No need to read this post. It is obscenely long and will in no way give you any sort of update on my life. However, this is a paper I wrote in Russian history that I found to be quite interesting. Well, I thought the topic was interesting, but I'm not sure if the paper itself captures that level of fascination I felt when researching it.
The importance of the events that marred the Russian empire culminating with the March 3, 1917, dismemberment of the “thousand-year old monarchy, the four-hundred-year-old tsardom, and the three-hundred-year-old Romanov dynasty,” cannot be underestimated in its importance and should not be too broadly generalized for the convenience of fitting a well-known term1. Just as it is inaccurate to refer to the American government as a democracy despite its true status as a republic, so too is the categorization of the Russian revolution as Marxist when it was in fact Leninist, or at best a hybrid of the two. In each situation, the terms embrace similar ideals, largely with the same intended results, but if these movements are to retain any true meaning, the intricate differences that cut between them must be acknowledged. While the revolutions of February and October certainly embraced the goals of Marxism as set forth in The Communist Manifesto, the way in which these goals were pursued marked a sharp departure from the revolution that Marx and Engels had envisioned to be historically inevitable in 1848. Therefore, just as the American republic is a derivative of democracy, tailored to the situation of the country, the Russian revolution utilized a derivative of Marxism heavily influenced by Russian ideals, circumstances and political leaders.
It is now crucial to clearly define what is required of a Marxist revolution. During his career as a revolutionary writer and thinker, Karl Marx took two conflicting stances- his original statement of Marxism as presented in his manifesto and the concessions made later in his career that “watered down his logic” to accommodate the less than ideal Russian circumstances out of desperation for a revolution of some form to awaken the workers of the world to unite2. Of the two positions, the former must be preferred, as it constituted his original intent, devoid of the frustrations of imminent failure.
In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels clearly articulate the necessary progression of history and revolution. They begin by stating that, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,” and continue with an explanation of the evolution of these class antagonisms to the simple clash between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat3. Because the bourgeoisie is the common enemy of the exploited masses of the proletariat, this phase of bourgeois capitalism is an absolutely necessary stage of history to be experienced prior to a proletariat uprising. It is this exploitation that is to eventually bring the proletariat workers to consciousness. Ironically, in this sense, as expressed by Marx himself, “What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable4.” This analysis of historical progression highlights the two central tenets of Marxism- the historical inevitability of the progression from capitalism to the emancipation of communism and the proletariat as “the agent of this emancipation because it is the only class whose particular interest is synonymous with the general interests of humanity5.” Minimally, if these criteria are not met during revolution, the revolution cannot be deemed Marxist in nature.
Marx tends to put the majority of his focus on these conditions leading up to revolution, indicating that these are indeed the most crucial aspects. From here it is to be assumed that everything will simply fall into place as the newly conscious proletariat who, “with the development of industry...increases in number; it becomes concentrated in the masses,” will gradually form into organized unions against the bourgeoisie “helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry6.” Eventually, this “veiled civil war” between the two classes inevitably “breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat7.” Then, and only then, can the goal of communism be realized: the abolition of private property and class distinctions in general.
Now that the central ideas of Marxism have been defined, it is necessary to analyze why the events of Russia in 1917 did not follow this model. The first deviation stems from a defect in the historical inevitability of the situation. Namely, Russia never experienced the phase of bourgeois capitalism necessary in bringing the masses to consciousness. In fact, Trotsky argues, “The fundamental and most stable feature of Russian history is the slow tempo of her development, with the economic backwardness, primitiveness of social forms and low level of culture resulting from it8.” Meanwhile, Marxism itself was directed toward the highly developed, industrialized nations of Western Europe who had attained this stage of capitalism and now merely awaited the consciousness of the workers to arise and incite rebellion. Although Trotsky utilizes Russia’s backwardness to justify his belief in the “combined development” that was to shield the nation from the horrors of capitalism altogether and serve as a springboard directly from feudalism to communism, the mere fact that these circumstances may lead to revolutionary success does nothing to portray the revolution as distinctly Marxist9. If anything, this may actually be used as an argument against the plausibility of Marxism as a historical process in general. If communism can result without first experiencing capitalism, then Marx’s theory of the inevitable evolution of social orders is incorrect.
Although Russia’s failure to comply with the first foundational elements of Marxism alone is enough to discredit the use of the term, it becomes far more convincing when this failure is noted to have occurred on multiple levels. This includes the second primary foundation of the theory- proletariat consciousness as the means for sparking the revolution. One of the most obvious distinctions to be made between the Russian experiment and pure Marxism is that while Marx placed full faith in the proletariat, Lenin, and therefore the Russian revolution in general, believed that, “by its own resources alone the working class is in a position to generate only a trade-union consciousness.10” Marxism would most likely attribute the impotency of the Russian proletariat to the backwardness of the Russian economy still largely dependent on the peasantry. However, in creating a “party of a new type” to rally the workers as they never could independently, Lenin rightly acknowledges the fact that revolution could never happen in the absence of such an overriding vanguard party11. Once again, however, this reliance on revolutionary parties does more to discredit Marxism than to align it with the Russian experiment. Lenin was loyal to Marxism in his goals, but his actual plan for revolution was not inherently Marxist, and in fact deviated from the key aspects of the philosophy.
In answer to this it can be argued that Marx, by discussing a Communist Party in his own manifesto allows for the creation of such a vanguard party. However, it must also be noted that while the Communist party may have a clearer understanding of the situation facing the proletariat, the ultimate revolt of the proletariat is inevitable and would ultimately occur in its absence. In contrast, Lenin and the Bolsheviks do not trust this paradigm of historical inevitability and instead rely on propaganda and party politics to bring about revolution. For example, immediately following the February Revolution, Sukhanov, speaking for the revolutionaries, made this clear when he declared, “Take the power, but don’t arrest us for propaganda12.” Rather than allowing the time for capitalism to exploit and enrage the masses in revolt, Leninism requires the bombardment of society with political propaganda, revealing the doubt that the Russian revolutionary leaders had in regard to Marxism in its intended form.
Yet another issue with Lenin’s vanguard party was ironically the lack of cohesiveness it provided the revolution. Particularly in the months leading up to the October seizure of power, the divide between and within the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries, and other socialist parties seemed insurmountable. This, of course, is what is destined to happen when the reliance is shifted away from the masses and put into the hands of political parties. “During the years of the revolution the Communist Party was by no means a single-minded force…at every stage of the revolution dissident groups arose among the Communists to object Lenin’s course of action…the revolutionary period reveals the wide range of political and social alternatives which the general standpoint of radical Russian Marxism allowed13.” True single-minded revolution was impossible in 1917 Russia, and yet it was required under Marxism. When Russian ideas forced by Russian political parties permeated the revolution and disfigured Marxism, it became just that- radical Russian Marxism- lacking unity and distinctly Russian, but communistic in nature.
Another issue that necessarily arises when discussing the role of the proletariat in inciting revolution is the actual forces that caused first the February and ultimately the October Revolutions. The critical factor leading to the success of the February revolution in overthrowing the monarchy was the general state of disarray of the monarchy by 1916. In short, no single event or unifying issue (i.e. capitalism) as would have most likely existed in a Marxist revolution was apparent in Russia in 1917. However, “Contributing factors were the uneven development of Russian society; incompetence at the center; war-related turbulence of every sort; and the immediate events on the snowclad streets of the capital14.” Significantly, the immediate events of unrest occupy the last spot on this list of grievances, and it seems that by the time revolution, spontaneous or otherwise, struck in February, “The monarchy itself had become so brittle and unresponsive during the war that any major crisis might have toppled it15.” In the absence of a developed capitalist economy, the people rallied against the war, something non-unique to Russia and something that did not inevitably produce communist regimes elsewhere. Therefore, the fact that the toll of the Great War on the Russian people served as the major impetus for revolution further discredits the plausibility of the situation constituting a Marxist revolution.
Thus the relationship between 1917 Russia and Marxism in its intended form can be summed up as follows: Lenin recognized that the revolution simply could not come about the way Marx had predicted it would, because Russia was simply too backward, too Russian. In good conscience, Lenin created a kind of second hand Marxism to bestow upon Russia to bring about the communist ideals so ardently desired by Marx himself. However, the fact remains that when revolution left the hands of Marx for those of Lenin, it lost its Marxist identity along the way. In fact, “Communism was specifically the child of the Russian Revolution, and its basic character… stemmed directly from the way in which conditions of that era selected among the political alternatives offered by the revolutionary movement16.” Call the events that transpired in Russia during 1917 a Russian, Leninist, Lenin-Marxist, or even a Radical Russian Marxist Revolution, but if the sanctity of the meaning of Marxism is to survive, these events can by no stretch of the imagination be called a Marxist Revolution.
