The Bolsheviks & workers' control: State & counter-revolution, by Maurice Brinton

The Russian Revolution in is entirety from 1905 to 1917 continues to be one of the great periods of history for the struggle for freedom by the working class against the capitalist class. 

A remarkable pamphlet by Maurice Brinton exposing the struggle that took place over the running of workplaces between workers and the new state in the Russian Revolution. In doing so not only does it demolish the romantic Leninist 'history' of the relationship between the working class and their party during these years (1917 - 21) but it also provides a backbone to understanding why the Russian revolution failed in the way it did.


See also Paul Mattick: Bolshevism and Stalinism: If one wants to use the term at all, the 'counter-revolution' possible in the Russia of 1917 was that inherent in the Revolution itself, that is, in the opportunity it offered the Bolsheviks to restore a centrally-directed social order for the perpetuation of the capitalistic divorce of the workers from the means of production and the consequent restoration of Russia as a competing imperialist power.

During the revolution, the interests of the rebelling masses and of the Bolsheviks merged to a remarkable degree. Beyond the temporary merger, there also existed a deep unity between the socialising concepts of the Bolsheviks and the consequences of the spontaneous movements. Too 'backward' for socialism but also too 'advanced' for liberal capitalism, the Revolution could end only in that consistent form of capitalism which the Bolsheviks considered a pre-condition of socialism, namely, state-capitalism.

By identifying themselves with the spontaneous movement they could not control, the Bolsheviks gained control over this movement as soon as it had spent itself in the realisation of its immediate goals. There were many such goals differently reached in different territories. Various layers of the peasantry satisfied, or failed to satisfy, divergent needs and desires. Their interests, however, had no real connection with those of the proletariat. The working class itself was split into various groups with a variety of specific needs and general plans. The petty-bourgeoisie had still other problems to solve. In brief, there was a spontaneous unity against the conditions of Czarism and war, but there was no unity in regard to immediate goals and future policy. It was not too difficult for the Bolsheviks to utilise this social division for building up their own power, which finally became stronger than the whole of society because it never faced society as a whole: <http://libcom.org/library/bolshevism-and-stalinism-paul-mattick>