As 1905 and 1917, in Russia, showed, the soviet was the means by which the proletariat, supported by the peasantry, carried through the tasks of the bourgeois-revolution, up to and including, the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. Here, even more, the transitional nature of the soviet is manifest. It is the revolutionary means by which the proletariat, first, brings about the bourgeois-revolution, and, then, via permanent revolution, proceeds to the tasks of the proletarian revolution.
For the Stalinists, this was anathema.
“Precisely because of this the Political Bureau, following right behind Stalin, stubbornly rejected the slogan of soviets advanced by the Opposition:
“The slogan of soviets means nothing but an immediate skipping over the stage of the bourgeois-democratic revolution and the organization of the power of the proletariat.” [From the written Reply of the Political Bureau to the Opposition theses, April 1927.]” (p 292)
The argument for permanent revolution, and the revolutionary transitional nature of soviets had been established, by Trotsky, in 1905, and adopted, by Lenin, in 1917, as deriving from the fact that the workers, having been forced to take the leading role in bourgeois revolutions, would not stop at that stage, and would press on towards the proletarian revolution, or, at least, the pursuit of their own class interests. Lenin and Trotsky saw this as inevitable, and that the Marxists, if they were not to disgrace themselves, lose the support of the workers and see even the bourgeois revolution rolled back by reaction, as happened in 1848, would have to respond to it, breaking the imperialist chain at the weakest link.
Stalin took this same logic, but turned it upside down, to argue against the creation of soviets and permanent revolution.
“On May 24, after the Shanghai coup d’état and during the Wuhan coup, Stalin proved the incompatibility of soviets with bourgeois-democratic revolution in this manner:
“But the workers will not stop at this if they have soviets of workers’ deputies. They will say to the Communists – and they will be right: If we are the soviets, and the soviets are the organs of power, then can we not squeeze the bourgeoisie a little, and expropriate ‘a little’? The Communists will be empty windbags if they do not take the road of expropriation of the bourgeoisie with the existence of soviets of workers’ and peasants’ deputies. Is it possible to and should we take this road at present, at the present phase of the revolution? No, we should not.” (p 293)
In other words, even after the conclusions of permanent revolution had again been proven, by the coup of the KMT and Left KMT, bringing about the period of counter-revolution, Stalin refused to acknowledge it, and, indeed, still, even, clung to the idea of his alliance with the bourgeoisie and KMT, just as, today, the social-imperialists cling to their alliance with the corrupt, right-wing government of Zelensky, and its NATO backers.
“In his discourse to the students on May 13, 1927 which we already quoted, Stalin replied:
“I think that in the period of the creation of soviets of workers’ and peasants’ deputies and the preparation for the Chinese October, the Chinese Communist Party will have to substitute for the present bloc inside the Guomindang the bloc outside the Guomindang.”” (p 293)
In other words, in the period of the bourgeois national revolution, when the Chinese CP should have insisted on its political and organisational independence from the KMT, and when the Comintern/USSR should have been putting its resources into arming the Chinese communists, ready to fight the KMT, instead, Stalin insisted that the CP subordinated itself, inside the KMT, and armed that same KMT, whilst opposing the arming of the workers and poor peasants! The same strategy is applied by the USC, today, in its alliance with Zelensky, and demands for it to be armed to the teeth.
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