Bolshevism

BOLSHEVISM, the doctrine professed by the extreme left wing of the Russian Social Democratic Party. The name is derived from the fact that at a conference of the party held in Brussels and London in 19o2-3, a majority ("Bolsheviki") se cured the acceptance of views urged by their leader Nikolai Lenin, the minority ("Mensheviki") largely withdrawing from control of the party's operations.

I. The Origins of Bolshevism.

The effective origins of Bolshevism may be traced back to the foundation, in 1883, of the Group for the Emancipation of Labour by Plekhanov and Axelrod. The latter, deeply influenced by the doctrines of Marx, which were now beginning to exercise a wide influence on Rus sian Socialism, broke with the older Narodniki who had counted upon a peasant revolution as the source of Russian emancipa tion. The group preached the doctrine that the main pivot of revolutionary success must be the organized working-class; and its consequent emphasis upon the class-structure of society makes it legitimate to regard it as the first Mandan organization in Russia.

The history of the party from 1883 until igo3 may conveniently be divided, as by Lenin, into three periods. The first, which ex tends until 1894, is the period of gestation; the second, which goes down to 1898, is the period of adolescence; the third, which ends with the Brussels-London conference of go3, is the period in which the party assumed definiteness of form and outlook. In the first period, the party was mainly occupied with self-dis covery and exercised comparatively insignificant influence on the working-class. Discussion circles were formed, books and pamph lets were published, the men who were subsequently to reveal themselves as leaders appeared. But the party consisted of leaders without a following. Industrial organization was too backward in Russia for a working-class movement to be possible. The leaders were convincing one another; and the discussion cir cles like that formed by the Bulgarian Blagoiev at St. Petersburg in 1887, had considerable influence. But the party cannot be said to have awakened any general knowledge of its significance. The second period, however, saw a large development. Having attained some clarity of doctrine, and having finally separated itself from the influence of the Narodniki, the party began to organize definite relations with the working-class. The growth of industry led to strikes on an increasing scale. District and regional committees were founded; and men of the standing of Lenin, Krassin, Martov, joined the party. Workers' Social Democratic Circles were founded in most considerable towns. By 1898 it was clear, both from the degree of organization, and the immense literary output, that the party was making its way as a national institution and had an assured future.

Two other events contributed to its development. In 1897 was founded the Bund, the union of Jewish workers in Poland and Lithuania. This body was given coherency and strength by the fact that its members suffered not merely economic, but also religious oppression. They engaged in revolutionary activity upon a large scale, and their energy made them the spear-head of the party. To it was due the organization in 1898, of the first party conference at Minsk. Nine members met there. They formed a definite organization, elected a central committee, and published an historic manifesto actually drawn up by P. Struve, who, later, deserted the party and became a reactionary.

It was not yet, however, clearly known what method the party was to follow. There were different strands of thought visible. Some members of the party believed that the first essential work was to win working-class adherents by pushing their economic claims to better industrial conditions; the vaster task of captur ing the state was, in their judgment, not yet ripe. Others, of whom Lenin was the most outstanding, insisted that economic discontent must be from the outset merely the base from which the capture of the bourgeois state by the working-class is organ ized. The first group (Struve, Prokopovitch, Kouskova) insisted that the overthrow of tsarism was not a working-class duty; the latter should occupy itself with matters like the hours of labour and the rate of wages. From this, they were called economists. Their opponents (Lenin, Martov, Plekhanov), were known later as Iskrists from the title of their journal Iskra (founded in i9oo).

The period from 1898 until 19o3 was the most critical in the history of the party. Its numbers grew by leaps and bounds. Students poured into it from every university and technical school. Groups of every shade of socialist opinion came into existence. The growth in numbers naturally multiplied the winds of doctrine in the party. The development, moreover, of liberal bodies like the Union for Liberation of which Miliukov was leader, raised in an acute form the question of the relationship of the Social Democrats to the radical bourgeoisie. There were prob lems, further, as to how far it was desirable to encourage those isolated acts of terrorism of which Russian history at this period was so full. The party, in short, at this period was a loosely confederated system of semi-autonomous groups, doctrinally united upon the ultimate goal, but with no clear view either of method, or of order of priority in objectives. When Iskra was founded in 'goo the meaning of these varieties of opinion be came clear.

II. The Separation of Doctrine.

The editors of Iskra, of whom Lenin, Plekhanov, Martov and Axelrod were the best known, set themselves certain definite tasks. Above all, they aimed at combating economism. Secondly, they set themselves clearly to distinguish between Socialists willing to use all the currents of opposition to tsarism, and those who sought to act solely through a proletarian party. In go2, Lenin published his What must we do? in which, with great power, he argued for the concentration of all revolutionary energy into a centralized party of which each member should have his definitely allotted function and act as a soldier in an army. He sought to organ ize a revolutionary elite from which all spontaneous and individual action should have been cut away, to be replaced by a corps of professionals whose function should be directed by a central committee of strategy. Events precipitated the full discussion of this view. A growing resort to the strike weapon (sometimes, as at Kiev in i9o1 successfully) and increased activity against the Socialists led to the need for a new orientation of policy. A provisional programme was drawn up, not without difficulty, and in 1902 the second congress of the party assembled in Brussels. The police interfered with its proceedings; and it was transferred after a few days to London.

The second Congress was a representative body of some 6o delegates. Most of the leading figures in the movement were there; and the discussions went to the very heart of the problems confronting it. From the outset, it was clear that there were two decisively opposed strands of opinion. The demand of the Bund for the maintenance of a separate Jewish national organi zation within the party, raised squarely the issue whether its basis should be purely that of class. For the Bund, a federal structure in the party was fundamental; to Lenin and his sup porters federalism simply spelt strategic weakness and a proleta rian victory was impossible if organization was to take account of national differences. Upon this issue Lenin, and the future leader of the Mensheviks, Martov, were united in opposition.

But grave differences appeared. On party procedure, Lenin on the one side and Martov and Axelrod on the other took widely different views. For the former, party membership was to be reserved only for those who participated fully in its organization and fulfilled the orders it issued. For Martov, sympathetic ad herence was sufficient. To Lenin, a party was meaningless un less it was a firmly coherent organization built up of authentic and similarly-minded partisans who moved along a single front to their goal. Martov took the view that this would deprive the party of the services of many, professors and students, for ex ample, who could not fulfil the rigid demands Lenin was prepared to enforce. It cannot be said that, at the moment, the significance of the conflict was understood. Plekhanov, for instance, at that time perhaps the first of the party's theorists, did not treat it as a serious issue; and in the actual voting Martov's more liberal formula of adhesion prevailed. But the next difference went deeper still. Martov and his allies were prepared for a period of co-operation with the Liberals, on the condition that the latter should pronounce for universal suffrage. Lenin and Plekhanov protested against this view. What is vital, they urged, is the proletarian revolution. The Liberals would use the Socialists to overthrow the tsar and then take no further interest in the revo lution. The Socialist must stand alone ; only in that way was a Socialist revolution possible. Again the conference was unde cided. It was yet significant that Martov and Lenin, thus far allies, were now on opposite sides upon fundamental questions of tactics. Their divergence was again revealed when, questions of nationalism apart, Lenin demanded a centralized, and Martov, a federal party structure. They were opposed again on the ques tion of editorial control of Iskra where Lenin sought a decisive voice. He was successful by 25 votes to 23, and the two sides now took the names of Bolshevists and Menshevists.

These differences were not merely upon tactics. When the programme of the party was discussed, it was clear that the Mensheviks laid great store by such matters as universal suffrage and the Constituent Assembly and its character. To Lenin and Plekhanov (at that time a Bolshevist) these were secondary is sues. What was important was the Bolshevik revolution, and to its success all other considerations must be subordinate. The hegomony of the proletariat, said Plekhanov, is fundamental. To its maintenance it may be necessary to sacrifice the freedom of the bourgeoisie and the existence of a democratically elected as sembly. A successful revolution, in other words, must confront the necessity of dictatorship. For that reason the Bolshevists re fused to accept Martov's demand for the abolition of the death sentence. Their view was put by Plekhanov in a single, prophetic phrase, "Do you think," he asked, "that one can leave Nicholas II. alive? If for him alone, the death penalty must be main tained." III. The First Schism.—The necessary result of these differIii. The First Schism.—The necessary result of these differ- ences was schism. The conference elected a central committee composed entirely of Lenin's supporters; and the control of Iskra remained exclusively in their hands. Martov returned to Russia where he founded a special bureau for his own faction and proceeded to boycott the Bolshevist Committee, while a bitter pamphlet warfare between the two sections commenced. Everything was thus ready for complete antagonism. The Russo Japanese War and then the abortive revolution of i 905 completed the separation of the two groups. But, before its outbreak, Lenin lost control of his machine. The conversion of Plekhanov and others of the Central Committee to the Mensheviks, the arrest of other members, and the co-option of Mensheviks in their place, transferred the domination of the party to Martov and his sup porters. The schism then became complete. Lenin founded a separate bureau, with a journal of its own (Forward) and a sys tem of regional committees. It was to a party thus rent in twain that there came, with dramatic suddenness, the Revolution of October 1905.

In that effort the two parties had different plans, and they drew from it different conclusions. Lenin insisted that a pro visional revolutionary government must be set up to achieve the proletarian revolution. The Menshevists denied that the pro letarian hour had struck. For them, at the moment, the re placement of autocracy by constitutionalism was the maximum possible achievement; and they were therefore prepared to sup port the Liberal bourgeoisie under Miliukov's leadership. For Lenin, the event meant that a general strike and armed insur rection were the basis of revolutionary tactics; for the Menshe viks both were premature as weapons unsuited to a class not yet conscious of its ultimate mission. The Mensheviks were prepared to sit in the Duma; the Bolsheviks proposed not only to boycott it but to call upon the masses to mobilize against its convocation. And from the actual events, each insisted that its own view had been vindicated. The Mensheviks believed that the Soviets (councils of workers) born spontaneously in the workshops of St. Petersburg proved the value of the adminis trative autonomy on which they relied as a principle of organi zation. The Bolshevists, on the contrary, drew the inference that the spontaneity shewed (i) the class-consciousness of the workers, but also (2) the necessity of giving it point by rigid direction. For Lenin, too, the soviets of 1905 were inadequate because they were confined to the industrial workers, and did not combine with the soldiers and the peasants. To the Menshe viks, the root of the failure of 1905 was the exaggerated claims of the proletariat, which they ascribed to Bolshevist demagogy; to Lenin, however, the failure lay, not in the claims made, but in the inadequate way in which force was applied to their exploita tion. Revolution, moreover, would only succeed as the outcome of a suitable international situation. It would be necessary, further, to have the sympathy of the peasants and rigorously to prevent the betrayal of victory by the bourgeoisie. Already, that is to say, 1905 had, for Lenin, laid down the fundamental basis of the Revolution of November, 1917.

IV. The Effects of 1905.

The chief result of 1905 was to create an impassable abyss between Bolshevists and Menshevists. Yet, for a time, there was a loose collaboration between them. The Triple Entente gave the Russian autocracy a new lease of life; and the existence of the Duma created a platform which, however feeble, they were driven by opinion to use in common. Yet joint action only intensified disagreement. A party grew up within the Menshevists who believed in ending illegal action; and, among the Bolshevists, there were those who drew from the futility of the Duma the inference that the revolutionary elements should withdraw from participation therein. For a time, the scene was dominated by the Menshevists. They took the view, in the phrase of the time, that Russia had arrived at 1849, not 1847. The way now lay direct to constitutional mon archy—as in the rest of Western Europe—and the Russian social democracy must tread the path of its European neighbours. They were agreed in insisting that the awakening of the peasant was more important than they had hitherto imagined; but they were agreed in little else. The Menshevists believed that Russia had settled down to a gradual change towards parliamentary democ racy; Lenin and his followers argued that new conflict was immi nent. When the Cadets dominated the first elections to the Duma, the Menshevists were enthusiastic; they demanded a responsible Cadet ministry on the European model ; and they conducted a strong campaign in its favour. The Bolshevists were indifferent or hostile; and in the London Conference of 1907 it became clear that effective co-operation was impossible. Lenin was prepared to take part in parliamentary systems; and he at tacked their opponents on the ground that it was essential to disabuse the workers of their value by experience of them. But he urged participation only the more surely to destroy. After the Paris meeting of 191o, the two sections no longer made even the pretence of collaboration. When 1917 came, the divergent paths they followed had been made inevitable by the differences of 15 years.

V. The Consolidation of Doctrine.

The history of the Bolshevist party after the first Revolution of 1917 is the history of Russia itself. Here it is necessary to explain how the evolu tion thus far summarized has issued in a corpus of doctrine. Broadly, it may be said that they start from the Marxist assump tions which they inherited from the pioneers of 1883 and give to them the connotation suggested by their special Russian ex perience. They start from the belief in the inevitable triumph of the working-class. The battle between the workers and the bourgeoisie is inevitable because these classes have nothing in common. War between them is thus the logic of the facts ; and its inevitability arises from the fact that no class is ever persuad ed peacefully to abdicate. Nor can the fight be waged constitu tionally. Such a struggle only leaves intact the heart of the capitalist citadel. The concessions won by peaceful conflict never go to the root of the matter. A democratic community is unreal so long as the machinery of the state and the means of production are in the hands of the bourgeoisie. The busi ness, therefore, of the workers is to separate from the latter and to fight it. That is their essential historic mission. By doing so, they realize themselves and make possible the destruction of the capitalist state.

Bolshevism must, however, be carefully distinguished from Blanquism and terrorism. The former pinned its faith to sudden mass-action without regard to time and place; the latter had confidence in the exemplary value of isolated acts such as assas sination. The Bolshevist is more realistic. A successful revolu tion, in his view, was the outcome of careful preparation applied to a suitable conjuncture of circumstances. Insurrection, as Marx said, is an art ; and Lenin laid down five rules as its guid ing principles. Insurrection, first, must never be played with; once it has begun, it must be carried on to the bitter end. When, secondly, the time has been chosen, the revolutionists must mass at the proper place forces superior to those of the enemy; other wise they will be overwhelmed. Once begun, thirdly, the offensive is fundamental, because, as Marx pointed out, "the defensive is death to the insurrection." Surprise, fourthly, is fundamental; and the moment to choose is when the forces of government are scattered. Moral superiority, finally, is vital; and the announce ment of daily, even hourly, successes has great importance in depressing the enemy, in consolidating the offensive, and in keep ing the masses on your side. Surrounding all must be the ultimate perspective of audacity without which supreme success is im possible. Revolution, therefore, may be said, from the angle of Socialism, to depend on three conditions. First, it must be not a conspiracy, nor a party-move, but the rise of the revolu tionary working-class. Secondly, it must have the masses on its side, and must therefore build its appeal on their most urgent demands. Thirdly, it must break out at the crux of rising activ ity among the friends of revolutionary change, and at the moment of greatest indecision on the part of the enemy.

The working-class is thus brought to power. The Bolshevist insists that the preservation of power involves the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. It is essential to crush out opposition and to shatter the institutions of the defeated regime. Revolution is war, and until there is complete acquiescence in the victor's terms, the methods of war alone are suitable to it. "The enemy," says Trotsky, "must be made harmless, and this means he must, in wartime, be destroyed." For, willing the end, the Bolshevist cannot wipe his hands of the means. Hesitation, weakness, pity, a false worship of democracy, only stimulate the forces of counter-revolution and prevent the consolidation of the new regime. The dictatorship is exercised by the Communist party because (I) its members have been tried and can be trusted and (2) they represent the real will of the workers which has been suppressed and obscured by capitalism. The dictatorship is a trust for the revolution which, in its turn, is a fulfilment of the mission to which the working-class is historically called.

Violence therefore wins the revolution and dictatorship con solidates it. The transition to Socialism is accomplished in two stages. In the first, the oppression of classes disappears, and, with it, the state which is merely the instrument of class-oppres sion. The proletariat seizes power and by using it to destroy the class-structure of society ceases to be a proletariat. The instruments of production are socialized. But coercive power is still necessary because the minds and hearts of men are not easily accustomed to the new regime. Government therefore con tinues, though growing acceptance of the new society means growing democratization of social processes. This, however, does not mean parliamentarism, which is merely a bourgeois form of government, but the Soviet system (a council of soldiers, work ers, and poorer peasants) which combines the advantages of the territorial with the virtues of producers' representation. Formal democracy is replaced in the first stage by what the Bolshevist calls "the revolutionary dynamic of living forces"; which means that all elements in society except the working-class are delib erately excluded from power. Great industrial enterprises, the banks, the means of communication, and the large landed estates must be confiscated. Wholesale commerce should be nationalized; foreign trade must become a government monopoly. The means of propaganda, the press and education, must be confined to working-class direction. Small business may be left untouched, because it is futile to think that Communism can be established at a stroke. Measures must be taken to associate intellectual technicians with the new order and to neutralize the peasant classes by organizing the poorer, while repressing sternly the an tagonism of the richer peasants. So, mutatis mutandis, with the poorer bourgeoisie of the towns.

Bolshevism cannot be said to have any clear view of the ulti mate social order it proposes to establish. It has taken over from Marx phrases like the demand "from each according to his pow ers, to each according to his needs," and the "administration of things instead of the administration of persons." But it is mainly occupied with the immediate revolutionary task. It conceives, moreover, of the revolution thus established as a world-revolu tion made in each country on similar conditions to those in Russia. For this purpose the formation of a world Communist Party rigorously directed from a single centre and sternly disci plined from above is fundamental. To advance the revolution advantage must be taken of national, racial and economic dis content where these exist; but propaganda in relation to them must seek always to move them to significance in terms of the class-war. Union should be sought with the reformist working class parties, but always on the understanding that they are bound to fail, and that if they arrive in power the Communist must separate from them and fight them. Finally, it is to be noted that Bolshevism regards religion as a capitalist instrument used as an anodyne for the workers and seeks wherever possible to destroy its influence.

VI. Conclusion.

Upon the wisdom or rightness of these views it is not necessary here to pronounce. They have been put into operation in Russia; they have been attempted elsewhere; and history alone can give a verdict upon them. Here it is only necessary to remark two things. Bolshevism accepted the gen eral outlines of the Marxian philosophy (historic materialism, the theory of class-war, the inevitability of a proletarian revolu tion as the outcome of capitalist exploitation of surplus value) and developed them in detail in terms of the special Russian experience. At every point, the deductions made by Lenin and his disciples are, clearly enough, less general principles of uni versal validity than special assumptions built upon a special environment they profoundly knew. They ignore most of the things that Western Europe has sought for as desirable; personal freedom, government according to law, the subordination of the executive to the judiciary, the national choice of the government. They attribute no special worth to human personality as such; and they conceive of violence as sanctified by the use to which it is put. Its adherents are moved by a profound faith in the unquestionable rightness of their cause ; and its history has been as full as any of self-sacrifice and martyrdom. It proceeds in the conviction that it is based on a number of incontrovertible truths; of which the human and eternal passion for equality is ultimately the most profound. To give effect to that pas sion, it seeks to make an entirely new re-assessment of human motives, in which what is the predominant fact is the relegation of the pecuniary incentive to a comparatively subordinate place. It assumes that violence sufficiently prolonged can give birth to acceptance of its principles; and that fraternity is the outcome of violence. It argues that there is an inevitable logic in history which makes the transference of social power to the working class inescapable. Obviously, the appeal it makes is great to all who, from economic, or racial, or religious reason feel them selves unjustly oppressed. It is characterized by the optimism which is the mark of all intensely dogmatic creeds, and that optimism gives a self-confidence to its adherents to which few competing systems can pretend. How far it is a passing phase, how far a necessary part, of social change it is too early to pronounce. Quite obviously, as the experience of Russia has shown, experiment with it is costly; and it is not clear that a nation without the means of self-sufficiency could survive an attempt at its application. Its origins, moreover, in a period when autocracy had to be fought, and its success in a period of military defeat, have given its theses an inelasticity, on the one hand, and a special colour, on the other, which are both extremely important and too little considered by Bolshevist writers themselves. But it is the historic nature of all particulars to seek to prove that they are universal by nature.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-An adequate history of the Russian Communist Bibliography.-An adequate history of the Russian Communist Party before 1905 does not exist. The following books, pamphlets and journals are of importance in determining the character and evolution of its doctrines: G. Plekhanov, Socialism and the Political Struggle (1883) ; Our Differences (1884) ; N. Lenin, What the "Friends of the People" are (1894) ; The Development of Capitalism in Russia 1899; *What must we do? (19o5) ; *The State and Revolu tion (1917) ; *The Proletarian Revolution (1918) ; *The Infantile Malady of Communism (1918) ; *On the Road to Insurrection (1917) ; L. Trotsky; *1905 (19o9) ; N. Lentzner, The Revolution of 1905 (1919) ; G. Zinoviev, History of the Russian Communist Party (1925) Martov, The Party in a State of Siege (1903) ; History of the Russian Social Democracy (1922) ; B. Pares, *Russia and Reform (1907) ; Mayor, *An Economic History of Russia (1914) ; Struve and others, Signposts (1906) ; A. Tscherevanin, The Proletariat and the Russian Revolution (I go8) ; H. J. Laski, *Communism (192 7) ; Nestroev, Pages from the Diary of a Bolshevist (191o) . The periodicals Iskra, Pravda, Zviezda, V period are of great importance, but complete files are rare outside the Marx-Lenin Institute in Moscow. A fuller Bibliography will be found in Laski's Communism above. The books marked with an asterisk are available in English. (H. J. L.)