ML-Theory
A Marxist-Leninist Blog
Some DPRK related materials
Why do North Korean defector testimonies so often fall apart?
The Strange Tale of Yeonmi Park
Yeonmi Park: The Defector Who Fooled the World
North Korean scientist never defected to Finland
Why North Korean Defectors Keep Returning Home
The results of the 1st & 2nd Five-Year Plans: Soviet industrial revolution.
Socialism in One Country: What it really means
Anti-Trotskyism
Trotsky VS. Lenin
TROTSKY'S LIES (Part 1)
TROTSKY'S LIES (Part 2: United Fronts)
Other Communists on Trotsky & Trotskyism
Trotsky and Rivera were informants of the US government – American Researchers reveal
On the Alleged Forgery of "Lenin's Testament"
Trotsky and Rivera were US gov. informants – research reveals
Two characterizations of Trotsky's modus operandi
On the existence and character of the united bloc of rights, zinoviev-ites and trotsky-ites.
The so-called "Lenin's Testament" and Trotskyist anti-communist mythology
The Real History of Socialism
The "Leftist" critics of Socialism
Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward? – Joseph Ball
Mao's Famine Debunked – Jason Unruhe
The Gulag Archipelago shouldn't be taken seriously
Stalin & the myth of the "Old Bolsheviks"
Stalin on the "cult of Personality"
Holodomor, myth and reality
Marxist-Leninist Theory
Kirjoja Suomeksi (Books in Finnish)
The Most Recent Chapter in Anti-Communist Persecution in Poland
29 Oct 2020 1 Nov 2020 / TheFinnishBolshevik	/ Leave a comment
Communist Party of Poland was created in 2002 on the basis of the Union of Polish Communists "Proletariat", which had existed since 1990 and was liquidated by the state authorities. The CPP was reestablished on the base of previous communist movement in contrary to opportunistic and technocratic line of the main left wing party – Alliance of Democratic Left (SLD) that includes former leadership of the Polish United Workers Party (PZPR) which has participated in bourgeois governments dismantling socialism and reestablishment of capitalism in Poland.
(cf. https://www.initiative-cwpe.org/en/news/Communist-Party-of-Poland/)
March 31st 2016. The lower court of Dąbrowa Górnicza sentenced four members of the communist party of Poland with fines and nine months of community service. The charges dealt with "propaganda of the communist ideology" in the Brzask paper and on the party's website. Poland's ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) demanded the banning of the communist party of Poland on the pretext that the party's program is unconstitutional, and the banning of the Brazsk newspaper.
In February 2018 the Polish government tried to implement a law proposed by the ruling PiS party, which would've made it a crime to blame Polish fascists for the holocaust. The law did not deny the holocaust, but it said Polish fascists were not to blame for it, only fascists of other countries such as Germany. However, the law was reversed due to international criticism.
In 2018 the Communist Party of Poland gave the following interview to Unsere Zeit, paper of the German Communist Party, regarding the continuing persecution of communists in Poland. Here are some excerpts from the interview:
"Our situation at the moment is difficult. Three members of the party, two of whom are editors of the party's paper Brzask, are being charged with "propaganda in favor of a totalitarian system". Our party is under threat of being outlawed. According to the media the minister of justice, has ordered the public prosecutor to collect evidence that the activity of the communists violates the constitution.
In Poland, charges against communists are not a new phenomena. In earlier years there have been several attempts to ban our party. However, during the two years of the current right-wing government the attempts have intensified.
Anti-communism is part of the government's ideology and its goal is the complete banning of communist activity. For example the government has accepted laws to rename streets whose earlier names dealt with working class history and ordered the removal of anti-fascist monuments from public places. That decision received opposition from many local government organs and also from many people who are not politically on the left.
The Communist Party of Poland is for the time being, a legally recognized political party and continues to operate by holding meetings, frequently publishing the Brzask-newspaper and continuing its activity on the internet. We are ready to face the persecutions."
On 25th of May 2018 Sotirios Zarianopoulos, member of the European Parliament representing the Greek Communist Party, made the following statement to the EU Commission:
"After banning communist symbols and prosecuting and putting on trial members of the rank and file of the Polish Communist Party for disseminating their ideas through the 'Brzask' newspaper — measures which are still ongoing — the Polish authorities have initiated the prosecution of a professor who, on the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, held a conference on Marxism at the University of Szczecin. This new prosecution is unacceptable. Brandishing a mandate from the public prosecutor, the police invaded the conference being held on the university's premises, seeking, as they claimed, evidence to substantiate the provocative charge of 'promoting totalitarianism.'
With this fresh act of persecution, the Polish Government is continuing the anti-communist frenzy being whipped up by the EU and the governments of other countries, while pursuing attacks on workers' rights. In view of the above, can the Commission say:
What view does it take of the provocative prosecutions and trials on trumped up charges initiated by the Polish authorities which in effect deny the Polish Communist Party the right to exchange ideas and engage in political expression and action?"
(source: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2018-002860_EN.html)
Naturally this question was rhetorical. The EU is an instrument of the imperialist bourgeoisie, and fully stands behind the anti-communist measures. The statement by the Greek Communist Party was merely meant to draw attention to the anti-communist persecution, and expose the EU commission as the reactionaries that they are.
In 2018 and 2019 demonstrations were held in front of Polish embassies in the UK, Russia, Finland, Greece, Belgium, Spain and other countries to protest the anti-communist persecutions. Other Polish leftists including social-democrats and trotskyists joined in solidarity with the Communist Party of Poland, to support them against the government.
(sources:
https://strajk.eu/trwaja-represje-wobec-komunistow-dzialacze-kpp-ciagani-po-sadach-partii-grozi-delegalizacja/
http://www.idcommunism.com/2020/03/hands-off-communists-of-poland-protests-across-the-world-against-persecutions-in-poland.html)
In early 2019 the Dąbrowa Górnicza regional court gave the Communists a verdict of not guilty. The Communist Party of Poland made the following statement to fellow communists who had supported them through the anti-communist persecution:
"Dear Comrades,
On 18. of january the regional court of Dąbrowa Górnicza released the communist party of Poland's paper Brzask and the party's website of the accusation of "advocating totalitarianism". This persecution is part of an anti-communist campaign launched by the state, aimed at outlawing the communist party of Poland. The trial began three years ago, after the Law and Justice (PiS) party gained power and one of their parliamentary deputees made accusations against the KPP demanding it to be outlawed. At the end of 2015 the three member editorial board of Brzask and the administrator of the website were prosecuted. When the courtcase began the prosecutor was under the authority and political supervision of the PiS party and attacks against the court's objectivity began.
In its ruling the court stated that the accusation was too general and loose and was only based on a small number of articles and sentences taken out of their proper context. The evidence presented did not demonstrate that any crime had taken place. The ruling also stated that advocating communism is not the same as advocating a totalitarian system.
This ruling is a great victory for our party, but the battle is far from over. We must be prepared in order to repel the next attacks.
The communist party of Poland gives its thanks to all the comrades and parties that gave their solidarity to our party and took part in preventing its outlawing."
It was understood the persecution and court cases would continue. This was again, only a temporary defensive victory of the Polish working class.
"On March 17, 2020, the District Court in Dąbrowa Górnicza (without the presence of the defendants due to the epidemic in force) discontinued the proceedings, however, charged the defendants with part of the court costs and obliged each of the accused to pay PLN 1000 to the "Victims Assistance Fund". So they were not convicted, but fined! The judgment is not final. The accused comrades announced an appeal against the sentence."
(source: https://kom-pol.org/brzask/)
The communists do not advocate for totalitarianism and haven't broken any laws, so the reactionaries want to change the laws to simply ban communism outright.
(cf. https://www.transform-network.net/en/blog/article/communists-in-court-the-heresy-trial-based-on-article-13-of-the-polish-constitution/)
The most recent development in these lawsuits against the Communist Party and their newspaper was announced on October 13th 2020, when the Katowice court denied the Communist Party's appeal, and ordered editors of their Brzask-newspaper to pay fines despite not being convicted, and to stop their "totalitarian" political activities. If they continue, the case can be re-opened. A working class perspective is criminalized as "totalitarian", yet, the right-wing capitalist government carrying out this witch-hunt against communists, is somehow not being totalitarian.
The Communist party is still allowed to exist legally for the time being, but it is certain that the reactionaries will not give up this easily. The PiS party has already taken steps to change the communist laws, and secure their control of the courts so they can force the kinds of decisions they want. And are the Communists supposed to stop being Communists, because the court has now ordered them to do so? The only result we can expect, is that Communists will continue trying to fight for the rights of workers, and the capitalist government will continue to try to stop them.
SOURCES AND FURTHER READING:
https://www.initiative-cwpe.org/en/news/Communist-Party-of-Poland/
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2018-002860_EN.html
http://www.idcommunism.com/2020/03/hands-off-communists-of-poland-protests-across-the-world-against-persecutions-in-poland.html
https://www.transform-network.net/en/blog/article/communists-in-court-the-heresy-trial-based-on-article-13-of-the-polish-constitution/
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2020/03/21/in-yet-an-another-attack-on-communists-polish-court-imposes-fine-on-editors-of-brzask/
https://kom-pol.org/2020/05/21/nie-skazano-ale-ukarano-redakcje-brzask/
Read Brzask at https://kom-pol.org/brzask/
The "Judeo-Bolshevism" conspiracy theory debunked
13 Sep 2020 14 Sep 2020 / TheFinnishBolshevik	/ 2 Comments
Nazism believes that there is a secret conspiracy of jews aiming for world domination. They also believe that communism is part of this jewish conspiracy. What are the origins and basis of this idea?
Origins of the Judeo-Bolshevik Conspiracy Theory
Nazism did not invent this anti-semitic ideology, in reality Nazism has copied this idea from previous belief systems.
The Russian hardline monarchist reactionary group "the Black Hundreds" were early proponents of the theory of a Jewish global conspiracy. The Black Hundreds were extremely anti-semitic and in 1903 they published a book titled The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fabricated document supposedly by the jews detailing their plan for world domination.
Anti-semitism of this type was more rampant in Russia then in most countries and "pogroms", the rounding up and killing of jews and other minorities such as armenians, tatars etc. were common in Russia in those times.
After the Russian revolution of 1917 many czarists and Black Hundreds began emigrating from Russia to the United States and Germany. In the USA they formed a political organization known as the Union of Czarist Army and Navy Officers. In 1919 the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was translated into English.
A well known reactionary and supported of Black Hundred ideology was Alfred Rosenberg, the son of rich landowner living in Estonia in the Russian Empire. After the Russian revolution, Rosenberg who considered himself ethnically German, emigrated to Germany together with many other czarist emigres. There he helped to disseminate the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the anti-semitic czarist ideology in Germany. Up to 400,000 White Guard Russians moved to Germany.
Of course, Rosenberg would later become the leading early ideologist of the Nazi Party.
"In June 1921, a group of former Czarist officers, industrialists and aristocrats called an International Anti-Soviet Conference at the Reichenhalle in Bavaria. The conference, which was attended by representatives from anti-Soviet organizations throughout Europe, drew up plans for a world-wide campaign of agitation against Soviet Russia.
A "Supreme Monarchist Council" was elected by the Conference. Its function was to work for "the restoration of the monarchy, headed by the lawful sovereign of the Romanov house, in accordance with the fundamental laws of the Russian Empire."
The infant National Socialist Party of Germany sent a delegate to the Conference. His name was Alfred Rosenberg."
(Kahn & Sayers, Great Conspiracy)
The anti-semitic, conspiratorial views of the Nazis and the contemporary neo-nazi movement thus largely originated from monarchist reactionary Russians.
A wealthy industrial capitalist, Arnold Rechberg met with Rosenberg and took a liking to him. Rechberg introduced Rosenberg to another one of his proteges: an austrian police informant named Adolf Hitler. The capitalist Rechberg was already providing funds for Hitler's brown shirt organization that attacked striking workers and labour unions.
"Rechberg and his wealthy friends purchased an obscure newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, and turned it over to the Nazi movement. The publication became the official organ of the Nazi Party. As its editor, Hitler appointed Alfred Rosenberg." (Ibid.)
In the 1920s half a million copies of the fabricated Protocols of the Elders of Zion were published by the wealthy American capitalist Henry Ford who helped to spread anti-semite ideology in the USA. Ford also supplied millions of dollars of funds to the German Nazi Party.
The ideology of the Nazis, as well as their funding and support, came from the monarchists and capitalists, i.e. the rich elite.
The Russian Civil War
During the Russian civil war the White Guard reactionaries, czarists and capitalists decided to incorporate their previous idea of a jewish conspiracy to the fight against communism. Since the Whites were fighting a war against the communists, in Russia, a country with widespread anti-semitism that was a remnant of czarism, the White Guards decided it would be very useful to use anti-semitism as a weapon in the civil war against the Communists. They attacked the Communists as puppets of the jews.
In 1918-1920 more then a dozen capitalist countries sent troops to help the White Guard russians in the civil war. The United States, Japan, France, Great Britain, Canada and others sent hundreds of thousands of troops to aid the capitalist White Guards.
The Capitalist media in the West published slanderous lies against the Russian Communists. They claimed that the Bolsheviks wanted to abolish the family, abolish marriage and nationalize women, that the Bolsheviks were anarchists and jews. These ridiculous claims were presented by mainstream capitalist media outlets and capitalist politicians of western countries. When it comes to the anti-semitic claims, the Nazis directly copied this from the capitalist media
and the Russian reactionaries.
This is what the capitalist press stated in the Western countries, in Britain:
"This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupth [Founder of illuminati] to those of Karl Marx… this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation… has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the 19th century."
(Illustrated Sunday Herald, February 1920)
And in America:
"[T]he three great parties of Russia are led by Jews… Bolshevism had been planned years ago by Jews" (The Dearborn Independent, 1920)
Notice that both of those writings are from as early as 1920, same time as the creation of the Nazi party by the capitalists.
Anti-semitism was widespread in Europe and Russia, increased partly by jewish immigration in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The term "jewish bolshevism" was first invented by a White Guard publication of the same name in 1917. Soon it was spread to capitalist media by white emigres and this belief was picked up by the Nazi party which was founded soon after.
Most of these blatantly false claims have since been abandoned even by the capitalist propagandists themselves. The Protocols were soon proven to be a hoax and a forgery. However the jewish conspiracy idea still remains among neo-nazis. They still cling to this capitalist invention.
Neo-Nazis believe that the world is ruled by the jews, and that the Nazis are the only ones who know the truth. They believe that the communists and capitalists alike are all servants of the jews. Ironically, the myth of the jewish conspiracy was itself created by the capitalists and utilized against communism. The Nazis themselves are acting as uniwitting tools of capitalism, but in this case the capitalists have moved on, and left the jew conspiracy behind.
Hitler claimed that communism was a jewish ideology. He claimed to be a socialist, but in reality he was defending the private property rights of his capitalist backers. It is no coincidence that Hitler attacked all real socialists as jews. When the Western imperialists turned against him he also attacked them as jews. "Wallstreet jewish bankers". But this was simply an opportunist lie. The capitalists, including Western capitalists and bankers like Henry Ford were exactly the ones who created Hitler, who funded his party and who created the propaganda that Hitler copied and disseminated.
The myth of Jewish Bolshevism
Now let us examine the claims of modern neo-nazism. A typical claim they make is that the Russian Bolshevik party was allegedly a jewish puppet and filled with Jews.
Robert Wilton was a British journalist reporting for several Western newspapers as their Russian correspondent during the Russian Civil War. Wilton had served with the Russian army during the First World War and was a strong supporter of the Russian White Army sharing their ideological views including anti-semitism. Wilton had also supported the failed military coup by the White General Kornilov. Wilton's writings are another significant part of the modern neo-nazi mythology surrounding the Judeo-Bolshevism Conspiracy Theory. He is possibly the most cited source for the erroneous claim that the Bolshevik Party and Government were controlled by Jews and mostly consisted of Jews.
He wrote in 1919: "Bolshevism is not Russian – it is essentially non-national, its leaders being almost entirely the race that lost its country and its nationhood long ago" (Wilton, Russia's Agony)
In 1921 Wilton put forward the following figures, which have been widely cited by neo-nazis. I quote from a widely circulated neo-nazi article "The Jewish Role in the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia's Early Soviet Regime":
"The 62 members of the [Central] Committee were composed of five Russians… and 41 Jews.
"The Extraordinary Commission [Cheka or Vecheka] of Moscow was composed of 36 members… two Russians, eight Latvians, and 23 Jews.
"The Council of the People's Commissars numbered… three Russians, and 17 Jews."
How accurate are these numbers? The answer is: not accurate at all. In fact it seems difficult to find any basis for them. The numbers are almost entirely fabricated.
I'm not going to go through all of the false information put forth by Wilton, but I will give you an idea of just how inaccurate his findings are:
Wilton claimed that out of 22 People's Comissars three were Russians and 17 Jews. In reality the only jewish Comissar was Trotsky.
Wilton includes a number of fabricated names in his list of supposed people's comissars, he removed people who were Russians and included people who Jewish such as Zinoviev even if they were not actually People's Comissars at all.
The People's Comissars in 1917:
Chairman: V. I. Lenin (1/4 Russian, Tatar, German, Jewish)
Commissar of Agriculture: V. P. Milyutin (Russian)
Commissars of Army and Navy: V. A. Ovseyenko, N. V. Krylenko, P. V. Dybenko (Russians, Ovseyenko was ethnic ukranian)
Commissar of Commerce and Industry: V. P. Nogin (Russian)
Commissar of Education: A. V. Lunacharsky (Ukranian)
Commissar of Food: I. A. Teodorovich (Polish, not jewish)
Commissar of Foreign Affairs: L. D. Trotsky (jewish)
Commissar of Interior: A. I. Rykov (Russian)
Commissar of Justice: G. I. Oppokov (Russian)
Commissar of Labour: A. G. Shlyapnikov (Russian)
Commissar of Nationality Affairs: I. V. Stalin (Georgian)
Commissar of Post and Telegraphs: N. P. Avilov (Russian)
Commissar of Treasury: I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov (Russian)
Wilton claimed that the Soviet government consisted of three Russians and nine jews.
"Bronstein (Trotsky), Apfelbaum (Zinoviev), Lurie (Larine), Uritsky, Volodarski, Rosenfeld (Kamenev), Smidovich, Sverdlov (Yankel), and Nakhamkes (Steklov).The three Russians were: Ulyanov (Lenin), Krylenko, and Lunacharsky."
In reality Lurie, Nakhamkes, Smidovitch, and Volodarski weren't even in the Central Executive Committee. Wilton claims the government was 12 people, 9 of whom were jews. In reality the government was 15 people and included 4 jews.
Members of the Government (Central Execute Committee):
Artem F. A., Buharin N. I. (Russian), Vladimirskij M. F. (Russian), Dzerzhinskij F. E. (Pole), Zinovjev G. E. (Jew), Krestinskij N. N. (Ukrainian), Lashevich M. M., Lenin V. I. (Russian*), Sverdlov Ja. M. (Jew), Smilga I. T., Sokol'nikov G. Ja. (Jew), Stalin I. V. (Georgian), Stasova E. D. (Russian), Trotskij L. D. (Jew), Shmidt V. V. (German)
*Lenin was Russian but ethnically mixed
Furthermore Wilton claims that:
"According to data furnished by the Soviet press, out of 556 important functionaries of the Bolshevik state… in 1918-1919 there were: 17 Russians… 457 Jews."
In reality, members of the Bolshevik apparatus were more then 70% Russian. It is true that jews were somewhat over-represented in the Bolshevik party, making up around 5% of the party. However Andre Gerrits points out in his article "The Myth of Jewish Communism" that:
"Jews were not the only ethnic minority over-represented in European Communist parties between the two world wars. So too were Georgians, Armenians and Latvians."
The reasons for this could be that those ethnic minorities were particularly oppressed and more radicalized. The socialist parties which functioned illegally, tended to have large amounts of intellectuals who were in political exile. This could be one reason why some minorities were somewhat over-represented.
In conclusion, the Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy theory was something created long ago by the rich elites, monarchists and capitalists. Nazis did not invent these ideas, they merely inherited them from the monarchists or received them from the western capitalist press. The Nazis were acting as puppets of the capitalist elite, they got their ideology as well as their funding from them.
These conspiracy theories are crucial to modern day neo-Nazis, but based on nothing. Even a cursory inspection of the most popular and widely cited Nazi sources show them to be inaccurate. There are many movements of people believing in things based on very little evidence or on faith alone, so we shouldn't be surprised that Nazis would do this.
Some people are misinformed, some are wilfully delusional. We can give people information, but if they are essentially following an entirely faith-based worldview then its probably a waste of time.
The Myth of Jewish Communism
https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=19150
http://holocaust.skeptik.net/misc/party.htm
http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=522197#p522197
A Judeo-Bolshevik Debacle
http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot.com/2008/10/judeo-bolshevik-debacle.html
The Great Conspiracy: The Secret War Against Soviet Russia
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.58240
A century of lies about Russia
https://www.workers.org/2016/12/20/a-century-of-lies-about-russia/
On the protocols of the Elders of Zion
https://www.facinghistory.org/weimar-republic-fragility-democracy/society/protocols-elders-zion-1927-society-antisemitism
The Finnish Communist Revolution (1918) PART 5: THE WHITE GUARD
7 Apr 2020 12 Apr 2020 / TheFinnishBolshevik	/ 2 Comments
ORIGINS OF THE WHITE GUARD:
The Finnish white guard had 3 or 4 different roots, which eventually merged.
1) The activist committee, a secret nationalist organization. The activist committee organized for thousands of Finns to travel to Germany and train in the German military for a future war with Russia. They would later play a large part and the alliance with Imperial Germany would be crucial for the Whites. The pro-german fanaticism of some capitalists went so far as to support Finland becoming a German protectorate with a German king as the Finnish ruler. Since early 1917 the activist committee was the white guard central command until the creation of the white army.
2) The military committee, an organization created from Finnish officers in the Russian Tsarist military. This would function as the core of the Finnish white army and the leader of the Finnish white army, Mannerheim was also an ex-Tsarist officer.
3) White guards were formed locally to protect the property of the capitalists and landowners from the poor population. The capitalists hoarded large amounts of food while the population starved. The white guards would prevent the food from being taken by the hungry masses. The white guards would attack workers on strike, and also protect strike breakers. Workers would often demonstrate for better conditions and more rights, surrounding government buildings etc. and the capitalist politicians would bring the white guards to break up the demonstrations.
4) The only "legitimate" use for the white guards was to prevent criminality. However in practice they were almost always targeting the working class for political reasons. There was one famous incident of unruly Russian soldiers murdering a Finnish citizen, and this was used as a justification for keeping and strengthening the white guard. However, this too had a political element since the Russian soldiers largely sided with the working class. They were from worker and peasant backgrounds and in most cases had killed their Tsarist officers during the February revolution. The remaining Tsarist officers looked to the white guards for protection.
In reality there was no need for a white guard police force since there already existed a militia specifically for this purpose. The problem with the militia was that it had a large working class presence and the capitalists couldn't use it to break strikes, attack innocent workers and demonstrations. The militia itself would sometimes go on strike to demand bread and political rights.
"In the cities the police was dismantled in early April [1917] and replaced by a worker militia or in other ways brought under working class control. In different parts of the country mass meetings of workers demanded unpopular officials to step down. The power structure was flipped on its head…" (Suodenjoki & Peltola, p.188)
"The influence of the organized workers was also demonstrated by the fact that… the [tsarist] police was replaced by a newly formed militia, the man power and leadership of which was formed primarily by organized workers" (Hyvönen, pp. 42-43)
The militia was perfectly suited for preventing crime but was not sufficient for the capitalists to maintain their repression of the organized workers. The capitalists needed to create a fully anti-worker military force, which would in every situation side with the rich elites against the people. This is why the white guard was created.
"During the strikes of Spring and Summer the workers had already gotten a taste of what… strong [bourgeois] rule of law meant; white guards had shot and beaten unarmed strikers. It was known that the bourgeoisie was training and arming their class guards against the working class movement. With these armed forces the bourgeoisie planned to crush the working class organizations, to strip workers of the right to assemble etc…" (Hyvönen, p.84)
Another example was also the demonstration of August 1917 in Malmi, a municipality near Helsinki:
"In Malmi, near Helsinki, workers surrounded the municipal building on 13. of August [1917] to get their demands passed. About thirty white guard soldiers arrived from Helsinki to save the surrounded officials… the white guards together with ex-members of the tsarist police beat the workers with their batons.* …In Spring and early Summer the class struggle had not yet resulted in any deaths, although some were wounded, but in August there were the first casualties.
The food question was still to be solved. On the night of 14. of August the municipal workers of Helsinki began a strike demanding action to save especially the elder, sick and children from famine and starvation.** The Senate did not take any action." (Holodkovski, p.39)
* source: I.I. Syukiyainen. The revolutionary events of 1917-1918, p. 77
** source: Proceedings of the Helsingfors Council of Deputies of the Army and Workers, 6 (19). Viii. 1917, No 119.
"In the Spring and Summer of 1917 the Finnish working masses mobilized to improve their poor living conditions and to carry out those necessary reforms which the bourgeoisie, allying itself with the Tsar attempted to prevent at all cost, especially the 8-hour working day and to gain at least some working class representation in the municipal organs. Now the bourgeoisie no longer had the tsarist police as their protection; it had been dismantled in the February revolution and in its place had been formed a militia, where the workers in all population centers had a significant influence. The bourgeoisie did not yet have large amounts of armed class organizations with the exception of the few secret activist [committee] organizations. For this reason the bourgeoisie had to give itself to the merciful protection of the Russian provisional government… to prevent the working class movement from carrying out its democratic reforms. This attempt to gain protection from the provisional government didn't stop at advocating the provisional government's right to interfere in Finnish affairs, the bourgeoisie also wanted the armed forces of the provisional government to attack the working class movement. This happened in connection with several strikes.
The newspaper "The worker" reported on 24. of April 1917 that the director of Lehtoniemi machine workshop owned by baron Wrede had sent a message to the Soviet of Russian soldiers in Helsinki mostly humbly asking to send soldiers to protect the "state property" held by the workshop "from possible damage". A similar attempt to provoke Russian soldiers to attack striking workers happened e.g. during the shipbuilders' strike in Helsinki; the bourgeoisie accused the workers of supposedly being armed and preventing work. Also during the municipal strike of Rauma the bourgeoisie encouraged Russian soldiers to attack peaceful striking workers. As late as August [1917] when the bourgeoisie also had their white guard projects well under way, and had thousands of rifles from Germany the bourgeoisie in Oulu attempted to provoke Russian soldiers to attack the workers holding a meeting at the workers' club.
In all these cases the soviets of Russian soldiers investigated the situation and recognized them as attempts to end the workers' struggles for rights by drowning them in blood.
When the bourgeoisie saw its own powerlessness before the masses and when the Russian soldiers even sided with the democratic rights of the workers, it began organizing its armed forces to stifle the workers' struggle. It wasn't satisfied with only secretly arming itself, but began using armed forces against unarmed workers. Terror attacks against workers' meetings and strikers became the order of the day.
The worst attacks were faced by agricultural workers and tenant-farmers who had begun demanding improvements in their conditions, an 8-hour working day and in some cases wage increases. The large mansion owners showed their true character by trying to crush the justified demands of the workers. The newspaper "The Worker" reported at the beginning of May that during the strike of the Latokartano Manor owned by Westermarck, the owner… threatened to slaughter the 700 head cattle in its entirety as revenge of the workers' demands…
Armed strike breaker forces were recruited from old Tsarist police officers, criminal thugs and in general the most reactionary elements of society. In addition reactionary university students, property owners, businessmen and officials were recruited. These strike breaker groups patrolled armed with guns in different villages, terrorizing striking farm-workers.
One of the most heinous attacks against peaceful farm-workers happened in Huittiset on July 13. A group of striking workers was headed to the Huittiset dairy building where the landowners had gathered. When the loose group of workers approached the dairy building, white guard soldires hidden behind piles of logs opened fire on the unarmed workers. Seven strikers were wounded. This information given by the Finnish information bureau was supplemented by a worker newspaper "The Social-Democrat" appearing in Pori at the time, which reported that the strikers had already agreed before hand to not use arms under any circumstances, nor had they been prepared to use arms.
Few days after the massacre in Huittiset another attack against striking workers happened in Suodenniemi. Strikers had peacefully stood on the road and told strike breakers working on the field, who had been gathered from different villages, that they were breaking a strike. At that moment armed strike breakers had attacked the strikers at the instructions of the local constable." (Hyvönen, pp. 43-46)
Peltola and Suodenjoki refer in their book to another bourgeois historian Viljo Rasila, and verify that "Near the end of the large strike in Suodenniemi, there was a conflict… fought using staffs, cudgels and scythes… Strike breakers got the upper hand and two farm-workers suffered serious injuries.**" (Suodenjoki & Peltola, p.205)
* Viljo Rasila, "Vuoden 1917 maantyöntekijäin lakot" ("Farm-workers' strikes of 1917")
** Juhani Piilonen, Sastamalan historia 3. 1860-1920 (History of Sastamala 3. 1860-1920)
Peltola and Suodenjoki also state that for example in the municipality Satakunta "…strikes were the main reason for the creation of the white guard." (p.211)
"In the cities the bourgeoisie began already in the Spring to create their armed class guards. The bourgeoisie had threatened to use these guards already… but didn't have the courage yet. On 17. of August at the Helsinki stock exchange building, white guards disguised as militia men attacked workers demonstrating against the city council, and beat them with batons. Soon the bourgeoisie had organized a nationwide class army to smash the working class movement. The working class press took notice of the bourgeoisie arming itself. The newspaper "The Worker" wrote on 23. of August 1917 stating that due to the [February] revolution, the bourgeoisie had lost their foreign protector [the Russian Tsar] and also the [Tsarist] police… It had begun creating an armed class military." (Hyvönen, p. 46)
"…[T]o counter food confiscation agricultural producers and other bourgeois citizens began independently creating their own police forces, whose mission was defined as protection of property. This angered the workers… The workers considered the food storages [of the capitalists] to be against the food-supply law and thus considered the "white guards" created to protect them as illegal" [Marja-Leena Salkola, Työväenkaartien synty ja kehitys punakaartiksi 1917-18 ennen kansalaissotaa] (Suodenjoki & Peltola, p. 219)
"After the Tsarist gendarmerie had been dismantled and the police replaced by a militia, where the workers held significant influence, and after the Russian troops had gone to the side of revolution, the bourgeoisie realized that it didn't have any organized armed force to protect itself against the numerically superior and quite well organized working class. This is why already in the Spring of 1917 the bourgeoisie began creating its own fighting forces, whose purpose was supposedly protecting the safety of civilizens and protection of property from vandalism and criminality. Their creation seemed timely and for this reason, even some workers initially joined these organizations (chapters were formed under the name of sport societies and volunteer fire departments and only later they began everywhere to be called white guards)… The bourgeoisie did not admit that the white guards were its class organizations. The white guards were the bourgeoisie's military force, with which it believed to create the order it desired.
In Southern Finland where the rural workers' strike movement began to spread already in April and May, white guards were created especially to fight strikes. In Northern Finland they were being created to oppose Russian soldiers [who sided with the workers]. Soon control of the nationwide organization and action of the white guard was given to the secret Activist Committee.
The Activists had already since before WWI kept connections to Germany and organized the sending of couple thousand young Finnish men to Germany for military training. They were preparing a war to separate Finland from Russia with German help, even if that meant Finland would become reliant on Germany. In June 1917 the Activist Committee divided Finland into regions for better coordination of the white guards. In July a central office for the white guards was created. It was located in Helsinki under the harmless sounding false name of "The new forest office". The central office held secret communication with local organizations as well as Sweden, Germany and the Finnish Jäger battalion… [i.e. the Finnish soldiers serving and being trained in the German army]
For this new army, weapons for 100,000 men were collected in Danzig. In October 1917 explosives were shipped from Umeå [in Sweden] to Vaasa [the secret white Capital in Finland], from where white guard members transported them in fish barrels and their luggage to local organizations. At the end of October the ship "Equity" left from Germany. To camoflage it, the Russian name "Mir" was painted on the ship's side and a red flag was waving in its mast. This ship brought the white guards large amounts of rifles (some sources say 4500, others 7000), machine guns (according to some sources 30, according to others 100), 2,800,000 bullets, 1500 hand grenades, 2000 pistols and explosives Weapons were secretly bought from Russia through the [white guard] Vyborg regional organization founded in July and in the Autumn through the harmless sounding [white guard organization] Karelian citizen's league (this league was funded by a banker, a factory owner and four wholesalers) and through the Finland committee founded in Petrograd…
By creating white guards the bourgeoisie started a process which would develop due to its inherent laws logically towards civil war. The workers could not interpret it as anything else then preparation for an armed attack against them. Despite bourgeois propaganda and press saying otherwise, realities spoke a clear message: white guards were being used to break strikes. Workers reacted to the founding of white guards with determination: to avoid being at the mercy of an armed opponent, workers began creating their own peace-keeping forces… for self-defency purposes."
(Holodkovski, pp. 29-31)
The Activist Committee had wormed itself to the highest levels of the government:
"…[M]ember of the nationalist Activist Committee…[senator] Åkerman… agreed to handle [the bourgeois senate's] food issues if he was given authority to gather necessary food supplies to suitable locations. [Source: "Suomen vapaussota vuonna 1918" I, pp. 294-295]
Food, transportation vehicles and other supplies for a white army were stored in Southern Ostrobothnia in preparation for civil war. The Activist Committee had played an important part in creating the white guards and was now recognized as an official organ of the state, and given responsibility to draft the new conscription law and develop the bourgeois military forces. Ignatius, chairman of the committee that drafted the new conscription law proposed in a meeting of investors and industrialists on 3. of October [1917] that they would provide 3 million marks to fund the white guards. In this meeting 9 million marks worth of checks and bonds were collected.
[Source: Ibid. pp. 295-296]" (Holodkovski pp. 35-36)
"…alongside the Activist Committee founded in 1915, a Military Committee consisting of ex-Tsarist officers was created and recognized as an official state organ by the Svinhufvud senate on 7. of January [1918]. Gustaf Mannerheim was appointed the committee's chairman on 15. of January."
(Pekka Myllyniemi: Ajautuminen sisällissotaan, Länsi-Uusimaa, 17.1.2018) https://www.lansi-uusimaa.fi/blogi/598630-pekka-myllyniemi-ajautuminen-sisallissotaan
THE WHITE ARMY:
Between late 1917 and early 1918 the white guards were organized into an army. The capitalists had collected millions of marks, tens of thousands of weapons, created a secret capital for the future white guard dictatorship, made connections with their foreign allies and assembled a large armed force. The white guard was recognized as the official state military of Finland by the Svinhufvud government. Mannerheim was appointed its commander. Lets examine the composition of this army:
"In the 20 Southern Ostrobothnian white guard detachments 59% of the soldiers were wealthy farmers and their sons, 8% tenant-farmers, 6% farm workers, 21% workers and 6% officials, students etc." (Holodkovski, p.307)
"On the other hand for example in the Jyväskylä white guard military district the around one third of those who fell in battle were officials, shop-keepers, students and teachers, foremen, doctors and other wealthier people, even a bank director. Another third were landowning farmers and a third tenant-farmers, workers and farm hands. Capitalists, investors and bankers constituted only a tiny minority of the population. While officials, doctors, military men, police officers and other somewhat wealthier people often sided with the whites, the real bulk of the white army consisted of independent farmers, especially wealthy farmers, and their relatives. This army was then enlarged by forced conscription of the poorer classes. " (Holodkovski, pp.307-308)
"…regarding armed struggle the bourgeoisie could rely on the officials, who spread accross the whole country and thus could form a nationwide organizational network. The city enterpreneurs and intellectuals, as well as technical experts in industry were largely active supporters of bourgeois policy. The nobility and other large landowners were passionate enemies of the working class movement. The influence of the bourgeoisie also spread itself strongly to independent farmers who had been frightened with the notion that the workers wanted to steal the peasantry's land.
In military matters the bourgeoisie was in an enormously better position, in the amount of trained and experienced officers it had. The so-called "white army" had 11 people with the rank of general… 480 graduates from the old Finnish cadet school. There were 403 officers and 724 NCOs among jägers. The whites received 118 NCOs from the Vöyri military academy. 27 active officers arrived from Sweden. In total the white officer core was 1700 persons. Initially the whites threw 10,000 men at the front. But in February they had to resort to forced conscription, through which they increased the number to 32,000 men.
According to the whites themselves their army was already 10,000 by the end of 1917, 36,000 by April and 70,000 by the end of the war…
The whites also had better weaponry. Already in October of 1917 they received 7000 rifles, large amounts of machine guns, hand-grenades, bullets etc. from Germany. At the end of January the whites also managed to steal 7880 rifles, 1 ,143,000 bullets, 10 machine guns and 12 cannons from the demoralized Russian troops in Northern Finland. Two more weapon shipments arrived from Germany containing 140,000 rifles and more then 83 million bullets, 250 machine guns, 500,000 hand-grenades and 32 cannons with ammunition. On top of all this they received other weapons and equipment of all kinds, such as pistols, radios and field telephones etc.
The whites also had confirmed knowledge about Germany's intervention since February; at the beginning of March there was already an exact agreement. Furthermore the whites got a Swedish brigade on their side. Individual officers and volunteers arrived from other nordic countries. Russian counter-revolutionary officers also aided the white war effort." (Hyvönen, pp. 91-92)
Suodenjoki & Peltola, Köyhä Suomen kansa katkoo kahleitansa: Luokka, liike ja yhteiskunta 1880-1918 (Vasemmistolainen työväenliike Pirkanmaalla osa 1)
Hyvönen, Suurten tapahtumien vuodet 1917-1918
Holodkovski, Suomen Työväenvallankumous 1918
I.I. Syukiyainen. The revolutionary events of 1917-1918
Известия Гельсингфорсского совета депутатов армии и рабочих, 6 (19). VIII. 1917, No 119. (Proceedings of the Helsingfors Council of Deputies of the Army and Workers, 6 (19). Viii. 1917, No 119.)
Viljo Rasila, "Vuoden 1917 maantyöntekijäin lakot" ("Farm-workers' strikes of 1917")
Juhani Piilonen, Sastamalan historia 3. 1860-1920 (History of Sastamala 3. 1860-1920)
Marja-Leena Salkola, Työväenkaartien synty ja kehitys punakaartiksi 1917-18 ennen kansalaissotaa<
H. Soikkanen, kansalaissota dokumentteina
J. Paasivirta, Suomen itsenäisyyskysymys 1917
"Suomen vapaussota vuonna 1918"
"Пролетарская революция", No 2
Luokkasodan muisto, ed. Juho Mäkelä
https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/157351
Pekka Myllyniemi: Ajautuminen sisällissotaan, Länsi-Uusimaa, 17.1.2018
https://www.lansi-uusimaa.fi/blogi/598630-pekka-myllyniemi-ajautuminen-sisallissotaan
"Ilkan ja Poutun pojat. Etelä-pohjalaisten sota-albumi", ed. A. Leinonen
"Keskisuomalaiset sotapolulla. Kappale Suomen vapaussodan historiaa", ed. S. Kuusi
Erinnerungen, G. Mannerheim
Sosialistit pyrkivät itsenäistämään Suomea jo heinäkuussa 1917 – porvarit harasivat vastaan (https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-9710204)
A Wave of strikes and workers' struggles in Finland
5 Dec 2019 6 Dec 2019 / TheFinnishBolshevik	/ Leave a comment
On 11th of November Finnish postal services went on strike. The strike initially included about 9000 workers. The strike began because of an attempt to severely cut the workers wages.
It is worth pointing out that the postal services are of course owned by the state, and Finland currently has a "social-democratic" government, which pretends to be on the side of the workers.
The pay cuts were planned together by the leaders of the postal services (Posti Group) and state politicians. The supposedly "leftist" social-democrats were pushing these wage cuts.
Events like this can be severely demoralizing to the workers, because they feel like they have nobody to turn to. If the right-wing parties implement wage cuts, the workers will naturally vote for the social-democrats instead. But if the social-democrats themselves are implementing wage cuts just like the right-wing parties – then what can the workers do? Become confused, apathetic, surrender to the mercy of the capitalist corporations.
As communists it is our job to point out that social-democrats are not real leftists. They are frauds. They are mere servants of the capitalists. When push comes to shove, the social-democrats never side with the workers. They never side with workers when the going gets hard. The strikers received absolutely no help from the social-democrats in the government.
The social-democrats have shown themselves to be frauds once again, and all honest, class conscious workers must instead side with communists. Communists and some independent progressives, trade-unions and the workers themselves were the only ones supporting the strikers. Even the "Left Alliance" Party sided with the government, not the workers.
After the strike had lasted two weeks, on 25th of November it expanded to include various other workers related to the postal services in the Post and Logistics Union (PAU). The amount of strikers reached over 10 000.
The Service Union United (PAM), Finnish Seafarers´ Union (FSU), Finnish Aviation Union (IAU), Finnish Food Workers' Union (SEL) and Finnish Electrical Workers´ Union joined in the struggle by striking in solidarity or boycotting the postal services. They wouldn't deliver or handle packages for them, electrical workers wouldn't repair electrical issues for the postal service etc. Transport Workers' Union (AKT) and The Trade Union for the Public and Welfare Sectors (JHL) also announced short strikes and other actions in solidarity.
The postal service workers announced they would strike at least until Christmas unless their demands are met. Further strikes in solidarity by other unions were promised for December.
The Industrial Union is in the middle of its own struggle against the governments' and the capitalists' attempts to increase work hours without increasing pay. The Industrial Union voiced its solidarity for the strikers, and announced it would also go on strike in select work places and companies starting December 9th.
The conclusion of the strike
The strike ended on 27th of November with a defensive victory by the workers.
The Post and Logistics Union said in their announcement:
"PAU prevented the employers attempts to significantly lower wages and implement worse labor contract terms. [The attempt to switch certain workers to worse labor terms] was prevented…"
(translated from:
https://www.pau.fi/viestinta/ajankohtaista/lakot-paattyivat-mita-neuvottelutulos-pitaa-sisallaan.html )
It was completely outrageous to try to cut wages of postal workers. They are already poorly paid, and perform demanding and necessary work. They are already understaffed and underpaid as a result of austerity, cuts and lay-offs by the government.
The government and the capitalists clearly thought the workers were completely crushed and apathetic, if they would allow this to happen. But they were wrong. The workers finally had enough, and rose up to fight for their rights. This demonstrates that there is a limit to how much the workers will tolerate!
As a further result, the minister responsible for state owned companies was forced to step down. The Social-democrats now pretend that they had nothing to do with this entire farce, and instead put all the blame on the state ownership minister. The right-wing parties in the opposition to the Social-democrats now opportunistically use this to bolster their support. But we should remember how catastrophic the policies of the previous government of the Right-wing "National Coalition", The Center Party and the Nationalist "Finns Party" were. The previous government was a government of the 3 most right-wing parties, and their policies were even worse for the people: privatizing healthcare, increasing unpaid work hours, massive lay-offs in state owned workplaces etc.
The parties in the parliament are all the same. The only solution for thinking, honest and class conscious working people is to side with communists.
What can we learn about this strike?
We can clearly see the treacherousness of Social-democrats and reformists. Further, we can see that workers will defend their interests when pushed far enough.
That said, the strike was merely a defensive action. The strike succeeded in defending the workers this time, but the capitalists will restart their attack again. We shouldn't be satisfied completely with this result. We need to work towards improving the conditions of the workers.
Our task is to use situations like these strikes to increase the level of class consciousness. Workers are conscious enough to defend their interests against capitalist wage cuts, but not yet conscious enough to split with social-democrats and reformists. We have to use situations like this to tell workers that capitalism tries to screw them over.
If in your work environment its not possible to talk about communism, you should instead just criticize capitalist corporations, corrupt social-democrat and capitalist politicians etc. and tell your co-workers how important it is to belong to a trade-union.
We have to demonstrate to workers that their interests are the polar opposite of the capitalists' interests, and that they must break with social-democrats and reformists. Workers must stop supporting bourgeois parties and must oppose reformist leaders in trade-unions.
Strikes and protests like this are an opportunity for us to push people further to the left and to radicalize them, as well as recruit those who are already more sympathetic. It is important for communists to belong to trade-unions, and be as active in them as possible because they are a more favorable place for us communists to spread our views, and to gain and maintain solid ties with the working class.
Update: Prime minister resigns
In the aftermath of the strike, the Centre Party, the main government partner of the Social-democrats turned against the Social-democrats and gave a motion of no confidence to towards the prime minister.
The prime minister resigned on 3. of December.
The Finnish Communist Revolution (1918) PART 3: FAILURE OF REFORMISM
23 Aug 2019 6 Nov 2019 / TheFinnishBolshevik	/ Leave a comment
In the years immediately prior to the revolution, the Finnish socialists were heavily reformist. The party had always wanted to act legally and win concessions from the capitalist class. Eventually all attempts at reformism would end up in failure and in late 1917-early 1918 the party would find itself pushed to a revolutionary situation against its will by the objective conditions, the masses and the actions of the capitalist class. But before that in the period of 1916 to 1917 the social-democrats exhausted every avenue of legal reformism before ever seriously considering revolutionary action: parliamentarism, trade-unionism, demanding of concessions. Each attempt ended in failure, in the end making a violent class conflict unavoidable.
THE 1916 ELECTION VICTORY: Attempt at parliamentary reformism
The first grand moment for reformism was the historic election victory of 1916 where the socialists emerged as the largest party and held a parliamentary majority.
"…in the elections of 1916 the social-democratic party of Finland won (as the first workers' party in the world) an absolute majority of parliamentary seats (103 seats out of 200). This was an enormous victory and persuaded the social-democrats to believe that under normal political conditions, when the parliament would function, laws favorable to the workers could be implemented peacefully.
Indeed, Finland unexpectedly gained such favorable conditions without any struggle from its part. In Petrograd [Russia], workers and soldiers overthrow czarism. In Finland, state of war ended and bourgeois democratic liberties were returned… Finns received the opportunity to create their own government, the senate. Governor-general Seyn and chairman of the senate Borovitinov were imprisoned and taken to Petrograd (where they were released). Stakhovich, a liberal more favorable to Finland, was appointed governor-general. It is doubtful that Finland could have expected conditions any more favorable under the Russian bourgeois republic.
Immediately after the overthrow of czardom, Finnish workers began creating first in the capital and then also in rural areas their own representative bodies, workers' "representative assemblies" modeled after the Russian soviets… Representative assemblies (called soviets in some localities) functioned alongside local governing bodies (which had previously not been open to lower classes) and took part in administration. "(Holodkovski, The Finnish Workers' Revolution 1918, pp.8-9)
"The party's membership began to increase once again in 1916. One reason was the success that social-democrats got in the parliament elections… Among the important questions in the victorious elections of 1916, were the worsening food situation, and attitude towards the increasingly russified Finnish senate [the socialists wanted to give power from the senate to the Parliament, while the bourgeoisie supported the senate]. However the most important theme of the elections was the tenant-farmer question. Every party had their tenant-farmer program but the social-democrats put special emphasis on this question."
(Suodenjoki & Peltola, Köyhä Suomen kansa katkoo kahleitansa: Luokka, liike ja yhteiskunta 1880-1918 (Vasemmistolainen työväenliike Pirkanmaalla osa 1), pp.181-182)
Due to obstructionism from the capitalist class and from Tsarist Russia, the social-democrats were forced into a coalition government, hindering their work:
"The social-democratic party, which had won the majority now possessed the unquestionable right to form a government. However the matter was made more difficult by the fact that the social-democratic party would have had to collaborate with bourgeois parties, which in socialist circles would have been considered betrayal of working class interests. For this reason the social-democrats announced on 23. of march their refusal to form a government, and to leave it up to bourgeois parties. Bourgeois parties were also afraid to take responsibility to form a senate. At that point the governor-general's assistant Korff announced that unless a new senate is formed, the old Russian senate "loyal to the czar" would remain in power. This would have been intolerable. The social-democrats had to change their position on forming the senate… In their opinion, it was acceptable to form a government with representatives from the social-democratic party and the [petty-bourgeois] agrarian league, i.e. representatives from the workers' and peasants' parties. Again disagreements arose. The agrarian league demanded that representatives of bourgeois parties also be invited to join in the government. In this way, the social-democrats failed to avoid a coalition government." (Holodkovski, p.9)
"Soon it became even more evident that social-democrats would not achieve much through parliamentary methods, despite their strong position in the highest government organs of Finland (half the senate seats and majority in the parliament). Bourgeois senators could rely on the chairman of the senate, the governor-general if the need arose, and his vote could at any moment grant them majority. Later [revolutionary leader and founder of the Finnish communist party] Kuusinen compared the coalition senate to a stubborn bull which was being pulled forward by its horns by the social-democrats and back by its tail by the bourgeoisie, the bull never moving at all. Additionally the Russian provisional government intervened in Finnish affairs and Finland could not resist its actions… Objective conditions did not allow social-democratic senators the opportunity to improve the position of the workers. The role of the social-democratic senators was limited to collaborating with the bourgeoisie, attempting to minimize the dissatisfaction of the population and in reality to strengthen the type of government which did not fulfill the interests of the population… The senate was stripped of its reputation before it could even do anything. But even when it did act, it didn't win respect in the eyes of the workers but instead began receiving their scorn."(Holodkovski, p.10)
"The social-democrats' participation in the highest executive organ only put them in a bad light in the eyes of the workers, because the workers didn't benefit from it.
The activity of social-democrats in the parliament proved much the same. Social-democrats only had little over half the seats. But passing changes to important laws (e.g. the constitution or reforms to taxation laws) required a two thirds majority.
The senate and parliament were the typical arena of the social-democrats' legal activity. Legal activism is possible also in non-revolutionary situations, and therefore it was not characteristic to that time period. What was characteristic to the situation, was the ever larger non-parliamentary action by the working population. The large size of the popular movement is explained by the increased dissatisfaction of the workers, removel of the threat of repression by the authorities and the inspiring effect of the revolutionary activities of the Russian soldiers and sailors. Non-parliamentary methods corresponded to the needs of the active struggle by the people." (Holodkovski, p.11)
The social-democrat government came to an end when the Russian Provisional Government dismantled the Finnish parliament after the social-democrats together with the agrarian league passed the Power Act, a bill for Finnish independence, making the Finnish parliament independent from Russia. The capitalists worked together with Russia to destroy the social-democrat government and to prevent this bill from being implemented. (See episode 1 of this series about the independence struggle of Finland.)
Thus due to obstructionism the social-democrats' parliamentary hopes were frustrated. Nothing was achieved but they lost credibility in the eyes of their supporters. At the same time the capitalists were motivated to unite and campaign harder in order to combat the social-democrats in the parliament. The social-democrats no longer could inspire the same level of confidence in their voters as before. They also had a confused policy of opposing the illegal dismantling of the Finnish government by Russia, but still not boycotting the elections to create a new government. This did not help them gain support. The people thought: "what was the point of voting for them, if they would achieve nothing and the parliament would be dismantled again?"
"Social-democrats suffered a defeat in the elections of october 1-2 [1917], which surprised them. Although, the amount of social-democrat votes increased, it was 444,608 when it had been 376,030 in previous elections. [source: J. Paasivirta, Suomen itsenäisyyskysymys 1917 [Finnish independence question 1917], II, pp. 41-44]
The increase in votes of other parties was larger, e.g. the agrarian league grew by 71,6%.
[source: H. Soikkanen, kansalaissota dokumentteina, [civil war as documents] pp. 186-188]
The development of events in the summer and fall of 1917 lead to parliamentarism being seen more and more as a dissappointment by the workers. The social-democrats joining in the government (senate), any more then their parliamentary majority, did not bring significant improvements to the workers. "The people's paper" made the following summary about the 10 year history of the single chamber parliament:
"Now ten years later we have returned to our starting point and can see that we are just as far from our goals as we were ten years ago… The task of the single chamber, most democratic parliament in the world, has been in these ten years, to sink into sand the foaming stream of progress and change, which then was unleashed by revolution."
[source: H. Soikkanen, p.153]
The paper explained that the workers had gone through a hard schooling. They began to understand that the strength of the working class was not in the amount of votes, but in the power and fighting capacity of their fighting class organizations. The paper emphasized that it was possible to mention achievements during this period of ten years, but all of them had been achived through non-parliamentary means. [source: H. Soikkanen, p.154]
These things were written about 2 months before the dismantling of the [Finnish] parliament [by the Russian provisional government to stifle Finnish independence]. The dismantling of the parliament destroyed the last parliamentary illusions and demonstrated the complete unreliability of bourgeois promises." (Holodkovski, p.38)
"WE DEMAND": Still hoping for peaceful reforms
Reformism suffered a severe blow after the social-democrats inability to pass any reforms during the time when they had parliamentary majority. The capitalist parties together with Russia destroyed the social-democrat majority and defeated them in elections. The social-democrats could no longer hope to pass laws and instead chose to rely on the support of the masses and directly demand concessions from the bourgeoisie:
"On December 1. when the new parliament was in session, the social-democratic leadership published their programmatic declaration "We demand", which presented the basic demands of the workers. To combat the food shortages it urged to confiscate all food stores, to put production and trade of goods under strict control and distribute goods equally and with reasonable prices. The declaration demanded that the unemployed be given work at adequate wages. New municipal elections had to be carried out according to the newly passed law. [These would be the first municipal elections where workers had equal votes with capitalists. In the previous system, people with more property were entitled to more votes.] Officialdom is to be purged of reactionaries and made democratic. The white guard must be dismantled. The 8-hour working day must immediately be implemented. Tenant farmers and farm workers are to be made rightful owners of their homes and land… An insurence system for the elderly must be created and the tax system reformed. In questions dealing with the sovereign rights of Finland it was urged that the Power Act, accepted by the parliament on 18th of February be published and insisted on guaranteeing the internal autonomy of Finland until the question of Finnish independence has been solved in full. It was also demanded that a constitutional assembly be created and given unlimited authority in solving the country's affairs and to accept a new constitution. Elections to the constitutional assembly were to be carried out equally among all citizens 20 years or older and decisions must be passed in the assembly with a simple majority. [source: И. И. Сюкияйнен Революционные события 1917-1918, [revolutionary events 1917-1918] pp. 286-289] (cf. Suodenjoki & Peltola, pp. 245-246)
These were the demands of Finnish social-democrats at that time. They didn't attack the base of the capitalist system, but demanded a substantial limiting of the selfish interests of the ruling classes as well as the weakening of these classes in the government alongside a strengthening of the workers.
The bourgeois majority in the parliament refused these demands as entirely unacceptable. A week after the "We demand" declaration, it was already clear where revolutionary and non-revolutionary methods lead under similar conditions: Lenin's tactics lead to the world historic victory of socialist revolution in Russia, but the tactics of Finnish social-democrats lead to the bourgeoisie ignoring all the demands of the Finnish working class and the electoral achievements of the social-democrats ended up being worth nothing." (Holodkovski, pp. 41-42)
The "We Demand" document was naturally limited to simple reforms, but even those could not be achieved. The capitalist class was simply not willing to make compromises. Concessions could not be gained by begging but only by forcing the capitalists to give them!
THE DECEMBER 1917 GENERAL STRIKE: Workers take matters into their own hands
After attempts to pass reforms through the parliament had failed, and capitalists had refused to give them, the masses were ready to take them by force, to make life tolerable for the Finnish people. A minority of the social-democrat leaders suggested beginning a working class revolution, but majority still wanted to only pressure the capitalists to force them into concessions.
"Because the bourgeois majority in the parliament paid no heed to the workers' demands, they began a general strike on the night of December 14. [The leading social-democratic body] The revolutionary central committee presented the strikers' demands in a declaration titled "Working people to battle for bread and rights! Stop the presses!" (Hyvönen, p.53)
"On December 12. part of the Revolutionary Central Committee and representatives of the trade-unions held a joint meeting… Kuusinen proposed that if the parliament doesn't satisfy the workers' demands about the rationing of food, helping the unemployed, extending the municipal voting rights to workers etc. then the workers must take power into their own hands. Some others shared this opinion… Gylling, Pietikäinen, Visa, Väisänen and Saarikivi – opposed beginning a revolution. In their opinion the workers would not be able to keep power for long. Many thought it unlikely that the workers could handle massive nationwide problems. Majority opposed taking power. The decision to pressure the bourgeoisie and attempt to win the reforms of the "We demand"-proclamation, was passed with 18 votes against 8. To help these reforms pass even partially the social-democrats divided them into 6 separate propositions and the demands which offended the bourgeoisie the most – the demand for calling a constitutional assembly and dismantling the white guard – were dropped entirely." (Holodkovski, pp.50-51) (Cf. E. Räikkönen, Svinhufvud ja itsenäisyyssenaatti, p. 17)
This demonstrates that the leadership in late 1917 was divided into revolutionaries and reformists. The reformists constituted a solid majority of 18 against 8. The social-democrat party did everything it could, to appease the workers and begged the capitalists to grant reforms which were denied, nearly every single time. And when ever a reform was granted, it was not due to the action of the social-democrats but because the workers took matters into their own hands.
"The 4th Congress of the Finnish Trade-Union Federation met on December 12. [1917]. It pointed out that the conditions of the workers were so hopeless and unbearable, that unless the congress is ready to make radical decisions, the workers will take matters into their own hands. The food question was top most in importance… Many… deputees saw revolution as the only thing that could save the workers from starvation. Deputee Hakkinen said that unless the working class rises up to fight they will all starve to death… Deputee Pyttynen said that in Ostrobothnia the workers were eagerly waiting for the decisions of the congress and were willing to die in order to put them into effect… The deputee from Tampere said that workers of the city have decided to either win or die. Deputee Lampinen said that in many localities the workers have already began to take action, because it is better to die in battle then to do nothing and die of hunger. Some delegates said that they had been told by the workers, that unless the congress accepted radical decisions the delegates would not be welcomed back. The workers were not worried about the shortage of weapons. The delegate from Tornio said the Russian soldiers had promised they would have weapons. The delegate from Oulu also said the soldiers sided with the revolution.
[source: H. Soikkainen, pp.353-356]
The attitude of the workers was generally so firm, that there could never be a better time for revolution. However the attitude of the popular masses inspired uneasiness among some working class leaders. These leaders did not aim to overthrow the capitalists but to only pressure them and force them to accept the most important demands, in order to dissolve the revolutionary energy that had built up.
The congress of trade-union organizations published a declaration on December 13. which stated that nothing had been done in order to satisfy the demands which the trade-union delegation had made to the senate on October 20. The trade-union congress demanded that the parliament order the senate already that same day, to implement the Power Act [of Finnish sovereignty], the 8-hour working day and give parliament the right to control all of government. If this was not done, the workers would begin a general strike, the responsibility of which would fall to the bourgeoisie."
(Holodkovski, pp.51-52)
"The general strike put forward the same demands that had been presented in the "We demand"-programme, demanded solving of the food crisis and unemployment, implementation of the power act [which guaranteed Finnish independence from capitalist Russia], fair municipal elections as well as the 8-hour working day, freeing the tenant farmers from the landlords, extending electoral rights to all citizens age 20 or older, taxing the rich and calling a constitutional assembly. The social-democratic deputies presented these demands in the parliament on behalf of the Finnish Trade-Union Federation on December 13th. The demands were read aloud by deputy Vuoristo who further appealed to the [capitalist] deputies with these words: "After the great masses have seen these demands, —it is no longer in our power to control or lead the situation—history and the minutes of the meeting will demonstrate that from our side we have attempted a peaceful solution. You have every single time refused—I wonder if you still refuse—these modest demands, which you yourselves have claimed to support, and yet have not implemented. Will you plunge our nation into catastrophe because you refuse such modest demands?" (Hyvönen, pp.60-61)
"Social-democrat Vuoristo read the declaration in parliament and emphasized it was supported by 170,000 trade-union workers, as well as all the politically organized workers, i.e. 250,000 citizens." [source: minutes of the 2. Finnish diet 1917, I pp.98-99] (Holodkovski, p.52, )
"The general strike of 1905 had involved also the bourgeois officials and no bourgeois party had dared to oppose it. The 1917 general strike on the other hand was of a different character. It began from the atmosphere created by the October Revolution, as a revolutionary struggle of the working class and poor rural population against the bourgeoisie. In 1905 the workers had already fought against their own national bourgeoisie when it had allied with the Russian Czar to minimize the democratic parliamentary reform. But in the general strike of 1917 the workers targeted primarily the bourgeoisie of their own country and fundamentally it was nothing else then a struggle for power. The strike spread accross the country and gained right away the character of a sharp class conflict. At this stage the bourgeoisie didn't yet feel themselves strong enough to enter into open conflict with the workers. The bourgeoisie did have a fairly extensive network of white guard organizations and it had received more then 7000 rifles from Germany along with other weapons. But the initiative was with the workers, and the strike could paralyze the entire country's transportation, even administration. In the largest working class population centers power was in the hands of worker militias, workers' "delegate assemblies" [soviets] or councils of working class organizations. Tens of thousands of workers and peasants joined the militias which began to declare themselves red guards. In many localities workers occupied police stations and regional government buildings, and confiscated food and weapons hidden away by the bourgeoisie. The development of the strike in this way lead to a sharpening of class antagonisms." (Hyvönen, pp.61-62)
Revolutionary leader Yrjö Sirola described the situation in this way:
"The strike spread quickly all over the country and acquired a revolutionary character. The working class was no longer satisfied in asking for the reforms presented in the "We demand"-programme and the disarming of white guard organizations, but began demanding conquest of power. In reality, in large parts of the country (especially in cities and rural working class centers) power was already uncontestedly in the hands of revolutionary working class organizations." (Sirola, Suomen luokkasota)
The workers take control of cities all over the country.
"…the Revolutionary central committee received messages through the telegraph and telephone from all parts of the country, demonstrating that the tide of revolution was rising ever higher and that everywhere, the workers were masters of the situation and full of fighting spirit. In Kajaani the strike committee informed that the town administration was under its control and everything was peaceful. The revolutionary committee of Tornion informed that power was in the hands of the workers and steps are being taken to solve the food crisis. In Mikkeli workers occupied the police building as well as telegraph and telephone station and forced the governor to obey the people's demands. The mood of the workers was fierce. The workers' revolutionary committee in Vaasa informed that the workers have occupied the regional government, sealed the rooms and posted guards, and that everything was peaceful. The workers' soviet of Oulu telegraphed that the workers have occupied the police station, railway station, telegraph and telephone stations and regional government. Factories, shops and schools have been closed, without conflicts. Messages came from Heinola informing about the eager fighting will of the workers. Information coming from Joensuu and Jyväskylä stated that power was in the hands of the workers. Telegraphs came from Turku, Pori, Riihimäki and Ruotsinpyhtää stating that worker militias are keeping revolutionary order, confiscating weapons from the bourgeoisie and arresting the most active counter-revolutionaries. Worker organizations of Lappeenranta were carrying out inspections to discover the bourgeoisies' hidden food stores and had already confiscated 16 tons of grain. The working people of Oulunkylä confiscated food and alcoholic beweriges from the bourgeoisie (under the law, the production and sale of alcohol was prohibited, so the bourgeoisie was breaking the law).
Here and there, worker militias had to face the white guards but gained the upper hand. The white guard of Tammisaari managed to drive the workers away from the telephone station for a while but soon the red guards took it over again. In Jyväskylä, Sortavala and Oitti the bourgeois broke the phone lines but almost everywhere the workers managed to repair them." (Holodkovski, pp. 64-65)
"The strike spread to encompass the whole country. The industries of every city and every countryside municipality stopped work. A total of 832 enterprises participated in the strike, partial strikes were held in 112 enterprises. 10 enterprises stayed out of the strike. None of the newspapers could appear, except "The information bulletin of the workers' revolutionary central committee" and local revolutionary committee and strike committee bulletins.
The workers saw the general strike as the beginning of a proletarian revolution and not simply a stoppage of work. All over the country they created red guard chapters. Russian troops partially helped to solve the weapon question of the red guards and worker militias. In Helsinki the workers acquired 3000 rifles from the arsenal of Vyborg shipyard (which were returned after the strike) [source: A. Taimi, Sivuja Eletystä, pp. 228-229, 231]. In Tampere the workers had 300 rifles, in Kotka 600, in Vyborg 300 etc. [source: Lehen, p.86] Workers occupied all the most important locations in the cities, took control of the media and transportation, conducted house searches in the houses of the bourgeoisie, confiscated any weapons they found and arrested the most hated counter-revolutionaries. The white guards did not dare to resist the worker's highly unified and organized actions, apart from a few exceptions. The bourgeois authority was crippled. The bourgeois police academy… was shut down. From all municipalities, messages came announcing that power was in the hands of the workers. The working class had the opportunity to fully conquer state power, and besides, possibly without any serious resistance or bloodshed, as the events had caught the bourgeoisie off guard and it was unprepared for civil war. A revolutionary situation had arisen in the country." (Holodkovski, pp.54-55)
The December 1917 general-strike would have been the perfect opportunity for a revolution. The capitalists were caught off-guard, they were not armed or prepared sufficiently to oppose the workers, who easily took control with very little resistance. But a revolution was not what the majority of social-democrat leaders were hoping for. They were frightened by the turn of events. The masses had simply organized without the reformist leaders and taken more bold action then their supposed leaders had wanted. The social-democratic party was now forced to consider whether to support an outright workers' revolution or to oppose it.
FACTIONS INSIDE THE PARTY: Reformists, Centrists, Revolutionaries and Counter-revolutionaries.
White propaganda written in the 30s also admits that instead of advocating for revolution "The social-democrats didn't have the courage to order a rebellion, but instead warned against individual actions and told the workers to keep united."
(Erkki Räikkönen, Svinhufvud ja itsenäisyyssenaatti, p. 15)
"At the same time as the working class was ready for revolution and rising for battle, [source: "Финляндия революция", стр. 26.] the majority in the Revolutionary Central Committee considered revolution to be dangerous in that situation. Why did an attitude of compromise triumph in the working class leaders, while a few months later [in january 1918] a revolutionary attitude gained the upper hand despite the situation no longer being favorable? [source: Lehen, p.107]
In December 1917 the social-democratic party functioned under the prevailing understanding of class struggle. The theoretical level of the party was low, it interpreted principles of revolution and class struggle in a backward way.* According to [revolutionary leader] Yrjö Sirola, a left-wing faction, centrist faction and a right-wing faction all lived harmoniously in the party and the centrists were the leading group, with their left-kautskyite theories.** Sirola considered himself to have belonged to this group…" (Holodkovski, p. 55)
*[source: "40 лет рабочей революции в Финляндии." "Новая и новейшая история", 1958, No 2, стр. 125. ("40 years of the workers' revolution in Finland." "New and Newest History", 1958, No 2, p. 125.)]
**[source: Предисловие Ю. Сирола к тезисам ЦК КПФ. "Пролетарская революция", 1928, No 8 (78), стр. 168. (Y.Sirola's preface to the theses of the Central Committee of the Finnish Communist Party. "The Proletarian Revolution", 1928, No 8 (78), p. 168.)]
"Sirola explained that this left-wing consisted of instinctively revolutionary workers without conscious Bolshevik leadership. The left-wing faction became stronger and more active after the October Revolution. [source: "40 лет рабочей революции в Финляндии." "Новая и новейшая история", 1958, No 2, стр. 125. ("40 years of the workers' revolution in Finland." "New and Newest History", 1958, No 2, p. 125.)]
The working class leaders of that time had no familiarity with Lenin's theoretical works, partially due to the fact that they didn't speak Russian, but more because they were not very interested in the Bolshevik's struggle against opportunism or issues of the international working class movement. Here is an illustrative example. In June of 1917 at the 9th congress of the Finnish social-democratic party Bolshevik representatives Alexandra Kollontai and Jukka Rahja [a Finnish bolshevik] encouraged Finnish social-democrats to join the Zimmerwald current [which opposed the imperialist world war one]. Valpas replied that the party majority was not on the Zimmerwald side.
"The extreme right-wing of the majority is more right-wing then the famous Branting, it is almost petit-bourgeois and in the party executive committee that has been the leading tendency" and in questions of class struggle it is of the same opinion as Branting and Scheidemann [social-chauvinists and reformists] [source: Soikkanen, I, p. 94].
Kuusinen who spoke later, said: "It is true that Zimmerwalds, Scheidemanns, Thomases etc. are very vague concepts to us. If Rahja is going to question us about international politics, starting with the question of which groups are now Zimmerwaldian, then we are going to make a great many mistakes." Rahja interjected: "You have been together with the bourgeoisie and for that reason can't even recognize social-democrats."
Kuusinen replied: "Yes, it is partially because of that, but also because we are so far away from those international politics… but I think its not so dangerous if we here make a decision somewhat with our 'eyes closed' to follow the decision of our Russian comrades and join with the Zimmerwald… We trust you. Valpas says that it would be incorrect since we are more bourgeois then the Zimmerwaldians. That is true. From what I personally know about the Zimmerwaldians I do think that they take a more extreme stance then us here in Finland."[source: Soikkanen, I, pp. 96-97] (Holodkovski, pp.56-57)
"Before the October revolution in Russia and in the early weeks of the revolution, the stance of Finnish social-democrats was that a socialist revolution could only succeed in large western industrial countries. Three days after the Bolshevik revolution, Kuusinen said in a speech to the parliament that the question of proletarian revolution would not be solved in Finland but
"it would be settled in Europe. It also won't be settled in Russia but in Russia, Germany, England, all of them together and possibly nearly at the same time. Unless a proletarian revolution comes from there, it won't happen in Finland either…"
(Minutes of the 2. Finnish diet 1917, I pp.56-57)
From the above statement it follows logically that the Finnish socialists didn't feel the need to urgently prepare for a socialist revolution, until it happened in the Western countries. Because otherwise the Finnish revolution would suffer defeat, and therefore the working classes had to be prevented from taking this premature and ill-advised step. There was the danger that the revolutionary working class would turn its back on the leaders [as it later did] and would start to follow the firm supporters of revolution without delay. For this reason the more radical of the leaders had to keep up appearances and act thus, to not cause disappointment amont revolutionary workers and to not let them out of their influence, even if they didn't truly support revolution. They had to pretend to be much more left-wing then they really were, and emphasize that they supported uncompromising class struggle and won't collaborate with the bourgeosie. That way they kept their authority among the left-wing working class. The siltasaari [center-left] faction founded its policy on this basis. In the party congress in 1917 Kuusinen described the policy of the times in the following way:
"Personally, I would now take quite a revisionist stance. In normal circumstances I would try to support class struggle. But it probably won't hurt to take a [public] stand that is more radical then the actual practice. That is how this party has always been. We have always given an image of ourselves to the outside, which is slightly more radical then we really are. We have had class struggle as such a dogma right from the beginning, that if someone were to speak against it, they would have been condemned by the party."
(Minutes of the 9. congress of the Finnish social-democratic party)
To have understood the falsity of the deeply rooted dogmas of Western social-democracy would have required serious reconsideration and becoming accustomed with Lenin's works. Those who trusted in [German revisionist leader] Kautsky's authority had only realized the falseness of some of Kautsky's claims after looking into that theoretical work that some Bolsheviks had given to developing the theory and practice of Marxism. Lenin's recommendations for Finnish social-democrats to take power, and his short letter of December 11. could not contain full argumentation and therefore didn't have a significant enough impact on the Finns." (Holodkovski, p. 57-58)
The factions in the social-democratic party altered over time. Initially there was a struggle between the counter-revolutionary revisionist right-wing faction and the left-wing "siltasaari" faction. However in 1917 a further split emerged:
1) the firm revolutionaries, armed masses, elements of trade-unions etc. formed a revolutionary left-wing tendency but as Sirola said, without Bolshevik leadership.
2) the "siltasaari" group which consisted of many social-democrat party leaders became a center-faction. They represented a left-menshevik, left-kautskyite tendency which supported revolution in theory but not in reality, believed Finland as a small peasant country wasn't ready for revolution.
3) the counter-revolutionaries, open revisionists and reformists formed the right-wing. The leaders of this group such as Väinö Tanner would consistently oppose working class revolution throughout the civil war, would eventually denounce socialism and form the basis of modern Finnish social-democracy.
The social-democrat leaders saw the december general-strike would lead to a working class revolution which they saw as premature and inadvisable. Therefore they began aiming to end the strike and still wanted pushthe capitalists to grant concessions and appease the workers to prevent a revolution.
"The Revolutionary Central Committee [i.e social-democrat leadership] was being pressured from the right and the left. The majority of the social-democratic parliamentary group was nervous about the revolutionary character of the December general strike, and after receiving information that the strike had in some locations lead to bloodshed, it called its members away from Revolutionary Central Committee leaving only three members who it authorized to act in favor of ending the strike.
[source: "Explanation of the minutes of the 10. (extraordinary) congress of the Finnish social-democratic party held in Helsinki 25-27. December 1917", by Anton Huotari as secretary, p.10]
The view of the workers' militias was the opposite. On the evening of 15. December their representatives arrived at the meeting demanding firmer actions: disarming the white guards and taking power. If the meeting refused to do this, the workers would do it themselves. The Revolutionary Central Committee promised to give its answer by 8 o'clock the next morning. The meeting did not have time to discuss the matter because many of its members had to be in session of the parliament.
In the parliament the social-democrats tried for the last time to persuade the bourgeosie to realize that it was essential to grant at least some of the workers' demands… In his speech to the parliament Kuusinen said:
"I am of the view that there could be unrest tomorrow, unless we who seek to calm down the workers, can finally demonstrate some real results from this parliament… We at least see it as beneficial if we could peacefully get over this critical period."
"Valpas said in his speech that "The revolutionary movement has until now only taken the form of a strike movement" [source: Minutes of the 2. Finnish diet 1917, I pp.56-57] and let it be understood that the situation could change as early as tomorrow, unless the parliament give the workers real results. The leadership of the strike did not consider itself capable of controlling the forces who demanded firm action…
After finally realizing the seriousness of the situation the bourgeosie agreed to some concessions. Alkio [from the petit-bourgeois Agrarian league] made the proposition that
"…the parliament would at least temporarily begin wielding that authority which had previously belonged to the Czar and grand duke." [i.e. the Power Act would partially be implemented at least temporarily, making Finland a sovereign republic]
(Minutes of the 2. Finnish diet 1917, I p. 220)
The social-democrats proposed that the parliament be made permanently and not temporarily the highest authority. The secretariat of the parliament proposed in the name of the bourgeos parliamentary group that the highest authority be given to the senate. Alkio's proposal was accepted with 127 votes in favor, 68 against. Afterwards the parliament accepted the 8-hour working day and the municipal election reform." (Holodkovski, p. 58-59)
The white guard propaganda book Svinhufvud and the independence senate also admits these facts. The author quotes from the same speech by Kuusinen on page 23.
"After the parliament session on night of December 16. the Revolutionary Central Committee continued its meeting, where the proposition of the workers' militias "to take power" was discussed. The previous night the council of worker organizations had also joined in with this proposition. Finally at 5 o'clock in the morning it was decided with 14 votes against 11 to take power in the hands of the workers… Sirola was tasked with drafting the call to revolution. But soon some who had sided with revolution changed their minds and the whole vote was dropped." (Holodkovski, p. 60)
White guard propaganda also confirms this saying:
"After a heated discussion the meeting decided with 14 votes against 11 to begin a revolution the next day… The fateful hour for our fatherland had not struck yet however. Before dawn some members of the central committee who had supported revolution changed their mind and the decision was dropped." (Räikkönen, p. 24)
"On the morning of 16. December there appeared a declaration of the Revolutionary Central Committee which had been written before the call to revolution had been cancelled. It descibed the 8-hour working day and municipal reform by the parliament as entirely insufficient." (Holodkovski, p. 60)
The declaration read:
"That is all! And even that, after many twists and turns. But it cannot satisfy the workers. It cannot. It will not be allowed. Not even a word has been spoken about solving the food crisis, not to even mention actions being taken. No action has been taken to combat unemployment. The lords of the parliament naturally don't want to free the tenant-farmers. They oppose democratization of the state machine. They firmly close their pocket books from effective taxation. They do not wish to remove obstacles from voting rights, they abhore calling a constitutional assembly. They don't plan to give up their butcher [white] guards. But they must be forced. Power has so far been wielded only by the bourgeoisie. It must now be taken into the hands of the workers. The strike must be continued, the bourgeois state machine must be taken under working class supervision, railroads etc. transportation and communication must be taken under the control of the workers, the bourgeoisie must be disarmed, its sabotage activity and armed resistance must be crushed, the worker guards must enforce revolutionary order, in the regions power belongs to local soviets and committees. The highest ruling body is the workers' Revolutionary Central Committee. May everyone know their task. May everyone fulfill their duty. This way the revolutionary workers fight for their rights, to win bread." (H. Soikkanen, kansalaissota dokumentteina p. 245)
"The declaration which emphasized that the demands which lead to the general strike were not even close to being satisfied, and therefore it was necessary to take even firmer actions, proved to be in stark contrast with the Revolutionary Central Committee's actual policy. The majority of the central committee actually took the opinion that it was best to be satisfied with the concessions they had won, and to end the strike…
Later Sirola said about those days that setting up a proletarian dictatorship corresponded to such a degree with the hopes and wishes of the workers that if one of the leaders had had the courage to step up as the head of a workers' government, the workers would have supported them, followed them and the revolution would have been carried out." (Holodkovski, p. 61)
"RED SENATE": The Final Reformist Utopia
The social-democrats had been lead to believe that a compromise with the capitalists could be reached. If the general-strike was ended and society returned to normal conditions, the capitalists would allow the social-democrats control of the senate. The social-democrats were not stupid enough to fully trust this proposition but still agreed to go along, as the other alternative would have been revolution.
"The leaders of the strike began negotiations with a few bourgeois representatives of the parliament about the creation of a socialist government "the legal way", i.e. by a parliamentary decision. The bourgeois representatives implied that such a government could be formed if the strike was ended. The parliament couldn't be pressured any further because its chairman had dissolved it for the duration of the strike. The social-democrats had opposed dissolving the parliament without success. Therefore, in order to create a social-democratic government through the parliament, the strike had to be ended. But were there any guarantees that the bourgeoisie would not betray its promise? It would have been childish to believe the promises of the bourgeoisie. The leaders of the strike understood this but still supported ending the strike. In their opinion the continuation of the strike and its escalation to a revolution could have disastrous consequences which had to be prevented. The policy of forming a socialist government through a parliamentary road was accepted, and it instantly reduced the revolutionary sentiment. Was there any need to use violence, if a red government could be created with the agreement of parliament? In light of these facts it is easy to understand the actions of the majority of Finnish working class leaders in December 1917."
(Holodkovski, p.62)
"The Revolutionary Central Committee discussed the question of a red government and the strike on December 17. The minutes of the meeting speak of disunity… votes were divided evenly. Six members… supported social-democrat participation in government (…minutes don't specify what this meant)… six members supported ending the strike without any further demands. No decision was reached.
A decision was accepted in the next meeting of the Revolutionary Central Committee which began at 2am December 18. and had a crucial significance. The participants of the meeting were told that the council of workers' organizations of Helsinki unanimously support forming a workers' government. The railway workers agree. On the other hand the majority of the social-democratic parliamentary group supports forming a red government through legal, i.e. parliamentary means… three proposals were presented: 1. forming a red government through parliamentary means, 2. forming a red government through non-parliamentary means and 3. to end the general strike without any further demands. Forming a red government through parliamentary means received 8 votes in favor… 8 members also opposed it. The vote of the chairman decided the question in favor of accepting the proposal. In the final vote the decision was accepted with 7 votes in favor, 5 against and 2 abstaining that the strike will be ended and the social-democratic parliamentary group is tasked with forming a red government through the parliament…" (Holodkovski, pp.62-63)
White guard propaganda also admits this saying:
"In the final vote it was decided at last with 7 votes in favor and 5 against – with 2 abstaining from voting –, that the strike will be ended and "the parliamentary group will be given the task to form a red government through the parliament". By promising the frenzied masses a "red senate" it was possible to calm things down." (Räikkönen, p. 27)
Meanwhile the proletarian and rural masses waited for developments.
"The local committees and soviets awaited at their telephones around the clock for revolutionary orders from the central leadership. They anxiously waited for instructions.
In such a situation, news began to spread that the Revolutionary Central Committee had decided to end the strike. To the workers this seemed at first to be unbelievable and monstrous. They didn't believe it. In some places the telegraph which called for ending the strike, was seen as a provocation. [source: L. Letonmäki, Den finska socialdemokratin och revolutionen, p.7]
In Tampere the workers thought the members of their committee who announced the ending of the strike, were traitors who had been bribed by the bourgeoisie. When the members of the committee tried to defend themselves in a mass meeting, they were prevented from speaking with shouts of "down!", "out!", "traitors!"" (Holodkovski, p.65)
"Even after the news turned out to be true, hundreds of workers refused at first to obey the order to end the strike. From all corners of the country came confused and angry questions about why the strike should end… In Kotka, Lahti and Loviisa the workers rose up almost unanimously to oppose ending the strike. Those supporting the order of the Revolutionary Central Committee were pulled down from podiums. The workers of Kotka and Kymenlaakso voiced the slogan "Power to the workers", "We must declare a proletarian dictatorship" and promised to mobilize and thousand men.[source: Punakaarti rintamalla. Luokkasodan muistoja, p.106]
The workers of Karjaa declared in their meeting that they don't accept ending the strike because the results achived are insufficient, and said the measures outlined in the "We demand" proclamation absolutely had to be fulfilled. The workers of Karkkila unanimously accepted the following statement: "We don't accept the decision of the Revolutionary Central Commitee. We must uncompromisingly hold on to the demands we put forward at the beginning of the strike; for that reason such a government must be created that will implement the Power Act, bring the tenant-farmer question to an acceptable conclusion etc. Also the regional and municipal governments must be taken in the workers' hands. Forces must remain mobilized until working conditions and the food situation have been organized according to the new regime."
[source: "Suurlakkotiedonantoja" ["general strike information bulletins"] n:o 1, 19.XI.1917.]
Similar decision was made by the workers of Lohja. News arrived in Helsinki that the decision to end the strike had caused unrest among the workers and meetings were held in several places. Those who supported ending the strike were accused of being traitors." [source: И. И. Сюкияйнен, p. 129] (Holodkovski, p.66)
The masses had been ready for revolution. All they lacked as Sirola and Kuusinen later said, was Bolshevik leadership, which did not exist in Finland at the time.
The Revolutionary Central Committee published a declaration on 18. December titled "Class struggle without the general strike" which stated that:
"The bourgeosie's black powergrab [attempt to build military dictatorship] has been defeated… power will be given to the hands of the parliament, and laws about municical democracy and 8-hour working day have been passed… Part of the parliament bourgeoisie have made emergency promises. They've promised improvements to the food policy. They have also promised to recognize and implement the 'power act' as a basis for democracy… They have also promised their support for freeing the tenant-farmers and other important demands… Their promises are not worth much however, unless the workers standby as a firm observing guardian, ready to attack if betrayal of the promises is discovered…" (H. Soikkanen, pp. 248-250)
The capitalists' attempt to build a dictatorship will be discussed in a later episode.
"The [social-democrat] declaration [to end the strike] clearly demonstrates that they set as goals of the working class movement only those types of reforms and demands which did not directly attack the foundations of the capitalist system." (Holodkovski, p. 67)
"The workers' executive committee of Helsinki declared on 19. of December that: "Because a red senate has been formed and the general organized workers' meetings… have today decided to end the strike, the workers' executive committee of Helsinki informs that the strike is considered to be over by 2 p.m." …words about the formation of a red senate do not reflect any reality: the senate was only being planned. However, for a few days this illusion was seen as a realistic possibility. The newspaper "The Worker" published advice from the workers to the red senate. The planned members of the red senate… held a meeting to plan the government's program… The senate question ended exactly as Sirola had thought. It was childish to imagine in that situation that the bourgeois majority would have handed over the reigns of power to the social-democrats… the proposal for a red senate received only 80 votes. A 100 votes supported the bourgeois senate, Svinhufvud as its leader." (Holodkovski, pp. 70-71)
A white guard author writes:
"On December 19. the workers' executive committee finally declared the strike to be over, because a red senate had been formed. However this did not happen…" (Räikkönen, p. 27)
In this way all the attempts at peaceful reform failed. The capitalists did not grant any meaningful concessions or share power with the workers. The conditions still remained absolutely miserable in the country: long working days despite some industries officially accepting 8-hour working days on paper, and this obviously did not extend to farm workers, rural house servants or tenant-farmers, there was still no land reform, no ruling single chamber parliament, wages were too low to compete with inflation and black market prices of necessities and according to government estimates one quarter of the population was threatened by famine. See episode 2 of this series about the conditions of the people before the revolution.
The absolute failure of reformism to change the miserable conditions kept pushing the masses towards real revolutionary struggle. At the same time, now frightened by the unrest of the december general-strike and the strength of the masses, the capitalists began to rapidly arm themselves, to build a dictatorship and to prepare to crush the workers if they attempted to rise up and improve their lives.
И. И. Сюкияйнен Революционные события 1917-1918
Me vaadimme https://mltheory.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/me-vaadimme-julistus.pdf
E. Räikkönen, Svinhufvud ja itsenäisyyssenaatti
Minutes of the 2. Finnish diet 1917
Sirola, Suomen luokkasota
A. Taimi, Sivuja Eletystä
"Финляндия революция"
Tuure Lehen, Punaisten ja Valkoisten Sota
"40 лет рабочей революции в Финляндии." "Новая и новейшая история", 1958, No 2, стр. 125.
Предисловие Ю. Сирола к тезисам ЦК КПФ. "Пролетарская революция", 1928, No 8 (78), стр. 168.
Minutes of the 9. congress of the Finnish social-democratic party
Explanation of the minutes of the 10. (extraordinary) congress of the Finnish social-democratic party held in Helsinki 25-27. December 1917
L. Letonmäki, Den finska socialdemokratin och revolutionen
"Suurlakkotiedonantoja"
Punakaarti rintamalla: Luokkasodan muistoja, ed. J. Lehtosaari
The Khrushchev Coup (Death of Stalin & Khrushchev's Rise to Power)
7 May 2019 12 May 2019 / TheFinnishBolshevik	/ 2 Comments
After the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev became the new head of the Soviet Union. He embarked on an extensive campaign of lies and attacks against the Stalin government which was immediately cheered by the capitalist world. Many of his lies still persist to this day. Khrushchev's government launched de-stalinization, a wave of propaganda and censorship against Stalin era policies. In their place the Khrushchevites implemented profit oriented market reforms and other erroneous policies which put Soviet socialism as well as all other countries in the soviet camp on the wrong track.
Why didn't anybody stop him? How did he manage to avoid being voted out? Khruschchev rose to power via an undemocratic military takeover, a coup de tat, and used the military to kill, imprison, intimidate and marginalize his enemies.
But how did Khrushchev succeed in doing this? And why did he do it? These are some of the questions that will be discussed in this article. Firstly we should talk about Stalin's death, which in itself happened under very suspicious circumstances and has caused a lot of speculation.
REMOVAL OF STALIN'S BODYGUARDS
Shortly before Stalin's death, his personal security was drastically reduced. The head of his personal secretariat Poskrebyshev and the head of his personal bodyguard General Vlasik were both removed under accusations of leaking documents and unreliability. This left Stalin vulnerable.
Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva said:
"Shortly before my father died even some of his intimates were disgraced: the perenniel Vlasik was sent to prison in the winter of 1952 and my father's personal secretary Poskrebyshev, who had been with him for twenty years, was removed".
(S. Alliluyeva: 'Twenty Letters to a Friend', p. 216).
Peter Deriabin believed this to have been a deliberate conspiracy and states in his book:
"A commission [was set up] to investigate… the entire state security apparatus [which then] proceeded… to cut Stalin's bodyguards to the bone"
(P. Deriabin: Watchdogs of Terror: Russian Bodyguards from the Tsars to the Commissars, pp. 317-18)
"About seven thousand men were dropped… [Leaving Stalin] guarded by… only a small group of officers… that had little security experience, especially as bodyguards." (p. 319).
"That completed the process of stripping Stalin of all personal security… This had been a studied and very ably handled business: the framing of Abakumov, the dismissal of Vlasik, the discrediting of Poskrebyshev, the emasculation of the Okhrana and its enforced subservience to the [Khrushchevite-controlled] MGB, Kosynkin's 'heart attack', the replacement of Shtemenko and the removal of the general staff from the last vestiges of Okhrana control. And certainly not to be forgotten at this juncture was the MGB control of the Kremlin medical office. . . With state security and the armed forces under their command, the connivers were finally in the driver's seat".
(pp. 325-26).
STALIN DIES
"There are a number of circumstances connected with the death of Stalin which make it, in forensic terms, 'a suspicious death':
Firstly, Stalin appeared to be in excellent health immediately prior to the beginning of March as was testified by an American journalist.
"And what of Stalin himself? In the pink of, condition. In the best of spirits. That was the word of three foreigners who saw him in February – Bravo, the Argentine Amassador; Menon, the Indian, and Dr. Kitchlu, an Indian active in the peace movement".
(H. Salisbury: 'Stalin's Russia and After'; London; 1952; p. 157).
Secondly, on the night of 1-2 March there was a long delay in obtaining medical help for Stalin:
"Khrushchev does not mention specific times, but his narrative makes it incredible that the doctors arrived much before 5 a.m. on 2 March. This is many hours, perhaps twelve, after the seizure. . . .
It is not true that he was under medical care soon after the seizure".
(R. H. McNeal, Stalin: Man and Ruler, p. 304).
"There is a mystery about what had happened to Stalin, His guards had become alarmed when he had not asked for his evening snack at 11 p.m. . . . The security men picked him up and put him on a sofa, but doctors were not summoned until the morning.
Stalin lay helpess and untreated for the better part of a day, making recuperative treatment much harder… Why did the Party leaders prolong the delay? Some historians see evidence of premeditated murder."
(J. Lewis & P. Whitehead: 'Stalin: A Time for Judgement'; London; 1990; p. 179).
"Only on the next morning . . . did the first physicians arrive".
(W. Laqueur: 'Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations, p. 151).
"Physicians were finally brought in to the comatose leader after a twelve- or fourteen hour interval".
(D. Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, p. 513).
Thirdly, there was a deliberate lie in the announcement of his death, which was stated to have taken place 'in his Moscow apartment', whereas it actually occurred in his dacha at Kuntsevo. Historian Adam Ulam asserts that a: " . . . conspiratorial air coloured the circumstances of Stalin's death. The belated communique announcing his stroke was emphatic that it had occurred in his quarters in the Kremlin. Yet it was to his country villa . . . that his daughter Svetlana was summoned on March 2 to be by his deathbed. . . . He was stricken away from Moscow. . . .
The official communique' lied about the place where Stalin had suffered the fatal stroke and died. . . .
There was an obvious reason behind the falsehood; his successors feared that a true statement about where he was at the time of the seizure would lead to rumours . . . that the stroke had occurred while he was being kidnapped or incarcerated by the oligarchs. Crowds might surge on the Kremlin, demanding an accounting of what had been done to their father and protector".
(A. B. Ulam, Stalin: The Man and His Era, p. 4, 700, 739).
Fourthly, the revisionist conspirators had an ample and urgent motive — that of self-preservation — for eliminating Stalin:
"For many leading Soviet statesmen and officials, Stalin's demise . . . came in the nick of time. Whether or not it was due to natural causes is another matter"
(D. M. Lang, p. 262).
"While murder cannot be proved, there was no question that motive for murder existed. . . . For . . . if Stalin were dying a natural death. it was the luckiest thing that had ever happened to the men who stood closest to him".
(H. Salisbury, p. 160-61)."
(From Bill Bland's THE 'DOCTORS' CASE', AND, THE DEATH OF STALIN)
What was this motive? We need to take a little detour to explore this question. Older theories have suggested that Stalin was attempting to purge the party and state of careerists and bureaucrats. However, newer research suggests a more systemic change. According to historian Aleksandr Pyzhikov (who is very much an anti-communist and anti-Stalin historian) in 1947 there was a proposition to update the party's program. This 1947 party program has never been made available.
"According to Pyzhikov this program described "a progressive narrowing of the political functions of the state, and to the conversion of the state into, in the main, an organ of the management of the economic life of society." [It was clearly a plan for transitioning from Socialism to Communism as described by Marx and Engels.]
Pyzhikov explains that the draft "concerned the development of the democratization of the Soviet order. This plan recognized as essential a universal process of drawing workers into the running of the state, into daily active state and social activity on the basis of a steady development of the cultural level of the masses and a maximal simplification of the functions of state management. It proposed in practice to proceed to the unification of productive work with participation in the management of state affairs, with the transition to the successive carrying out of the functions of management by all working people. It also expatiated upon the idea of the introduction of direct legislative activity by the people, for which the following were considered essential:
a) to implement universal voting and decision-making on the majority of the most important questions of governmental life in both the social and economic spheres, as well as in questions of living conditions and cultural development;
b) to widely develop legislative initiative from below, by means of granting to social organizations the rights to submit to the Supreme Soviet proposals for new legislation;
c) to confirm the right of citizens and social organizations to directly submit proposals to the Supreme Soviet on the most important questions of international and internal policy.""
(Pyzhikov, A. "N.A. Voznesenskii o perspektivakh poselvoennogo obnovleniia obshchestva." in Furr, Stalin and the Struggle for Democratic Reform)
In short, this would have shifted power away from the mid-level managers and politicians, directly to the workers who were now literate and educated enough to run all of society.
"According to Pyzhikov, [Leningrad party chief] Zhdanov… proposed convening the 19th Party Congress at the end of 1947 or 1948. He also set forth a plan for a simplified order of convocations of party conferences once a year, with "compulsory renewal" of not less than one-sixth of the membership of the Central Committee per year. If put into effect, and if "renewal" actually resulted in more turnover of C.C. members, this would have meant that First Secretaries and other Party leaders in the C.C. would have been less entrenched in their positions, making room for new blood in the Party's leading body, facilitating rank-and-file criticism of Party leaders (Pyzhikov 96)… with at least the possibility of replacement — of no less than 1/6 of the Central Committee every year through a Party Conference, this Party plan envisaged the development of democracy from below in both the state and in the Party itself." (Furr, Ibid.)
We do not know how this plan was rejected. Zhdanov, who was a close ally of Stalin's died seemingly of a heart-attack the same year he made the proposition, which in hindsight is quite a coincidence. Zhdanov's death would later be used in the so-called "Doctor's Case" where a number of doctors were accused of trying to murder soviet politicians. There is no clear evidence about the truth regarding the Doctor's Plot, some of the cases were clearly frauds orchestrated by Khrushchev which he then blamed on his enemies, but its possible some of the cases were genuine. Stalin was personally skeptical about the guilt of the doctors. He himself, would of course die under suspicious circumstances seemingly after being deliberately denied adequate medical care.
The 1947 draft plan was rejected, how – we do not know. Zhdanov had proposed a party congress in 1948 which would have been according to the normal custom, but for unknown reasons the 19th Party Congress was postponed until 1952.
All of this suggests that which the liberal historian Arch Getty had argued, that the true power in the Soviet Union was in many ways not held by the central leadership around Stalin, and especially not by Stalin personally. This was merely a cold-war myth, a caricature partially facilitated by Stalin's fame and the hero-worship around him. He seemed like a larger then life figure. But in reality, the mid-level management and the first secretaries in the party had substantial power and Stalin was in the minority.
This group, the first secretaries, technocrats etc. were also the most susceptible to corruption and Stalin and Zhdanov's new program would have attacked precisely this privileged group, removed management of the State offices, ministries, factories etc. from the Party's hands putting it into the hands of the non-party masses.
From an ideological and practical stand point this seems a necessary course of action. What is the purpose of a vanguard party? To serve as the proletarian ideological guide and leader, a small group of the most class conscious industrial workers, not as a gigantic party of managers.
In 1929, Molotov had outlined the Stalin politburo's plan to proletarianize the party, so that by 1930 at least 50% of the party were industrial workers. This goal was achieved. In 1930 the party had consisted of 65% manual workers, 20% peasants and only 14% white collar officials. The party was more proletarian in composition in 1930 then in Lenin's time. However in the Khruschchev period, the number of industrial proletarians in the party had reduced to 30% while HALF of the party consisted of white collar officials.
This makes it clear why it was possible for Khrushchev to rally the bureaucracy around him, and defeat all the egalitarian, democratic and proletarinization efforts. This also makes the Trotskyist accusation that Stalin was the leader of a bureaucratic caste ridiculous, as his efforsts in 1930 created a party even less bureaucratic then Lenin's. To explore how the bureucratization in the party occurred during the 1940s and early 50s is beyond the scope of this video, but the popular explanations are the material conditions of Russia, where the state was forced to rely on a minority of experts while the masses were largely uneducated, as well as the massive death toll of the best communist cadres and proletarians in the second World War, forcing the party and state to admit vast amounts of less suitable people within its ranks in the late 40s to replace the losses.
"Due to the circumstantial evidence of the series of measures undertaken by the conspirators in the months prior to Stalin's death to remove the securities around him, it is not surprising, that within weeks of Stalin's death, rumours would begin to circulate that he had been murdered:
"There were rumours, above all in Georgia, that Stalin had been poisoned."
(W. Laqueur, p, 151).
Stalin's son Vasily is reported to have cried out:
"'They are going to kill him! They are going to kill him!'"
(P. Deriabin, p. 321).
"Stalin's son Vasily kept coming in and shouting 'They've killed my father, the bastards!"'.
(D. Volkogonov, p. 774).
Vasily was arrested in April 1953 in order, as his sister Svetlana puts it, 'to isolate him':
"After my father's death, [Vasily] . . . was arrested. This happened because he had threatened the government, he talked that 'my father was killed by his rivals' and all things like that, and always many people around him — so they decided to isolate him. He stayed in jail till 1961 . . . and soon he died"
(S. Alliluyeva, Only One Year, p. 202).
"[Vasily] was convinced that our father had been 'poisoned' or 'killed'.
Throughout the period before the funeral . . . he accused the government, the doctors and everybody in sight of using the wrong treatment on my father.. . .
He was arrested on April 18th, 1953. . . .
A military collegium sentenced him to eight years in jail.
He died on March 19th, 1962".
(S. Alliluyeva, p. 222-23, 224, 228).
Georges Bortoli comments:
"Vasily Stalin had said aloud what the others were thinking to themselves. In less than a month, all sorts of rumours would begin to circulate in Moscow, and people would begin speaking of a crime. . . Some people said that several members of Stalin's entourage were threatened by the coming purge. Had they taken steps to forestall it?"
(G. Bortoli, The Death of Stalin, p. 151)"
Indeed, many other leaders known to have been firm supporters of Stalin also died mysteriously almost immediately after.
"The Czechoslovak Marxist-Leninist leader Klement Gottwald died shortly after visiting Moscow to attend Stalin's funeral." (Bland, Ibid)
The Polish Marxist-Leninist leader Boleslaw Beirut died shortly after Khrushchev's power grab on 12 March 1957
The Albanian leader Enver Hoxha, explicitly accused the Khrushchevites of murdering Stalin claiming that one of them, Anastas Mikoyan outright admitted it to him.
"All this villainy emerged soon after the death, or to be more precise after the murder, of Stalin. I say after the murder of Stalin, because Mikoyan himself told me . . . that they, together with Khrushchev and their associates, had decided . . . to make an attempt on Stalin's life".
(E. Hoxha, With Stalin: Memoirs, p. 31).
In his book Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR Stalin argued against the types of market oriented reforms the revisionists would later make. The same Anastas Mikoyan then described Stalin's views in the book as "an incredibly leftist deviation" ("Neveroiatno levatskii zagib." Mikoian, Tak Bylo, Ch. 46: "On the Eve of and During the 19th Party Congress: Stalin's Last Days.")
Professor Grover Furr concludes:
"[T]here is a long recognized mystery of why medical care was not summoned for the gravely ill Stalin until a day or more after it had been discovered that he had had a stroke. Whatever the details of this affair Khrushchev was involved in it." (Furr, Khruschchev Lied, p.208)
FIRST ATTEMPT AT A COUP
Stalin died 9. 50 p.m. on 5 March. The revisionists immediately used their control of the security forces to prepare for a coup. The American journalist Harrison Salisbury was an eye-witness of how, shortly before 6 a.m. the next morning:
" . . . smooth and quiet convoys of trucks were slipping into the city. Sitting cross-legged on wooden benches in the green-painted trucks were detachments of blue-and-red-capped MVD troops — twenty-two to a truck — the special troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. . . . The fleeting thought entered my mind that, perhaps, a coup d'etat might be in the making.
By nine o'clock… the Internal Affairs troops were everywhere in the centre of the city… In upper Gorky Street columns of tanks made their appearance… All the troops and all the trucks and all the tanks belonged to the special detachments of the MVD. Not a single detachment of regular Army forces was to be seen.
Later I discovered that the MVD had, in fact, isolated almost the whole city of Moscow…
By ten or eleven o'clock of the morning of March 6, 1953 no one could enter or leave the heart of Moscow except by leave of the MVD…
MVD forces had taken over the city…
Could any other troops enter the city? Not unless they had the permission of the MVD or were prepared to fight their way through, street by street, barricade by barricade"
(H. Salisbury, p. 163-64, 166, 171, 173)
"Even before Stalin's body was cold, . . . MGB troops . . . not only set up controls and halted traffic, including pedestrians, on every principal capital thoroughfare, but had also ringed the Kremlin".
(Deriabin, p. 328).
The Marxist-Leninists succeeded, for the moment, in foiling the planned coup by mobilising sufficient support to call for the following day, 7 March, a joint emergency meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the Council of Ministers and the USSR Supreme Soviet. In these circumstances the revisionist conspirators lost their nerve and judged it expedient to postpone their planned coup and refrain from opposing the election of Beria as the Minister in charge of state security, an appointment which obviously had majority support among the leadership:
Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs:
"Beria immediately proposed Malenkov for Chairman of the Council of Ministers [prime minister]. On the spot, Malenkov proposed that Beria be appointed first deputy. He also proposed the merger of the Ministries of State Security and Internal Affairs into a single Ministry of Internal Affairs, with Beria as Minister. . . . I was silent. . . . Bulganin was silent too. I could see what the attitude of the others was. If Bulganin and I objected . . ., we would have been accused of starting a fight in the Party before the corpse was cold". (p. 324)
THE MILITARY COUP IN MOSCOW (1953)
Khruschchev's coup went into action when the military arrested Beria, then vice president and minister of interior. In July 1953, Beria was accused of corruption. At the end of June 1953, the revisionist conspirators claimed that Beria was a nationalist agent of foreign imperialist powers and had been plotting against the Party leadership. However, later Khruschev surprisingly admitted they had no evidence of Beria's supposed nationalism.
"I could easily believe that [Beria] had been an agent of the Mussavatists, as Kaminsky had said, but Kaminsky's charges had never been verified. . . . We had only our intuition to go on".
(Khrushchev, p. 333)
To finally carry out his coup, Khruschchev had to gain the support of the military. Khruschchev said: "The Presidium bodyguard was obedient to [Beria]. Therefore we decided to enlist the help of the military" (Khrushchev, pp. 335-36)
"In late June 1953 Beria was repressed, either by arrest and imprisonment or by outright murder."
(Furr, Khruschchev Lied, p. 194)
According to historian Iuri Zhukov, Khrushchev managed to win some of the party bureaucracy on his side by opposing Stalin's proposed democratic and egalitarian reforms which were supported by Malenkov and Beria. Malenkov was pushed out, Beria was killed.
Stalin had proposed economic policies which aimed at total abolition of the small commodity production that still existed, abolition of money trade and replacing it with exchange of goods of equal labor value, abolition of differences between mental physical labor and other egalitarian policies and policies which would have meant a radical transition closer to full communism.
According to Zhukov, Stalin also advocated for contested elections and democratic reform. We also know Stalin had proposed removing the party from leadership of managing the state as a necessary transition in the next stage in socialist construction towards communism. It would make sense that some rightist bureaucrats would be very much opposed to this, and consider these methods too radical and too left.
According to Iuri Zhukov, there was a decision to decrease the salaries of politicians which was supported by Malenkov. Khruschchev managed to win some people over by reversing this policy and returning higher salaries to bureaucrats.
"It is my firm conviction that the true meaning of the 20th Congress lies precisely in this return of the Party apparatus to power. It was the necessity to hide this fact . . . that necessitated distracting attention from contemporary events and concentrating them on the past with the aid of the "secret report" [better known as the Secret Speech, where Khrushchev launched an ideological attack against Stalin]"~I. Zhukov, "Krutoi povorot … nazad" ("A sharp turn . . . backwards") http://www.gorby.ru/activity/conference/show_S53/view_24755/
It was necessary for Khruschchev to attack Beria, who was at the same time head of the security forces and vice president of the USSR. After the death of Stalin he was one of the most powerful men in the country. Malenkov was head of the council of ministers, or prime minister while Molotov perhaps the third most powerful man in the country was Foreign Affairs Minister.
It is unclear how exactly Khruschchev was able to get away with Beria's murder. Khruschchev himself claims he was able to convince or intimidate Molotov and Malenkov to stand idly as he did it, but this has to be taken with a large grain of salt. Beria's removal was a conspiracy full of deception, fraud and a palace coup.
"On the night of June 26 1953, Red Army tanks of the Kantemirovskaya Division rolled into Moscow and took up much the same positions as . . . in March. And the tanks were supported by infantry from the Byelorussian military district"
(Deriabin, p. 332)
Beria's removal was made public the following month. A coup was also carried out within the Georgian party organisation. Opponents of Khruschchev were labeled as Georgian nationalists, removed and largely replaced with Zhukov's military men.
In 1956 Khruschchev launched his attack on Stalin, the so-called "Secret Speech". Virtually all the contents of this infamous and extremely significant speech have proven to be falsifications. There is a book length refutation and analysis of the fact claims in Khruschchev's speech called Khruschchev Lied which I recommend to anyone interested in this topic.
Why did Khruschchev give this speech? As the Chinese communists theorized, Khruschchev wanted to pursue policies drastically different from the Marxist-Leninist line of Stalin and his supporters and therefore it was necessary to attack Stalin's legitimacy. Historian Iuri Zhukov stressed that it was necessary for Khruschchev to combat Stalin's democratic reforms and egalitarian programs and restore power into the hands of the party bureaucracy headed by Khruschchev himself. The Chinese said something very similar, saying that the Soviet party had become corrupt and revisionist.
To me it is clear that Khruschchev also had to attack all of his opponents politically. Khruschchev did not only attack Stalin, he also attacked all his other opponents: Molotov, Kaganovich, Malenkov, Beria by labeling them "Stalinists". The evidence of Malenkov and Beria being loyal to Stalin is up for debate. Khruschchev himself turned out to be an extremely disloyal member of Stalin's administration. Malenkov only joined the politburo as a candidate in 1941. Therefore we shouldn't automatically conclude that Malenkov and Beria were not suspicious characters, opportunists or revisionists just because they were rivals of Khruschchev, that is an entirely different question. But it was important for Khruschchev to label them "Stalinists" to marginalize them.
Why did Molotov and Kaganovich once again stand by without adequately defending themselves? Only Khrushchev's people had access to the archival documents which proved the secret speech to be full of lies. Molotov and Kaganovich must have known to a degree that Khrushchev was lying, but were relatively defenseless against the accusations. For all they knew, they might have been partially true. The same applies to the rest of the communist movement. The movement was shocked, but even Mao Tse-Tung and Enver Hoxha did not publicly oppose the secret speech until 4 years later, when it had become clear to them what had happened and it was far too late.
The next year in June 1957 Malenkov joined by the old Marxist-Leninists Kaganovich and Molotov finally attempted to oust Khruschchev from power. They won the vote in the presidium 7 to 4. However Khrushchev argued that only the plenum of the Central Committee could remove him from office. An extraordinary session of the Central Committee was held where Khrushchev was backed by military leader Georgy Zhukov, who gave a speech in Khruschchev's favor even threatening to use the military to support him. Thus the military coup continued and party democracy was torpedoed by Khruschchev.
Why did the General support Khruschchev, even though he later admitted that Stalin was a great leader and Khruschchev a dishonest and vain-glorious opportunist? Because Khruschchev had promoted Zhukov to defense minister, while Stalin had demoted him due to corruption charges.
This network of scheming and corruption is what we generally know as the Khruschchev Coup. The murder or possible criminal neglect of the dying Stalin, the assassination many of Khruschchev's political enemies, the marginalization of countless others, the lies, bribery and outright military take over and total rejection of party democracy. Khruschchev did what he falsely accused Stalin and others of doing.
Pioneering article by W. B. Bland on Stalin's death and the Khrushchev Coup. This article is very good, however it is seriously out of date and I only use that evidence which I quoted from the article. It sometimes quotes Robert Conquest, whose work in this case is almost entirely worthless and unreliable. Conquests' writings cannot be taken as sufficient evidence. The article also quotes Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" which is much the same way, it can't be taken as evidence except when analysing it as a piece of propaganda. The article also puts forward the position that the Doctor's Case was genuine, which in the light of more modern research is debatable. http://ml-review.ca/aml/BLAND/DOCTORS_CASE_FINAL.htm
Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters to a Friend
Alliluyeva, Only One Year
P. Deriabin, Watchdogs of Terror: Russian Bodyguards from the Tsars to the Commissars
H. Salisbury, Stalin's Russia and After
R. H. McNeal, Stalin: Man and Ruler
J. Lewis & P. Whitehead, Stalin: A Time for Judgement
W. Laqueur, Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations
D. Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy
A. B. Ulam, Stalin: The Man and His Era
Hoxha, With Stalin: Memoirs
G. Bortoli, The Death of Stalin
Furr, Stalin and the Struggle for Democratic Reform http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Grover%20Furr/index.htm
Pyzhikov, A. "N.A. Voznesenskii o perspektivakh poselvoennogo obnovleniia obshchestva."
Mikoyan, And it was (Mikoian, Tak Bylo) Ch. 46: "On the Eve of and During the 19th Party Congress: Stalin's Last Days."
Iuri Zhukov, "Krutoi povorot … nazad" ("A sharp turn . . . backwards") http://www.gorby.ru/activity/conference/show_S53/view_24755/
Refutation of Khruschchev's "Secret Speech" https://ia802707.us.archive.org/5/items/pdfy-nmIGAXUrq0OJ87zK/Khrushchev%20Lied.pdf
Stalin's proletarization of the party in Molotov's Pamphlet https://mltheory.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/molotov_1929_the_communist_party_of_the_soviet_union.pdf
Grover Furr on the "Doctors' Plot"
https://mltheory.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/the-doctors-plot-furr.pdf
Analysis of Khruschchev era economic policy. I don't agree with all the conclusions, and sometimes the book emphasises evidence which maybe doesn't have a crucial importance, but in general the evidence presented is valuable and shows the Kosygin reform's shift to a profit-oriented model as opposed to the model that Stalin proposed.
http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/BlandRestoration.pdf
How Does Socialism Solve Racism, Sexism & Other Oppression?
16 Jul 2017 28 Aug 2017 / TheFinnishBolshevik	/ 5 Comments
(or, How to better understand the Relation between Base & Superstructure)
Unfortunately it is assumed by some Marxists that Socialism, almost automatically solves issues like sexism, racism, transphobia & homophobia. People who hold this mistaken view argue: "These issues cannot be solved in capitalism, so let's not focus on them now, it will all be solved in Socialism."
There is a tactical component to this question which I will discuss at the end. First I want to cover the assumption that Socialism solves these, inequalities, oppressions, ills of capitalism automatically, or almost automatically. This mistaken view derives from an incorrect understanding of the Base and the Superstructure & their relation.
WHAT ARE THE BASE AND THE SUPERSTRUCTURE?
What Marxists often call simply the "Base" means the underlying economic system of the society, the economic mode of production. In our current society this mode of production is imperialist capitalism.
In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Marx describes this economic underlying 'base' as follows:
"In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation…"
and adds:
"…on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness."
So what is this superstructure? The superstructure consists of things like culture, religion, form of government such as parliamentarism, military dictatorship or monarchism.
Later on Marx describes the basic relation between the base & superstructure:
"The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure."
That is, each economic mode of production (e.g. capitalism) creates its own superstructure which necessarily results from the social relations arising from the economic mode of production. Changing this superstructure is only possible, even necessary after changing the economic base.
This has led some to hold the incorrect view, that replacing a capitalist economic system with a socialist one, will automatically or practically automatically or very easily, get rid of all the oppressive and reactionary elements arising from the old capitalist society.
HISTORICAL PRACTICE
1. What was achieved?
Let us now examine the notion that the destruction of the capitalist economic base will by itself alone quickly & easily get rid of the reactionary culture fostered by capitalism. When Marxist-Leninist states were in existence, did they cure all these ills? We know the answer. Racism and sexism still remained though in a more limited form.
Trans issues were not yet recognized by anyone at the time, except the trans people themselves. This applies not only the capitalist countries but also socialist ones. LGBT issues were advanced by communist groups like the Black Panthers and recognized by socialist countries like the German Democratic Republic but there was a lot to be desired.
What Marxist-Leninist countries did do was implement policies such as granting equal legal & democratic rights to women as well as ethnic and religious minorities. They provided equal opportunities to study and work for all people regardless of sex or race. The socialist media portrayed minorities as equally capable members of society, the education system tried to combat sexist, racist and other bourgeois-conservative views.
2. Objective vs. Subjective Factors
These advances were a necessary outcome of the new society that was being built. Socialism couldn't have been built without at the same time combating the most glaring and most vicious examples of bourgeois-conservative ideology and culture. They were in one sense a result of the objective factors.
However there was nothing "automatic" or "easy" in this process, as would be implied by the "don't worry, it will all be taken care of in socialism" type of attitude. These achievements were necessitated by the new economic system, but they were implemented by conscious policies by people. In this sense, they were also a result of the subjective factors, the people, the activists, members of the oppressed groups etc.
THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM
The mistake of the "automatic" or "we will take care of it in socialism" theory is the following:
Although the capitalist base is what created and maintained the reactionary superstructure of sexism, racism, transphobia etc. the remnants of the old superstructure can still survive in a limited form for quite some time even in a new base. Especially as this base is constantly itself changing and transitioning away from the old towards something new. To think that these issues will be solved quickly and easily is naive hubris.
It took capitalism an extraordinarily long time to wipe out most remnants of feudal culture. There are still many constitutional monarchies in the world, where the economy is entirely capitalist and the crown has been stripped of power, yet the ridiculous cultural remnant of monarchist absolutism is still there.
Those aspects of feudalism which most strikingly hindered the growing bourgeoisie came into such violent conflict with the new capitalist system that they were eliminated much faster. Aspects like aristocratic privileges, Monarchist absolutism, absolute rule of the clergy, various feudal restrictions of banking, trade and other capitalistic activities. As a result the corresponding ideological-cultural superstructure, began to die out.
With the changes in the economic base the ruling feudal ideology began to be replaced by capitalist ideology. Feudalism was no longer seen as man's natural state, instead man's nature was proclaimed to be capitalistic. Religion lost much of its influence, the Divine right of the king crumbled into dust, replaced by the wealthy bourgeois politician.
This didn't always happen in a simply linear fashion at all. The French Revolution overthrew feudal absolutism but the Napoleonic reaction managed to restore it, however while still releasing the economy from feudal shackles for capitalism to develop more freely.
In many capitalist countries up until a 100 years ago Monarchism & many feudal aspects still held influence. Finland still had clerical & aristocrat privileges and the church acted like a giant feudal landlord. The Russian Empire was another good example where capitalism was evidently there existing side by side with blatant feudalism. This is what Marxists later termed "semi-feudalism".
Those aspects of the old feudal order which were less restricting for capitalism remained for a long time and died out only slowly, adapting themselves or even being co-opted by specific subjective forces in the capitalist order e.g. religious or conservative anti-communist propaganda. Similarly, while the Socialist States quickly stamped out the most egregious ills of capitalism, remnants still managed to survive and sometimes the people of those states were even unaware of this. It takes both the necessary objective conditions of the new society as well as conscious work by the subjective forces: the people, to achieve liberation and rid ourselves of sexism, racism, transphobia, homophobia and other ills of capitalism.
THE TACTICAL QUESTION
The tactical question of the matter essentially boils down to the question: "Revolution or Reform?"
The advocates of the theory of "we will fix it later in socialism" hold their view because they have a mistaken understanding of Marxist-Leninist theory. They have a one-sided view that exaggerates the danger of reformism. They want working class revolution, and see all other struggles as secondary and fundamentally reformist. This is a dangerous error. Such thinking isolates the Communists from the masses. The struggles of oppressed people are not secondary but deeply intertwined with the working class struggle.
1. Are questions of race, sex, etc. secondary to class?
Lenin could have been a dogmatist and said that the Peasant Question, Women's Question or National Question are secondary and unimportant. But why didn't he?
Because women are approximately half the population, our work depends on women. Because the vast majority of the Russian population were poor toiling peasants, it would have been inconceivable to succeed without them. Because the Russian Empire was a prison house of nations, it was inconceivable to build a socialist society based on trust, equality and co-operation without granting full rights to national minorities. Without such a policy, this wouldn't have been a project of fraternity but of subjugation.
The working class is the most revolutionary class and class is the significant factor. In this sense the working class question is "primary", but its only so in terms of the end goal, a classless communist society without oppression. In real praxis these other questions were never secondary, they were beneficial or necessary for the victory of the working class revolution.
2. The question of our alliance with oppressed minorities
The relatively small number of LGBT & trans people has made their struggle far more difficult and probably has contributed to it only being recognize so late. That said, isolating ourselves from LGBT & trans organizations because of their alleged "reformism" only hinders our movement and reduces its allies & forces. By the fact that they are oppressed, they belong to our movement. By the simple fact that we want true equality for all, their goal is the same as ours.
Some might argue, that because the number of LGBT & trans people is so small their chances of playing the crucial role is smaller. A popular movement without women is doomed to fail, but a movement that is missing a small minority, can still succeed. For the sake of argument let us assume this is correct: why should we deny ourselves this beneficial alliance even if it were possible to win without it? There is no good reason for it.
The same question applies to some very small national groups. Someone might argue that they are so few, that in the nationwide scheme they are not the deciding factor, but why deny ourselves this ally? All oppressed people are our allies.
Their number may be small but this probably doesn't give a fair representation of their influence. There is reason to believe that oppressed people are more prone to Revolution & political activism, and this should be worthy of consideration for us.
3. Reform or Revolution?
Some people will to a varying degree argue explicitly (or more often implicitly) that the women's movement, anti-racist movements, trans or LGBT movements are at the end of the day reformist in character and therefore not of any use for us, or worthy of our support.
Certainly there are reformist tendencies, in fact most non-communists are reformists. Liberals, social-democrats and all those who think that sexism, transphobia, homophobia and racism can be solved in the context of capitalism are by definition reformists. But what kind of a "mass movement" can we hope to become if we isolate ourselves from the masses because they are not communists?
These "reformist" movements should more accurately be termed "spontaneous" movements. Their problem is not principled dedication to reformist tactics, but a lack of class and political consciousness. They lack an understanding of the underlying causes of their oppression and act unconsciously, which results typically in reformist actions. The cure for unconscious action is political education. We should be eager to hear the complaints and grievances of the masses, and the experience to be learned from them. Likewise the masses are eager for political knowledge and better organizational forms – the fact that they are organizing themselves is proof of that.
The real reformist danger lies elsewhere. The real danger lies in semi-conscious political groups, even communist groups which take the opposite kind of one-sided approach. Groups that spend all their time focusing on issues which only impact a tiny minority. They neglect work towards working class revolution in favor of reformist actions, to fix capitalism for the oppressed groups. This task is doomed to fail as capitalism cannot be made something that it is not. Capitalism cannot be made into a fair & equal system.
Such movements are either outright liberal or simply have accepted liberal idealist political theory to such a degree that they look more like a liberal then a genuinely leftist organization. They serve neither the working class or other oppressed groups. Their work only serves capitalism as it hinders any real change. They should be exposed and criticized but the existence of such groups should not lead us to the wrong and one-sided view that rejects our work with oppressed groups, our alliance with them, us recruiting them into our ranks.
25 May 2017 17 Mar 2018 / TheFinnishBolshevik	/ 2 Comments
Socialism in One Country is a theory mostly associated with the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin whose government adopted it as official policy. However the theory was heavily based on the writings of Soviet revolutionary leader V.I. Lenin.
Lenin's Theory Against dogmatism
Socialism in One Country proposes that it is possible to build Socialism ("complete socialist society") even in a single country, and even a poor less-developed one or a third world country. This went against the view held by dogmatists, trotskyists and other opportunists that socialism was possible only in wealthy industrial countries and only if established simultaneously in several of them. The dogmatist view was a vulgarization of Marxism & didn't correspond to the material realities of the world in the epoch of global imperialism.
Trotskyists and many other opportunist groupings vehemently deny that Lenin supported the theory of Socialism in One Country. Examining this issue is the main focus of the latter portion of this article.
Lenin's theory went boldly against opportunism & dogmatism
Often times opportunists make the claim that Socialism in One Country goes against Proletarian internationalism or abandons the aim of World Revolution.
Trotsky claimed in his book The Permanent Revolution that Socialism in One Country:
"…makes a breach between the national revolution and the international revolution."
This couldn't be further from the truth. Socialism in One Country is a tactic to achieve those internationalist ends and history has proven it to be successful in it, since the Soviet Union actually managed to help many other revolutionary governments take power and spread Socialism to many other countries in all parts of the world.
"…the victory of socialism is possible in separate countries, thus envisaging the prospect of the formation of two parallel centres of attraction; the centre of world capitalism and the centre of world socialism."
~Stalin, Results of the July Plenum of the C.C., C.P.S.U.(B.) (1928)
The theory of Socialism in One Country doesn't contradict world revolution, in fact it does the opposite. It argues that any country can build socialism, if it lacks the basic requirements of Socialism, it can at least work to fulfill those requirements and then build socialism:
"You say that civilization is necessary for the building of socialism. Very good. But why could we not first create such prerequisites of civilization in our country by the expulsion of the landowners and the Russian capitalists, and then start moving toward socialism? Where, in what books, have you read that such… sequence of events are impermissible or impossible?"
~Lenin, "Our Revolution" (1923)
Stalin-era Soviet coat of arms. Advocating world-communism.
The "Alternative" of the Opportunists
To oppose Socialism in One Country would mean denying the third world poor the possibility of building socialism since according to the opportunists their countries "lack the requirements" for it. They would have to wait for the white Europeans to first establish socialism and finally spread it elsewhere.
In his book Trotsky criticized Socialism in One Country in the following way:
"This theory imposes upon revolutions in backward countries the task of establishing an unrealizable regime of democratic dictatorship, which it counterposes to the dictatorship of the proletariat. Thereby this theory introduces illusions and fictions into politics, paralyses the struggle for power of the proletariat in the East, and hampers the victory of the colonial revolution."
This is a somewhat fancy way of saying that the third world people of Asia were in Trotsky's mind not ready for Socialism due to their economic and cultural state. To build socialism in Asia was impossible according to Trotsky, to even try would mean to"impose… the task of establishing an unrealizable regime of democratic dictatorship."
What this convoluted jumble means is that Trotsky accuses third world people of class-collaboration as opposed to of class struggle. Trotsky subscribes to the dogmatic theory that third world semi-feudal & semi-colonial countries could only at best achieve modern capitalism and to attempt anything further would be an "illusion" and a "fiction."
Earlier in his text "1905" Trotsky had argued against building Socialism in a poor peasant country in the following manner:
"…the proletarian vanguard in the very earliest stages of its rule would have to make extremely deep inroads not only into feudal but also into bourgeois property relations. While doing so it would enter into hostile conflict, not only with all those bourgeois groups which had supported it during the first stages of its revolutionary struggle, but also with the broad masses of the peasantry… The contradictions between a workers' government and an overwhelming majority of peasants in a backward country could be resolved only on an international scale, in the arena of a world proletarian revolution."
In response to this anti-peasant theory Lenin said:
"From the Bolsheviks Trotsky's original theory has borrowed their call for a decisive proletarian revolutionary struggle and for the conquest of political power by the proletariat, while from the Mensheviks it has borrowed "repudiation" of the peasantry's role… Trotsky is in fact helping the liberal-labour politicians in Russia, who by "repudiation" of the role of the peasantry understand a refusal to raise up the peasants for the revolution!"
~Lenin, On the Two Lines in the Revolution
Not only is this idea that third world people are not ready for socialism quasi-racist, it is also strategically unsound. Firstly, the vast majority of the world's workers are from third world countries. Second, experience has shown us, in the epoch of modern imperialism the poor of the developing world have demonstrated great revolutionary potential. In fact in our current stage they demonstrate greater revolutionary energy then Westerners. The opportunists are out of touch with these basic realities, their theory is useless and their movement irrelevant as an alternative for the workers of the world.
Utopian defeatism
But why do the opportunists so vehemently oppose Socialism in One Country? One reason maybe that they oppose anything associated with the Soviet Union or Stalin. However more often then not from trotskyists one hears them express one of the following three reasons
1) that they oppose Socialism in One Country on "internationalist" grounds
2) view that a single socialist country can never survive
3) they think socialism can't be built in a poor country
The first claim I already dealt with. They either don't understand what they're talking about or are dishonest. I already explained why the third argument is troubling, together with argument number two it falls under the category of defeatism, that unless the revolution happens in many countries at the same time, and in the West it's pointless to even try. Or that if the revolution happens in only one country then it must somehow aggressively try to spread the revolution elsewhere. Since the USSR actually did spread it to other countries it seems the opportunists think it should have simply been more aggresive. This seems tactically and ideologically questionable.
Basically the opportunists have no good alternative to propose and this has been proved by history. Trotskyists or any other opponents of Socialism in One Country have never been able to carry out a revolution, let alone a world-wide revolution. The only theory that has been able carry out victorious socialist revolutions not in one, but in multiple countries is the theory of Socialism in One Country.
The alleged "counter-argument" by Engels
Opponents of Socialism in One Country will point to a passage of Engels from the Principles of Communism, a pre-cursor to the Manifesto of the Communist League. First Engels states:
"Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone?
No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others…"* (see end notes)
This is actually not what the opponents of Socialism in One Country would want. The argument Engels makes is that a Communist Revolution would spread almost by necessity. In fact this did happen in Europe in the aftermath of WWI, though all those revolutions were defeated with the sole exception of the October Revolution. Engels continues:
"Further, it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon…"
This is also in perfect accordance with Lenin and even with Stalin's conception. In "Results of the July Plenum of the C.C., C.P.S.U.(B.)" Stalin states that revolutions happen in individual countries, but because of the global nature of capitalism this turns into a world-wide struggle of two great camps or centres; "the centre of world capitalism and the centre of world socialism." as he called them. This is exactly what the Cold War was. Engels continues:
"…but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries―that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany. It will develop in each of these countries more or less rapidly, according as one country or the other has a more developed industry, greater wealth, a more significant mass of productive forces…"
This is perhaps the most interesting part for us. The immediate question is how rapid this "simultaneous" event is? Engels calls it "more or less rapid" so we don't really know. His argument about the different conditions of each country is sound but it implies that this process is not really all that rapid at all. By "simultaneous" he seems to only mean the process happens in all capitalist countries due to the global nature of the system. This is not really in any great contradiction with Stalin's view at all. He continues:
"…Hence, it will go slowest and will meet most obstacles in Germany, most rapidly and with the fewest difficulties in England. It will have a powerful impact on the other countries of the world, and will radically alter the course of development which they have followed up to now, while greatly stepping up its pace…"
This further implies that the process is actually very much gradual. One should also point out that he talks about a Communist Revolution, not the building of a Socialist Society. We know that Communist Revolutions can succeed in individual countries as was proven by October, but Engels is perfectly correct in pointing that these Revolutions by their very nature will spread to other countries and exist in a context of global class-struggle. I'll deal with this topic in further detail when talking about the "Final Victory of Socialism."
Lastly Engels states about the Communist Revolution:
"…It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range."
This re-iterates what we said previously. Obviously Communism will have to be a global system, although this has somewhat different implications in our context as opposed to when Engels wrote his text. Now let us briefly return to one earlier point and also look at Stalin's comments on this passage by Engels. This is what Stalin says about it:
"That was written in the forties of the last century, when monopoly capitalism did not yet exist. It is characteristic that there is not even a mention here of Russia; Russia is left out altogether. And that is quite understandable, since at that time Russia with its revolutionary proletariat, Russia as a revolutionary force, did not yet exist and could not have existed. Was what is said here, in this quotation, correct in the conditions of pre-monopoly capitalism, in the period when Engels wrote it? Yes, it was correct. Is this opinion correct now, in the new conditions, the conditions of monopoly capitalism and proletarian revolution? No, it is no longer correct."
~Stalin, The Social-Democratic Deviation in our Party
Stalin points out the different stage of history Engels wrote his text in, the age before modern imperialism. Engels proposes the classic orthodox Marxist prediction that revolution will happen in developed European states. This did occur post-wwi but the revolutions failed everywhere except Russia. On top of that in the epoch of modern imperialism it has become clear that the frontline of revolution was shifted towards the developing world, not first world imperialist countries. Engels was correct in his own context, but its safe to say things have taken an unforeseen turn. To claim nothing has change since Engels would be nothing but opportunism.
Opponents of Socialism in One Country should keep in mind that Engels says nothing about Socialism being impossible in Russia, what he does is propose that Revolution would begin in the West. Granted he bases his prediction on the idea that capitalism is more developed in the West, but he wrote before the birth of imperialism.
Let's refer to Lenin on this issue:
"Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone…"
~Lenin, "On the Slogan for a United States of Europe"
Is Lenin contradicting Engels? Not exactly, he is merely pointing out the new historical situation, the epoch of modern imperialism. As Stalin said: "[I]n the period when Engels wrote… Yes, it was correct."
Furthermore one should keep in mind that when Engels wrote the West itself was less developed then in the early 1900s. Urban Russia in 1917 was in many ways comparable to urban Germany in 1847. The Opportunists who claimed dogmatically that Socialism was utterly impossible in Russia were already destroyed by Lenin:
"Infinitely stereotyped, for instance, is the argument they learned by rote during the development of West-European Social-Democracy, namely, that we are not yet ripe for socialism, but as certain "learned" gentleman among them put it, the objective economic premises for socialism do not exist in our country… "The development of the productive forces of Russia has not yet attained the level that makes socialism possible." All the heroes of the Second International, including, of course, Sukhanov, beat the drums about this proposition. They keep harping on this incontrovertible proposition in a thousand different keys, and think that it is decisive criterion of our revolution… You say that civilization is necessary for the building of socialism. Very good. But why could we not first create such prerequisites of civilization in our country by the expulsion of the landowners and the Russian capitalists, and then start moving toward socialism? Where, in what books, have you read that such variations of the customary historical sequence of events are impermissible or impossible?"
Lenin's statement is in perfect accordance with the mindset of what Engels said earlier, though Engels speaks of revolution and not socialist construction:
"…the communist revolution … will develop in each of these countries … according as one country or the other has a more developed industry, greater wealth, a more significant mass of productive forces. Hence, it will go slowest and will meet most obstacles in Germany, most rapidly and with the fewest difficulties in England…"
Engels says the process will meet more difficulties in less developed Germany, but he at no point implies it to be impossible. In fact Engels explains what he seems to perceive as adequate capitalist development for a "civilized" (modern industrial) country as follows:
"…it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day…"
The fact that bourgeoisie & proletariat are the decisive classes seems to be enough for him. Another question is to define what he means by "decisive". Opportunists will scream that the developing world is not ready because they have many peasants, but in 1847 so did the Western countries. Clearly decisive means something else then numerical superiority, it means the emergence of those two classes as independent political forces and the emergence of capitalist relations in the country. Lenin's thesis was the alliance of the proletariat & the peasantry, even Trotsky and other opportunists had to eventually agree to the correctness of this.
Exploring this topic in-depth is beyond the scope of this article, but I will say is that an alliance of this kind under the leadership of the proletariat is perfectly in accordance with Marxism:
"…we consider the small peasant living by his own labor as virtually belonging to us, but [helping them is] also in the direct interest of the Party. The greater the number of peasants whom we can save from being actually hurled down into the proletariat, whom we can win to our side while they are still peasants, the more quickly and easily the social transformation will be accomplished."
~Engels, The Peasant Question in France and Germany
Under Stalin's leadership while applying Lenin's theory the Soviet Union became a socialist country
The alleged "counter-arguments" by Lenin
Trotskyists and other Opportunist will occasionally point out a Lenin quote that seemingly argues that socialism in Russia is impossible. They do this to justify their defeatism, their utopian need to reject any real-life revolutions as not representing the rosy picture in their mind.
Now let's take a look at some of these quotes. I will have to use guess-work to some degree as no quote from Lenin truly argues in favor of the Opportunists. As no such quote exists I will look at some which could be misinterpreted as doing so. Here is one:
"Capital is an international force. To vanquish it, an international workers' alliance, an international workers' brotherhood, is needed. We are opposed to national enmity and discord, to national exclusiveness. We are internationalists."
~Lenin, Letter to the Workers and Peasants of the Ukraine (1919)
Opportunists like quotes where Lenin uses the word "internationalism" because in their fantasy Stalin and therefore Socialism in One Country was opposed to internationalism. This is of course false. We will look at this in greater detail in connexion with "the Final Victory of Socialism." For now I will simply present this short passage, as if this even needed to be said:
"We must be true to the end to the cause of proletarian internationalism, to the cause of the fraternal alliance of the proletarians of all countries."
~Stalin, Report to the 17th Party Congress on the Work of the C.C. of the C.P.S.U.(B.) (1934)
One of the more frequently used quotes is this:
"We are now, as it were, in a besieged fortress, waiting for the other detachments of the world socialist revolution to come to our relief… Slowly but surely the workers are adopting communist, Bolshevik tactics and are marching towards the proletarian revolution, which alone is capable of saving dying culture and dying mankind. In short, we are invincible, because the world proletarian revolution is invincible."
~Lenin Letter To American Workers (1918)
Really this talk of a "besieged fort" does not greatly differ from classic Stalinist rhetoric about "capitalist encirclement" or in any way contradict Stalin's view.
At this point I can't remember any quotes where Lenin or some other Bolshevik stated that without outside help their revolution wasn't going to survive but I am fairly certain I've seen such a quote. In any case if such a quote exists it only means two things:
1) They were talking about the survival of their insurrection. This is a question of military strength, not a theoretical question.
2) They would have been mistaken, since they actually did end up surviving.
Basically such notions would have been fairly standard stuff for the time. The Bolsheviks all wanted the Revolution to succeed all over the world, e.g. this is Lenin in the same letter to American workers in 1918:
"We are banking on the inevitability of the world revolution, but this does not mean that we are such fools as to bank on the revolution inevitably coming on a definite and early date…"
He is writing in the dire military situation when they hoped some other country would come to their aid. However after their power consolidated and the European revolutions failed Lenin & the Bolsheviks chose a different tone:
"…when we are told that the victory of socialism is possible only on a world scale, we regard this merely as an attempt, a particularly hopeless attempt, on the part of the bourgeoisie and its voluntary and involuntary supporters to distort the irrefutable truth."
~Lenin, "Speech to the Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets"
"Since Soviet power has been established, since the bourgeoisie has been overthrown in one country, the second task is to wage the struggle on a world scale… On the other hand, since the rule of the bourgeoisie has been overthrown, the main task is to organise the development of the country."
~Lenin, "The Achievements and Difficulties of the Soviet Government"
Even in his 1918 letter to America Lenin makes the clarification that they don't know how long they'll be the only socialist country in the world and their immediate situation is not untennable. This all relates to the "Final Victory of Socialism" which we shall look at in the next part.
Lenin and Stalin are suspicious of opportunism
"The Final Victory of Socialism"
First let's cover some basic "stalinist" terminology:
Capitalist encirclement
The USSR was a single Proletarian state surrounded by hostile capitalist countries. A base for world revolution. This situation was referred to as "capitalist encirclement."
Complete Socialist Society
Term coined by Lenin which meant a society in the low stage of communism (to use orthodox marxist terminology) i.e. The means of production are owned in common (by state & collective sectors), private property and market economy have been abolished. When agriculture was collectivized and five-year plans implemented Stalin proclaimed that the USSR had reached this stage.
Final Victory of Socialism
Guarantee against capitalist restoration or invasion.
Now let's look at this last term more closely. In 1924 Stalin pointed out that according to Lenin:
"The dictatorship of the proletariat is a power which rests on an alliance between the proletariat and the laboring masses of the peasantry for "the complete overthrow of capital" and for "the final establishment and consolidation of socialism."
~Stalin, The October Revolution & the Tactics of the Russian Communists (1924)
Interestingly in the first edition of The Foundations of Leninism Stalin stated:
"…can the final victory of socialism be achieved in one country, without the joint efforts of the proletarians in several advanced countries? No, it cannot. To overthrow the bourgeoisie the efforts of one country are sufficient; this is proved by the history of our revolution. For the final victory of socialism, for the organisation of socialist production, the efforts of one country, particularly of a peasant country like Russia, are insufficient; for that, the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries are required"
However in Concerning Questions of Leninism he explains:
"I modified and corrected this formulation in my pamphlet The October Revolution and the Tactics of the Russian Communists (December 1924); I divided the question into two―into the question of a full guarantee against the restoration of the bourgeois order, and the question of the possibility of building a complete socialist society in one country. This was effected, in the first place, by treating the "complete victory of socialism" as a "full guarantee against the restoration of the old order," which is possible only through "the joint efforts of the proletarians of several countries"; and, secondly, by proclaiming, on the basis of Lenin's pamphlet On Co-operation, the indisputable truth that we have all that is necessary for building a complete socialist society"
It was standard dogma for Marxists to echo the statements similar to the Engels passage we looked at in the beginning of this article, that the revolution relied on the developed Western countries. That said I find it fascinating that Stalin held the more orthodox Marxist view longer then Lenin. On Co-operation was written in 1923 and was Lenin's last major theoretical contribution. Socialism in One Country truly was Lenin's invention, merely applied and carried out by Stalin.
So in the last formulation "the final victory of socialism" means:
"the final victory of Socialism, in the sense of full guarantee against the restoration of bourgeois relations, is possible only on an international scale"
~Resolution of the Fourteenth Conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
"The final victory of Socialism is the full guarantee against attempts at intervention, and that means against restoration, for any serious attempt at restoration can take place only with serious support from outside, only with the support of international capital."
~Stalin, Problems of Leninism
In his "On the Final Victory of Socialism in the U.S.S.R." Stalin presents the following Lenin quote to explain his view:
"We are living not merely in a State but in a system of States, and it is inconceivable that the Soviet Republic should continue to coexist for a long period side by side with imperialist States. Ultimately one or other must conquer. Meanwhile, a number of terrible clashes between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois States is inevitable. This means that if the proletariat, as the ruling class, wants to and will rule, it must prove this also by military organization."
~Lenin (Collected Works, Vol. 24. P. 122.)** (see end notes)
So final victory means guarantee against restoration and intervention. In my opinion Stalin somewhat over emphasized foreign invasions though one can hardly blame him. He said that possibly even the existence of several Socialist countries could be sufficient guarantee but this has been proven to be overly optimistic.
That said the basic formulation of "final victory" remains correct. Personally I would define guarantee against restoration as: global victory of the revolution, complete or near complete elimination of capitalism on a global scale. Call me pessimist but I think only at such a stage can we truly say we've won.
LENIN on 'Socialism in one country'
Here I will leave a series of quotations from Lenin talking about Communist Revolution in One Country or building Socialist Production in One Country. Of course when we talk about "Socialism in One Country" we mean the latter.
"Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone. After expropriating the capitalists and organising their own socialist production, the victorious proletariat of that country will arise against the rest of the world―the capitalist world…"
~Lenin, "On the Slogan for a United States of Europe" (1915)
"…Socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries…"
~Lenin, "The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution" (1916)
~Lenin, "Speech to the Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets" (1918)
~Lenin, "The Achievements and Difficulties of the Soviet Government" (1919)
"Socialism is no longer a matter of the distant future… We have dragged socialism into everyday life, and here we must find our way… Permit me to conclude by expressing the conviction that, difficult as this task may be, new as it may be compared with our previous task, and no matter how many difficulties it may entail, we shall all―not in one day, but in the course of several years―all of us together fulfil it whatever happens so that NEP Russia will become socialist Russia"
~Lenin, "Speech At A Plenary Session Of The Moscow Soviet Nov. 20, 1922"
"As a matter of fact, the political power of the Soviet over all large-scale means of production, the power in the state in the hands of the proletariat, the alliance of this proletariat with the many millions of small and very small peasants, the assured leadership of the peasantry by the proletariat, etc, …is not this all that is necessary in order from the co-operatives – from the co-operatives alone, which we formerly treated as huckstering, and which, from a certain aspect, we have the right to treat as such now, under the new economic policy – is not this all that is necessary in order to build a complete socialist society? This is not yet the building of socialist society but it is all that is necessary and sufficient for this building."
~Lenin, "On Cooperation" (1923)
STALIN on 'Socialism in one country'
Here will be Stalin quotes to the same effect explaining what considers "Socialism in One Country":
"The dictatorship of the proletariat is the instrument of the proletarian revolution, its organ, its most important mainstay, brought into being for the purpose of, firstly, crushing the resistance of the overthrown exploiters and consolidating the achievements of the proletarian revolution, and secondly, carrying the revolution to the complete victory of socialism."
~Stalin, The Foundations of Leninism (1924)
"This fact shows that socialised funds constitute a very large share of the total, and this share is growing compared with the share of property in the non-socialised sector… Our system as a whole is transitional from capitalism to socialism"
~Stalin, The Fourteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) (1925)
"And so, what is the victory of socialism in our country? It means achieving the dictatorship of the proletariat and completely building socialism, thus overcoming the capitalist, elements in our economy through the internal forces of our revolution."
~Stalin, The Social-Democratic Deviation in our Party (1926)
"Only the blind can deny that the progress in the building of socialism in our country"
~Stalin, The Trotskyist Opposition Before and Now (1927)
"…the victory of socialism is possible in separate countries, thus envisaging the prospect of the formation of two parallel centres of attraction – the centre of world capitalism and the centre of world socialism."
"the question stands as follows: either one way or the other, either back―to capitalism, or forward―to socialism. There is not, and cannot be, any third way."
~Stalin, Concerning Questions of Agrarian Policy in the U.S.S.R. (1929)
Quotes about the "Final Victory of Socialism"
LENIN:
"…when we are told that the victory of socialism is possible only on a world scale, we regard this merely as an attempt, a particularly hopeless attempt, on the part of the bourgeoisie and of its voluntary and involuntary supporters to distort the irrefutable truth. The final victory of socialism in a single country is of course impossible."
~Third All-Russia Congress Of Soviets Of Workers', Soldiers' And Peasants' Deputies (1918)
"We are living not merely in a state, but in a system of states, and it is inconceivable for the Soviet Republic to exist alongside of the imperialist states for any length of time. One or the other must triumph in the end."
~Eighth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) (1919)
STALIN:
~Stalin, Problems of Leninism (1934)
~Stalin, On the Final Victory of Socialism in the U.S.S.R. (1938)
I know it might be annoying to some but all quotes are in italics. This is to ensure they stand out from my own commentary.
this Lenin quote was given in an early edition of Lenin's works. The quote originates from Lenin's speech at the Eighth Congress of the R.C.P.(B.) It is translated differently in the new edition with the word "conquer" changed to "triumph". As a result of this people have had some difficulty finding it and some Opportunists on the internet have jumped to the baseless conclusion that the quote is a Stalinist fabrication! This is a slanderous lie. On top of that there would be absolutely no point to commit such fabrication as Lenin said similar things in many other writings.
10 Feb 2017 8 Oct 2017 / TheFinnishBolshevik	/ Leave a comment
Many so-called leftist critics of historical Socialism often attack Leninists such as myself as "Stalinists" or "tankies" while proclaiming their own ideological superiority and purity. They are generally outraged or outright confused when Leninists suggest that these "leftist critics" are doing the work of the bourgeois and the imperialists. What do we mean by that?
What is Legitimate Criticism?
Marxism is a scientific type of Socialism and science learns from it's mistakes. Therefore its logical and positive to engage in criticism and self-criticism and to keep in mind that the great socialist and progressive thinkers who came before us didn't have the luxury of following any pre-existing model of socialism. They erred more often then not due to the fact that they were pioneers in uncharted territory. It shouldn't surprise us they made mistakes but neither should we exaggerate those mistakes or use them to diminish their great successes and achievements. It is easier for us to see farther for we are standing on the shoulders of giants.
Leninists are by no means opposed to criticism. It is entirely legitimate to analyse and challenge the theoretical contributions of Lenin, how they were applied by Stalin, Mao or Che Guevara for instance. However this criticism should be principled and based on facts. So-called "leftist critics" like Trotskyists, various Anarchists and revisionists simply parrot bourgeois talking points, bourgeois propaganda and "facts" provided to them by bourgeois sources. Often times this is totally unintentional on their part. They simply do not possess the necessary source criticism, lack the understanding of how media, academia etc. functions and how the bourgeois influences them. Their inability to grasp this is particularly tragic as they claim to be Marxists and it was Marx himself who pointed out that the ideology of the ruling class is always the hegemonic one in society and as a result often held by a vast number of people even outside said ruling class.
"The Experts Tell Me You're Wrong!" (Evidence & Burden of Proof)
Every now and then I encounter something akin to the following statements:
"Only Stalinist crackpots like you believe X"
"All experts agree. You who believe X are only a fringe group that is not to be trusted"
Everyone with even the most basic understanding of logic should realize the above statements are a logical fallacy – an appeal to authority, and to a degree an appeal to popularity. Naturally in many cases you would want to ask the opinion of an expert but even so it should be the evidence itself, not the person who is giving the evidence that should matter.
Basically it boils down to this: I believe or don't believe something and instead of dealing with my argument like adults the opponents (whether they be liberals, anarchists, trotskyists etc.) choose to attack my position as too extreme, too outlandish to even be worth considering – especially since, as they say "the experts" are against me. But are the experts really against the Leninist point of view? Who even are these so-called experts? Due to the hegemonic position of the bourgeois point of view it is often seen as the default position by leftist critics of Socialism.
It is "mainstream" in the sense that the ruling class media and academia supports it, but that doesn't mean it is by any sense objective or correct. The burden of proof lies on the one making the claim, not the one who is less popular. Still in the general political discussion the burden of proof is usually pushed onto the Communists themselves to prove their innocence of wrong doings when in reality it should be on the ones making the accusations. A tendency among "leftist" and other critics of Socialism is to readily accept bourgeois propaganda against socialism, but approach any pro-socialist information with extreme skepticism because, "anti-capitalism is fringe" (and thus perceived as unreliable by default) while anti-communism is "mainstream" (and thus apparently automatically more reliable). In this way the burden of proof is effectively always shifted onto to the Communists.
The Anti-Soviet Paradigm
Without getting into the wider political debate I will point out that its no coincidence certain groups such as Trotskyists, anarchists, liberals etc. are more prone to believing the "mainstream" (hegemonic bourgeois) point of view on various subjects. This is not an insult, or a judgement on the validity of this point of view, but merely a statement of fact.
To put matters bluntly, according to them, we Leninists are fringe crackpots who shut our eyes and ears from anything contradicting our worldview – while according to us they are gullible and anti-Marxist people believing almost anything the capitalists tell them. Maybe they are right. Maybe we are right. Maybe neither one of us is right, but this will have to be determined with evidence.
Let us ask ourselves this one question. Why are the Trotskyists for instance seemingly so eager to accept bourgeois sources as fact while the Leninists are so hesitant to do the same? Trotskyists and the bourgeois are both by enlarge critics of historical socialist experiments while Leninists tend to be defenders of them. For this reason the bourgeois generally tend to spread views hostile to historical socialism which Trotskyists eat up gleefully. Only the Leninist "fringe" would defend historical socialism. Personally I believe that most supporters of Trotskyism are such precisely because this bourgeois propaganda.
Bourgeois Hegemony
Sometimes I'm taken by surprise by just how naive some self-proclaimed socialists are. I'm talking about the kind of "left critics" of socialism who simply do not understand that the bourgeois have a countless number of overt and subtle ways of controlling information.
Is it any wonder that in the USA you cannot be a professional historian unless you periodically publish anti-Soviet material? J. Arch Getty, a liberal historian of the Soviet period comes under constant attacks from the Right as a Communist sympathizer because of his more balanced approach, and his views on the Soviet Union are hardly positive, just not negative enough. Since the beginning of the cold-war the CIA, HUAC and others have been overtly involved in monitoring how 'history' is written and presented to the public but on top of that the Robert Conquest school of red bashing also makes a lot of money for it's authors. Check the sources on your history books, do they have primary sources or secondary sources? What are these sources? The Black Book of Communism? The Great Terror? Or merely some other book citing the previous two as "evidence" of Communist atrocities?
The CIA has been, and still is deeply involved in the media (Operation Mockingbird, CCF, Radio Free Europe, NED etc. etc. etc.) and on top of that most of American media (which dominates the world) is in the hands of private corporations — in the hands of capitalists. They are not stupid, even when they don't outright lie they choose to cover topics which cast a negative light on socialism and choose to ignore topics which portray socialism positively. They present a scale of authors or experts with varying degrees of anti-communist bias and thus appear to not be monolithic or to control the discussion. They even allow anti-government speech as long as its liberal enough or can be marginalized easily. News, documentaries or history books are not objective fact that falls from the sky — they are written and created by people, people who get together and plan what to write, how to write and when to write it.
Do the Capitalists Really Defend Ultra-Leftism, Trotskyism Or Anarchism?
The answer to this question is in a way both yes and no. Obviously capitalists don't support any of the above mentioned -isms. However they share a common enemy with them. The CIA realized long ago that extreme Right-Wing or conservative anti-Communist propaganda doesn't work well on liberals or Left-Wingers (cf. Congress for Cultural Freedom), instead its much more effective to claim that Anti-Soviet-ism is the real Left-wing thing to do (sic). George Orwell, Leon Trotsky, Khruschev, Gorbachev and even Noam Chomsky are some of the big names in "left-wing" anti-communism — people who appear to challenge capitalism but whose ideas are either entirely misguided ideologically, tactically unsound, dishonest or too limited in their scope to be effective and serve only to steer people away from genuine anti-capitalist struggle.
7 Feb 2017 7 Feb 2017 / TheFinnishBolshevik	/ Leave a comment
(Thoughts regarding V.A. Sakharov's article)
I have previously talked about some of the myths surrounding the collection of documents known as "Lenin's testament" or more accurately Lenin's Letter to the Congress. We know Leon Trotsky distorted the whole meaning of these documents in order to use them as a political weapon against Stalin, his rival, and this is still a favorite pastime of Trotskyists to this day. They rarely stop to analyse the deeper meaning of the documents and focus on quoting and repeating ad nauseam a couple of select lines critical of Joseph Stalin.
In this article I won't be going into the meaning or context behind those well-known passages ("Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General" etc.) instead I will give my personal opinion on a controversial topic that has recently been on my mind – the alleged forgery of Lenin's letters. My interest was sparked initially by V. A. Sakharov's article published in English as The Forgery of the 'Lenin Testament' (1997).
How could it be?
At first the mere thought of the letters being forged seems too incredible. Afterall nobody doubted their authenticity at the time. Even Stalin rather then contesting their authenticity chose to apologize to Lenin and admit his rudeness publicly. However certain facts that have come to light raise some questions.
Sakharov divides the letter documents into two categories:
1) the texts and articles provably written by Lenin himself for instance the articles Better fewer, but better (January-March 1923) and On Cooperation (Jan 4-6 1923)
2) the texts which cannot be proven to have been written by Lenin. These are basically the later dictated additions to the letter. Curiously its precisely these few additions that cannot be proven to have come from Lenin's pen which are also the ones critical of Stalin.
At this point everyone should be wondering about the evidence. The unfortunate fact is (as is often the case with controversial historical topics) that we might never know for absolute certain but here are the things we do know: the dictations are not signed by Lenin. Their authenticity could be verified by the diary of his secretariat but this is typically not the case, the diary was partially incomplete and filled retro-actively. On top of that the personal papers of Lenin's doctors often outright contradict the alleged dates of the dictations, some of which are dated at times when Lenin's doctors explicitly say he was not working with his secretaries or dictating anything.
While this does not prove the dictations to be forgeries it casts serious doubt on their authenticity. This taken with the fact that they are strikingly dissimilar to Lenin's own writings both stylistically and in content and character I personally cannot anymore believe them to be authentic. Previously I held the view that the change in style and content to be the result of Lenin's illness, that he was dying. However I no longer believe that to be the case.
So what exactly do the forged segments say? They are critical of Stalin of course, questioning his ability to handle responsibility and his moral character, calling him rude etc., One might argue that surely if the supporters of Trotsky and Zinoviev had forged the documents then surely they would have been even more critical of Stalin? That is not necessarily the case. If you were trying to forge a Lenin document then what would you do? There were virtually no ideological or political differences or disagreements between Lenin and Stalin.
That leaves few options: questioning Stalin's capabilities, referring to his rudeness (Zinoviev knew about the incident between Stalin & Krupskaya and even later tried exploiting it for political gain though this was promptly put an end to by Krupskaya and Maria Ulyanova), and criticizing Stalin's practical work rather then theoretical or ideological position. Coincidentally (?) this is precisely what the dictated (forged?) segments exhibit. The seemingly illogical and uncharacteristic dictated addition on Stalin's rudeness, a section questioning his capabilities to handle power and lastly the letters relating to Stalin's, Orjonikidze's and Dzershinsky's handling of the war effort in Georgia.
Needless to say it would have been uncharacteristic for Lenin to criticize someone behind their back or conspire. Also taking matters personally and being offended or holding grudges would have been equally unlike him. In short, on top of being of unverified authenticity the dictated sections read like someone trying to attack others in Lenin's name – pretending to be Lenin and doing a pretty bad job at it!
"The Forgery of the 'Lenin Testament'" by V. A. Sakharov
http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv7n1/LenTest.htm
"On the Relations between Lenin and Stalin" by Maria Ulyanova http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv8n1/lenstal.htm
Anti-Communist Propaganda And Psychological Warfare
Short critique of Trotskyism
The "Holodomor" explained
The Finnish Communist Revolution (1918) PART 6: THE RED GUARD AND RED ARMY
Yrjö Sirola as a fighter, teacher and person (1876-18. March 1936) by Elli Stenberg
Real History of the Soviet Union
Another View of Stalin – Ludo Martens
The Real Stalin – Dennis McKinsey
The Great Conspiracy: The Secret War Against Soviet Russia – M. Sayers, A. E. Kahn
Khrushchev Lied – Grover Furr
Lies Concerning the History of the Soviet Union – Mario Sousa
Evidence of Leon Trotsky's Collaboration with Germany and Japan – Grover Furr
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"The Need for Planning: The Restoration of Capitalism in the Soviet Union in the 1950s and the Decline of the Soviet Economy" by Joseph Ball
"The Restoration of Capitalism in the Soviet Union" by W. Bland
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