The famous English writer HG Wells, author of War of the Worlds, dismissed Marx’s Capital as “a pretentious monument of pedantry”. In his book Russia in Shadows he attacked the Russian Revolution, the new Soviet power and Lenin, based on a visit to the USSR in 1921:
“The great mass of the Russian population is an entirely illiterate peasantry, grossly materialistic and politically indifferent. They are superstitious, they are for ever crossing themselves and kissing images,—in Moscow particularly they were at it—but they are not religious. They have no will in things political and social beyond their immediate satisfactions.”
“This Bolshevik Government is at once the most temerarious and the least experienced governing body in the world. In some directions its incompetence is amazing. In most its ignorance is profound.”
“The Soviet Government is a government by fanatics and doctrinaires, without training, without knowledge, and without wisdom.”
“The Soviet rule is a monstrous improvisation, a government of decrees and catchwords, but of no practical competence.”
So, according to Wells, the Russian population consisted of ignorant peasants, either indifferent or subdued by fear and violence. The revolution meant nothing to them and only mattered to Lenin and his circle. He wants us to conclude that the revolution was merely the result of a “small group of insane people”.
Personal motivation?
What Wells describes is a distilled version of the bourgeois view that sees the Russian Revolution as an accidental and self-contained incident. In this view, a revolution occurred in Russia purely due to personal motivations of figures like Lenin. This also leads to the comforting conclusion that if we suppress opposition sufficiently and perfect the theatrical performance of parliamentary democracy, such revolutions won’t occur elsewhere.
In reality, the Russian Revolution was first and foremost a continuation of the 1905 Revolution, which was triggered by Russia’s defeat in the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War. In 1905, a workers’ uprising demanding better working conditions and political reforms was joined by peasants and students. This revolution, often called “the General Rehearsal”, demonstrated that the Tsarist regime could not survive by reforms in the long run. It also brought forth the Soviets—workers’ councils—which would later become instruments of revolutionary self-organization, further developed in 1917. After the uprising was crushed by the Tsarist regime, a period of repression ensued until 1917. However, Russia’s rapid decline in World War I, economic collapse, and harsh conditions created by accelerated industrialization prepared the ground for the February Uprising of 1917.
One of the most important events leading up to the October Revolution was the February uprising against Tsarism. On February 23rd, in commemoration of International Women’s Day, thousands of female workers took to the streets following factory meetings. They were soon joined by 30,000 angry industrial workers whose strikes had been broken with lockouts. At the same time, soldiers also mutinied.
The February Revolution was not led by Bolsheviks or Mensheviks, but was a spontaneous outburst by the working class that initiated mass strikes against the Tsarist regime, and soldiers—who were also mainly workers and peasants—in open revolt. Likewise, the October Revolution cannot simply be explained as the Bolsheviks overthrowing the Provisional Government, which included Mensheviks. This was a period of dual power between the Soviets and the Provisional Government—not merely between the Bolsheviks and the Provisional Government. The Bolshevik slogan “All Power to the Soviets!” gains its true significance in this context.
The “July Days,” contrary to popular belief, did not begin under the direction of the Bolshevik leadership. They broke out spontaneously, despite Lenin’s warnings that the time for uprising had not yet come. As the demonstrations grew, the Bolsheviks took the decision to assume leadership and guide the protests, so the worst could be avoided. Up until this point, the Bolsheviks were still a minority in the Soviets. Not a single party was fully prepared for a mass uprising. In other words, the so-called ignorant and indifferent “rabble” that Wells mocked were rising up and attempting to govern themselves.
In our dreams, people may wake up one morning to find themselves in a country where a revolution has occurred, but history never works this way. Even today, the tendency to assess whether objective and subjective conditions for revolution have matured based only on party membership numbers or vote shares still prevails. Yes, the brutal expansion of capitalism in the early 20th century and the severe pressures it placed on the working class constituted the objective conditions for revolution. But as Lenin clearly stated,
“After the first socialist revolution of the proletariat, and the overthrow of the bourgeoisie in some country, the proletariat of that country remains for a long time weaker than the bourgeoisie, simply because of the latter’s extensive international links, and also because of the spontaneous and continuous restoration and regeneration of capitalism and the bourgeoisie by the small commodity producers of the country which has overthrown the bourgeoisie. The more powerful enemy can be vanquished only by exerting the utmost effort, and by the most thorough, careful, attentive, skilful and obligatory use of any, even the smallest, rift between the enemies, any conflict of interests among the bourgeoisie of the various countries and among the various groups or types of bourgeoisie within the various countries, and also by taking advantage of any, even the smallest, opportunity of winning a mass ally, even though this ally is temporary, vacillating, unstable, unreliable and conditional. Those who do not understand this reveal a failure to understand even the smallest grain of Marxism, of modern scientific socialism in general. Those who have not proved in practice, over a fairly considerable period of time and in fairly varied political situations, their ability to apply this truth in practice have not yet learned to help the revolutionary class in its struggle to emancipate all toiling humanity from the exploiters. And this applies equally to the period before and after the proletariat has won political power.”
Contrary to Wells’ notion, the Russian Revolution was not a singular, otherworldly event. Revolutionary processes in line with Marx’s predictions were unfolding around the globe, particularly in Europe. The German Communist Party had millions of members at the beginning of the century. Workers associated with the Spartacist League, which had broken away from the party, initiated the 1918–1919 German Revolution, despite Rosa Luxemburg’s warnings that it was premature. The Bavarian Socialist Republic was established—albeit briefly—in 1919. Between 1916–1921, Ireland’s War of Independence was underway. Italy saw significant revolutionary uprisings between 1917–1921, starting with the Turin Workers’ Councils. And in Hungary, the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic under Béla Kun was established in 1919–1920 before being suppressed.
Lenin’s Role in the October Revolution
There is no doubt that Lenin played a decisive role in the Bolsheviks’ ascent to power in October 1917. This is a commonly known fact. But less known are the internal struggles within the Bolshevik leadership that consolidated his decisive role—especially his confrontations with “Old Bolsheviks” like Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin. Lenin clearly saw that the critical moment was approaching. He believed the party leadership had failed to draw the necessary conclusions, and that the Central Committee was too passive and hesitant. He insisted on immediate action to catch the enemy off guard and seize power—leaving the rest to be dealt with later. Had this not happened, he believed the masses would withdraw support from the Bolsheviks just as they had from the Mensheviks or the Socialist Revolutionaries.
What was the party’s stance toward him? Some called him a madman and a lunatic. When the Menshevik Minister of the Provisional Government, Irakli Tsereteli, said at the First All–Russian Congress of Soviets in June 1917
“there is no political party in Russia that would express its readiness to take power entirely upon itself”
Lenin snappy replied
“There is such a party!”
referring to the Bolsheviks, which were a small minority at that moment. Lenin’s answer was met with laughter by a big section of the Congress. Lenin replied “You can laugh as much as you like”… He was vindicated by events only a few months later.
To understand Lenin’s actions during this period, we must remember one crucial fact: Lenin had unlimited faith in the masses’ ability to carry out the revolution—but he did not hold the same certainty about his own party’s cadre. He said in a letter in 1917,
“But “the country” of the workers and the poor peasants. I assure you, Citizen Maklakov, is a thousand times more leftward than the Chernovs and the Tseretelis, and a hundred times more leftward than we are. The future will prove this to you.”
Lenin’s clear stance on rejecting the Provisional Government and the parliament—which he saw as a reactionary institution—his predictions, anxieties, and impatience regarding revolutionary timing, and his confidence in the autonomous power of workers and peasants, along with his battles against the “Old Bolsheviks,” provide a perfect example of revolutionary strategy and theoretical clarity.
Lenin’s most important work demonstrating his revolutionary leadership is the April Theses. It is a foundational text not only for its call to establish Workers’, Agricultural Workers’, and Peasants’ Soviets throughout the country, from top to bottom, but also for its emphasis on the core principles underlying such Soviets. Among these, the recall and rotation principle is especially critical. Rotation—meaning the limitation of terms and the right to recall elected representatives—is vital for preempting bureaucracy, which stands in opposition to self-governance.
Lenin’s call in the April Theses for a new International against social chauvinists and the “Kautskyite Centre” remains critical today. The establishment of the Third International in 1919 was a testament to his commitment to world revolution.
In the April Theses, Lenin also challenged in essence the theory of “stages” in revolution with his insistence that the Provisional Government, which included the bourgeoisie, was reactionary and that the Soviets should wield power. Debates about whether a bourgeois revolution had been completed or whether there were “enough” workers—still common in some circles in Turkey, and even more so during the 1960s and 70s—are, from Lenin’s perspective, primitive and absurd.
According to Lenin, soviets of workers, soldiers, and peasants are the legitimate organs of power, and political parties should seek influence within them. The opposite—states ruled by parties instead of soviets—leads to bureaucracy. In some of his writings, Lenin referred to the system he envisioned as the “commune state.” In his later years, particularly during his illness, Lenin observed the creeping signs of bureaucratization and issued sharp self-criticisms about his own pragmatic concessions that may have contributed to it. He also started organising a struggle against the bureaucracy, together with Trotsky, but his health prevented him from following through.
The greatest barrier against bureaucratization is socialist democracy. The democratic life of the party and the state—including participation in decision-making, access to information and education, and equal representation—is, in a broader sense, also a safeguard for the soviet system, which assumes the task of planning production and distributing resources.
In summary, Lenin’s greatest achievement was the concretization of Marxist theory into revolutionary strategy. Today, it is our collective responsibility to carry forward the struggle for justice, freedom, equality and socialism by drawing lessons from Lenin’s legacy. The degrading depictions of ordinary people and revolutionaries of this era is a bourgeois relic of the past, and should remain so.
Suggested Reading:
- Leon Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution I–II–III..
- Leon Trotsky, On Lenin, https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1925/lenin/index.htm
- V.I. Lenin, April Theses and the October Revolution
- V.I. Lenin, The Collapse of the Second International
- John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World
