"The Russian Revolution and the Soviet State 1917 - 1921: Documents". Selected and Edited by Martin McCauley. L. 1975.

"The Russian Revolution and the Soviet State in 1917-1921: documents". Compiled and edited by Martin mcgaley.

The steady strengthening of the foreign policy authority of the Soviet Union and other countries of the socialist community, the growing global revolutionary process, and the growing influence of the ideas of scientific communism among the broad masses of working people in capitalist and developing countries compel bourgeois social scientists to return again and again to the study of the first victorious proletarian revolution in history.

Most of the books and articles about the Great October Socialist Revolution published by Sovietologists have a pronounced tendentious character. Its role in world history is greatly downplayed. However, in the flow of this kind of literature, which has noticeably increased with the approach of the 60th anniversary of Soviet power, there are books and articles of a slightly different nature. Forced to admit that an event occurred in Russia in October 1917 that changed the entire course of world history, their authors abandoned sweeping anti-Sovietism. They distort and tendentiously cover not the revolution as a whole, but its individual aspects and events, while trying to give their works the appearance of scientific content. Among such works is a peer-reviewed book, authored, compiled and edited by M. Mcgaley, a lecturer in the course on state structure in Russia and the Soviet Union at the University of London.

The book consists of 10 chapters, including mainly fragments from memoir literature, selections from articles published in Russian counter-revolutionary and Soviet newspapers of those years, some decisions of the Provisional Government and decrees of the Soviet government, etc.Mcgalley sets out his point of view on the history of our country in small introductions prefixed to each chapter. Outwardly, he strongly emphasizes his sympathy for the energy and vitality of the young Soviet republic. He writes in the preface: "The October Revolution of 1917 was one of the turning points of modern history. Its influence and significance is felt by most countries of the modern world" (p. 1). However, when reading the book, a picture is created that distorts the essence of the events that took place in our country.

First of all, the information base of the book is extremely unequal. Along with historical documents - the "Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia", decrees on peace and land, and some others - Mcgalley puts very dubious sources, for example, memoirs of leaders of the White Guard movement, published in exile and bearing an anti-Soviet character. For the professional historian, these materials may be of some interest, but for the average reader, for whom the book is mainly intended, they are only misleading. One can't help but think that the biased selection of memoir literature is subordinated to this very purpose. This can be seen, for example, from the descriptions of our revolution given in the book by foreigners who were in Russia at that time. G. Wells ' Russia in the Dark, Memoirs of the October Revolution by the Swedish social democrat K. Lindhagen, and a member of the Finnish government K. Idmen (pp. 276-282) are cited.-

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They create a very gloomy picture of Russia in those years, and portray the activities of the Bolshevik Party as disconnected from the public life of the country as a whole. If mcgaley decided to rely only on foreign sources, which, apparently, he considers the most "reliable", then it is not clear why he did not use D. Reed's book "Ten Days that shook the World" - one of the most complete and objective descriptions of the October Revolution by a foreign eyewitness. The book of D. Reed, who enthusiastically welcomed the October Revolution and realized that the Bolsheviks were inseparable from the people, was repeatedly published in English, and Mcgalley cannot help but know about it. In the preface to the American edition of the book, V. I. Lenin wrote that "it gives a truthful and unusually vividly written account of events."1 . This book is filled with optimism, faith in the future of the Soviet country, and Mcgalley, apparently, deliberately suppresses it. This also applies to the books of A. R. Williams "On the Bolsheviks in the Soviets", "Russian Country", M. Andersen-Nex "Towards the Young Day", " Hands off!", "Two Worlds", H. Johnson "Soviet Power", M. R. Price " Russian Revolution. Memories of 1917-1919" and many others 2 .
Mcgaley's bias is also evident in his reasoning. Thus, he reduces the historical background of the October Revolution to the economic devastation and famine caused by the imperialist war. Of course, the war played a role in exacerbating the needs of the masses and driving their hatred of tsarism to the extreme, but the economic and social prerequisites for the socialist revolution were, as is well known, much deeper. Russia was the weakest link in the chain of world imperialism, the nodal point of its contradictions, and the center of the world revolutionary movement. The actions of the working class were directed by the Bolshevik Party headed by Lenin. Relying on Marxist theory, the Bolsheviks steadily led the Russian proletariat to the conquest of political power. Their strategy and tactics in the period leading up to the revolution are a brilliant example of scientific analysis and foresight of historical events. There is not a word about all this in the book.

Mcgaley hyperbolizes the role of Trotsky and his supporters in the revolution. For most Sovietologists, this interpretation has already become a "classic" one. This is explained by the fact that at present Trotskyism is increasingly being used by bourgeois science and propaganda as one of the main tools of anti-Sovietism and anti-communism. To give weight to modern Trotskyism, Sovietologists exaggerate in every possible way the extent to which Trotsky participated in the revolution, in the creation of the Soviet state. Meanwhile, the Trotskyists were and still are essentially anti-communists. Their ultra-revolutionary nature, "left-wing" extremism and adventurism have never had anything in common with the tactics and strategy of the Bolshevik Party. History has accumulated a sufficient number of facts to pass judgment on Trotskyism as a trend that objectively expresses the interests of the bourgeoisie and helps in practice to preserve its rule over the proletariat, over the working masses .3
At the beginning of the preface, mcgaley focuses the reader's attention on the contradictions between R. Luxemburg's views and the tactics and strategy of the Bolshevik Party. The paragraph devoted to this completely falls out of the context of the preface. It seems that mcgalley specifically introduced it to justify the thesis of the isolation of the Marxist movement in Russia. If you carefully read the book, this position can be traced quite clearly. Yes, R. Luxemburg in 1904, not understanding Lenin's principles of creating a Marxist party, criticized them. Later, however, it adopted the basic Bolshevik principles of the revolutionary struggle and warmly welcomed the October Revolution. Lenin, while criticizing individual mistakes of R. Luxemburg, generally highly appreciated her revolutionary merits .4 The statement that between the River Luke-

1 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 40, p. 48.

2 See, for example, "Through the Eyes of Friends", L. 1959.

3 For more information, see Y. M. Klimov. Modern Trotskyism in the service of anti-communism. "Questions of the history of the CPSU", 1975, No. 9; G. A. Papkov. Historical experience of the struggle of the CPSU against Trotskyism on the issues of party construction and modernity. Moscow, 1973; A. I. Sobolev. Trotskyism-the enemy of the revolution. M. 1973, et al.

4 See V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 30, p. 2; see also E. Dahl, A. Lashitsa, G. Radchuk. Revolutionary Leader of the Proletariat (Dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Rosa Luxemburg). "Problems of Peace and Socialism", 1971, N 3; V. V. Chistyakov. Rose Luke-

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Semburg and the Bolsheviks had "antagonistic" contradictions, which is not true.

Some sections of the book are clearly designed for the tastes of the layman, accustomed to the speculation of tabloid literature. Thus, F. E. Dzerzhinsky is depicted as a gloomy, silent man signing death sentences, "sipping tea in cold blood" (p. 188). Here Mcgaley follows the canons of the yellow press, which draws the image of a chekist in this way. Meanwhile, Dzerzhinsky was a "knight of the revolution", a man of great soul. This is evidenced by all his activities, in particular as chairman of the Commission for Improving the Lives of Children under the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, which has done a great job in saving street children from hunger and epidemics. Many books have been written about Dzerzhinsky, including memoirs5, but mcgaley also did not use them.

There are many other examples of blatant misrepresentation in the book of the history of the first years of the Soviet state. Thus, the section devoted to Makhnovism (pp. 167-172) includes quotations from Trotsky's article on N. Makhno and a telegram from Makhno to Trotsky, giving the impression that during the civil war the "ideological anarchist" Makhno realized his crimes and stopped fighting against the Soviet government. However , it is known that Makhno repeatedly violated agreements with the Soviet government. In the end, his "army", consisting mainly of declassified elements and former White Guards, was defeated, and he himself fled abroad and remained an ardent anti-Soviet until the end of his days.

Evaluating the book as a whole, we can say that it is a clear example of the "new wave" in bourgeois historiography dedicated to the Great October Socialist Revolution. The growing desire of broad public circles in the West to better understand the events of the revolution in Russia and the content of the foreign and domestic policy of the Soviet state forces bourgeois authors to look for new forms of tendentious presentation of the history of our country, to give their works a "scientific" design. However, neither the copious quoting of the memoirs of "eyewitnesses", nor the carefully veiled falsification of historical facts can hide the true intentions of Sovietists, their anti-Sovietism, and attempts to distort the historical truth about the Country of Soviets.

semburg and the international labor movement. Voprosy istorii, 1971, No. 3; A. Ya. Manusevich. Rosa Luxemburg and her place in the history of the international labour movement. "New and recent history", 1971, N 2; I. Yazhborovskaya. Rosa Luxemburg and the opponents of Leninism. "The Working Class and the modern World", 1971, N 1, et al.

5 P. G. Sofinov. Pages from the Life of F. E. Dzerzhinskiy, Moscow, 1959; "Knight of the Revolution". Memoirs of Contemporaries about F. E. Dzerzhinskiy, Moscow, 1967; A.V. Tishkov. The First Chekist (F. E. Dzerzhinskiy), Moscow, 1968; N. Zubov, F. E. Dzerzhinskiy. Biografiya. Izd. 3-E. M. 1971, et al.

6 See M. Kubanin. Makhnovshchina, L. 1927; I. Ya. Trifonov. Classes and class struggle in the USSR at the beginning of NEP (1921-1923). Part 1. L. 1964; S. N. Semanov. The Makhnovshchina and its collapse. Voprosy istorii, 1966, No. 9; V. V. Komin. Anarchism in Russia. Kalinin, 1368, and others.

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