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The Rise of Communism In Russia

      "Unless we accept the claim that Lenin's coup d'etat gave birth to an
entirely new state, and indeed to a new era in the history of mankind, we
must recognize in today's Soviet Union the old empire of the Russians -- the
only empire that survived into the mid 1980's" (Luttwak, 1).      In their
Communist Manifesto of 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels applied the term
communism to a final stage of socialism in which all class differences would
disappear and humankind would live in harmony. Marx and Engels claimed to
have discovered a scientific approach to socialism based on the laws of
history. They declared that the course of history was determined by the
clash of opposing forces rooted in the economic system and the ownership of
property. Just as the feudal system had given way to capitalism, so in time
capitalism would give way to socialism. The class struggle of the future
would bebetween the bourgeoisie, who were the capitalist employers, and the
proletariat, who were the workers. The struggle would end, according to
Marx, in the socialist revolution and the attainment of full communism
(Groiler's Encyclopedia).      Socialism, of which "Marxism-Leninism" is a
takeoff, originated in the West. Designed in France and Germany, it was
brought into Russia in the middle of the nineteenth century and promptly
attracted support among the country's educated, public-minded elite, who at
that time were called intelligentsia (Pipes, 21). After Revolution broke out
over Europe in 1848 the modern working class appeared on the scene as a
major historical force. However, Russia remained out of the changes that
Europe was experiencing. As a socialist movement and inclination, the
Russian Social-Democratic Party continued the traditions of all the Russian
Revolutions of the past, with the goal of conquering political freedom
(Daniels 7).      As early as 1894, when he was twenty-four, Lenin had
become a revolutionary agitator and a convinced Marxist. He exhibited his
new faith and his polemical talents in a diatribe of that year against the
peasant-oriented socialism of the Populists led by N.K. Mikhiaiovsky (Wren,
3).      While Marxism had been winning adherents among the Russian
revolutionary intelligentsia for more than a decade previously, aclaimed
Marxist party was bit organized until 1898. In that year a "congress" of
nine men met at Minsk to proclaim the establishment of the Russian Social
Democratic Worker's Party. The Manifesto issued in the name of the congress
after the police broke it up was drawn up by the economist Peter Struve, a
member of the moderate "legal Marxist" group who soon afterward left the
Marxist movement altogether. The manifesto is indicative of the way Marxism
was applied to Russianconditions, and of the special role for the
proletariat (Pipes, 11).      The first true congress of the Russian Social
Democratic Workers' Party was the Second. It convened in Brussels in the
summer of 1903, but was forced by the interference of the Belgian
authorities to move to London, where the proceedings were concluded. The
Second Congress was the occasion for bitter wrangling among the
representatives of various Russian Marxist Factions, and ended in a deep
split that was mainly caused by Lenin -- his personality, his drive for
power in the movement, and his "hard" philosophy of the disciplined party
organization. At the close of the congress Lenin commanded a temporary
majority for his faction and seized upon the label "Bolshevik" (Russian for
Majority), while his opponents who inclined to the "soft" or more democratic
position became known as the "Mensheviks" or minority (Daniels, 19).     
Though born only in 1879, Trotsky had gained a leading place among the
Russian Social-Democrats by the time of the Second party Congress in 1903.
He represented ultra-radical sentiment that could not reconcile itself to
Lenin's stress on the party organization. Trotsky stayed with the Menshevik
faction until he joined Lenin in 1917. From that point on, he acomidated
himself in large measure to Lenin's philosophy of party dictatorship, but
his reservations came to the surface again in the years after his fall from
power (Stoessinger, 13).      In the months after the Second Congress of the
Social Democratic Party Lenin lost his majority and began organizing a
rebellious group of Bolsheviks. This was to be in opposition of the new
majority of the congress, the Menshiviks, led by Trotsky. Twenty-two
Bolsheviks, including Lenin, met in Geneva in August of 1904 to promote the
idea of the highly disciplined party and to urge the reorganization of the
whole Social-Democratic movement on Leninist lines (Stoessinger, 33).     
The differences between Lenin and the Bogdanov group of revolutionary
romantics came to its peak in 1909. Lenin denouncedthe otzovists, also known
as the recallists, who wanted to recall the Bolshevik deputies in the Duma,
and the ultimatists who demanded that the deputies take a more radical stand
-- both for their philosophical vagaries which he rejected as idealism, and
for the utopian purism of their refusal to take tactical advantage of the
Duma. The real issue was Lenin's control of the faction and the enforcement
of his brand of Marxist orthodoxy. Lenin demonstrated his grip of the
Bolshevik faction at a meeting in Paris of the editors of the Bolsheviks'
factional paper, which had become the headquarters of the faction. Bogdanov
and his followers were expelled from the Bolshevik faction, though they
remained within the Social-Democratic fold (Wren, 95).      On March 8 of
1917 a severe food shortage cause riots in Petrograd. The crowds demanded
food and the step down of Tsar. When the troops were called in to disperse
the crowds, they refused to fire their weapons and joined in the rioting.
The army generals reported that it would be pointless to send in any more
troops, because they would only join in with the other rioters. The
frustrated tsar responded by stepping down from power, ending the
300-year-old Romanov dynasty (Farah, 580).      With the tsar out of power,
a new provisional government took over made up of middle-class Duma
representatives. Also rising to power was a rival government called the
Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies consisting of workers
and peasants of socialist and revolutionary groups. Other soviets formed in
towns and villages all across the country. All of the soviets worked to push
a three-point program which called for an immediate peas, the transfer of
land to peasants, and control of factories to workers. But the provisional
government stood in conflict with the other smaller governments and the
hardships of war hit the country. The provisional government was so busy
fighting the war that they neglected the social problems it faced, losing
much needed support (Farah, 580).      The Bolsheviks in Russia were
confused and divided about how to regard the Provisional Government, but
most of them, including Stalin, were inclined to accept it for the time
being on condition that it work for an end to the war. When Lenin reached
Russia in April after his famous "sealed car" trip across Germany, he
quickly denounced his Bolshevik colleagues for failing to take a
sufficiently revolutionary stand (Daniels, 88).      In August of 1917,
while Lenin was in hiding and the party had been basically outlawed by the
Provisional Government, the Bolsheviks managed to hold their first party
congress since 1907 regardless. The most significant part of the debate
turned on the possibility for immediate revolutionary action in Russia and
the relation of this to the international upheaval. The separation between
the utopian internationalists and the more practical Russia-oriented people
was already apparent (Pipes, 127).      The Bolsheviks' hope of seizing
power was hardly secret. Bold refusal of the provisional Government was one
of their major ideals. Three weeks before the revolt they decided to stage a
demonstrative walkout from the advisory assembly. When the walkout was
staged, Trotsky denounced the Provisional Government for its alleged
counterrevolutionary objectives and called on the people of Russia to
support the Bolsheviks (Daniels, 110).      On October 10 of 1917, Lenin
made the decision to take power. He came secretly to Petrograd to try and
disperse any hesitancies the Bolshevik leadership had over his demand for
armed revolt. Against the opposition of two of Lenin's long-time
lieutenants, Zinovieiv and Kamenev, the Central Committee accepted Lenin's
resolution which formally instructed the party organizations to prepare for
the seizure of power.      Finally, of October 25 the Bolshevik revolution
took place to overthrow the provisional government. They did so through the
agency of the Military-Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet. They
forcibly overthrew the provisional government by taking over all of the
government buildings, such as the post office, and big corporations, such as
the power companies, the shipyard, the telephone company. The endorsement of
the coup was secured from the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which
was concurrently in session. This was known as the "October Revolution"
(Luttwak, 74) Through this, control of Russia was shifted to Lenin and the
Bolsheviks.      In a quick series of decrees, the new "soviet" government
instituted a number of sweeping reforms, some long overdue andsome quite
revolutionary. They ranged from "democratic" reforms, such as the
disestablishment of the church and equality for the national minorities, to
the recognition of the peasants' land seizures and to openly socialist steps
such as the nationalization of banks. The Provisional Government's
commitment to the war effort was denounced. Four decrees were put into
action. The first four from the Bolshevik Revolutionary Legislation were a
decree on peace, a decree on land, a decree on the suppression of hostile
newspapers, and a declaration of the rights of the peoples of Russia
(Stossenger, 130).      By early 1918 the Bolshevik critics individually
made their peace with Lenin, and were accepted back into the party
andgovernmental leadership. At the same time, the Left and Soviet
administration thus acquired the exclusively Communist character which it
has had ever since. The Left SR's like the right SR's and the Mensheviks,
continued to function in the soviets as a more or less legal opposition
until the outbreak of large-scale civil war in the middle of 1918. At that
point the opposition parties took positions which were either equally vocal
or openly anti-Bolshevik, and one after another, they were suppressed.     
The Eastern Front had been relatively quiet during 1917, and shortly after
the Bolshevik Revolution a temporary armstice wasagreed upon. Peace
negotiations were then begun at the Polish town of Brest-Litovsk, behind the
German lines. In agreement with their earlier anti-imperialist line, the
Bolshevik negotiators, headed by Trotsky, used the talks as a discussion for
revolutionary propaganda, while most of the party expected the eventual
return of war in the name of revolution. Lenin startled his followers in
January of 1918 by explicitly demanding that the Soviet republic meet the
German conditions and conclude a formal peace in order to win what he
regarded as an indispensable "breathing spell," instead of shallowly risking
the future of the revolution (Daniels, 135).      Trotsky resigned as
Foreign Commissar during the Brest-Litovsk crisis, but he was immediately
appointed Commissar of Military Affairs and entrusted with the creation of a
new Red Army to replace the old Russian army which had dissolved during the
revolution. Many Communists wanted to new military force to be built up on
strictly revolutionary principles, with guerrilla tactics, the election of
officers, and the abolition of traditional discipline. Trotsky set himself
emphatically against this attitude and demanded an army organized in the
conventional way and employing "military specialists" -- experienced
officers from the old army.      Hostilities between the Communists and the
Whites, who were the groups opposed to the Bolsheviks, reached a decicive
climax in 1919. Intervention by the allied powers on the side of the Whites
almost brought them victory. Facing the most serious White threat led by
General Denikin in Southern Russia, Lenin appealed to his followers for a
supreme effort, and threatened ruthless repression of any opposition behind
the lines. By early 1920 the principal White forces were defeated (Wren,
151). For three years the rivalry went on with the Whites capturing areas
and killing anyone suspected of Communistpractices. Even though the Whites
had more soldiers in their army, they were not nearly as organized nor as
efficient as the Reds, and therefore were unable to rise up (Farah, 582).   
   Police action by the Bolsheviks to combat political opposition commenced
with the creation of the "Cheka." Under the direction of Felix Dzerzhinsky,
the Cheka became the prototype of totalitarian secret police systems,
enjoying at critical times the right the right of unlimited arrest and
summary execution of suspects and hostages. The principle of such police
surveillance over the political leanings of the Soviet population has
remained in effect ever since, despite the varying intensity of repression
and the organizational changes of the police -- from Cheka to GPU (The State
Political Administration) to NKVD (People's Commissariat of Internal
Affairs) to MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) to the now well-known KGB
(Committee for StateSecurity) (Pipes, 140).      Lenin used his secret
police in his plans to use terror to achieve his goals and as a political
weapon against his enemies. Anyone opposed to the communist state was
arrested. Many socialists who had backed Lenin's revolution at first now had
second thoughts. To escape punishment, they fled. By 1921 Lenin had
strengthened his control and the White armies and their allies had been
defeated (Farah, 582).      Communism had now been established and Russia
had become a socialist country. Russia was also given a new name: The Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics. This in theory meant that the means of
production was in the hands of the state. The state, in turn, would build
the future, classless society. But still, the power was in the hands of the
party (Farah, 583). The next decade was ruled by a collective dictatorship
of the top party leaders. At the top level individuals still spoke for
themselves, and considerable freedom for factional controversy remained
despite the principles of unity laid down in 1921.---Works CitedDaniels,
Robert V., A Documentary History of Communism. New York: Random House
Publishing, 1960.Farah, Mounir, The Human Experience. Columbus: Bell &
Howess Co.,1990.Luttwak, Edward N., The Grand Strategy of the Soviet Union.
New York: St. MartinŐs Press, 1983.Pipes, Richard, Survival is Not Enough.
New York: S&S Publishing, 1975.Stoessinger, John G., Nations in Darkness.
Boston: Howard Books,1985.Wren, Christopher S., The End of the Line. San
Francisco: Blackhawk Publishing, 1988

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