As The 100th
Anniversary Of World War I Continues -The Anti-War Resistance Builds –The Russian Revolution
Breaks The Logjam
The events leading up to World War I (known as the Great War
before the world got clogged up with expansive wars in need of other numbers
and names and reflecting too in that period before World War II a certain sense
of “pride” in having participated in such an epic adventure even if it did mow
down the flower of European and in some cases colonial youth from all classes)
from the massive military armament of almost all the capitalist and imperialist
parties in Europe and elsewhere in order to stake their claims to their
unimpeded share of the world’s resources had all the earmarks of a bloodbath
early on once the industrial-sized carnage set in with the stalemated fronts
(as foretold by the blood-letting in the American Civil War and the various
“small” wars in Asia, Africa, and, uh, Europe in the mid to late 19th
century once war production on a mass scale followed in the train of other less
lethal forms of industrial production).
Also trampled underfoot in the opposing trenches, or rather
thrown in the nearest trash bin of the their respective parliamentary buildings
were the supposedly eternal pledges against war in defense of one’s own
capitalist-imperialist nation-state
against the working masses and their allies of other countries by most of the
Social-Democrats and other militant leftist formations (Anarchists,
Syndicalists and their various off-shoots)representing the historic interest of
the international working-class to stop those imperialist capitalist powers and
their hangers-on in their tracks at the approach of war were decisive for 20th
century history. All those beautifully written statements and resolutions that
clogged up the international conferences with feelings of solidarity were some
much ill-fated wind once bullet one came out of gun one.
Other than isolated groups and individuals, mostly like
Lenin and Trotsky in exile or jail, and mostly in the weaker lesser
capitalistically developed countries of Europe the blood lust got the better of
most of the working class and its allies as young men rushed to the recruiting
stations to “do their duty” and prove their manhood. (When the first
international conference of anti-war socialists occurred in Switzerland in 1915,
the famous Zimmerwald conference, one wag pointed out that they could all fit
in one tram [bus].) Almost all parties assuming that the damn thing would be
over by Christmas and everyone could go back to the eternal expressions of
international working-class solidarity after the smoke had settled (and the simple
white-crossed graves dug in the vast bone-crushed cemeteries that marked the
nearby battle fields too numerous to mention). You see, and the logic is
beautiful on this one, that big mail-drop of a Socialist International, was
built for peace-time but once the cannons roared then the “big tent” needed to
be folded for the duration. Jesus.
Decisive as well as we head down the slope to the first
months of the second year of the war although shrouded in obscurity early in
the war in exile was the soon to be towering figure of one Vladimir Lenin (a
necessary nom de guerre in the hell broth days of the Czar’s Okhrana ready to
send one and all to the Siberian frosts and that moniker business, that nom de guerre not a bad idea in today’s
NSA-driven frenzy to know all, to peep at all), leader of the small Russian
Bolshevik Party ( a Social-Democratic Party in name anyway adhering to the
Second International under the sway of the powerful German party although not
for long because “Long Live The Communist International,” a new revolutionary international, would
become the slogan and later order of the day in the not distant future),
architect of the theory of the “vanguard party” building off of many
revolutionary experiences in Russia and Europe in the 19th century (including
forbears Marx and Engels), and author of an important, important to the future
communist world perspective, study on the monopolizing tendencies of world
imperialism, the ending of the age of “progressive” capitalism (in the Marxist
sense of the term progressive in a historical materialist sense that capitalism
was progressive against feudalism and other older economic models which turned
into its opposite at this dividing point in history), and the hard fact that it
was a drag on the possibilities of human progress and needed to be replaced by
the establishment of the socialist order. But that is the wave of the future as
1914 turned to 1915 in the sinkhole trenches of Europe that are already a death
trap for the flower of the European youth.
Lenin also has a "peace"
plan, a peace plan of sorts, a way out of the stinking trench warfare stalemate
eating up the youth of the Eurasian landmass. Do what should have been done
from the beginning, do what all the proclamations from all the
beautifully-worded socialist manifestos called on the international
working-class to do. Not a simple task by any means especially in that first
year when almost everybody on all sides thought a little blood-letting would be
good for the soul, the individual national soul, and in any case the damn thing
would be over by Christmas and everybody could start producing those
beautifully worded-manifestos against war again. (That by Christmas peace
“scare” turned out to be a minute “truce” from below by English and German
soldiers hungry for the old certainties banning the barbed wire and stinking
trenches for a short reprieve in the trench fronts in France and played soccer
before returning to drawn guns-a story made into song and which is today used as
an example of what the lower ranks could do-if they would only turn the guns
around. Damn those English and German soldiers never did turn the damn things
around until too late and with not enough resolve and the whole world has
suffered from that lack of resolve ever since.)
Lenin’s hard-headed proposition: turn
the bloody world war among nations into a class war to drive out the
war-mongers and bring some peace to the blood-soaked lands. But that advanced
thinking is merely the wave of the future as the rat and rain-infested sinkhole
trenches of Europe were already churning away in the first year as a death trap
for the flower of the European youth.
The ability to inflict industrial-sized
slaughter and mayhem on a massive scale first portended toward the end of the
American Civil War once the Northern industrial might tipped the scales their
way as did the various German-induced wars attempting to create one
nation-state out of various satraps almost could not be avoided in the early 20th
century once the armaments race got serious, and the technology seemed to grow
exponentially with each new turn in the war machine. The land war, the war
carried out by the “grunts,” by the “cannon fodder” of many nations was only
the tip of the iceberg and probably except for the increased cannon-power and
range and the increased rapidity of the machine-guns would be carried out by
the norms of the last wars. However the race for naval supremacy, or the race
to take a big kink out of British supremacy, went on unimpeded as Germany tried
to break-out into the Atlantic world and even Japan, Jesus, Japan tried to gain
a big hold in the Asia seas.
The deeply disturbing submarine warfare
wreaking havoc on commerce on the seas, the use of armed aircraft and other
such technological innovations of war only added to the frenzy. We can hundred
years ahead, look back and see where talk of “stabs in the back” by the losers
and ultimately an armistice rather than decisive victory on the blood-drenched
fields of Europe would lead to more blood-letting but it was not clear, or
nobody was talking about it much, or, better, doing much about calling a halt
before they began the damn thing among all those “civilized” nations who went
into the abyss in July of 1914. Sadly the list of those who would not do
anything, anything concrete, besides paper manifestos issued at international
conferences, included the great bulk of the official European labor movement
which in theory was committed to stopping the madness.
A few voices, voices like Karl Liebknecht (who against the
party majority bloc voting scheme finally voted against the Kaiser’s war
budget, went to the streets to get rousing anti-war speeches listened to in the
workers’ districts, lost his parliamentary immunity and wound up honorably in
the Kaiser’s prisons) and Rosa Luxemburg
( the rose of the revolution also honorably prison bound) in Germany, Lenin and
Trotsky in Russia (both exiled at the outbreak of war and just in time as being
on “the planet without a passport” was then as now, dangerous to the lives of
left-wing revolutionaries and not just them), some anti-war anarchists like
Monette in France and here in America “Big Bill” Haywood (who eventually would
controversially flee to Russia to avoid jail for his opposition to American
entry into war), many of his IWW (Industrial Workers Of the World) comrades and
the stalwart Eugene V. Debs (who also went to jail, “Club Fed” for speaking the
truth about American war aims in a famous Cleveland speech and, fittingly, ran
for president in 1920 out of his Atlanta Penitentiary jail cell), were raised and one hundred years later those
voices have a place of honor in this space.
Those voices, many of them in exile, or in the deportations
centers, were being clamped down as well when the various imperialist
governments began closing their doors to political refugees when they were
committed to clapping down on their own anti-war citizens. As we have seen in
our own times, most recently in America in the period before the “shock and
awe” of the decimation of Iraq in 2002 and early 2003 the government, most
governments, are able to build a war frenzy out of whole cloth. Even my old anti-war
amigo from my hometown who after I got out of the American Army during the
Vietnam War marched with me in countless rallies and parades trying to stop the
madness got caught in the bogus information madness and supported Bush’s “paper
war” although not paper for the benighted Iraqi masses ever since (and plenty
of other “wise” heads from our generation of ’68 made that sea-change turn with
him).
At those times, and in my lifetime the period after 9/11
when we tried in vain to stop the Afghan war in its tracks is illustrative, to
be a vocal anti-warrior is a dicey business. A time to keep your head down a
little, to speak softly and wait for the fever to subside and to be ready to
begin the anti-war fight another day. “Be ready to fight” the operative words.
So imagine in the hot summer of 1914 when every nationality
in Europe felt its prerogatives threatened how the fevered masses, including
the beguiled working-classes bred on peace talk without substance, would not
listen to the calls against the slaughter. Yes, one hundred years later is not
too long or too late to honor those ardent anti-war voices as the mass
mobilizations began in the countdown to war, began four years of bloody
trenches and death.
Over the next period as we continue the
long night of the 100th anniversary of World War I and beyond I will
under this headline post various documents, manifestos and cultural expressions
from that time in order to give a sense of what the lead up to that war looked
like, the struggle against its outbreak before the first frenzied shots were
fired, the forlorn struggle during and the massive struggles after it in places
like Russia, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the hodge-podge colonies all over
the world map, in order to create a newer world out of the shambles of the
battlefields.
Leon Trotsky
THE STRUGGLE FOR STATE POWER
Peace and Reaction
(May 1917)
In a session of the National Duma held March 3, 1916 M. Miliukov replied as follows to a Criticism from the left: “I do not know for certain whether the government is leading us to defeat – but I do know that a revolution in Russia will unquestionably lead us to a defeat, and our enemies, therefore, have good reason to thirst for it. If anyone should say to me that to organize Russia for victory is equivalent to organizing her for revolution, I should answer: It is better, for the duration of the war, to leave her unorganized, as she is.” This quotation is interesting in two ways. It is not only a proof that, as late as last year, M. Miliukov considered pro-German interests to be at work not in internationalism alone, but in any revolution at all; it is also a typical expression of liberal sycophancy. Extremely interesting is M. Miliukov’s prediction: “I know that revolution in Russia will unquestionably lead us to defeat.” Why this certainty? As an historian, M. Miliukov must know that there have been revolutions that led to victory. But as an imperialist statesman, M. Miliukov cannot help seeing that the idea of the conquest of Constantinople, Armenia and Galicia is not capable of arousing the spirit of the revolutionary masses. M. Miliukov felt, and even knew, that in his war, revolution could not bring victory with it.
To be sure, when the revolution broke out M. Miliukov at once attempted to harness it to the chariot of allied imperialism. That is the reason why he was greeted with delight by the sonorous, metallic reverberations of all the bank-vaults of London, Paris and New York. But this attempt met with the almost instinctive resistance of the workers and the soldiers. M. Miliukov was thrown out of the Ministry: the Revolution evidently, did not mean victory for him.Miliukov went, but the war remained. A coalition government was formed, consisting of petty bourgeois democrats and those representatives of the bourgeoisie that had hitherto concealed, for a time, their imperialist claws. Perhaps nowhere did this combination display its counter-revolutionary character better than in the domain of international politics, that is, above all, in the war. The big bourgeoisie sent its representatives to the cabinet in the name of “an offensive on the front and unalterable fidelity to our allies” (resolution of the Cadet Conference). The petty bourgeois democrats, who call themselves “Socialists”, entered the Cabinet in order, “without tearing themselves away” from the big bourgeoisie and their world allies, to conclude the war in the quickest possible manner and with the least possible offence to all the participants: without annexations, without indemnities and contributions, and even with a guarantee of national self-determination.
The capitalist ministers renounced annexations, until a more favourable time; in return for this purely verbal concession they received from their petty bourgeois democratic colleagues a binding promise not to desert the ranks of the allies, to reinvigorate the army and make it capable of resuming the offensive. In renouncing Constantinople (for the moment) the imperialists were making a rather worthless sacrifice, for, in the course of three years of war, the road to Constantinople had become not shorter, but longer. But the democrats, to compensate the purely platonic renunciation of a very doubtful Constantinople by the Liberals, took over the whole heritage of the Czarist government, recognized all the treaties which that government had concluded, and put all the authority and prestige of the revolution in the service of discipline and the offensive. This bargain involved, first of all, a renunciation, on the part of the “leaders” of the Revolution, of any such thing as an independent international policy: this conclusion was only natural to the petty bourgeois party, which when it was in the majority, willingly surrendered all its power. Having handed over to Prince Lvov the duty of creating a revolutionary administration; to M. Shingariev the task of re-making the finances of the Revolution, to M. Konovalov, that of organizing industry; petty bourgeois democracy could not help handing over to Messrs. Ribot, Lloyd George and Wilson the charge of the international interests of revolutionary Russia.
Even though the Revolution, in its present phase, has not therefore altered the character of the war, it has nevertheless exerted a profound influence on the living agent of the war, namely, the army. The soldier began asking himself what it was for which he was shedding his blood, upon which he now set a higher price than under Czarism. And immediately the question of the secret treaties came up and became imperative. To restore the “preparedness” of the army under these circumstances meant breaking up the revolutionary-democratic resistance of the soldiers, putting to sleep again their newly-awakened political sense, and, until the “revision” of the old treaties should be announced as a principle, placing the revolutionary army in the service of the same old objects. This task was more than a match for the Octobrist-Bourbon Guchkov, who broke down under it. Nothing less than a “socialist” would do for this purpose. And he was found in the person of the “most popular” of the ministers, Kerensky.
Citizen Kerensky exposed his theoretical equipment at one of the first sessions of the All-Russian Congress. One can hardly imagine anything more insipid than his provincial, complacent truisms on the French Revolution and on Marxism. Citizen Kerensky’s political formulas were characterized neither by originality nor by depth. But he possesses, indisputably, the talent of bestowing on Philistine reaction the necessary revolutionary trimmings. In the person of Kerensky the intelligent and semi-intelligent bourgeoisie recognized themselves, in more “representative” form, and in surroundings which are not those of everyday, but rather the trappings of melodrama.
By lavishly exploiting his popularity in accelerating the preparedness for an offensive (on the entire imperialistic front of the Allies), Kerensky naturally becomes the darling of the possessing classes. Not only does Minister of Foreign Affairs Tereschenko express himself approvingly of the high esteem in which our Allies hold the “labours”of Kerensky; not only does Riech, which so severely criticizes the Ministers of the Left, continually emphasize its favouritism toward the Minister of the Army and Navy, Kerensky – but even Rodzianko considers it his duty to point out “the noble, patriotic endeavours” which our Minister of the Army and Navy, Kerensky, is engaged in: “this young man” (to quote the words of Rodzianko, the Octobrist Chairman of the Duma) “experiences (?) daily a new lease of life, for the benefit of his country and of constructive work.” Which glorious circumstance does not, however, in any way prevent Rodzianko from hoping that when the “constructive work” of Kerensky shall have attained the proper eminence, it may be succeeded by Ouchkov’s labours instead.
Meanwhile, Tereschenko’s Department of Foreign Affairs is endeavouring to persuade the Allies to sacrifice their imperialist appetites on the altar of revolutionary democracy. It would be difficult to imagine any undertaking more fruitless, and – in spite of all the tragic humiliation of it – more ridiculous than this! When M. Tereschenko in the manner of the provincial newspaper editorial of the democratic variety, endeavours to explain to the hardened ring-leaders of the international plunderbund that the Russian Revolution is really a “powerful intellectual movement, expressive of the will of the Russian people in its struggle for equality,” etc., etc. – when he furthermore “does not doubt” that “a close union between Russia and her allies (the hardened ring-leaders of the international plunderbund) will assure in the fullest measure an agreement on all the questions involved in the principles proclaimed by the Russian Revolution,” it is difficult to free one’s self from a feeling of disgust at this medley of impotence, hypocrisy and stupidity.
The bourgeoisie secured for itself, in this document of Tereschenko’s, it appears, all the decisive words: “unfaltering fidelity to the general cause of the allies,”“inviolability of the agreement not to make a separate peace,”and a postponement of the revision of the aims of the war until “a favourable opportunity”; which amounts to asking the Russian soldier, until this “favourable opportunity” arrives, to shed his blood for those same imperialist aims of the war which it seems so undesirable to publish, so undesirable to revise. And Tseretelli’s whole political horizon is revealed in the complacent smugness with which he recommended to the attention of the All-Russian Congress this diplomatic document in which “there is clear and open speech, in the language of a revolutionary government, concerning the strivings of the Russian Revolution.” One thing cannot be denied: the cowardly and impotent appeals addressed to Lloyd George and Wilson are couched in the same terms as the appeals of the Soviet Executive Committee addressed to Albert Thomas, the Scheidemanns and the Hendersons. In both there is all along the line an identity of purpose, and – who knows? – perhaps even an identity of authorship. [1]
A perfect appreciation of these latest diplomatic notes of the Tereschenko-Tseretelli combination we shall find in a place where we might at first not expect to find it, namely, in L’Entente, a newspaper published in French in Petrograd, and the organ of those very Allies to whom Tereschenko and Chernov swear an “unfaltering allegiance”. “We readily admit,” says this paper, “that in diplomatic circles the appearance of this note was awaited with a certain concern ...”
In fact it is not easy, as this official organ admits, to find a formulation of the conflicting aims of the Allies.
“As far as Russia is concerned, particularly, the position of the Provisional Government was rather delicate and full of danger. On the one hand, it was necessary to reckon with the standpoint of the Council of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Delegates, and, as far as possible, to represent this standpoint: on the other hand, it was necessary to handle with kid gloves the international relations and the friendly powers, upon whom it was impossible to force the decision of the Council.”
“And the Provisional Government has come out of the quandary shining and stainless ...”
In the document before us, therefore, we have the main points of the revolutionary catechism set down, registered and sealed with the authority of the Provisional Government. There is no lack of any essential. All the lovely dreams, all the fine words of the dictionary, are properly mobilized. You will find there equality, liberty and justice in international relations – Donc tout yest [“everything is there” – Ed.] at least in words. The reddest of the comrades can make no reply; from this quarter the Provisional Government has nothing to fear ...
“But – how about the Allies?” asks L’Entente. “With the aid of close study and reading between the lines (!), with the aid of goodwill and friendship for the young Russian democracy, the Allies will be able to find at various points in the note certain pleasant words which are of a nature to reassure their somewhat waning confidence. They well know that the position of the Provisional Government is not an easy one, and that its efforts in prose must not be taken too literally ... The fundamental guarantee that the Government gives to the Allies consists in the fact that the agreement signed at London on September 5, 1914 (pledging no separate peace) is not to be revised. That completely satisfies us for the present.”
And us too. As a matter of fact it would be difficult to utter a more contemptuous judgement on the Tereschenko-Tseretelli “prose” than that published by the official L’Entente, which draws its inspiration from the French Embassy. This estimate, which it is by no means unfriendly to Tereschenko or to those who stand behind him, is positively murderous to the “constructive labours” of Tseretelli, who has so warmly recommended to us the “plain, open language” of this document. “Nothing has been left out,” he swears before the Congress, “it will satisfy the conscience of the reddest comrades.”
But they are mistaken, these adepts in diplomatic prose: they don’t satisfy anybody. Isn’t it significant that the facts of actual life should answer the appeals of Kerensky and the remonstrances and threats of Tseretelli with such an awful blow as the revolt of the Black Sea sailors? We had been previously told that there among these sailors was Kerensky’s citadel, the home of the “patriotism” that demanded an offensive. The facts once more administered a merciless correction. By adhering to the position of the old imperialist agreements and obligations in external politics, and in internal politics, capitulating before the propertied classes, it was impossible to unite the army through a combination of revolutionary enthusiasm and discipline. And Kerensky’s “big stick” has fortunately thus far been too short.No, this path, truly, leads nowhere.
Note
4. In the first flush of the Revolution, the moderates in the Soviets through the Executive Committee appealed to the Socialists and the proletariat of the belligerent countries to break with their imperialist governments; but gradually this revolutionary policy was abandoned, and the Executive Committee cooperated with the infamous gathering of the Social Patriots at Stockholm, against the protests of the Bolsheviks. It required only this to emphasize the non-revolutionary character of the Executive Committee, that they joined hands with Scheidemann, Albert Thomas of France, Henderson of England, and the other Social Patriots. Moderate Socialism acted as the commis voyageur [travelling salesman] of bourgeois diplomacy. One of the secret documents published after the Bolsheviks came to power shows the true character of the Stockholm Conference with which, by the way, the Independent Socialists of Germany refused to have any dealings: it is a telegram dated August 18th, 1917, from the Russian Ambassador in Stockholm to the Provisional Government, reporting a conversation with Branting, one of the social-patriotic organizers of the Conference, who declared that he was willing to drop the Conference if Kerensky considered it untimely and that Branting would use his influence with the Dutch-Scandinavian Committee to this end. The telegram concludes by asking secrecy, in order not to compromise Branting, as otherwise a valuable source of information would be lost. The Socialist Conference the willing tool of diplomacy! No wonder it was a miserable failure. – L.C.F.
