In an article titled “The ironic triumph of ‘old Bolshevism’: The ‘April debates’ and their impact on Bolshevik strategy in 1917,” Lars Lih challenges the prevailing narrative among left historians about what happened at the Bolshevik conference in the days following Lenin's return from exile and the presentation of his April Theses to the party. It was in this text that Lenin urged the Bolsheviks to adopt the slogan “All Power to the Soviets” as their guide to revolutionary strategy moving forward. His proposal met fierce resistance at first because it was a sharp break with the previous theory of the Bolsheviks, but eventually won a majority, or so the traditional story goes. This has come down to us as a watershed moment that transformed the history not only of Bolshevism, but of the world.

Lih argues that there was no change in basic policy at all. The party's approach to events between April and October, and then post-October, was fundamentally in continuity with the “old Bolshevism” that had guided the party up to that moment and which stood against Lenin at the start of the April congress. This is indeed a counter-narrative to the consensus understanding among left historians. Is it accurate?

Assessing Events

Lih has read far more source material regarding all of this than I ever will. From what I understand of the history it seems that his report to us about that source material is accurate enough and we can reasonably rely on it. At the same time, it did strike me as a weakness of his article that its argument relies so heavily on words Bolshevik leaders wrote or spoke in the heat of the moment. Those of us who have been participants in major ideological struggles on the revolutionary left know that what is said in formal documents or verbal debates is often only partially related to the issues that actually underlie a disputed question. Sometimes this is because some participants are working hard to obscure what's actually at stake. But often it's simply because the participants on all sides fail to fully grasp the social realities/issues driving the dispute, especially in its preliminary stages. As the reality is still emerging, there is usually a struggle to understand it clearly, and this can easily distort any formal debate. So our historical assessments need to look not only at the formal arguments people made but at the root causes of a conflict. That way, we can more fully understand those root causes with the benefit of subsequent experience. Lih, it seems to this reader, relies too heavily on the literal debate. But, in context, it's a relatively small point, since I don't think this is the most important source of his mis-assessment. We will, therefore, simply mention it at the outset and then set it aside.

Lih accurately identifies a correction that might reasonably be made to the way this history is sometimes presented when he challenges the idea that the Bolshevik’s debate was driven by conflicting attitudes toward the Provisional Government, with the former (i.e. “old”) Bolshevik position being one of critical support to that government, while Lenin's new position favored opposition. Lih informs us that all Bolsheviks, before and after, opposed the Provisional Government, and he offers documentation to demonstrate that this was true. So this observation seems like a useful one.

Lih highlights that one core disagreement in April was over the question of class alliances: “If the bourgeois democratic revolution is not completed, then you continue to work with the peasants as a whole. Yet if it is over and done, then you can only work with the poorer peasants. Thus the question at stake here is: who will be our class allies in the coming months?”

By posing the issue of class alliances, Lih identifies a core question where clear differences existed between Lenin and those who opposed him. But in other areas, Lih does not help clarify the stakes of the dispute. Instead, he completely misses (and mystifies) the historical sea change in party policy that took place in April, because his understanding of previous Bolshevik theory—or at least his presentation of it in his article—is incomplete, and also because he fails to comprehend what the revolutionary policy post-April actually represented.

Bolshevism Before April 1917

Lih writes: “First, old Bolshevism was a vision and strategy of democratic revolution, and carrying through the democratic revolution to the end…. That phrase—‘carrying the democratic revolution to the end’—is probably more helpful than the ‘democratic dictatorship of proletariat and peasantry.’”

His article then lists two other aspects of an “old Bolshevik” ideology/strategy: the worker-peasant alliance and the idea that this alliance must take power. At the same time, he fails to take account of still another, and in fact the most essential aspect if we want to understand why Lenin's April Theses represented such a dramatic change: the “old Bolshevik” idea that power conquered by this worker-peasant alliance could not expect to achieve anything more than a “democratic dictatorship,” by which the Bolsheviks meant a bourgeois-democratic republic. The term “democratic dictatorship” was always and consistently used in this sense by Lenin and his comrades. Indeed, Lih tells us to ignore this point and focus instead on “carrying the democratic revolution to the end” because this is “more helpful than the ‘[bourgeois] democratic dictatorship of proletariat and peasantry.’” It's certainly helpful to Lih's thesis if we take that approach. It is not helpful, however, if we want to actually understand the history.

Let's examine how this logic unfolds, or fails to, in Lih's exposition. His article proceeds several paragraphs later:

The confusion results from the phrase I mentioned at the beginning: ‘democratic revolution to the end.’ Had the democratic revolution gone to the end? For Kamenev, and indeed everybody else around him, of course it had not—there was lots left to do: land reform, getting out of the war, economic reform and so on. The process of ‘carrying through the democratic revolution to the end’ had just started… [Once again we consistently read “bourgeois-democratic” whenever the word “democratic” appears if we are considering the viewpoint of Kamenev and the Bolsheviks.]

This is followed by the paragraph which contains the quote above about class alliances.

By presenting things in these terms Lih fails to help his readers grasp what was really at stake in April 1917, because his formulation of the disagreement is incomplete. And it is incomplete precisely because he has told us to set aside the question of a (bourgeois) “democratic dictatorship.” Allow me to reformulate the April disagreement in a way that will help us reach an opposite conclusion from the one Lih suggests.

The question in dispute during the April 1917 Bolshevik debates was not “had the [bourgeois] democratic revolution gone to the end?” in the sense of having completed all its tasks. The real question Lenin posed was “had the [bourgeois] democratic revolution achieved everything that was possible within the confines of a bourgeois republic (a [bourgeois] 'democratic dictatorship')?” Was it “finished,” in that sense—not in the sense of being completed, but in the sense of having run up against a stone wall in the form of the Provisional Government, capable of going no further therefore without the overthrow of that government—indeed, without the overthrow of the bourgeois republic itself and the establishment of a proletarian dictatorship?

Kamenev and his supporters said: no, we still have much to accomplish within the bourgeois republic ('democratic dictatorship'). We oppose the Provisional Government but are not yet ready to overthrow it through a socialist revolution. Lenin argued the opposite: nothing more can be accomplished in our [bourgeois] democratic revolution without overthrowing the bourgeois republic and its replacement by the dictatorship of the proletariat in alliance with the poor peasantry.

This was the qualitative change in the “old Bolshevik” understanding insisted on by Lenin in these debates. “Old Bolshevism” believed resolutely that this process of “carrying through the democratic revolution to the end” would take place in the context of a bourgeois-democratic republic. Post-April Bolshevism advocated, in pursuit of the same goal, overthrowing the bourgeois-democratic republic through a proletarian revolution.

Lih offers his readers an assessment that actually acknowledges this weakness of “old Bolshevism,” but fails to take note of what he himself has said or to draw any conclusions from it:

The idea was that the tsar was on his last legs and a democratic revolution was bound to occur. But of what kind, what would be the results, and how far could it proceed? The Bolshevik strategy was for the working class to take as much as it could during this period of ferment while it had the chance to do so. The constituent assembly would come in two, four, or five years and the aim in the meantime was a widespread social transformation. The slogans were confiscation of the estates, agrarian reform, a democratic republic and an eight-hour day—reforms embracing the peasants, workers and all citizens… [Once again read “bourgeois democratic republic” since Lih is recounting the Bolshevik strategy].

Note the slogan for “a democratic republic” meaning “bourgeois-democratic republic.” “Old Bolshevism” considered this to be the limit of what an anti-Tsarist revolution could achieve. The adoption by the Bolsheviks in April 1917 of the slogan “All Power to the Soviets” was the popular expression of a completely new and transformative theoretical conclusion: that what was needed to advance the Russian revolution, even those aspects which are properly understood as “democratic,” is the conquest of power by the dictatorship of the proletariat in alliance with the poor peasantry. It was a complete repudiation of the former “old Bolshevik” understanding that Russia was not socially developed enough for the proletariat to take power, so any drive to “carry through the democratic revolution to the end” could only take place in the context of a bourgeois republic. This old understanding (i.e. misunderstanding) is what held Lenin's opponents, such as Kamenev, in thrall at the outset of the April conference. And it is this element of the “old Bolshevism” that Lenin chided them for holding onto when current events demonstrated conclusively that the struggle exclusively within the bourgeois republic had to be discarded; the struggle now was for a proletarian dictatorship, not a “democratic” (read “bourgeois democratic”) one.

Bolshevism After April 1917

With this appreciation of what happened in April, it's easy to see that Lih's assertion about Bolshevik policy post-April being essentially a continuation of “old Bolshevik” policy does not stand up. Yes, the drive to “carry the democratic revolution to the end” remained. There was a continuity in that sense. But the realization that to achieve this would require the conquest of power by the dictatorship of the proletariat, and therefore a definitive alliance forged between the working class and the poor peasantry (the one key difference between Lenin and his opponents that Lih notes, though without understanding or acknowledging its source or its importance), represented a sharp break with “old Bolshevism.”

Toward the end of his presentation Lih offers us five aspects of “democracy” which the Bolsheviks implemented upon taking power, by way of attempting to demonstrate a continuity between the “old” and the “new” Bolshevism. Here he is once again guilty of obscuring the reality rather than enlightening his readers, because for this list he is invoking the word “democracy” in a more general, popular sense, and not at all in the scientific sense of “bourgeois democratic” that the Bolsheviks themselves consistently understood. This can be seen clearly if we consider his point 3: “The state became a people’s state in the sense that the people were running things.”

That description is only consistent with a dictatorship of the proletariat. It surpasses anything that might be possible under a bourgeois-democratic republic. Thus, in contrast to Lih's claim that Bolshevik policy post-April and post-revolution demonstrates a continuity with “old Bolshevism,” it actually demonstrates the opposite: that (a) the policy of the Bolsheviks, post-April, to advocate that the working class and poor peasantry take power, was a sharp and definitive break with their theoretical past, their belief that an anti-tsarist revolution could do no more than bring a bourgeois republic to power, the proletarian dictatorship was excluded, and (b) that they maintained a fidelity to this new policy from that moment on, including post-revolution.

More Satisfactory Explanation

Lih's thesis—that there was no change in Bolshevik policy post April, that it can all, before and after, just be summed up as “carrying through the democratic revolution to the end”—suggests that the April congress was all a tempest in a teapot with nothing fundamental actually at stake. If that is true, then it's not only subsequent left historians, but also Lenin and virtually everyone else in the party at the time who completely misjudged reality. It's not impossible, of course. But it stretches the bounds of reasonable belief for us to conclude that this entire party, which was full of serious and theoretically grounded individuals (more so, I think it's safe to say, than any other Marxist party before or since) collectively made such a colossal error, of misunderstanding the actual stakes during the April conference.

Lih cites one individual contemporary voice who seems to have viewed the debate in a way that's consistent with his own conclusion: “Mikhail Kalinin wondered why Lenin attacked ‘old Bolshevism’ so vociferously: Kalinin did not see that Lenin’s new theses contradicted old Bolshevism in any crucial way. Statements like this damage the standard picture that the Bolsheviks held up their hands in horror at everything Lenin was saying about the socialist revolution.” Not really. One anomalous voice does not contradict a general trend that all other witnesses and participants in the events of April 1917 report. Isn't it possible that Kalinin's viewpoint was simply a reflection of the phenomenon we mentioned above: how participants in a particular struggle can fail to fully grasp the actual stakes themselves?

Adopting Lih's view compels us to conclude that Lenin, in engaging this ideological battle, committed a major sectarian blunder. Indeed, Lih actually suggests that this is his conclusion when he asserts that Lenin “corrected” his April mistake in subsequent years by “returning” to the idea of “carrying through the democratic revolution to the end.”

The alternative understanding that I propose is far more satisfactory. Advocates on both sides at the April Bolshevik congress assessed the stakes correctly when they agreed that what Lenin was proposing represented a sharp break from their party's past core ideology. Lenin never “returned” to the perspective of “carrying through the democratic revolution to the end” because he had never abandoned it. He had simply shifted to the idea of achieving this through the struggle for the proletarian dictatorship in Russia rather than a (bourgeois) “democratic dictatorship.” We also avoid the conclusion that this Bolshevik leader, whose sharp appreciation of the revolutionary moment is so vividly on display in every other action he took between February and October 1917, somehow succumbed to a major and completely anomalous sectarian blunder.

Permanent Revolution

Although it is a footnote to this history, I would argue that the ability of Lenin and Trotsky to reconcile their theoretical differences after April 1917 illustrates that the interpretation of events I offer above is accurate. From 1905, it had been Trotsky's view that in Russia, because the national bourgeoisie was so weak, there was no possibility of “carrying the democratic revolution to the end” in the context of a bourgeois republic. The only social force that could achieve this was the working class allied with the poor peasantry, and “carrying the democratic revolution to the end” would therefore require the conquest of power by the dictatorship of the proletariat. It was true that Russia could not, given its relatively backward economy, undertake the socialist revolution based on its own resources. But with a reasonable expectation of support from the working class of western Europe, the Russian workers could initiate a continent-wide revolutionary process by being the first to take power.

This is the essence of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution in its initial formulation—which was limited to an assessment of what was possible in Russia. Trotsky's advocacy of this viewpoint led to a series of sharp polemics by Lenin who considered it ultraleft. Their dispute was reconciled in 1917 by reality, rather than by polemics, and when Lenin won the Bolsheviks to the struggle for a proletarian dictatorship in Russia it essentially liquidated any theoretical difference between Trotsky and the Bolshevik party. This allowed Trotsky's faction to simply join the party and for Trotsky himself to be integrated into the party leadership without any difficulty—at least until the rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy in the 1920s.

There was also another understanding that was key to Trotsky's theory: that such a proletarian dictatorship in Russia would not limit itself to “carrying the democratic revolution to the end,” (this time using the term “democratic revolution” in the context of both “bourgeois” and proletarian democracy) but would also of necessity engage in socialist economic tasks, to the extent this was possible given the material conditions of Russia and the degree to which material aid for the revolution would be forthcoming rom the working classes in the West. This element—engaging in socialist economic tasks—is also exhibited by the subsequent policies of the Bolsheviks in power (it was not just “carrying through the democratic revolution to the end”) thereby confirming our appreciation of the Bolshevik revolution as a proletarian revolution.

Still, the most important measure of this history—how we look at the Russian revolution from a class point of view—is not the degree to which a Bolshevik government undertook “democratic” tasks, or socialist economic tasks. The measure is whether October actually represented the conquest of power by the dictatorship of the proletariat in alliance with the poor peasantry, creating a state that “became a people’s state in the sense that the people were running things.”

Contrary to Lih’s assertion of programmatic continuity, through the October Revolution the Bolsheviks achieved a complete break from the pre-April theoretical understanding of the Bolshevik party that had excluded any possibility of a proletarian dictatorship in Russia without an extended, post-Tsarist intervening period of [bourgeois] “democratic dictatorship.”