Did Lenin Distort Marx?
Hiren Gohain

[Chattopadhyay's (EPW, 15 December 2012) impatient utopianism needs to be called into question. Lenin had a deep understanding of the ground reality of Russia in the immediate aftermath of the revolution, and in this context, there was no question of moving towards statelessness during the period of transition to socialism.]

Paresh Chattopadhyay's "Lenin Reads Marx on Socialism: A Brief Note" (EPW, 15 December 2012) raises certain fundamental issues relevant to the practice of Marxism today, by going back to the text of Marx's actual work and exposing certain "deviations" from his real ideas in Leninist practice. While such an academic approach that turns Marx's works into scriptures might conceivably work in discursive forays into such realms as fantasies of sexual liberation, it is quite inappropriate and misleading in an area where union of theory and practice is of critical importance to transformation of society and emancipation of man's social essence.

Lenin was applying Marx's ideas to a country which did not embody the latter's conception of conditions of socialist revolution (indeed, he had conceded towards the end of his life, when the bourgeoisie seem to have consolidated their hold in the countries of western Europe in the face of growing working-class militancy, that the Russian peasant commune might form the basis of a socialist society there only if the proletariat in western Europe succeeded in breaking the back of capitalism in their own countries). The immense difficulty faced by Lenin in building a road to socialism is explained by the rise and development of a capitalist sector with a tiny working class against a vast background of peasantry still immersed in the debilitating traditions of serfdom and spiritual servitude. That conscious, disciplined and dedicated working class was virtually decimated by the protracted civil war launched by reactionary elements like landlords backed by foreign capitalist powers, and regional anarchist leaders leading ragtag armies. The dire situation was aggravated by the weakness of the Russian liberal bourgeoisie who could not have established a sound bourgeois democratic state in spite of Menshevik illusions and the still extant strength of feudal elements that were keen to restore a feudal regime in alliance with capitalists.

In the sober words of a disillusioned scholar who had retained his party membership when many of his distinguished colleagues had felt betrayed and surrendered theirs:

...the Soviet experiment was designed not as a global alternative to capitalism, but as a specific set of responses to the particular situation of a vast and spectacularly backward country at a particular and unrepeatable historical conjuncture. The failure of revolution elsewhere left the USSR committed to build socialism alone, in a country in which by the universal consensus of Marxists in 1917, including the Russian ones, the conditions for doing so were simply not present (Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes, Abacus paperback, 1995: 497).

Lenin's Innovation
In his textual literalism, Chattopadhyay accuses Lenin of having foisted two new innovations on Marx's formulation: first, he concocts the idea of a socialist "state" whereas Marx saw socialism/communism as the ultimate stage in human civilisation where the state no longer exists. Second, he propounds a two-stage transition to communism, a socialist state which will protect the hegemony of the proletariat until the conditions are ripe for the communist phase where a free association of individuals will prevail, where production and distribution of goods will follow the principle "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

On the face of it textual evidence would seem to bear out the charge against Lenin. For Marx does, as the quotations in Chattopadhyay's article show, posit an immediate transition to socialism following the overthrow of the bourgeois state. But when we remember that the conditions for socialist revolution Marx had in mind were not present in Russia on the eve of the revolution, and yet a revolution led by the working class took place there as in Lenin's words Russia formed the "weakest link" in the worldwide chain of imperialist capital, we face the dilemma that haunted the Bolsheviks: Should they have surrendered power to people by no means capable of establishing a firm bourgeois democracy, and thus helped restoration of feudalism propped up by imperialist capital or should they have tried to make the best of an awkward situation? They chose the latter alternative with the conviction that within a decade or so socialist revolutions would break out in western Europe and relieve the burden on Russia of having to build socialism on a thin foundation. With such help the productive forces of Russia could be increased manifold and constraints of her backwardness overcome. Lenin thought in any case that the Bolsheviks had to hold the fort until that climactic and decisive offensive.

Could he have done so without a state apparatus? Given that all other options were bound to yield ground to reaction, Lenin was compelled to create a state that used terror on a fairly large scale to hold in check the defeated but not yet demoralised feudal and capitalist forces. The civil war that soon erupted was vicious enough to persuade the Bolsheviks that both a strong state apparatus and a standing Red Army were necessary to maintain the gains of the revolution—namely, the dislodgement of the feudal class from control over land, and the overthrow of the capitalist class. These things were not in the scriptures but were absolutely necessary to defend the revolution. Chattopadhyay rightly hints that these steps eventually led to many excesses and atrocities, especially under Stalin's leadership. During Lenin's brief stint at the top, marked by both energetic initiatives and constant self-criticism, even certain Proletarian mutinies, like that of Kronstadt, had to be suppressed when negotiations failed, so that the overall order is not threatened.

This was far from the socialist state that Lenin had anticipated in The State and Revolution, but he already seems to have had a prescience of the immense obstacles and problems that might beset communists in any country following the overthrow of the capitalist order. At the juncture he found himself in, the tasks ahead were fostering the growth of a solid working class until they could run the affairs of the country and preventing restoration of capitalism through small commodity production. Stalin went about the execution of these tasks in a heavy-handed way like a steam-roller flattening all opposition and obstacles. Lenin's so-called "last testament" advised removal of Stalin from the position of General Secretary, and he himself would certainly have pursued these objectives with greater realism and sensitivity. But the objectives would have been the same. This was his creative contribution to socialist politics. There was no question of a condition of statelessness during the period of transition to socialism. And his "innovation" did have some grounding in the work of his predecessors, namely, Engels's brief article "On Authority".

Engels' and Gramsci's Views
In that article of 1872, Friedrich Engels points out that the very conditions of production which among the human species is a social activity compels upon producers (human beings) a certain degree of authority and subordination "however delegated". Further, the degree of such authority varies with "various phases of development of society". Marx's views on the state may, and sometimes have been, misinterpreted to mean a total disappearance of authority. But Engels explains that the political state, and with it political authority, will disappear as a result of the coming social revolution. That is, the public functions will lose their political character and will be transformed into the simple administrative function of watching over the true interests of society.

Some support may be found for Lenin's position in his remark that "the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed" (emphasis added). Needless to add that Lenin with his profound and extensive study of the structure of Russian society was well aware that such conditions in Russia, as well as in more advanced countries, could not be conjured away immediately after socialists overthrow the old order.

Antonio Gramsci in his article "The Conquest of the State" (L 'Ordine Nuovo, 12 July 1919, trans Michael Carney, available on the net) takes pains to make it clear that working-class consciousness and institutions as well as practices continued to be infected with traces of capitalism under which they were formed and in the course of struggle against which they had their growth. "The proletarian institutions had to assume a form not by internal law, but by external law, under the formidable pressure of circumstances and coercion due to capitalist competition", and that explains the wobbles, compromises and deviations that "culminated in the bankruptcy of the Second International". This period was followed by a conscious and concerted effort to break out of the external form imposed by capitalism and also to break the stranglehold of capitalism itself.

Lenin Again
And, as Lenin very rightly pointed out, it was not merely a question of conquering the state, which had upheld exploitation and oppression, but of "replacing" it with a socialist state, with the principle of association and working people's solidarity as its bedrock. There would have to be directing functions in that state to guide production (and distribution) through complex linkages and the state then would also have the "task of suppressing competition with the suppression of private property of classes...(which) cannot be started by parliamentary democracy". Obviously this does not at all fit into the scenario depicted by Chattopadhyay, with immediate abolition of all authority and instantaneous emergence of communism. Lenin warns that the dislodged capitalists would not lose their power at once, and the building of that transitional socialist state for culmination in communism would have to be a prolonged endeavour. That it would have to be a state, Gramsci leaves us in no doubt. Finally, "the creation of the proletarian state is not, in short, the act of a miracle worker. It too is a making, a process of development. It presupposes preparatory work of organisation and propaganda." Of course, it does not resemble the Stalinist state in form and content born out of exceptional historical conditions and led by a leader with less sensitivity and imagination than Lenin. But the discussion ought to call in question Chattopadhyay's impatient utopianism.

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 38, Mar31-Apr 6, 2013

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