Javad Eskandarpour wrote:
Comrade Klo,
You have made two remarks, in relation to the existence of a
proletarian revolution, which seem to be contradictory: (1) "And secondly,
the first proletarian revolution is yet to occur". (2) " We had a
proletarian dictatorship led by the CPSU (the bolsheviks) in which the
revolutionary "muscle" was provided primarily, although by no means
exclusively, by the peasantry but the leadership and direction were not".
So if "the first proletarian revolution is yet to occur", then,now, how do we
have "a proletarian dictatorship led by the CPSU (the bolsheviks)"?
My reply,
Fair question. It was a peasant revolution led by the proletarian vanguard
and assisted by the proletariat which led to the Dictatorship of the
Proletariat. You are again assuming a revolt by the peasantry can not result
in a proletarian dictatorship. Who fought who on the Eastern Front in WWII?
Was it a case of Hitler fighting Stalin or did the Wehrmacht fight the Red
Army? We both know that it was the latter, even though many people often refer
to it by the former. It would be absurd to think that Hitler and Stalin
actually fought the war. Yet, what kind of society was created in that part of
Eastern Europe the Nazis conquered. Was it one formulated by Hitler and his
cronies or by the Wehrmacht? It was the former. And when the Red Army
liberated Eastern Europe from fascist enslavement, the societies that arose
from that encounter were designed by Stalin and all his allies, not the Red
Army.
In connection to peasantry, when peasantry acts as a revolutionary
ally of the proletariat to overthrow capitalism, this act does not imply
that peasantry as a class has become revolutionary in relation to
capitalism. This is a misconception. Why? The reason is that peasantry as a
class and capitalism are based on private property economically. Thus, if
peasantry as a class wants to be revolutionary against capitalism, then it
will be against itself in relation to private property, and will be in an
impossible position of preserving itself as a class and being revolutionary
at the same time.
My reply,
Not a correct analysis, Javad, because you are ignoring the fact that the
overwhelming majority of the peasantry were landless. They were not kulaks or
even middle peasants; they were propertyless, not property owners. In fact, a
major reason they supported the Bolsheviks and the proletariat in general was
that they thought they would obtain the land by taking it from the few who
possessed it.
I again can’t help but note the similarity between your position and
Trotsky’s. I was recently reading a fine book by Lion Feuchtwanger entitled
*Moscow 1937* in which he states on page 80, “When in the year 1924 Stalin
recognized and proclaimed that the Russian peasant had within him the
possibility of socialism, that he could, in other words, be national and
international at the same time, his opponents laughed at him and decried him as
a Utopian. Today [1937] practice has proved Stalin’s theory to be correct: the
peasant has been socialized from White Russia to the Far East.”
On page 100 he states, “Stalin held the opinion that complete and practical
socialism could be established without a world revolution, and, moreover, that
by the protection of the national interests of the various Soviet peoples, it
could be established in one separate country; he believed that the Russian
peasant had the possibility of socialism within him. Trotsky disputed that.
He declared world revolution to be a necessary condition for the establishment
of socialism”
For the cause,
Klo
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