By Robert V. Daniels

F

ifty years after the Russian Revolution, it is a commonplace among objective observers that the doctrines, ideals and oratory heralding the establishment of the Soviet state and the Communist International sooner or later became a hard and confining shell of empty dogma maintained to support a pragmatic system of unlimited power. It is perhaps less often appreciated that initially those doctrines, ideals and oratory were honestly and intensely believed by the adherents of one particular tendency within the Communist movement. Revolution, of course, devours its children, and none were consumed more completely than the people most devoted to the original aims of the revolution. Memory of them is dim, but a backward glance at their ef forts and aspirations helps to put the subsequent evolution of Soviet communism in a more accurate perspective.

cal aspirations of communism was foreshadowed from an early date in the controversies between Leftists and Leninists, starting well before the Revolution. "Left communism" left little imprint on the ultimate character of the Communist movement (aside from some slight present-day parallels), but in its history the opposition from the Left documented graphically the evolution of the Soviet system along lines contradictory to its own premises.

It is difficult to trace the successive manifestations of Left communism, or to summarize their implications, without reviewing the entire history of the CPSU up to the purges.' In view of space limitations, however, this article will attempt only to outline the antecedents of the tendency, its main phases, and its particular theoretical emphases, as a basis for judging the actual evolution of the Soviet system.

Mr. Daniels is the author of Marxism and Communism (New York, Random House, 1965) and of Red October: The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 (New York, Scribner's, 1967). He is Professor of History at the University of Vermont (Burlington).

Left communism had as its psychological core a dogmatic commitment to Marxian theory and an intense, idealistic belief in the struggle for the per

1 The reader may be referred to my book, The Conscience Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1960. of the Revolution: Communist Opposition in Soviet Russia,

fect society. Individuals so inclined appeared by 1905 in both the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions of Russian Social Democracy. Among the Bolsheviks the left-wingers were distinguished by their romantic attachment to utopia through insurrection, expressed in the long controversy over participation in the Tsarist Duma. The Menshevik LeftFiodor Dan, J. Martov, etc.-thought primarily in the context of international revolution and long rejected Bolshevism as a projection of Lenin's polemical style and disciplinarian methods. Both currents of thought were centered in Russian political émigré circles abroad and strongly reflected the influence of left-wing Marxism in Western Europe with its democratic and even anarcho-syndicalist emphasis on the international mass movement.

If we set the inception of the Communist movement at the Social Democratic split in 1903, the distinctive signs of the Left Communist tendency were already making their appearance within three short years in the form of opposition to Lenin's leadership. In what way was Lenin not "left” enough to satisfy the revolutionary appetites of the romantic hotheads whom he had attracted into his Bolshevik organization? Initially, it was because he disappointed their hopes for a renewed armed uprising on the model of Moscow in 1905. Lenin's decision to put up Bolshevik deputies for the Duma in order to take advantage of their modest long-run propaganda value evoked opposition from two Left groups: the "Otzovists," who wanted to recall the deputies, and the "Ultimatists," who demanded that they behave in a more revolutionary manner. Both groups stood up to challenge the Leninists in bitter controversy not only in Russia but also in the "emigration.'

The incipient Left communism of the "Otzovists" and "Ultimatists" was no mere flare-up of an insignificant fringe, as Soviet official history would have it. Heading the opposition was Lenin's own second-in-command, the extraordinary physicianphilosopher Aleksandr Bogdanov (real name Malinovski, but no relation to Lenin's later favorite, the agent provocateur Roman Malinovski). Bogdanov was supported by another early Lenin lieutenant, Leonid Krasin, an engineer-turned-bombmaker who ended his career as Soviet Commissar of Foreign Trade; by the leading Bolshevik intellectuals-the

2 The Russian word Otzovisty literally means "recallists." The "Ultimatists" derived their name from the fact that they proposed an ultimatum to the Bolshevik deputies in the Duma ordering them to take a more revolutionary stance.

writer Maksim Gorki, the historian Mikhail Pokrovski, the litterateur Anatoli Lunacharski; and by a host of up-and-coming young Bolsheviks, including such future famous names as Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Bukharin.

From their tactical disagreements the Leftists moved on to theoretical speculations of a sort Lenin thought intolerable-Gorki's "god-building," which represented socialism as a religion, and Bodganov's sophisticated philosophy of knowledge, called “empirio-criticism." The latter was responsible for Lenin's heavy-handed polemic, "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism," one of the more obnoxious items in his collected works. But theoretical refutation was not enough for Lenin; in the summer of 1909 he called a meeting of the Bolshevik leadership and officially expelled the "Left fools" from what was not yet officially a party. This move was a landmark in developing the practice of totalitarian political control, and it would not be the last time that Left communism provided the anvil on which to hammer out this formidable Russian contribution to 20th-century culture.

During the war years, a new "Left Bolshevik" opposition, whose chief concern was to make the anticipated revolution total and international, made its appearance under the leadership of the great idealist of communism, Bukharin. But the issue of the war itself served to bring Lenin, the old and new Left Bolsheviks, and the Left Mensheviks back together on the common ground of internationalism and defeatism. Cemented by the absorption of Trotsky and most of the Menshevik Left into the Bolshevik ranks in the summer of 1917, this alliance provided the bulk of the leadership that carried the Bolsheviks to a victory that was discounted and opposed by many of Lenin's closest lieutenants.

During 1917 the Bolshevik Party was repeatedly shaken by controversies between the traditional Leninists and the rising tide of utopian enthusiasm. The left-leaning Bolshevik leadership that first surfaced in Petrograd in February was deposed by Stalin and Kamenev in March, but Lenin's return to Russia in April and his startling espousal of the overthrow of the Provisional Government threw the scales heavily toward the Left. By October, only an overcautious remnant led by Grigori Zinoviev and Kamenev ventured to oppose armed insurrection openly, though few even of the romantic hotheads went as far as Lenin in espousing the tactics of a military coup and the establishment of a oneparty dictatorship. In the end the dream of proletarian revolution came to pass more by accident than by design.

Postrevolutionary Struggles

Both the Left and Right wings of Bolshevism were uneasy about the implications of absolute oneparty rule. When, just after the Bolshevik coup, Lenin rejected the idea of sharing power with other socialist parties, five Right-wingers including Zinoviev, Kamenev and A. I. Rykov-temporarily resigned from the Central Committee in protest, and several newly-appointed People's Commissars also turned in their government portfolios. A. G. Shliapnikov, a member of the Bolshevik Left, sided with the dissenters, while Bukharin, another Left-wing stalwart, hoped for a compromise which would salvage the Constituent Assembly.

But if the Left wing shared the misgivings of the Right in regard to one-party dictatorship, it was much more vigorous in its opposition to the new regime's actions in foreign affairs. A week after he dispersed the Constituent Assembly, Lenin shocked the entire Bolshevik Party by calling for peace with Germany and the temporary abandonment of revolutionary war. His opponents of the Right wing now joined him in this counsel of caution, while the purists on the Left were aghast. There followed a month and a half of violent controversy in the Bolshevik ranks before Lenin finally won the Central Committee's authorization that led to the peace of Brest-Litovsk. The vote was five in favor, with four opposed (Bukharin's group) and four abstentions (Trotsky's group). Undaunted by this defeat, the Bukharin group formally organized itself as the faction of Left Communists, with its own journal, and proceeded to attack Lenin's domestic backsliding from the economic democracy of State and Revolution.

Left communism was soon broken as a mass movement by Lenin's organizational pressure, and with the onset of War Communism in the middle of 1918 many of the Leftist leaders resumed their places in a regime they now felt to be their own. However, a distinct fissure now appeared within Left communism between the most idealistic tendency and the proponents of a more pragmatic and authoritarian approach to the future society. Trotsky and most of the Left-Menshevik recruits to Bolshevism fell into this latter category and worked high in the party leadership during the period of War Communism. On the other hand, the purists again went into opposition, this time as two separately organized groups-the Democratic Centralists ("Decists") and the Workers' Opposition. The Decists, mostly intellectuals and administrators led by Valerian Osinski and Timofei Sapronov, protested the

overcentralization of the economy and the overshadowing of the soviets by the party. The Workers' Opposition under Shliapnikov and Aleksandra Kollontai, backed by some real trade-union support, hoped to revivify the ideal of workers' control in industry and to win for the unions an autonomous role in the regime. A "Military Opposition," associated with the Decists, also appeared in 1919 and fought against Trotsky's restoration of professional command in the army. All these currents of an anticentralist and anti-bureaucratic character welled up strongly after the end of the Civil War in 1920 and posed a real challenge to Lenin's authority.

The Tenth Party Congress in March 1921, however, marked a decisive downturn in the fortunes of Left communism. Divided between the anarchists and the authoritarians and embarrassed by the Kronstadt rebellion, the Leftists were powerless to stop Lenin's moves to terminate the revolution by the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP) and the abolition of factional freedom within the party. Thenceforth any serious effort from the Left to protest against discrepancies between doctrine and practice was held to be a breach of the essence of Leninism and subjected the critics to the irresistible power of the party Secretariat and Central Control Commission.

Nevertheless, the onset of Lenin's fatal illness in 1923 enabled the Left Communists to launch a new bid for power, both the purist and authoritarian wings joining forces on a platform of opposition to the NEP and the domination of the party secretariat. The "Declaration of the 46" and Trotsky's "New Course" articles touched off the first acrimonious contest for the succession, a fight in which the Left, however, was quickly beaten. The ultra-Left then went its own ineffective way again, while Trotsky teamed up with the Leninist rivals of Stalin-Zinoviev and Kamenev to mount a last desperate stand against the power of the party organization in 1926-27. Both groups were politically

3 The anti-Communist uprising of sailors at the Kronstadt naval base in March 1921, under Anarchist and Left Communist influence.

* The "Declaration of the 46" was a statement signed by leading Trotskyists and Democratic Centralists in October 1923 to protest authoritarianism in the party and neglect of the workers. (Text in E. H. Carr, The Interregnum, London, Macmillan, 1954, pp. 367-73.) Trotsky's "New Course" articles, published in December 1923, applauded and elaborated certain gestures toward democratization which had been made by the party leadership, then in the hands of the troika-Stalin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev. The latter, however, made the articles the pretext for a campaign against the opposition. (See Trotsky, The New Course, translated and edited by Max Shachtman, New York, The New International, 1943.)

destroyed with their expulsion from the Communist Party at the 15th Congress in December 1927.

The rest was anticlimax. One by one, the leaders of Left communism "capitulated" to the Stalin of the Five-Year Plans and persuaded themselves that they were at least minimally advancing their ideals by working for him—that is, all but Trotsky, deported and reviled. With the onset of the purges, the former Leftists, almost without exception, were rounded up and liquidated, with or without trial. Aleksandra Kollontai, who had long since come to terms with Stalin, was the sole important survivor. The entire movement was equated with treason and bourgeois conspiracy, and so it remains in the official Soviet mind.

What were the principles of Left communism that consistently distinguished it and identified it with the historic convulsion of 1917? Left communism involved a special position in every major area of political emotion and policy, and in each area there was a significant distinction from the Leninism that ultimately prevailed. Politically, Left communism was anarchistic; in foreign relations, antinational; in economics, democratic. It put its faith in mass agitation and spontaneous movement. In military affairs, guerrilla war was its answer. In social and cultural life, it meant to liberate the individual entirely from the grip of bourgeois tradition and mores. At bottom, Left communism took seriously the violent road to the utopia of free and equal individuals.

The political philosophy of Left communism was first given full articulation by Nikolai Bukharin in his articles of the war years, notably in "The Theory of the Imperialist State." Bukharin held that the

Published in Revoliutsiia prava (The Revolution of Law), Collection I, Moscow, Communist Academy, 1925.

Left Communists and the Revolution

Proletarian Communists consider another course of policy essential: not the course of preserving a soviet oasis in the north of Russia with the help of concessions that transform it into a petit-bourgeois state; not the transi tion to "organic internal work," fortified by the consideration that the "acute period" of the civil war is over.

The acute period of the civil war is over only in the sense of the absence of objective necessity to apply predominantly the sharpest physical measures of revolutionary violence.

But the sharpness of the class contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoi sie cannot diminish. . . . The end of the acute period of the civil war cannot signify that deals are possible with the remaining forces of the bourgeoisie; and the "organic construction" of socialism, which is undoubtedly the key task of the moment, can be accomplished only by the efforts of the proletariat itself, with the participation of skilled technicians and administrators, and not with some form or other of collaboration with the "privileged elements" as such.

The Russian workers' revolution cannot "save itself" by leaving the international revolutionary path, steadily avoiding a fight, retreating in the face of the pressure of international capital, and making concessions to "patriotic capital.”. . .

-From "Theses of the Present Moment," presented by the faction of Left Communists for a conference of party leaders, April 4, 1918 (Kommunist No. 1, April 1918.)

bourgeois state, extending into state capitalism, had the power to thwart the laws of proletarian revolution, and that the state must therefore be literally destroyed, not just taken over. This, of course, was the program that Lenin borrowed and dramatized in his State and Revolution along with a selection of anti-authoritarian quotes from Marx and Engels. But unlike Lenin, the Left Communists continued, even after the Revolution, to be suspicious of concentrated political authority, although they acceded to the fact of one-party politics. The "Decists" in particular criticized the displacement of the

soviets by the party organization and the trend toward centralism within the party.

A perennial theme of the Left in the 1920's was the notion that the Soviet regime was succumbing to a bureaucratic perversion or restoration. The Trotskyists and, from 1925 to 1927, the Zinovievists-hinted broadly at the menace of "state capitalism" implied by the prevailing policies of Stalin and of Bukharin, who had abandoned Left communism after the NEP period began). In 192829, after Stalin had destroyed the Left Opposition and turned against Bukharin, the latter returned to his old theme of the "commune state" in order to warn against the power of nascent totalitarianism.

Another Leftist who opposed the bureaucratic trend was Trotsky's friend, Khristian Rakovski. Exiled to Astrakhan following the 15th Party Congress, he wrote out a quasi-Marxist analysis of the Stalinist phenomenon, interpreting it as a seizure of power by the bureaucracy as a new ruling class. This notion became the parent of a series of Leftist criticisms of Stalinism from outside Russia, includ

ing Trotsky's The Revolution Betrayed (1937), James Burnham's Managerial Revolution (1941), and Milovan Djilas' The New Class (1957). But it was always too late when the spokesmen of the Left realized to what extent their anti-bureaucratic ideal had been compromised by their acceptance of the initial revolutionary dictatorship.

In the organization of necessary social activities

-be it economic enterprise, military action, education, or whatever-Left communism was deeply wedded to the principle of participatory democracy. In 1917 this was most spectacularly expressed in the "workers' control" movement, which sought to subject all industry to supervision or direct management by elected factory committees. "Workers' control" became a widespread practice in the weeks immediately preceding and following the October Revolution, only to be repudiated by Lenin early in 1918 as an economic impracticality. This gave further impetus to the formation of the organized Left-Communist opposition protesting Lenin's acceptance of conventional forms of industrial management and labor relations. "State capitalism," the Left warned.

From 1919 to 1921, the representatives of Left communism fought vocally but vainly for industrial democracy, the Workers' Opposition stressing union participation in administration, and the "Decists" calling for "collegiality" in factory management and in the higher administration of whole industries. Both groups stood on the principle of wage equality and resisted differentials in remuneration for skill and managerial responsibility.

During the years of War Communism, all factions of the Left hoped to get rid of the money economy in the name of true communism. To this end they welcomed rationing and inflation as steps toward the "withering-away of money" and an equalitarian, natural economy. Bukharin, writing in 1920, went on to justify the breakdown of the industrial economy as a salutary event clearing the ground for the new order."

In 1920-21, the broad range of disagreement between the party leadership and the factions of the Left over economic organization was focused into the test issue of the future of the trade unions in the celebrated "trade union controversy." The

6 Ekonomiia perekhodnovo perioda (Economics of the Transition Period), Moscow, 1920.