Trotsky sets out the history of the soviets in Russia, in 1905 and 1917. In 1917, the soviets existed for nine months, before the Bolshevik revolution, and, during that time, they were dominated by the Mensheviks and SR's. The Bolsheviks had their main support in the factory committees, and used the intervening period to build their forces and patiently explain, in the soviet, what their function was to be.
“Between the first attempt at setting up a soviet of deputies and the gigantic experiment of setting up a soviet government, more than twelve years rolled by. Of course, such a period is not absolutely essential for all countries, China included. But to think that the Chinese workers are capable of organizing soviets on the basis of a short prescription which is substituted for Lenin’s broad generalization, means the replacement of the dialectics of revolutionary action by a pedant’s impotent and importunate decree.” (p 147)
In 1917, Lenin argued that if they could not win the required majority in the soviets, at the point the insurrection was required, they would have to use the factory committees, instead. But, they did not want to do that, because the factory committees were not the best suited organisation for that task.
“Soviets must be set up not on the eve of uprisings, with the slogan of the immediate capture of power – for if the matter has reached the point of the capture of power, if the masses are prepared for an armed insurrection without soviets, it means that there have been other organizational forms and methods which made possible the performance of the preparatory work to ensure the success of the uprising: the question of soviets then becomes of secondary importance and is reduced to a question of organizational technique, or still lower, to a question of name. The task of the soviets is not merely to issue the call for the insurrection or to carry out that insurrection, but to lead the masses toward the insurrection through the necessary stages.” (p 147)
It is not at all a question of setting up soviets and then issuing the call for insurrection. That would be adventurist and disastrous. The soviet must be well established and have real life. It must have had experience in organising workers' self government, via workers' democracy and workers' power. This is a transitional process, which begins with a series of reforms and partial measures that the soviets decide upon and directly implement, overcoming any resistance from the bourgeoisie and its state.
On a smaller scale, and less advanced stage, in 1968, in France, during the General Strike, and occupations, committees of workers decided what constituted emergencies and so on, and then ensured that production took place, under workers' control, to provide electric, etc. to hospitals, fuel to the sick and elderly and so on.
“At first, the soviet does not rally the masses to the slogan of an armed insurrection, but to partial slogans; it is only later, step by step, that they are brought towards the insurrection without scattering them on the road and without allowing the vanguard to become isolated from the class as a whole. The soviet appears most frequently and primarily in connection with strikes which have before them the prospect of revolutionary development, but are, at the given moment, limited to economic demands.” (p 147)
That is why it is only in prolonged General Strikes, or strikes, at least, involving large numbers of advanced workers that this becomes possible. It would have been possible in the 1926 General Strike had the Stalinists not tied themselves to the TUC leaders. It may have been possible at the height of the 1984-5 Miners Strike, had not Kinnock and the TUC effectively isolated the NUM, or had Labour Councils, in Lambeth, Liverpool and elsewhere combined their struggle with that of the miners.
It could have been developed during lockdowns, were it not for the fact that most of the “Left” was demanding those lockdowns! It could be developed, now, as millions of workers strike for pay to match price rises, were it not that those strikes are divided, and reduced to one or two day protest actions.
Forward To Part 3
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