Mieville’s compelling ‘October’

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nection between decades of austerity and the deaths in public housing: “This is a result of the obsession As investigations into the Grenfell tragedy continued, for deregulation, the obsession for privatization and it came out that residents had complained for years against health and safety protections. Those who said, that the 24-story public-housing block was just waiting ‘health and safety is a monster to be slain’ need to be for catastrophe to hit. It lacked fire alarms and sprin­ klers. There was only a single staircase to be used as a sector union Unite, spoke to the rally: “You have to There were also concerns about the aluminum façade, which whisked the flames upward. One observer said, ernment. … Prime minister, for the good of the nation, “It burned like a fire that you pour petrol on.” The flames consumed the tower so quickly, and smoke was so thick, that firefighters had difficulty getting to the upper floors chester, said, “There is a different mood from work Formal inquiry has begun into the panels, consisting now. People gather to discuss protest and industrial of two sheets of aluminum that sandwich a combustable action whenever someone mentions it. … I’d like to core. The panels were produced by the American manu­ ernment. July 1 was chosen for the event to take place. facturing giant Alcoa, now renamed Arconic, which has On June 14, Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDon­ nected more and start pushing for action.” Mona Kamal marketed them in Britain for years. Arconic’s website Knell told the annual conference of the food workers told the rally to loud cheers that she was one of the junior union BFAWU: “What we need now is the TUC [Trades doctors that went on strike last year: “If and when my The panels were first used for public housing blocks Union Congress] mobilized, every union mobilized, get nursing colleagues do the same, they will have 50,000 when Tony Blair was in office. For years, members of out in the streets. Just think if the TUC put out the call— Parliament have tried to get restrictions on the cladding, that we want a million in the streets of London in two Before Jeremy Corbyn spoke at the rally in London, he which is banned in many countries. Manufacturers ar­ spoke to a rally of thousands in Hastings, East Sussex, gued against more tests or regulations. Using fire-resis­ When the day came, the press reported that tens of where he is targeting Tory Amber Rudd’s constituency. tant materials was more expensive, so it was opposed thousands marched on Parliament, and some who at­ She won her election by only 346 votes and is generally tended said it was as high as 100,000. Everyone was an­ considered to be the successor to Prime Minister Teresa gry. They wanted the prime minister to resign, but most May. Corbyn said there are 73 constituencies in Eng­ Soon after the Grenfell Tower disaster the call went out of the energy was aimed against austerity and the recent land, Wales, and Scotland that Labour can win. He and from the People’s Assembly Against Austerity for a na­ his shadow cabinet will be visiting every one of them. tional demonstration to oppose the new Tory-DUP gov­ In an interview with Sky News, Matt Wrack, general “Labour is the government in waiting.” n Most people know China Mieville as tion. He’s made a name for himself over the years as a pre-eminent figure within the science fiction and fantasy scenes in large part because of his radical jumps between different genres, styles, and ideas.

Within the 10 novels and two short story collections that Mieville has writ­ ten, there’s everything from the sub­ versive but grounded detective story of “The City & The City,” to the baroque magical capitalist dystopia of the “Bas”

series. Even within a body of work marked by radical departures, though, his most recent book, “October: The Story of the Russian Revolution,” still marks an exceptional shift.

When it was first proposed, Mieville apparently had the idea of writing a straight historical fiction piece, telling the story of the Revolution as a novel.

However, over the course of writing, it evolved into a much broader general history of the Russian Revolution from February to October, meant as a general introductory work on the topic.

The way that the publisher, Verso, has advertised “October” emphasizes its origins as a historical fiction piece and attempts to sell it as “The Story of the Russian Revolution” in a fairly direct way. But that description undersells the quality and depth of the book.

“October” is one of the better in-depth and effective introductions to the poli­ tics that shaped the Russian Revolu­ tion that has been written in the past few decades. It fills an important niche within socialist literature to bridge the gap between journalistic accounts— like John Reed’s “Ten Days That Shook The World”—and Leon Trotsky’s “His­ tory of The Russian Revolution,” which covers many of the same topics in far more detail and is the definitive work on the subject.

Mieville tells the story of the Revolu­ tion in a compelling way that manages to get across many of the more compli­ cated political phenomena in Russia in the lead-up to October.

The chief virtue of “October” as com­ pared to most bourgeois histories of the Russian Revolution is that China Mi­ eville understands Marxist theory and ... British Labour (continued from page 12: “British Labour Party gains muscle as Tories decline”) system of self-policing by local councils.

fire escape.

to rescue people.

says that their use “depends on local building codes.” by the industry.

July 1 anti-austerity demonstration the concept and role of a van­ guard party. In contrast to those bourgeois historians who would focus on the persons within the Bolshevik leadership and their role in engineering the situation, October’s chief protagonist and subject is the Russian working class itself.

Mieville shows that the shifts in class consciousness of the working class, and the move­ ment they built, is ultimately what made the first successful workers’ revolution in history possible. The workers were not controlled or manipulated by a body outside themselves, but were active agents in their own right who fully understood what they hoped to achieve by the The Bolsheviks are still central historical actors, but it is in the role of the people at the fore­ front of this emerging movement that they were central. This isn’t to say that the workers were a purely spontaneous element; the revolutionary movement shaped their actions and conscious­ ness.

The relationship of the Bolshevik Party to the masses was dialectical and reciprocal, and wouldn’t have been pos­ sible if the workers weren’t receptive to their calls, or if the situation didn’t push them to listen. The Bolsheviks’ agitation pushed forward mass consciousness, which in turn led the masses to take ac­ tion, in which the Bolsheviks played a leading role in many cases due to their audience trusting and respecting them.

Where “October” most thoroughly criticizes the Bolsheviks is in situations in which they failed to act as a van­ guard. One moment was immediately after the February revolution, when various Bolshevik leaders took steps towards burying the hatchet with the Mensheviks and adopting support for the Provisional Government. And then in the July Days, when they failed to give a decisive response to the workers’ ac­ tions, were effectively blindsided by events out of their control, and tempo­ rarily forced to go underground.

“October” makes clear that the Bol­ sheviks were fallible, that they made mistakes throughout the Revolution— weeks.”

tragedy of the Grenfell fire. although this did not automatically dis­ credit them as leaders.

Of course, any attempt to try to explain a very complex topic in simple ways will tend to be inexact in some places. Where this is most evident in “October” is in the contradiction between the de­ sire for a speedier and less dense read, and presenting issues in their full com­ plexity.

This issue is at its worst when Mieville turns his attention to the debates within the Bolshevik party in April 1917—when Lenin returned to revolu­ tionary Russia from exile and wrote his “April Thesis.” His goal appears to be to present them in light of recent debates around historian Lars Lih’s analysis of whether or not the Bolsheviks were “fully armed” in their perspectives to­ ward the Provisional Government and whether Lenin’s militant thesis consti­ tuted a rupture or continuity with the old politics of the Bolshevik Party.

Unfortunately, to someone uninitiated in the works of Lars Lih (“Lenin Redis­ covered” and other books), Mieville’s presentation is almost entirely opaque. He fails to get across the core issues involved, or why the debate about the nature of Lenin’s “April Theses” as rup­ ture or continuity is significant. More­ over, Mieville fails to state any definite conclusions or ideas.

Along similar lines, there’s a sort of The Independent Tower disaster. held accountable.”

go and go now.”

(Above) Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin addresses Russian workers.

Petrograd-centrism to the book, which is acknowledged by the author in the introduction, but doesn’t really justify the lack of focus on events outside of the city. This is most problematic where the oppressed nationalities of the Rus­ sian Empire are concerned. They oc­ casionally come to the forefront, but never in great detail.

For example, the relationship and po­ sition of the Bolsheviks on the emerg­ ing national liberation struggles is only referred to once in the entire book, in a specific reference to a statement on the part of the Baku Bolsheviks.

This is probably the greatest failure of the book to demonstrate the full scope of the Russian Revolution because the nationalities question was an incred­ ibly important aspect of the revolution­ ary process, and worthy of more atten­ tion than many writings on the Revolu­ tion give it.

Nevertheless, “October: The Story of the Russian Revolution” is highly worthwhile reading for anyone with an interest in the topic, and especially for today’s political activists. Even people who know a lot about the Revolution will still be able to engage with it as a very entertaining book that presents Russia in 1917 in a novel way. n (Left) Protest in London following the Grenfell secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, made the con­ Len McClusky, the general secretary of the public come from across the land to fight for a people’s gov­ Members of UNISON, the largest health-care union, were more specific. Mark, a UNISON rep from Man­ see the union at a regional level getting branches con­ junior doctors standing behind them in solidarity.”

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SOCIALIST ACTION

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SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 2017 11 M a writer of innovative genre fic­