"Lenin despised anybody who disagreed
with him, even – especially – within his own party"
Anthony Beevor
"Just as a blacksmith cannot seize the
red hot iron in his naked hand, so the proletariat cannot directly seize the
power; it has to have an organisation accommodated to this task. The
coordination of the mass insurrection with the conspiracy, the subordination of
the conspiracy to the insurrection, and the organisation of the insurrection
through the conspiracy constitutes that complex and responsible department of
revolutionary politics which Marx and Engels called "the art of
insurrection." It presupposes a correct general leadership of the masses,
a flexible orientation in changing conditions, a thought-out plan of attack,
cautiousness in technical preparation, and a daring blow."
History of the Russian Revolution, Chapter 30
(1930) Leon Trotsky
“ Arguments to the effect that all violence,
including revolutionary violence, is evil and that Communists, therefore, ought
not to engage in "glorification" of armed struggle and the
revolutionary army amount to a philosophy worthy of Quakers and the old maids
of the Salvation Army. Permitting such propaganda in a Communist Party is like
permitting Tolstoyan propaganda in the garrison of a besieged fortress.”
Introduction to the Military Writings (1923) of
Leon Trotsky
The Russian Revolution and the Civil War
1917-1921 are two events that, even after over one hundred years, are still
buried under layers of myths, lies, distortions and a few hundred dead dogs.[1]
Hopefully, a new book covering both subjects
written by Anthony Beevor would counter the lies and myths perpetrated by
historians and writers who belong to the Post-Soviet School of Historical
Falsification. It has proven not to be the case. Beevor, despite having one of the
foremost researchers in Russia, Lyubov Vinogradova, who used the most up-to-date
scholarship and archival research, tends to repeat largely verbatim previous
lies and falsifications.
Antony Beevor is a military historian best
known for his books Stalingrad and Berlin. His books have sold in the millions.
His latest book takes pride of place amongst the already large pile of anti-Marxist
literature from the Post-Soviet School of Historical Falsification. Beevor is
now vice president of that elite group.
He believes the Russian Revolution was a
putsch or coup d’état carried out by a few ruthless, deranged people determined
to impose a totalitarian dictatorship upon the people. Beevor asserts, "Lenin
was the only one within the Bolshevik party who believed a coup was possible,
and even Trotsky was nervous. Lenin perceived – and he was absolutely right –
that the success of a coup depends on the apathy of the majority, not on how
many real supporters you have."[2]
If one is to take this analysis at face value
or without one's tongue in cheek, you would have to conclude that Beevor has a
very low intellectual understanding or interest in complex political and historical
processes. Beevor continues this lack of knowledge by arguing that the Bolshevik
Party was a small sect and utilised the great confusion created by the
revolution to grab power. Beevor's lies and distortions are nothing new and
merely repeat what previous historians, such as the right-wing historian Richard
Pipes, have said.
Pipes, too, believed that the revolution was carried
out by a group of crazed intellectuals who he defines as "intellectuals
craving power. They were revolutionaries not for the sake of improving the
conditions of the people but for the sake of gaining domination over the people
and remaking them in their image."[3]
Most of the capitalist press has sided with
Beevor, with one person saying, "Beevor is not interested in the
revolutionaries' ideology (rightly so, since hatred and vengeance were the
underlying motive forces, and Marxist or anarchist slogans were mere rallying
cries). Nor does he delve deep into revolutionary psychology, though he
denounces Lenin's mix of cowardice, callousness and obstinacy and singles out
Trotsky's hypnotic charisma. He chronicles Stalin's brutal and often disastrous
military interventions without comment."
According to Beevor, revolutionaries like
Lenin carried out their work in secret behind the backs of the people. He
leaves out that Lenin wrote enough books, articles, and letters to fill fifty-one
volumes, none of which Beevor quotes. Beevor's stupid assertion can be easily
refuted. As the Marxist writer David North does very easily asking us to "Consider
this: To produce fifty-five volumes of political literature, each volume
between 300 and 500 pages, means that Lenin, in the course of his thirty-year
political career, had an average annual written output of between 600 and 1,000
pages (in printed form). This output included economic studies, philosophical
tracts, political treatises, resolutions, newspaper commentaries and articles,
extensive professional and personal correspondence, innumerable memoranda and
private notes, such as the Philosophical Notebooks, which enable us to follow
the intellectual development of Lenin's conceptions. Much of Lenin's working
day, for years on end, was spent at the writing desk. And yet all this writing
was nothing more than the means by which Lenin skilfully concealed what he was
really thinking!"[4]
I somehow doubt if Beevor studied a single
page of Lenin's collected works. The same can be said of the co-leader of the
Russian revolution and leader of the Red Army Leon Trotsky. Trotsky, without
military training, won a stunning victory over White reactionaries and
seventeen capitalists and still found time to write five volumes of military
writings again, none of which Beevor consults. If Beevor had read Trotsky, it
would have been very uncomfortable for him because he refutes all his arguments.
Take this quote on the need for revolutionary
violence "Arguments to the effect that all violence, including
revolutionary violence, is evil and that Communists, therefore, ought not to
engage in "glorification" of armed struggle and the revolutionary
army, amount to a philosophy worthy of Quakers and the old maids of the
Salvation Army. Permitting such propaganda in a Communist Party is like
permitting Tolstoyan propaganda in the garrison of a besieged fortress."[5]
The reader of this book will need a strong
stomach because large chunks of the text contain lurid tales of violence
committed on both sides. The Guardian writer Andrew Anthony backs up Beevor's squeamishness
stating, "the violence committed by all sides was unconfined, with torture
and executions widespread, and it was not uncommon for people to be thrown
alive into blast furnaces. As Lenin saw any opposition as tantamount to
treason, he demanded that all signs of resistance be met with brutal force.
Trotsky, charming intellectual though he could be, was no less willing to issue
orders that opponents should be shot on sight."[6]
The reader must ask whether Beevor makes a serious
attempt to understand the objective causes of the Civil War when Beevor states,
"What has stood out is the sheer horror of the civil war? There's savagery
and sadism that is very hard to comprehend; I'm still mulling it over and
trying to understand it. It was not just the build-up of hatred over centuries
but a vengeance that seemed to be required. It went beyond the killing; there
was also the sheer, horrible inventiveness of the tortures inflicted on people.
We need to look at the origins of the civil war: who started it, and was it
avoidable? But one also needs to see the different patterns seen in the "Red
Terror" [the campaign of political repression and violence carried out by
the Bolsheviks] and the "White Terror" [the violence perpetrated by
that side in the war] – and consider the question: why are civil wars so much
crueller, so much more savage than state-on-state wars?"[7]
Beevor continues in the same mode when he asserts
that "Lenin wanted the civil war. Civil war is the sharpest form of class struggle.
In his view, it was the only way for the Bolsheviks to take power. The other
socialist parties – the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks – were
horrified by his plans because they knew that after he had smashed the liberal
and conservative parties, he would turn on them – and he certainly did. Lenin
despised anybody who disagreed with him, even – especially – within his own
party. The less-extreme members who warned against this complete seizure of
power, this total dictatorship that Lenin was planning, were either more or
less rejected from the party or kept in a kind of subservient position."
Beevor turns events on their head and is guilty of falsifying the historical
record. Counter-revolutionaries caused the civil war with the aid of seventeen
capitalist powers seeking to drown the revolution in blood.
The book presents no objective understanding
of the complexities of the revolution or civil war. We get a cataloguing of
violence in the Civil War that does not enlighten the reader one iota. Beevor
quite deliberately downplays the fact that much of the violence, such as the execution
of Czar Nicholas II and other examples in the book {which should be taken with
a large pinch of salt and on many occasions, are not factual and have no
supporting evidence} were extreme measures forced upon the revolution when it
was fighting for its life against a savage and ruthless enemy, backed by the
armies of all the major imperialist powers. Beevor is forced to admit that the counter-revolutionary
White officers "wanted to bring back the punishments used by the tsarist
army, which meant that they would be allowed to punch soldiers in the face on a
summary charge, whip them using rifle-cleaning rods, things like that."
The War In Ukraine
Although the book concentrates on the Russian
Revolution and the subsequent Civil War, much of the media interest has centred
on Beevor's attitude towards the current war in Ukraine, the war in Ukraine has
mistakenly been compared to the Rusian Civil War. Beevor holds the same
position as other capitalist media. Beevor's analysis of Russia's war with
Ukraine is shallow, chaotic and wrong. He equates Putin with Hitler and Stalin
and says, "Putin Wants to Be Feared – Like Stalin and Hitler, and he sees
Russia as a "prisoner of its past."
Christoph Vandreier writes that while the
Russian invasion of Ukraine is politically reactionary, "it cannot be
compared to the Wehrmacht's war of annihilation, let alone the Holocaust. The
forces deployed by the Putin regime against Ukraine are minuscule compared to
the invasion force hurled by Hitler against Russia in 1941.
Vandreier, in his article, quotes Historian
Stephen G. Fritz, who made the following remarks "Deploying over 3 million
men, 3,600 tanks, 600,000 motorised vehicles (as well as 625,000 horses), 7,000
artillery pieces, and 2,500 aircraft (a number that was smaller than that
employed during the invasion of France), the Germans had launched the largest
military operation in history. Germany's "Operation Barbarossa,"
Fritz continued: was not only the most massive military campaign in history,
but it also unleashed an unprecedented campaign of genocidal violence, of which
the Holocaust remains the best-known example. This Judeocide, however, was not
an isolated act of murder; rather, it formed part of a deliberate,
comprehensive plan of exploitation, a utopian scheme of racial reorganisation
and demographic engineering of vast proportions.[8]
Conclusion
The author is an accomplished historian, and
his book is accessible and written in a vivid style. However, the book is no
masterpiece. Beevor's tendency to ignore politics and his lack of understanding
of complex historical processes weakens the book beyond rescue. The book is too
short, given the magnitude of the subjects covered. Beevor's references and
notes are virtually nonexistent, as is his use of previous historiography. As
the great historian E.H Carr once said, "Great history is written
precisely when the historian's vision is illuminated by insights into the
problems of the present" [9] .
Beevor's book is not great history. It would be precise to say that his historical
falsification is bound up with his efforts to obscure an understanding of the
present.
Notes
Melvyn Bragg and historians discuss Lenin on
BBC Radio 4's In Our Time at bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p00546pv
Letter to a Young Trotskyist in Russia- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/06/30/oqgd-j30.html
Imperialism and the lie of the soul- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/05/24/rach-m24.html
The Military Writings of Leon Trotsky-Volume
1, 1918-How the Revolution Armed- https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1918/military/index.htm
[1] Thomas Carlyle,
who had complained that his study of Cromwell had required that he “drag the
Lord Protector from out of a mountain of dead dogs, a huge load of calumny and
oblivion.”
[2] https://www.pressreader.com/uk/bbc-history-magazine/20220609/282239489241759
[3] Richard Pipes,
Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), p. 495.
[4]
https://www.wsws.org/en/special/library/russian-revolution-unfinished-twentieth-century/01.html
[5] Introduction to the Military
Writings (1923)-Leon Trotsky
[6] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jun/05/russia-revolution-and-civil-war-1917-1921-antony-beevor-review
[7] https://www.pressreader.com/uk/bbc-history-magazine/20220609/282239489241759
[8] Ostkrieg: Hitler's War of
Extermination in the East- Stephen G. Fritz
[9] [E.H. Carr, What
is History? p. 37].
