Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder

Front matter

"Left Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder

BY N. LENIN

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION THE MARXIAN EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY 5941 Jos. Campau Ave., Detroit, Mich. 1921

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

This work by Comrade Lenin shares a position of equal importance with that of any of the works that he has presented to the movement. Viewed from a tactical angle, its value can not be over-estimated. In the books, etc., that have previously come to hand from Lenin, we have generally had a statement of tactical principles, but in this work we find a more detailed application of these principles to the concrete struggle. Therefore, this book has a great value as an aid to the understanding of the principles that have guided this great Marxian in his activity in the Russian Revolution.

It is important to note that Comrade Lenin makes no extravagant claims for the Russian Revolution as a guide to the revolution in other lands. Those that have aimed at following every step of the Russian Revolution will find small consolation in this volume. However, he says: "One must admit some fundamental features of our revolution to be of such international significance." There is no doubt that the Russian Revolution is properly the guide for the Communist elements of the world and many of the secondary as well as fundamental features of the revolution will find their place in the international revolution. But it would be "erroneous not to keep in mind that, after the proletarian revolution in at least one of the advanced countries, things will in all probability take a sharp turn; Russia will cease to be the model, and will become again the backward (in the 'Soviet' and Socialist sense) country."

The various factions of "Left" Communists with whom Lenin deals have their replicas in America and we can learn considerable by correctly relating this book to American conditions. We, too, have our "Left" Communists who refused to work with the conservative and backward elements in the "Reactionary Trade Unions." If the Bolsheviki could work with the conservative Trade Unions in Russia it is more than correct that we can and must work with them here. There were more reasons for the organization of "new, spick and span 'Workers' Unions,' guiltless of bourgeois-democratic prejudices, guiltless of craft feeling and narrow professionalism" in Russia than there is, for doing the same thing in the United States at this time. When the Bolsheviki became a factor in Russia the Trade Union movement was a negligible quantity. In fact as late as the Third Trade Union Conference in 1917 only 1,475,249 workers were represented. This organization, in itself, could not have been much of an obstacle to the organization of "pure" unions by the Bolsheviki. If this movement of less than a million and a half workers was considered to be the mass movement of a country of one hundred and eighty-five million population, how much more so is it true that the mass movement of America is made up of an organization of four million workers in the American Federation of Labor? Upon the face of it, it would appear that this principle of working within reactionary unions would apply to America and unless we have evidence that it is unsound in its application to conditions here, one is justified in assuming that it does. This, of course, will be hard for some elements in America to swallow and considerable discussion and controversy will occur in the movement in the United States before this is finally settled. We have to admit that Lenin is correct when he says: "There can be no doubt that Messrs. Gompers, Jouhaux, Henderson, Legien, etc., are very grateful to such 'Left' revolutionaries who, like the German 'Opposition-in-principle' Party (Heaven, preserve us from such 'principles') or like revolutionaries in the American 'Industrial Workers of the World,' preach the necessity of quitting reactionary Trade Unions and of refusing to work in them."

Lenin's position upon participation in Bourgeois Parliaments is even more decided and apparently more directly applicable to American conditions. He demonstrates that the parliament was not outworn in Germany upon the basis that it was still able to attract the workers to its support. He asks: "How is it possible to say that 'parliamentarism is politically worn out' when 'millions' and 'legions' of proletarians not only stand up for parliamentarism generally, but are directly counter-revolutionary?" If this position of participation in parliaments is correct in Germany, it is much more so in America. Here the workers not only stand up for parliaments generally but also are counter-revolutionary. Less than two million of the workers in this country were sufficiently awake at the last election (1920) to break away from the so-called old parties. In the face of this it seems apparent that it is necessary to take a revolutionary use of the bourgeois parliaments in this country. Boycotting of elections appears to be permissible only under unusual circumstances which seldom, if ever, arise in countries where parliamentary institutions are highly developed. Certainly no reasons have been shown for the boycotting of elections in the United States by those advocating such boycott. "It is just because, in Western Europe, the backward masses of the workers and the smaller peasantry are much more strongly imbued with bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices than they are in Russia, that it is only in the midst of such institutions as bourgeois parliaments that Communists can and should carry on their long and stubborn struggle to expose, disperse and overcome these prejudices, stopping at nothing."

For academicians within our movement in America this book should contain some good food for thought. Communism appears here as a fighting organization full of work, full of life. Within its folds there is no room for those mental eunuchs who can produce no offspring in revolutionary action. The intricate philosophic points of Communism are something more than mental gymnastics with which to exercise one's minds. They are a guide to action! Those that cannot translate Communism into terms of action, that the masses understand and need, have no place in Communism as expounded in this work. Those who academically adhere to the principle of "no compromise" whatever, will no doubt take issue with Lenin in the position that he lays down in this work. This is, of course, permissible. No one, but a fool, would contend that merely because Lenin says something that it is correct. However, the fact that he holds a certain position adds weight to it, and this question can well be approached by the reader with an open and considerate mind. As outlined in this volume, the question runs so counter to everything that most Marxists have maintained in this country in the past, that there is no doubt there will be many a heated debate before the thing is definitely settled in the movement here. American Marxists have been forced by this fight against the worst kind of opportunism to preach a general tactic of "no compromise" and it will be with considerable reluctance that they give up that position. However, if we accept as realists what we have always maintained in the past—that "Marxism is not a dogma but a guide to action" we cannot refuse to consider carefully Lenin's position upon this question, and if finding it correct seek the best posible application of it to American conditions. We cannot expect to lay down rules and regulations that will guide the American movement for all time. That would be a Utopian absurdity. "To invent such a formula or general rule as 'NO COMPROMISES,' which would serve in all cases, is an absurdity." The argument will be raised that once we start compromising there will be no end to the practice and opportunism will secure a foothold and again become the order of the day. That since one compromise is bad, all compromises are bad. Lenin says: "In practical questions of the policy appropriate to each separate or specific historic moment it is important to be able to distinguish those in which are manifested the main species of inadmissible treacherous compromises, which embody opportunism detrimental to the revolutionary class, and to direct all possible efforts towards elucidating and fighting them." The whole "history of Bolshevism, both before and after the October Revolution, is full of instances of manœuvring, temporizing and compromising with others, the bourgeois parties included!" This will not set well upon the stomachs of some of our "no compromise" comrades who see the necessity of always and at all times keeping our tactics clear of so-called "political manœuvring." However, "To carry on a war for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie, a war a hundred times more difficult, prolonged and complicated than the most stubborn of ordinary wars between countries, and to refuse beforehand to manœu- vre, to utilize the conflict (even though temporary) of interests between one's enemies; to refuse co-operation and compromise with possible (even though transient, unstable, vacillating, and conditional) allies—is not this an infinitely laughable thing? Is it not as though in the difficult ascent of an unexplored and heretofore inaccessible mountain, we were to renounce beforehand the idea that we might have to go sometimes in zig-zags, sometimes retracing our steps, sometimes giving up the course once selected and trying various others?" One certainly is justified in using every strategy in fighting the class war both against the capitalist class itself and its henchmen within our ranks. We will find it increasingly necessary to manœuvre and "stall" as the class-struggle grows more acute. This tactic is justified by necessity. "To bind one's hands beforehand, openly to tell the enemy, who is now better armed than we are, whether or not we shall fight him, is stupidity and not revolutionism. To accept battle when this is obviously profitable to the enemy, and not to oneself, is a crime; and those politicians of the revolutionary class who are unable to 'manœuvre, temporize, compromise,' in order to evade an obviously unprofitable battle, are good for nothing."

One must not lose sight of the fact that the position that Lenin lays down is for a movement that is well organized, disciplined and understands what it wants. A too literal application of these tactics to America may cause us a lot of trouble in the future, and we must study the conditions carefully. A well organized and disciplined organization is lacking in America and it will be some time before one is built up that will function. In the meantime a generous discussion of this work should help the organization of such a movement and speed the day of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat in America.

D. E. B.

Chapter 1

"LEFT WING" COMMUNISM:

AN INFANTILE DISORDER

By NIKOLAI LENIN

CHAPTER I.

IN WHAT SENSE CAN WE SPEAK OF THE INTERNATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION?

During the first months after the Russian proletariat had conquered political power (October 25 [November 7], 1917,) it might have seemed that the proletarian revolution in other countries would be very little like ours, because of the tremendous differences between backward Russia and the advanced countries of Western Europe. But we have now considerable experience, of an international scope, which pretty definitely establishes the fact that some fundamental features of our revolution are not local, not peculiarly national, not Russian only, but that they are of international significance. And I say "international significance", not in the broad sense of the word; not some features, but all fundamental and many secondary features are, in the sense of their influence upon other countries, of international significance. Not in the strictest sense of the word—that is, taking it in its essence—or in the sense of the historical inevitability of a repetition, on an international scale, of what we in Russia have gone through; but one must admit some fundamental features of our revolution to be of such international significance. Of course, it would be the greatest mistake to exaggerate this truth and to apply it to more than the fundamental features of our revolution. It would be likewise erroneous to keep in mind that, after the proletarian revolution in at least one of the advanced countries, things will in all probability take a sharp turn; Russia will cease to be the model, and will become again the backward (in the "Soviet" and Socialist sense) country.

But at this historical moment such is the state of affairs that the Russian example reveals something quite essential to all countries in their near and inevitable future. The advanced workers in every land have long understood it—although in many cases they did not so much understand it as feel it, through the instinct of their revolutionary class. Hence the international "significance" (in the strict sense of the word) of the Soviet power, as well as of the fundamentals of Bolshevik theory and tactics. This the "revolutionary" leaders of the Second International—Kautsky in Germany, Otto Bauer and Friedrich Adler in Austria—failed to understand and, therefore, turned into reactionaries and advocates of the worst kind of opportunism and social treason. The anonymous pamphlet, The World Revolution, which appeared in 1919 in Vienna, shows plainly their whole process of thought or, what is more correct, all their appalling imbecility, pedantry, dastardliness and betrayal of working-class interests under the guise of "defending" the idea of "world revolution." Of this pamphlet we shall speak at greater length on some other occasion. Here we shall remark only this: that in the time, now long gone by, when Kautsky was yet a follower of Marx and not the renegade he is today, approaching the question as an historian, he foresaw the possibility of the revolutionary spirit of the Russian proletariat serving as an example for Western Europe. This was in 1902, when Kautsky wrote an article headed "The Slavs and the Revolution," published in the revolutionary organ, Iskra. This is what he wrote:—

"At the present time (in contradistinction to the year 1848) it may be assumed that not only have the Slavs entered the ranks of the revolutionary peoples, but that the center of gravity of revolutionary thought and revolutionary action is moving farther and farther to the Slavs. The revolutionary center is moving from the West to the East. In the first half of the nineteenth century this center was in France, and sometimes in England. In 1848 Germany entered the ranks of revolutionary nations. The new century is being ushered in by such events as induce us to think that we are confronted by a further removal of the revolutionary center, namely, to Russia. Russia, which has imbibed so much revolutionary initiative from the West, is now perhaps itself ready to serve as a source of revolutionary energy. The Russian revolutionary movement, which is now bursting into flame, will, perhaps, become the strongest means for the extermination of the senile philistinism and sedate politics which is beginning to spread in our ranks, and will again rekindle the militant spirit and the passionate devotion to our great ideals. Russia has long ceased to be for Western Europe a simple prop for reaction and obsolutism. The case now may be said to be reversed. It is Western Europe that is now becoming the mainstay of reaction and absolutism in Russia. As far as the Czar is concerned, the Russian revolutionists would perhaps have coped with him long ago, had they not been compelled to fight simultaneously his ally, European capital. Let us hope that they will find themselves able this time to settle both enemies, and that the new 'Holy Alliance' will crash to the ground sooner than its predecessor. But however the present struggle in Russia may end, the blood of the martyrs who have sprung from it, unfortunately in too great numbers, will not have been shed in vain. It will nourish the shoots of the social revolution throughout the civilized world, and make them flourish more quickly. In 1848 the Slavs were that crackling frost which killed the flowers of spring of the awakening peoples; perhaps now they are destined to be that storm which will break through the ice of reaction and will irresistably bring with it the new, happy spring of the peoples." (Karl Kautsky: "The Slavs and the Revolution," article in Iskra, the Russian Social-Democratic revolutionary paper, 1902, No. 18, March 10).

How well did Kautsky write eighteen years ago!

Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.

ONE OF THE PRINCIPAL CONDITIONS OF THE SUCCESS OF THE BOLSHEVIKS.

Probably almost everyone can see now that the Bolsheviks could not have maintained themselves in power for two and a half years, nor even for two and a half months, without the most stringent, I may say iron, discipline in our party, and without the fullest and unreserved support rendered it by the working class, that is, by that part of it which is sensible, honest, devoted, influential, capable of leading and of inspiring the backward masses with enthusiasm.

The dictatorship of the proletariat is the fiercest and most merciless war of the new class against its more powerful enemy, the bourgeoisie, whose power of resistance increases tenfold after its overthrow, even though overthrown in only one country. The power of the bourgeoisie rests not alone upon international capital, upon its strong international connections, but also upon the force of habit, on the force of small industry of which, unfortunately, there is plenty left, and which daily, hourly, gives birth to capitalism and bourgeoisie, spontaneously and on a large scale. Because of all this, the dictatorship of the proletariat is indispensable. Victory over the bourgeoisie is impossible without a long, persistent, desperate, life and death struggle: a struggle which requires persistence, discipline, firmness, inflexibility and concerted will-power.

I repeat, the experience of the triumphant dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia has furnished an object-lesson to those who are incapable of reasoning or who have had no opportunity to reason on this question. It proves that unqualified centralization and the strictest discipline of the proletariat are among the principal conditions for the victory over the bourgeoisie. Here people usually stop. They do not inquire sufficiently into the meaning of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and under what conditions it is possible. Would it not be better to accompany the greetings to the Soviet power and the Bolsheviks by a more searching analysis of the reasons why the latter were able to institute a discipline necessary for the revolutionary proletariat?

Bolshevism, as a current of political thought and as a political party, dates back to the year 1903. Only the history of its whole period of existence can explain satisfactorily why it was able to institute and maintain, under most difficult conditions, the iron discipline necessary for the proletarian victory.

And, first of all, the question arises—Upon what rests the discipline of the revolutionary party of the proletariat? How is it controlled? How is it strengthened? First, by the class-consciousness of the proletarian vanguard and by its devotion to the Revolution, by its steadiness, spirit of self-sacrifice, and heroism. Secondly, by its ability to mix with the toiling masses, to become intimate and, to a certain extent if you will, fuse itself with the non-proletarian toilers. Thirdly, by the soundness of the political leadership, carried out by this vanguard, and by its correct political strategy and tactics, based on the idea that the workers from their own experience must convince themselves of the soundness of this political leadership, strategy and tactics. Without all these conditions discipline in a revolutionary party, really capable of being a party of the foremost class whose object is to overthrow the bourgeoisie and transform society, is impossible of realization. Without these conditions all attempts to create discipline result in empty phrases, in mere contortions. On the other hand, these conditions will not arise suddenly. They are created through long effort and bitter experience. Their creation is facilitated by correct revolutionary theory, which in its turn is not dogmatic, but which forms itself in its finality only through close connection with the practice of the real mass and truly revolutionary movement.

If Bolshevism could successfully, and under the greatest difficulties, achieve in 1917–1920 the strictest centralization and iron discipline, it was due simply to a series of historical peculiarities of Russia.

On the one hand, Bolshevism came into being in 1903 on the very firm foundation of Marxian theory. And the soundness revolutionary theory, and of no other, was proved not only by the experience of all countries during the entire 19th century, but particularly by the experience of the ramblings, vaccillations, mistakes and disappointments of revolutionary in Russia. For half a century–approximately between forties and nineties of the preceding century–advanced intellects in Russia, under the yoke of the wildest and most reactionary Czarism, sought eagerly for a correct revolutionary theory, following each and every "last word" in Europe and America with astounding diligence and thoroughness. Russia has attained Marxism, the only revolutionary theory by dint of fifty years' travail and sacrifice, through the greatest revolutionary heroism, the most incredible energy and devotion in seeking, educating, practical experience, disappointment, checking and comparison with European experience. Thanks to the emigration forced by the Czar, revolutionary Russia, in the second half of the 19th century, came into possession of rich international connections, and of a grasp of the superlative forms and theories of the revolutionary movement such as no other country had.

On the other hand, having come into existence on this granite thoretical foundation, Bolshevism went through fifteen years (1903–1917) of practical history which, in fertility of experience, had no equal anywhere else in the world. In no other country, during, those fifteen years, was there anything approximating to such wide revolutionary experience, such a variety and rapidity of shifting forms in the movement—legal and illegal, peaceful and stormy, open and underground, embracing small circles and large masses, parliamentary and terrorist. In no other country, during so short a period of time, has there been concentrated such a multiplicity of forms, shades and methods of struggle, embracing all classes of modern society. To this it must be added that the struggle matur with particular rapidity, because of the backwardness of the country and the heavy yoke of Czarism, assimilated eagerly and successfully the latest developments of American and European political experience.

Chapter 3

CHAPTER III.

THE CHIEF STAGES IN THE HISTORY OF BOLSHEVISM.

The Years of Preparation for the Revolution (1902–1905).

The approach of the great storm is felt everywhere. There is a fermentation and preparation in all classes. Abroad, the emigrant press carries on a theoretical discussion of all questions pertaining to the Revolution. The representatives of the three main political currents, of the three principal classes—liberal-bourgeois, petit-bourgeois democratic (concealed under the guise of "Social Democrats" and "Socialist Revolutionaries") and proletarian-revolutionary—anticipate and prepare the approaching class-struggle in the open by their bitter and obdurate fight on questions of program and tactics. All the problems which the masses were solving in 1905–1906 and 1917–1920 by force of arms, can and should be traced in their embryonic form in the press of that time. Between these three main currents of thought, there are, of course, plenty of intermediary, transient, dwarfed forms. In other words, in the fight of press, parties, factions, groups, the political doctrines of the classes definitely crystalize themselves; there the classes forge the proper ideo-political weapons for the coming battles.

The Years of Revolution (1905–1907).

All classes come out into the open. All questions of program and tactics are tested by the action of the masses. A strike movement, unknown anywhere else in the world for its extent and acuteness, breaks out. The economic strike gives way to the political strike, which, in its turn, grows into a rising. The relations between the proletariat in the van and the vacillating, unstable peasantry in the rear, are tested practically. In the spontaneous development of the struggle, the Soviet form of organization is born. The disputes, in these days, on the significance of Soviets, anticipate the great struggle of 1917–1920. The interchange of parliamentary and non-parliamentary forms in the struggle, of the tactics of boycott and the tactics of participation in parliament, of legal and illegal methods, and likewise their interrelation and connection–all this is distinguished by wonderful richness of content. As far as the acquisition by masses and leaders, by classes and parties, of the fundamentals of political science is concerned, one month of this period was equivalent to a whole year of "peaceful," "constitutional" development. Without a general rehearsal in 1905, the victory of the October revolution of 1917 would have been impossible.

The Years of Reaction (1907–1910).

Czarism triumphant. All revolutionary and opposition parties are shattered. Depression, demoralization, schism, dispersal, renegacy, pornography instead of politics. A strenthening of the drift to philosophic idealism; mysticism, as the outer garb of counter-revolutionary tendencies. At the same time, it is the great defeat which gives the revolutionary parties and the revolutionary class a real and useful lesson, a lesson in historical dialectics, a lesson in intelligent understanding, ability and skill in carrying on the political struggle. Friends are better known in misfortune. Defeated armies learn their lesson well.

Triumphant Czarism is compelled, nevertheless, to push forward the disintegration of what remains of the pre-bourgeois, patriarchal state of Russia. She moves along the path of bourgeois development with remarkable rapidity. Illusions, originating outside of and above all classes, that it was possible for Russia to avoid capitalism, are crushingly shattered. The class-struggle assumes altogether new and more intense forms.

The revolutionary parties must continue their training. Heretofore they learned to attack. Now they understand that they must add to their knowledge of attack a knowledge of how best to retreat. It becomes necessary to understand—and the revolutionary class by its own bitter experience learns to understand—that victory is impossible without a knowledge both of how to attack and of how to retreat correctly. Of all the shattered opposition and revolutionary parties, the Bolsheviks effected the most orderly retreat, with the least damage to their "army." They, more than any other, preserved the nucleus of their party, suffered the fewest splits—in the sense of deep, irremediable splits—felt the least demoralization, and were in the best position to renew work on a large scale efficiently and energetically. The Bolsheviks only attained this by mercilessly exposing and throwing out the revolutionists of phrases, who did not wish to understand that it was necessary to retreat, that it was obligatory upon them to learn how to work legally in the most reactionary parliaments, in the most reactionary trade-unions, co-operatives, workmen's insurance and similar organizations.

The Years of Revival (1910–1914).

At first the revival was exceedingly slow; after the events in the Lena mines in 1912, somewhat more rapid. Overcoming immense difficulties, the Bolsheviks drove back the Mensheviks, whose role as bourgeois agents in the working-class movement was perfectly understood by the whole bourgeoisie after 1905, and who, therefore, were supported by that class against the Bolsheviks. But the latter would never have succeeded as they did if they had not pursued the right tactics of co-ordinating illegal forms of work with obligatory utilization of all "legal possibilities." In the most reactionary Duma the Bolsheviks won the whole labor vote.

The First Imperialist World-War (1914–1917).

Legal parliamentarism, in the conditions of an extremely reactionary "parliament," renders most useful service to the revolutionary party, to the Bolsheviks. Bolshevik deputies go to penal servitude. In the emigrant press, all shades, all distinctions of social-imperialism, social-chauvinism, social-patriotism, consistent and inconsistent internationalism, pacifism and the revolutionary negation of pacifist illusions, find full expression. The learned fools and old women of the Second International who arrogantly and contemptuously turned up their noses at the many "factions" in Russian Socialism and the stubbornness with which they fought one another, were unable, when the war deprived them of their blessed "legality" in all the advanced countries, to organize anything even approximating such free (illegal) interchange of views and such free (illegal) hammering-out of the right views, as did the Russian revolutionists in Switzerland and other countries. Just because of this inability of theirs, both the downright social-patriots and the "Kautskians" of all countries have proved the worst kind of traitors to the proletariat. And if the Bolsheviks were able to attain victory in 1917–1920, one of the principal causes of this victory was that Bolshevism already, in 1914, had mercilessly unmasked all the abomination, turpitude and criminality of social-chauvinism and "Kautskianism" (to which Longuetism in France, the views of the leaders of the Independent Labor Party and the Fabians in England, and of Turati in Italy, correspond), while the masses, from their own experience, were becoming more and more convinced of the soundness of the views of the Bolsheviks.

The Second Revolution in Russia (from February to October, 1917).

Czarism, now hoary with age, had created, under the heavy blows of this tormenting war, a tremendous destructive power which was now directed against it. In a few days, Russia was turned into a democratic, bourgeois republic, more free, considering the state of war, than any other country in the world. The Government was beginning to be formed by the leaders of the Opposition and Revolutionary parties, just after the manner of the most "strictly parliamentary" republics. The fact that a man had been a leader of the opposition, though in the most reactionary parliament imaginable, aided him in his subsequent career in the Revolution.

The Mensheviks and the "Socialist Revolutionaries" mastered, in a few weeks, all the tricks and manners, arguments and sophistries of the European heroes of the Second International, of the ministerialists and other opportunist worthies. What we now read of Scheidemann and Noske, Kautsky and Crispien, Renner and Austerlitz, Otto Bauer and Fritz Adler, Turati and Longuet, of the Fabians and the leaders of the Independent Labor Party in England—all this seems to us, and, in reality, is, a dreary repetition, a paraphrase of an old, familiar song. The Mensheviks have long ago sung it to us. History has played a joke on us and made the opportunists of a backward country anticipate the opportunists of a great many advanced countries.