04.09.2002
Peacefully if we can
Unfortunately the desire on the part of some comrades to portray themselves as the upholders of revolutionary purity seems to have got the better of them. That is certainly the case with David Moran, who damned anybody who so much as expresses the desire for a "bloodless revolution" as having "the rank illusions of Kautskianism and treacherous social democracy" (Weekly Worker August 22). With all the certainty - and all the folly - of a religious zealot, comrade Moran informs us: "There is no possibility of such a revolution. The struggle between capital and labour, bourgeois and proletarian, "¦ inscribes upon its banners the dictum: 'Battle or death; bloody struggle or extinction'." This outburst was of course provoked by the adoption by a large majority at a CPGB members' aggregate earlier this year of an amended version of the 'What we fight for' column, which appears in every issue of the Weekly Worker. The relevant passage reads: "Socialism can never come through parliament. The capitalist class will never willingly allow their wealth and power to be taken away through a parliamentary vote. They will resist, using every means at their disposal. Communists favour using parliament and winning the biggest possible working class representation. But workers must be readied to make revolution - peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must." The notion that communists and revolutionary socialists - while encouraging the working class to arm itself with the most advanced weaponry possible - would actually prefer a non-violent revolution is hardly a new one. The phrase to which comrade Moran takes such exception - "peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must" - originates, as he knows, with the left, physical-force, wing of the Chartists. Comrade Moran is also aware that Karl Marx himself considered that the working class in Britain, having elected a Chartist majority, would be able to take power with little resistance, owing to the lack of any standing army or centralised 'body of armed men' in the 19th century. A peaceful revolution might also be possible in America, he ventured. Comrade Moran (correctly) points out that things are very different today. The bourgeoisie everywhere has ensured that its state is armed to the teeth and the ruling class would not hesitate to simply ignore, dissolve or otherwise dispose of a socialist majority in parliament. So does that mean that the armed forces of capitalism will inevitably have to be taken on in a full-scale civil war? Strangely, VI Lenin did not think such an eventuality was inevitable. As Marcel Liebman notes, in the spring of 1917 "Lenin remained faithful to the tactic that he had advocated ever since his return to Russia. Based on the conception of a peaceful passing of power to the soviets, it was summed up in three points which Lenin repeatedly stressed: (1) the need to win a majority; (2) the need to persuade and explain; and (3) renunciation of violent methods" (original emphasis, M Liebman Leninism under Lenin London 1985, p166). What? Lenin was for the "renunciation of violent methods"? Specifically in Russia, from March to July 1917, yes, he was. Why was this? Although after the February revolution there was dual power, the Socialist Revolutionary-Menshevik-dominated soviets were in effect handing power back to the capitalists, landlords and generals, collectively represented by the provisional government. The provisional government refused to give the land to the peasants, call elections for a constituent assembly or announce an immediate end to the war. In effect this government was carrying on with the same policies as tsarism. Yet almost everywhere, including in the army, the soviets had the real power - if only they could be won to wield it. That is why Lenin aimed, through peaceful persuasion, to win a majority of working people, a majority of the soviets, to the idea of taking power and dispensing with the provisional government. Thus Lenin wrote: "We have not only not been guilty, directly or indirectly, of any threats of violence against individuals, but, on the contrary, we have always maintained that our task is to explain our views to all the people" (Pravda April 15 1917). In the words of Liebman, "On a number of occasions he emphasised that it was not for the revolutionary proletariat to take the initiative in violence" (p167). For example: "Our Party will preach abstention from violence "¦ as long as the capitalists have not started using violence against the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers', Peasants', Agricultural Labourers' and other Deputies" (VI Lenin CW Vol 24, Moscow 1964, p163). Sounds a bit like "peacefully if we can", doesn't it? However, by July, Lenin had been forced to rethink. The central committees of the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries had in May substituted active participation within the provisional government for loyal support from the outside. In July Kerensky launched a full-scale assault on the Bolsheviks, forcing Lenin to go into hiding. For a time the Bolsheviks were unable to operate openly, let alone win over the soviets through persuasion. Liebman writes: "Did not this collaboration within the same government between the liberal bourgeoisie and the parties that held the majority in the soviets rule out the prospect of a gradual transfer of power to the soviets specifically?" (original emphasis, p169). On July 10 Lenin asserted: "All hopes for a peaceful development of the Russian Revolution have vanished for good. This is the objective situation: either complete victory for the military dictatorship, or victory for the workers' armed uprising" (VI Lenin CW Vol 25, Moscow 1964, p177). Note, however, that Lenin did not renounce his previous tactic as having been incorrect. Surely the lesson from all this is that the extent to which a working class revolution can be peaceful depends entirely upon the balance of class forces. In other words, it is not necessarily how much violence we actually deploy that counts, but how much potential violence we have at our disposal. Comrade Moran comes close to grasping this point when he writes of "favourable circumstances (say, the revolution breaks out here after the seizure of power in one, or more, of the other European nations - France and/or Germany, for example)". Yet all he is prepared to concede is that the "resistance of the bourgeoisie" would be "greatly reduced". Just why is it impossible for them to be faced with a power that is so overwhelming that they will not be able to resist effectively at all? And why were the conditions of Petrograd in 1917 "entirely unique"? Why on earth can we never again expect to see such a complete collapse of a regime? Perhaps comrade Moran should go the whole hog and state that we will never again see a revolutionary situation. After all, it is surely a question of degree: the degree to which the ruling class is divided and can no longer rule in the old way; the degree to which the workers refuse to be ruled in the old way. The more intense the revolutionary situation, the more complete workers' unity, the more total the collapse of the old order. The fact that in the modern era the bourgeois state has equipped itself with the most devastating weaponry and accrued to itself the most sophisticated means of communication, intelligence and propaganda is actually a secondary question if we view the matter within the overall historical context of the development of capitalism. As capital expands, so too does its gravedigger, the international proletariat. Today the world's working class is huge, while the bourgeoisie is tiny. Individual capitalists have more and more been replaced by faceless managers of conglomerates and pension funds. What is more, the system of capital is in decline. Its crises are more prolonged and more far-reaching, its concessions more fundamental and designed to put off socialism by anticipating socialism. Objectively capital is less powerful today in opposition to its main adversary, and consequently the prospects for peaceful revolution more likely, than in the 19th century. As in Lenin's day, what counts is the winning over of the millions. The bourgeoisie's state, army, police, judiciary and media all depend for their effective operation and legitimacy on their acceptance by the population - which is overwhelmingly working class. Capitalism's historical tendencies have shifted the objective balance in our favour. What about the "dictatorship of the proletariat"? Is it the full flowering and victory of democracy or its negation? Comrade Moran writes: ""¦ the proletarian dictatorship is the abolition of democracy for the exploiters, and the destruction of bourgeois democracy as a whole "¦ even formal democratic rights are denied the bourgeoisie"¦" This betrays a misunderstanding of the nature of so-called "bourgeois democracy" which is so common on the left. It is as though the capitalist class has been the main fighter for democratic rights. As though the bourgeoisie, out of the goodness of its heart, has insisted on bestowing upon society the right to vote, free speech, free assembly, the right to strike, etc. Each of these, without exception, has been fought for and won by the working class - the only genuinely democratic class. Taken together, these gains represent "bourgeois democracy as a whole", yet it seems that comrade Moran wishes to destroy them. It is true that proletarian democracy, with its abolition of privilege, its accountability and recallability, will take us to a qualitatively higher plane. But it will not involve the "destruction of bourgeois democracy as a whole", which the working class has won over more than 150 years of bitter struggle. Neither will we set out in advance to deny constitutionally established democratic rights to any section of society - including the tiny minority of former capitalists. Our method is not the anarchist one of abolishing democracy, but that of extending, deepening and giving substance to existing gains and achieving yet more gains through the power of the mass movement and the pulse of self-liberation. It may be that we will be forced in unfavourable circumstances to adopt emergency measures, but these would be viewed as a necessary evil, not something to be revelled in. However, in general, we have nothing to fear from, for example, the propagation of reactionary ideas. In fact, in principle it is desirable to have such ideas out in the open, where they can be more easily combated and defeated. In truth comrade Moran's approach is at odds with the Marxist method. His insistence that never again could circumstances arise where the bourgeoisie will be unable to forcibly resist the taking of power by the proletariat amounts to no more than unscientific dogma. Worse, he fails to recognise that there is a connection between the kind of future we achieve and the way we fight for it. If we positively relish "terroristic methods" and the suppression of rights and liberties such as freedom of speech, assembly, etc, the attainment of human emancipation becomes all the more problematic. Communists seek to socialise capital by progressively taking it into the hands of the associated producers. But there is every reason for us to strive to win over as wide a section of the capitalists and upper middle class as possible - managers, administrators and experts of all kinds. One of the reasons we can do this is our commitment to, and championing of, democracy. However, in order to achieve our aim of a revolution that involves the least possible loss of life we must be prepared for the worse. We will continue to warn the proletariat that "the capitalist class will never willingly allow their wealth and power to be taken away", and that in consequence "workers must be readied to make revolution" - and to use, if necessity dictates, the most ruthless violence. The more our class is so armed - both ideologically and physically - the more possible will be a "bloodless revolution". Peter Manson
Worker