1) The Revolution and the Revolutionary Party

"Without a guiding organisation the energy of the masses would dissipate like steam not enclosed in a piston-box. But nevertheless what moves things is not the piston or the box, but the steam"

Trotsky, Lenin, Kamenev in 1919

The Marxist View of History

Capitalist historians would like workers to believe that society has progressed smoothly towards capitalist 'democracy'. But Karl Marx explained that history can only be understood as the history of bitter class struggles.

Those in control of the means of producing wealth in any society have exploited the labour of other classes for their own benefit. To make sure that they kept their snouts in the trough, this ruling class had organised more and more refined ways of keeping the rest in their places. ‘The state’, including all the means of influencing people's ideas like the press and religion, as well as the blunter weapons of the police, army and similar “armed bodies of men”, ultimately defended the position of the ruling class against the masses.

The development of capitalism had seen these processes reach new heights. The ‘bourgeoisie’ (the capitalist ruling class) had used their control of modern industry and finance to vastly expand production and trade.

In their efforts to get a larger share of riches than their rivals, the capitalists had carved up the world into empires, trampling on the national rights of others and causing untold misery to the poor masses of the colonial world. Yet as capitalism dug its claws deeper into the planet, the limits of the system became more and more exposed.

Increasingly the bosses found themselves without enough profitable markets in which to sell their goods. Economic crises set in more frequently. As new markets became harder to find, the capitalists' rivalry resulted in ever more destructive wars.

Marx explained that capitalism could no longer bring society forward. Further expansion was being held back by the limits of both private property and the division of the world into competing nations. A socialist society, taking into public ownership the big companies that dominate the economy, and introducing conscious democratic planning internationally, had to be built to bring an end to the anarchy of capitalism.

Class, Party and Leadership

Marx pointed to the working-class created by capitalism, ‘the proletariat’ as being the force that could bring about a socialist change. Bound together in the workplaces, workers had the experience of working together needed for united action. They had a common interest in overcoming production for profit and the will and strength to take control of industry - and their own lives.

However, no ruling class had ever given up its privileges without a fight. Society would not be taken forward by hopeful appeals to the capitalists but only by a revolution led by the working-class.

Marxism, acting as the 'memory' of the proletariat, had learnt from the struggles of the past. The exploitation suffered under capitalism would provoke workers and the other oppressed masses to struggle to defend their living standards and fight for a better future. However, there was no certain workers' victory written in the rules of history. It was not enough simply to struggle but what was needed was to know how to win.

A revolutionary party, steeled with the ideas of Marxism, built from the best elements of the working-class, would be needed to explain and guide their class to a successful revolutionary victory.

Trotsky makes a comparison with a steam-engine: "Without a guiding organisation the energy of the masses would dissipate like steam not enclosed in a piston-box. But nevertheless what moves things is not the piston or the box, but the steam" (1).

How a Revolution Unfolds

The history of the Russian Revolution is both a vivid example of the processes described by Marxism and a tremendous confirmation of those ideas.

The way in which the Bolshevik Party, not without its own often bitter internal struggles, was able to successfully lead the Russian masses to the removal of the landlords and capitalists in a nation of 150 million people holds many valuable lessons for socialists today.

Trotsky's analysis in “The History of the Russian Revolution” clearly explains the general processes in society that were going to lead to the revolutionary upheavals of 1917. 

However, Trotsky also explains that a general analysis of the economic and political situation at that time is not enough to explain the sudden change of opinions, the rapid steps forward and the retreats that each day of a revolution brings. These sharp changes can seem quite inexplicable to a casual onlooker. Trotsky explains that they are caused by the mass of people, whose ideas usually lag well behind actual conditions in society, suddenly catching-up in leaps and bounds with the reality and demands of the situation that they are living through. “The masses go into a revolution not with a prepared plan of social reconstruction, but with a sharp feeling that they cannot endure the old regime. Only the guiding layers of a class have a political programme, and even this still requires the test of events, and the approval of the masses. The fundamental political process of the revolution thus consists in the gradual comprehension of a class of the problems arising from the social crisis - the active orientation of the masses by a method of successive approximations" (2).

So, as the masses learn from their experiences, testing out each leader, each party, each programme, the revolutionary party must explain, lead and gain the confidence of the masses, basing its tactics at each stage "upon a calculation of the changes of mass consciousness" (3).

It is this difficult task that the Bolsheviks, not without mistakes, succeeded in carrying out in 1917. Then the supreme moment when the masses sweep aside the old regime by their own actions can be won - " In ordinary times the state … elevates itself above the nation, and history is made by specialists in that line of business - kings, ministers, bureaucrats, parliamentarians, journalists. But at those crucial moments when the old order becomes no longer endurable to the masses, they break over the barriers excluding them from the political arena, sweep aside their traditional representatives, and create by their own interference the initial groundwork for a new regime...The history of a revolution is for us first of all a history of the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny" (4).

Capitalism’s “weakest link” ?

Like every mass struggle, the Russian Revolution of 1917 not only confirmed Marxist analysis but also sharpened and refined its ideas.

Marxism had always expected the socialist revolution to first begin in an advanced capitalist country like France, Britain or Germany. In these nations, where the bourgeoisie had successfully developed industry to a high level, a revolutionary proletariat should be able to use this productive power to distribute sufficient goods to all in a planned socialist society.

The fact that capitalism instead broke ‘at its weakest link’, in Russia, was a puzzle that even many Marxists were unable to explain. The analysis and explanation of these events worked out by Lenin and Trotsky still holds valuable lessons that socialists must study today in order to guide our own struggles.

Just as Lenin and Trotsky prepared the Bolsheviks for the Russian Revolution by learning from past struggles, such as the 1871 Paris Commune and the failed Russian Revolution of 1905, so Marxists today must learn the lessons of the past so, while not making the mistake of expecting history to repeat itself exactly, we are ready for the battles of the future.