P R E F A C E
This pamphlet consists of articles published originally on the Socialist Standard. It is a record, in collected form, of the attitude of the Socialist Party of Great Britain to events in Russia since 1917. In March of that year the Czarist regime collapsed and was followed, after short-lived stop-gap Ministry, by the Kerensky Government which was a coalition of various reformist parties. This Government was opposed by the Bolsheviks who, under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky, overthrew it and seized power in October, 1917.
In the articles themselves, no attempt has been made to interfere with the original texts. The articles stand just as they were written. We have nothing to fear from letting our original words stand. There are, it is true, passages in some of the earlier articles which, were we writing to-day in the light of information now available, we would phrase differently; but these are points of detail. In essentials, these articles stand as overwhelming testimony to the soundness of the Marxist position, the position of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.
A word of explanation may be needed about the first of the articles reprinted below – “A Russian Challenge.” In February, 1915, a conference was called by the social-democratic parties of the Allied countries, then at war with Germany and her partners, for the purpose of discussing war aims and the prosecution of the war. The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolshevik Party), which opposed the war, was not invited. Unable to get their views published in the journals of the parties supporting the war, they approached the S.P.G.B., and their statement appeared in the Socialist Standard of March, 1915. It is reproduced here as an indication that our opposition to Bolshevik policies was not the outcome of prejudice; we were at all times ready to give them credit when their actions in line with the interests of the working class. Under each title the date of publication in the Socialist Standard is given in brackets.
The Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of Great Britain
June, 1948
CONTENTS
1. A Russian Challenge
2. Prelude to Bolshevism
3. The Russian Situation
4. The Revolution in Russia
5. A Socialist View of Bolshevik Policy
6. The Super Opportunists
7. The Passing of Lenin
8. Trotsky states His Case
9. Russia: Land of High Profits
10. Changing Russia
11. The “Terrorist” Trial
12. The New Constitution
13. Birds of a Feather
14. War Overtakes Russia
15. Inglorious End of the Comintern
16. Is Russia Socialist?
17. “Local Boy Makes Good”
18. Russia and Democracy
19. From Comintern to Cominform
20. The Daily Worker and Lenin on Equal Pay
21. Russian Imperialism
Postscript
A RUSSIAN CHALLENGE
(March 1915)
We have received the following and publish it in order to show the trickery resorted to by the pseudo-Socialists responsible for the London Conference in endeavouring to exploit the Russian Socialists , whose challenge they dare not face.
A DECLARATION TO THE LONDON CONFERENCE
Comrades, – Your Conference calls itself a conference of the Socialist parties of the allied belligerent countries, Belgium, England, France and Russia.
Allow me first of all to draw your attention to the fact that the Social-Democracy of Russia, as an organised body, as represented by its Central Committee and affiliated to the International Socialist Bureau, has received no invitation from you. The Russian Social-Democracy, whose views have been expressed by the members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Group in the Duma, now arrested by the Tsar’s Government (Petrovsky, Muranoff, Badaoff, Samoiloff representing the workers of Petrograd, Yokaterinoslaff, Kharkoff, Kastroma and Vladimir districts) have nothing in common with your conference. We hope that you will state so publicly, as otherwise you may be accused of distorting the truth.
Now allow me to say a few words with regard to your conference, i.e., to tell you what the class-conscious Social-Democratic workers of Russia would expect from you.
We believe that before entering upon any deliberations with regard to the reconstruction of the International, before attempting to restore international bonds between Socialist workers, it is our Socialist duty to demand:
(1) That Vandervelde, Guesde and Sembat immediately leave the Belgian and French bourgeois ministries.
(2) That the Belgian and French Socialist parties break up the so-called “block national” which is a disgrace to the Socialist flag and under cover of which the bourgeoisie celebrates its orgies of chauvinism.
(3) That all Socialist parties cease their policies of ignoring the crimes of Russian Tsarism and renew their support of that struggle against Tsarism which is being carried on by the Russian workers in spite of all the sacrifices they have to make.
(4) That in fulfillment of the resolutions of the bale conference we hold out our hands to those revolutionary Social-Democrats of Germany and Austria who are prepared to carry on propaganda for revolutionary action as a reply to war. The voting for war credits must be condemned without any reserves.
The German and Austrian Social-Democrats have committed a monstrous crime against Socialism and the International by voting war credits and entering into domestic truce with the Junkers, the priests and the bourgeoisie, but the action of the Belgian and French Socialists has by no means been better. We fully understand the conditions are possible when Socialists as a minority have to submit to a bourgeois majority, but under no circumstances should Socialists cease to be Socialists or join in the chorus of bourgeois chauvinism, forsake the workers’ cause and enter bourgeois ministries.
The German and Austrian Social-Democrats are committing a great crime against Socialism when, after the example of the bourgeoisie they hypocritically assert that the Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs are carrying on the war of liberation “against Tsarism.”
But those are committing a crime no less stupendous who assert that Tsarism is becoming democratised and civilized, who are passing over in silence the fact that Tsarism is strangling and ruining unhappy Galicia just as the German Kaiser is strangling and ruining Belgium, who keep silent about the facts that the Tsar’s gang has thrown into gaol the parliamentary representatives of the Russian working class, and only the other day condemned to six years penal servitude a member of Moscow workers for the only offence of belonging to our party, that Tsarism is now oppressing Finland worse than ever, that our Labour press and organisations in Russia are suppressed, that all the milliards necessary for the war are being wrung by the Tsar’s clique out of the poor workers and starving peasants.
On behalf of the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party,
London, February 14th, 1915. M. MAXIMOVICH.*
* The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, also known as the Bolshevik Party, later changed its name to Communist Party.
“ M. Maximovich” who signed the statement is Maximovich Litvinoff, Commissar for Foreign Affairs 1930-1939.
PRELUDE TO BOLSHEVISM
(MAY 1917)
The revolution in Russia and the attitude now adopted by the war party in the country toward the new government of Russia affords an interesting study to the detached onlooker. For thirty months the “speedy prosecution of the war” party have referred in glowing terms to “our gallant ally, Russia,” and a lickspittle Press has given her the necessary puffs periodically. Now much of it is changed; with the revolution, lo and behold! we are informed that the Tzar was weak – was influenced by the German-born Tzaritza – the Court corrupt, and those in control were trying to bring about a separate peace with Germany. Strange, is it not, that when previously rumors were in circulation here with regard to a separate peace, the war party repudiated any such intention on the part os “our gallant ally.” Today Parliament and Press are applauding the overthrow of the Tzar and his Government, whom they have been allied with so long, and telegrams of congratulation are sent to the new President of the Duma.
All the information available, both past and present, shows quite clearly that the upheaval in Russia is not a revolution of the working class, clearly seeing its slave position under the old order and setting to work in an organised fashion to emancipate itself. Far from this is the truth, we are sorry to say. It is but another example of the capitalists using the discontent and numbers of the working class in Russia to sweep away the feudal rules and restrictions so strongly symbolized in the Czar and the Council of Nobles, and to establish a system of government in line with modern capitalist needs and notions.
Hence the welcome given to the revolution, not only by the capitalist governments in their official capacity, and also by their various hangers-on, like Hyndman, Kropotkin, the B.S.P., I.L.P., etc.
According to the report in the Daily Telegraph of 18th April, 1917, the Duma gave a great welcome to the decoy ducks of the British Government, Messrs. W. Thorne, G. O’Grady and W. S. Sanders. These individuals were sent out by the Government as representatives of the “Labour” movement here, although not a single organisation of workers was consulted as to their views on the matter, nor was their choice asked in reference to a representative. The “Labour” organisations have been completely ignored in the matter, and the individuals referred to have been chosen by the Government because of their peculiar fitness to perform the dirty work required to be done.
The Russian Situation
(JANUARY 1918)
The doings of the Bolsheviks is the topic of the moment. They dwarf all other events connected with the war. We are not in a position to say much regarding the position of affairs in Russia, for we have little information regarding it beyond the lying messages of our masters’ lickspittles.
. . . . . . . . .
Whatever may be the final outcome, the Bolsheviks have at all events succeeded in doing what all the armies, all the diplomats, all the priests and primates, all the perfervid pacifists of all the groaning and bleeding world have failed to do – they have stopped the slaughter, for the time being, at all events, on their front.
How much more than this they ever intended to do the future may reveal. They may have higher aims, yet to be justified by success or condemned by failure; but it is an astounding achievement that these few man have been able to seize opportunity and make the thieves and murderers of the whole world stand aghast and shiver with apprehension. The British Ambassador would not recognise them, but the British Ambassador is coming home, we are told, and some one “in marked sympathy with the Bolshevik Government” is to be appointed in his place. The Germans arrest Socialists all over Germany, and are at once reduced to denying the fact when Bolsheviks declare that Socialists everywhere are under their protection. The Bolsheviks publish their demands, and immediately the Allies’ war aims are whittled of most of their truculence and proclaimed from the housetops. Verily, not all the decisions of capitalist hirelings can hide the fact that all the belligerents are uneasy in the face of Bolshevik success.
