It is usually the case that you cannot tell a book by its
cover. What is written on the back is a different matter. Whoever is enlisted
to praise a book gives you a good idea about the author's politics. McMeekin’s
book is no different. The fact that the publisher asks two of the most right-wing
historians known to mankind in the form of Niall Ferguson and Simon Sebag
Montefiore tells the reader a lot. The book is also praised by the right-wing
Tory MP Michael Gove, who wrote in his review for the London Times, "The
Russian Revolution was the most successful criminal conspiracy in history. The
takeover of an entire nation by a shameless huckster supported by a hostile
foreign power. And the revolution was also an object lesson in how liberals can
lose, and lose catastrophically, from a position of great advantage, if they
are divided in the face of a ruthlessly ideological foe."
Although Ferguson, Sebag Montefiore and Tory MP Michael Gove
all share McMeekinn’s right-wing political and historical outlook, they are not
responsible for this hack work, which contains falsifications and slanders from
the first page to the last.
Let us start at the beginning. In chapter one, Mcmeekin
makes the stupid and wrong assertion that the split in the RSDLP in 1903 was
over the so-called “Jewish Question”. He writes “ Contrary to the common
belief, expounded in most history books, that the famous Bolshevik-Menshevik
split of July 1903 occurred because Lenin’s advocacy of a professional cadre of
elites (sometimes called vanguardism), outlined in his 1902 pamphlet What Is To
Be Done?, was opposed by Mensheviks who wanted mass worker participation in the
party, the real fireworks at the Brussels Congress surrounded the Jewish
question. Party organisation was not even discussed until the fourteenth
plenary session. Lenin’s main goal in Brussels was to defeat the Bund—that is,
Jewish—autonomy inside the party. His winning argument was that Jews were not
really a nation, as they shared neither a common language nor a common national
territory. Martov, the founder of the Bund, took great umbrage at this, and
walked out to form the new Menshevik (minority) faction. He was followed by
nearly all Jewish socialists, including, notably, Lev Bronstein (Trotsky), a
young intellectual from Kherson, in southern Ukraine, who had studied at a
German school in cosmopolitan Odessa, which helped prime him for the appeal of
European Marxism. With Lenin all but mirroring the arguments of Russian
anti-Semites, it is not hard to see why Martov, Trotsky, and other Jews joined
the opposition.”
The Marxist writer David North answers this foul slander in
his two-part review of McMeekin’s book.
He writes, “The problem with this account is that it is completely false, both
in terms of facts and political interpretation. Putting aside his incorrect
dating of the split (it occurred in August, not July), McMeekin concocts, with
the intention of slandering Lenin as an anti-Semite, an account of the break
between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks that has nothing to do with historical and
political reality. The RSDLP did not split over the issue of the Jewish Bund.
Far from being the “founder” of the Bund, let alone walking out of the Congress
to protest Lenin’s opposition to the Bund’s autonomy within the party, Martov
wrote the RSDLP resolution that provoked the Bund’s walkout. Martov’s
opposition to Jewish autonomy within the Revolutionary Workers’ Party was far
more strident than Lenin’s. As the late Leopold Haimson, the leading authority
on the history of Menshevism, wrote in his important scholarly work The Russian
Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism, “Martov clashed violently with the Bund
representatives when this issue arose at the Second Party Congress. There was
greater acerbity in his polemical tone during these discussions than that of
any other members of his camp.” [3] As for McMeekin’s claim that Trotsky also
walked out of the 1903 Congress in support of the Bund’s demand for autonomy,
this is another incredible display of ignorance. Trotsky was an uncompromising
opponent of the Bund, and the transcript of the debates (available in English)
show that Trotsky intervened repeatedly in support of Martov’s resolution.”
There is nothing new in McMeekin’s book that has not already
been vomited by other right-wing historians such as Richard Pipes et al. McMeekin’s
main argument is that the revolution took place merely by chance and fell into
the Bolshevik's laps again by chance. Pipes, like McMeekin, rejects the view
that the revolution was the result “of social movements from below”; instead, Pipes
and others often characterise the revolution as a mere putsch or coup by
“identifiable men pursuing their advantages.”
The book is a complete rewrite of an entire revolutionary
epoch. McMeekin writes, “The salient fact about Russia in 1917 is that it was a
country at war. Knowing how the story of the czars turns out, many historians
have suggested that the Russian colossus must always have had feet of clay. But
surely, this is hindsight. Despite growing pains, uneven economic development
and stirrings of revolutionary fervour, imperial Russia in 1900 was a going
concern, its size and power a source of pride to most if not all of the czar’s
subjects.”
So, what is the driving force behind McMeekin’s revisionism
and his rejection of any Marxist or liberal historiography? In his book, he
does not mention important historians such as E H Carr or Alexander Rabinowitch.
The answer is to be found in ideology, not history. McMeekin
is rapid in his hatred of socialism. He warns his readers of what he calls a
resurgence of Marxist-style philosophy, warning readers to be wary of “openly
avowed socialists” like Bernie Sanders, who, in reality, has nothing to do with
socialism.
North asks, “Why did he write the book? Aside from the lure
of easy money (anti-communist works are usually launched with substantial
publicity and guaranteed positive reviews in the New York Times and many other
publications), McMeekin has a political motive. At the start of this year, the
World Socialist Web Site wrote: “A spectre is haunting world capitalism: the
spectre of the Russian Revolution.” McMeekin is among the haunted. He writes in
the book’s epilogue, “The Specter of Communism,” that capitalism is threatened
by growing popular discontent, and the appeal of Bolshevism is again on the
rise. “Like the nuclear weapons born of the ideological age inaugurated in
1917, the sad fact about Leninism is that once invented, it cannot be
uninvented. Social inequality will always be with us, along with the
well-intentioned impulse of socialists to eradicate it.” Therefore, “the
Leninist inclination is always lurking among the ambitious and ruthless,
especially in desperate times of depression or war that seem to call for more
radical solutions.” McMeekin continues: “If the last hundred years teach us
anything, we should stiffen our defences and resist armed prophets promising
social perfection.”
While it is not in the realm of possibility to cover every
lie, falsification and slander contained in the book, it would be remiss of me
not to refute the old slander that is rehashed in the book that Vladimir Lenin
was a German agent. Again, I will quote David North not because I am a bit lazy
but, to put it bluntly, he is at the moment the greatest authority in the world
on the Russian Revolution. He writes, “ There is not a single serious historian
who has treated the allegations against Lenin as anything other than a slander.
From the moment of Lenin’s return to Russia via Germany aboard the “sealed
train,” the anti-revolutionary right attempted to portray the Bolshevik leader
as an agent of the Kaiser. In the initial months of the revolution, this libel
gained no support outside liberal and fascistic circles. It was well understood
that the possibility of a speedy return by a man widely recognised by the
Russian workers as one of their most courageous and brilliant leaders required
that he find the fastest route to revolutionary Petrograd. One month later,
Martov, after much dithering, also used the German route.
Moreover, Trotsky’s experience in March–April 1917 further
validated Lenin’s decision. Trotsky, travelling across the Atlantic from New
York City, was forcibly removed from his ship off the coast of Halifax by
British authorities. Attempting to prevent the return of the much-feared
revolutionary to Russia, who many believed to be “worse than Lenin,” the British
interned Trotsky in a prisoner-of-war camp for one month. In the face of
protests by the Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional Government’s reluctant
demand that he be released, Trotsky was finally allowed to continue his journey
back to Russia. He arrived one month later than Lenin.”.
Normally, even the worst history books have a few pearls of
wisdom and some redeeming features. This has none. It is kind to call it revisionist
history, but in reality, McMeekin has vomited up every single falsification,
slander and outright lie printed on the Russian Revolution and then some. As
North correctly writes, “Sean McMeekin stands exposed as a falsifier of
history.”
