Kiev warning on confiscation of Russia gas irresponsible
ITAR-TASS
December 31, 2008
MOSCOW, December 31 (Itar-Tass) – Irresponsible statements of the Ukrainian authorities about the possibility of confiscation of Russian export gas bring to mind and probably have been suggested by films about Makhno anarchists, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Russia’s natural gas giant Gazprom Alexander Medvedev said at a press conference on Wednesday drawing such a historical parallel. (Nestor Ivanovich Makhno, October 26, 1888–July 6, 1934, was an anarcho-communist guerrilla leader turned army commander who led an independent anarchist army in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War.)
“The conduct of Kiev in this dramatic situation “is absolutely irresponsible and has no precedents on the gas market,” he added.
He described the development of the situation as “crude violation of an effective agreement on the transit of Russian gas to Western Europe, plainly speaking, as an act of blackmail by Ukraine not only against Russia, but also against Western Europe.”
The Military Writings of Leon Trotsky, Volume 2: 1919 – How The Revolution Armed – The Southern Front: Denikin’s Offensive
ORDER No.112
By the Chairman of the Revolutionary War Council of the Republic and People’s Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs
June 18, 1919, KharkovSevere punishment for all deserters, Makhnovites, disorganisers and traitors to the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army.
Denikin’s landlord-bourgeois bands are now threatening the workers and peasants of Yekaterinoslav, Kharkov, Poltava, Kursk and Voronezh. Our Southern front has been shaken. Who is responsible? Who was it that opened the gates to the counter-revolutionary bands whose aim is to take the land from the peasants and put a yoke on the workers? The gates were opened by traitors, deserters, Grigoriyevites, Anarchist bandits, Makhnovites, who did not want to recognise any sort of order or discipline in the ranks of the army.
The Extraordinary Military Revolutionary Tribunal presided over by the Ukrainian People’s Commissar Comrade Pyatakov, has examined the case of the Makhnovite traitors who first tried to undermine the workers’ and peasants’ power in the Ukraine and then opened the gates to the sworn enemies of the working people.
The Tribunal has severely punished the traitors. The same punishment awaits all who undermine the solidarity, discipline and fighting capacity of the army. Makhno’s headquarters has been destroyed, but the poison of Makhnovism has not yet been eliminated. Individual agents of treason are still inciting Red Army men to unjustified retreats. Here and there on the Southern Front, whole regiments are still abandoning their positions without authority and committing excesses as they go.
The Extraordinary Military Revolutionary Tribunal testifies, by its sentence, that the Soviet power is coping with disintegration and corruption and will wipe the guilty from the face of the earth.
In announcing the sentence* in the case of the Makhnovite traitors, I order that it be made known and explained in all companies, squadrons, batteries and task-forces of the armies operating on the Donets front.
[*Sentence dated June 17, 1919, in the case of Mikhalevo-Pavlenko, Burbyga, Oteynik, Korobko, Kostin, Polunin and Dobrolyubov. – L. T.]
“We believe that the Anarchists are real enemies of Marxism. Accordingly, we also hold that a real struggle must be waged against real enemies.”
“What must the proletariat do, what path must it take in order consciously to carry out its programme, to overthrow capitalism and build socialism?
The answer is clear: the proletariat cannot achieve socialism by making peace with the bourgeoisie — it must unfailingly take the path of struggle, and this struggle must be a class struggle, a struggle of the entire proletariat against the entire bourgeoisie. Either the bourgeoisie and its capitalism, or the proletariat and its socialism! That must be the basis of the proletariat’s actions, of its class struggle.
But the proletarian class struggle assumes numerous forms. A strike, for example — whether partial or general makes no difference — is class struggle. Boycott and sabotage are undoubtedly class struggle. Meetings, demonstrations, activity in public representative bodies, etc. — whether national parliaments or local government bodies makes no difference — are also class struggle. All these are different forms of the same class struggle. We shall not here examine which form of struggle is more important for the proletariat in its class struggle, we shall merely observe that, in its proper time and place, each is undoubtedly needed by the proletariat as essential means for developing its class consciousness and organisation; and the proletariat needs class consciousness and organisation as much as it needs air. It must also be observed, however, that for the proletariat, all these forms of struggle are merely
preparatory means, that not one of them, taken separately, constitutes the decisive means by which the proletariat can smash capitalism. Capitalism cannot be smashed by the general strike alone: the general strike can only create some of the conditions that are necessary for the smashing of capitalism. It is inconceivable that the proletariat should be able to overthrow capitalism merely by its activity in parliament: parliamentarism can only prepare some of the conditions that are necessary for overthrowing capitalism.
What, then, is the decisive means by which the proletariat will overthrow the capitalist system?
The socialist revolution is this means.
Strikes, boycott, parliamentarism, meetings and demonstrations are all good forms of struggle as means for preparing and organising the proletariat. But not one of these means is capable of abolishing existing inequality. All these means must be concentrated in one principal and decisive means; the proletariat must rise and launch a determined attack upon the bourgeoisie in order to destroy capitalism to its foundations. This principal and decisive means is the socialist revolution.
The socialist revolution must not be conceived as a sudden and short blow, it is a prolonged struggle waged by the proletarian masses, who inflict defeat upon the bourgeoisie and capture its positions. And as the victory of the proletariat will at the same time mean domination over the vanquished bourgeoisie, as, in a collision of classes, the defeat of one class signifies the domination of the other, the first stage of the socialist revolution will be the political domination of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie.
The socialist dictatorship of the proletariat, capture of power by the proletariat — this is what the socialist revolution must start with.
This means that until the bourgeoisie is completely vanquished, until its wealth has been confiscated, the proletariat must without fail possess a military force, it must without fail have its “proletarian guard,” with the aid of which it will repel the counter-revolutionary attacks of the dying bourgeoisie, exactly as the Paris proletariat did during the Commune.
The socialist dictatorship of the proletariat is needed to enable the proletariat to expropriate the bourgeoisie, to enable it to confiscate the land, forests, factories and mills, machines, railways, etc., from the entire bourgeoisie.
The expropriation of the bourgeoisie — this is what the socialist revolution must lead to.
This, then, is the principal and decisive means by which the proletariat will overthrow the present capitalist system.
That is why Karl Marx said as far back as 1847:
“. . . The first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class. . . . The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands . . . of the proletariat organised as the ruling class . . . ” (see the Communist Manifesto).
That is how the proletariat must proceed if it wants to bring about socialism.
From this general principle emerge all the other views on tactics. Strikes, boycott, demonstrations, and parliamentarism are important only in so far as they help to organise the proletariat and to strengthen and enlarge its organisations for accomplishing the socialist revolution.”
Yeah.
Uncle Joe.
I got it. The pamphlet, that is. Foreign Languages Publishing House. Moscow. 1951. The separate texts which make up the essay were originally published in 1906 and 1907.
Congratulations on being able to cut ‘n’ paste.
It’s great isn’t it. Here’s the crux –
“Strikes, boycott, parliamentarism, meetings and demonstrations are all good forms of struggle as means for preparing and organising the proletariat. But not one of these means is capable of abolishing existing inequality. All these means must be concentrated in one principal and decisive means; the proletariat must rise and launch a determined attack upon the bourgeoisie in order to destroy capitalism to its foundations. This principal and decisive means is the socialist revolution.”
Joe also says – “Boycott and sabotage are undoubtedly class struggle”.
A Marxist-Leninist talking about sabotage – you anarchists thought you were the only ones who kept holy the sabot?!