The Russian Revolution/Chapter 17
XVII.
SOME REVOLUTIONARY LEADERS.
Nicholai Lenin (V. I. Ulianov),[1] President of the Council of Peoples' Commissars, is the central figure in the Russian revolution. He was born in Simbirsk, Russia, on April 10, 1870, of a family of the lower nobility. He was educated at the Universities of Kazan and Petersburg. Like his brother, Alexander, who was shot in 1887 for his revolutionary activities, Lenin was a born rebel. He was expelled from the Kazan University for helping organize a students' demonstration there. In 1897 he was exiled to Siberia, where he served three years. He left Russia in 1900, and travelled over Europe, taking an active part in the international movement. He became the leader of the left wing of the Russian Social Democratic Party. In 1903 this became the Bolshevik, or majority, faction. It was the forerunner of the modern Russian Communist Party. During the big uprising in 1905 Lenin returned to Russia, but he had to flee when the movement broke down. Then ensued another long period of wandering, during which he wrote a number of important books. Right after the first revolution in 1917 he went back to Russia. From that time on he has played a tremendous part in Russian and world affairs. More than any other man he has been responsible for the great revolutionary policies that have been carried out. The organizing of the resistance to Kerensky, the Brest-Litovsk treaty, the introduction of compulsory military service and the ex-czarist officers into the Red Army, the gradual transference of the management of industry from the actual producers' hands into those of the experts, the new economic policies of industrial treaties with capitalist nations, the granting of concessions in Russia, free trade the grain tax, etc.—are either his own propositions, or he early associated himself with those who foresaw their necessity. He is the rare case of an eminently practical radical, and has an uncanny ability to divine the way things will develop. Time and again he has fought in a minority against the violent prejudices of the large majority, only to be brilliantly justified by the course of events later on. The advocacy of the Brest-Litovsk treaty, which saved the revolution by giving it a few months' respite from attack was one of his great achievements. He is remarkable for his willingness to confess himself mistaken and to face a situation squarely, no matter what the circumstances. The whole Communist Party has become infused with this intellectual and tactical flexibility—that is one of the secrets of its power. Lenin speaks several languages, and is democratic and modest to a degree. During the recent congress of the III International he slipped into the hall unobserved. In a moment or two, however, he was seen, and the crowd of delegates stormed a greeting to him. He acted as embarrassed as one hit by stage fright. His popularity runs far beyond the rebel ranks: the people at large, including most of his political enemies, consider him one of the greatest and noblest men that the world has yet produced.
Leon Trotzsky (Bronstein), Peoples' Commissar for War, and, next to Lenin, the biggest figure of the revotion. He was born in Kherson, Russia, in 1877. He, too, is another natural rebel and he early came into conflict with the Czarist authorities. In 1899, because of his activities for the workers, he was sentenced to serve four years in Siberia, but he managed to escape before his term expired. In 1905 he took an active part in the revolutionary attempt, for a time serving as President of the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies. He was again arrested and sent to Siberia, and again he escaped. Afterwards he lived in Germany, Austria, France, and America. He went back to Russia after the February revolution in 1917, and immediately became active and influential, side by side with his life-long comrade, Lenin. Trotzsky is the unusual combination of an organizer and an orator. His greatest achievement was the organization of the Red Army: he is counted one of the best speakers of the revolutionary leaders. He speaks fluently in Russian, French, German, and English.
Zinoviev (Radomilsky), President of the III International, was born in Novomirgorod in 1883, of a middle class family. He is a veteran of the Russian revolutionary struggle. In 1908 he was exiled to Siberia, but managed to escape abroad. For a number of years he lived the usual life of a propagandist in European countries, until the 1917 revolution gave him his chance. He is a left-wing radical among the Communists, and one of the most influential men in present-day Russia. He is one of the real fighters, but not an orator. He has a high falsetto voice that is altogether out of harmony with his revolutionary reputation and rugged physique.
Bukharin (Ivanovich), editor of "Pravda," organ of the Russian Communist Party, and one of the half dozen most influential men in that party. He was born in 1879 and educated in the University of Moscow. His father was a Counsellor at the Court. Bukharin is a stormy petrel of the revolution. He is a radical, speaks very well, has a most likable personality, and enjoys great prestige with the masses. He has the usual record of pre-revolutionary hardships, won by his devotion to the cause of the workers.
Kamenev (Rosenfeld), President of the Moscow State Soviet. He was born in 1883, and educated in the University of Moscow. A consistent left-wing fighter for many years past, he has undergone the usual exile and hardships characteristic of all the important Russian leaders. He is now one of the most powerful men in Russia. He is a splendid speaker, and cuts somewhat more the figure of a business man or intellectual than most of the other leaders, who are very much proletarian in appearance.
Kalenin, President of the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviet. His position is about equivalent to President of Russia. He is a peasant by origin, but long a member of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Labor movement. He enjoys tremendous influence with the peasants, many of whom come thousands of miles to take up their grievance with him. Together with Budenny, the great peasant general, he has been a power in making the peasants understand the revolution and in holding them true to it.
Radek is a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Russian Communist Party and of the III International. Still a young man, he is a seasoned veteran in the labor movement, and one of the most powerful and striking figures in the Russian revolution. He was born in Galicia, Radek's specialty is the international phases of the Communist and Socialist movements. In this respect he has few if any equals. He is an expert on tactics, and took a very active part in the German revolution. He is one of the brainiest men in the Communist movement and a dreaded opponent in debate. A favorite congress pastime of his is to show delegates from various countries how much more he knows about their own labor movements than they do. He has, as usual, command of several languages. As a speaker he is particularly forceful, although not eloquent. I considered it a real compliment to him when a couple of interpreters who were translating for the English section complained that they had to take down almost verbatim what he said, whereas they could let other speakers ramble along for ten minutes at a time without making any notes.
Lunacharsky, Peoples' Commissar for Education, is a man of about 50 years. He has a record of 25 years of revolutionary activity in Russia and other countries. He is of the intellectual type and counted one of the greatest educators in the world. It was under his supervision that the present tremendous educational campaign in Russia was worked out. In the first days of the Bolshevik revolution he received much publicity because he resigned his high office in protest when word came to him that the wonderful St. Basel's church in the Red Square of Moscow had been badly injured in the street fighting attendant upon the fall of Kerensky. His artistic soul revolted at the wanton destruction of beauty. He agreed to go on with his work, however, when he learned that the damage done was very slight and purely accidental.
Krassin, foreign trade envoy of the Soviet Government, is a Siberian by birth. He received a scientific education in Germany, and is an industrial expert of the first rank. His task is one of the most difficult ever undertaken in an economic way—the breaking of the world's blockade against Russia. He is setting up trade relations between revolutionary Russia and reactionary capitalist countries, notwithstanding that Russia has repudiated its debts to them.[2] He is also largely responsible for the elaboration and development of the other new economic policies (fully described elsewhere) which mean so much for Russia.
Tchitcherin, Peoples' Commissar for Foreign Affairs, was in his younger days an aristocrat and diplomat under the old regime. For many years past, however, he has been an active revolutionist. An exile from Russia, he travelled in many countries, learning their languages, their customs, and much else that proved invaluable when he later came to take over the job of working out the foreign policy of the Soviet Republic. He is generally conceded to be the equal of the world's cleverest diplomats.
Lossovsky, Secretary of the Red Trade Union International, is a hatter by trade. He is about 40 years of age. He, too, as an exile, lived in several countries. For a long time he was secretary of a clothing workers' union in France. Since the February revolution he has been very active in Russia. When Tomsky, President of the All-Russian trade unions, recently resigned his position, Lossovsky, then Secretary of the organization, was elected in his stead. Lossovsky is Russia's greatest expert on the world's trade union movement. Just now his big job is to build the Red Trade Union International into an organization that will win the support and affiliation of the great masses of workers now organized in the Amsterdam International.
Kollontai, head of the international Communist women's organization, is one of the most remarkable characters produced by the labor movement anywhere. Her activities cover a wide scope. and she has a long record as a revolutionary fighter. She is now one of the most prominent leaders of the "Workers' Opposition," or body of Syndicalist Communists who object to giving authority to the industrial experts and who want the full control of industry left to the actual manual workers. She is perhaps the best linguist of all the leaders (and that is an honor indeed), as she speaks several languages fluently. She has a wonderful voice and is a very effective speaker. She has travelled in many countries and has a wide knowledge of the labor movement.
To the foregoing list of notable revolutionary figures might be added the names of hundreds of others equally, or in some cases, even better known, such as Shliapnikov of the Department of Labor; Noghin, Larin, Bogdanov, Milyutin, and Rykov of the Supreme Economic Council; Dzerjinsky of the Extraordinary Commission; Preobrazhensky of the Department of Finance, and very many more, but we cannot even mention them in our limited space.
Nearly all of the most distinguished and effective Russian leaders, from Lenin down, came from the middle and upper classes; few indeed among them are actual workers and peasants. It has been truly said that the early revolutionary movement in Russia did not originate with the masses, but was brought to them by the intellectuals. This is partly true everywhere, but nowhere so much as in Russia. Which is another indication of how very backward the Russian working class really was. But if these leaders started out as non-worker elements, they eventually became thoroughly proletarianized by knocking around the world and living the hard life of the toilers. So that now they, despite their bourgeois origin, are more profoundly working class in thought and action than any other body of labor leaders in the world.
- ↑ In the old days the Russian Communist Party was an underground organization because of official persecution, and its members all had assumed names. Many of the leaders (Lenin, Trotzsky, Radek, etc.) are now much better known by these "party" names, which they constantly use, than by their real names.
- ↑ It is almost certain that the capitalist nations will compel Russia to recognize these old debts before they trade with her.