Workers Power and the Russian Revolution

One good thing about the Internet is that you can across articles that really shake you up. One of these is Workers Power and the Russian Revolution: A review of Maurice Brinton’s For Workers Power. For a Leninist like me, I have the view of the Bolsheviks as being the leaders in the second Russian Revolution of 1917.

Brinton believes that the working class cannot have power in society, cannot liberate itself from its condition as a subjugated and exploited class, unless it gains direct management power over production. He believes that the working class must also gain control over the whole structure of the society to ensure its liberation. But he rejects the idea that the working class could have power in society if it is subjugated in production. This is the heart of Brinton’s argument.

This is very long article. The gist of it seems to be that the workers must bypass any party that claims to represent them. He contends that the Bolsheviks conned the factory committees out of political power by letting them run the factories.

However, recent experience in Argentina suggests that worker's control of the factories is not enough. Without a clear political direction, the Capitalists can start reclaiming each factory back one by one, after they recover from the shock of the revolution. This is still happening in Argentina as each shining light of worker's liberation is snuffed out.

This article turned out to be a Bolshevik-bashing exercise by anarchists. I did not finish reading it to see if it mentions the Kronstadt Mutiny.

The worker's party is not an elite organisation but attempts to gather in all of the workers who currently have a deeper understanding of the economic and poltical situation - the advanced workers (in advance of the general understanding by the proletariat). These share their experiences and deepen their understanding through debate, reading, and action.

When a revolutionary situation developes, it does so with extraordinary rapidity as we have witnessed in Argentina and Venezuela. It leaves no time to start reading Das Kapital and reflecting on it. The situation becomes becomes very fluid while the ruling class panics. During this time, decisive leadership is needed if the proletariat is win its demands and advance it cause for a fairer society.

This is where the Bolshevik party model comes into play. There is a tested and educated cadre ready to take action in educating the workers and intervening decisively in moments of crisis. The cadre know and trust each other through previous actions. The cadre should be known to the workers in general and be trusted by them. And trust can only be gained by principled action.