120 years ago, the upsurge of the soviets in Russia

The ICC considered it important to mark the 120th anniversary of this historic moment in the movement of the working class by holding an online public meeting in English (together with similar meetings in other languages), aimed at showing its relevance to the class struggle today.

We can only deplore the fact that once again, apart from Internationalist Voice[1], there was no participation from other groups of the proletarian political milieu even though they had been invited to take part. In fact, the CWO held their public meeting in London at the same time as ours, which was particularly regrettable when cooperation between communist organisations is what’s needed (in this spirit, the ICC did however send a delegation to the CWO meeting). Here we give an account of the meeting, the interest it represents but also the difficulties it encountered.

Some of the younger comrades at the meeting seemed unfamiliar with the events in question and tended to limit themselves to posing questions to the ICC. This is not a problem in itself, but for us such meetings are not purely ‘pedagogic’ exercises but a moment that can stimulate collective discussion, the expression of doubts and disagreements with the aim of clarifying the political questions posed to the working class. Following the meeting, a participant – who is also a close sympathiser of the ICC – sent a short written contribution that showed the whole importance of the events of 1905 in Russia for the struggle of the world proletariat, past, present and future. We publish below some extracts

The discussion made it possible to clarify a certain number of questions raised in our initial presentation. What questions were at the heart of the discussion?

A new period in the history of capitalism

There was a widespread agreement that the events of 1905 signalled the onset of a new period in capitalism’s history, the end of its ascendant period and the beginning of its decadence, demanding new forms of struggle and organisation, in particular general assemblies and workers’ councils[2]; the fusion of the economic and political dimensions of the movement and the adoption of the maximum programme of proletarian revolution.

As the written contribution sent by our sympathiser put it:

“The mass strike was part of the development of the historical struggle of the working class against capitalism. It wasn’t the ‘General Strike’ propagated by anarchism or of Kautsky’s  peaceful struggle for reforms, nor was it a ‘rehearsal’ for the October Revolution of 1917, but part of a political development of the class struggle from the subterranean maturation of class consciousness faced with the transition of capitalism from its ascendant, generally progressive phase, to that of its decadence…’Matters have reached such a pitch that today mankind is faced with two alternatives: it may perish amid chaos; or it may find salvation in socialism’ (Speech by Rosa Luxemburg on the Programme at the founding congress of the KPD)”.

Some questions were asked about whether the 1905 movement was, to some extent at least, a product of specific Russian conditions. The same contribution from our sympathiser put it thus: “The decades before the 1905 events in Russia saw an acceleration and sharpening of questions concerning the political earthquake that was unfolding: Africa was fully colonised and carved-up by imperialism in the space of just twenty years. Just prior to the 1900s, British/French tensions over Fashoda threatened to turn into a major war between the two countries”. While there were of course some genuine specifics (such as the backward nature of the Tsarist regime, the weight of the peasant masses, etc) what was important about 1905 was above all that it prefigured the methods of struggle and form of organisation appropriate, to the class struggle in decadence, and this on a global scale – the mass strike and the soviets. Furthermore, this had been confirmed in many subsequent struggles in this epoch, during the world-wide revolutionary wave and especially, once again, in the Russia of 1917 and Germany in 1918-19 but also since 1968, with the mass strike in Poland 1980 (general assemblies, elected and revocable strike committees, the MKS).

A concrete perspective: the proletarian revolution

The new historic period in the life of capitalism opened by the events of 1905 posed in practice the concrete perspective of the combat for the proletarian revolution, which from now on was on the agenda of history, raising very important implications, notably in relation to the organisation of revolutionaries.

One comrade stressed that the 1903 split in Russian social democracy highlighted the validity of the vision of the Bolsheviks on the question of the political organisation of the proletarian vanguard - an organisation made up of convinced revolutionaries and based on strict criteria of membership and participation. This corresponded to the needs of the revolutionary minority in an epoch in which the proletarian revolution was everywhere on the agenda. Posed in practice by the events of 1905, this question of the political vanguard was a debate that gave rise to a real political struggle within the revolutionary milieu of the day.

Another comrade recalled that it was the opportunist wing of social democracy, typified by Kautsky, which dismissed the importance of the mass strike in Russia precisely by defining it as a product of Russian backwardness rather than as a forerunner of the future; still another quoted from The German Ideology to point out that developments in one country can prefigure a more general tendency – in this case the 1905 mass strike. Thus, if the rise of capitalism in Britain prefigured the rise of world capitalism, the 1905 mass strike in Russia prefigured the characteristics of the revolutionary struggle of the world proletariat, as illustrated by Russia in 1917 and Germany in 1918-19[3].

The class terrain of the proletariat

In the last part of the meeting, the discussion brought out the links between the lessons of the 1905 events and the present situation. Thus, in line with the discussion on the recent strike movements in France, the question was posed about the distinction between the characteristics of workers’ struggles and those of inter-classist struggles[4]. The discussion made it possible to clarify what constitutes the class terrain of the proletariat: the defence of economic demands which make it possible for the development of class identity through methods of struggle that belong to the working class and tend towards its self-organisation. The contribution from our sympathiser underlines this: “There was some talk in the discussion at the meeting that the workers should become more involved in wider movements today in order to put their own perspectives forward and widen the movement. But this would be a grave mistake, completely going in the wrong direction. We have good, recent examples that show that this is poison to the class struggle and lately over Israel’s war on Gaza there are examples from the USA of workers being diluted into such heterogeneous movements. Even more striking is Italy today where workers have been mobilised in support of Palestinian nationalism on a large scale. The communist slogan of ‘the workers have no country’ doesn’t only apply to the country that they happen to live in but the poison of nationalism as a whole”. The discussion also made it clear that, in the current period, the recovery of class identity by the proletariat is crucial for pushing forward the necessary politicisation of the struggle[5].

On the role of revolutionaries in the movement, a comrade posed a question about the danger of substitutionism as seen in the degeneration of the Russian revolution. We stressed the fact that the communist left had essentially clarified this question through its reflections on the Russian revolution, and that our aims in the present day are fundamentally what they were in relation to the councils in the battles of the past: to insist on the need for workers to take direct control of their own struggles in the assemblies, as a distinct class and the only revolutionary class in society.

We also emphasised that the bourgeoisie had learned a lot from history and would be much better armed than the Russian ruling class in 1905 to obstruct the appearance of genuinely autonomous class organs, above all through the containment of the struggle through those state organs that are the trade unions and the leftist organisations. This makes the active intervention of the revolutionary organisation, to provide an orientation for the political action of the proletariat and to facilitate the development of consciousness in the working class, more necessary than ever.

Finally, more than one comrade intervened to express their agreement with the ICC that the struggles that emerged in Britain in 2022 and have since spread to a number of other countries do mark a break with a long period of passivity in the class[6] and are the indispensable basis for future confrontations which will be able to reappropriate  the most important lessons of past struggles and open the path towards the mass strikes of the future.

Amos, December 2025

 

[1] https://www.internationalistvoice.org

[2] As it says in the Platform of the Communist International, 1919: “A new epoch is born, the epoch of the dissolution of capitalism, of its inner disintegration. The epoch of the communist revolution of the proletariat”. See International Review 162, Centenary of the foundation of the Communist International - What lessons can we draw for future combats?

[3] 1918-1919: seventy years ago On the Revolution in Germany, International Review 55

[4] On inter-classist struggles, see Report on the international class struggle to the 24th ICC Congress, International Review 167

[5] On the politicisation of struggles, see After the rupture in the class struggle, the necessity for politicisation, International Review 171

[6] ibid