1905: Once more with feeling Reviewed by John Lister This collection of articles and extracts brought together in a commemorative volume by Revolutionary History breathes new life into an oft-forgotten but crucial chapter in the history of revolutionary politics. For many old-time Marxists, the standard literature on the dramatic 1905 revolution in Russia consisted of a pamphlet entitled Results and Prospects, written in 1906 by Leon Trotsky, who was later one of the leaders of the great Russian Revolution of 1917. Trotsky's pamphlet, republished in 1919 after the victory of the Bolsheviks and the establishment of the first revolutionary workers' state, centred not on the colour and feel of the revolutionary movement which shook the ossified world of Tsarist repression in 1905, but on the political and theoretical lessons to be learned from the tumultuous events. Trotsky's much more colourful and detailed study 1905 was published later, and not available until much later in accessible English translation. However the range and vitality of the various first-hand accounts and descriptions brought together in the Revolutionary History collection adds a fresh dimension to my understanding of the severity and sheer brutality of the Tsarist repression, the variety of the strands of the working class and other social layers drawn into the events, and the prelude to the 1905 events in a succession of more intense strikes and struggles in which an underground workers' movement began to flex its muscles and Of course there were political lessons in abundance to be learned from the explosive events which saw the birth of the first Soviets (workers' councils), the emergence of a distinct proletarian revolutionary movement, and the clear evidence that even in backward Russia, where the working class was in a small minority in an overwhelmingly rural and peasant population, the leading role in the revolutionary overthrow of Tsarism and capitalism had to be taken by the workers and not the peasantry. Trotsky, who played a leading role in the St Petersburg Soviet, drew heavily on the experience of the unsuccessful 190 revolution to develop his Theory of Permanent Revolution, which argued. against the mainstream opinion of the Marxist movement the day, that there could be no successful revolution if it mas restricted to distinct 'stages' - 'first' the overthrow of "a"sm and the establishment of 'democratic' capitalism, and = sec alist revolution. Instead Trotsky, revisiting Karl Marx's ===== the revolutions of 1848, argued that the peasantry = erase and insufficiently revolutionary as the leading *emen: even for democratic rights, and that instead •...= cercoraic dictatorship of proletariat 30 www.revolutionary-history.co.uk London WC1H OJL Porcupine Press, 10 Woburn Walk, Change Through Struggle' Revolutionary History, Vol 9 No. 1 The Russian revolution of 1905: and peasantry', the fight had to be waged for the leading role of the working class. The term 'permanent revolution' was subsequently interpreted by Trotsky to refer both to the uninterrupted nature of the revolutionary process (against any schema involving a prolonged 'stage' of capitalist development) and to the need to continue and strengthen that process internationally if a new revolutionary state was to be defended. Sadly neither of these key aspects was accepted by Stalin and the bureaucratic leadership of the Bolshevik Party which rose to take control in the aftermath of the 1917 revolution, and the very notion of Marxism and communism has since been set seriously back by the negative experiences of Stalinism in government and the cynical policies promoted through the machinery of Moscow- led Communist parties. However the spirit of the events described and the wealth of convincing detail presented by the various extracts in this volume should inspire a new generation of readers to revisit the events of 1905 and marvel at the courage and tenacity of the workers whose struggles defied a massive and vicious police state, including women's struggles, the fightback in factories, railways and other sectors. Perhaps as telling as any of the comments from the editor, (SWP 'There are many member) Pete Glatter, is the reminder that, differences between Russia before 1905 and the world today. But there is one similarity: there was no mass revolutionary socialist tradition then, and there is no mass revolutionary socialist tradition now.' It is also intriguing to be reminded of the reaction of Lenin, fresh from a belated return from exile, to his first exposure to a meeting of the Petersburg Soviet, 'Lenin began to chastise the members of the [Bolshevik] committee for being completely incapable of appreciating the enormous force represented by the Soviet, and for putting forward ridiculous proposals that the Soviet should subordinate itself to them.' (p. 123) There are sections of the left which in a hundred years have still not learned how to respond positively to a mass movement, work with broad forces they do not control, or recognise the need to raise political demands while not attempting to exert political domination. This review has deliberately avoided attempts to summarise the range and content of the extracts on offer: much better for readers to get hold of their own copy of a memorable volume which also incorporates an interesting study on Rosa Luxembu e and the 1905 Revolution.
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