The History of the Soviets

By Anton

The word ‘soviet’ is Russian for ‘council’, and these originated during the 1905 revolution in Russia. In 1905, the Russo-Japanese War increased the strain on Russian industrial production, the workers began to strike and rebel. They represented an autonomous workers movement, one that broke free from the government’s control over trade unions. Soviets sprang up throughout the industrial centers of Russia, usually organized on the factory level. The soviets disappeared after the Revolution of 1905, but re-emerged under Socialist leadership during the Revolution of 1917.

After the toppling of the tsar from power, soviets were once again organised under the provisional government to almost keep things together until the constituent assembly was elected.

At the beginning of the February Revolution of 1917, these soviets were under control of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and even the Mensheviks had a larger share of the elected representatives than the Bolsheviks. But as World War I continued, the Russian army met defeat after defeat, and the provisional government proved inadequate at establishing industrial peace, the Bolsheviks began to grow in support. By degrees, the Bolsheviks dominated with a leadership which demanded “all power to the soviets.”

The Bolsheviks promised the proletariat a state run by workers’ councils to overthrow the bourgeoisie’s main political body – the Provisional Government. In October 1917 (this actually happened in November, but the Julian calendar that was used in Russia at the time didn’t account for leap years, so was behind everyone who used the georgian calendar), the Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government, giving all power to the Soviets. It is important to note that the Soviets were heavily dominated by The Bolsheviks, which meant the Bolsheviks had the support of the vast majority of the proletariat.

Organisation

With village and factory soviets as a base, there arose a vast pyramid of district, cantonal, county and regional soviets, each with its executive soviet. Over and above these stood the “All-Russian Soviet Congress,” which appointed an “All-Russian Central Executive Committee” of no more than 200 members, which in turn chooses the “Soviet of People’s Commissaries” — the Ministry. Beginning with a minimum of three and maximum of 50 members for smaller communities, the maximum for town soviets was fixed at 1,000 members. The soviet system was seen as an alternative to parliamentary systems for administering republican governments. The deputies were accountable and were able to be recalled by those who elected them.

John Reed (author of ‘Ten days that shook the world’) wrote:
“Until February 1918 anybody could vote for delegates to the Soviets. Even had the bourgeoisie organised and demanded representation in the Soviets, they would have been given it. For example, during the regime of the Provisional Government there was bourgeois representation in the Petrograd Soviet – a delegate of the Union of Professional Men which comprised doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc”.

Leon Trotsky wrote in Terrorism and Communism (1920) that “In Petrograd, in November 1917, we also elected a Commune (Town Council) on the basis of the most “democratic” voting, without limitations for the bourgeoisie. These elections, being boycotted by the bourgeoisie parties, gave us a crushing majority. The “democratically” elected Council voluntarily submitted to the Petrograd Soviet…the Soviet Government placed no obstacle in the way of the bourgeois parties; and if the Cadets, the SRs and the Mensheviks, who had their press which was openly calling for the overthrow of the Soviet Government, boycotted the elections, it was only because at that time they still hoped soon to make an end of us with the help of armed force…If the Petrograd bourgeoisie had not boycotted the municipal elections, its representatives would have entered the Petrograd Council. They would have remained there up to the first Social Revolutionary and Cadet rising, after which…they would probably have been arrested if they did not leave the Council in good time, as at a certain moment did the bourgeois members of the Paris Commune.”

Unfortunately, due to the majority of parties support for the counter revolution, all opposition parties had to be banned. The Left SRs and Left internationalist Mensheviks were allowed to run for the soviets, and many of these people later joined the Bolsheviks, in fact the left SRs entered a coalition with the Bolsheviks from the start of Soviet rule. The ban on opposition parties, as well as general poverty due to a world war, a civil war and the fact that 14 foreign armies had invaded, ultimately lead to the Thermidorian reaction taking over the Bolshevik party, and Stalin and his bureaucratic clique ruled with an iron fist, crushing all autonomous workers organisations.

Capitalism is in a crisis, and the light at the end of a tunnel is an oncoming train. We must seize control of our workplaces, public places and town halls and turn them into forums to decide our collective future. Our workplaces must no longer belong to the few, but to the people who work there; most importantly, we should fight to get representatives of the proletariat into parliament, to increase class consciousness and to gain concessions from the bourgeoise; we must form a SPD-like mass party and form militias. It is only when the majority of the proletariat is class conscious that we can topple the bourgeois state and form soviets and workers committees, because the fruits of our labour should belong to us, not to a small elite.

The Zapatistas

By Anton

We don’t want to impose our solutions by force, we want to create a democratic space. We don’t see armed struggle in the classic sense of previous guerrilla wars, that is as the only way and the only all-powerful truth around which everything is organized. In a war, the decisive thing is not the military confrontation but the politics at stake in the confrontation. We didn’t go to war to kill or be killed. We went to war in order to be heard.
Subcomandante Marcos

This is a quote from the spokesperson of the EZLN- The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional).

I will refer to them as either the Zapatistas or the EZLN in this article.

Let us begin

History

The Zapatistas went public on January 1, 1994, the day when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect. On that day, they issued their First Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle and their Revolutionary Laws. The declaration was that of war on the Mexican government, which was so out of touch with those it was meant to govern, that the Zapatistas declared it illegitimate.

Their original goal was to instigate a revolution in all of Mexico, but as this failed, they used their uprising as a platform to call the world’s attention to their movement to protest the signing of NAFTA, which the EZLN believed would increase the gap between rich and poor people in Chiapas (southern Mexico, where the Zapatistas are based) – one that has sadly become true.

On the morning of January 1, 1994, an estimated 3,000 armed Zapatista insurgents seized towns and cities in Chiapas, including Ocosingo, Las Margaritas, Huixtán, Oxchuc, Rancho Nuevo, Altamirano, and Chanal. They freed the prisoners in the jail of San Cristóbal de las Casas, and torched several police buildings and military barracks in the area. The guerrillas enjoyed brief success, but the next day Mexican army forces counter-attacked and fierce fighting broke out in and around the market of Ocosingo. The Zapatista forces took heavy casualties, and retreated from the city into the surrounding jungle.

This is where the strategy changed.

Due to the failure of the Mexican Government to capture the Comandantes of the EZLN, they took up a policy of negotiation.
The Zapatistas changed tactics to mobilisation and a media campaign through numerous newspaper comunicados.

On June 28, 2005, the Zapatistas presented the Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, declaring their principles and vision for Mexico and the world. This declaration reiterates the support for the indigenous peoples, who comprise roughly one third of the population of the state of Chiapas, and extends the cause to include “all the exploited and dispossessed of Mexico”. It also expresses the movement’s sympathy to the international alter-globalization movement, and offers to provide material aid to those in Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and elsewhere, with whom they make common cause. The declaration ends with an exhortation for all who have more respect for humanity than for money to join with the Zapatistas in the struggle for social justice both in Mexico and abroad. The declaration called for an alternative national campaign (the “Other Campaign”) as an alternative to the presidential campaign. In preparation for this alternative campaign, the Zapatistas invited to their territory over 600 national leftist organizations, indigenous groups and non-governmental organizations in order to listen to their claims for human rights in a series of biweekly meetings that culminated in a plenary meeting on September 16, the day Mexico celebrates its independence from Spain.

The most recent campaign was when the Zapatistas marched through the streets on the 22nd of December, one day after the start of the new Mayan calendar. They marched, all in balaclavas, in complete silence.

Ideology

The Zapatistas have an ideology that can only be described as libertarian socialism. The Zapatista slogan is that of mutual aid, formulated by Peter Kropotkin, the ‘inventor’ of anarchist communism:
“For everyone, everything. For us, nothing” (Para todos todo, para nosotros nada).
The EZLN opposes economic globalization, arguing that it severely and negatively affects the peasant way of life of its indigenous support base and oppressed people worldwide.

The Zapatista controlled areas are ran on a bottom-up democracy system, similar to soviet democracy, limiting public servants’ terms to only two weeks, not using visible organization leaders, and constantly referring to the people they are governing for major decisions, strategies and conceptual visions.

“my real commander is the people”
Subcomandante Marcos

Unlike other ‘revolutionary’ movements like FARC and shining path, the EZLN, before their uprising in 1994 explicitly defined a right of the people to resist any unjust actions of the EZLN. They also defined a right of the people to:

demand that the revolutionary armed forces not intervene in matters of civil order or the disposition of capital relating to agriculture, commerce, finances, and industry, as these are the exclusive domain of the civil authorities, elected freely and democratically.
“The people should acquire and possess arms to defend their persons, families and property, according to the laws of disposition of capital of farms, commerce, finance and industry, against the armed attacks committed by the revolutionary forces or those of the government.”

Subcomandante Marcos

The following information comes from the documentary ‘a place called Chiapas’
As a young man, Subcommander Marcos was politically radicalized by the Tlatelolco massacre (2 October 1968) of students and civilians by the Mexican federal government; consequently, he became a militant in the Maoist National Liberation Forces. In 1983, he went to the mountains of Chiapas to convince the poor, indigenous Maya population to organize and launch a proletarian revolution against the Mexican bourgeoisie and the federal government. After hearing his proposition, the Chiapanecs “just stared at him”, and replied that they were not urban workers, that, from their perspective, the land was not property, but the heart of the communities.

Imagine a person who comes from an urban culture. One of the world’s biggest cities, with a university education, accustomed to city life. It’s like landing on another planet. The language, the surroundings are new. You’re seen as an alien from outer space. Everything tells you: “Leave. This is a mistake. You don’t belong in this place”; and it’s said in a foreign tongue. But they let you know, the people, the way they act; the weather, the way it rains; the sunshine; the earth, the way it turns to mud; the diseases; the insects; homesickness. You’re being told. “You don’t belong here”. If that’s not a nightmare, what is?

Marcos’ political philosophy is often characterized as Marxist and his populist writing, which concentrates on unjust treatment of people by both business and the State, underlines some of the commonalities the Zapatista ideology shares with Libertarian Socialism and Anarchism.

When asked about whether he is worried about the risk of assassination, he relied with this:

“We don’t fear to die struggling. The good word has already been planted in fertile soil. This fertile soil is in the heart of all of you, and it is there that Zapatista dignity flourishes.”

You can find many interviews with Marcos on you tube. I recommend checking them out.

Daily Headline – 21/02/13

Today, 165 years ago in 1848, the manifesto of the communist party was published.

This book should not be taken as a holy one, as Marxism is a science, and like any other science, needs to be updated and adapted when new evidence or new factors and variables appear. If one was to read this historical document (which it has become) they would see it in complete opposition to the USSR and it’s satellite states, as Marx and Engels were exiled due to censorship of the press and an oppressive government.

We must take the parts that are still relevant, adapting or updating if necessary, those that are unable to be updated to our present world must be thrown into the rubbish bin of history. Maybe it is time to write a 21st century communist manifesto.

Argentina ignores Falkland Islanders right to self-determination

By Leon J Williams

Argentine arrogance knows no bounds as foreign minister Hector Timerman refused to meet representatives of the Falkland Islands.

The government of the Falkland Islands and their wishes have been completely ignored by Argentina.

Argentina is accusing the UK of continued colonialism saying that the islanders were transferred there and have no right to state the island as theirs.

A bit of history

Spain and Great Britain argues over the ownership of the islands in the early 1700s.
France established a naval base in 1764.
Unaware of the French base in the East Britain establishes a settlement in 1765.

At no point have the Falkland islands been Argentine.

Finally

It is possible that as Argentina was formally Spanish they feel there is a claim but such a weak argument would allow any former Spanish colony to make the same claim!

The progressive left feels that the islanders should be the ones who determine their future, not Argentina and not the UK.
If the islanders (as has been stated by themselves) want to remain part of the UK then that is their choice, no-one else’s!

A referendum on the Falkland Islands political status will be held in March 2013.

Sparticists uprising

By George Volkov

 

 

On the 15th January 1919, the freikorps, a right-wing, nationalist paramilitary group, made up of ex-great war soldiers, murdered Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, by beating them too the floor with rifle butts, shooting them in the head, and finally, throwing their bodies in the freezing landwehr canal.
Post war Germany was disastrous: money had to be spent instantly as it was constantly loosing value, wheelbarrows of money were needed to buy bread, and the allies still demanded their £6,600,000,000 reparations.

The government was weak, and the army was reduced to 100,000 men. The main industrial areas were given independence, which meant Germany’s economy couldn’t recover. It had lost vast amounts of it coal, and 15% of its arable land. It was no surprise that when Germany couldn’t pay it’s second reparation payment, and France invaded the Ruhr, that the workers went on strike, with signs of ‘no French or dogs’ on cafés. They were hailed as heroes, but by doing this, the German economy got much worse.

I hope you enjoyed the background information. I also hope the verbosity of this article has not bored you. This is where we get to the main point of this article: the Sparticists.
The Spartacists were actually founded in the summer of 1915 when both Luxemburg and Liebknecht left the SDP because of the party’s support for Germany’s participation in the First World War. The SDP were the social democracy party, the name for socialists around the globe. The social-democrats abandoned revolution, in favour of reforms, abandoning Marxism, and in a sense, socialism, becoming tools of the bourgeoisie, no longer friends of the proletariat.
In December 1918, some of the Spartacists – including Luxemburg and Liebknecht – founded the German Communist Party. Luxemburg had written numerous pamphlets about Lenin and how his leadership of the Russian Revolution would be of such great value to Russia.

While her political philosophy may well have merited such pamphlets, many Germans (and Europeans in general) were terrified of the ‘Red Plague’ in Russia and the adoption of the name ‘communist’ was looked upon with distrust. Many soldiers had returned from the war fronts massively disillusioned with the German government and hugely suspicious of anything or anyone that had left-wing political beliefs, ven the SDP, which can be compared to labour in the UK, or the democrats in the US. Many who had quit the German Army joined the right wing Freikorps. These would have been battle-hardened men who had been subjected to military discipline.

The leaders of the Spartacus League, Luxemburg and Liebknecht (I hope I have not repeated myself too much), were dissatisfied with the actions of the post-war SPD government. The SPD government had compromised with the conservative military and right-wing militias, promising reform rather than revolution in return for their support and aid in returning the country to the semblance of order. Alongside protesting workers, Liebknecht and Luxemburg led the Spartacist Uprising in an attempt to overthrow the government on the 1st of January, 1919.
Barricades were erected, newspaper offices were seized, printing revolutionary paper, such as ‘red flag’, workers armed themselves, hoping to save Germany through socialism! Unfortunately, the SDP enlisted the help of the Freikorps, who brutally put down the revolution, arresting Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg on the 15th of January, beating them with rifle butts, shooting them in the heads, and throwing Rosa Luxemburg in the Landwehr canal.
Every year, German socialists and communists still go to Luxemburg’s and Liebknecht’s grave, on the 15th of January, which shows that they are still important in politics today, and soon, they may be as important as they were in wartime, and post-war Germany.
They died, as all Marxists should, after attempting to make the world a better, fairer, more equal place.

The 24th of January will mark the anniversary of the death of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin

By George Volkov

The 24th of January will mark the anniversary of the death of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin.
Nearly a century has passed since Lenin passed away, at the early age of 53, due to a four strokes, and 2 gunshot wounds, that were left inside his body because it would be more risk to him than to take them out. Now, no matter what you think of Lenin, you can agree with me that it took a lot to bring him down.
After leading the Bolshevik party and Soviets (workers councils) to seize power from the corrupt, rich Kerensky, Lenin was elected as the chairman of the people’s council of commissars, a name thought of by Trotsky, to distance itself from the “bourgeois” terms ‘minister’ and ‘cabinet’.
Due to the dire state Russia was in, after world war one, Lenin had to sign the treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany in march. Russia could not carry on the war, it was physically impossible and would destroy the country. If you think Versailles was harsh, look at these figures:
A quarter of the Russian Empire’s population
A quarter of its industry
Nine-tenths of its coal mines
Had to pay 6 billion marks

And yet the Germans were enraged at the ‘harsh’ terms of Versailles.
Lenin stayed true to his slogan the slogan that started the revolution:
Peace, land and bread, and you can’t say that for most politicians.

Some may say Lenin was brutal, some a tyrant, I myself see Lenin as a man who was stubborn in his politics, and relentless in his attacks on his opponents. Some may claim Lenin was like Stalin, but Lenin argues with those who disagreed with him, what did Stalin do? Some socialists frown upon the breaking up of the constituent assembly. But we’re the candidates accountable and recallable like the soviets?

Due to the civil war in Russian, and the 14 invading foreign powers, Lenin had to enact harsh policies- War Communism. This lead to much opposition from the left, and on the 30th August.
The Red army did gain widespread support among the population. The charisma of its leader, Leon Trotsky, was a big reason, as Trotsky was an outstanding orator and tactician. The Bolsheviks had given the peasants the land they had worked on all their lives, whilst being oppressed by the landlords. The white army, or armies, as they were just loosely organised anti-Bolsheviks, killed Bolsheviks in the towns they conquered, took from peasants and were generally hostile to the population.

Lenin was, and will remain, a man of great controversy. Some men see him as a brilliant theoretician, leader and politician, others as a brute, a tyrant and a dictator. I do not subscribe to the cult of personality around Lenin, as that was fostered by the Stalinists. On the contrary, I will constantly criticise and try to improve the ideas and actions of Lenin. As Lenin updated the ideas of Marx for the 20th century, we must update Lenin’s ideas for the 21st century.
For the meanwhile, Lenin’s ideas and actions are debated on by the left and right alike, and will continue to be, as men do, and always will have different opinions.
I shall leave you with this quote:

“Through the ages of world history thousands of leaders and scholars appeared who spoke eloquent words, but these remained but words. You, Lenin, were an exception. You not only spoke and taught us, but translated your words into deeds.”
Sun Yat-Sen