more unnecessary.

The coercive forces gradually die out until Disarmament in its entirety is an accomplished fact.

Southey.

Letter: Imperialism (2010)

Letter to the Editors from the September 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Imperialism

Dear Editors

It was reported on Sunday 11 July 2010 that a boy of seven works a 98-hour week in Delhi to supply products to the British high street chain Poundland.

What is the SPGB position on the conception of imperialism through Lenin, Bukharin and Luxemburg and the idea of an aristocracy of labour?

Wirral Socialists 

(http://www.wirralsocialists.com)

Reply:

We have never accepted the view that a section of the working class in the developed capitalist countries – the so-called “aristocracy of labour” of skilled workers – shares in the proceeds of the exploitation of colonial and now ‘Third World’ countries, The wages paid to skilled workers here reflect the higher quality – due to more education, training and skill – of the labour power they have to sell.

It was only in 1920, in a preface to the French and German editions, of his Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism that Lenin introduced the idea that a section of the working class in the imperialist countries shared in the booty extracted from capitalists, workers and peasants in the rest of the world. This was to try to secure the support of anti-colonial movements for his beleaguered regime in Russia. It was a political manoeuvre – “workers and colonial peoples unite” – that went against the basic principle of Marxian economics that wages represent the value of the labour-power a worker sells and contain no element of surplus value.

The original 1916 edition of the pamphlet did not contain this. It was a fairly run-of-the-mill analysis of imperialism and colonialism as put forward by Social Democrats of the time: that it was due to the higher profits to be made in the colonies and less developed countries than at home. The only real objection was to its subtitle of “the highest stage of capitalism” since capitalism had been “imperialist” in the 18th century too.

Rosa Luxemburg’s Accumulation of Capital (1912), however, was based on a faulty analysis of capitalism: that it suffered from a chronic shortage of home purchasing power that drove capitalist countries to seek markets outside capitalism, in the less developed parts of the world. Apart from its descriptive parts it is of little value.

The Bolshevik Bukharin’s Imperialism and the World Economy (1916) developed the idea of a single capitalist world economy and anticipated the role that the state was to play in supporting the overseas economic interests (markets, raw material resources, investment outlets, trade routes) of the capitalist firms established within its borders.

All three (and others) were trying to analyse the phenomenon of capitalism coming to dominate the whole world, as it did towards the end of the 19th century, to which the term “imperialism” was given. This was not the best term since imperialism is not something separate from capitalism and all capitalist countries, not just those normally labelled “imperialist”, are prepared to use force to further the vital economic interests of their capitalist class. – Editors.

Letter: Distorting Marxism (1967)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Sirs,

While not in any way wanting to associate the beliefs of our group with those of the SPGB, we are deeply amused at your efforts to emasculate Marxism. Your hatred of Lenin and Bolshevism rather stands in contradistinction to your espousal of Marxism. Most of all, quoting from the works of Kautsky and Bukharin in your literature, as if to prove your Marxism by the choice of books you quote from, is also most humorous. Take any Marxist conception and there the SPGB will be found revising and distorting it. It is perhaps paradoxical that the two works of Marx you base your policies on, Value, Price and Profit and the Critique of the Gotha Programme, are the very works in which Marx exposes and smashes present SPGB policy, in his attack on Lassalleanism. Nevertheless, we are not as sectarian as your Party, and are prepared to listen to any quasi-Marxist group.

M. E. Therrien,

Secretary, Exeter China Policy Study Group.

Reply

The theory and practice of the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain is based on Marxism; that is, we accept as valid the main theories put forward by Marx about history, political economy and politics. We accept that the materialist conception of history is a very useful method for examining and understanding social and historical events and changes. We accept that Capital is a brilliant analysis of the workings and historical tendency of capitalism and exposition of how the working class are exploited. We accept too that the working class can be freed from wage-slavery only by its own efforts, by taking class-conscious democratic political action to get Socialism. We were unaware that in so doing we were “emasculating” Marxism and we are not prepared to consider the allegation that we have distorted Marx’s views until and unless Mr. Therrien, or anyone else, produces some evidence.

As a matter of fact it was Lenin and the Bolsheviks who twisted Marx’s theories. For Marx the emancipation of the working class had to be the work of the working class itself. Lenin rejected this. In What Is To be Done? he says, contemptuously, of the working class that “exclusively by its own effort” it can only reach a trade union consciousness. Socialist understanding, Lenin argued, must be brought to them from outside—in Russia by a band of professional revolutionaries organised as a vanguard party. In other words, Lenin and the Bolsheviks held that a vanguard party could free the working class rather than the working class, through it own class-conscious democratic political action, free itself.

Before trying to pin labels on us Mr. Therrien really must make up his mind which one he is going to use. Kautsky (foremost thinker of European Social Democracy) and Bukharin (Bolshevik thinker and leader, later murdered by Stalin) were both opposed to Lassalle (a nineteenth century playboy who did some pioneer work in organising workers, of Iron Law of Wages fame). And of course Kautsky and Bukharin were opposed to each other. We, in the Socialist Party, have serious criticisms to make of all three. In fact, we would say that Lassalle had nothing to contribute to Socialist theory and Bukharin next to nothing.

The policy of the Socialist Party is not based on two works of Marx. It is based on the interests of the working class in the modern world. Value, Price and Profit is a basic work of Marxian economics always worth reading. The Critique of the Gotha Programme, some marginal notes written by Marx on the programme adopted by German Social Democrats at a unity congress held in Gotha in 1875, has certain defects precisely because it was not written for publication. It is odd that we should be accused of basing our policy on these since the Stalinists use them to try to justify their theory that Socialism and Communism are two separate societies. The notes don’t bear this interpretation anyway and Marx used the two terms interchangeably to refer to the classless society of the future, based on the social or common ownership of the means of life.

Finally, may we express the hope that Mr. Therrien’s group’s study of the policies of state capitalist China is conducted on somewhat more scientific lines than their study of Socialist Party policy appears to have been.

Editorial Committee.

The Socialist Searchlight. (1928)

From the September 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

VARIOUS POLICIES EXAMINED.

THE “SOCIALISM OF THE LABOUR PARTY. 

What the Labour Party calls Socialisation can easily be gathered from the famous speech on “Gradualism” made by the “brains” of the Labour Party—Mr. Sidney Webb—who plainly showed that his conception of Socialism was the ordinary legislation of Liberals and Tories. He said:

“The process of Socialisation has been going on for a whole generation in National and Local Government without our realising it.”

If the I.L.P. thinks that Mr. Webb is not advanced enough what about their own Tom Johnson, M.P., who as Editor of “Forward,” continually describes Glasgow “City Owned” Tramcars as Socialism? This same I.L.P. leading Member of Parliament, in his debate with Mr. J. M. Keynes, said :

“That he regarded many of the proposals in the Liberal Yellow Book as proposals for which Socialists could vote with both hands (“Forward,” 11/8/28).

HOW COMMUNISTS FIGHT ELECTIONS. 

Mr. Aitken Ferguson, adopted as Communist Party Candidate for North Aberdeen, shows that he is a Communist in name only. The National Left Wing Committee asked him if he accepted their programme and he replied (Sunday Worker, August 12) :

“The whole programme is unreservedly accepted. I am enclosing a copy of my election address, and you will notice that it differs in no essential points from the programme of your national committee.”

This programme includes Nationalisation of Banks, Mines and Basic Industries, 44-hour week and £4 minimum wage Law, Nationalisation of Land (with due regard for Co-ops, and small holders !), Capital Levy, Unemployment Relief on a National Scale, Pensions at 55, Abolition of House of Lords.

This policy is not Communism nor is it one which alters the slave position of the workers under Capitalism. The programme can be carried out and still leave the Capitalists richer than ever, because nothing in such a series of reforms stops the normal development of industry benefiting the Capitalist at the expense of the worker. The last item—abolition of House of Lords—shows how “vote catching” has reduced for election purposes the Communist demand of “smashing the State” to the gentle liberal political reform of “No Second Chamber.”

RATIONALISATION AND ITS RESULTS. 

“Apparently the increased seriousness of accidents during the last few years has been the direct result of the increased intensity of industrial activity during that period. There are, however, forces inherent in mechanisation itself and in the consequent speeding up of industry which have a direct tendency to increase the seriousness of accidents.”

(From “A Study of Safety and Production,” by The American Engineering Council.)

THE ECONOMIC MARCH. 

“The fact that during the past 20 years the number of factories has increased by 40 per cent., while workshops have fallen by 26 per cent., is regarded as an indication that “the small employer tends to drop out of existence, and that mass production in highly organised establishments is steadily replacing the village and rural workshop.” 

The “Daily News,” July 31st, quoting report of Chief Inspector of Factories, 1928.

THE COMMUNIST “UPSURGE.” 

Since the theses of the Third (Moscow) International advocating violence and armed insurrection (1921) were suppressed by the authorities, many workers think that policy has been abandoned by the Communists.

We print below two quotations from the new draft programme of the 3rd International now being discussed by the Congress in Moscow, where a large number of paid officials of Communist Parties are meeting.

These quotations prove that phrases and slogans borrowed from Russian experiences are still being advocated for countries with a much different situation than Russia. The net result of such a programme is simply to get the minorities who act on these lines smashed by the powers of the governments. Steady organisation and education in Socialist ideas are neglected entirely by such schemes of sensational uprising.

THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME. 

“When the revolutionary tide is flowing, when the dominant classes are disorganised, the masses are in a state of revolutionary ferment, the intermediary strata are inclining towards the proletariat and the masses are prepared for action and for sacrifice; the task of the party of the proletariat is to lead the masses into the direct attack upon the bourgeois state. This is to be achieved by propaganda in favour of all transitional slogans (Soviet’s, workers’ control of industry, the slogan of peasant committees for the seizure of the landlords’ land, etc.), and the organisation of mass actions, to which all other branches of party work, agitation and propaganda, including parliamentary work, must be subordinated. This includes strikes, strikes combined with demonstrations, the combination of armed demonstrations and strikes, and finally the general strike conjointly with the armed uprising against the political power of the bourgeoisie. The struggle must be subjected to the rules of military art; it must be conducted according to a plan of war and in the form of a military offensive. It calls for the devoted loyalty and heroism of the proletariat. Such actions must be preceded by the organisation of the broad masses in military units which by their very form attract and set into action the maximum number of toilers (councils of workers’ and peasants’ deputies, soldiers’ councils, etc.), and by intensified work in the army and navy. 

(Daily Worker, New York, July 16th, 1928).

THE MOSCOW POLICY FOR ENGLAND ! 

“Countries of highly developed capitalism (United States, Great Britain, Germany, etc.) with powerful productive forces, a high degree of centralisation of production, relatively small significance of small production and with a long-established bourgeois, democratic political system. In these countries, the fundamental political demand of the programme is direct transition to the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the sphere of economics the most characteristic are : The expropriation of the whole of large-scale production ; the organisation of a large number of State Soviet farms, only a small share of the land to be transferred to the peasantry ; unorganised market relationships to be permitted only on a small scale. Socialist development generally and the collectivisation of peasant farming in particular to proceed at a rapid rate.” 

(Daily Worker, New York, July 13th, 1928).

STREET FIGHTS ARE COMMUNIST POLICY. 

Bucharin was the official Bolshevik speaker in favour of the new Draft Programme on July 19th at the Moscow Congress (1928). His remarks, which we quote below, ask the workers to resort to anarchist street fightings and state smashing and such hopeless and out-of-date methods of struggle. Modern conditions make all such policies obsolete in view of the development of the mighty political machine and its forces, as Engels well showed in reviewing the class struggles in France from 1848 to 1850.

Here is the quotation from Bucharin as printed in the official “International Press Correspondence ” (July 30th, 1928).

“Mass actions must be regarded as one of the best means in our struggle. Our tactics must be to mobilise the masses, to become masters of the streets, to attack again and again the law and order of the bourgeoise State and to smash it, to capture the street by revolutionary means, in the strict sense of the word, and then to go further. Only on the basis of a whole series of such events and on the basis of the development of these events—mass actions, etc.—only through such a process can we prepare ourselves for fiercer and more stubborn mass struggles on a larger scale.”

BACKWARD RUSSIA. 

If they could show that any of the above methods had led to Socialism in Russia they might have a plausible argument. But as we have shown in these columns the Russian Bolshevik Policy is neither applicable here with a different stage of working class development, nor is it able to give Russia Socialism.

How backward Russia is we can regretfully read in this quotation from the Bolshevik Workers’ Life of July 20th, 1928 :

“Russia is a country of small peasant farms, like those parts of Ireland, where landlords do not flourish. In general, the methods of tilling used by the peasants are very primitive, and little attempt is made to sort out good seeds or to study the characteristics of the soil.

But scattered throughout the Soviet Union now there are a number of Soviet farms, larger in size than the peasant holdings, and very much more efficient.

In the R.S.F.S.R. there are over 3,000 such farms, and in the Ukraine there were 633 last year.

Large though these numbers seem, Soviet farms are only “a drop in the ocean” in the vast expanse of Russia. Their production is a very small proportion of Russia’s total output. For instance, they have about 200,000 head of livestock on these farms (cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, etc.), but the total number of such animals in Russia is nearly 20,000,000 !”

State Capitalism is not Socialism (1975)

From the May 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

The pages of the Socialist Standard have always pointed out the differences between the various competing capitalist states. These differences fall into two main categories.

The first concerns the amount of democracy permitted to the workers. The UK, certain parts of Western Europe and the United States are examples of countries where the expression of an opinion contrary to the interest of the ruling class does not mean persecution. It would be misguided to over-emphasise this point: the freedoms that are available come down to the bourgeois right of freedom of contract. That means the freedom of the capitalist to exploit the workers. The worker has the freedom to be short of the essentials of life, to be exploited.

In addition in the countries where freedom of expression does exist, it is strictly limited. There is no right to hold public meetings in the streets, or anywhere else for that matter. Nonetheless, the freedom of expression that prevails in the UK and some other countries is of some value to the working class. It is easier to put the Socialist case in London than in Budapest or Peking.

Whilst the first difference between the various political systems is therefore of some interest to the working class, the other main difference is not. This concerns state control, or nationalization as opposed to private enterprise. As far as the workers are concerned, exploitation by individual capitalists is just as bad as exploitation by a monolithic state organisation. Even Bukharin and Preobrazhensky were able to see this in 1919. Referring to the fact that under state capitalism all enterprises come under the dominance of the state they said:

State capitalism, centralising all those organisations, converting them all into the instruments of a single united organisation, contributes immensely to the power of capital. Bourgeois dictatorship attains its climax in State Capitalism . . . State capitalism uniting and organising the bourgeoisie increasing the power of capitalism has, of course greatly weakened the working class. (The ABC of Communism, Pelican edition p. 164).

Despite years of hard effort by the Socialist Party, two myths remain. The first is that state capitalism or some form of nationalization is of benefit to the workers. The second is that those countries that have a high degree of state control have in fact introduced Socialism or are at least in the process of doing so. Both these delusions are held by various sections of the political "left” despite the mass of evidence against them.

Take Russia first. The reality of state capitalism with all that it implies was made plain by Alexander Shelepin the former head of the Russian secret police when he was over here in March and April of this year as the guest of the TUC. The Guardian reported him as saying that the Russian unions were struggling to increase their living standards and to participate both in a share of the profits from industry and in industrial management (2nd April 1975). The next day The Sun reported him boasting that "Things were getting better every year. Wages were being increased.” Presumably in this workers’ paradise wages were previously "lower”.

The existence of wages is the hallmark of capitalism. Capitalism implies a certain relationship between people, depending on whether they own capital or merely the ability to work. The workers in selling themselves day after day to the capitalist enrich not themselves but the owners of capital whose wealth their work increases.

But despite the frantic action of the so-called communist parties throughout the world, the illusion that Russia is anything but a brutal fascist dictatorship, red-raw capitalism, is now held by very few. Instead, tragically people looking for hope from elsewhere (instead of working things out for themselves) have turned to China. Information on China is limited; nonetheless the papers are full of examples, for those prepared to see them, that what is going on in China is the build-up of a form of state capitalism. For instance, The Guardian reported Mao’s argument that there is an acute danger of capitalism reappearing just as he says that it has done in the Soviet Union. Mao is supposed to be urging the workers to keep up the struggle for Socialism (3rd April). If Socialism has been established why struggle to achieve it? If capitalism has been abolished how does it reappear?

The arguments go deeper. There are two fundamental conditions for the establishment of Socialism (which must be a world-wide event). The first is the technology capable of production in abundance. This patently was not possible in Russia in 1917 or in China in 1949. The second is the desire of the working class, based on knowledge and understanding, to establish and run a social system where all wealth is owned in common by the whole of mankind, where production takes place for use, and where all that is made by man, is freely available to man. This condition never existed in Russia or China and as yet exists nowhere in the world. But the measure of the political awareness of the working class, is their level of understanding of Socialism. Without Socialist knowledge, Socialism is no more possible than walking on water. Those that claim they are introducing Socialism for the working class (or have introduced it) are hoodwinking humanity.

Ronnie Warrington

Editorial: No Socialism in Russia (1956)

Editorial from the May 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is very important to the Socialist Party of Great Britain that there should be no confusion about the state of affairs in Russia. The aim of the S.P.G.B. is to see Socialism established everywhere but our propaganda for Socialism is hampered by the belief, held by some people, that Socialism means the kind of social arrangements that existed in Russia under Stalin and exist still. There is no truth in this whatsoever. There is no Socialism (or Communism) in Russia, nor has there ever been.

What Russia has is a regime of dictatorship, administering what can best be described as a largely State Capitalist social system. The State apparatus is controlled by the Communist Party of Russia, the only political party that is allowed to exist in that country. Farcical so-called elections are held, but, as the workers of Russia are not allowed to form political parties of their own choice, only members of the Communist Party and those approved by them are permitted to stand at election and be elected. This is an issue by which to assess the recent talk of changed conditions in Russia. Stalin is dead and some of his actions have been repudiated but it is still the case that no political party is allowed to exist in Russia except the Communist Party. It was over 20 years ago that Stalin had to admit to some visiting Americans that in Russia “only one party, the party of the workers, the Communist Party, enjoys legality." (“Interviews with Foreign Workers’ Delegates". Published in Moscow 1934, p. 13).

The same idea had been pithily put still earlier by Bukharin, who declared that in Russia there is room for any number of political parties, as long as one is in power and the others in prison.

The British Communist Party has just reaffirmed its confidence in the Communist Party of Russia. Let it clearly be understood that this is a renewed declaration of support by the British Communist Party for a regime that suppresses all independent working class political activity. While this condition remains it is idle to pretend that the new rulers of Russia are showing evidence of a changeover from dictatorship to more democratic arrangements.

In asserting that there never has been Socialism in Russia the S.P.G.B. is not making a late discovery. Right from 1917 when the Communists were able to get power in Russia it has been emphasised by the S.P.G.B. that Socialism had not been established in that country. Our declaration on this point and our explanation of the reasons were placed on record in the columns of the Socialist Standard and a selection of the articles was reproduced, unchanged, in the pamphlet “Russia Since 1917" (114 pages, 1/-, post free l/½).

The reader who wishes to know what has been the attitude of the Socialist Party towards events in Russia under the Communist Party dictatorship is referred to that collection of articles. He will see there that the Socialist Party in aim and in method has nothing in common with the Communist Parties of Russia and other countries.

Letters: Education? Education? Education? (2006)

Letters to the Editors from the February 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Education? Education? Education?

Dear Editors,

Rarely does a newscast pass without mention of education. New initiatives are released like frantic hounds hunting down a headline. Examinations are or are not more stringent than ever they were. Primary school leavers enter secondary functionally illiterate and/or innumerate. Eight years on from being elected promising to solve all educational conundrums, the Labour government flounders on. Recently its education ministers turned on their own enforcers OFSTED for giving good reports on schools that subsequently appeared in the relegation zone of the league tables. If ever there was a paradigm of capitalism it is education.

 

When state education was established towards the end of the 19th century rote learning, lots of copying and well marshalled callisthenics was the rule. This reflected industrial processes for which those children were being prepared. Today the direct influence of capitalism is to be seen in the managerial approach; the setting and measuring of targets, a tightly controlled and prescriptive national curriculum, all inspected by the pedagogic commissars of OFSTED.

What is not considered, despite much rhetoric to the contrary, is that each child is an individual, ironic for a system that lauds individualism. In truth there is a continuum of ability in any area, not some crass equality that can be state imposed. Socialists have no difficulty with the concept of from each according to ability, an obvious recognition of difference, to each according to need, a guarantee no one can suffer or prosper due to congenital factors. Of course capitalism cannot act on this basis. The absolute need to produce for profit requires a trained workforce, why else make school attendance a legal requirement, pupils being the only members of our society forced by law into an institution without being convicted in court. Education becomes associated with a punitive regime rather than a wide variety of ways everyone, whatever their innate abilities, could enhance their lives.

At the end of the 19th century school boards were concerned about levels of truancy and poor achievement. Their answer? Industrial schools where a more vocational approach could appeal to those who were not so academic. Little changes really and cannot, until people accept that education will only be transformed along with society in general. Abolish capitalism and promote the co-operative, moneyless and worldwide common ownership that is socialism. And only then will the economic and social deprivation that is such a negative influence on so many children’s lives be done away with. Only then will education be determined by those who want to be educated, instead of it being subjected to the pet nostrums and egos of politicians.

Dave Alton, 

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Defeatist?

Dear Editors,

I agree with most of what Adam Buick writes in “Capitalism and the quality of life” (January Socialist Standard). Just a couple of supplementary points. He mentions Lefebvre’s A Critique of Everyday Life and Debord’s Society of the Spectacle as good on criticising commodity culture. I think socialists will find any of Andre Gorz’s books better value on that subject.

The other point is what, if anything, we can do about the spread of money-commodity relations into all aspects of life. The article says “There’s nothing that can be done to stop this within the context of capitalism …” Unduly pessimistic and defeatist, I think. We can protest at every manifestation of capitalist culture we come across.

 

I remember about 30 years ago being invited to a teachers’ union meeting in California. Just before the interval the chairperson introduced a guy who promptly started to sell insurance. I was amazed and voiced my displeasure. They all looked sheepish, but nobody said anything. I’m not saying the revolution took a step forward that day. But if a few hundred, then a few thousand, then a million of us publicly declare our opposition to capitalism…

Stan Parker (by-email)

Totalitarian

Dear Editors,

In assessing Bukharin (December Socialist Standard) we must be aware he belonged to the totalitarian Bolshevik Party. He supported the Bolsheviks’ forcible dissolution of the Constituent Assembly when electors placed them in a minority. Bukharin supported the erosion of workers’ rights and use of terror against political opponents, whether right or left, including the bloody suppression by Trotsky of the Kronstadt Rebellion which was not led by right wing people, but by Socialists. The workers in Russia enjoyed less rights and freedom than the capitalist West. Bukharin was in this so-called Marxist government. The SPGB rightly calls it state capitalist. The Socialist Party existed in Britain whereas in Russia people of similar views were in labour camps or executed.

Andrew Harvey,

 Carlisle

Russia and capitalism

Dear Editors,

In the article on the First Russian Revolution of 1905 (Socialist Standard, December) you conclude that one of the many lessons to be learnt from that event is that “any worthwhile progress in human society must come, and can only come, from the working class”, and “relying on our rulers to initiate worthwhile change is as useless as the Russian peasants’ reliance on the Tsar.”

This is an unusual argument for a Marxist to make because all Russian (and other) Marxists regarded capitalism as a progressive force notwithstanding the fact that capitalism was introduced into Russia as a direct result of state policy, on the initiative of rulers – from Alexander II’s reforms in the 1860s, to Witte’s industrialisation program in the 1890s and Stolypin’s agrarian reform of 1906.

More surprising is the fact that you fail to mention the one institution in 1905 which was wholly and spontaneously a creation of the Russian working class.  This was the soviet or workers’ council.  Despite its relatively brief life, the Petersburg Soviet in 1905 assumed the character of an organised revolutionary authority and a rival power of government.  From that experience Lenin drew the conclusion that the dynamic power of the soviets, under the direction of a group of professional revolutionaries, could be harnessed to bring about a revolution which would change society from top to bottom and ultimately lead to socialism (subject to the victory of socialist revolutions elsewhere in Europe). 

In October 1917 Lenin’s political tactics succeeded when he wrested power from the Provisional Government and, ultimately, from the soviets themselves.  The voluntaristic strain in Marxism represented by Lenin and the Bolsheviks triumphed over the deterministic (and orthodox) strain represented by Martov and the Mensheviks.

Yet you suggest that the main lesson of 1905 is that “no force can cut short the natural development of society until it is ready for change”.  Do you believe that the Bolsheviks were not such a force?  And if not, what sort of “natural development” are you talking about?

Peter Bryant, 

Sydney, Australia

Reply: 

We were alluding to the development of capitalism in Russia, which the Bolsheviks were unable to avoid. In fact, they became its agents – Editors.

Questioning everything

Dear Editors,

Your reaction to my letter in the December issue when I said that I restrict my buying to essentials, was very guarded. That was a correct view to take for as I point out in my booklet Question Everything, (available without charge from me at 51 Newton Road, Bath BA2 1RW), one should accept nothing without asking what are its implications and whose interests are involved.

You point out that if it caught on employers would be able to pay us less, but they always do so anyway in order to cut costs. What they never see is that if workers have less they can only buy less. Employers see things from their own short term point of view, condemning the unemployed as layabouts and a drain on public funds until they want government support, when one reason they give for having it is to alleviate the suffering of those same unemployed.

The simple fact remains that capitalism needs that we keep buying and when I heard that  the economy was slowing I thought that socialists would want to help it to do so further so that capitalism can give way to one that was more efficient.

No system based on the competitive greed, selfishness, aggression and conflicting interests of money can be more than marginally efficient, and in this scientific and technological age in which we can produce anything that we want and send it anywhere in the world without being impeded, distracted and negated by increasing multitudes of financial complexities, the money system has become superfluous, an impediment to everything that we try to do.

Only a moneyless society could be fully efficient .

We need to differentiate between people and societies, between capitalists and capitalism,  to stop defeating our objectives by making enemies. We all are humans conditioned by and conforming to our genetic and environmental inheritance so that no one, whether fat cat or beggar can be criticised or blamed for what they are or do. We can advance that inheritance only by developing intellect and reason.

Melvin Chapman, 

Bath

The Life of Uncle Joe (2005)

Book Review from the June 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Stalin: a biography by Robert Service. (528 pages. Macmillan. £25,  ISBN 033726278) 

Service deliberately, and bravely, tries to dig for the true story of Stalin’s life beyond the hagiography or demonography that usually represents him.

He presents the case that Stalin, or Joseph Dzughashvili, or Soso, or Koba — as he was variously known — was a central character in the pre-revolutionary Bolshevik party. He was keen acolyte of Lenin, a hardman — he organised the campaign of bank robbery and extortion in the Caucasian areas of the Tsarist empire at Lenin’s behest, even when the latter promised to cease such activities. He edited Pravda, was on the Bolshevik central committee and was Lenin’s close collaborator on the ‘National Question’. 

He was imprisoned several times, and though taciturn with fellow prisoners, he took his beatings at the hands of prison guards with equanimity. During the civil war, he commanded the Red Army on the south fronts, where he proved to be a ruthless if not effective commander.

So, hardly the grey man Trotsky liked to pretend him to be — but Trotsky could hardly criticise Stalin for brutality, when he was as nearly as ruthless. In fact, Service makes a good case that Stalin rose to power as part of a stop-Trotsky faction.

Stalin was able to present himself as the acme of Leninist orthodoxy, and possibly — and Service does make this case — believed he really was creating some form of socialism in the Soviet Union. Socialists — unlike Leninists — have no need to shy away from this fact. Our argument never was that Stalin was a bad man, a monster (although, obviously, he was) but that he was acting upon a false and dangerous theory — that a band of dedicated leaders could force the world to socialism.

Service makes clear that much of Stalin’s apparent paranoia was based on the simple fact that he and his fellows had risen to power suddenly and almost out of nowhere against the might of Tsarism. He believed, apparently, that a similar cabal could unseat him — what comes round goes around.

His callousness was relentless, ranging from bullying subordinates at informal parties, to personally poring over the list of names and faces of victims of his terror. Service alleges a desire to be at the centre of things, to assert himself that grew from childhood and was fostered by his membership of the Bolshevik party. As he notes, Stalin was among the few genuinely working class members of the inner sanctum of the party — which goes to show that having genuine workers in charge doesn’t make that much difference.

In his desk, when he died, were some keepsakes — a letter from Bukharin begging to know why he Stalin wanted to murder him when he was already politically dead, and a letter from Tito, threatening to try and assassinate him if he didn’t stop trying to bump the Yugoslav dictator off — as Service notes, one gangster to another. Even his intimate moments were blood-soaked and ruthless. This is a tidy account of the life of a utopian who thought that through ruthless will alone he could shape the world. As in some parts of his former empire, his statues are being resurrected and his reputation repaired, it also serves as a timely warning against leaders past, present and future.

Pik Smeet

Communist Rioting (1929)

From the June 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party takes its stand on the policy so clearly stated and defended by Marx and Engels that the working class must, as a preliminary to the establishment of Socialism, gain control of the political machinery of society. They can do this in the advanced Capitalist countries through political organisation and the use of the vote; the working class possessing, as they do, the overwhelming majority of votes. The Communists reject this theory of Marx founded on the lessons of everyday experience, and advocate the fundamentally different and fundamentally unsound policy of trying to create a working class armed force with which an attempt is to be made to fight and overthrow the armed forces of the Capitalist state. They reject the possibility of gaining control of the political machinery and the existing armed forces, and base their hopes instead on barricades and street fighting. Bucharin, speaking for the Executive at the 1928 Congress in Moscow of the Third International, made no attempt to hide this aim of the Communists. The following extract from his speech is taken from a report in the Communist publication “International Press Correspondence” (July 30th, 1928) :—

  Mass actions must be regarded as one of the best means in our struggle. Our tactics must be to mobilise the masses, to become masters of the streets, to attack again and again the law and order of the bourgeois State and to smash it, to capture the street by revolutionary means, in the strict sense of the word, and then to go further. Only on the basis of a whole series of such events and on the basis of the development of these events—mass actions, etc. —only through such a process can we prepare ourselves for fiercer and more stubborn mass struggles on a larger scale.

May Day Madness

On the instructions of the Third International the German Communists tried out this policy on May Day. May Day street demonstrations by every party had been prohibited by the Berlin Police Authorities because of the alleged danger of conflict between rival organisations. The Communists announced in advance their intention of defying the prohibition. According to a report published in the “Daily Herald” (May 1st) and received from German Labour Party sources, the Executive Committee of the German Communist Party were prepared for 200 deaths, but nevertheless gave instructions for demonstrations to be held at all costs. The demonstrations ended in an attempt by the Communists to hold two Berlin working class districts (Wedding and Neukoln) against the police. Barricades were thrown up consisting of tree trunks, paving stones, overturned carts, etc., and Communist snipers are reported to have fired on the police from houses in these areas. Brutal methods were used by the police. In all 23 people were killed and many others wounded before the authorities finally suppressed the demonstrators. The following summary of this criminal action of the Communists, taken from the “Manchester Guardian,” is based on the first hand reports of their representative in Berlin :—

  Many of the casualties were youthful Communists, most of them were inoffensive passers-by, only a few were policemen—it does not seem that one policeman was killed. Nearly all the execution was done by police rifles and machine-guns. The Communist rioters were poorly armed —they do not seem to have had more than a few revolvers—nor do they themselves seem to have been very numerous. The police showed some restraint at first, but then fell upon their opponents with great savagery, shooting and bludgeoning rioters and casual passers-by alike.” (“Manchester Guardian,” May 7th.)

Only one policeman was injured in the actual fighting on May Day, and the following days, and he shot himself by accident. (“Daily Telegraph,” 8th May.)

The Dummy.

This incident only serves once more to indicate the futility of the whole Communist theory of armed revolt. The Capitalist class, by their control of the State machinery, control powerful armed forces possessing all the latest and most potent weapons of destruction. In addition they can and do prevent the formation of any serious rival force. Even if the workers had any means of purchasing expensive modern weapons they would have no means of training themselves to use them. The “Guardian” points out how these hare-brained “revolutionaries” sent their boy dupes into action against a semi-military police force, armed only with a few revolvers. The “Guardian” is not quite accurate. According to photographs published in the London press, they also had at least one machine gun—a dummy ! With it they attempted to scare off the police. A harassed policeman is certainly likely to lie low when he sees something which looks like a machine gun. But these Communist children had apparently overlooked the very pertinent fact that to a fleet of tanks it is a question of supreme indifference whether your machine gun is a dummy or not. The authorities brought out their tanks and their armoured aeroplanes, with troops in reserve, and the issue was never in doubt. Even if the Communists could have resisted for a few days they never explained, and do not appear to have considered, what they were going to do with Wedding and Neukoln after they had demonstrated their ability, temporarily, to hold them against the police.

Police Spies

Even the temporary success of such a move depends on a circumstance which is so unlikely as to be well nigh impossible of achievement, that is to keep the plans from the police. It is common knowledge that semi-secret organisations advocating violence as does the Communist Party are honeycombed with police agents and informers.

In Paris, also, May Day demonstrations were forbidden, and there also the Communists threatened to defy the prohibition. The police accordingly rounded up the leaders just prior to May Day and kept a large number under preventive detention. This practice serves a twofold purpose. It deprives the rank and file of their leadership and at the same time enables the police to save their spies from danger or exposure by keeping them, with other prisoners, safely under lock and key.

How prevalent spying is and how difficult to detect is shown by the case of “John Vidor,” author of “Spying in Russia.” This person (the name is apparently an assumed one) claims that he not only wormed his way into the Communist movement, but got himself sent to Russia as a member of the “Workers’ Delegation,” which went there in 1927. (See “Daily Telegraph,” 3rd May.)

The “Morning Post” periodically prints scare articles written by one of its informers who apparently holds some minor official position in the British Communist Party.

Mass Action—Mass Suicide.

History knows many instances of romantic hot-heads vainly trying to overthrow powerful Governments without considering the hopelessness of the odds against them, being, in fact, more interested in heroics and martyrdom than anything else. But it has remained for the modern Communist movement to reduce this tactic to its last futility. Ever since the formation of the Communist Parties we have seen them denouncing the alleged Labour Parties as being in fact parties of Capitalism. We have also seen them voting these parties into control of the political machinery and the armed forces of the State. Finally, having placed in the hands of Capitalist parties the power to build up armed forces for the defence of Capitalism, they then commit the further criminal folly of sending boys “armed” with revolvers and dummy machine guns against the tanks and battle-planes controlled by those whom they have voted into power. The Communists, in pursuing this policy, are a danger only to themselves and to the working class.

Edgar Hardcastle