The Russian Revolution полностью

The longer he observed the behavior of workers in and out of Russia, the more compelling was the conclusion, entirely contrary to the fundamental premise of Marxism, that labor (the “proletariat”) was not a revolutionary class at all: left to itself, it would rather settle for a larger share of the capitalists’ profits than overthrow capitalism. It was the same premise that moved Zubatov at this very time to conceive the idea of police trade unionism.* In a seminal article published at the end of 1900, Lenin uttered the unthinkable: “the labor movement, separated from Social-Democracy … inevitably turns bourgeois.”⁵² The implication of this startling statement was that unless the workers were led by a socialist party external to it and independent of it, they would betray their class interests. Only non-workers—that is, the intelligentsia—knew what these interests were. In the spirit of Mosca and Pareto, whose theories of political elites were then in vogue, Lenin asserted that the proletariat, for its own sake, had to be led by a minority of the elect:

No single class in history has ever attained mastery unless it has produced political leaders, its leading representatives, capable of organizing the movement and leading it.… It is necessary to prepare men who devote to the revolution not only their free evenings, but their entire lives.†

Now, inasmuch as workers have to earn a living, they cannot devote “their entire lives” to the revolutionary movement, which means that it follows from Lenin’s premise that the leadership of the worker’s cause has to fall on the shoulders of the socialist intelligentsia. This notion subverts the very principle of democracy: the will of the people is not what the living people want but what their “true” interests, as defined by their betters, are said to be.

Having deviated from Social-Democracy on the issue of labor, Lenin required little effort to break with it over the issue of the “bourgeoisie.” Observing the emergence of a vigorous and independent liberal movement, soon to coalesce in the Union of Liberation, Lenin lost faith in the ability of the poorer and less influential socialists to exercise “hegemony” over their “bourgeois” allies. In December 1900, following stormy meetings with Struve over the terms of liberal collaboration with Iskra. Lenin concluded that it was futile to expect the liberals to concede to the socialists leadership in the struggle against the autocracy: they would fight on their own and for their own non-revolutionary objectives, exploiting the revolutionaries to this end.⁵³ The “liberal bourgeoisie” was waging a spurious struggle against the monarchy and, therefore, constituted a “counterrevolutionary” class.⁵⁴ His rejection of the progressive role of the “bourgeoisie” signified a reversion to his previous People’s Will position and completed his break with Social-Democracy.

Having concluded that industrial labor was inherently non-revolutionary, indeed “bourgeois,” and the bourgeoisie “counterrevolutionary,” Lenin had two choices open to him. One was to give up the idea of revolution. This, however, he could not do, for the psychological reasons spelled out earlier: revolution to him was not the means to an end but the end itself. The other choice was to carry out a revolution from above, by conspiracy and coup d’état, without regard for the wishes of the masses. Lenin chose the latter course. In July 1917 he would write:

 … in times of revolution it is not enough to ascertain the “will of the majority”—no, one must be stronger at the decisive moment in the decisive place and win. Beginning with the medieval “peasant war” in Germany … until 1905, we see countless instances of how the better-organized, more conscious, better-armed minority imposed its will on the majority and conquered it.⁵⁵