In 1848, Marx and Engels set out the critique of the role of social-democracy in bringing about the defeat of the revolutions, and onset of counter-revolution. Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte is the classic expression of that analysis. In 1905, Lenin and Trotsky were able, again, to develop the Marxist critique of the inadequacies of Menshevist ideas, in that Revolution, which formed the basis of their criticism of Menshevism in 1917, and facilitated the drawing to Bolshevism of the workers, as the revolution unfolded.
Again, whether revolutionaries can achieve that, as the Bolsheviks did, depends on numerous factors. Had it not been for Lenin, its quite likely that Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev would have continued their line of support for the Provisional Government, for example. A very small revolutionary cadre can only do so much, no matter how correct its ideas and strategy. But, at least, they can present, as the events unfold, that critique of the Menshevist and social-democratic ideas, and the errors and defeats that flow from them, which itself is useful for the future development of the working-class.
In China, however, it was not only the case that Menshevist policies were being adopted, the Communist International gave them cover, and official sanction.
“What is more, Menshevism had a monopoly at its disposal, for it was protected against Bolshevik criticism by the authority of the Communist International and by the material apparatus of the soviet power. This combination of circumstances is unique in its kind. As a result, one of the greatest revolutions, according to its possibilities, was completely confiscated by the Chinese bourgeoisie; it served to strengthen the latter, something which, from all the data in our possession, the bourgeoisie had no reason to count on.” (p 153)
In the post-war period, that has been repeated on numerous occasions. After the defeat of the Revolutions of 1848, in Germany, Bismark, as representative of the Junkers, carried through the industrialisation of the economy, and Louis Bonaparte played a similar role in France. Sherman occupied a similar role in the US, whilst Stolypin symbolised this process in Tsarist Russia, and with similar transformations in Japan, and with Bonapartist/Bolivarian regimes in Latin America.
In effect, as Marx and Engels described, in relation to Russia, after its defeat in the Crimean War, existing ruling feudal ruling classes are forced to undertake the industrialisation of their economies, or else consign themselves to becoming increasingly subordinated to rapidly expanding industrial powers, such as Britain. The industrialisation, necessarily takes the form of a rapid expansion of commodity production and exchange, and, thereby, of capital, even if that capital takes the form of state capital.
In fact, the Stalinist Bonapartist regime, in Russia, performed the same function. In China, in 1949, the Communist Party, based on the peasantry, performed the same function, and, across the Middle-East and North Africa, Asia and Latin America, other Bonapartist regimes/military junta, were created to perform this role. What is common, in all of these instances, is that this process is undertaken on the blood and bones of the working-class and peasantry, based on this same subordination of their interests, via the Popular Frontist concept of a “bloc of four classes”, and given cover by the official policy of Stalinist parties, and, usually, also by the various “Trotskyist” and other petty-bourgeois, New Left organisations.
It is a perfect example of what the Theses On The National and Colonial Questions warned against, of not allowing bourgeois forces to hide under a cloak of communist colouration.
“In all their propaganda and agitation—both within parliament and outside it—the Communist parties must consistently expose that constant violation of the equality of nations and of the guaranteed rights of national minorities which is to be seen in all capitalist countries, despite their “democratic” constitutions. It is also necessary, first, constantly to explain that only the Soviet system is capable of ensuring genuine equality of-nations, by uniting first the proletarians and then the whole mass of the working population in the struggle against the bourgeoisie; and, second, that all Communist parties should render direct aid to the revolutionary movements among the dependent and underprivileged nations (for example, Ireland, the American Negroes, etc.) and in the colonies.
Without the latter condition, which is particularly important, the struggle against the oppression of dependent nations and colonies, as well as recognition of their right to secede, are but a false signboard, as is evidenced by the parties of the Second International.
10) Recognition of internationalism in word, and its replacement in deed by petty-bourgeois nationalism and pacifism, in all propaganda, agitation and practical work, is very common, not only among the parties of the Second International, but also among those which have withdrawn from it, and often even among parties which now call themselves communist...
the need for a determined struggle against attempts to give a communist colouring to bourgeois-democratic liberation trends in the backward countries; the Communist International should support bourgeois-democratic national movements in colonial and backward countries only on condition that, in these countries, the elements of future proletarian parties, which will be communist not only in name, are brought together and trained to understand their special tasks, i.e., those of the struggle against the bourgeois-democratic movements within their own nations.” (emphasis added)
(Theses On The National and Colonial Questions)
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