Lenin's Last Struggle, by Moshe Lewin (Wildwood House paperback, £1.30)/ The pubilcation of a paperback edition of Moshe Lewin's book will be welcomed by all who are interested in the history of Bolshevism especially in that period when the Stalinist bureaucracy was fastening its grip on the Party and the Soviet state apparatus. It should be of especial interest to those members of the Communist Party who have tried to grapple with the phenomenon of Stalinism ever since Krusther's famous speech at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, but have heen unable to get to grips with the problem chiefly because much of the history of the period has been deliberately obscured and falsified in the official publications.
Here, also, is the answer to those on the Left who believe that all would have been different if only Lenin had lived. These people usually subscribe to the belief that Stalin only triumphed because of Trotsky's "weakneases" and or "mistakes. Boris Souvarine in his otherwise excellent biography of Stalin was one of the first to adance this point of view. It is clear, however, from the evidence which Moshe Lewin reproduces, that Lenin was already Red Weekly 22 June 1973 Page 6 defeated before he died; the bureaucracy was already entrenched in power.
True, Lenin's pre-eminenoc, his unparalleled authority within the Bolshevik Party and his strategic genius might have made it that much more difficult for the bureaucracy to usurp the power, but Krupskaya was undoubtedly right when she remarked, around 1926, that i Hyich (Lenin) had been alive he would be either in prison or in exile, At that time it did not occur to her or to anyone else (probably not even to Stalin himself), that Stalin's course would eventually drive him to the murder of a whole generation of Bolsheviks and the emasculation of the Bolshevik Party.
Lenin, pre-occupied with the affairs of state and of the Communist International, did not realise the changes that were taking piace within Soviet Russia as a result of the defeat of the revolution in the West and the exhaustion after the years of civil war and foreign intervention, True, he had not been unaware that the seeds of bureaucratic control over the Party and the state apparatus had already been planted, It was, howeser, only the enforced leisure caused by his illnes which gave him the opportunity to gruge the extent of its growth. From that moment on, Lenis devoted what remained of his life to the struggle against the bureaucracy in an attempt to put the Bolshevik Party back on the course from which it had been diverted by Stalin and his supporters. What is significant is that the germs of counterrevolution were already manifesting themselves in Stalin's thinking in those carly years when Lenin was scill alive. Two of the corner-stones of the workers state were the monopoly in foreign trade and the right of sell-determination for the various nationalities which comprised what was to becoine The Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. At the 6 October, 1922, session of the Politbureau. Stalin got agreement for his proposal to limit the state foreign trade monopoly, Three days laler, Lenin sent for trotsky and proposed that they jocly fight for a revision of this decision. Lenin also asked Trotsky to act on his behalf against the Great Russian chuuvinism of Stalin and Ordzhonikidze on the Georgian question,' Three have halted tbe bureaucratic degeneration of tines Lenin asked Trotsky to become his deputy. For reasons of his own, Trotsky refused INTERCONTINENTAL PRESS i WEEKLY JOURNAL that reflects the views of the power, the new workers' state needs the Fourth inernetional and specialises in political analy sit and interpretation of internationaf events af Davticular interast to the labour, societist, colonial independenice, Blrck and women's fiberation movements. SPECIAL OFFER-10 airmail issues for E1. Send chequa/PO plus your name and addrew to: Pathfindor Press. 47 The Cia, London SE1 BLL (tel. 01-261 1364). In his concluding chapter "If Lenin lived.." Moshe Lewin joins forces with Souvarine and Isaac Deutscher in the belief that a Lenin restored to health and full vigour would have been able to defeat Stalin and halt the process of burcaucratisation, although he adds that he "needed Trotsky to realise his ideus... The two men complemented each other very well... Between them they symbolised the motive force of the October Revolution." The 'Ifs" of history are, of course, a subject of endless fascination, but Marxists must base themselves on objective as well as subjective factors. Despite his genius, Lenin - or Lenin and Trotsky - could not have brought about the October Revolution if the social conditions for revolution were not present. While speculation on this point is really idle, it is doubtful if the combination of Lenin, Trotsky could the Party and the state.
History has taught us that without a Marxist Party which commands the support of the proletariat, a victorious socialist revolution is not possible. Similarly, after the conquest of guidance and leadership of a Marxist party to steer it on the road to socinlism. By 1922 from the evidence in this book, the Bolshevik Party had passed the point of no return. It was Bolshevik still in name but it had already turned its back on the international revolution - the only sure guarinter of the advance to socialist.
Ireland which integrated all aspects of repression,