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Note: Today is the 99th Anniversary of the
Russian Revolution. We are reprinting an essay written on the first anniversary
of the Russian Revolution by the American Marxist, Louis C. Fraina. Fraina, who is little known today, was one of
the founders of American Communism, and for a period one of its leaders, having led a
left wing split from the conservative leadership of the Socialist Party. He
was, (as chronicled in the recent book, Trotsky
in New York 1917: A Radical on the Eve of Revolution, by Kenneth D.
Ackerman), an early supporter of Trotsky who fought for a revolutionary
internationalist position in the Socialist Party, opposing American entry into World
War I. In later years he was known as
Lewis Corey and wrote a number of books on economic theory. He was hounded out of the Communist Party in the 1920's as a result of false charges labeling him a spy planted by an FBI agent. He later worked with the CP but was disgusted with Stalinism and finally broke with them. Ironically, in the 1950s, he became a victim of the McCarthyite witch hunts and was threatened with deportation. He died in 1952 before his case was adjudicated.
Lenin — An Appreciation.
by Louis C. Fraina
Published in One
Year of Revolution: Celebrating the First Anniversary of the Founding of the
Russian Soviet Republic: November 7, 1918. (Brooklyn, NY: The Class
Struggle, 1918), pp. 3
|
Marx was the master of the
Revolution in theory. Lenin is the master of the Revolution in action. But as
Marx, the man of theory, had great capacity for action, so Lenin, the man of
action, has great capacity for theory.
In fact, the dominant form of the
activity of Marx and Lenin is determined not by peculiar talent or
characteristics, but by the historic milieu conditioning their activity. This
is precisely the mark of the great rebel — that he concentrates upon the
fundamental revolutionary task of his day.
If I were asked what particular
phase of Lenin appears to me as decisive, I would answer: his dynamic capacity
to unite theory and practice. This is not as simple a thing as it may appear.
Usually, the Socialist is an opportunist, who casts aside every real
opportunity for immediate revolutionary action, becoming an adept in bourgeois
liberal activity and social reformism, accepting theory in the facile fashion
of an average Christian accepting his religion — repudiating the revolutionary
tasks of Socialism; or a “revolutionist” becomes an adept in using formulae,
whose action is hampered by the silken cord of abstract theory, absorbed so
much in the Revolution that the requirements of the immediate revolutionary
struggle are allowed to pass into the years of wasted opportunity — paltering
with the revolutionary tasks of Socialism. Each of these two types of
Socialists evade all actual problems of the Revolution. Action must be directed
by theory, and theory must become action. An uncompromising revolutionist,
Lenin has an overwhelming sense of reality. The Revolution to him is not a
dress parade of amicable transformation, of the pacific “penetration” of
Capitalism by Socialism; nor is it the conquest of Capitalism by the
formulation of “revolutionary” theory and formulae, much as a bourgeois
“idealist” sees in general principles of human action the means for the
emancipation of the world. No; Lenin conceives the Revolution as a series of
implacable, brutal class struggles; as a process in which theory and action are
inseparably united; as a dynamic movement in which every opportunity, every
crisis, every strength, weakness, and peculiarity of the social alignment
becomes the subject of study and appropriate action.
Let it not appear from this that
Lenin is an opportunist wavering with each new shift of the social wind; Lenin
has the utmost scorn, and justly, for the miserable opportunist who shifts and
wavers, hesitates and compromises, and uses “reality” as a justification.
Adapting one’s self to temporarily dominant facts, compromising with issues and
forces fundamentally contrary to Socialism on the specious plea of “necessary
action,” is not to adapt one’s self to reality, but to accept forms instead of
substance, the appearance of reality for reality itself. Reality is infinitely
deceptive. At the moment when the war and Tsarism constituted the “reality” in
Russia, a new reality appeared and burst forth, the action of the revolutionary
proletariat, the reality of revolutionary Socialism. Life is consistent in
spite of apparent inconsistency. There must be consistency in theory and in
action, based upon adapting each to the fundamental facts of the forces and
tendency of Capitalism and the revolutionary proletariat. Consistency that is
flexible, and flexibility that is consistent, are instruments of the
Revolution. When the moment for “necessary action” comes — revolutionary action
— the opportunist will waver and oppose this necessary revolutionary action, as
did the majority Socialists in Europe, the “men of action”; while the man who
was accused of not being “in action,” who rejected participation in certain
action as contrary to Socialism and the class struggle, becomes the director
and inspiration of the greatest of all revolutions.
It might make one cynical, if
life itself didn’t suppress cynicism in the revolutionary Socialist, to
consider certain reactions toward Lenin. There are many who consider Lenin a
sort of bolt from the blue, a miraculous product of the Russian Revolution;
there are others who bitterly attacked Lenin, now singing his praises, while
they try to compress Lenin’s policy into the small space of their petty
purposes and corrupt ideology; and there are still others who invoke Lenin and
the proletarian revolution in Russian while pursuing the petty bourgeois,
opportunistic policy of moderate Socialism which they have always pursued, and
which Lenin condemned, condemns, and will continue to condemn... And Lenin
serenely, uncompromisingly, adheres to the revolutionary theory and action
compromising his fundamental policy for twenty years, disaster and success
alike emphasizing his revolutionary energy and initiative....
During the course of years Lenin
labored in comparative obscurity, forging the concepts that have become the thunderbolts
of the Russian Revolution. Lenin represented the minority, that minority of
revolutionary Socialism which in all nations actively represents the Revolution
and is the hope of the proletariat. The world of Socialism — that is to say,
the world comprised in the petty bourgeois Socialism of the Second
International — rendered homage to clay idols, to Karl Kautsky, to Georgii
Plekhanov, to Jules Guesde, all of whom collapsed miserably under the test of
the revolutionary crisis produced by the war. The world of petty bourgeois
Socialism invoked the German Social Democracy, the British Labour Party, the
French Socialist Party, the dominant Socialism in Russia, while it ignored,
condemned, or knew nothing of the Bolsheviki and other groups of the revolutionary
minority, the policy of which conquers in Russia, and will conquer everywhere
by means of the New International of the final struggle and victory. But Lenin
was not swerved from his course by apparent failure, no more than he has been
swerved from his course by success. In these years of preparation for the
Revolution, in these bitter years of momentary triumph of a Socialism
essentially counterrevolutionary, Lenin developed the fundamentals of his
policy, which his revolutionary integrity and mastery of theory convinced him
were in accord with the fundamental facts and tendency of Capitalism and the
proletariat, and which would necessarily conquer under the impulse of the
universal crisis generated by Imperialism, which introduces the new revolutionary
epoch of the proletarian class struggle.
The courage and initiative of the
man, his integrity and devotion to the fundamental tasks of Socialism, his
refusal to temporize with revolutionary consistency, policy, and honor for the
sake of meretricious popularity, are marvels of character and vision, an
inspiration to the Socialist and the rebel.
It is impossible to chronicle
here the achievements of Lenin. But there is one achievement, I think, which is
characteristic. I was discussing Lenin with a comrade the other day, and he
said: “It rather tires me to read so much in which Lenin repeatedly insists, as
against Karl Kautsky, that Marx said this or meant that. A man who has
accomplished what Lenin has in Russia doesn’t have to worry about Marx.” But Marxism
is the theoretical instrument of the proletarian revolution; it is upon the
basis of Marxism that Lenin builds. And a great achievement of Lenin is the
restoration of Marxism to its real character as an instrument of revolutionary
action. During the past twenty-five years, Marxism has experienced a
transformation, becoming the means of interpreting history and a fetish of
controversy, instead of a maker of history and an instrument of revolutionary
action. This degrading conception of Marxism was dominant in the old
International. The “Marxist,” instead of using Marxism to interpret new
revolutionary developments, used their atrophied Marxism as a means of crushing
new revolutionary ideas or compressing them into the stultifying limits of the
old tactics, and justifying or explaining away every abandonment of
revolutionary Socialism by the dominant petty bourgeois Socialism. Lenin used
Marx against these pseudo-Marxists, insisted on making Marxism an instrument of
revolutionary action, built upon the basis of Marxism and amplified its scope.
Marx is again the rebel, and not the slave of the Socialist pedant. Lenin used
Marxism to interpret the new social alignments of imperialism, the new forms of
the class struggle, and to forge the concepts of theory and action
corresponding to the new revolutionary epoch.
Lenin’s theoretical activity
bulks large. His Development of
Capitalism in Russia is considered a master work, as is his Agrarian Problem in Russia; his Imperialism: The Final Stage of Capitalism
is a splendid analysis of the prevailing epoch, a brilliant unity of theory and
action in Socialist interpretation. Then there is Lenin’s pamphlet, The State and the Revolution, a
discussion of the determining problem of the proletarian revolution; and his numerous
pamphlets and other works issued during the Revolution, and which are classics
of the application of fundamental Socialism to the problems of immediate,
dynamic action during a revolutionary crisis. This theoretical work of Lenin
will yet become a source of inspiration in the coming reconstruction of
Socialism, supplemented by the accomplishments of the proletarian revolution in
Russia.
It is not in any sense a
concession to the Carlylean theory of “the Great Man” to admit that each great
epoch of history expresses itself, focuses itself, in a great individual: Marat
individualized the proletarian tendency of the French Revolution, Marx
individualized the theoretical coming-of-age of the revolutionary proletariat;
and Lenin individualizes the proletarian revolution in Russia.
Greetings, men and women of the proletarian
revolution in Russia! Greetings, Lenin, symbol of the oncoming revolutionary
Socialism that will conquer in spite of all!
Louis C. Fraina.
