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REVOLUTION VS REVOLUTION – A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF BOURGEOISIE-DEMOCRATIC & SOCIALIST REVOLUTIONS

T. Kumar

Introduction

The classical understanding of the English revolution of the 17th century led by Oliver Cromwell, the great French and the American revolutions of the 18th century is that they are all considered as “Bourgeoisie-Democratic/Bourgeoisie” Revolutions. Bourgeoisie revolutions are those kind of revolutions in which the nascent ‘Bourgeoisie’ as a class takes over power from the ruling feudal class. The head of the feudal classes is symbolized by the monarch. The “Bourgeoisie” at this stage is composed of the newly emergent class of merchants and industrialists and the feudal class is composed of the landlords who use a comparatively primitive means of production. In contrast to the ‘Bourgeoisie-democratic’ revolution, a ‘Socialist’ revolution in a classical sense is supposed to take place in a country where the bourgeoisie is the ruling class and one which has a capitalist mode of production. In a Socialist revolution, the proletariat captures state political power and establishes its dictatorship over the bourgeoisie. Here, all the means of production is taken over by the state for the collective welfare.

Marx had theoretically suggested that the Socialist revolution would first happen in an advanced industrial country like Britain. And so how exactly do we explain the socialist revolution which happened in Russia led by the Bolshevik party and the similar revolution that happened in China led by the Chinese Communist party?. Though there are technical differences between the Soviet and the Chinese revolutions, both were informed by a Marxist framework. The understanding of many Marxists is that in Russia, Lenin telescoped a bourgeoisie revolution and a socialist revolution in the Russian October revolution and that in China, Mao brought about a ‘New Democratic Revolution’ which was supposed to revolutionize the forces of production to such an extent that feudal Chinese society will undergo a transformation to the socialist phase led by the Chinese communist party without undergoing the phase of Capitalism.

Need for Re-thinking?

The collapse of Communism in the former Soviet Union and in China makes us rethink the above mentioned explanations. Taking the case of the former Soviet Union, a section of the world’s Marxists believe that the collapse was caused by the emergence of a new bourgeoisie class which toppled the soviet system in 1989 and another section of the world’s Marxists believe that the soviet bourgeoisie emerged within the communist party and captured state power with the death of Stalin and it was symbolized by the emergence of Khrushchev and his clique in 1953.

A New Explanation?

But there could be a third explanation. And this is to do with the very nature of the socialist revolution that happened in 1917. It is generally accepted by Marxists that in February 1917, the Menshevik party, which broadly represented the interests of the nascent Russian bourgeoisie captured power from the Russian Tsar and this is characterized as a kind of social change which resembles a bourgeoisie democratic revolution. And in October 1917, the Bolshevik party led by Lenin which represented the interests of the nascent Russian proletariat captured power from the Mensheviks and this was supposed to be a Socialist revolution. And the new Bolshevik state successfully fought a civil war against the feudal forces of the Tsar which were backed by many capitalist countries of Europe for their own narrow geo-political ends.
It has to be accepted by any sane and humane observer that what happened in 1917 in Russia was a momentous historical change that had a definite progressive character. One thing that emerges very clearly from this change is that the earlier feudal system was overthrown and a modern political, economical and cultural system took its place. Lenin interpreted the October revolution in terms of Marxist categories. But could this radical change be regarded as a socialist revolution in the sense that Lenin and the progressive world in general interpreted it? I feel that the answer is in the negative.
One reason for this is that mere rhetoric or ideological interpretation or progressive terms don’t decide a historical phenomenon. A historical phenomenon has to be judged in the light of the concrete material conditions that define it. This is what the Marxist methodology teaches us. Primarily, the nature of the class which wielded and consolidated its power in post-revolutionary Russia has to be understood. There is no question that it was none other than the Bolshevik Communist party and the soviet state apparatus. There are technical differences between the Communist party and the state apparatus but for the purpose of this analysis both could be conflated into one single entity. Since in terms of Leninist theory, the party is considered supreme over the state, henceforth this conflated political entity is denoted as the “Communist party”.

 Communist Party vs Bourgeoisie
Now it has to be examined in what ways the Russian Communist party differed from the bourgeoisie as a class. Before that it has to be examined as to whether the Russian Communist party could be considered as a “class” as such. A “Class” is defined as a section of society which is related in a particular way to the means of production. Thus, the Russian Communist party which centralised all control over the means of production in post-revolutionary Russia could definitely be regarded as a “Class”.
Now let us examine in what ways the Russian Communist party differed from the classical understanding of the bourgeoisie as a class. In very simple terms, the Bourgeoisie is the class which owns the means of economic production. In apparent contrast to that, the Russian Communist party did not “own” the means of production. Now, the term “ownership” has to be defined. Ownership over an asset includes the right to use, sell, allow/prohibit some other person from using it and the right to pass it on to the next generation. Applying this definition, we find that in a technical sense, the Russian Communist party did not have ownership over the means of production but for all practical purposes it had near-absolute control over the means of production and the labour force that worked on it.

The Communist party had a monopoly over state power and did not allow for any Montesquean separation of state power. And in the economic sphere, the bourgeoisie was not supposed to be there in Soviet Russia. But a deeper analysis could spell something else. In the realm of Political Economy, in a standard bourgeoisie democracy, there is a separation between the state and the bourgeoisie class. Marx thundered that the state is the executive committee of the bourgeoisie which is very much true. And in Russia, as we have already seen, the Communist party had near-absolute control over the means of production and the labour force that worked on it and a question arises as to in what essential sense it was different from the bourgeoisie as a class?. The answer emerges that there was only a technical difference between the communist party as a class and the bourgeoisie as a class.

Off course in 1917, in the immediate aftermath of the October revolution, this was not the exact case. It could be argued that the Bolshevik party really represented the Russian proletariat. But then in an industrially backward state like Tsarist Russia, where is the question of existence of the proletariat as a class? There was only a nascent proletariat class as well as a nascent bourgeoisie class in 1917. What seems eminently plausible is that while the feudal nobility as class got itself decimated because of the tumultuous civil war after the October revolution. And only a part of the bourgeoisie class got itself liquidated in the process of the revolution but this part seems to be a relatively minor part of the nascent bourgeoisie class. The major part of the nascent bourgeoisie class got itself assimilated into the communist party apparatus along with the other entrants and elements of the Communist party. This new communist party, started building and consolidating itself as the new, robust defacto bourgeoisie class of Soviet Russia. This whole event was given an ideological interpretation using a Marxist epistemology.
This is not to question the moral character or the brilliance of a great human being like Lenin and all the other idealistic heroes of the Soviet revolution. While Lenin and his comrades might themselves have been under the genuine belief that it was a socialist revolution, the reality might have been something else. And the reality very well might have been that, what happened in Russia in 1917 was not a socialist revolution in the Marxist sense but a bourgeoisie revolution in the Marxist sense. Just like the bourgeoisie-democratic revolution in France in 1789 differed from the bourgeoisie-democratic revolution of England of the seventeenth century or the bourgeoisie-democratic revolution of America in 1776, the Russian October revolution was also a bourgeoisie democratic revolution with its own progressive peculiarities. The same also seems to holds true for the Chinese revolution of 1949 which was also a bourgeoisie-democratic revolution with its own oriental peculiarities.

Conclusion In the Indian context, the Telengana peasant uprising of 1946 and the Naxalabari movement of 1967 tried to emulate the Chinese brand of revolutions. Even the current Maoist movement claims to follow that line although that claim can be epistemologically contested. Meanwhile the “mainstream” left parties in India are trying to bring about their own version of a socialist revolution which allows them, for the moment, to participate in “Bourgeoise” elections.
In the final analysis, “Marxist Socialism” seems to have been never implemented in practice in any country in any period. Different parts and countries of the world underwent different kinds of bourgeoisie-democratic revolutions to change over their feudal systems to a capitalist system. This process is more or less complete in the current times and possibly one of the last such bourgeoisie-democratic revolutions could be the Maoist inspired revolution in Nepal in 2006. Now we see that almost all countries of the world are operating very much within a broad capitalist framework. While Marxism survives as a robust methodology to understand reality and social change, the mute question remains as to whether it remains a robust prophecy.

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The Editor can be contacted at: tkumar@ksm.ac.in