Can We Imitate the Finland Station? Should We Want to?
Posted by Mike E on March 8, 2008
by Mike Ely
There was a giddy and heroic turning point early in the Russian revolution. The events of February 1917 had toppled the Tzar (to everyone’s utter shock) and all the revolutionary forces scrambled to find their footing (on the suddenly wide-open political stage) and scrambled to find their voice (since they had to create a mass programmatic expression of their politics.) The Bolshevik leadership on the ground (and the Pravda editorial board) were treading water — operating in loose alliance with other socialist trends, and extending a tepid critical support for the new “revolutionary” post-monarchical government of Kerensky.
At that moment, Lenin arrived. It was April 1917. He pulled into the railroad station in Petrograd where travelers from the west (i.e. Finland, and beyond it Sweden) arrive — at the Finland Station. He (and a small circle of comrades, aides and fellow exiles) stepped in a huge and tumultuous welcoming scene — friends and foes, in-laws and outlaws, were there to see him. After years of bitter exile and impotence, the glaring spotlight of real political influence clicked on.
With waiting leftwing prominents as a backdrop, Lenin jumped up on a nearby armored car and grabbed the spotlight. He gave the mind-blowing announcement that the time for a second socialist revolution had arrived. His “April Thesis” stunned his supporters. It was the start of intense struggle (among the Bolsheviks) over preparing a new revolution (which after several attempts in April, July and so on) culminated in the October uprising.
In some ways Lenin could stand up and make that public speech, then, in Russia itself, because the firestorm of revolution had cleared some ground on which he could step, openly, without immediate arrest or murder. The existence of this incredible revolutionary situation, the overthrow of the old government, the defeat in world war, the emergence of “dual power,” the beginning growth of the new Bolshevik strength (on the ground, in the factories) — all this made the Finland Station possible.
For Lenin, the “arrival at the Finland station” was stepping out on the stage as a major political actor for the first time. It was the transition from exiled underground writer to major political player. There is much about this that is remarkable and ACTUALLY historic (and which is available in Zizek’s recent compilation called “Revolution at the Gates” which we quote in the 9 Letters.)
That (a bit crudely) is the historic meaning of the phrase “to the Finland Station.”
Now, lets pan our cameras toward the U.S. today.
The RCP has repeatedly cast itself as a Bolshevik Redux. There was a struggle with the Franklinites (equivalent of the populist-terrorist Narodniki in the Russian movement). After that the struggle over identity politics among communists was called the “Bundist” struggle, then a struggle against tradeunionism and reformism was called the “split with the Mensheviks” over “Economism.” Then there was raising the banner of “What is to be Donism.”
And then, need I add, the RCP’s “Lenin” went into a highly symbolic exile, and wrote his long letters from afar.
At some point, in RCP’s tight imitation plot line, there is the slot for a “Finland Station” moment. Such fantasies can even be turned over and over in the mind, like a long-planned trip to the beach. It can become a cramped habit of thinking glistening with typical motion, romantic nostalgia, and role-playing.
Except that so far: No revolutionary situation has emerged as long years have rolled by. No hint of a call to come back, no throngs, no gathering of friend and foe to bend the ear, no armored car to climb on, no rapid growth of the organized ranks, no spotlight of history as one strides “back” onto the stage as a major player.
This is (of course) not mainly anyone’s personal dilemma. These long years of political stability have been the frustration of all revolutionaries in the U.S. (and not just the U.S.) As Saoirse very correctly (and painfully) notes: “Who hasn’t been waiting for that Finland Station moment for ages?”
Yes, amen!
Of course, yes, we have been frantic for a REAL Finland Station — where the cauldron of real revolutionary rumblings and ruptures pulls our organization and leaders into the harsh and challenging light of real politics and influence. Yes who hasn’t been waiting… But the living question for us is HOW to “hasten and await,” i.e. HOW to hasten the revolution while we await changes in objective conditions that are beyond our control.
And it is wrong to respond to this with imitative nostalgia — by magically trying to reproduce the past, or conceiving our present through the lens of that past.
And that is where our current line struggle has erupted. Mao critiques those comrades who believe they can “pull on the sprout to make it grow.” Marx critiques those comrades (of his time) who dress up in the nostalgia uniforms and words of previous revolutions and think that by enacting rituals they can recreate that magic. In fact this world is reborn anew each morning, time moves on, and contradictions are constantly posed in new ways. Old forms and words become objectively exhausted. I repeat: Old forms and words become objectively exhausted.
Nepal’s Maoists loudly insist: You CAN’T recreate revolutions. They are pulling at our shirttails. Their point is aimed at some deep-seated habits of thought. Yes we can’t create a role-playing replay (like a Finland Station) out of place and time — and shouldn’t even want to!
* * * * *
All this has become part of our current line struggle — as, objectively, “a hundred schools of thought contend.” If you believe you can create and then deploy a great revolutionary movement around the Great Leader then you may now get your clarion call. Can you be pressured to adopt that approach? Here may be your chance!
Reality is a tough judge. We look forward to your answer to this question “So, how’s that been working for you?”
We have a world to win — but it is a churning, startling, restlessly remade world, where old things constantly fall away exhausted.
Marx urged the comrades of his time: “Let the dead bury the dead.”
Quorri said
Yes….. we don’t want to re-create the past. We want to create a new future :)
zerohour said
The tough question here is: how do we learn from history? How do we use it?
Politics by analogy is sterile and laughable. There are those out there still trying to re-create 1917, who refuse to call any revolution “socialist” unless it establishes soviets. Overall, I would not characterize RCP in this manner but some of their rhetorical style and presentation represents a fetish of past imagery that marks them as a bit anachronistic. Asserting the importance of a leader will not magically generate a revolutionary mass movement, nor will it provide RCP with the vibrant and critical political energy it needs.
But onto the future. What has RCP contributed to the political landscape? What from its past can we use and build from?
cassiusghost said
Promoting Avakian as a “new” Mao or Lenin was the biggest strategic mistake the RCP ever made and it began quite a long time ago – as far back as the Avakian big character poster.
My Iranian comrades warned be about it before it happened!
Before RIM, before openings in Peru, before all that and more – there was “the cult” around Avakian.
And look where it’s got us!
Ridiculous!
I’ll have prepared a beginnng paper on this, parts of which are over 20 years old when I first became disgruntled with this manifestation and while a very big supporter of the RCP.
It wasn’t just me either, a very large cadre, active and very vibrant was dissolved with a single edict from these “revolutionaries.”
Ely knows it, he just won’t say it – because he still respects certain aspects of their methods and doesn’t want to violate security.