[But this has never been simply an ideological…]
Socialist Organiser1983 1983-03-17Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 7 →
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But this has never been simply an ideological task, to be resolved through debates and polemic. At the root of the perversion of Marxist positions by Stalin and the Soviet bureaucracy in Russia were material interests.
The staté and Party bureaucracy which arose in the dislocated and shortage-ridden economic conditions of post-revolutionary Russia was spearheaded by the most backward and conservative "Old Bolshevik' element in the hard-pressed Communist Party: but it rested upon a spectrum of forces ranging from more prosperous sections of the peasantry through technicians and managers to small and middle businessmen grown fat on the crisis measures of the New Economic Policy, and sections of the armed forces.
Many of these 'old Bolsheviks' during 1917 had lacked the confidence in the working class and the grasp of Marxist analyşis which inspired Lenin - against their opposition — to press forward to the seizure of state power.
In the struggles that followed after the revolution, their conservatism, far from being overcome, was redoubled. Defeats for revolutionary struggles in Germany and elsewhere in Europe not only compounded the problems of the Russian revolution, but further convinced the conservative elements that they should abandon any notion of defending the Soviet Union through international revolution.•