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From: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Communism as historical tragedy
Message-ID: <376@ubvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 2-Dec-85 15:49:13 EST
Article-I.D.: ubvax.376
Posted: Mon Dec  2 15:49:13 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 10-Dec-85 01:50:10 EST
References: <28200256@inmet.UUCP> <28200260@inmet.UUCP> <364@ubvax.UUCP> <11069@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <554@qantel.UUCP>
Reply-To: tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch)
Organization: Ungermann-Bass, Inc., Santa Clara, Ca.
Lines: 55

In article <554@qantel.UUCP> gabor@qantel.UUCP writes:
>In article <11069@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Tom Tedrick writes:
>
>> It seems absurd to me to think that the communists could have
>> overturned the Tsarist regime without some external factor
>> like a major war playing a role.
>
>It is embarrassing to have to point out such a well-known historical fact but:
>the Bolsheviks DID NOT overturn the Tsar. He was overthrown in an unplanned
>and uncontrolled series of bread riots, strikes and mutinies known as the
>February Revolution. Lenin found out about the Tsar's fall from the Swiss
>newspapers. It is more correct to say that the Bolsheviks hijacked the
>revolution that toppled the Tsar, somewhat like the mullahs' trick in Iran.
>
>-----
>Gabor Fencsik           {ihnp4,dual,lll-crg,hplabs,intelca}!qantel!gabor

I think Gabor was misreading Tom's intent in that last sentence of
his article.

Tom's article, in the sentence before the one Gabor quotes, said the
empire collapsed before the Bolsheviks "picked up the pieces".  That
was right.  Tom was probably using this last sentence of his article
as a "summary" which unfortunately misstated what he said the sentence
previous.

As far as "hijacked the revolution", what is Gabor talking about?

If one looks at the history and decides that the revolution was made
for and by the St. Petersberg working class, than the October Revolution
seems just a continuation, since the Bolsheviks were overwhelmingly
the favorites of the working class by October.

The Bolsheviks developed slogans for the peasantry which got their support
against the Whites in the Civil War.  So the Bolsheviks got the
support of the working class and the peasantry.  Where's the hijack?

See Trotsky's History for more, or Sheila Fitzpatrick's book on the Russian
Revolution, for a more recent historical sumup.

And the mullahs were acknowledged as leaders of the revolution by the
groups that toppled the Shah.  What does "hijacked the revolution"
mean in Iran?

Maybe Gabor means that Kerensky and BaniSadr deserved to inherit
revolutions they had no part in making, just because they were
parliamentary democrats.  Is that it?

Tony Wuersch
{amd,amdcad}!cae780!ubvax!tonyw

"I should look at a mountain
 and see it as it is
 instead of as a comment
 on my life" -- David Ignatow