Social Democracy and Wars of Intervention in Russia, 1918-21 PDF
Preview Social Democracy and Wars of Intervention in Russia, 1918-21
SOCIAL DEMOCRACY AND THE WARS OF INTERVENTION IN RUSSIA Social Democracy and the Wars of Intervention in Russia 1918-1921 (BETWEEN RED AND WHITE) NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS Published by New Park Publications Ltd., 186a Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UG First published in 1922 as Mezhdu Imperializmom i Revolyutsiei by the State Publishing House, Moscow Foreword and glossary Copyright©New Park Publications Ltd., 1975 Set up, Printed and Bound by Trade Union Labour Distributed in the United States by: Labor Publications Inc., 135 West 14 Street, New York New York 10011 ISBN 0 902030 70 l Printed in Great Britain by Plough Press Ltd. (T.U.) r/o 180 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UG Contents Dedication xv Introduction I I Myth and reality 11 II Strict neutrality 26 III The internal regime 39 IV The period of caution 50 V Georgia and Wrangel 53 VI Denouement 60 VII The Georgian Gironde as a political type 70 VIII Democracy and the Soviet system 77 IX Self-determination and the revolution 89 X 'Public Opinion', Social Democracy, Communism 99 Appendix 111 Glossary of names and events 117 Foreword Written while he was Commissar for War and leader of the Red Army, this book by Trotsky is a masterly instance of Marxist polemic. Out of print for many years, it deserves to be restored to its place in the revolutionary's armoury, especially because of its relevance to the task of building a new leadership against the Mensheviks and Labourites of today. The occasion for the work was the campaign of international Social Democracy-headed by the former Pope of Marxism, Karl Kautsky, and the British labour leaders - against the establishment of the Soviet power in Georgia. But as Trotsky proceeds, his angle of fire widens to take in the whole question of the prostration of the Second International to imperialism and the hypocrisy behind its attack on the Soviet government. At the very time the first workers' state was fighting for its life against the combined armies of world imperialism, the Social Democ rats were doing everything they could to undermine and destroy it, and halt the wave of solidarity actions by the international working class. Although this book is more than a defence of Bolshevik policy in Georgia, the reader needs to appreciate the conditions prevailing there between 1917 and 1921. The geographical position of Caucasia, of which it is a part, made it vulnerable to foreign intervention after the overthrow of Tsardom. Besides possessing valuable mineral resources and ports on the Black Sea, Georgia held a strategic position in the railway system of the region. However, despite some advanced centres it was mainly agricultural with about 75 per cent of the population consisting of peasants. IX X BElWEEN RED AND WHITE While the local capitalist class was small, made up mainly of mer chants, Georgia had, as Trotsky points out, a relatively numerous petty-bourgeois intelligentsia with political experience and ambi tions. This was the social basis for the Mensheviks, who also found support from the labour aristocracy, notably the railway workers. The Mensheviks formed a government after the overthrow ofTsardom. It collaborated with the German forces which occupied the country in June 1918, taking over the railways and policing the frontiers. After the Germans and their Turkish allies withdrew from Caucasia British troops moved in and the country became a base for the operations of the White armies in the civil war raging in Russia. A new Menshevik government was formed and in February 1919 Noi Zhordania was elected President by the National Assembly. This government banned the Communist Party and repressed its activities. Strongly nationalist, the Georgian Mensheviks were involved in a series of border incidents with Armenia and Azerbaijan and also carried out an oppressive policy against the national minority peoples, the Ossetians, the Abkhazians and the Adzhars. In May 1919 the White general Denikin moved into the region, which became a main base for operations against the Red Army. The Mensheviks rejected Soviet proposals for joint struggle against the Whites, Zhor dania declaring categorically, 'I prefer the imperialists of the West to the fanatics of the East'. When the troops of the hard-pressed White general Wrangel were penned up in the Crimea, Georgia assisted him in trans-shipping men and supplying vital war materials. As Trotsky says, 'If there had been no Georgia, there would not have been a Wrangel army'. For reasons of expediency, the Soviet Republic did not take action against Georgia in 1919 despite its hostile activities. The defeat of Wrangel, however, made Georgia still more important to the capitalist powers. It also meant that it became a refuge for various defeated White Guard elements. Nevertheless in May 1920 the Soviet Republic recognized the independence of Georgia, the government undertak ing to legalize the Communist Party, which it never did. The question of military intervention came up early in the following year when the Georgians, Ordzhonikidze and Stalin, were impatient for action. Lenin at first hesitated, mainly from uncertainty about the attitude of the population and the likely effects abroad. There was also some doubt about the ability of the army to carry through the opera tion successfully. Finally it was agreed that the Georgian Communist FOREWORD XI Party would organize an uprising and that the Red Army would move in. Trotsky was not in Moscow at the time and only learned about the decision later, so that he had no direct responsibility for it. Writing much later Trotsky said, 'There was no unanimity as to the movement and methods of sovietization. I stood for a certain pre paratory work inside Georgia, in order to develop the uprising and later to come to its aid. I felt that after the peace with Poland and the defeat of Wrangel there was no direct danger from Georgia and the denouement could be postponed. Ordzhonikidze, supported by Sta lin, insisted the Red Army should immediately invade Georgia, where the uprising had presumably ripened. Lenin was inclined to side with the more cautious members of the Central Committee. The question in the Politburo was decided on the 19 February 1921 when I was in the Ukraine.' (Stalin, p. 268) The hesitations and doubts of Lenin and Trotsky were to some extent confirmed by the handling of internal problems in Georgia after the overthrow of the Zhordania regime. The way in which Ordzhonikidze and Stalin rode roughshod over the national suscep tibilities of the Georgians and acted in the spirit of Great-Russian chauvinism enraged Lenin and contributed to his decision to break off relations with Stalin. But Trotsky did not for one moment allow the inner-party conflict over the issue to stand in the way of the defence of the Soviet Union. Whatever the errors of those who executed the occupation, it had become a life-or-death question for Soviet Russia to liquidate the Menshevik regime in Georgia, which was now a base for counter revolution. The leaders of the parties of the Second International, who had betrayed the working class in the First World War and were bitterly hostile towards the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet state, acclaimed Menshevik Georgia as their own. Karl Kautsky wrote an enthusiastic book after a brief visit, and Mrs. Snowden and others did likewise. They saw in it an opportunity to cover up for their own past, and even more, a way in which to strike another blow at the Bol sheviks. The essence of Trotsky's book is contained in the magnificent way in which he compares the methods of the Bolsheviks in organizing the revolution, establishing the Soviet state and warding off successfully the attacks of imperialism, with those of the Georgian Mensheviks and their foreign friends.
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