In this essay first published in 1930 in France, the founder of the Workers Group denounces the bureaucracy that he claims seized power in a “coup d’état” in 1920 at the Ninth Congress of the CPSU(b) its “latest deception” being its fraudulent appeals for “freedom of criticism” and “self-criticism” after a series of revolts by workers and peasants in the early to mid-1920s and calls for a restoration of proletarian democracy (as exemplified by the Paris Commune) by democratizing the functions exercised by bureaucratic State institutions (production, distribution, oversight) and replacing them with Soviets (“Councils”), cooperatives and trade unions.
The Most Intransigent of Bolsheviks: Gavril Miasnikov, the Workers Group and the Degeneration of the Russian Revolution libcom.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from libcom.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.