John Medhurst - No Less Than Mystic - A History of Lenin and the Russian Revolution for a 21st-Century Left

The failure of the secular democratic revolutionaries of Tunisia and Egypt in 2010-11 to translate their rebellion into a permanent hold on power is in contrast to the success of the Georgian Social Democrats after February 1917. Like the other territories of the Russian Empire, Georgia had a strong independence movement, but unlike other regions such as Poland and Ukraine it was almost exclusively socialist. Ronald G. Suny’s study of Georgia during the revolutionary period 1917-21 found that “The central political fact of Georgian life by the end of the first decade of the twentieth century was the absolute and almost unchallenged dominance of the Mensheviks”. Menshevik leader Noe Zhordania was the de facto national leader and “Social Democracy had become the expression of an all-class national liberation movement of the Georgian people”. 19

Menshevik socialists formed a clear majority in the Soviets of Tiflis (and of Baku in Azerbaijan). Zhordania was clear from the start that for the Georgian revolution to put down roots and survive there needed to be unity between its three main elements–the working class, the revolutionary army and the progressive bourgeoisie. Despite disagreements about the redistribution of the landed estates this unity did not crack, and the Mensheviks’ determination to maintain civil and democratic rights prevented complete social polarisation and internal civil war. In May 1918 an independent Georgian Republic was declared with broad support across the nation and only a Bolshevik minority dissenting.

In February 1917 the steam of revolution had been set free, but it needed to be directed and sustained if it was to have a lasting impact. Had the initiative stayed with antiTsarist politicians and military leaders, as it ultimately did in the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions of 2010-11, the transfer of power would have been limited. It was essential that the socialists of Petrograd and other major cities create a vehicle to prevent this and ensure the revolution put down permanent roots. Luckily they had a precedent to hand. On 27th February, the day that Kronstadt rose and the police were defeated on the streets, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ Deputies was formed. It consisted initially of about 50 “delegates”, and was led by a hastily assembled Provisional Executive Committee. With senior Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and SRs in exile, the Executive was led by relative unknowns. A leaflet was quickly drawn up, copied and sent out to the city’s factories and larger workplaces asking for workers to elect deputies to the Soviet and send them to a plenary to be held at the Tauride Palace that evening.

The meeting was not particularly democratic. Most workers, soldiers and sailors were still fighting the remnants of the police or taking part in celebrations across the capital. The first session of the Soviet was essentially self-selected, resulting in an Executive of six Mensheviks, two Bolsheviks, two SRs and a few others. The two Bolsheviks, Molotov and Shliapnikov, were invited out of residual solidarity not because the Bolsheviks had played a significant role in the revolution. It is generally accepted that at the time the Bolsheviks’ following amongst the politically conscious workers did not compare to that of the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. By the next day the Soviet had expanded and become slightly more representative of the workers it claimed to speak for. Roughly 600 delegates packed into the Catherine Hall of the Tauride and elected a larger Executive with more representatives from the Bund, the Trudoviks and SRs, as well as Mensheviks and Bolsheviks.

The procedures of the Petrograd Soviet were intended to provide the opportunity for all to participate in mass democratic decision-making, but they often fell short of that ideal. In comparison, the General Assemblies of the Occupy movement have tried to avoid their mistakes, with mixed results. After a collection of anti-capitalist activists called Occupy Wall Street (OWS) occupied Zuccotti Park in New York on 17th September, 2011 and made broad demands about ending corporate power and wealth inequality, the media naturally looked for “leaders” and inner circles. But the main body for OWS’S decision-making was the General Assembly, a forum which anyone at the occupation could attend. Initially these were held once a day, but as the occupation grew this became twice a week. Inevitably some activists ended up more prominent than others, but a real effort was made to provide open, democratic structures in which all could participate.

Outside the GA there were Working Groups which allowed more focus and reported back to the GA. Jose Whelan, a Buddhist anarchist and member of the Facilitation and Structure WG, found that the GA was “a great outreach tool but a very difficult medium for day-to-day logistical work”. 20The regular OWS organisers began to recognise the tension between the mass democracy of the GA and the need to meet quickly and get things done. The compromise reached at OWS was the creation of a “Spokescouncil” to which different Groups sent delegates. Despite this, Mark Bray, a core organiser of OWS’s Press Working Group who saw the entire occupation from the inside, felt that OWS was driven by broad anarchist values, demonstrated in “directly democratic general assemblies and spokescouncils, the consensus decision-making process, a strategic focus on direct action and occupation rather than electoral politics, and a reluctance to settle for a few reformist demands”.

One reason the general message of OWS was so powerful and popular was that it utilised bold new slogans created by the not-for-profit, anti-consumerist organisation Adbusters–who coined the “We are the 99%” meme that now defines populist anti-capitalism–delivered to an American public that was “generally receptive to many anarchist ideas but wary of their ideological trappings”. Most importantly, OWS was not crafting messages and demands that conformed to what Bray calls “the etiquette of communication with the elite”. As a result, the mainstream media was constantly puzzled and wrong-footed by OWS’s tactics. “It never really occurred to them”, writes Bray, “that perhaps our message was not directed at the bankers”. 21

The Petrograd Soviet of 1917, although at the time a massive advance on traditional working-class organsation, in other ways reproduced the hierarchies of those organisations. In some factories, elections to what would be a Petrograd Soviet took place as early as 24th February, but they remained localised until the Provisional Executive Committee, set up by Trudovik and Menshevik Duma deputies and trade union officials, called the main Soviet together and regularised its mandating procedures. Large factories could elect one deputy per 1,000 workers, but smaller factories could also send delegates. More significantly, military units could send one deputy per company (roughly 250 men), thereby unbalancing its political atmosphere. By mid-March there were approximately 2,000 soldier delegates to 800 worker delegates, even though the number of workers in Petrograd exceeded that of troops stationed in the city.

Inevitably, the Executive did the bulk of the work. The Soviet had to ratify the decisions of the Executive but this became a formality as few delegates had the information needed to consider alternatives. The Executive, in turn, was kept busy ensuring that food and other essential deliveries got through to factories and barracks. The primarily Menshevik Executive members generally regarded the urban working class as too small a social element to lead the revolutionary process. As they gazed out on a large plenary dominated by unruly soldier-peasants this view was only reinforced. By the time its procedures were revised to ensure a larger proportion of workers, Menshevik Soviet leaders like Mikhail Skobelev had moved on to participate in a reformed Provisional Government.