The Bolsheviks and the Soviet¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter examines the Bolsheviks’ fraught relationship with the Petersburg Soviet during the 1905 Revolution, arguing that the party’s initial sectarian hostility toward this mass, non-party workers’ organisation threatened to isolate the revolutionary vanguard from the broader working class. The core narrative thrust is the tension between formalist dogmatism and the flexible tactics required to win the majority. The Bolshevik Central Committee in Petersburg, displaying a “complete lack of ‘feel’ for the real movement,” viewed the Soviet as a rival rather than a field of action. They campaigned for the Soviet to adopt the RSDLP programme or disband, with the Nevsky district committee declaring Social Democratic participation in any “workers’ parliament” inadmissible. An article in Novaya Zhizn’ by Mendeleyev proposed an ultimatum: accept the party programme or cease to exist as a political organisation. The Bolshevik delegates, led by CC members Bogdanov and Knuyants, walked out of the Soviet when their resolution was rejected.
The chapter draws heavily on the historical context of the 1905 Revolution, particularly the October general strike and the Tsar’s October Manifesto, which Lenin hailed as “the first victory of the revolution” but warned was a tactical retreat. The regime’s weakness is illustrated through Count Witte’s panicked letters to the Tsar about Finland and Poland, and the Tsar’s brutal reply that the revolutionaries “should all be hanged.” The chapter contrasts the Bolsheviks’ initial error with the Mensheviks’ more flexible approach, which gave them a head start in the Soviets. However, the Mensheviks are also criticised for their reformist conception of the Soviet as “revolutionary self-government” or the basis for a mass labour party akin to the British Labour Party, rather than an organ for taking power.
The decisive intervention came from Lenin, who from Stockholm corrected his followers with a letter refusing the “Soviet or Party” dichotomy, insisting instead on “both the Soviet of Workers Deputies and the Party.” He argued it would be “inadvisable for the Soviet to adhere wholly to any one party” and that Marxists should fight for a majority within such mass organisations. The chapter’s polemical thrust is directed against sectarianism and formalism within the Bolshevik ranks, as well as against the liberal bourgeoisie—the Octobrists and Cadets—who deserted the revolution after the Manifesto. Lenin’s “revolutionary realism” is upheld against both the “democratic illusions” of constitutional reform and the “crass formalism” of those who would subordinate the spontaneous movement of the masses to party discipline. The chapter concludes that only an armed uprising led by the proletariat could secure genuine emancipation, a position vindicated by subsequent events.