Out In The Church Hall Dance Night- With Danny and the Juniors At The Hop In Mind

 

 

Bah-bah-bah-bah, bah-bah-bah-bah
Bah-bah-bah-bah, bah-bah-bah-bah, at the hop!

Well, you can rock it you can roll it
You can slop and you can stroll it at the hop
When the record starts spinnin'
You chalypso* when you chicken at the hop
Do the dance sensation that is sweepin' the nation at the hop

Ah, let's go to the hop
Let's go to the hop (oh baby)
Let's go to the hop (oh baby)
Let's go to the hop
Come on, let's go to the hop

Well, you can swing it you can groove it
You can really start to move it at the hop
Where the jockey is the smoothest
And the music is the coolest at the hop
All the cats and chicks can get their kicks at the hop
Let's go!

Ah, let's go to the hop
Let's go to the hop (oh baby)
Let's go to the hop (oh baby)
Let's go to the hop
Come on, let's go to the hop
Let's go!

[Instrumental Interlude]

Well, you can rock it you can roll it
You can slop and you can stroll it at the hop
When the record starts spinnin'
You chalypso* when you chicken at the hop
Do the dance sensation that is sweepin' the nation at the hop

Well, you can swing it you can groove it
You can really start to move it at the hop
Where the jockey is the smoothest
And the music is the coolest at the hop
All the cats and chicks can get their kicks at the hop
Let's go!

Ah, let's go to the hop
Let's go to the hop (oh baby)
Let's go to the hop (oh baby)
Let's go to the hop
Come on, let's go to the hop
Let's go!

Bah-bah-bah-bah, bah-bah-bah-bah
Bah-bah-bah-bah, bah-bah-bah-bah, at the hop!

Funny how memory draws you in, draws you in tight and hard once you focus in just a little. Take this combination. Recently I have been involved in writing some little sketches for my North Adamsville High School reunion Class of 1964 website. You know never before revealed stuff (and maybe should not be revealed now except I believe the statute of limitations has run out on most offenses) about what went on in the class rooms when some ill-advised teacher turned his or her on the class; the inevitable tales of triumph and heartbreak as told in the boys’ or girls’ Monday morning before school talkfest about what did, or did not, go on over the weekend with Susie or Billy; the heart-rending saga of being dateless for the senior prom; the heroics and devastating defeats of various sports teams especially the goliaths of the gridiron every leaf-turning autumn; the mysteries of learning about sex (I thought this might get your attention, innocent exploration or not) in the chaste day time down at the summer-side beach, or late at night after not watching the double feature at the outdoor drive-in movies (look it up on the Internet that there was such a way to watch them); date night devouring some hardened hamburgers complete with fries and Coke at the local all-know drive-in restaurant (ditto look up that too); older and car-addled taking the victory spoils after some after midnight “chicken run”; spending “quality time” watching breathlessly the “submarine races” (ask somebody from North Adamsville about that); and, just hanging out with your corner boys at Doc’s Drugstore throwing dimes and quarters in the jukebox to while the night away. Yeah, strictly 1960s memory stuff.   

Put those memory flashes together with my, seemingly, endlessly gone back to my early musical roots in reviewing a commercial classic rock and roll series that goes under the general title Rock ‘n’ Roll Will Never Die. I noted in one review and it bears repeating here while time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-58, really did form the musical jail break-out for my generation, the generation of ’68, who had just started to tune into music. Those two memory-inducing events coming together got me thinking even further back than high school, back to elementary school down at Adamsville South where music and sex (innocent, chaste variety) came together at the record hop (alternatively called the sock hop if in your locale the young girls wore bobby sox rather than nylons to these things. Nylons being one of the sure signs that you were a young women and not merely some stick girl so the distinction was not unimportant).    

See we, we small-time punk in the old-fashioned sense of that word meaning not knowledgeable, not the malicious sense, we hardly wet behind the ears elementary school kids, and that is all we were for those who are now claiming otherwise, listened our ears off to the radio or when we scurried home right after school to watch American Bandstand when that program came on in late afternoon. And we hungry to be “hip” (although not knowing that word, not knowing that out in the adult world guys, guys mostly, guys in places like North Beach in Frisco town or the Village in New Jack City were creating the ethos of hipness which we would half-inherit later as latent late term “beats”) wanted to emulate those swaying, be-bopping television boys and girls if not on the beauties of that medium then with some Friday or Saturday night hop in the school gym or in some church basement complete with some cranky record player playing our songs, our generation-dividing songs (dividing us for the prison of our parents music heard endlessly, too endlessly if there is such a concept).

Those were strange times indeed in that be-bop 1950s night when stuff happened, kid’s stuff, but still stuff like a friend of mine, not Billy who I will talk about some other time, who claimed, with a straight face, to the girls that he was Elvis’ long lost son. My friend’s twelve to Elvis’s maybe twenty. Did the girls do the math on that one? Or, maybe, they like us more brazen boys were hoping, hoping and praying, that it was true despite the numbers, so they too could be washed by that flamed-out night.

Well, this I know, boy and girl alike tuned in on our transistor radios (small battery- operated radios that we could put in our pockets, and hide from snooping parental ears, at will) to listen to music that from about day one, at least in my household was not considered “refined” enough for young, young pious you’ll never get to heaven listening to that devil music and you had better say about eight zillion Hail Marys to get right Catholic, ears. Yah right, Ma, like Patti Page or Bob Crosby and The Bobcats were supposed to satisfy our jail break cravings (not Bing, not the Bing of Brother, Can You Spare A Dime? anyway). And the local hop put paid to that notion, taking the private music of our bedroom dreams and placing us, for good or evil, out on the dance floor to be wall-flower or “hip” (remember we did not know that term then, okay.)   

But can you blame me, or us, for our jail-break visions and our clandestine subterranean life-transistor radio dreams of lots of girls (or boys as the case may be), lots of cars, and lots of money if we could just get out from under that parental noise. Now getting back to that rock and roll series I told you that I had been reviewing. The series had many yearly compilations but as if to prove my point beyond discussion the year 1956 has two, do you hear me, two CDs to deal with that proposition that I mentioned above. And neither one includes Elvis, Jerry Lee, Bo Diddley or some other stuff that I might have included so you know we are in the golden age when there is that much good non- Hall of Fame stuff around.

Needless to say Larry Larkin, my old corner boy from North Adamsville home town day Phil Larkin’s cousin, remained a step ahead of everybody around Ashmont Street in the Dorchester section of Boston during those days, those days when that seismic change occurred in our youthful listening habits. (And Larry would transfer whatever cultural knowledge he had picked up on those Dorchester mean streets, mostly useful except more often than not wrong on the do’s and don’ts of sex, to Phil, known as “Foul-Mouth” Phil among the corner boy brethren who would pass it on to us). Everybody, everything had to change, had to take notice of the break-out, if only to cut off the jailbreak at the pass. And that is where Larry Larkin’s step ahead of everybody else came into play, everybody else who counted then, and that was mainly the junior corner boys who hung around in front of Kelly’s Variety Store on Adams Street where generations, at least two by that time and more since, of elementary school boys learned the corner life, for good or evil, mostly evil as a roster of those who wound up in the various county and state prisons would testify to.

And not just any elementary school corner boys but parochial school boys. That is what was significant about my bringing attention to the environs of the Dorchester section of Boston, a section loaded down with every kind of ethnic Catholic, recent immigrant or life-time denizen of the triple decker night, and where it seemed there was a Catholic church on every corner (and there almost was, and to prove the point Dorchester boys, girls too lately, identified themselves after being from “Dot” identified themselves by what parish they belonged to, say Saint Brendan’s on Main Street, Saint Gregory on Dorchester Avenue, Saint Anne’s on Neponset Avenue and so on, a phenomenon you would not notice in say Revere or Chelsea).

If there seemed to be a church on every corner there was sure to be a bevy, if that is the way they are gathered, of parish priests ready to guide the youth in the ways of the church, including at Saint Brendan’s one Lawrence Joseph Larkin. And one of the things that had upset that 1950s era bevy of priests at that parish (and at other parishes and had caused concern in other religious groupings as well) was the effect that the new music, rock and roll, in corrupting the morals of the youth. Was making them zombies listening on those transistor radios that seemed to be attached to their ears to the exclusion of all else. Was making them do lewd, yes, lewd, moves while they were dancing (and not even dancing arm and arm with some girl but kind of free-form about three feet away from each other as if the space between was some sacred land to be worshiped but not defiled, blasphemy, pure blasphemy) at what they called record hops, or sock hops, or some such thing on Friday nights at the public school Eliot School over on Ashmont Street. Was making them a little snarly when dealing with adults a snarl they learned from the television or movies with guys named Elvis or James leading them on, begging them to follow them in the great break-out.  Worse, worse of all was the danger of dangers, sex, which bad as the fast dancing was when they did an occasion slow dance was very improper, the guys hands drifting down to the girl’s ass and she not even swatting it away. So yes there was something like a panic about to erupt.

And formerly pious altar boy Larry Larkin was leading the charge, was the first to wear those damn longer sideburns like he was some Civil War general. To constantly rake his hair with that always back pocket comb to look like Elvis’ pompadour style (strangely Larry was a dead-eye blue-eyed blonde kid, so go figure). He had introduced the new flaky dance moves like the Watushi learned from eternal afternoon rush home from school American Bandstand, from his older brothers   or from “Foul-Mouth” Phil’s latest intelligence from his older brothers , that had priests and parents alike on fire, had been the villain who had introduced the move of the boy putting his hand almost to a girl’s ass when slow dancing (the girls learned to not swat them away on their own so don’t blame Larry for that one), and a mass of other sins, mortal and venial. All learned, according to the priests, at that damn (although they did not use that word publicly) secular school over on Ashmont Street. The priests and a few like-minded parents were determined after a collective meeting of the minds among themselves to put a stop to this once and for all.      

Their strategy was simplicity itself, with few moving parts to complicate things-“if you can’t fight them, join them.” So come the first Friday night in November of the year of our Lord 1957 Saint Brendan’s Parish used its adjacent auditorium for its first sock hop. Worse, worse for Larry, hell, worse for everybody who learned anything at all from him, and liked it, boy or girl, the priests had ordered from their Sunday pulpits  that every parent with teenagers was to send their charges to the hop under penalty, of I don’t know what, but under penalty. And thus the long chagrin death march faces come that first hop night.                       

Obviously there were to be certain, ah, restrictions, enforced by the chaperones inevitable at such gatherings of the young, those chaperones being the younger priests of the parish who were allegedly closer to the kids, had a clue to what was going on, or else dour older boys and girls, probably headed to the seminaries and convents themselves, or those who were sucking up to the priests for sin brownie point. Banned: no lipstick or short dresses (short being anything above the ankle practically in those days) on girls and ties and jackets for boys and no slick stuff on their hair. Worse, worst of all no grabbing ass on the slow dances (not put that way but the reader will get the picture). Yes, boring made more so by the selection of records that were something out of their parents’ vault with nothing faster than some Patti Page number yakking about old Cape Cod or Marty Robbins crooning about white carnations cranking out on the old record player that had been donated by Smiling Jack’s Record Store over on the Boulevard. (Jack O’Malley, proprietor of the shop, a notorious drunk and skirt-chaser in his off hours obviously in desperate need of indulgences, no question).           

Enter Larry Larkin who had been dragged to the front door of the auditorium by his parents and who were duly recognized by Father Joyce, the young priest put in charge of the operation by Monsignor Lally (although Larry had not been too hard dragged since Maggie Kelly was to be there, yes, he had it bad for her). Now everybody knew that Phil had a “boss” record collection either bought from his earnings as a caddie over at the golf course on weekends and in the summer or “clipped” from Smiling Jack’s (and if the reader needs to know what “clipped” meant well we will just leave it at Larry did not pay for them). They also knew he has a pretty good record player with an amplifier that his parents had bought for him the Christmas before last. None of that stuff some of which had used by Loopy Lenny the DJ over at the Eliot School sock hops would be used this evening and some of the kids commented on the fact that Larry came record empty-handed. Yes all the signs where there for a boring evening.   

But here is where fate took a turn on a dime, or maybe not fate so much as the fact that the new breeze coming through the teenage land was gathering some fierce strength in aid of the jail-break many like Larry knew was coming, had to come. About half way through the first part of the dance when more kids were milling around than dancing, talking in boy-girl segregated corners, when even the wallflowers were getting restless and threatening to dance, and they never danced but just hung to their collective walls, definitely before the intermission, all of a sudden from “heaven” it seemed came blaring out Danny and the Juniors At The Hop and the formerly downbeat scene started jumping with kids dancing up a storm (including a few former wallflowers who too must have sensed a portent in the air). The priests bewildered by where the music was coming from tried to investigate while Bill Haley’s Rock Around The Clock came on with the kids dancing fast like crazy (including some off-hand grabbing ass usually reserved for slow dances). Irate and failing to find the source of the “devil’s music” Father Joyce, red-faced (whether because he knew that the closed dance doomed him among the kids or because he was going to on the carpet with the Monsignor and probably consigned to do the 6:00 AM weekday masses) declared the dance over. Done. And that was the last time Saint Brendan’s Parish sponsored a sock hop for their tender youth charges.         

Oh, yes, how does Larry Larkin last seen among the milling around crowd on the dance floor fit into this whole mix. Simple, he had hired Jimmy Jenkin, a non-Catholic ace tech guy older friend of his brother, Jack, and therefore not subject to the fire and brimstone of hell for his heathen actions, to jerry-rig Larry’s sound system in a room with an electric outlet near up near the rafters of the auditorium, a place that the good priests were probably totally unaware of. Money well spent and a kudo to Jimmy. And Larry, well, if you want to see Larry (and “Foul-Mouth” Phil, now a regular weekly visitor at his cousin’s, ready to bring the new dispensation across the river to Adamsville) then show up some Friday night at the Eliot School where he will be dancing to the latest tunes with Maggie Kelly in tow. Enough said.          

Hey, here are some stick-outs records from Larry’s collection used by Loopy Lenny at the Eliot School that every decent hopping, be-bopping record hop (or sock hop, okay) spun out of pure gold:

Blue Suede Shoes, Carl Perkins (Elvis covered it and made millions but old Carl had a better old rockabilly back beat on his version); In The Still Of The Night, The Five Satins (a doo wop classic that I am humming right this minute, sha dot do be doo, sha dot do be doo or something like that spelling, okay); Eddie, My Love, The Teen Queens (incredible harmony, doo wop back-up, and, and “oh Eddie, please don’t make me wait too long” as part of the lyrics, Whoa!); Roll Over Beethoven, Chuck Berry ( a deservedly early break-out rock anthem. Hell I thought it was a big deal just to trash my parents’ Patti Page old Chuck went after the big boys like Beethoven and Tchaikovsky.); Be-Bop-a-Lula, Gene Vincent (the guy was kind of a one hit wonder but Christ what a one hit, "yah, she’s my baby now"); Blueberry Hill, Fats Domino (that old smooth piano riffing away); Rip It Up, Little Richard (he/she wild man Richard rips it up); Young Love, Sonny James ( dreamy stuff that those giggling girls at school loved, and so you "loved" too); Why Do Fools Fall In Love?, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers (for a minute the king be-bop, doo wop teenage angel boy. Everybody wanted to be the doo wop king or queen, including my friend Billy); See You Later, Alligator, Bill Haley and The Comets (yah, these “old guys” could rock, especially that sax man. Think about the expression  people still use “see you later alligator”); and Since I Met You Baby, Ivory Joe Hunter (every dance pray, every last dance pray, oh my god, let them play Ivory Joe at the end so I can dance close with that certain she I have been eyeing all night).

Note: I have mentioned previously the excellent album cover art that accompanied each classic rock series compilation. Not only do they almost automatically evoke long ago memories of red hot youth, and those dreams, those steamy dance night dreams too, but has supplied this writer with more than one idea for a commentary. One of the 1956 compilation album covers is in that same vein. The cover shows what looks like a local cover band from the 1950s getting ready to perform at the local high school dance, not a record hop but if they are worth anything at all they will play the songs us po’ boys were listening to on the transistor radio or via that cranky record player lent by somebody for the occasion at the hop. Although the guys, especially the lead vocalist, look a little skittish they know they have to make a good showing because this is their small-time chance at the big time. Besides there are about six thousand other guys hanging around in their fathers’ garages ready and willing to step up if the Danny and the Bluenotes fall flat. If they don’t make that big splash hit like Danny and the Juniors did with At The Hop, the first song that got me jumping, jack they are done for.

This live band idea was actually something of a treat because, from what I personally recall, many times these school dance things survived on loud record playing dee-jay chatter, thus the term “record hop.” From the look of it the school auditorium is the locale (although ours were inevitably held in the school gym), complete with the obligatory crepe, other temporary school-spirit related ornaments and a mesmerized girl band groupie to give the joint a festive appearance.

More importantly, as I said before, at least for the band, as they are warming up for the night’s work, is that they have to make their mark here (and at other such venues) and start to get a following if they want to avoid another dreaded fate of rock life. Yes, the dreaded fate of most bands that don’t break out of the old neighborhood, the fate of having to some years down the road play at some of the students they are performing for that night children’s birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, weddings and the like. That thought should be enough to keep these guys working until late in the night, jamming the night away, disturbing some old fogy Frank Sinatra fans in the neighborhood, perfecting those covers of Roll Over Beethoven, Rip It Up, Rock Around The Clock and Jailhouse Rock. Go to it boys, buy the ticket and ride the furies.

As The 100th Anniversary Of The First Year Of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Continues... Some Remembrances-The First Small Anti-War Cries-

From the Archives of Marxism-Bolshevik Policy in World War I

Pacifism or Marxism (The Misadventures of a Slogan)

by Gregory Zinoviev, 23 August 1915

 

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman  

The events leading up to World War I 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 to the supposedly eternal pledges not honored by most of the Social-Democrats and other militant leftist formations representing the historic interest of the international working-class to stop those war-hungry parties in their tracks at the approach of war were decisive for 20^th century history. Also decisive, although shrouded in obscurity early in the war as he languished in exile, was the soon to be towering figure of one Vladimir Lenin (a necessary nom de guerre held over from the hell broth days of the Czar’s Okhrana ready to send one and all to the Siberian frosts for the slightest opposition. That alias moniker business 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 although not for long), architect of the theory of the “vanguard party” building off of many revolutionary experience in Russia and Europe in the 19^th century), and author of an important, important to the future communist world perspective, study on the tendencies of world imperialism, the ending of the age of progressive capitalism, and the hard fact that the current system was a drag on the possibilities of human progress and needed to be replaced by the establishment of the socialist order. He also has a "peace" plan, a peace plan of sorts, a way out of the stinking trench warfare stalemate eating up the youth. Turn the bloody world war among nation into a class war to drive out the war-mongers and bring some peace to the blood-soaked lands. But that is the wave of the future as the sinkhole trenches of Europe are already in the first year 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 almost could not be avoided in the early 20^th 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 rapidity of the machine-guns would be carried out by the norms of the last war. 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 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 give rousing anti-war speeches listened to in the workers’ districts, lost his parliamentary immunity and wound up honorably in the Kaiser’s  prisons. That last, that prison business the only honorable place for a socialist deputy once the bloody capitalists get their war lusts up 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 who got out of their places of exile just in time), 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) and the stalwart Eugene V. Debs (who also went to jail, to “club fed” in Atlanta and ran for president in 1920 on the Socialist Party ticket out of his 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 as 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. 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. So imagine in 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 100^th anniversary of the start 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.    

**********

Spartacist English edition No. 64	Summer 2014

From the Archives of Marxism-Bolshevik Policy in World War I

Pacifism or Marxism (The Misadventures of a Slogan)

by Gregory Zinoviev, 23 August 1915

 

One hundred years ago Europe was engulfed in World War I, a bloody interimperialist conflagration that saw the slaughter of more than 16 million people. The betrayal by the dominant parties of the Second International, who supported the war efforts of their “own” bourgeoisies, ultimately led to a decisive split between opportunists and revolutionaries within the international workers movement, and paved the way for the first successful proletarian seizure of power, the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, and to the formation in 1919 of the Third (Communist) International.

Spartacist is pleased to present to our readers the first English translation of an important article by Gregory Zinoviev on the Bolsheviks’ revolutionary internationalist opposition to the war. Written in August 1915, Zinoviev’s “Pacifism or Marxism (The Misadventures of a Slogan)” was one of several major works written in close collaboration with V.I. Lenin during the first two and a half years of war, when both were in exile in Switzerland. Lenin had a division of labor with Zinoviev, then his most senior collaborator, both in writing propaganda and in organizing Bolshevik interventions into the socialist antiwar conferences at Zimmerwald and Kienthal in 1915 and 1916. Zinoviev’s article was written on the eve of the Zimmerwald conference and was first published in the Bolshevik paper Sotsial-Demokrat on 23 August 1915. That month, Lenin and Zinoviev also finished their famous joint work, Socialism and War.

As Zinoviev explains, the core of the Bolsheviks’ perspective was the need to turn the imperialist war into a civil war pitting the proletariat against the capitalists. The 4 August 1914 vote in the Reichstag (parliament) by the German Social Democrats (SPD) to fund the war effort of their own ruling class was replicated by “socialist” leaders in almost all the other combatant countries, Serbia and Russia (and later Bulgaria) being the most notable exceptions. The Bolsheviks fought to break authentic Marxists away from these social-chauvinists and regroup the Marxists in a new, revolutionary Third International.

Countless volumes by bourgeois historians have been published over the past century purporting to explain how the First World War was an accident—the result of age-old Balkan intrigues and diplomatic blunders and misunderstandings by imperialist politicians. Marxists reject such philistine claptrap, recognizing that the world war was the inevitable outcome of the emergence of imperialism, the final stage of capitalism in its decay. This was marked by the concentration of bank and industrial capital—merged as finance capital—in monopolist combines. As Lenin briefly summarized it, “Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed” (Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism [1916]).

World War I showed conclusively that the drive to war is inherent in imperialism, with military force used to “settle” the inevitable economic rivalries. As Lenin and Zinoviev demonstrated in their writings, the superprofits derived from colonial exploitation made it possible for the imperialist bourgeoisies to bribe the top layers of the working class, i.e., the labor aristocracy and labor bureaucracy, whose loyalty to their capitalist masters was amply proved from the outset of the war. Thus the struggle for socialist revolution—the only alternative to deepening capitalist barbarism—required first and foremost a political struggle to expose and isolate the social-chauvinist lackeys of imperialism, as well as their social-pacifist allies.

Zinoviev’s wartime articles, others of which analyzed in depth the reasons for the social-patriotic decay of the SPD, were an essential part of the Bolsheviks’ propaganda arsenal. Reading only Lenin’s writings of this period, powerful as they are, provides an incomplete picture of the Bolsheviks’ fight. That is why the key war articles of both Lenin and Zinoviev, including the one below, were compiled in a volume titled Against the Stream, first published in Russian in 1918 by the Petrograd Soviet and then produced in a German edition by the Communist International in 1921. In 1927, Victor Serge and Maurice Parijanine produced a French edition. Most of Zinoviev’s articles in this authoritative volume of Bolshevik propaganda have never appeared in English.

The present article shows how social-pacifist reformists such as French Socialist leader Jean Jaurès, known as the tribune of France, who was assassinated by a pro-war nationalist on the eve of the war, in fact served as props for the bourgeois order. But it is particularly valuable for its polemics against the centrist elements who called for “peace,” and were seen by Lenin as the main obstacle to revolutionary clarity. These centrists ranged from SPD leaders Karl Kautsky and Hugo Haase to the British Independent Labour Party and many Russian Mensheviks.

Zinoviev pays particular attention to Nashe Slovo (Our Word), a Paris-based exile journal coedited by Leon Trotsky and Menshevik leader Julius Martov. While seeking to rally opposition to the war, the “non-factional” Nashe Slovo regularly polemicized against the Bolsheviks’ revolutionary perspective. The Mensheviks called for “Neither victory nor defeat” and “Peace without annexations,” while Trotsky criticized the Bolsheviks for refusing to raise the slogan of a “struggle for peace.” The differences over slogans were linked to organizational perspectives; Lenin and Zinoviev attacked Trotsky for giving a left cover to social-pacifist forces and refusing to call for a break with the opportunists.

As Trotsky later acknowledged, the core criticisms raised by Sotsial-Demokrat were “undoubtedly correct and helped the left-wing of the editorial board to oust Martov, in this way giving the newspaper, after the Zimmerwald Conference, a more defined and irreconcilable character” (quoted in Ian D. Thatcher, Leon Trotsky and World War One [Basingstoke, England: Palgrave, 2000]). When revolution broke out in Russia in early 1917, Trotsky broke decisively with social-pacifism and conciliation of the Mensheviks and soon became a central leader of the Bolshevik Party.

Our translation of Zinoviev’s article is taken from the 1927 French edition, published under the title Contre le Courant. It has been checked against the earlier Russian and German publications, with minor changes made to correspond to the Russian. Bracketed material has been inserted by Spartacist. Ellipses in the text are Zinoviev’s own.

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For revolutionary Marxists, the peace “slogan” is a much more important question than is sometimes believed. In reality, the dispute comes down to combating bourgeois influence in the workers movement, within the framework of socialism.

The “slogan” of peace is defended in socialist literature from two different points of view. Some, while not accepting pacifism on principle, choose to view this slogan as most appropriate for the present, merely as a code word that is supposed to immediately arouse the masses, as a call that would only play a role in the final months of the war. Others see something more in this slogan: they turn it into a whole system of foreign policy for socialism, to be maintained after the war, in other words, the policy of so-called socialist pacifism.

In fact, the advocates of the former bolster the latter. And this cannot be otherwise.

The latter tendency is the more serious of the two because it has a history, its own theory, and an intellectual foundation. The philosophy of this second tendency is the following: up until now, socialism has not been sufficiently pacifist, it has not sufficiently preached the idea of peace, it has not focused its efforts toward the goal of leading the entire world proletariat to adopt pacifism as the International’s general system of foreign policy. Hence the impotence of the socialist proletariat in the current war, hence the weakness of the International in the face of the erupting horror of the war.

This point of view is strongly emphasized in Max Adler’s recent pamphlet: Prinzip oder Romantik (Principle or Romanticism, Nuremberg, 1915). Max Adler (in words, of course) is an opponent of purely bourgeois pacifism, which he most forcefully rejects. He’s not even the sort of pacifist we find in England in the Independent Labour Party. He is a “Center Marxist,” a Kautskyist. And here is the kind of platform he puts forward under the guise of lessons to be drawn from the 1914-1915 war:

“The foreign policy of socialism can only be pacifist, not in the sense of a bourgeois movement for peace...or in the sense that socialists have hitherto recognized the idea of peace...in other words, as an idea that until now had been considered a secondary goal in the proletariat’s struggle for emancipation... Now is the time to raise the following warning: Unless the Social Democracy makes the idea of peace the central point of its program of foreign and domestic policy, all its internationalism must and will remain utopian… After the war, socialism will either become organized international pacifism or it will no longer exist.”

— pamphlet cited above, pages 61-62 (emphasis in original)

That’s certainly a whole program. But it is not the program of Marxism; it is the program of petty-bourgeois opportunism. This “international pacifism” is but one step away from international social-chauvinism. The logic of this development is very simple: we are pacifists, the idea of peace is the central point of our program; but until pacifism is more deeply rooted among the masses, as long as the idea of peace is still weak, what else can one do but defend one’s own fatherland?! Of course, this can only be a temporary decision, made with “a heavy heart.” Of course after the war, we will have to adopt the idea of peace as the “central point” in our propaganda. But for the time being, we must defend the fatherland. There is no other way out.

And for socialists who cannot conceive of any other perspective—a revolutionary perspective of turning imperialist wars into a civil war—there really isn’t any other way out. From pacifism to social-chauvinism, and from social-chauvinism to new pacifist sermons—this is the vicious circle in which the ideas of opportunists and “Center” Marxists are hopelessly trapped.

“Die Friedensidee zum Mittelpunkt”—“The idea of peace at the heart of our slogans”! Now they say that—after the first pan-European imperialist war has broken out! This is what you have learned from events!

“Nicht Friedensidee, sondern Bürgerkriegsidee”—not the idea of peace, but the idea of civil war—this is what we are tempted to shout at these great utopians who promise such a meager utopia. Not the idea of peace, but the idea of civil war, citizen Adler! This will be the central point of our program.

The problem is not that we failed to sufficiently preach the idea of peace before the war; it is that we did not preach the idea of class struggle, of civil war, enough or seriously enough. Because in wartime, the recognition of class struggle without a recognition of civil war is empty verbiage; it is hypocrisy; it is deceiving the workers.

German Social Democracy first sought ways to fight against imperialist wars in 1900 at the Mainz Social Democratic conference, when Kiautschou [Jiaozhou Bay in China, first seized by Germany in 1897] was occupied. Rosa Luxemburg put it powerfully:

“In times of peace, we thunder daily against the government’s foreign policy; we curse militarism in times of peace. But as soon as there’s a real war, we forget to draw the practical conclusions from it and to show that our years-long agitation has not borne any fruit.”

— Minutes, 165

The problem is not that in times of peace we did not preach peace very much. It is that when war came we found ourselves prisoners of the opportunists, of those who want peace with the bourgeoisie in times of peace and especially in times of war. The problem is that faced with an enemy as powerful as international imperialism, we have been unable to protect the proletariat from bourgeois renegades who emerged from our own ranks; we have been unable to defend it from the opportunism that is now degenerating into social-chauvinism.

You say that socialism will become organized international pacifism or it will totally cease to exist? We reply: you have to understand that by preaching pacifism you are not taking a single step forward; what you are telling us amounts to six of one and a half-dozen of the other; you are moving from social-pacifism to social-chauvinism and from social-chauvinism to social-pacifism. We say to you: either socialism will become organized international civil war or it will not exist...

Max Adler is not alone. We chose him precisely because he is a typical spokesman for an entire current of political thought. Hasn’t the entire Jaurèsist movement, and Jaurès himself, defended this very same social-pacifism within the International? And can anyone doubt that the tribune of France would today be a member of the cabinet of ministers and would be advocating social-chauvinism, along with the entire French party, had he not been sent to his grave by an assassin’s bullet? And, while remaining true to himself, would Jaurès have envisioned any other perspective for the future than “organized international pacifism”?

This is the problem of the Second International; herein lies the reason for its impotence, which has always existed at its core—and prevailed!—a tendency which inscribed on its banner not militant socialism, not the tactic of civil war, but international pacifism, which inevitably leads to the tactic of civil peace.

Today we all applaud the Independent Labour Party because, far from prostrating itself at the feet of the English government, this party had sufficient honesty and courage to refuse to enlist in the imperialist camp, and not to sell out to social-chauvinism. But we must not have any illusions. The Independent Labour Party has been, is, and will be a supporter not of militant Marxism, but of “organized international pacifism.” The Independent Labour Party is temporarily our fellow traveler, but it is not a solid ally for us. While it is honest and courageous, it lacks a consistent socialist program. Let us not forget that it already endorsed the notorious resolutions of the London Conference, at which the unabashed social-chauvinists ran the show.

There are three tendencies in the English workers movement: 1) Social-chauvinism, espoused by the Labour Party, the majority of the Trade Unions, half of the British Socialist Party (Hyndman), the petty-bourgeois Fabian League, etc.; 2) the social-pacifist tendency, which is represented by the Independent Labour Party; and 3) the revolutionary Marxist tendency, which is represented by a very substantial minority (almost half) of the British Socialist Party.

Mutatis mutandis, after all, we find the same division in German Social Democracy. The infamous Kautskyist “Center” today also resolutely calls for peace. By advocating disarmament and arbitration courts, by pleading with the imperialists to refrain from extremes and practice a kind of peaceful imperialism, Kautsky has been drawing closer to the social-pacifists for a long time. And like them, he in fact reveals himself to be, in all serious matters, the ally of opportunists in times of peace, the ally of social-chauvinists in times of war.

In words, social-pacifism rejects the “humanitarian” pacifism of the petty bourgeoisie. But in reality the two are brothers under the skin. And the other side is perfectly aware of this. As the international journal of the pacifists, Die Menschheit (Mankind), correctly stated fairly recently:

“The decisions of the Easter conference of the English Independent Labour Party are worth noting. One might think they were taken word for word from our writings (that is, pacifist literature)...Kautsky has published a pamphlet titled The National State, the Imperialist State and the Alliance of States. The title alone is enough to show the extent to which Kautsky shares the framework of pacifist ideas.”

A prominent representative of petty-bourgeois humanitarian pacifism, Professor A. Forel, clearly states that he has been a “socialist” for decades. And when we read his proposal for organizing a “supranational Areopagus” [High Court in classical Athens] (see his curious pamphlet The United States of the World, 1915, pages 99-196 and elsewhere) to resolve international conflicts, when we see him exhorting the imperialists to conduct a “cultured” colonial policy, we are continually reminded of this thought: after all, and in their entire outlook, in all their skepticism concerning the revolutionary struggle of the masses, our social-pacifists are much closer to the good little petty bourgeois than to revolutionary proletarians.

[The Russian monarchist and Slavophile] Mr. Struve recently wrote that “principled pacifism has always been alien to Social Democracy, to the extent that the latter is based on orthodox Marxism.” He thus blames the Marxists and congratulates the French social-chauvinists (and Plekhanov along with them) for upholding the tradition of the “great pacifist orator Jean Jaurès” through their present conduct. Struve is right. Yes, the principle of pacifism has always been alien to orthodox Marxism. In 1848-1849, Marx openly called on revolutionary Germany, after its victory over absolutism in that country, to join with revolutionary Poland in waging a revolutionary offensive war against tsarism, against that international gendarme, against that pillar of international reaction. For Marx, this conduct obviously had nothing in common with principled pacifism. In 1885, Jules Guesde rejoiced at the threat of war between Russia and England in the hope that a social revolution would emerge from such a catastrophe. When Guesde acted in this way, when he called on the proletariat to make use of the war between two giant powers to hasten the unleashing of the proletarian revolution, he was much more of a Marxist than at present when, along with Sembat, he carries on the tradition of the “great pacifist orator Jean Jaurès.” In 1882, Friedrich Engels (see his 12 September 1882 letter to Kautsky on the fight against colonial policies in Kautsky’s pamphlet Socialism and Colonial Policy, page 79 of the German edition) wrote: “A victorious proletariat cannot forcibly confer any boon whatever on another country without undermining its own victory in the process. Which does not, of course, in any way preclude defensive wars of various kinds” (that is, wars by one or another proletariat victorious in its own country against countries that are fighting to maintain capitalism). With these words, Engels came out as an opponent of the principle of pacifism and spoke as a revolutionary Marxist.

Yes, we are by no means principled pacifists; we are absolutely not opposed to all wars. We are against their wars, we are against wars of the oppressors, against imperialist wars, against wars whose goal is to reduce countless millions of workers to slavery. However “Social Democrats cannot deny the positive significance of revolutionary wars, that is, non-imperialist wars and, for example, those that were waged between 1789 and 1871 to overthrow foreign oppression and create capitalist national states out of fragmented feudal lands or wars that may be waged to safeguard conquests won by the proletariat in its struggle against the bourgeoisie” (see our resolution on pacifism in Sotsial-Demokrat No. 40).

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But does this have any relevance to our Russian disputes, to the disagreements over the question of the slogan of peace, for example between ourselves and the paper of the Russian “Center,” Nashe Slovo?

This is definitely relevant. It is true: we won’t find in Nashe Slovo a consistent defense of the principle of pacifism in the spirit of Adler. But this journal wholeheartedly defends the theory of “democratic peace” and rejects the way that we pose the question when we assert that “anyone who believes in the possibility of a democratic peace without a series of revolutions is profoundly mistaken” (see our resolution in Sotsial-Demokrat No. 40). And this journal certainly does not establish a clearly defined difference between the two worldviews, the two tactics of organized international pacifism and the organized international preparation for civil war...

First of all, we would like to dispense with one supposed point of dispute. If you believe Nashe Slovo, Sotsial-Demokrat is committing “a serious political mistake” by ignoring the mass movement that is taking place around the slogan of peace, for example the demonstration of German socialist women in front of the Reichstag, etc. (Nashe Slovo No. 100). This of course is false. This demonstration was an extremely important event, which we welcome. It became a political event because it did not restrict itself to raising the slogan of peace: the demonstrators clearly protested against social-chauvinism by booing Scheidemann. And from a revolutionary Marxist standpoint, we wonder why the slogan for this demonstration had to be limited to “peace.” Why not “Bread and Jobs”? Why not “Down with the Kaiser”? Why not “For a Republic in Germany”? Why not “Long Live the Commune in Berlin, Paris and London”?

People may tell us: The slogan of peace is easier for the masses to comprehend. The huge sacrifice of blood oppresses them, the deprivations caused by the war are boundless, the chalice of suffering is overflowing: enough blood! Bring our sons and husbands back home! It is this simple slogan that the masses will understand most easily. True enough! But since when does revolutionary social democracy adopt slogans because they are the “easiest to understand”?

Social democracy should certainly not ignore the emerging movement to end the war. To enlighten the masses, it should make use of the growing disgust with the imperialist slaughter of 1914-1915; it should itself arouse this disgust which must be turned into hatred for those responsible for the massacres. But does this mean that its slogan, the political conclusion to be drawn from these grandiose bloody lessons of 1914-1915, the message on its banner, would purely and simply be “peace”?

No, a thousand times no! Social democrats will also participate in demonstrations for peace. But in so doing, they will raise their slogan, and starting from the simple desire for peace, they will call for revolutionary struggle. They will expose the pacifism of the petty bourgeoisie—those in the camp of the bourgeoisie as well as those in the camp of the fake socialists—who lull the masses with promises of a “democratic” peace without revolutionary action.

The “slogan” of peace has no revolutionary content in and of itself. It only takes on a revolutionary character when it is combined with our arguments for a tactic of revolutionary struggle, when it is accompanied by a call for revolution, by revolutionary protests against the government of one’s own country, against the imperialists of one’s “own” fatherland. Trotsky criticizes us for ceding this “slogan” of peace “to the exclusive use of sentimental pacifists and priests” (Nashe Slovo No. 100). What does that mean? We have limited ourselves to stating the most obvious, least disputed fact: those who stand merely for peace without giving this “slogan” any other meaning are the priests (see, for example, the many encyclicals of the Pope) and the sentimental pacifists. This in no way means that we were speaking out “against peace.” The slaughter must be ended as soon as possible; this goal must play and does play a role in our agitation. But this means that our own slogan is revolutionary struggle, that agitation for peace becomes social-democratic only when it is accompanied by revolutionary protests.

Ask yourself this simple factual question: Precisely who, right now, puts forward the notion that peace as a “slogan” is enough in and of itself? Let us try to list impartially the social and political groups that want peace. These are: the English bourgeois social-pacifists; Kautsky, Haase and Bernstein; the German Parteivorstand (party leadership) (see its recent appeal); various bourgeois Leagues for Peace, including in Holland; the head of the Catholic church; a section of the English bourgeoisie (see the revelations made some time ago about English initiatives for peace); and again, in Russia, an “advanced” section of the merchant class, a whole party of courtiers, etc. Naturally, each of these groups, each of these parties is driven by motives which are not those of the others, and each raises the question in its own fashion. And that is precisely what demonstrates that the “slogan” of peace, on its own, cannot be that of the revolutionary social democracy at this time.

Another thing about which there can also be no doubt: the various general staffs and governments play a game around the “slogan” of peace, according to their strategic and political considerations. This has been the case not only during the war, but in times of peace as well. The leader of the German opportunists, Mr. Eduard David, recently made the following significant revelation in his bible of social-chauvinism: it turns out that the Berne peace conference in 1913 included the participation of...the German government.

“We later found out,” David writes, “that the inter-parliamentary attempts at an agreement between France and Germany had been supported by [German Chancellor] Bethmann Hollweg. As [Reichstag] deputy Gothein stated, the participation of representatives of bourgeois parties in the Basel Conference in 1914 had been expressly recommended by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin.”

— Die Sozialdemokratie im Weltkrieg (Social Democracy in the World War), page 81

This is how bourgeois governments act in pursuit of their diplomatic games. They cynically exploit peace efforts by the socialists, whom they maneuver like puppets. Who could say, for example, who played the greater role in the appearance on this godly earth of the recent appeal for peace of the German Parteivorstand? Was there pressure by the workers and the Social Democratic opposition? Or was there a certain “inspiration” coming from “circles” close to Bethmann-Hollweg? This would by no means be in contradiction with the repression against Social Democratic journals which published the appeal. After all, the entire “game” of the likes of Bethmann-Hollweg consists of saying: we are committed as much as ever to war to the bitter end, even after the Lemberg affair [when Lemberg (Lvov) was retaken from Russia by the German army in 1915]; we have plenty of reserves, but “the people” have already had enough victories and are now demanding “an honorable peace.”

It is noteworthy that the official defenders of the “slogan” of peace often don’t even conceal that they take account of the strategic situation of their “fatherland.” By publishing the appeal for peace of the Parteivorstand, the official organs of the German party tell us: “We are authorized to state that, effective 7 May, the leadership unanimously adopted this appeal... But its publication was delayed due to Italy’s entry into the war. After the great military successes (of Germany) in Galicia, the leadership decided to proceed with its publication” (Hamburger Echo No. 147). Those same official organs of German Social Democracy reprinted, without a single word of criticism, the commentary by the semi-official government paper (the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung) on the Parteivorstand’s appeal. “The Social Democratic party leadership,” this government paper wrote, “published its manifesto, like other organizations, based on our complete certainty of victory...”

Such is the simple logic of social-chauvinism. Our [German commanders] Hindenburg or our Mackensen have won victory on the battlefield; that is why we are proponents of the “slogan” of peace. But since “our” [French commander] Joffre or our [British War Secretary] Kitchener have not won any victories, for our part we are therefore in favor of war to the bitter end...

On the other hand, a major defeat may also prompt those responsible for these matters to wink at the “socialists”: go ahead now, fellows, raise the “slogan” of peace. That was the case during the Vienna conference, when the tsar’s troops crossed the Carpathians and Krakow was threatened.

That alone should be enough to prevent revolutionary internationalists from adopting the “slogan” of peace without supplementing it...

There have been many misadventures with this “slogan”—just think, for example, about what happened to it in Nashe Slovo. At first this journal defended it from a purely pacifist standpoint: it argued for peace with certain “conditions,” i.e., a democratic peace. Now it just calls for peace without any conditions, since it has become all too clear that “disarmament,” “arbitration courts,” and so forth, do not suit those who seek to raise the question within a revolutionary framework. But this simple “slogan” of peace is already completely meaningless from the standpoint of Social Democracy. [Russian Tsar] Nicholas II and [German Kaiser] Wilhelm II are also proponents of peace “in general”: they certainly don’t need war for its own sake...

Kautsky has defended the “slogan” of peace ever since the beginning of the war (Kampf für den Frieden, Klassenkampf im Frieden [Struggle for Peace, Class Struggle in Times of Peace]). Vandervelde like Victor Adler, Sembat like Scheidemann, claim to be internationalists and pacifists, and the same is true of all the social-chauvinists. As the end of the war draws closer, diplomatic swindles by bourgeois cliques will become a greater factor behind the scenes and the simple “slogan” of peace will become ever less acceptable for socialist internationalists.

It is wrong and particularly dangerous to think that internationalists should be guided by considerations of who is for the “slogan” of peace and who is against it. If you want to make it impossible for the internationalists of different countries to agree, to close ranks under a definite programmatic banner; if you want to erase any dividing line between ourselves and the “Center,” then the “slogan” of peace must be adopted.

The Italian Social Democrats have made known through their press their intention of convening a conference or congress of internationalists. This undertaking should be warmly supported. But it would lose nine-tenths of its significance if its efforts were restricted to what the international conference of women [Berne, March 1915] and the international youth conference [Berne, April 1915] already did. Indeed, the point is not to draft a “unanimous” resolution together with social-pacifists, which includes the “slogan” of peace, and to slap each other on the back for adopting a so-called “action program” unanimously. In fact, this would be a program of inaction. Instead, faced with the current terrible crisis of socialism, what’s posed is to get our bearings; to regroup what remains of the army of Marxists; to break with the self-declared traitors and the vacillating elements who, in practice, come to their aid; to project a course of struggle for our socialist generation in the imperialist epoch; and to create a Marxist international nucleus.

There are now countless enthusiasts for the “slogan” of peace. And the number will continue to increase. The task of revolutionary internationalists is an entirely different one. We cannot salvage the banner of socialism, we cannot regroup the broad mass of working people under this banner, we cannot lay the cornerstone of the future, truly socialist, International except by proclaiming from this day forward the full Marxist program, by providing a clear and precise answer of our own as to how the socialist proletariat must fight in the epoch of imperialism. The question for us is much broader than the months remaining until the end of the first imperialist world war. The question for us is one of an entire epoch of imperialist wars.

Not with the idea of international pacifism, but with the idea of international civil war—in this sign thou shalt conquer!  

    

HONOR THE THREE L’S-LENIN, LUXEMBURG, LIEBKNECHT-Honor The Historic Leader Of The Bolshevik Revolution-Vladimir Lenin  

 

Every January leftists honor three revolutionaries who died in that month, V.I. Lenin of Russia in 1924, Karl Liebknecht of Germany and Rosa Luxemburg of Poland in 1919 murdered after leading the defeated Spartacist uprising in Berlin. I will make my political points about the heroic Karl Liebknecht and his parliamentary fight against the German war budget in World War I in this space tomorrow  (see also review in American Left History April 2006 archives). I have made some special points here yesterday about the life of Rosa Luxemburg (see review in American Left History January 2006 archives). In this 100th anniversary period of World War I 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, to define himself politically. Probably the best way to do that is to look at Lenin’s experiences through the prism of his fellow revolutionary, early political opponent and eventual co-leader of the Bolshevik Revolution Leon Trotsky.

A Look At The Young Lenin By A Fellow Revolutionary

The Young Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Doubleday and Co., New York, 1972

The now slightly receding figure of the 20^th century Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin founder and leader of the Bolshevik Party and guiding light of the October 1917 Russian Revolution and the first attempt at creating a socialist society has been the subject to many biographies. Some of those efforts undertaken during the time of the former Soviet government dismantled in 1991-92, especially under the Stalin regime, bordered on or were merely the hagiographic. Others, reflecting the ups and downs of the post- World War II Cold War, painted an obscene diabolical picture, excluding Lenin’s horns, and in some cases not even attempting to exclude those. In virtually all cases these efforts centered on Lenin’s life from the period of the rise of the Bolshevik Social Democratic faction in 1903 until his early death in 1924. In short, the early formative period of his life in the backwaters of provincial Russia rate a gloss over. Lenin’s fellow revolutionary Leon Trotsky, although some ten years younger than him, tries to trace that early stage of his life in order to draw certain lessons. It is in that context that Trotsky’s work contains some important insights about the development of revolutionary figures and their beginnings.

Although Trotsky’s little work, originally intended to be part of a full biography of Lenin, never served its purpose of educating the youth during his lifetime and the story of it discovery is rather interesting one should note that this is neither a scholarly work in the traditional sense nor is it completely free from certain fawning over Lenin by Trotsky. Part of this was determined by the vicissitudes of the furious Trotsky-Stalin fights in the 1920s and 1930s for the soul of the Russian Revolution as Trotsky tried to uncover the layers of misinformation about Lenin’s early life. Part of it resulted from Trotsky’s status of junior partner to Lenin and also to his late coming over to Bolshevism. And part of it is, frankly, to indirectly contrast Lenin’s and his own road to Marxism.

That said, this partial biography stands up very well as an analysis of the times that the young Lenin lived in, the events that affected his development and the idiosyncrasies of his own personality that drove him toward revolutionary conclusions. In short, Trotsky’s work is a case study in the proposition that revolutionaries are made not born.

To a greater extent than would be true today in a celebrity-conscious world many parts of Lenin’s early life are just not verifiable. Partially that is due to the nature of record keeping in the Russia of the 19^th century. Partially it is because of the necessity to rely on not always reliable police records. Another part is that the average youth, and here Lenin was in some ways no exception, really have a limited noteworthy record to present for public inspection. That despite the best efforts of Soviet hagiography to make it otherwise. Nevertheless Trotsky does an admirable job of detailing the high and low lights of agrarian Russian society and the vagaries of the land question in the second half of the 19^thcentury. One should note that Trotsky grew up on a Ukrainian farm and therefore is no stranger to many of the same kind of problems that Lenin had to work through concerning the solution to the agrarian crisis, the peasant question. Most notably, is that the fight for the Russian revolution that everyone knew was coming could only be worked out through the fight for influence over the small industrial working class and socialism.

I would note that for the modern young reader that two things Trotsky analyzes are relevant. The first is the relationship between Lenin and his older brother Alexander who, when he became politicized, joined a remnant of the populist People’s Will terrorist organization and attempted to assassinate the Tsar. For his efforts he and his co-conspirators were hanged. I have always been intrigued by the effect that this event had on Lenin’s development. On the one hand, as a budding young intellectual, would Lenin have attempted to avenge his brother’s fate with his same revolutionary intellectual political program? Or would Lenin go another way to intersect the coming revolutionary either through its agrarian component or the budding Marxist Social Democratic element? We know the answer but Trotsky provides a nicely reasoned analysis of the various influences that were at work in the young Lenin. That alone is worth the price of admission here.

The other point I have already alluded to above. Revolutionaries are made not born, although particular life circumstances may create certain more favorable conditions. Soviet historians in their voluntarist hay day tried to make of Lenin a superhuman phenomenon- a fully formed Marxist intellectual from his early youth. Trotsky once again distills the essence of Lenin’s struggle to make sense of the world, the Russian world in the first instance, as he tries to find a way out the Russian political impasse. Trotsky’s work only goes up to 1892-93, the Samara period, the period before Lenin took off for Petersburg and greener pastures. He left Samara a fully committed Marxist but it would be many years, with many polemics and by using many political techniques before he himself became a Bolshevik, as we know it. And that, young friends, is a cautionary tale that can be taken into the 21^st century. Read on.