CHAPTER 4

LENIN LEADS THE ANTI-CAPITALIST STRUGGLE

One of the most celebrated and initially successful anti-capitalist struggles occurred in Russia in 1917. A general sketch of the events immediately prior to the revolution and its complete sectarian degeneration under Stalin was presented in Chapter 2. It is time to look more closely at just how and why this anti-capitalist revolution was transformed into a totalitarian state.

Although the Soviet State in Russia after the revolutionary overthrow of October 1917 was a product of many factors, few could doubt that Bolshevik politics exercised a decisive influence in moulding its shape, content and direction. It is these political factors which will be explored in this chapter. The purpose of this exploration will be to review the essential political, social and economic policies considered desirable by the Bolsheviks, in the transition from a developing capitalist economic system into one they declared would be socialist.

The most influential Bolshevik until his death in 1924 was of course Lenin. It is almost universally recognised that Lenin was the most decisive figure in theorising and directing the practical activity of the Bolsheviks prior to their capture of power in 1917 and remained so until his death. Immediately after the October revolution he was made Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars - the governing body in the Soviet Union. In this capacity he was essentially the head of State. He was also the undisputed leader of the Bolshevik Party. His views and perceptions on the problems and progress of the world's first anti-capitalist revolution - undertaken in the name of Marxism and the working class - are an important source for understanding what unfolded in the Soviet Union prior to his death and subsequent to the ascendancy of Stalin. More importantly, for the purposes of this analysis, Lenin's writings are the primary source for understanding what were his explicit intentions with regard to the content and form of the post-capitalist society envisaged by the Bolsheviks.

Lenin's views on this course of development will be traced through the works published by the Soviet State Publishing house. These of course, will have been selected by the state publishers with regard to presenting Lenin in the best possible light. Anything of dubious, or doubtful tone, will undoubtedly have been left out. For the purposes of this review and discussion such selectivity doesn't matter, because if an analysis developed from this 'purest possible interpretation', throws light on some problems and various inconsistencies, then we can be certain they are really there.

From February 1917 - which had seen the abdication of the Russian Czar - until October 1917, a temporary government (called the Provisional Government) held formal power in Russia. That is to say the Provisional Government was made up of various Ministers who had been officially appointed to positions of power by the remnants of the old government. In contrast, informal power lay with the Committees of Workers and Soldiers (Soviets). These committees had been set up by various groups of workers as a means to pursue the interests of workers and soldiers, and where staffed by deputies they had elected from among their own ranks. The Ministers of the Provisional Government were able to send demands to a particular department for something to happen or an order for some action to be stopped. However, if the deputies of the Soviets didn't agree they would tell the workers involved in those departments to ignore the instructions. Since there were two sources of authority and power, this situation has become known as a situation of dual power. The nine months between February and October 1917, had also been a period of indecision and failed promises by the un-elected Provisional government, a period during which the crisis causing the original downfall of the Czar, steadily grew worse.

In September of that year the situation in Russia deteriorated quickly. The reader will recall that the Russian revolution occurred toward the end of the 1914-18 war - known as the First World War. Russia was one of the countries, along with England and France, which was at war with a powerful German army. Severe economic and social conditions were created by the war which caused untold difficulties, distorting and depleting the economic resources of Russia. After several years of hardship people were war weary and troops were deserting their battalions to return home. A majority of the Russian ruling elite wanted the war to continue but an increasing number of workers and peasants wanted it to end. The country was soon faced with a military and economic crisis with immediate and severe political repercussions.

Whilst the Provisional Government was still in power, the economic aspects of the crisis had taken a sharp downward turn, particularly in the major cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg. For example, at one stage it was discovered there was only one days supply of bread in the capital. If, due to the chaos of the war effort, supplies of flour were held up for even a few days, the already low rations for working people, would be further depleted and catastrophe would follow. The situation had indeed become desperate, but in actual fact the war had merely accelerated an increasingly profound economic and social crisis.

The situation of dual power developed into a stalemate in the political spheres of life. Those Russian political parties whose programmes were based upon social and economic reform could offer no straight forward policies to solve the problems faced by Russian society. This was not surprising. Even temporary and partial reforms require a degree of economic and political stability in order to be implemented and stability was impossible under those turbulent conditions.

With the path to possible reforms blocked by a combination of bureaucratic obstinacy, and the severe crisis, the radical overthrow of existing social and economic structures and their replacement by new ones, seemed to many, the only way forward. As we shall see in a subsequent chapter, even many members of the aristocracy thought a radical change was necessary. A revolution was clearly on the agenda if reforms could not be speedily implemented. From the perspective of the mass of workers and peasants three basic needs required fulfilling. First; an end to the war; second; to ensure sufficient food was available to the villages, towns and cities; and third; the long acknowledged need for land reform. The political tension and crisis brought about by the war gave simple humanistic demands such as Peace, Bread and Land, quite revolutionary implications. For, land reform, ensuring sufficient food for working people, and negotiating for peace were all politically and economically possible within the existing aristocratic system of Russia. However, in the context of Russian politics at the time, with the ruling class arrogant and divided, Peace, Bread and Land, could only be achieved by overthrowing the governing elite who were stubbornly preventing these things from happening.

Lenin, having planned and prepared for this moment over many years, did not hesitate. He argued that the Bolsheviks could step into this revolutionary situation, caused by the profound crisis, and use their influence to tip the balance against the formation of a capitalist system in favour of the workers and peasants soviets. He was confident that Bolshevik anti-capitalist theory and practice could solve the problems which faced the Russian workers and peasants. The only dispute Lenin would entertain was on the timing and nature of the seizure of power. However, the question of whether the Bolsheviks should do this divided the senior Bolsheviks on their Central Committee. After a lengthy debate (October 16 1917) the Central Committee, with a considerable majority, voted in favour of armed insurrection and the seizure of power. It was a decision also promoted by Lenin in a sizeable article. He declared;

"I still maintain that a political party - and the party of the advanced class in particular - would have no right to exist, would be unworthy of the name of party, would be a nonentity in any sense if it refused to take power when opportunity offers." (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 26. page 90.)

Having argued the right of the Bolsheviks to seize political power, Lenin went on to sketch out the kind of state power which should be created. It was territory he had covered thoroughly, in a previous booklet, called State and Revolution, it simply needed to be put into practice. In State and Revolution, Lenin had quoted Marx and Engels widely. He noted that the working class could not simply take over the existing state institutions but must smash them and create its own forms of power. These, he now stressed, should be based upon the Soviets, they should be democratic and work in the interests of the working class. Some existing institutions (Lenin cited the Banks) would not be smashed, but taken over and run in the interests of the working class. In this article he also refused to accept the charge that the working class would not be able to set the state apparatus in motion. Having encountered similar comments previously, he stated that;

"Since the 1905 revolution, Russia has been governed by 130,000 landowners, who have perpetrated endless violence against 150,000,000 people, heaped unconstrained abuse upon them, and condemned the vast majority to inhuman toil and starvation. Yet we are told that the 240,000 members of the Bolshevik Party will not be able to govern Russia, govern her in the interests of the poor and against the rich." (ibid. page 111)

In this article Lenin set a clear agenda for a future Bolshevik administration. Their task was to govern Russia in the interests of the poor. He followed this remark by announcing that in addition to the 240,000 party members, the Bolsheviks had a 'magic way' to enlarge the state apparatus by a factor of ten. This would be by drawing working people into the state organisation. The result would be a huge state apparatus which would administer and govern the new soviet society and economy. He envisaged this state administration would be unlike any other previous state. It would function with the spirit of a revolutionary democracy, taking revolutionary measures;

"For the administration of the state in this spirit we can at once set in motion a state apparatus consisting of ten if not twenty million people, an apparatus such as no capitalist state has ever known. We alone can create such an apparatus, for we are sure of the fullest and devoted sympathy of the vast majority of the population." (ibid. page 114)

Throughout the article, Lenin laid down the need for strict economic organisation and accounting. He also described how the new state would utilise bourgeois specialists. They would be under the control of the workers' organisations and would plan the centralisation of the economy and state. Specialists of this kind would be necessary, he indicated, until ordinary workers had received the necessary education and learned the required skills. This treatise ('Can the Bolsheviks retain State Power?'), closed with a robust answer to the opening rhetorical question in the title. It was that if the Bolsheviks did not allow themselves to be scared, then by taking power and utilising the apparatus of the big banks, syndicates, railways, and setting a state apparatus in motion, no situation could prevent them from holding onto power. Furthermore, Lenin promised that this hold on power would last until the triumph of the world anti-capitalist revolution. The document outlined the basic political programme of Bolshevism, which was to last, with only minor modification, until the collapse of Stalinism. That is to say the creation of a powerful centralised state apparatus controlled by the Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

The months following the October revolution saw much activity in the direction of drafting laws and debates in the press on the future direction of the Soviet State. In December 1917, whilst giving a report on the economic position of the workers in the city of Petrograd, Lenin argued that factory committees should not limit their concern to the affairs of their own factory but become an organisational nucleus helping arrange the life of the state as a whole. As a complementary part of this vision, Lenin argued that the Soviets would have to become bodies regulating all production in Russia. Instead of simply debating policies, these committees would have to take on planning and regulatory duties. From talking shops they would need to become action committees; instead of making speeches about power they would have to exercise power. At lower levels of activity factory committees were told they would have to concern themselves with the smooth functioning of the factories and government offices.

In the same month, Lenin opened a discussion on the issue of labour conscription in relationship to the wealthy classes. Everyone, he declared, must work for the new state. Those among the rich who refused to work voluntarily would be forced. This was followed later the same month by a draft decree extending labour conscription to everyone. Point 5 stated that;

"Universal Labour conscription is introduced. All citizens of both sexes between the ages of sixteen and fifty-five shall be obliged to perform work assigned to them by the local Soviets of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants' Deputies." (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 26. page 392)

If labour conscription for all citizens seems somewhat harsh, then the previously noted economic and social conditions should be remembered. This was no time for even a small section of the population to sit around and consume whilst producing nothing. The same draft decree obliged workers' organisations to move workers and switch the functioning of enterprises toward producing necessities. From that moment on, local bodies and soviets were to be strictly guided by the orders and instructions of the Supreme Economic Council. The new decree also dealt with the well-off classes and their wealth. Whilst not directly relieving the rich of their moveable assets it decreed the confiscation of property belonging to those who deceived the state. This was a penalty extended to all those who broke the law, such as saboteurs and government officials who went on strike. Additional penalties for offenders were imprisonment, dispatch to the front (i.e. a war zone) or hard labour. The final section of the decree dealt with workers and office employees of nationalised industries. They were ordered to exert every effort and "adopt extraordinary measures to improve the organisation of work and raise the productivity of labour'" The very last sentence of the decree warned that those who were found guilty of shortcomings and neglect would be brought before revolutionary courts.

As December 1917 drew to a close, Lenin again observed that in order to become the ruling class and defeat the bourgeoisie for good, the proletariat must be trained in the necessary skills. However, such skills were not acquired easily. Whilst the workers were learning, they would be guided by the 240,000 Bolsheviks, who in turn would be guided by the Bolshevik leaders, who had already been schooled in such a struggle. To these ranks would be added the much needed bourgeois specialists. Late December also saw Lenin produce a somewhat controversial manuscript on the importance of competition under socialism. Competition, Lenin argued, was not only desirable immediately but would continue to be so under socialism. He wished to see local soviets and communes competing with each other in accounting and in the control of labour and productivity. More than that, he now wanted work to be voluntarily undertaken. In his view labour had by this time become work for the common good and not to make money for the wealthy. In future everyone would need to work conscientiously and not a single rogue or shirker should be allowed at liberty. Shirkers should be put in prison, or be made to serve a sentence of compulsory labour. So incensed was Lenin, against the work-shy and backsliders, that he demanded that in some places they should be put in prison, in other places put to cleaning latrines and even in some cases shot on the spot.

1918.

January of the year 1918 saw Lenin considering the problems facing the new Soviet State and its progress toward socialism. Only three months after the conquest of power, Lenin was directing his attention to sabotage and resistance which he felt was still holding things back. The situation, he considered, was not being helped by the low cultural level of the workers who supported socialism. In the 'Theses on the conclusion of Peace', he looked toward the inevitable anti-capitalist victory in Europe, which he felt would be necessary for the final victory of socialism. The reception of these theses, which also contained proposals on a separate peace with Germany, was accompanied by a degree of hostility from within the Bolshevik Party. In his opinion, the majority of the Party functionaries attending a private meeting, had not grasped the new social, economic and political situation. In this way, 'from the very best of motives', argued Lenin, those who disagreed were proposing the wrong solutions.

At this early stage, some 3 months after the conquest of power, it is possible to piece together some of the initial problems with which Lenin considered he was faced in the anti-capitalist struggle in Russia. He was the head of a party in which a considerable portion of the leadership did not believe it should have seized power when it did. Soon after the meeting which decided upon this action, two of those who opposed him, (Zinoviev and Kamenov) on the eve of revolution, spoke out against the action openly and nearly prevented it from occurring. Lenin also considered that the Bolshevik Party contained too many functionaries who could not understand the new situation. He also thought that many of them were guilty of revolutionary phrase-mongering. In addition, sabotage and shirking were becoming endemic among some sections of workers. His view was that the future construction of post-capitalist society was facing the problem of a working class with too low a level of culture for the tasks facing them. On top of these difficulties, there were extra ones created by political enemies in Russia and some by hostile capitalist governments outside it. The task which Lenin had outlined the previous year (of creating a huge state apparatus, and extending it to include millions of citizens) now appeared to be exceptionally difficult. However, he firmly believed that if support and hard work were forthcoming then things could only get better.

February 1918 saw yet another exceptional measure. It was a decree by the Council of People's Commissars, making it compulsory for every worker to work an extra 3 hours on top of their usual 8 hours. This substantial increase in the working day was to aid war work and ease administrative problems. For although the revolution had occurred on the basis of the demand for peace, Russia was still officially at war with Germany. The question of whether to have peace (and if so what kind of peace) or war with imperialist Germany, therefore still very much occupied the minds of Lenin and the Bolshevik Party. At the Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the Russian Communist Party, Lenin outlined what he considered the immense problems facing the country in its path to socialism were. On the positive side, he noted that the masses themselves had created the Soviets, and had gone through the experience of the bankruptcy of political collaboration with the capitalist class. At this point, Lenin advocated the need to accept even a humiliating peace treaty with the German Army, in order to win time to reorganise the Russian army and industry. He told this Congress that facing everyone was the task of organisation of accounting and control. And also;

"..the transformation of the whole of the state economic mechanism into a single huge machine, into an economic organism that will work in such a way as to enable hundreds of millions of people to be guided by a single plan..." (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 27. page 90/91.)

Lenin's vision for the future of the newly formed Soviet Union couldn't have been spelled out more clearly than at this Extraordinary Seventh Congress. It was to create a state-operated economic system, which would run like a machine and be guided by a single plan. The state was to have centralised economic functions as well as political and military ones. The economic plan would be devised by experts, agreed by the Bolshevik Party members, and implemented by the millions of workers and peasants making up the soviet people. Negotiating for peace with Germany was necessary to clear the way for the first steps in this direction. There were disagreements among the Bolsheviks at that Congress, not only on the questions of peace, but also on questions of the state and how long it should exist. Significantly at this congress, Lenin argued against any attempt to describe in the Party Programme what socialism would look like and how soon the state would wither away. In the same month an article entitled, the 'Chief Tasks of our Day', appeared and in it Lenin returned to the theme of efficiency and labour discipline. He proposed that Russia should learn from the Germans for the Germans personified;

"...the principle of discipline, organisation, harmonious co-operation on the basis of modern machine industry, and strict accounting and control." (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 27. page 163.)

During this period, Lenin elevated the practice of Capitalist-type industrial discipline and organisation, to the level of a principle, for he saw no other way in which millions of people could be mobilised to fulfil the centralised plans. He returned to such ideas repeatedly. A further example is contained in an article completed in April 1918. It was then produced as a popular pamphlet, called 'The immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government'. The introduction to this pamphlet outlined the tasks he saw facing the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks and all class-conscious representatives of the working class, were invited to understand the difference between previous bourgeois revolutions and the current anti-capitalist one. With such understanding would come an automatic acceptance that the principle task was planned economic production and distribution on a huge scale. The realisation of this plan could only occur if the workers and peasants "displayed sufficient class-consciousness, devotion, self-sacrifice and perseverance". The creation of such a new type of post-capitalist state involving the working and oppressed people in its activities, was again raised as an important issue. The keeping of regular accounts, economic management, not being lazy, not stealing, observing the strictest labour discipline and following the lead of the Bolsheviks, were important principles. These, together with Bolshevik control of the state, were a necessary condition for the final victory of socialism. Lenin once again emphasised the point that socialism called for a large-scale advance in the productivity of labour compared with capitalism and that this could not be done without the help of experts.

It should be noted at this juncture, that Lenin was openly advocating a step backward from the principles of the Paris Commune. Unlike the Paris Commune, which reduced all wages of officials to the level of working people's wages, the Bolshevik post-capitalist State would pay high wages, salaries, and special bonuses, to bourgeois experts. He again stressed the need to introduce compulsory labour service for everyone. In a section devoted to 'Raising the Productivity of Labour', Lenin noted the problem of first ensuring the material basis for raising productivity. This basis would be the development of large-scale industry. He noted that another important condition would be the simultaneous "raising of the educational and cultural level" of the mass of the population. In addition;

"... a condition for economic revival is the raising of the working people's discipline, their skill, the effectiveness, the intensity of labour and its better organisation." (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 27, page 258.)

A study of Lenin's writings of this and later periods indicates that for Lenin, increasing the intensity of labour for working people had assumed a paramount importance not only as a wartime measure, but for the peacetime construction of the planned economy as well. He reasoned that such an increase would ensure the production of sufficient goods and services to satisfy everyone - workers and peasants alike - and thus make them content with Bolshevik rule. At the same time he also warned that the tasks set by the Soviet State would take years to accomplish and that even the Bolshevik leadership itself had not yet acquired the skills to accomplish such large organisational undertakings. He felt the changing of old habits would be a lengthy process. An additional problem was that, as with other revolutions, scum would rise to the top, adventurers and rogues, boasters and ranters would attach themselves to the revolution. To prevent this, potential 'leaders' would need to be tested thoroughly, time after time, before they were promoted to responsible posts.

He drew attention to the fact that the new courts, which were the means of instilling labour discipline, were too weak. He reminded the Russian workers that it was those who "violate labour discipline at any factory, in any undertaking, in any matter", who were responsible for the sufferings caused by the famine and unemployment. He warned also that the state and the party must "know how to find the guilty ones, to bring them to trial and punish them". He then addressed another controversy which had developed within the party and trade unions at the time. This was around the decree on the management of the railways, which had granted individual executives 'dictatorial powers'. This measure was seen by many, inside the Bolshevik Party and outside it, as a betrayal of the Bolshevik's own principles of collective decision-making and democracy. Lenin countered this criticism by declaring that only a petty-bourgeois and hooligan mentality could possibly object to the dictatorship of individuals in charge of projects. Furthermore, he stressed that a coercive state was necessary in the transition from capitalism to socialism and noted that;

"There is, therefore, absolutely no contradiction in principle between Soviet (that is socialist) democracy and the exercise of dictatorial powers by individuals." (ibid. page 268.)

For Lenin, the reason that there was no contradiction between Soviet democracy and dictatorship, was because of the explicit needs of large-scale industry. Large-scale industry, was the foundation of socialism, Lenin had argued, and this needed absolute and strict unity of will. How can strict unity of will be ensured, he asked? By thousands subordinating their will to the will of one, was his answer. In an ideal world, he noted (i.e. one with a high level of class-consciousness and discipline on the part of those participating in the common work), such individual leadership would be mild, like a conductor of an orchestra. However, he added, if these qualities of class-consciousness and self discipline were lacking, (and according to Lenin in Russia they were) then sharp forms of dictatorship would be necessary. Whatever the situation, whether high or low levels of consciousness;

"...unquestioning subordination to a single will is absolutely necessary for the success of processes organised on the pattern of large-scale machine industry." (ibid. page 269.)

Lenin recognised in this pamphlet that it would take time for the ordinary working person to come to terms with this. Workers would need to be persuaded and convinced of the need for unquestioningly "obeying the will of the Soviet leader, of the party appointed dictator" during the period of the working day and afterwards in the work of the state. Lenin added that many people outside the Bolshevik Party scoffed at the number of public meetings held to discuss these issues. Lenin replied to this by pointing out that working people needed to discuss such issues at length in order to make possible the very durable transition to "superior forms of labour discipline". Only through prolonged discussion would the workers come to realise why they should obey the orders of Soviet representatives without question. Turning to a recognition of bureaucratic tendencies within the Soviet Government, Lenin repeated the point he had made many times before.

"Our aim is to draw the whole of the poor into the practical work of administration, .....Our aim is to ensure that every toiler, having finished his eight hours 'task' in productive labour, shall perform state duties without pay." (ibid. page 273.)

As we have noted, this participation in state affairs was to be an extra requirement over and above the labour required at the workplace. The idea was that if the State was extensive enough and staffed by millions of ordinary workers, and eventually by all toiling people, then the state would be unlikely to turn against the workers. That was the theory. We shall see how it developed in practice. Meanwhile let us consider a number of important issues which have so far been identified. These can be summarised, in the following ten points.

• The Bolshevik Party, as a political Party, had the right (even duty) to take power when this became possible.
• That power would be exercised politically and administratively by the 240,000 Bolshevik Party members who would govern Russia in the interests of the poor.
• These 240,000 would constitute the most class conscious elements of the working people and set up and head a state comprising of 10-20 million people.
• This state apparatus would actively construct a vast economic system as if it were a huge machine which would be guided by a single plan.
• To ensure that this vast economic system was efficiently and sufficiently staffed labour conscription would be introduced and enforced.
• To ensure the plan ran effectively, the principle of one-man management with dictatorial powers would be introduced into factories and industries.
• To ensure technical efficiency, bourgeois 'experts' would be recruited to specialist positions in this economic system by offering them much higher pay and bonuses than the working class.
• To ensure productive efficiency, the intensity of labour would be increased by modern methods (Taylorism) of labour organisation.
• To ensure diligence and persistence at work on the plan, those who resisted the above, or shirked in any way, would be severely punished.

The new year witnessed Lenin returning to the necessity for the proletariat to be elevated to the governing class of the country, and the universal training of working people in the art of governing the state. He acknowledged that in view of the circumstances of the Civil War and foreign interventions there was not enough food to go around, but countered criticism of Bolshevik food distribution methods by asserting that the state food workers were acting sensibly by restricting food to a standard which would prevent starvation. In line with these remarks Lenin, at a Central Executive Committee meeting of the Moscow Soviet, argued against calls for a return to free trade in grain. He stated categorically that all talk of free trade was utterly pernicious. Lenin then presented a motion which would compel local food bodies to assist the state food-procuring organisations. Such compulsion (ruthless compulsion if needed, he added) was necessary because the lack of co-operation and "distrust of the centre" must be overcome. For;

"Socialism ....means building a centralised economic system directed from the centre, and that can only be done by the proletariat, which has been trained in this spirit by the factory and by its whole mode of life." (Lenin Complete Works. Volume 28 page 400)

He finished this particular address by calling for the recruitment of younger and fresher forces from within the ranks of working people and placing them in more responsible positions. Winter 1918/1919 was obviously a crucial period for Lenin, for in January he addressed a conference of Bolsheviks and declared that the enemy facing them was bureaucracy and profiteering. The Soviet state, beset as it was by the combined armed forces of many western governments, was also, according to Lenin, facing a more decisive enemy from within. This enemy took the form of individuals who held key positions inside the state and were using these positions to play egocentric power politics. Also individuals who controlled food and grain distribution were abusing their positions for personal gain. Thus by the end of 1918, Lenin had drawn attention to the first stages of Bureaucratic degeneration and graft. Such practices were steadily eating their way into the fabric of the Soviet economy and state.

Dissatisfaction with central Soviet authorities was apparent in the districts because some decisions were now being taken by them without reference to the centre. In a number of areas purely local interests were beginning to outweigh those of the central administration. Control and communication were beginning to break down. A resolution, submitted by some Bolsheviks, called for a recognition of this situation and for the dissolution of some state organisations, together with the reorganisation of others. This proposal was strongly attacked by Lenin. In line with his previous pronouncements, Lenin argued that only the strictest centralism would get Russia out of its predicament. Red tape was the real problem and appointing more working people to government offices would help overcome this. Such strong opposition to central control from within the ranks of the Bolsheviks, as well as from outside, was clearly a cause of considerable concern for Lenin. Perhaps not surprisingly he returned to this subject at the Second All-Russia Trade Union Congress. The role of the trade union movement had changed since the conquest of power argued Lenin. In future, therefore, trade unions should take the centre of the political stage. They should take an active part in the Soviet government setting up new bodies for the registration, control and regulation of production and distribution. He accepted that a number of steps needed to be taken before the trade union organisations of the working people could be merged with the entire state apparatus. Practical activities would need to be developed which would begin to;

"...shatter that pernicious prejudice which for decades and centuries has been implanted among the working people, namely, that state administration is the preserve of the privileged few, that it is a special art." (ibid. page 427)

Despite the many problems and his advocacy of using bourgeois specialists within the state, Lenin was, at this point, still opposed to the state becoming a body separated from society and staffed entirely by an elite. He still wished for more involvement by working people in the organisations of the state. February 1919 saw Lenin urging that the masses be stirred into action and he stated that "we must pull ourselves together". The same month saw the closure of a Menshevik newspaper which had been charged with undermining the country's defence.

March brought the occasion of the founding of the Communist International. In addressing the founding Conference of this new International Lenin outlined the tasks he felt faced the assembled delegates. His speech to this International Congress amounted to a reiteration of many of the points we have already noted, together with a robust defence of Bolshevik policies. In addition to the previous ten point summary (page 118), it should by now be crystal clear that Lenin was not happy with much of the activity of the state apparatus, even though he defended it vigorously from external attack. The Party and State seemed to be increasingly getting itself bogged-down in red tape and fiddling, with preferences and perks to Bolshevik Party members on the increase. Lenin thought too few bourgeois 'experts' were being employed or utilised effectively within the economy and the state. There was also a growing tendency for Bolshevik Party members to consider themselves the only trustworthy people to command industry and staff the organs of state. This opinion was prevalent despite the evidence that many 'scoundrels' had crept into the Party after October. Local organisations were becoming increasingly critical of the central organs of power for failing to consult with local people. This whole process resulted in anti-centralisation tendencies, which in turn were reflected inside the Bolshevik Party. Many workers, he considered, were also becoming work shy and lazy. In his opinion far too many workers and peasants were of low culture and habits. Despite all these problems of centralised planning in Russia, he continued to argue that the solutions to the problems were to be found in rigorous implementation of the economic plans and the increased involvement of working people. At the beginning of March 1919, the bureaucratic degeneration, had reached such a level that, in a note to Stalin, Lenin called for "lightening inquiries" into citizens' complaints and "revolutionary measures" to combat abuses and red tape.

April 1919 saw the publication, by the Petrograd Soviet, of a pamphlet by Lenin on the 'Achievements and Difficulties of the Soviet Government'. This pamphlet commenced with a warning of the dangers to the Bolsheviks of devoting "too much attention to the petty details of administration". Within the pamphlet Lenin also felt the need to refute the charge of Red Militarism. Such an accusation could only be levelled by either fools or political crooks argued Lenin. To criticisms of utilising former Czarist generals and officers, Lenin once more replied that it was necessary to build post-capitalist society out of the human material which was available and bequeathed by capitalism. To criticise the use of such 'experts', particularly when properly supervised, was mere phrase-mongering and the pastime of 'windbags'. Lenin was convinced that for socialism and communism to finally succeed, Russia must 'take all that is valuable from capitalism'. This involved the employment of bourgeois specialists working alongside the trusted communists, Lenin reasoned. It would ensure that the fruits of thousands of years of civilisation could be enjoyed by all working people. The enlisting of all those whom capitalism had trained to oppose socialism, he asserted, was a practical task which now confronted the Soviet Union. Mobilising the masses and convincing them of the importance of taking over the entire bourgeois culture, was crucially important. Without this, he considered, the cause of a post-capitalist society would be hopeless. The peasants should not be bossed and forced, but helped and educated. Ignorance and the habit of working individually were deeply rooted in the rural districts, their cultural level was too low and must be raised by patient education and example. The draft programme of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), written for the Eighth Congress of the Russian Communist Party, returned to the themes of bureaucracy and the low cultural level. Lenin noted that;

"The bureaucracy is trying to regain some of its positions and is taking advantage, on the one hand, of the unsatisfactory cultural level of the masses of the people..." (Lenin Complete Works. Volume 29. page 109.)

We have established that Lenin, very early on, spotted and warned about the bureaucratic degeneration of the Soviet State, but he had strenuously refuted the charge that this was in any way the fault of Bolshevik policies. He had also urged that the problem should be solved as a matter of urgency and had suggested some remedies. Taking the issue further Lenin, in this later programme, also presented the stages he felt necessary for abolishing the state. First, every member of a Soviet would have a state administrative job; second, the jobs must be regularly changed; and third, all the working population must participate in state administration. The Soviet power saw its most important work, Lenin said, in making the benefits of culture, civilisation and democracy, available to the working and exploited people.

In the economic sphere, the programme called for comradely discipline among working people, for slow, persistent re-education of the masses and their organisation into "properly constituted, centralised and disciplined trade unions". Again the task of raising the level of labour productivity and the "most strict centralisation of labour on a nation-wide scale" was emphasised. At the Eighth Congress, Lenin reiterated the points made in the draft programme, but added a comment on how the past was holding them back. '"It (the past) grasped with a thousand tentacles and prevented a single forward step or compelled the party to take these steps badly." Lenin then explained the reversal of policy with regard to the Mensheviks. This had now changed from discussions on how to legalise their parties, to a policy of arresting them. Such switches back and forth were part of a consistent line, he explained, for it was a line of "cutting off counter-revolution" and "utilising the cultural apparatus of the bourgeoisie". Turning yet again to the question of bureaucracy and the complaints against it, Lenin explained how it arose within the Russian revolutionary movement. For, after destroying some of the old bureaucratic apparatus;

"We dispersed these old bureaucrats, shuffled them and began to place them in new posts. The Tsarist bureaucrats began to join the Soviet institutions and practice their bureaucratic methods, they began to assume the colouring of Communists and, to succeed better in their careers, to procure membership cards of the Russian Communist Party." (ibid. page 182/3)

Lenin informed this Congress that they could fight the bureaucracy to the end, but only succeed completely when the whole population participated in the work of government. In fact a large part of Lenin's report to the Eighth Congress was concerned with this rather pessimistic appraisal of the future situation. In his closing speech, Lenin enlarged this theme to include the Communist Party itself. He claimed that few, actually understood it.

Lenin then returned to a point he had raised many times previously, that of careerists joining the Bolsheviks. These types used coercion and bureaucratic methods so much that it was possible to hear the peasants say; "Long live Soviet Power but down with the Communia." In other words 'long live the Committees of Workers and Peasants, but down with the Communist control of them'. Again he stressed the low-level of culture saying;

"The result of this low cultural level is that the Soviets, which by virtue of their programme are organs of government by the working people, are in fact organs of government for the working people, by the advanced section of the proletariat, but not by the working people as a whole." (Lenin complete Works. Volume 29. page 183.)

According to Lenin, Soviet Communism was still at the stage of government for working people and not government by working people. Those governing were the advanced section of the workers and this advanced section was primarily organised in the Communist Party. An extensive and complex programme had been devised covering the entire country and yet, according to Lenin, only a tiny handful of people would be in a position to understand it fully. The implications were that the vast majority of the Party and the population would only understand it partially and therefore would probably implement it incorrectly.

In a gramophone speech made in March 1919, Lenin again dealt with the theme of labour discipline. He outlined his view of how working people could be saved from the oppression of Landowners and Capitalists for ever. In order to do so he stressed the necessity to build up a great Red Army of Labour, a fully and properly disciplined labour force. Later that year, in July 1919, Lenin hailed the heroism of the workers on the Moscow railway who had organised weekend working, without pay, to aid the war effort. Such events, known as Subotniks, were copied by other workers and usually held on a Saturday. These helped greatly in the production of war materials and rail transport. Those workers taking part, considered these voluntary work days as a temporary necessity to support their comrades fighting in the war. Lenin, however, thought they represented much more. For him, the Subotniks were a glimpse of the future post-capitalist society. He saw in the commencement of freely given labour, a new development which class-conscious workers would not withhold, once they realised that the state was their state. On the same theme, in a pamphlet entitled 'A Great Beginning', he noted that;

"Communism is the higher productivity of labour - compared with that existing under capitalism - of voluntary, class-conscious and united workers employing advanced techniques. Communist Subotniks are extraordinarily valuable as the actual beginning of communism;" (Lenin Complete Works. Volume 29. page 427.)

Higher productivity would come from increasing individual productivity of each worker, each group of workers, and from extra work done, without pay, on behalf of society. The Subotniks, praised by Lenin in this pamphlet, demonstrated all these important attributes. For Lenin, Subotniks were not only the new beginning of communist society, but also an excellent way of weeding out the work shy and opportunists from the Party. The same pamphlet called for a 'probationary period' during which potential party members should prove their worth by working in this new and revolutionary way. Continuing with this line of reasoning, Lenin suggested that even the word 'communist' should be withheld from everyone who did not earn the right to the term. Workers should be required to 'win' the honourable title of communist by demonstrating their persistence, effort and work without pay.

" First show that you are capable of working without remuneration in the interests of society, in the interests of all working people, show that you are capable of 'working in a revolutionary way', that you are capable of raising the productivity of labour, of organising the work in an exemplary manner, and then hold out your hand for the honourable title 'commune'" (Lenin Complete Works. Volume. 29. page 431.)

As with most things he turned his attention to, Lenin had by this time an extremely clear vision of the future social organisation of labour under a post-capitalist society. Communism was not just a broad socio-economic label, but involved a very specific way of life. Work and working practices would be organised and orchestrated in following and implementing the economic plans of the central planning boards. In this new post-capitalist social system, envisioned by Lenin, groups of workers would need to prove by deeds that they were useful members of a genuine commune. The Soviet State would require workers to labour for the common good and strictly follow the national plan. In addition, they would be required to raise their productivity to new heights and be willing to work for nothing. At the first All-Russia Congress of Workers in Education, Lenin returned to the theme of democracy and the by now frequent criticisms made of the Bolsheviks and their one-party concept of the state. Lenin was unapologetic, 'Yes it was a dictatorship of one party', he declared; that was his view and he was not going to be diverted from it. The reason for his certainty on this issue was because the party had won the position of the vanguard of the entire factory and industrial proletariat. It was a position the Party had achieved before 1905, he claimed. At this same congress he defended the use of terror, pointing out that it was the countries who invaded Russia; the British, American and French, who had first started the terror.

In September, Lenin returned to the theme of the importance of grain and its continued requisitioning from the peasants. He noted that other political groups were making a call for freedom of trade in grain and foodstuffs, but the Bolsheviks would never agree to this, he said, because it would mean a return to capitalist forms of production and distribution. At the root of the trade versus compulsory requisitioning argument, asserted Lenin, was a "life and death struggle" between socialism and capitalism. On the capitalist side in this struggle, he noted, were two great camps. The first was the brutal camp of landowners, capitalists, kulaks and Constitutional Democrats. The second group was made up of those who defended capitalism ideologically and unselfishly, without personal gain in mind, such as Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. All people who advocated "minor concessions" in favour of "private commercial apparatus", according to Lenin, were in the last analysis, advocates of capital.

At the beginning of December 1919, during the Eighth All-Russia Conference of the Communist Party [RCP(B)], Lenin again drew attention to a problem which, he declared, was of profound historic importance. In retrospect it is hard to disagree with this assertion, given the subsequent developments of the Soviet political system. In fact the problem was arising from a fundamental contradiction between the economic and social requirements of a beneficial post-capitalist society and the political and economic means being utilised to achieve them. Lenin acknowledged the pressing need to draw the masses into the work of building the alternative society, yet at the same time he recognised the problem of failing to be selective in enrolling people into the ruling political party. He summed up this latter point by stating;

"The Party cannot throw its doors wide open, because it is absolutely inevitable that in the epoch of disintegrating capitalism it will gather to itself the worst elements. The party must be so narrow that it draws into its ranks only those elements from other classes that it has an opportunity to test with great caution." (Lenin Complete Works. Volume. 30. page 187.)

On the one hand, from the standpoint of Lenin's theory of the transition to Communism the social and political basis of the revolution needed to be spread as broadly as possible. On the other, from the standpoint of the Leninist concept of political leadership, the party representing the working class needed to be highly selective in order to prevent the corruption of those who were to guide the revolution. As we have seen, Lenin was of the opinion that such corruption and invasion of the worst elements was already taking place. For Lenin, this could only mean tightening up recruitment to the party. Yet this was occurring at the very point, when in Lenin's broader view, the path toward socialism and workers participation needed opening up to more layers of workers and the oppressed, the 'magic way' of involving large numbers. These conflicting views represented a terrible contradiction.

In mid-December Lenin returned to defending the right of the Bolsheviks to take power and to lead the working class. His theme was the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' and its importance in suppressing the bourgeoisie. This dictatorship needed to be made up of that section of the working people which was capable of acting unswervingly and forcefully. In developing this point he stated that;

"Unless the revolutionary section of the proletariat is thoroughly prepared in every way for the expulsion and suppression of opportunism it is useless even thinking about the dictatorship of the proletariat." (Lenin Complete Works. Volume 30. page 258.)

Lenin undoubtedly had in mind those Bolsheviks who had made suggestions for various strategies which were at odds with the Party Programme and the direction it was taking toward the post-capitalist society. These differences were developing because many Bolsheviks did not agree with some of the more severe methods of compulsion. Yet as we see, Lenin, considered that the revolutionary section of the working class, the Bolsheviks and their supporters, had to be prepared for expulsions and suppression of opportunism, not only within the party, but also among the working class.

Returning again to the subject of Subotniks, Lenin took up the need for a theoretical understanding of the difference between socialism and communism and why he thought Subotniks were the beginnings of communist society. He argued that in post-capitalist reconstruction, socialism came before communism and this required socialised labour and strict accounting. This in turn required control by the vanguard and payment according to a fixed remuneration. Communism on the other hand, according to this view, required the habit of performing social duties without any special apparatus of coercion and without pay. Socialism would require a strong state, coercive methods and paid employment. Communism, on the other hand, would require the habit of unpaid work and thus would not need coercion. Hence, for Lenin, only under a fully DEVELOPED, perfected PLANNED ECONOMY could the state whither away. Lenin then turned his attention to some other internal critics. He called these 'petty-bourgeois' for claiming that although large-scale capitalist production had been destroyed only small-scale profiteering had taken its place. How could these critics imagine that Russia could go straight from large-scale capitalism to communism? As yet there was no communism in the Soviet economic system, except for the Subotniks, he declared.

1920.

In the Spring of 1920, Lenin completed a pamphlet entitled, 'Left Wing Communism - An Infantile Disorder. It was written with an eye to the forthcoming second congress of the Comintern. Among many other things, Lenin, in this work, took to task those within the international communist movement who had failed to understand the need for compromises. According to Lenin, revolutionary leaders who called for an all out struggle against Capitalism, without compromises, were exhibiting a form of stubborn childishness. It was necessary, he argued, to link the strictest devotion to the ideas of communism with the ability to effect all the necessary practical compromises. To throw the vanguard into decisive battles before the entire class and the broad masses had taken up a position of support, he considered, would be criminal. In the pamphlet Lenin stressed that the immediate objective of the class-conscious vanguard was to lead the broad masses to recognising the need for revolution. Until the masses were ready for revolution it was of the utmost necessity for anti-capitalists to display flexibility in their tactics. This aspect of the pamphlet was in many ways a reworking and updating of the ideas written by Lenin in 'What is to be Done'. However, in the final section, Lenin added something new. He brought forward the theme of establishing discipline and eradicating bourgeois habits under the Bolshevik form of post-capitalist society. He sounded a warning to the assembled delegates. It was that compared with these post-revolutionary difficulties the problems of building a communist group under bourgeois rule were simple.

During May 1920, Lenin wrote a letter to British workers. It was a response to criticism voiced by some members of a British delegation to Russia. In the letter he once again defended the use of the red terror of the Cheka. He considered it a necessary defence against the exploiters, with whom Social Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks and even some workers had sided. In the summer of 1920, Lenin drafted some important theses on the question of agriculture, and presented them to the Second all-Russian Conference on Rural Work. Having analysed the make-up of the rural population and described how some sections of the peasantry would vacillate toward free trade, he again emphasised the need to reorganise industry. In his speech to this conference he again stressed the negative role of slackness and slovenliness. He also recognised that many party comrades still clung to the old habits of the underground days. In those pre-revolution days, he noted, members did not have any inkling of how the work of the state needed to be carried out. He went on;

" That, however, is something we have got to know, for we must remember we have to govern millions. Any person in authority who goes to the rural districts, as delegate of representative of the Central Committee, must remember that we have a tremendous machinery of state which is still functioning poorly because we do not know how to run it properly." (Lenin Complete Works. Volume 31. page 177. )

That summer also saw the staging of the Second Congress of the Communist International. Lenin naturally attended and made a number of reports and speeches. During the Congress, Lenin robustly defended the basic principles of Communist Parties, but at the same time stressed the importance of tactical flexibility. In a speech on the question of communist affiliation to the British Labour Party, Lenin informed the delegates that whether a party was a workers' party or not, did not depend upon the number of workers in membership, but upon the men who led it and the content of its political tactics. In other words, Lenin was at pains to emphasise, as he had within internal Bolshevik circles, that it was not the class composition of a party which determined its orientation, but the ideas contained within its programme and the quality of its leadership.

The same period also saw an attempt by the Bolshevik armed forces - on the orders of Lenin - to export the revolution to Poland. There had been disagreement over this policy within the Bolshevik Central Committee, but Lenin and his supporters were able to gain a majority. In the early stages of this military operation the Bolshevik armed forces were remarkably successful, but later came to a halt outside Warsaw. It was there they suffered a heavy defeat and were forced to retreat.

In November 1920, Lenin spoke at a Conference on the importance of education being closely linked with politics. He told the conference of political education workers that the Bolsheviks did not hold the "utopian view that the working masses were ready for a socialist society". On the contrary, he told the delegates, the masses were thoroughly imbued with private property habits. He stressed that the cornerstone of all discussions of the committee of Political Education must be a recognition of the primacy of the Communist Party and its policies. There simply was no other form of reliable guidance available. He reminded this conference that the Soviet Constitution was based upon the tenet that the party rectified, prescribed and built according to a single principle. That principle urged that communist party elements permeated the proletariat with their own communist spirit. This was why a new army of teachers and instructors needed to be trained. Half way through the speech he drew the attention of the delegates to the fact that;

"Every Party Committee now has to look from a new angle upon every propagandist, who used to be regarded merely as a man belonging to a definite circle, a definite organisation. Each of them belongs to a ruling party which directs the whole state, and the Soviet Russia's world struggle against the bourgeois system. He is a representative of a fighting class and of a party which runs, and must run, an enormous machine of state." (Lenin Complete Works. Volume 31. page 369.)

That same month, in a speech to a joint plenum meeting of the Moscow Soviet, Lenin acknowledged that Russia had won a gigantic victory in repulsing the invading forces of Germany, Britain, France and Austria. He noted that the victory had been due to the self-sacrifice and enthusiasm of the Russian workers and peasants. He acknowledged that workers had endured cold, hunger and suffering in order to enable the Bolsheviks to retain power but warned such tenacity and heroism would not be enough to complete the revolution. He explained that in his view mere enthusiasm and the readiness of workers and peasants to face death were insufficient qualities to build socialism, much more was needed.

Lenin also proclaimed that the country had not only won a breathing space, but had entered a new and lengthy period of development. He took the opportunity at this plenum to announce an agreement on concessions with a group of American Capitalists. This proposal had caused some criticism, but Lenin reassured the delegates that the efforts of the capitalists would release resources which post-capitalist Russia could use. Also he felt that the experience would teach modern skills and methods to Russian workers. Such skills would be of value after the concessions had finished. He accepted that it was true that the capitalists would be exploiting Soviet resources and gaining profits in the short term, but there were also short-term benefits for Russia as well as long-term ones. He anticipated further criticism within the party and outside it and again asserted that:

"Economic success, however, can be assured only when the Russian proletarian state effectively controls a huge industrial machine; that means electrification. The entire Republic is faced with the task of accomplishing this single economic plan at all cost." (Lenin. Complete Works. Volume 31. page 421.)

As we have seen, this was a familiar theme, but it was now one which under the new conditions of peace Lenin considered could be pursued with greater attention and urgency. However, he again issued a warning on difficulties facing post-capitalist development. One was the often repeated problem of the low cultural level of the peasants and workers, another was the lack of a sufficiently strong economic base. He emphasised this latter point by repeating that at that point in time "no economic foundation" existed for a genuinely socialist society. The economic foundation would need to be created by state control over a huge industrial machine run by the power of electricity, and guided by the Communist Party. This was the origin of the 'Communism = Soviets + Electricity' arithmetical style formula.

Yet another recurrent theme and warning he made, concerned the continued development of bureaucratic methods within Party and State. Such a development was natural, he reasoned, since the upper ranks of the Party were at the same time the upper ranks of the state apparatus. But more worrying, he felt, was the creeping bureaucratic disease. It was no longer confined to Moscow, but had spread throughout the entire republic. The same points were subsequently stressed in Pravda, who reported Lenin as having alerted the meeting to the fact that such criticism came from people who could not cope with the work they had been allotted. At that meeting Lenin had in fact actually named Shlyapnikov of the Workers Opposition group as an example of someone who was sparing no effort to hatch differences within the party.

The latter end of 1920 saw Lenin return to the criticism being raised on the matter of foreign concessions. These criticisms he noted, at a meeting of Moscow activists, were mostly being voiced by the rank and file party members, the working classes and the peasants. The sentiments of such criticisms, noted Lenin, were along the lines of; 'don't yield to the capitalists; they are clever and crafty'. Lenin said he welcomed such opinions for they indicated that the vast mass of workers were prepared to fight capitalist encroachment tooth and nail. However, it was the Bolsheviks who were being crafty, he reassured them. The concessions would not only be of direct help to the economy, but also be a propaganda coup for the new soviet state. The offer of concessions would allow the soviets to be seen as the representatives of all humanity, helping toward the restoration of the world's economic forces. He concluded this point by stressing that;

"Without concessions we shall not be able to carry out our programme and the electrification of the country; without them it will be impossible to restore our economic life in ten years; once we have restored it we shall be invincible to capital." (ibid. page 459)

In this view, concessions were seen as forming part of the single economic plan. This plan had been worked out in great detail by senior party members in conjunction with two hundred experts recruited by the Bolsheviks for that purpose. In the plan, concessions awarded to foreign capitalists would be one of the main means by which the necessary wealth and technology could be accumulated. This would then be put toward the electrification of Russia, a process which would take at least ten years. Concessions were seen by Lenin as not only helping to restore the economic life of the country but also as insurance against external invasion of capitalist forces. Yet in spite of Lenin's reassurances, so wide spread was the concern over this proposed return of the Capitalists that Lenin was forced to return to the question of concessions several times during the 8th All Russian Congress of Soviets. In essence he repeated the points he had made over the previous months, but added that granting concessions to some capitalists and not others would have the additional advantage of forcing them to compete with each other. Such competition between Capitalist countries, declared Lenin, was an additional gain for Russia. However, despite such reassurances, the opposition to this planned return to capitalist forms of exploitation, remained deep as well as wide spread. The issue of concessions was not the only note of criticism at this gathering. The Eighth Congress of Soviets was also the scene of dissent in connection with labour discipline and in particular the method of compulsion. Criticism was also directed against the Bolshevik control and use of state power. Lenin discussed these two aspects in his reply to the debate, stating categorically that;

" The dictatorship of the proletariat does not fear any resort to compulsion and to the most severe, decisive and ruthless forms of coercion by the state. The advanced class, the class most oppressed by capitalism, is entitled to use compulsion, because it is doing so in the interests of the working and exploited people..." (ibid. page 497)

He then challenged the critics of Bolshevik plans to come up with better ones. He also challenged the critics of compulsion to declare whether they were for it or against it. He noted that some people could not come down on one side of the question or the other; they were neither for it, nor against it. He accused these of simply sitting on the fence. This same conference was presented with the plans for electrification. After hearing various reports, the Eighth congress was provided with a Bolshevik resolution welcoming these plans. The resolution firmly instructed the 'All Russian Executive Committee', to complete them.

The same Congress of Soviets was also the scene of renewed disagreement between Lenin and Trotsky. At a joint meeting of Communist delegates to the Congress, Lenin fiercely criticised Trotsky's pamphlet; 'The Role and Tasks of the Trade Unions'. Lenin declared himself amazed at the number of mistakes and blunders contained within it and considered it a sorry excuse of a statement on the trade union issue. This particular pamphlet of Trotsky's is not widely available so we cannot be sure whether or not Lenin was fair to Trotsky, but this published speech of Lenin's is invaluable for it contains another clear exposition of how Lenin saw the dictatorship of the proletariat. "What happens".. said Lenin, " is that the Party.. absorbs the vanguard of the proletariat and this vanguard exercises the dictatorship of the proletariat".

He then went on to explain to the congress delegates that in the transition from capitalism to communism the trade unions became, on the one hand, a link between the vanguard and the masses, and on the other, a reservoir of support for the state power. This transition could not be accomplished, he argued, without the leadership of the working class, but it was not as simple as that might sound for, as he had previously said, this could not be all of the working class;

"...the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided; so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard that has absorbed the revolutionary energy of the class. The whole is like an arrangement of cogwheels. Such is the basic mechanism of the dictatorship of the proletariat......It cannot work without a number of transmission belts running from the vanguard to the mass of the advanced class, and from the latter to the mass of the working people." (Lenin Complete Works. Volume 32 page 21.)

Lenin, in this congress speech, was laying down his general formula for the relationship between a revolutionary anti-capitalist Party and the working class. Nothing he wrote or said indicates that this relationship was simply something which he considered specific to Russia. Lenin considered Trotsky was wrong in concluding that workers had no need to protect themselves from the soviet state. He went on to point out that the state was not quite a workers' state at that moment, but a workers' and peasants' state and one moreover with a bureaucratic twist to it. This meant that, on the one hand, Russia had a state against which the workers needed to protect themselves. The unions were necessary for this purpose. On the other hand, workers needed to use the trade unions to protect the state from its enemies. This complex situation had produced contradictory tensions in the functioning of the trade unions. Lenin demanded practical solutions, to this problem and not bickering about abstract principles or the artificial inflation of differences.

It was precisely 'blowing up differences' which Lenin considered Trotsky and his supporters were engaged in. Turning next on Bukharin, who had also joined in the debate on the role of the trade unions, Lenin advised him to think more carefully about such terms as 'industrial democracy' for they might send the wrong kind of messages to workers and thus confuse them. "Industry is indispensable, democracy is not", blasted Lenin. Turning his attention back to Trotsky, Lenin considered it was simply not good enough for Trotsky to walk out of a commission before it had the chance to deliberate. The commission in question had been set up to deal with production propaganda, bonus payments to good workers and disciplinary courts for absenting or lazy workers. Trotsky had accepted the purpose of the committee but walked out of it because he did not agree with the choice of people to staff it. During the same debate Lenin read out some theses on the tasks of the trade unions in production by a lesser known party member (Rudzutak) and recommended them to the meeting as being much better than Trotsky's pamphlet or Bukharin's platform on the same question. However, the situation was causing so much concern among party members, that in this instance Lenin's reassurances were insufficient to quieten the worries about the issue. The controversy quickly created a severe crisis within the ranks of Bolshevism.

1921.

Indeed, 'The Party Crisis' was Lenin's choice of title for an article published during January 1921 in Pravda. In it, Lenin warned of an inevitable split in the party and that a complete break with communism would occur if the Party did not quickly purge itself of these differences of opinion. The Party was 'sick', declared Lenin, and to illustrate the point he outlined the seven laborious stages the debate on Trade Unions had gone through. Dismissing the suggestion of granting more power to non-party workers, Lenin argued that it was the Communist Party's task to lead the non-party workers, to prepare, teach and train them. In opposition to Lenin's view some Bolsheviks were calling for the handing over of the management of industry to non-party workers. Lenin thought this suggestion would severely weaken the Party's role. It was, he considered, tantamount to making the Party surplus to requirements. "Why have a Party if industrial management is to be appointed by the trade unions, nine-tenths of whose members are non-party workers, asked Lenin. He closed his remarks with the following;

"We must combat the ideological discord and the unsound elements of the opposition who talk themselves into repudiating all 'militarisation of industry' and not only the appointments method, which has been the prevailing one up to now, but all 'appointments', that is in the last analysis, repudiating the Party's leading role in relationship to the non-Party masses. We must combat the syndicalist deviation which will kill the Party unless it is entirely cured of it." (Lenin Complete Works. Volume. 32 page 50)

For Lenin, 'appointment' by the Party rather than 'election' by working people was the correct way to place the most trustworthy and competent people into positions of power in the period of transition from capitalism to post-capitalist society. Also the 'militarisation' of industry and labour were still seen by him, in 1921, as essential methods of post-capitalist labour organisation. Lenin returned to the very same themes at a later all-Russian Congress of Miners. So great was his concern to promote this view that he also published a Pamphlet on the question. This pamphlet bore the polemical title of 'Once again on the Trade Unions, the Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukharin'. In it Lenin went over the same ground as his previous contributions on this issue, but this time more thoroughly. He again warned of the danger of an imminent collapse of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' if the split in the party was allowed to develop.

The lack of production expertise within the economy had also been criticised. In response to this, Lenin asserted that even after ten years the Party would still be saying that its members and functionaries did not have enough training. Later (February 1921), Lenin published an article on the question of an Integrated Economic Plan. He maintained that there had been a lot of learned twaddle talked about this question, yet the only serious work on the question had been produced by the State commission for the Electrification of Russia. Their report, "by the best brains in the Republic", he stressed, ranged over ten years and had precise calculations by experts for every major item and every industry. As a contrast to what he called 'the recent general waffle', Lenin provided a concrete example from this report saying;

".we have their calculations for the output of leather, footwear at two pairs a head (300 million pairs), etc. As a result, we have a material and a financial (gold roubles) balance sheet for electrification (about 370 million working days, so many barrels of cement, so many bricks, poods of iron, copper and other things;" (Lenin Complete Works. Volume.. 32 page 139)

To Lenin it was such detail and the practical working out of the economic plan which was important at this time and not endless abstract discussion. According to Lenin the electrification plan had met with too many negative responses. Some of those reacting to the plan had drawn up their own interpretations of the plan rather than getting on with implementing it. Other responses had been to rubbish the plan as the electrofiction plan, or describe it as a fantastic plan, hatched up by bourgeois experts. Other carping critics had questioned why not have a 'gasification' plan. Lenin considered all such responses as the product of conceit and ignorance within the Party and State.

A month later saw the staging of the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). It was to be a decisive congress. The civil war and the wars of intervention were over and the country was now faced with the task of post-war reconstruction. The form and content of this reconstruction was a crucial issue, and one which had already provoked the deepest divisions within the ruling Communist Party. Several platforms and groupings had emerged within the party to battle for their respective lines. So many platforms had been presented that Lenin confessed to not having read them all. For the purposes of this account, the oppositions can be divided into two main trends.

The first, represented by the Workers Opposition, proposed to give more power to the working class, organised within the Trade Unions. We have already seen that Lenin considered that this would lead to a weakening of the hold on power and planning by the Bolsheviks themselves. The second trend, represented by Trotsky, and his supporters was for a strengthening of the Bolshevik hold on the control of workers' organisations and the organs of the State. The intensity of feeling generated by these two opposed directions had already been identified by Lenin, and, as we have noted, was viewed by him as a direct threat to the very existence of the party. This threat was seen by Lenin as acute because these differences were occurring within the leadership ranks of the party. Lenin's attempts to overcome this leadership struggle had, up to that point, proved in vain. Throughout the Tenth congress, Lenin therefore, appealed to the rank and file Bolsheviks to support his New Economic Policy and adopt a middle course in opposition to both tendencies. This appeal was successful and the warring factions among the Bolshevik leadership quickly found themselves with very little rank and file following in the Party.

In reference to the pre-conference events at Kronstadt, Lenin warned the party delegates against petty-bourgeois moods among all workers and peasants. Such moods could not but effect the party, he added, and so must be resisted with determination. In contrast to these moods the Party needed to continue to act with a single will. The Central Committee's decision to switch from war requisitioning of food to a tax in kind, he argued, had been necessary for the running of the state but it would also help the small farmer. This measure together with the concessions to foreign capital, he considered. were absolutely essential. Lenin then directed a particular strong broadside at Alexandra Kollontia, author of a pamphlet 'The Workers' Opposition'. Lenin accused Kollontia of 'trifling' with the Party, 'fooling with words' and 'failing to realise' the danger to the party of such internal opposition.

Addressing all forms of opposition within the Party Lenin upped the stakes and issued a provocative warning; "Comrades, this is no time to have an opposition. Either you are on this side, or on the other, but then your weapon must be a gun, and not an opposition." He then went on to appeal to the critics within the party to stop carping and come up with answers to the problems of ineffective democracy and bureaucratic deformities. It was too easy, he noted, to write things like 'There is something rotten in our Party.' Instead such critics should be offering practical advice for the leading organs of the party to consider. And he continued;

"It is absolutely untrue to say that we have no confidence in the working class and that we are keeping workers out of the governing bodies. We are on the lookout for every worker who is fit for managerial work; we are glad to have him and give him a trial." (Lenin Complete Works. volume. 32 page 205)

Lenin then launched into a defence of the New Economic Policy which included the new Tax in Kind and the proposed free exchange of surplus commodities. After paying their tax to the state the peasants would in future be free to exchange the rest of their products as they wished. This would increase the danger of capitalist restoration, announced Lenin, but it was the only way to avoid the greater danger of starvation and increasing opposition from peasants and workers. Returning to the issue of the Kronstadt rebellion Lenin noted that any talk of turning away from the present form of government would mean a return to the old Tsarist government. For;

"The experience of Kronstadt proves this. There they do not want either the white-guards or our government - and there is no other - and as a result they find themselves in a situation which speaks best of all in our favour and against any new government." (Lenin Complete Works. Volume 32 page 228)

The Tenth Congress of the Communist Party was also significant in that, on the insistence of Lenin, it adopted a resolution ordering the dissolution of all existing opposition groups and the banning of future ones. Failure to follow this order would result in severe measures including immediate expulsion from the party. This resolution was not overwhelmingly popular and cries of slander and offers of resignation arose from those targeted by the resolution when it was passed. His final speech called for a closing of ranks and received stormy applause.

April 1921 saw a further report on concessions together with the production of a pamphlet entitled 'The Tax in Kind'. The pamphlet summarised many of the points Lenin had made in numerous congresses and conferences prior to its publication and developed a number of others. In his concluding remarks Lenin argued that the tax in kind was a transition from War Communism to regular socialist exchange. He accepted that the freedom of exchange brought about by the tax in kind would also be a form of capitalism, yet this would create no dangers as long as the Bolsheviks retained state power and control of transport and large-scale industry. Under these new economic conditions the previous campaign against profiteering needed to end and be transformed into one against stealing and the evasion of state supervision. In a letter to the State Planning Commission in May 1921 Lenin entered the spirit of the New Economic Policy himself by suggesting the closing down of unnecessary factories, reducing the numbers in the army and a reduction in Soviet office staff of 25% to 50%. Those made redundant ought not be fed by the state, he added, but transferred to other factories or to the grain districts for a year or two.

The same month also saw Lenin draft a set of detailed instructions to all soviet bodies. The instructions made obligatory - for soviets - to hold regular economic conferences and produce bi-monthly reports on a series of issues. These instructions listed 27 major areas of concern such as food supplies, bonuses in kind, improvements in economic work etc. Each of the 27 headings contained a list of subsidiary questions to be answered accurately, and in detail, by appropriate bodies or individuals. Production of these reports would require a regular and comprehensive review of local economic and political activity in each area. The instructions made clear that every entry in the report should be signed and verified by the person or persons responsible for preparing the entry. Completed reports should then be published locally and copies sent to the central authorities. Regular and extremely detailed reports, he explained, would be the means by which the development of the plan and the economic revival of the country could be monitored by the state planning commission.

Whilst Lenin had won the battle against the organised inner-party oppositions at the March Congress of the Bolsheviks this had not done away with confusion over what was seen by many, as a rapid change in Bolshevik policy. The Tax in Kind and the peasant freedom to trade, so violently opposed by Lenin only a year or two previously, was still causing considerable concern in the localities. For this reason an extraordinary Tenth All-Russian Conference of the Russian Communist Party was held in May to go over the controversial issue once again. Since no factional or oppositional activity was allowed, this left Lenin free to present his views unopposed by alternative platforms and unobstructed by rival speakers.

Lenin tirelessly went over the same ground, the effects of the crisis, the need for large-scale industry and the importance of the change in economic direction. He again criticised those within the party (and outside) who saw the New Economic Policy as giving a handout to the peasants whilst the workers gained nothing. Lenin warned that such talk was dangerous, for the lack of large-scale industry meant that workers were having to earn a living by wheeling and dealing and not by proletarian methods. This was undermining post-capitalist socialism and de-classing the proletariat. He felt that the New Economic Policy with its change to a tax in kind was the only way to overcome these difficulties and to create the conditions for rebuilding large-scale industry. Two new tasks faced the Bolsheviks. First, the collection of the tax in kind - in full - as quickly as possible. Second, to maximise the peasants freedom of trade and the revival of small-scale industry. At the same time as this liberalisation of economic relations, there would be a duty to maintain the coercive force of the state. Whilst encouraging a degree of freedom and autonomy in the regions, there would need to be a strengthening of centralism. Lenin returned to exactly the same themes in his speeches and reports to the Third Congress of the Comintern held during June and July 1921, adding quite bluntly;

"We are assisting the peasants because it is absolutely necessary to do so in order that we may retain political power." ( Lenin Complete Works. Volume. 32 page 490)

It must by now be obvious that for Lenin the retention of political power was the key to everything. Only by exercising political power over a powerful state machine would Bolshevism be in a position to guide and shape the economic and social progress of Russia toward Lenin's view of post-capitalist society. By controlling a powerful and coercive state he could ensure that each region, locality and individual factory carried out the detail of the state plans. Only by filing the relevant detailed reports could economic and political activity be monitored. Then, when the state plans had been meticulously carried out for ten to twenty years, Russia would have a vast industry, which would simultaneously ensure that Russia had a large number of industrial workers and the ability to keep them and the peasants happy by the production of abundant supplies of commodities. Until that time the existence of a powerful state and control of it by the Bolsheviks was essential. This was the vision of Lenin and as we shall see it was shared by all the Bolsheviks, irrespective of any disagreement on tactical questions of how to achieve their post-capitalist vision in practice.

In September 1921 Lenin called for a purging of the party to rid it of "elements who had lost touch with the masses". This policy, together with the outlining of the tasks of the Workers and Peasants Inspection, was yet another attempt to clear out the backsliders and the bureaucrats from within the party and State. October witnessed Lenin celebrating the 4th Anniversary of the Revolution and delivering a long report to the Second All - Russian Congress of Political Education Departments. In both Lenin dealt with the need for the tactical retreat implicit in the New Economic Policy. The three main enemies of post-capitalist progress were depicted by Lenin in this speech as, "communist conceit; general illiteracy and bribery". 1921 closed with the holding of the Ninth All-Russian Congress of Soviets, where Lenin again reiterated the points already outlined.

1922/1923.

1922 opened with Lenin presenting a further report on the Role of the Trade Unions under the New Economic Policy. The conditions developing under the N.E.P were undoubtedly a retreat as seen by the rank and file Bolshevik perspective. He also noted that since large-scale production was in such a mess, small-scale production would have to be encouraged to meet the needs of the peasants for commodities. He also added that the creation of a free market would encourage the peasants to grow more produce. This would provide the necessary conditions for the further development of large-scale industry. At the same time the proposed transfer of state enterprises to a profit basis would also have far reaching implications. Lenin admitted that taken together these developments would for a time cause difficulties for the working class.

Working people would need to be defended from the actions of the State's bureaucratic drive for profit as well as from the emerging Capitalist class. The State, and for that matter the Bolshevik Party, in encouraging this necessary development of capitalist forms could not be unequivocally on the workers side. This would mean the trade unions and the working class would need to defend themselves against the State, but at the same time be prepared to defend this State against capitalist overthrow. He felt the only way to do this would be for the trade unions to act as mediators between workers and the Bolshevik state. As identified in Lenin's previous proposal, there existed the contradiction of a supposed workers' state against which the workers would need to defend themselves. However, workers should only defend themselves against the bureaucratic deficiencies and distortions of the state, not against its economic plans or its political policies. And;

"One of the most important and infallible tests of the correctness and success of the activities of the trade unions is the degree to which they succeed in averting mass disputes in state enterprises by pursuing a far-sighted policy with a view to effectively protecting the interests of the masses of the workers in all respects and to removing in time all causes of dispute." (Lenin Complete Works. Volume. 33 page 188)

In order to obtain the maximum production under the New Economic Policy all authority within the state factories should be concentrated in the hands of the management. These managers would have the utmost freedom to decide wage rates, work schedules etc., and to obtain increased profits. In pursuit of these economic objectives the trade unions would not be allowed to interfere directly. The Communists within the trade unions would have to become more production aware and develop greater tact and foresight. Higher production and profits could only be achieved by the proper use of bourgeois specialists, he added. At this point in the report Lenin drew attention to the murder of specialist engineers in the Urals and the Donets Basin. It was an example of impermissible conduct by members of the Communist group, he declared. Such actions needed to be stamped out. In their place incentive bonuses should be provided for people in such responsible positions.

In March 1922, Lenin, in a speech on the international and domestic situation, drew attention to the fact that many Communists and former Bolsheviks who had been placed in high positions, did not know how to conduct trade. Despite their many excellent qualities as revolutionaries, he described them as totally inadequate for their positions. This was precisely the same theme he chose to deliver to the Eleventh Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). As we have seen he had mentioned this problem many times before, but this time, he warned, it was becoming critical. Time was running out, workers and peasants were growing tired of excuses. According to Lenin at this point in 1922, the Bolsheviks faced a decisive test. Unless they did much better in the coming year, Soviet power would not be able to continue. He added;

" ...we have political power and a host of economic and other resources; we have everything you want except ability. "

To Lenin, the Soviet economic machine was behaving like a car which was not going in the direction the Bolshevik drivers desired. On the contrary it was going in the direction someone else desired. To correct this misdirection would require the maximum effort of all Party members. This was yet another reason Lenin gave for condemning critics within the Party and outside it. He emphasised this point by calling for any public manifestations of Menshevism to be dealt with by the passing of the death sentence. The struggle against capital had become a hundred times more fierce and perilous, he reasoned, because under the new conditions the Bolsheviks were not always able to tell enemies from friends. Turning again to the question of bureaucratic incompetence Lenin related an incident involving the difficulty of purchasing some French canned goods.

No one in the state structure would make the appropriate decision and the matter kept getting passed from one department to another. Finally a request had been made to the Political Bureau of the Communist Party for a decision on these canned goods. Lenin considered this state of affairs simply ridiculous. It led him again to call for a more business like attitude and appointing the right men to the right place. Of the eighteen People's Commissariats Lenin considered fifteen were of no use at all. He felt that the Bolsheviks should not be afraid to admit that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the party members responsible were in jobs for which they were not suited. In his closing remarks on this political report, Lenin dismissed the criticisms levelled at Bolshevik policy and noted that all previous revolutionary parties had perished because they had become conceited, failed to see the source of their strength and feared to discuss their weaknesses. Lenin also defended Stalin against what he considered unfair criticism within the Party. One particular criticism was that Stalin had been appointed to more than one senior post and was not fulfilling any of his tasks very well.

After the Eleventh Party Congress, Lenin drew up a decree on the functions of deputy chairmen which dealt with questions of eliminating bureaucracy and imposing penalties. Many of these, he felt, should be dealt with by organising trials accompanied by a great deal of publicity. In a letter to D.I. Kursky in May 1922 Lenin referred to a previous conversation and enclosed a draft supplementary article to the Criminal Code. This referred to the need for an explanation and justification for the use of terror in matters of the state. Lenin felt it was still necessary to tighten things up, eliminate bureaucracy, get rid of more 'place' holders and again check up on who could be trusted.

In May 1922 Lenin became seriously ill and the illness prevented him from being as involved in political and state affairs as previously. However, by the time of the Ninth Congress of the Central Executive held in October of that year he was sufficiently recovered to attend and deliver a short speech. In it he again drew attention to the shortcomings of the state apparatus. He noted that in the case of Moscow, after four years of trying to reduce the number of public officials, there had actually been an increase of 12,000 individuals. It would take years to improve the machinery of state, he concluded. This was the same theme he took up again a month later at the Fourth Congress of the Comintern. In describing the problems of Soviet development to the international delegates he stated unequivocally that;

"We took over the old machinery of state, and that was our misfortune. Very often this machinery operates against us. In 1917, after we seized power, the government officials sabotaged us. This frightened us very much and we pleaded: 'Please come back.' They all came back, but that was our misfortune. We now have a vast army of government employees, but lack sufficiently educated forces to exercise real control over them.....here at the top, where we exercise political power, the machine functions somehow.....Down below, however, there are hundreds of thousands of old officials whom we got from the tsar and from bourgeois society and who, partly deliberately and partly unwittingly, work against us." (Lenin Complete Works. Volume 33 page 428/429)

So, according to Lenin, in 1923, the Russian state had not been smashed after all, but simply taken over. He made essentially the same point in a speech delivered at a plenary session of the Moscow Soviet later that month and again, after a further bout of illness, in the article 'Pages from a Diary'. Even after a period of six years decisions made at the top were being subverted by the very state machinery which Lenin and the Bolsheviks were using to try to make Bolshevik post-capitalist society work. The political power, sought and obtained by Lenin and the Bolsheviks, had not brought with it efficient and effective administration. This failure was despite the Bolsheviks having, at least for a period, the vast majority of workers and peasants on their side. He was to develop this point one further time before a final attack of illness prevented him from taking any more active part in the direction of the Party or the State.

Although he was not to die for a further eleven months, January and February 1923 were the last months he presented any published thoughts on the direction of state activity. Apart from his last testament concerning the future of the Party hierarchy, two pieces of writing stand out as worthy of consideration as Lenin's last thoughts on the direction of post-capitalist society in Russia. The first was a recommendation to the Twelfth Party congress concerning reorganisation of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection. Lenin wanted this Inspectorate to visit factories, commercial premises, state offices etc., and demonstrate not only how improvements could be made, but also to help implement those improvements. His recommendations to the Party Congress were to amalgamate a reduced State Inspectorate with an enhanced Party Central Control Commission. This new body, made up of trusted and tested men, rewarded by enhancements in pay, would have the necessary authority and ability, to bring about much improvements in the soviet state. To take charge of this powerful newly amalgamated organisation, Lenin recommended no other than his trusted comrade, Stalin.

This solution was to be supplemented by a development of his earlier scheme of placing able people in responsible posts. His final thoughts on the state, dictated during February 1923, were entitled 'Better Fewer But Better' and this article developed these ideas further. Lenin started by acknowledging the deplorable condition of the existing state machinery and called for the building of a really new state apparatus worthy to be called socialist. He accepted that the previous five years of trying to improve the state and involve more and more people had produced nothing more than bureaucracy and bustle. It was time for a change, he reasoned. In future the Bolsheviks must follow the rule: Better fewer, but better. By this Lenin meant that the human beings to be trusted to positions of responsibility in Party, State, and industry, must be exemplary and irreproachable; they must be trained thoroughly and tested repeatedly. The accent should be placed upon quality rather than quantity. Lenin's dream of large-scale worker involvement in the activities of the state, had turned into the nightmare of a bureaucratic morass. By the end of his life his earlier espoused 'magic' way of involving the masses had steadfastly eluded him.

Further comments.

This brings us to the end of looking at a number of significant aspects revealed in the published works of Lenin, produced during the period October 1917 to February 1923. During these six intensive years, Lenin intellectually dominated the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and also effectively exercised the powers of Head of State. This survey whilst not exhaustive, is sufficient to indicate a number of important points and to establish their consistency. Through these extracts and summaries, we have witnessed Lenin - in his own words - move from wishing to involve every working (and peasant) person in the country in the tasks of the state, to calling for restrictions and long-term testing before trusting anyone with responsibility. We have noted his early thoughts on the impossibility of allowing even a limited development of capitalism and a free market in Russia and his later assertion of the necessity of allowing a limited capitalism to develop within Russia. We have read his declaration that there was no contradiction between post-capitalist democracy and dictatorship by individuals. We have also identified Lenin's firm support for Stalin even as late as January 1923.

This survey cannot have failed to alarm all but the most die-hard sectarian or sycophantic and short-sighted disciple of Lenin. Some of these views and actions were highly contentious, particularly the use of the state, not only from the viewpoint of anti-capitalist theory, but from a practical consideration of the needs and interests of the working and oppressed classes - in whose name the revolution was carried out. For as Marx noted in relationship to the oppressive nature of the powerful centralised state in France some 60 or so years earlier;

"The executive power possesses an immense bureaucratic and military organisation, an ingenious and broadly based state machinery, and an army of half a million officials alongside the actual army, which numbered a further half a million......Every common interest was immediately detached from society, opposed to it as a higher, general interest, torn away from the self-activity of the individual members of society and made a subject for governmental activity, whether it was a bridge, a schoolhouse, the common property of a village community, or the railways, the national wealth..." (K. Marx. Surveys from Exile. Pelican page 237/238

We have seen from Lenin's own words that it was precisely such an immense and powerful type of state with an army of officials and actual army alongside it, which indeed he wished and did create. It became one which did tear away all self-activity from working people in the so-called 'higher' interest of the state plan and making everything the subject for governmental activity. It was his study of revolutions which also caused Marx to note, in relationship to the state, that;

"All political upheavals perfected this machine instead of smashing it. The parties that strove in turn for mastery regarded possession of this immense state edifice as the main booty for the victor." (Ibid. page 238)

Indeed, Lenin and the Bolsheviks regarded possession of the soviet state as their main prize and, as we have seen, jealously guarded it against all comers. This and many other issues are still important for anti-capitalists to consider. The number of 'opposition' groups within Bolshevism as it developed also demonstrates that these issues were contentious at the time and not just with the benefit of hindsight. However, more important than these considerations for the moment, is the fact that we have built up the view, held by Lenin and the majority of Bolsheviks, of how a post-capitalist society should be structured. This view also includes the means he, and a majority of Bolsheviks, considered appropriate to achieve such a society in practice. No one could accuse Lenin of not being vigorously anti-capitalist or revolutionary, but we know from everything that has been said about the Soviet system that the form and nature of the post-capitalist society they created did not fulfil the humanist aspirations of the Russian peasants and workers. It is therefore, a serious critique of the Leninist (and therefore Bolshevik) vision of what should replace capitalism and the means to achieve this, which will occupy our attention during the next chapter.