The Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle, when he wrote about the great English revolutionary Oliver Cromwell, complained that before putting pen to paper he first had to dig out Cromwell from under a mountain of dead dogs. History in general is not impartial, and the history of revolutions least of all. Ever since the October Revolution, the Bolshevik Party and its leaders have been the object of particular hatred of all the forces hostile to the revolution. That includes not only the bourgeoisie and the Social Democrats, but all kinds of petty-bourgeois anarchist and semi-anarchist elements, and, last but not least, the Stalinists, who rose to power over the dead body of Lenin’s party. It is impossible to find a single decent history of the Bolshevik Party from any of these sources. Though the Western universities continue to churn out a never-ending stream of books on this or that aspect of the Russian Revolutionary movement, the hostility towards Bolshevism, and a poisonous attitude towards Lenin and Trotsky, are present from first to last.

The most common explanation for the October Revolution that is given in Western history books is that it was not a revolution at all but only a coup d’état carried out by a minority. But this ‘explanation’ explains precisely nothing. How is it to be explained that a tiny handful of ‘conspirators’, numbering not more than 8,000 in March, were able to lead the working class to the seizure of power only nine months later? This implies that Lenin and Trotsky were possessed of miraculous powers. But to resort to the supposedly miraculous powers of individuals as an explanation of historical events again provides us with no explanation, but only refers the inquirer to the only place where superhuman (that is, supernatural) qualities can originate – namely, the realm of religion and mysticism. We are far from denying the vital importance of the individual in the historical process. The events of 1917 are perhaps the most striking confirmation of the fact that, under certain circumstances, the role of individuals is absolutely decisive. Without Lenin and Trotsky, the October Revolution would never have taken place. But to say that is not enough. The same Lenin and Trotsky had been active in the revolutionary movement for almost two decades before the revolution, and yet for most of the time were unable to carry out a revolution and for long periods were without any influence with the masses. To attribute the victory of October solely to the genius (benevolent or malevolent, depending on your class point of view) of Lenin and Trotsky is clearly nonsense.

The proof that the Russian Revolution involved an upsurge of the masses virtually without precedent in history is too voluminous to quote here. Thirty years ago, while I was a postgraduate student in Moscow, I recall a conversation I had with a woman, then very advanced in years, who had participated as a member of the Bolshevik Party in the revolution somewhere in the Volga region. I cannot remember the exact place, or even her name, but I remember that she had spent 17 years in one of Stalin’s labour camps, along with so many other Bolsheviks. And I remember another thing. When I asked her about the October Revolution, she answered with two words, which cannot be adequately translated: “Kakoi pod’yom!” The Russian word “pod’yom” has no equivalent in English, but means something like “spiritual upsurge”. “Such uplift!” would be a lame rendition of this phrase, which, more than a mountain of statistics, conveys the intensity with which the mass of the population embraced the revolution – not just the workers, poor peasants, and soldiers, but also the best representatives of the intelligentsia (this woman had been a school teacher). The October Revolution attracted all that was best, all that was alive, progressive, and vibrant in Russian society. And I remember how this woman’s eyes shone as she relived in her mind the joy and the hope of those years. Today, when all the usual gang of professional cynics are lining up to pour dirt over the memory of the October Revolution, I still recall the face of that old woman, heavily lined with long years of suffering, yet radiant in her memories in spite of all that later befell her and her generation.

One strand of bourgeois history in the last period was to attack Bolshevism by resurrecting its political enemies: Economism and, particularly, Menshevism. One of the principal ‘resurrection men’ is Solomon Schwarz. His basic thesis is that “fundamentally Bolshevism stressed the initiative of an active minority; Menshevism, the activation of the masses.” From this initially false assertion the author derives his conclusion quite naturally that “Bolshevism developed dictatorial conceptions and practices; Menshevism remained thoroughly democratic.” (SS Schwarz, The Russian Revolution of 1905, the Workers’ Movement and the Formation of Bolshevism and Menshevism, p. 29.) The present work will show that this assertion is baseless. It will show that the Bolshevik Party was characterised throughout its history by the widest possible internal democracy. It is a history of the struggle of ideas and tendencies in which everyone spoke their mind freely. Internal democracy provided the necessary oxygen for the development of the ideas which ultimately guaranteed victory. This is a very far cry from the totalitarian and bureaucratic regimes of the ‘Communist’ parties under Stalin.

The latest offering from the school of anti-Bolshevik history is Orlando Figes’ book A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924, (London, 1996). Here we are presented with a vision of the revolution straight out of Dante’s Inferno. This objective and scientific academic describes the October Revolution variously as a “conspiracy”, a “coup”, a “drunken rampage”. It was “more the result of the degeneration of the urban revolution (?), and in particular of the workers’ movement, as an organised and constructive force, with vandalism, crime, generalised violence and drunken looting as the main expressions of this social breakdown.” (O. Figes, A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924, p. 495). Figes is well aware that the outbreaks of disorder and drunkenness perpetrated by backward elements were rapidly suppressed by the Bolsheviks. They constituted episodic incidents of no importance, yet here the incidental is presented as the essence of the revolution. Naturally, for a ‘scientific’ defender of the established social order the essence of any revolution must be disorder, madness, and chaos. What else can be expected from the masses? They are too ignorant and backward to understand, let alone rule. No, such a responsible task should be left to those of us who are intelligent. Let the hewers of wood and drawers of water attend to their business and leave the running of society to the graduates of Cambridge University.

Are we being unjust to Mr. Figes? Maybe we are misreading the message of his very thick book? Let the author speak for himself. At the Congress of Soviets, a decisive majority voted for the transfer of power to the soviets. This is a slight difficulty for Figes’ central thesis (not characterised by excessive originality) that the October Revolution was just a coup. But not to worry! Orlando has the answer to every conundrum. The reason why the masses voted for soviet power was that they were too ignorant: “The mass of the delegates, who,” writes Mr. Figes, “were probably too ignorant to comprehend the political import of what they were doing, raised their hands in support (weren’t they in favour of soviet power?).” (Ibid., p. 491, my emphasis.)

It should be noted in passing that the argument that the majority of people who vote in elections are “probably too ignorant” to understand the political issues involved is an argument against democracy in general. What is Figes trying to say? That up until the time the Bolsheviks and their allies got a majority in the soviets, the workers and soldiers were fully aware of what was required, but in October they were suddenly “probably too ignorant” to know what they were doing? Such an argument will fool no one. That the delegates at the Congress of Soviets had not the benefit of a Cambridge education has, regretfully, to be admitted. In compensation, they had learned a few things in the course of a bloody war and nine months of revolution. They knew quite well what they wanted: peace, bread, and land. And they knew that the Provisional Government and its Menshevik and Social Revolutionaries backers would not give them what they wanted. They also learned in the course of experience that the only party that would give them these things was the Bolsheviks. All this they understood pretty well without passing any exams.

Of course, anyone is entitled to write history from an anti-revolutionary standpoint. But then it would be far better to declare from the outset that the real intention is to show that revolution does not pay, and that consequently, the reader would be far better off accepting the capitalist system for fear of worse to come. Alas, human frailty being what it is, such an admission seems rather more than these historians can cope with.