BOLSHEVISM AND DEMOCRACY

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

DUAL POWER: FEBRUARY TO OCTOBER 1917

CHAPTER TWO

SOVIET POWER : SEIZURE AND CONSOLIDATION

12

CHAPTER THREE

CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY : ABOLITION - AN UNDEMOCRATIC ACT?

20

CONCLUSION

27

APPENDIX ONE

DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF THE TOILING AND EXPLOITED PEOPLE

29

APPENDIX TWO

A LETTER FROM LUSIK LISINIOVA

30

Introduction

One of the common criticisms levelled at supporters of Marxism/Communism is that it wont work, look at Russia - see how undemocratic that was. Look, they even needed to torture and imprison their own population to stay in power! Whilst this view is in a general sense accurate, the purpose of this work is to attempt to establish whether or not the regime in Russia was always an anti-democratic totalitarian state. It is this authors contention that the course that the Bolsheviks took, under Lenins direction, was the only course available which would actually guarantee democracy, and as such were in fact democratic actions. Two differing concepts of democracy were in contention in this period in Russia, direct democracy, as represented by the Soviets, and bourgeois democracy, as represented by the Provisional Government, and later by the Constituent Assembly. Is direct democracy more democratic than bourgeois democracy? To answer this it is necessary to examine each of these two concepts of democracy individually. Lenin gives a breif outline of bourgeois democracy in The Tasks of the Prolitariat in our Revolution:

The most perfect, the most advanced type of bourgeois state is the parliamentary democratic republic: power is vested in parliament; the state machine, the apparatus and organ of administration, is of the customary kind: the standing army, the police,and the bureaucracy which in practice is undisplaceable, is privilaged and stands above the people.(1)

France would be a good example of a state organised upon the lines of Lenins model. N Bobbio writing in the book Which Socialism makes out a case for direct democracy:

No one doubts that perfect democracy, ideal democracy (if democracy means government by the people and not just in the name of the people) is direct democracy, a conviction which caused Rousseau to comment that the English public was only free in the moment it placed its vote in the ballot box.(2) 2

The soviet system was a system of direct democracy. The workers, peasants, soldiers and sailors all had a say in the local bodies, these then sent delegates to higher bodies, which in turn sent delegates to even higher bodies (see appendix 1 for a diagramatical representation of this). All delegates were to be subject to immediate recall, if they failed to carry out their mandates.

These two systems were to come into conflict in Russia in 1917. Both developed alongside one another for several months, with class polarisation in Russian society increasing, the conflict between these two systems of government intensified. The working class and poorer peasants looked towards the soviets, whilst the upper and middle classes looked towards a parliamentary system along the lines of France.

It is the intention of this work to show that the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, on behalf of the soviets, was not a coup by an unrepresentative group, but was actually clarifying the question of power, which in all but name, was in the soviets hands anyway, and as such the actions of the Bolsheviks and their allies the Left Social Revolutionaries were not antidemocratic, but pro-democratic.

It is also intended to show that even the apparent anti- democratic act of dissolving the Constituent Assembly was an action designed to preserve democracy in Russia.

References to introduction:

1 V I Lenin The Tasks of the Proletariat in our Revolution Progress Press 1976 p.91 2 N Bobbio Which Socialism Polity Press 1988 p.68

Dual power: February to October 1917

The period following the February revolution in Russia was characterised by the struggle for power between the Soviets (elected councils of workers and soldiers delegates) and the, initially, self appointed Provisional Government headed by Prince Lvov, a moderate liberal. The Provisional Government underwent many changes of personnel in its brief life. The various coalitions that existed give a fair reflection of the crisis of power it experienced throughout its life. The bourgeois politicians dropping out as it became clear to them that they were unable to carry through the tasks required to create a stable bourgeois Russia.

After the dissolution of the Duma by the Tsar in February 1917, the deputies did not disperse but formed themselves into the Provisional Committee of the Duma, which then declared itself the Provisional Government, until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. In March the Soviet, which was dominated at this early stage of the revolution by the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, gave its endorsement to the Provisional Government, at that time having little reason to doubt its commitment to democratic advance.(1)

Alongside

the

Provisional

Government,

the

government

of

the

bourgeoisie, another government has arisen, so far weak and incipient, but undoubtedly a government that actually exists and is growing - the Soviets of Workers and Soldiers Deputies... It consists of the proletariat and the peasants (in soldiers uniforms) ... It is a revolutionary dictatorship, i.e., a power directly based on a revolutionary seizure, on the direct initiative of the people from below, and not on a law enacted by a centralised state power.(2)

This struggle between the Soviet (direct democracy) and the Provisional Government (bourgeois parliamentary democracy) has been referred to by many as a period of dual power. The Provisional Government had the responsibility of office without the authority to govern effectively, whereas the Soviets held the authority of the masses but were unwilling to 5

take control of the state machinery. This situation was to provoke conflict as Russian society became increasingly polarised over the summer months, with the working class increasingly looking towards the Soviets to take power fully into its own hands. This was to cause many parties to split as the pressure of contending class forces made themselves felt within them, leaving them two choices, support for the workers and peasants or support for the bourgeoisie.

Antagonistic classes exist in society everywhere, and a class deprived of power inevitably strives to swerve the governmental course in its favour. This does not as yet mean, however, that two or more powers are ruling in society. The character of a political structure is directly determined by the relation of the oppressed classes to the ruling class. A single government, the necessary condition of stability in any regime, is preserved so long as the ruling class succeeds in putting over its economic and political forms upon the whole of society as the only forms possible.(3)

Lenin thought it inconceivable that the socialists should merely submit to the wishes of the bourgeois parties and form a parliamentary opposition, as the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries envisaged.

It would simply be foolish to speak of the revolutionary proletariat of Russia supporting the Cadet-Octoberist imperialism, which has been patched up with English money and is as abominable as Tsarist imperialism. (4)

Lenin repeated Marxs argument, calling for the violent overthrow of the existing capitalist order, for the workers to take power firmly into their own hands in the realisation of the second, proletarian, revolution. Due to the weakness of the Russian bourgeois class, Pannekoek argues, that the intellectuals joined the growing workers movement, giving it a different character to the workers movements of the west. The workers struggle in Russia, Pannekoek contends, was a struggle 6

against Tsarist absolutism, carried out under the banner of socialism, this could then explain the splintering along class lines of the socialist parties during the events of the Russian revolution. (5)

STATE AND REVOLUTION

Engels tells us that the state is an organisation of the possessing class for its protection against the non-possessing class. (6) This state, it is argued, needs to be swept away, all the old organs of power needed to be smashed, in order for the newly formed proletarian state to succeed. Lenin saw this as supporting his position against the Provisional Government and in favour of Soviet power. The lessons learned from the experience of the Paris Commune in 1870-1 greatly enhanced this work.

From the very outset the Commune was compelled to recognise that the working class, once come to power, could not go on managing with the old state machine; that in order not to lose again its only just conquered supremacy, this working class must, on the one hand, do away with all the old repressive machinery previously used against itself, and, on the other, safeguard itself against its own deputies and officials, ... (7)

According to Marx and Engels, the first act of the new workers state would be to abolish the standing army and replace it with an armed peoples militia, as the Communardes had done. The police and all other parts of the administration were to be stripped of their political attributes and be directly responsible to the Commune. The representatives of the new peoples government would be paid the wages of workers, not the high salaries that usually accompany such positions. They were to be made responsible to their electors, by the right to recall them instantly if it was felt that they were not acting with the best interests of their electors.

In a rough sketch of national organisation which the Commune had no time to develop, it states clearly that the Commune was to be the political form of even the smallest country hamlet, .... The rural Communes of every district were to administer their common affairs by an assembly of delegates in the central town, and these district assemblies were again to send deputies to the National Delegation in Paris, each delegate to be at any time revocable and bound by the mandat imperatif instructions) of his constituents. (8) (formal

Lenin believed that the Soviets, in Russia in 1917, in concrete form, represented a truly revolutionary government in the style of the Paris Commune, which had been studied by Marxists for the past four decades. It was on this model that Lenin envisaged the Soviets to develop and establish themselves in power throughout Russia.

The Soviet of Workers Deputies is an organisation of the workers, the embryo of a workers government, the representative of the interests of the entire mass of the poor section of the population, i.e., of nine tenths of the population, which is striving for peace, bread and freedom. (9)

OTHER SOCIALISTS AND THE PROBLEMS OF POWER

From the very start of the February revolution the moderate socialists, both in and out of the Duma, were faced with the problem of power. Many of the socialists involved with the establishment of the Soviets in February were the most vociferous opponents of power being concentrated in the Soviets hands in November.

For the working class, the significance of the Russian Revolution must be looked for in quite different directions. Russia showed to the European and American workers, confined within reformist ideas and practice, first how an industrial working class by a gigantic mass action of wild strikes is able to undermine and destroy an obsolete state power; and second, how in 8

such actions the strike committees develop into workers councils, organs of fight and of self-management, acquiring political tasks and

functions.(10)

The Mensheviks in 1917 basically continued with their policies from the 1905 revolution, they believed that Russia was undergoing a bourgeois democratic revolution and therefore ruled out an assumption of power by the working class. They did not call for the abolition of the army but supported the continuation of the war, to protect revolutionary Russia from German imperialism. The Mensheviks when faced with the revolution of 1917, echoed their position of twelve years earlier, pushing the liberal bourgeoisie for reforms.

...within the bounds of struggle against absolutism, especially in its present phase, our attitude to the liberal bourgeoisie should be to encourage it in general and induce it to support the demands of the proletariat led by the Social Democratic movement.(11)

The Menshevik leadership, especially Axelrod, feared putting too much pressure upon the liberals as it could ultimately benefit the very people they wished to defeat. They saw this tactic as a joint struggle against a common enemy, whilst training and preparing the RSDLP for future battles where power itself would be the goal. Lenin and the Bolsheviks however, could no longer see that the liberal bourgeoisie had any progressive role left to play in the Russian revolution.

A notable exception to the Mensheviks position was Martov, who in July 1917 urged the soviets to take power, in response to the Cadets withdrawal from the Provisional Government, at the same time calling for the end of the war.

There is only one proper decision for us at present: history demands that we take power into our own hands... I believe that if the whole population of Russia could be consulted it would turn out that we have the support of revolutionary democracy.(12) 9

Martovs position fell in-between the official Menshevik line and that of the Bolsheviks, wanting Soviet rule but with all party involvement, until the establishment of a constituent assembly. Others in the Mensheviks, such as Tsereteli, called for the Provisional Government to have full executive power in so far as this power strengthens the revolution(13) The moderate socialist parties entered the coalition in the summer, at a time when even members of their own party, like Martov, were calling for the establishment of a government of the democracy and an end to the war, a reference to Soviet power, until the constituent assembly could be elected.(14)

One of the major problems for the Provisional Government was the question of the war. Every major change in composition of the Provisional Government was preceded by a conflict with the Soviet over the war question. In April, with Milyukovs note to the Allies promising a continuation of the war on the same policies as the Tsar, in June/July with the collapse of Kerenskys offensive, in August with the loss of Riga, followed by Kornilovs coup attempt. All of these crises posed the question of power, and by the time of Kornilovs coup it was clear that the Provisional Government was only ruling through the Soviets reluctance to seize power in its own right. As early as April, the Bourgeoisie had realised democracy was not going to give them power, the Minister of Defence, Guchkov, prior to his resignation, attempted to get the then commander of the Petrograd Military District, Kornilov, appointed as Commander of the Northern Front, so as to be near Petrograd with what was to be hoped reliable troops to restore order by means of armed counter-revolution.(15) It was this continued threat of armed counter-revolution that pushed Lenin and the Bolsheviks to urge the settling of the question of power by means of armed insurrection.

10

References to Chapter 1: Dual Power

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

G Swain V.I. Lenin L. Trotsky V.I. Lenin

The origins of the Russian Civil War Longman 1996 p.14 Between the Two Revolutions Progress 1976 p.76 p.206

The History of the Russian Revolution

Monad 1980 p.16

Between the Two Revolutions Progress 1976

S Bricianer Pannekoek and the Workers Councils 1978 Telos Press p.250 F Engels The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State Progress 1976 p.208 K Marx K Marx V.I. Lenin The Civil War in France ibid. p.71-2 Between the Two Revolutions Progress 1976 p.18 p.15

10 S Bricianer Pannekoek and the Workers Councils 1978 Telos Press p.256-7 11 A Ascher The Mensheviks in the Russian Revolution Thames and Hudson 1976 p.54 12 ibid. p.101-2 13 ibid. p.93 14 ibid. p.28 15 G Swain The Origins of the Russian Civil War Longman 1996 p.19

11

Soviet Power: Seizure and Consolidation

The Bolsheviks began gaining majorities in the soviets for the first time in September 1917. The Democratic Conference was convened in mid September to form a Council of the

Republic, also known as the pre-parliament, to rule until the convoking of the constituent assembly. This consisted of all the main socialist parties in the Soviets, though it was not a soviet body as such. The last coalition government was created on 24 September, out of the members of the Council of the Republic, with Kerensky as president. The Bolsheviks, with a majority on the Petrograd Soviet, put out a call for the convening of a second All Russian Congress of Soviets. The Bolsheviks maintained their slogan of all power to the Soviets whilst, up until 7th October at least, participating in the council of the republic. By early October the Bolsheviks had already decided upon armed insurrection in the name of the soviets, as a means of preventing a military coup backed by the right-wing parties, such as the Cadets. Not all members of the Bolsheviks supported this policy of armed insurrection, Kamenev and Zinoviev both Central Committee members voted against Lenins resolution at the October 16 Central Committee meeting, distributing an address to party members stating:

Before history, before the international proletariat, before the Russian revolution and the Russian working class, we have no right to stake the whole future at the present moment upon the card of armed insurrection.(1)

The Petrograd Soviet had formed a Committee for Revolutionary Defence, also Known as the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), which consisted of members of the Bolsheviks and Left Social Revolutionaries. On 13 October the Petrogad Soldiers Soviet voted to transfer control of the armed forces from Headquarters to the MRC. Events in the rest of Russia were moving with equal pace, as soviets all over the country were voting for the soviets to assume supreme power. From October 20 - 24 the Petrograd Soviet held Mass meetings and generally displayed its forces as a direct challenge to Kerenskys government. 12

Kerensky reacted with a speech in the Council of the Republic.

Lately, all of Russia, and the...capital in particular, has become alarmed...by those open appeals for insurrection which come from an irresponsible - I would not say extremist, in the sense of the (political) trends, but extremist in the sense of absence of reason - section of the democracy which has split off from the revolutionary democracy...Ulyanov [Lenin] speaks explicitly about the necessity for an immediate uprising, and says: Any delay of the uprising is tantamount to death. (2)

The Soviets provocation had the desired effect, on October 24 Kerensky ordered the suppression of the MRC, the closure of the Bolsheviks press and ordered troops to the capital to defend the Provisional Government. These orders were never carried out for the lack of troops loyal to the Provisional Government. October 24 also saw the council of the republic pass in effect what was a motion of no-confidence in Kerenskys government which had the effect of destroying all remaining residual legitimacy of the Provisional Government.(3) Lenin believed at this stage that the success of the Russian and world revolution depends upon a two or three days struggle(4) Now was the time for action not empty phrasemongering and worthless resolutions.

Though initially the bourgeoisie, to quote Shlyapnikov, from the Guards officers to the prostitutes, had vanished from the streets of Petrograd it was now emerging again, obviously taking heart because the last bastion of reaction was still standing. The City Council decided to march to the square before the Winter Palace and there to interpose their democratic socialist bodies between the Bolshevik bullets and the seat of the lawful government. This resolution came to nought as a sailors detachment barred their way and refused either to shoot them or let them pass. Disconsolate, they went back to pass a resolution.(5)

13

Lenins assessment of the situation was proved right. At 2.00 a.m. on 25 October the insurrection began, at 12.00 in the afternoon troops loyal to the Soviet closed down the Council of the Republic, and by 2.00 a.m. the following morning the Winter Palace had fallen and the Provisional Government was under arrest. The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which had begun meeting the previous day, October 25, immediately elected a new government, the Council of Peoples Commissars and passed decrees on peace and land distribution.

In the words of Pannekoek:

In 1917 the war had weakened government through the defeats at the front and the hunger in the towns, and now the soldiers, mostly peasants, took part in the action. Besides the workers councils in the towns, soldiers councils were formed in the army; the officers were shot when they did not acquiesce to the soviets taking all power into their hands to prevent entire anarchy. After half a year of vain attempts on the part of politicians and military commanders to impose new governments, the soviets, supported by the socialist parties, were master of society.(6)

Now in power the Bolsheviks, through the soviets, had to consolidate their gains. The composition of the first Soviet Government was purely Bolshevik, even though out of one hundred and one members of the new Central Executive Committee sixty-two were Bolsheviks and twenty-nine Left Social Revolutionaries. A coalition of sorts.

Lenins insistence... determined that this first government was purely Bolshevik in composition, and not a coalition of the left socialist parties as many, including his followers, insisted. One can see in this, and rightly so, his lack of democratic principles, but to give him his due, there were good practical reasons for that exclusiveness. As we shall see, for all the years of tight discipline, for all his enormous authority, it was still hard enough for Lenin to ride herd over the Bolshevik commissars who kept disagreeing 14

and threatening to resign at the slightest provocation. Who could believe that a government with, say, Martov in its ranks would have ever been able to agree on a simple policy, would have ever been able to stop talking?...And besides, there were few candidates for ministerial posts from the other parties. Why join this mad adventure of the Bolsheviks, this government that would not last out a week?(7)

THE ATTITUDE OF THE OTHER PARTIES TO THE SEIZURE OF POWER

The Mensheviks were effectively split by the Bolsheviks actions. Axelrod, on the right of the party, denounced the Bolshevik coup as counter-revolutionary and destroying democracy in Russia. Martov, on the left of the party, initially opposed the seizure of power, but then gave qualified support to the Bolsheviks, due to the belief that any alternative regime would be counterrevolutionary and worse than the Bolsheviks. Both wings withdrew from the Second AllRussian Congress in protest, and were joined by the Right Social Revolutionaries. In a statement issued on 27 October the Menshevik Internationalists displaying all the hallmarks of the previous six months prevarication said:

On the eve of Congress...the Bolshevik party...seized power in the name of the soviets and overthrew the Provisional Government. In this way Congress was prevented from discussing the substantive question of the transfer of power to the soviets and, moreover, the question of the manner of such transfer and whether the problem should be solved by peaceful or violent means.(8)

At a time for decisive action the Mensheviks shrank back, preferring to sit and talk about how to accomplish an already accomplished fact. 15

Khinchuk, of the Right Menshevik faction, argued at the Congress:

The military conspiracy of the Bolsheviks...will plunge the country into civil dissension, demolish the Constituent Assembly, threaten us with a military catastrophe, and lead to the triumph of the counter-revolution...Open negotiations with the Provisional Government for the formation of a power resting on all layers of the democracy.(9)

A proposal which Trotsky believed was to ignore the events of the previous two days. Returning to a government which only two days earlier, the Mensheviks, and others in the Council of the Republic, had passed a vote of no confidence in.(10) Trotsky contemptuously sums up the position of the compromisers:

The Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries were quite ready to remain in a Provisional Government or some sort of a Pre-Parliament under any circumstances, Can one after all break with cultured society? But the soviets - that is only the people. The soviets are all right while you can use them to get a compromise with the bourgeoisie, but can one possibly think of tolerating soviets which have suddenly imagined themselves masters of the country?(11)

The Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks who had walked out of the Congress in protest at the Bolsheviks actions formed a rival body, which they called the Committee for the Salvation of the Revolution and the Motherland (CSRM). Both Martov and the Left Social Revolutionaries, who had stayed in the congress recognising its legitimacy, pushed for a compromise, aiming to establish a coalition of the democratic parties, the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries. These proposals were enthusiastically pursued by the leadership of the Railway Workers Union.(12) The aim of the Railway Workers Union was not only to affect a compromise deal upon the nature of the Government but to prevent what it saw as a developing civil war between two wings of the democracy. 16

The CSRM was split between those who wanted the reinstation of Kerensky, and a liberalsocialist coalition, and those who wanted a socialist government but with the exclusion of the Bolsheviks.(13)

Kerensky, meanwhile, had enlisted the support of the Tsarist General, Krasnov and the Third Cavalry Regiment, to march upon Petrograd to restore his regime. He had the support of the Right Social Revolutionaries on the CSRM in this action, they were supposed to lead an insurrection against the Bolsheviks in Petrograd in conjunction with Krasnovs assault.

The attitude of the Bolsheviks to the Railway Workers Union talks was initially one of willingness to discuss compromise proposals, accepting the principle that other socialists be included in the government. The Bolshevik delegates even reminding the other delegates that in mid-September the Bolsheviks had proposed an all-socialist government to the Democratic conference, and would even now be quite willing to transfer power to the Constituent Assembly as soon as it met.(14)

The Railway Workers Union talks were aimed at preventing a... civil war between Bolsheviks and SRs by forming a coalition socialist government. They failed not because agreement was not an objective possibility, but because conciliatory Bolsheviks like Ryazanov and Kamenev did not remain in positions of authority in the Bolshevik party...Trotsky was extremely forthright: the Bolsheviks had always supported the idea of a socialist coalition on the basis of a defined program, and still did today, but we consider the process of talks cannot paralyse our struggle against the counter-revolutionary troops of Kerensky. Talks with democratic

organisations were one thing, he said, but we will allow no talks with the Kornilov brigade. (15)

The Railway Workers Union talks were only important insofar as they gave breathing space to the Bolshevik regime, when faced with a possible civil war led by Kerensky and Krasnov. When this threat disappeared the need for the talks disappeared. Lenin was quite happy to 17

continue with the support of only the Left Social Revolutionaries, as he felt the other parties represented the ideas of yesterday. This attitude is summed up in Pravda, the day after the seizure of power:

They wanted us to take the power alone, so that we alone should have to contend with the terrible difficulties confronting the country...So be it! We take the power alone, relying on the voice of the country and counting on the friendly help of the European proletariat. But having taken the power, we will deal with the enemies of the revolution and its saboteurs with an iron hand. They dreamed of a dictatorship of Kornilov...We will give them the dictatorship of the proletariat...(16)

18

References to Chapter 2: Soviet Power

1 L Trotsky The History of the Russian Revolution Monad Press 1980 p.153-154 2 M Jones (editor) Storming the Heavens 3 ibid. p.77 4 L Trotsky The History of the Russian Revolution Vol. 3 Monad Press 1980 p.154 5 A B Ulam The Bolsheviks Macmillan 1965 p.371 6 S Bricianer Pannekoek and the Workers Councils Telos Press 1978 p.255 7 A B Ulam The Bolsheviks Macmillan 1965 p.376-377 8 A Ascher The Mensheviks in the Russian Revolution Thames and Hudson 1976 p.105106 9 L Trotsky The History of the Russian Revolution Vol. 3 Monad Press 1980 p.308 10 ibid. p.308 11 ibid. p.310 12 G Swain The Origins of the Russian Civil War Longman 1996 p.54 13 ibid. p.56 14 ibid. p57 15 ibid. p62-63 16 L Trotsky The History of the Russian Revolution Vol. 3 Monad Press 1980 p.343 Zwan Publications 1987 p.77-78

19

Constituent Assembly: Abolition - An Undemocratic Act?

I believe we are more confused over the Constituent Assembly than over most things that have happened in Russia. And there is good reason for that confusion. Following the political developments as closely as I did in those days, I found it difficult enough to understand. Here were the radical parties for months shouting for the Constituent - in fact, ever since the first revolution. At last it was called, suddenly dissolved, and not a ripple in the country.(1)

The above quote from Louise Bryant refers to one of the more well known accusations of antidemocratic behaviour of the Bolsheviks, that of the dissolving of the Constituent Assembly by force of arms on the first day of its existence. The reasons for this action will be looked at in their historical context, and the question of whether it was a democratic act or not shall be discussed. Also, the reasons why each party placed so much importance upon the call for a Constituent Assembly during the revolution will be looked at.

The Bolsheviks, after the breakdown of talks with the Railway Workers Union, set a date for the elections to the Constituent Assembly. This was done in order to give themselves time to consolidate their position in power, whilst hoping that the international revolution, which Lenin believed to be imminent, would happen. The Social Revolutionaries were quite happy with this state of affairs as they expected to gain a majority in the elections, and as a result have power handed over to them from the Soviets. Even the majority of the parliamentary Bolsheviks regarded the Soviet government as provisional, handing power over to the Constituent Assembly when it convened. Lenin was outraged by this breach of party discipline and wanted all the conciliationist Bolsheviks expelled from the party.(2) Kamenev, one of the leaders of the conciliatory Bolsheviks, was rewarded for his conciliatory stand, by being instructed to stand down from all his official posts on the Soviet executive by the Bolshevik Central Committee on 8 November.(3)

20

The elections to the constituent Assembly were to be done by a system of proportional representation, off party lists drawn up before Kornilovs revolt, and therefore did not reflect the changes that had occurred in the Social Revolutionary Party. The Social Revolutionary Party had split between left and right and were now two separate parties, the party lists favoured the Right Social Revolutionary Party. This discrepancy was to play a major role in arguments over the legitimacy of the Constituent Assembly.

The results of the elections to the Constituent Assembly were :

Bolsheviks Social Revolutionaries Allies of the Right Social Revolutionaries * Kadets Others

23.7% 37.3 16.7% 7% 15.3%

* Including the Ukrainian Social Revolutionaries

This result, argued Lenin, represented the state of the parties prior to the October insurrection:

Firstly, proportional representation results in a faithful expression of the will of the people only when the party lists correspond to the real division of the people according to the party groupings reflected in those lists. In our case, however, as is well known the party which from May to October had the largest number of followers among the people, and especially among the peasants - the Socialist Revolutionary party - came out with united election lists for the Constituent Assembly in the middle of October 1917, but split in November 1917, after the elections and before the Assembly met. For this reason, there is not, nor can there be, even a formal correspondence between the will of the mass of the electors and the composition of the elected Constituent Assembly.(4) 21

The argument that the developing social revolution begun in October and spreading through the Army and peasantry in November and December invalidating the party lists is a strong one. The Left Social Revolutionaries won a majority on the previously Right SR controlled Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviet of Peasant Deputies in November. This victory of the under-represented faction of the Social Revolutionaries, offers support to the assertion that the Right SR dominated party lists were out of step with popular opinion. The Left SRs victory in the Peasants Soviet opened the way for a joint Soviet Executive to be established, the Bolshevik administration would then be answerable to this body.(5) This was to remain in effect until the Constituent Assembly met. This also created a coalition government with four Left SRs gaining ministerial roles. The disparity between Left SR popular support and representation in the Constituent Assembly was a major cause of concern to the ruling coalition. As the election results stood the ruling coalition would have to hand over power to the Right SRs, which was why the debate over party lists was deemed so vital.

...in the course of November and December, the revolution spread to the entire army and peasants, this being expressed first of all in the deposition of the old leading bodies (army committees, guberania peasant committees, the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russia Soviet of Peasant Deputies, etc.) - which expressed the superseded, compromising phase of the revolution, its bourgeois, and not proletarian, phase, and which were therefore inevitably bound to disappear under the pressure of the deeper and broader masses of the people - and in the election of new leading bodies in their place...Consequently, the grouping of the class forces in Russia in the course of their class struggle is in fact assuming, in November and December 1917, a form differing in principle from the one that the party lists of candidates for the Constituent Assembly compiled in the middle of October 1917 could have reflected.(6)

22

An attempt to solve this disparity was made by suggesting that in the disputed areas a new election of delegates take place, this had the support, unsurprisingly, of the disadvantaged parties but not the others.(7) The Soviet coalition government spent much of December trying to find a method of merging the Constituent Assembly and Soviet body into a viable form of government, but met with little success, with the Bolsheviks, privately, for the first time conceding that the Constituent Assembly may have to be dissolved.(8) The Left SR paper Znamya truda, referred to the Constituent Assembly in late December, as a rump parliament surrounded by the soviets.(9) The Constituent Assembly opened on 5 January 1918, Raskolnikov testifying to it being a bit lively at the start, A certain exchange of fisticuffs took place on the parapet covered steps of the tribune.(10) The coalition government put to the assembly the Declaration of the Rights of the Labouring and Exploited People(11), which had in it the right of the soviets to recall Constituent Assembly delegates, and acknowledging soviet power. The right wing delegates would not endorse the Declaration, so the Bolsheviks and Left SRs walked out of the assembly, and later it was dissolved.

The Soviets - that is the working class, organised in Soviets - threw out the Constituent Assembly, declaring that in the epoch of direct and immediate conflict between class forces only one class or another can rule, openly and solidly - that at this moment there can be either the dictatorship of capital and landownership or the dictatorship of the working class and the poorest peasantry.(12)

The reaction to the dissolution from the mass of the population was surprisingly muted, the most popular demand for the previous ten months was that of the call for a Constituent Assembly, now it had been dissolved, and apart from the right wing politicians, barely a murmur, why? A B Ulam, in the book The Bolsheviks offers the following opinion on the dissolving of the Constituent Assembly: 23

It is often pointed out in the obituaries of the Constituent Assembly that the Bolsheviks argument against it, while completely mendacious from the legal and moral points of view, was a fairly sound one politically. The peasant masses voting in droves for the Socialist Revolutionaries were often unaware of the split within the party. The lack of a violent public reaction to the dissolution of the Assembly shows that the masses in general did not care about its fate.(13)

The Menshevik position was:

If the Revolution, on account of the establishment of a dictatorship in the name of soviet power, deliberately turns its back on a Constituent Assembly elected by the whole people, this does not signify in practice that it has attained some higher form of revolutionary-proletarian development. What it signifies is that there has been foisted on the Revolution a Utopian programme, which is radically out of keeping with the backward state of the country and, being devoid of solid support in the present state of political forces, can only be pursued in opposition to the wishes of the majority. ...Taking the Soviet order as its starting point on the ground of established fact and not of principle, the party sees as its main task, at the present stage of the Revolution, to work upon the masses in such a way as to rescue them from the Utopian illusions of the Soviet dictatorship and make possible the restoration of the revolutionary alliance between the working class and the peasants and urban democrats.(14)

The Right SRs had made plans for military action, with the aid of the Semenovskii regiment, if the Constituent Assembly was dissolved, but only if there was a spontaneous insurrection developed from below.(15) But as no action from below occurred, they did not call upon the Semenovskii regiment.

24

Were the Bolsheviks actions in dissolving the Constituent Assembly undemocratic? Was Lenin right in claiming that The republic of Soviets is a higher form of democracy than the bourgeois republic with the Constituent Assembly.?(16) Attacking the Right SRs during the meeting of the Constituent Assembly, Ivan Ivanovich made the following point:

How can you...appeal to such a concept as the will of the whole people? For a Marxist the people is an inconceivable notion: the people does not act as a single unit. The people as a unit is a mere fiction, and this fiction is needed by the ruling classes. It is all over between us...You belong to one world, with the Cadets and bourgeoisie, and we to the other, with the peasants and the workers.(17)

Lenin and the Bolsheviks, as Marxists, were concerned only about ending the class domination of the bourgeoisie, replacing it with the domination of the proletariat. In this context, the suppression of the bourgeois dominated Constituent Assembly, was a progressive democratic act. Even though a section of Russian society (the bourgeois) were disenfranchised, the fact was, that under the Soviet system of government, more people had a direct influence in the governing of their country than in any contemporary democracy. In the polarised social and political climate of Russia at this time, a bourgious-rightwing socialist regime would not survive, the alignment of class forces would not allow such a coalition to exist, without relying upon the guns of the Tsarist Generals. The Right Socialist Revolutionaries, moreover, had to leave the soviets, which in October - that is, before the convocation of the Constituent Assembly - had taken the government into their own hands. On whom, then, could a ministry formed by the Constituent Assemblys majority depend for support? It would be backed by the upper classes in the provinces, the interlectuals, the government officials, and temporarily by the bourgeiosie on the right...At such a political centre as Petrograd, it would encounter irrestistable opposition from the very start. If under these cicumstances the soviets, submitting to the formal logic of democratic 25

conventions, had turned the government over to the party of Kerensky and Chernov, such a government, compromised and debilitated as it was, would only introduce tempory confusion into the political life of the country, and would be overthrown by a new uprising in a few weeks. The soviets decided to reduce this belated historical experiment to its lowest terms, and dissolved the Constituent Assembly the very first day it met.(18)

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References to Chapter 3: Constituent Assembly

1 L Bryant Six Red Months in Russia Young Socialist publication Sri Lanka 1973 p.72 2 V I Lenin Collected Works Vol. 26 Lawrence and Wishart 1972 p.280-282 3 G Swain The Origins of the Russian Civil War Longman 1996 p.76 4 V I Lenin Collected Works Vol. 26 Lawrence and Wishart 1972 p.379-380 5 G Swain The Origins of the Russian Civil War Longman 1996 p.77-78 6 V I Lenin Collected Works Vol. 26 Lawrence and Wishart 1972 p.380-381 7 G Swain The Origins of the Russian Civil War Longman 1996 p.78-80 8 ibid. p.81 9 ibid. p.82 10 F F Raskolnikov Tales of Sub-Lieutenant Ilyin New Park 1982 p.7 11 contained in Appendix 2 12 L Trotsky How the Revolution Armed Vol.1 New Park 1979 p.33 13 A B Ulam The Bolsheviks MacMillan 1965 p.397 14 A Ascher The Mensheviks in the Russian Revolution Thames and Hudson 1976 p.110 15 G Swain The Origins of the Russian Civil War Longman 1996 p.91 16 D Volkogonov Trotsky Harper Collins 1996 p.94 17 F F Raskolnikov Tales of Sub-Lieutenant Ilyin New Park 1982 p.13-14 18 L Trotsky in A Richardson(Ed.) In Defence of the Russian Revolution Porcupine Press 1995 p.99-100

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Declaration Of The Rights Of The Toiling And Exploited People

The Constituent Assembly resolves: (I) 1. Russia is hereby proclaimed a Republic of Soviets of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants Deputies. All power centrally and locally, is vested in these Soviets. 2. The Russian Soviet Republic is established on the principle of a free union of free nations, as a federation of Soviet national republics. ( II ) Its fundamental aim being to abolish all exploitation of man by man, to completely eliminate the division of society into classes, to mercilessly crush the resistance of the exploiters, to establish a socialist organisation of society and to achieve the victory of socialism in all countries, Constituent Assembly further resolves: 1. Private ownership of land is hereby abolished. All land together with all buildings, farm implements and other appurtenances of agricultural production, is proclaimed the property of the entire working people. 2. The Soviet laws on workers control and on the Supreme Economic Council are hereby confirmed for the purpose of guaranteeing the power of the working people over the exploiters and as a first step towards the complete conversion of the factories, mines, railways, and other means of production and transport into the property of the workers and peasants state. 3. The conversion of all banks into the property of the workers and peasants state is hereby confirmed as on of the conditions for the emancipation of the working people from the yoke of capital. 4. For the purpose of abolishing the parasitic sections of society, universal labour conscription is hereby instituted. 5. To ensure the sovereign power of the working people, and to eliminate all possibility of the restoration of the power of the exploiters, the arming of the working people, the creation of a socialist Red Army of workers and peasants and the complete disarming of the propertied classes are hereby decreed.

(III) 28

1. Expressing its firm determination to wrest mankind from the clutches of finance capital and imperialism, which have in this most criminal of wars drenched the world in blood, the Constituent Assembly whole-heartedly endorses the policy pursued by Soviet power of denouncing the secret treaties, organising most extensive fraternisation with the workers and peasants of the armies in the war, and achieving at all costs, by revolutionary means, a democratic peace between the nations, without annexations and indemnities and on the basis of the free self-determination of nations. 2. With the same end in view, the Constituent Assembly insists on a complete break with the barbarous policy of bourgeois civilisation, which has built the prosperity of the exploiters belonging to a few chosen nations on the enslavement of hundreds of millions of working people in Asia, in the colonies in general, and in the small countries. The Constituent Assembly welcomes the policy of the Council of Peoples Commissars in proclaiming the complete independence of Finland, commencing the evacuation of troops from Persia, and proclaiming freedom of self-determination for Armenia. 3. The Constituent Assembly regards the Soviet law on the cancellation of the loans contracted by the governments of the tsar, the landowners and the bourgeoisie as a first blow struck at international banking, finance capital, and expresses the conviction that Soviet power will firmly pursue this path until the international workers uprising against the yoke of capital has completely triumphed. (IV) Having been elected on the basis of party lists drawn up prior to the October Revolution, when the people were not yet in a position to rise en masse against the exploiters, had not yet experienced the full strength of resistance of the latter in defence of their class privileges, and had not yet applied themselves in practice to the task of building socialist society, the Constituent Assembly considers that it would be fundamentally wrong, even formally, to put itself in opposition to Soviet power. In essence the Constituent Assembly considers that now, when the people are waging the last fight against their exploiters, there can be no place for exploiters in any government body. Power must be vested wholly and entirely in the working people and their authorised representatives - the Soviets of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants Deputies.

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Supporting Soviet power and the decrees of the Council of Peoples Commissars, the Constituent Assembly considers that its own task is confined to establishing the fundamental principles of the socialist reconstruction of society. At the same time, endeavouring to create a really free and voluntary, and therefore all the more firm and stable, union of the working classes of all the nations of Russia, the Constituent Assembly confines its own task to setting up the fundamental principles of a federation of Soviet Republics of Russia, while leaving it to the workers and peasants of each nation to decide independently at their own authoritative Congress of Soviets whether they wish to participate in the federal government and in the other federal Soviet institutions, and on what terms.

Taken from: V I Lenin Collected Works Vol. 26 Progress Publishers p.423-425

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The following letter is taken from the book Storming the Heavens. The letter, is from a young Bolshevik student, Lusik Lisiniova, who was killed by machine-gun fire on 1 November 1917 in the street fighting during the Moscow insurrection. It adds a human side to the drier, political texts of the period.

13-24 October 1917 My dearest girl, Anik, I received your letter and two postcards. Today is my second day out of bed for good. I have my nose in the air and keep smiling, for everything in life makes me happy. I am very grateful to my friends for taking care of me. They are all very busy, but there was hardly a time when I was alone. They brought me food from home, cocoa, buns, coffee, butter, cheese, and my dinners. It even made me feel embarrassed. Two days ago I went to see the doctor. I was very much afraid it was my lungs and asked him about it with trembling knees; imagine my joy when he said they are in perfect order and that I had no cause to worry at all. Whew! How happy I was when I left his office. Autumn was shining brightly all about me, with its golden leaves and hoarfrost and the beautiful sun, so gentle and jolly and, at the same time, so sad, as it was taking leave of the earth. I couldnt help feeling that the sun and every person knew that I had got up from my sickbed that day, that I was happy and that my lungs were in perfect order. Hooray! Perhaps the Soviets will take over power in Petrograd tomorrow... Yes, of course, there will later be, or perhaps even now, a terrible bloodbath... there has never yet been a time when the bourgeoisie surrendered a single position without a fight, to say nothing of surrendering power, so that we must expect this as an inevitable part of all proletarian revolutions, can the triumphant international revolution be kindled... Long live the international Soviet of workers deputies!...Oh, Anik! I cant tell you how elated I feel. A great feeling of triumph is like a lump in my throat. You know, there are sad times and hard times, but still, it is wonderful, for thats what were like. You understand whom I mean, dont you? Our group, a close-knit group of Social-Democrats. Thats all for now. Your Lusik 31