It is usually the case that you cannot tell a book by its cover. What is written on the back is a different matter. Whoever is enlisted to praise a book gives you a good idea about the author’s politics. McMeekin’s book is no different. The fact that the publisher asks two of the most right-wing historians known to mankind in the form of Niall Ferguson and Simon Sebag Montefiore tells the reader a lot. The book is also praised by the right-wing Tory MP Michael Gove, who wrote in his review for the London Times, “The Russian Revolution was the most successful criminal conspiracy in history. The takeover of an entire nation by a shameless huckster supported by a hostile foreign power. And the revolution was also an object lesson in how liberals can lose, and lose catastrophically, from a position of great advantage, if they are divided in the face of a ruthlessly ideological foe.”[1]
Although Ferguson, Sebag Montefiore and Tory MP Michael Gove all share McMeekinn’s right-wing political and historical outlook, they are not responsible for this hack work, which contains falsifications and slanders from the first page to the last.
Let us start at the beginning. In chapter one, Mcmeekin makes the stupid and wrong assertion that the split in the RSDLP in 1903 was over the so-called “Jewish Question”. He writes “ Contrary to the common belief, expounded in most history books, that the famous Bolshevik-Menshevik split of July 1903 occurred because Lenin’s advocacy of a professional cadre of elites (sometimes called vanguardism), outlined in his 1902 pamphlet What Is To Be Done?, was opposed by Mensheviks who wanted mass worker participation in the party, the real fireworks at the Brussels Congress surrounded the Jewish question. Party organisation was not even discussed until the fourteenth plenary session. Lenin’s main goal in Brussels was to defeat the Bund—that is, Jewish—autonomy inside the party. His winning argument was that Jews were not really a nation, as they shared neither a common language nor a common national territory. Martov, the founder of the Bund, took great umbrage at this, and walked out to form the new Menshevik (minority) faction. He was followed by nearly all Jewish socialists, including, notably, Lev Bronstein (Trotsky), a young intellectual from Kherson, in southern Ukraine, who had studied at a German school in cosmopolitan Odessa, which helped prime him for the appeal of European Marxism. With Lenin all but mirroring the arguments of Russian anti-Semites, it is not hard to see why Martov, Trotsky, and other Jews joined the opposition.”[2]
The Marxist writer David North answers this foul slander in his two-part review of McMeekin’s book.[3] He writes, “The problem with this account is that it is completely false, both in terms of facts and political interpretation. Putting aside his incorrect dating of the split (it occurred in August, not July), McMeekin concocts, with the intention of slandering Lenin as an anti-Semite, an account of the break between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks that has nothing to do with historical and political reality. The RSDLP did not split over the issue of the Jewish Bund. Far from being the “founder” of the Bund, let alone walking out of the Congress to protest Lenin’s opposition to the Bund’s autonomy within the party, Martov wrote the RSDLP resolution that provoked the Bund’s walkout. Martov’s opposition to Jewish autonomy within the Revolutionary Workers’ Party was far more strident than Lenin’s. As the late Leopold Haimson, the leading authority on the history of Menshevism, wrote in his important scholarly work The Russian Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism, “Martov clashed violently with the Bund representatives when this issue arose at the Second Party Congress. There was greater acerbity in his polemical tone during these discussions than that of any other members of his camp.” [3] As for McMeekin’s claim that Trotsky also walked out of the 1903 Congress in support of the Bund’s demand for autonomy, this is another incredible display of ignorance. Trotsky was an uncompromising opponent of the Bund, and the transcript of the debates (available in English) show that Trotsky intervened repeatedly in support of Martov’s resolution.”[4]
There is nothing new in McMeekin’s book that has not already been vomited by other right-wing historians such as Richard Pipes et al. McMeekin’s main argument is that the revolution took place merely by chance and fell into the Bolshevik’s laps again by chance. Pipes, like McMeekin, rejects the view that the revolution was the result “of social movements from below”; instead, Pipes and others often characterise the revolution as a mere putsch or coup by “identifiable men pursuing their advantages.”
The book is a complete rewrite of an entire revolutionary epoch. McMeekin writes, “The salient fact about Russia in 1917 is that it was a country at war. Knowing how the story of the czars turns out, many historians have suggested that the Russian colossus must always have had feet of clay. But surely, this is hindsight. Despite growing pains, uneven economic development and stirrings of revolutionary fervour, imperial Russia in 1900 was a going concern, its size and power a source of pride to most if not all of the czar’s subjects.”
So, what is the driving force behind McMeekin’s revisionism and his rejection of any Marxist or liberal historiography? In his book, he does not mention important historians such as E H Carr or Alexander Rabinowitch.
The answer is to be found in ideology, not history. McMeekin is rapid in his hatred of socialism. He warns his readers of what he calls a resurgence of Marxist-style philosophy, warning readers to be wary of “openly avowed socialists” like Bernie Sanders, who, in reality, has nothing to do with socialism.
North asks, “Why did he write the book? Aside from the lure of easy money (anti-communist works are usually launched with substantial publicity and guaranteed positive reviews in the New York Times and many other publications), McMeekin has a political motive. At the start of this year, the World Socialist Web Site wrote: “A spectre is haunting world capitalism: the spectre of the Russian Revolution.” McMeekin is among the haunted. He writes in the book’s epilogue, “The Specter of Communism,” that capitalism is threatened by growing popular discontent, and the appeal of Bolshevism is again on the rise. “Like the nuclear weapons born of the ideological age inaugurated in 1917, the sad fact about Leninism is that once invented, it cannot be uninvented. Social inequality will always be with us, along with the well-intentioned impulse of socialists to eradicate it.” Therefore, “the Leninist inclination is always lurking among the ambitious and ruthless, especially in desperate times of depression or war that seem to call for more radical solutions.” McMeekin continues: “If the last hundred years teach us anything, we should stiffen our defences and resist armed prophets promising social perfection.”
While it is not in the realm of possibility to cover every lie, falsification and slander contained in the book, it would be remiss of me not to refute the old slander that is rehashed in the book that Vladimir Lenin was a German agent. Again, I will quote David North not because I am a bit lazy but, to put it bluntly, he is at the moment the greatest authority in the world on the Russian Revolution. He writes, “ There is not a single serious historian who has treated the allegations against Lenin as anything other than a slander. From the moment of Lenin’s return to Russia via Germany aboard the “sealed train,” the anti-revolutionary right attempted to portray the Bolshevik leader as an agent of the Kaiser. In the initial months of the revolution, this libel gained no support outside liberal and fascistic circles. It was well understood that the possibility of a speedy return by a man widely recognised by the Russian workers as one of their most courageous and brilliant leaders required that he find the fastest route to revolutionary Petrograd. One month later, Martov, after much dithering, also used the German route.
Moreover, Trotsky’s experience in March–April 1917 further validated Lenin’s decision. Trotsky, travelling across the Atlantic from New York City, was forcibly removed from his ship off the coast of Halifax by British authorities. Attempting to prevent the return of the much-feared revolutionary to Russia, who many believed to be “worse than Lenin,” the British interned Trotsky in a prisoner-of-war camp for one month. In the face of protests by the Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional Government’s reluctant demand that he be released, Trotsky was finally allowed to continue his journey back to Russia. He arrived one month later than Lenin.”.
Normally, even the worst history books have a few pearls of wisdom and some redeeming features. This has none. It is kind to call it revisionist history, but in reality, McMeekin has vomited up every single falsification, slander and outright lie printed on the Russian Revolution and then some. As North correctly writes, “Sean McMeekin stands exposed as a falsifier of history.”
[1] Gove, Michael (3 June 2017). “The Russian Revolution: A New History by Sean McMeekin”. The Times.
[2] THE Russian revolution: A New History By Sean McMeekin
Basic Books. $30. Illustrated. p22/23
[3] Professor Sean McMeekin revives discredited anti-Lenin slanders- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/30/mcme-j30.html
[4] Professor Sean McMeekin revives discredited anti-Lenin slanders- https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/30/mcme-j30.html
A Trumpet of Sedition 