AFTER  ONE  HUNDRED  YEARS  OF  THE  RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION,  WHERE  DOES  THE  LEFT  STAND ?

Sumanta Banerjee

 

The  history  of  the  1917  Russian  Revolution  and  its  aftermath,  can  be  divided  into  four  phases:

 

(i)  the  historical  circumstances   surrounding  the  1917  revolution  that  led  to  the  seizure  of  power  by  the  Bolsheviks;  (ii)    the  post-revolution  experiments  in setting  up  a  socialist  system  in  Russia  under  the  leadership  of   Lenin  in  the  1920s,  and   by  Stalin  from  the  1930s  onwards;   (iii)  the  disillusionment  among  Communists  all  over  the  world,  following  the  disclosure  by  Khrushchev  in  his  speech  at  the  20th   Congress  of  the  Communist  Party  about  atrocities  under  Stalin’s  regime;   and  (iv)  the  collapse  of  the  Soviet  Union.  In  the  light  of  the  above  experiences,  there  is  a  need  for  a  three-pronged  strategy  for  the  future  –  (i)  reformulation  of  the  goal  of  a  new   socialist  society  and  political  system  in  the  post-Soviet  era,  and   reshaping  of  the  tactics  to   reach  that   goal;   (ii)  re-orientation  of  the  Indian  Communist   movement   towards  a  programme  of   embracing  not  only  the  industrial  proletariat  and  rural  poor,   but  also  vast  sections  of  oppressed  dalits,  adivasis,  and  ethnic  and  religious  minorities;  and  finally  (iii)  rooting  this  struggle  for  a  new  socialist  state  and  society  to  a  firm   commitment  by  the  Communist  revolutionaries  to   respect   democratic   and  human  rights  of  common  citizens.

 

Let  me  elaborate  on  the  points  made  above.  First,  the  success  of  the  1917  Russian  Revolution  was  made  possible  not  solely  by  an  uprising  of  the  industrial  proletariat   (as  envisaged  by  Marx  in  the  past),  but  mainly  by  the  increasing  disgruntlement  of  the  Russian  soldiers  (who  came  from  peasant  families)  with  a  futile  and  destructive  Tsarist-led  war,   whom  the  Bolsheviks  could  persuade  to  join  their  programme  of  capturing  power.  This  is  not  to  undermine  the  Marxist  ideology  of  socialism  that  inspired  Lenin  and  other  Russian  Bolshevik  leaders  to  undertake  the  insurrection  in  October/November   1917   (which  had  been  recorded  vividly  by the  American  journalist  John  Reed  in  his  famous  `Ten  Days  That  Shook  the  World,’   that  came  out  in  1919  with  Lenin’s  introduction.

 

To  come  to  the  second  point,  the  post-revolution  Soviet  regime  implemented  some  reforms  –  however  limited  –  like  equitable  distribution  of  resources,   spread  of  education,  health  care,  housing  and  other  social  benefits   for  the  poor,  and  recognized  the  right  of  self-determination  and  secession  for  the  people  of  the  former  Tsarist  colonies.

 

These  experiments  not  only  earned  appreciation  from  eminent  humanist  intellectuals   from  all  over  the  world       (e.g.  Romain  Rolland,  Rabindranath  Tagore,  and  British  Fabians  like  Sydney  and  Beatrice  Webb),  but  also  impacted  on  the  social  democratic   parties  of  the  West  (traditionally  opposed  to  the  Bolsheviks)  which  began  to  put  pressures  on  their  governments  to  carry  out  such hitherto  neglected  reforms.  Beyond  the  West,  India  among  other  colonies,  received  news  of  the  revolutionary  and  egalitarian  reforms that  were  being  carried  out  by  the  Bolsheviks  in  Russia.  Indian  revolutionary  freedom-fighters  were  drawn  to  their  ideology,  and  began  to  form  political  organizations  among  the  industrial  workers  and  peasants  in  the  1920s  –  giving  birth  to  the  Communist  movement  in  India.  The  1917  Revolution  thus  acted  as  a  catalytic  agent  to  change  the  minds  and  practices  of  people  at  various  socio-economic  levels  –  all  over  the  world.

 

But  while  delving  on  this  period  of  1920-30,  we  need  to  remember  the  trials  and  tribulations   suffered  by  the  fledgling  Soviet  government.  It  had  to  face  a  civil  war  instigated  by  Western  capitalist  states  which  also  hatched  plots  of  subversion  within  Russia  to  overthrow  the  Bolshevik  regime.  A  meticulously  documented  history  of  these  nefarious  plans  is  available  from  the  book  `The  Great  Conspiracy  Against  Russia’  written  by  Michael  Sayers  and  Albert  E.  Kahn  published  in  1946.

 

As  for  the  third  point,  Khrushchev’s  speech  at  the  20th      Congress   revealed   that  behind  such popular  reforms   under  the  Bolshevik  regime,  there  lurked  the  surveillance        of  the  secret  police  (under  Stalin’s  dictates)  which  violated  the  human  rights  of  Russian  citizens  (as  well  as  killed  veteran  Bolshevik  revolutionaries).  Soon  after  Khrushchev’s  revelations,  the  veteran  American  journalist  Anna  Louis  Strong  (who  had  spent  years  in  the  Soviet  Union  during  Stalin’s  regime)  came out  with  a  book  entitled  ‘The  Stalin  Era’  (1956)  that  described  the  background  that  led  to  the  atrocities  under  his  regime,  which  she  described  as  `The  Great  Madness.’

 

On  the  fourth  point,  we  may  consider  whether  the  collapse  of  the  Soviet  Union  was   caused  by  the  backlash  of  policies  followed  by   successive  governments  –  authoritarianism  that  provoked  popular  resentment,   failure  of  the  economy  due  to  mismanagement  and  corruption  by  the  party  bureaucracy,  and  finally  the  military  invasion  of   Afghanistan  (which  drove  the  nail  into  the  coffin  of  the  USSR).  It  is  an  irony  of   history   that  the  same  Russian  soldiers  who  brought  the  Bolsheviks  to  power  in  1917  and fought  courageously  the Nazi  army  in  the  1940s  to  protect  and  save  the  Soviet  Union,  and  yet  their  descendants  in  the  Red  Army in  the  1980s  had  to  face  an  ignominious  defeat  in  Afghanistan.

 

As  for  the  three-pronged  strategy  suggested  earlier,    in  the  post-Soviet  era  of  the  21st  century,  there  is  a  need  for  a  new  vision  of  socialism.  Instead  of  following  a  hegemonistic  model  of  revolution  and  a  uniform  model  of  post-revolutionary  societies  (whether  the  Soviet  or  the  Chinese  model),  we  must  recognize  the  new  strategies  and  tactics  that  are  being  shaped  in  different  parts  of  the  world  for  bringing  about  a  socialist  transformation  of  society  and  governance  –  that  would  suit  different  countries  according  to   their  respective  levels  of  economic  development  and  popular  political  demands.

 

In   the  present  Indian  context,   Communists (ranging  from  the  parliamentary  Left  to  the  armed  revolutionaries)  who  are  commemorating   the  1917  Russian  Revolution,   can pay  the  best  tribute   to  that  Revolution  by  reviving  its  spirit.  How  can  that  spirit  of  a  revolutionary  change  be  revived ? By   scripting  a   new   agenda  for  socialist  transformation,  and  formulating  a  new  set  of  strategy  and  tactics  to  meet   the  demands  of  our  oppressed  and  struggling  masses  at  different  levels  of  society.  There  is  an  urgent  need  for  both  the  parliamentary  and  armed  Communists  to  link  up  themselves  with  the  on  going  popular  social  movements  (e.g.  rural  agitations  against  dams,  nuclear  projects,  industrial  encroachment  on  forests;   dalit  and  tribal  protests  against  upper  caste  exploitation;   campaigns  in  support  of  women’s  rights  and  recognition  of  transgender  community).

 

In  this  new  agenda  for  socialist  transformation,   it  is  important  to  include,  and  prioritize  the  issue  of  human  rights –  an  issue  which  had  been  trampled  upon  by  Communist  parties  and  states  all  these  years.   From  the  time  of  Stalin  in  the  Soviet  Union,  to  Mao-tse-tung  in  China  and  his  present  successors  who  claim  to  inherit  the  tradition  of  the  1917  Russian  revolution,   Communist  rulers  had  continued  to  follow  a  path  of  suppressing  dissidents  (from  among  their  own  Marxist  followers  and  ideologues),  and  imprisoning  human  rights  activists  (from  civil  society). This  had  scarred  the  image  of   socialism  and  reputation  of  socialist  regimes).  Similarly,  today’s  Indian  Maoist  leaders  and  guerilla  squads  who  are  operating  in  Chhattisgarh  and  other  areas  in  central  and  eastern  India,   show  little  respect  for  the  human  rights  of  the  common  tribal  inhabitants.

 

The  next  generation  of   Communists  will  have  to  discard  this  notorious  tradition  of  suppression  of  democratic  rights,  and  open  up  space  for  both  dissent  within  their  ranks,  and    for  open  debate  with  their  opponents.

 

Sumanta  Banerjee is a political  commentator  and  writer,  is  the  author  of  In  The  Wake  of  Naxalbari’  (1980  and  2008);  The  Parlour  and  the  Streets:  Elite  and  Popular  Culture  in  Nineteenth  Century  Calcutta (1989)  and  ‘Memoirs  of  Roads:  Calcutta  from  Colonial  Urbanization  to   Global  Modernization.’  (2016). He is based in Hyderabad.

 

(We thank Rana Bose for providing Insaf Bulletin with this article)

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