In Honor Of Russian Revolutionary Vladimir Lenin’s Birthday (April 1870-Janaury 1924)-The Struggle Continues-Ivan Smilga’s Political Journey-Take Three      

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman 

For several years I have been honoring various revolutionary forbears, including the subject of this birthday tribute, the Russian Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin architect (along with fellow revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky) of the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 each January under the headline-Honor The Three L’s–Lenin, Luxemburg , Liebknecht. My purpose then was (and still is) to continue the traditions established by the Communist International in the early post-World War I period to honor revolutionary forbears. That month has special significance since in the month of January leftists honor those three leading revolutionaries who died in that month, V.I. Lenin of Russia in his sleep after a long illness in 1924, and Karl Liebknecht of Germany and Rosa Luxemburg of Poland in 1919 murdered after leading the defeated Spartacist uprising in Berlin.

I have made my political points about the heroic Karl Liebknecht and his parliamentary fight against the German war budget in World War I on previous occasions. I have also made some special points in previous years as well about the life of Rosa Luxemburg, “the Rose of the Revolution.” This month, the month of his birth, it is appropriate, at a time when the young needs to find a few good heroes, to highlight the early struggles of Vladimir Lenin, the third L, as he attempted to define himself politically. Below is a sketch of a young fictional labor militant, although not so fictional in the scheme of the revolutionary developments in Russia under the Tsar toward the end of the 19^th century and early 20^th century. This sketch should help define the problems facing the working-class there then, and perhaps now as well.

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Ivan Smilga was persona non grata in Moscow after his sojourn to bloody Siberia and was the one and only reason that he had crossed the country to Saint Petersburg. That and the feeling that he needed a new start, a fresh start. That bloody Siberia sojourn was the result of an unwise decision to right the wrongs of this world, or at least of his world, by conspiring with known radical students and worker militants in Moscow to kidnap various high officials for ransom in order to gain some small rights in return. The whole thing exploded in his face (in their faces) when one of the workmen “snitched” to save his own neck and Ivan got a two year sentence for his mistake (since he was late in on the conspiracy and the idea had come from that workman snitch he was given a lenient sentence. They others received ten to twenty years at hard labor). After that he swore, swore off of politics as a way to change the world, to change his world. Now that he had applied for and was taken on as a blacksmith apprentice in the Putilov Ironworks he vowed to keep his hands busy and his head away from the world’s woes.

Then Elena Kassova entered, or rather re-entered, his life. He had known her as a fellow-worker, a machine-tender, in the John Smiley and Son textile factory in Moscow where he worked taking the rolls of fabric off the machines, her machine. Since in those days before he was finally laid off as “redundant” by the company he was well respected as a worker and had not taken to drink he was eyed by many young women as a possible “catch.” He had caught Elena’s eye as well although as a pious country girl she had refrained from flirting with Ivan like some of the other girl machine-tenders. Through the vagaries of commerce Smiley and Son had closed their Moscow plant and relocated to Saint Petersburg. Elena had followed having no other recourse in Moscow. While in Saint Petersburg she had applied to the Putilov works in order to better herself. After some time she was employed in the foundry doing small piecework. Ivan and Elena met one evening coming out of the plant, had greeted each other, and Ivan had walked her home.  

That story about Elena moving on to the Putilov Works to better herself was just that though, a story. While in Moscow, Elena had joined a readers’ circle not just any readers’ circle, but a Workers Benefit Circle. These circles met ostensibly to read, but were actually organizing committees for establishing the Tsarist-banned trade unions. Some had imbibed the new socialist idea coming form Europe, especially Germany. Elena had been drawn into the work by some students at Moscow University and had shown so much promise that she was “ordered” to go to Saint Petersburg in order to establish circles in that metropolis where there were many plants, including the expanding Putilov, that needed to be organized.  Her task at the time that she met Ivan was thus to help organize a strike at the Works for higher pay and only half a day’s work on Saturday. After several weeks she tried to recruit Ivan to the work knowing that he was well respected among the apprentice blacksmiths, knowing that he had been the organizer of the Luddite operation one Saturday night which wreaked hauling machinery at the Smiley factory in Moscow (it had become common knowledge among the tight-knit working class neighborhoods), and knew he had served “time” (that knowledge coming one night after Ivan had had too much vodka and was trying to impress Elena with his manly prowess).

Ivan turned Elena down cold, told her whatever she thought, that he had learned the error of his youthful ways and was looking to make no waves so that he could concentrate his energies on his dream of becoming a master blacksmith and eventually opening his own shop. Elena, wise to the ways of the world and trained to keep her full motives in check continued to work on Ivan. Of course unknown to Ivan who thought it was just a matter of gaining higher wages and more time off that drove Elena was the hard fact that she had become a revolutionary, had come to see the trade union struggle as just an organizing tool to a grander scheme.

Then one day the workers on the night shift at the Putilov factory called a strike over the firing of several workers, including a couple of apprentice blacksmiths. The next morning Elena called out the workers in her section on the day shift, mainly women. She then  cornered Ivan as he was about to walk into his work shed and told him to join the strike. She said it in such a way that Ivan knew that if he crossed the line that would be the last that he saw of Elena. And he was not finished with Elena, not by a long shot. And so he said this to her. I will fight to get more money, I will fight for a shorter day and I will fight to get my brothers rehired but that is it. No more politics for me, no more. Now they did not get any more money or less time after that strike but after three days they were able to get those fired brothers back. And Ivan had thought they had done a fine thing. Elena just scowled.