Project - The Russian Revolution and the Emergence of Stalinism

7/28/2019 Project - The Russian Revolution and the Emergence of Stalinism

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The Russian Revolution

and

the emergence of Stalinism


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'A revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation. Furthermore, not every

revolutionary situation leads to revolution.'

- Vladimir Lenin

The Russian Revolution wasn't a simple revolution. It was a collection of series of

revolutions in Russia in 1917, which brought down the Tsarist regime, leading to the emergence

of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

In 1917, two revolutions swept through Russia, ending centuries of imperial rule and

setting in motion political and social changes that would lead to the formation of the Soviet

Union. In March, growing civil unrest, coupled with chronic food shortages, erupted into open

revolt, forcing the abdication of Nicholas II (1868-1918), the last Russian Tsar. Just months later,

the newly installed provisional government was itself overthrown by the more radical

Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924).

By 1917, most Russians had lost faith in the leadership ability of Tsar Nicholas II.

Government corruption was rampant, the Russian economy remained backward, and Nicholas

repeatedly dissolved the Duma, the Russian parliament established after the 1905 revolution,

when it opposed his will. However, the immediate cause of the February Revolution--the first

phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917--was Russia's disastrous involvement in World War I

(1914-18). Militarily, imperial Russia was no match for industrialized Germany, and Russian

casualties were greater than those sustained by any nation in any previous war. Meanwhile, the

economy was hopelessly disrupted by the costly war effort, and moderates joined Russian radical

elements in calling for the overthrow of the czar.

The February Revolution (known as such because of Russia's use of the Julian

calendar until February 1918) began on March 8, 1917 (or February 23 on the Julian calendar),

when demonstrators clamoring for bread took to the streets in the Russian capital of Petrograd

(now called St. Petersburg). Supported by huge crowds of striking industrial workers, the

protesters clashed with police but refused to leave the streets. On March 10, the strike spread

among all of Petrograd's workers, and irate mobs destroyed police stations. Several factories

elected deputies to the Petrograd Soviet, or council, of workers' committees, following the model

devised during the 1905 revolution.


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The imperial government was forced to resign, and the Duma formed a provisional

government that peacefully vied with the Petrograd Soviet for control of the revolution. On

March 14, the Petrograd Soviet issued Order No. 1, which instructed Russian soldiers and sailors

to obey only those orders that did not conflict with the directives of the Soviet. The next

day, March 15, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne in favor of his brother Michael (1878-

1918), whose refusal of the crown brought an end to the tsarist autocracy.

In the aftermath of the February Revolution, power was shared between the weak

provisional government and the Petrograd Soviet. Then, on November 6 and 7, 1917 (or October

24 and 25 on the Julian calendar, which is why this event is also referred to as the October

Revolution), leftist revolutionaries led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin launched a

nearly bloodless coup d'tat against the provisional government. The Bolsheviks and their allies

occupied government buildings and other strategic locations in Petrograd, and soon formed a new

government with Lenin as its head.

Lenin became the virtual dictator of the first Marxist state in the world. His

government made peace with Germany, nationalized industry and distributed land, but beginning

in 1918 had to fight a devastating civil war against anti-Bolshevik White Army forces. In 1920,

the anti-Bolsheviks were defeated, and in 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

was established.

Throughout the summer of 1923, Lenin lay close to death, and the battle lines were

forming in the Politburo and Central Committee. Trotsky seemed to hold the most powerful

position, thanks to his close friendship with Lenin before the Soviet leader's strokes, but an

opposition had already begun to emerge. Although Stalin would later be Trotsky's primary

antagonist, for the moment the opposition included not only Stalin but also two other politicians:

Lev Kamenev and G.E. Zinoviev, a leading Bolshevik who had been Lenin's closest aide during

the Revolution. Together the three formed what was referred to as the "troika," or "triumvirate";

as Lenin inched closer to death, they launched a series of attacks on Trotsky in party meetings,

drawing on his writings and speeches from his years as a Menshevik to attack him for disloyalty

to his own movement.

On January 21, 1924, Lenin died. He was only fifty-three. Trotsky was away in the

Caucasus that month, and Stalin telegraphed him and said that the funeral would be held

immediately, so there was no point in undertaking the long trip back to Moscow. Thus Stalin


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forced Trotsky to be absent for the funeral, this showing that Stalin knew how to create and use

symbols to his advantage. Meanwhile, the cult of Lenin instantly sprang up among the

Bolsheviks, who ordered their leader's body embalmed and turned into a shrine in Moscow's Red

Square. Stalin took a prominent and very public role in the mourning of the leader, but in fact

Lenin's death put him in a jubilant mood. However, the death did bring Stalin his share of

difficulties: Lenin's Testament, with its warning against Stalin and suggestion that he be removed

from leadership, was read at the next Central Committee meeting. This was a critical moment: if

his rivals had demanded compliance with the testament at this point, Stalin would not have

survived their attacks--his support base was not yet large enough. However, Trotsky kept silent

and Stalin's allies, Kamenev and Zinoviev, came to his defense; Stalin retained his post as

General Secretary.

The following year, 1924, marks the beginning of Stalin's rise to power. At that point

he was one of seven members of the Politburo--the others were Zinoviev and Kamenev, Trotsky,

Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, and Mikhail Tomsky. By 1930, Stalin would have overshadow

them, and by 1940 outlived them. His amazing success can be attributed to a combination of his

own political genius and the mistakes that his rivals kept on doing. His opponents were primarily

men of theory, rather than men of action. Stalin, meanwhile, never enjoyed a deep understanding

of Marxist theory, and was always willing to twist it to his advantage, a habit that proved useful

in the years ahead, as he repeatedly out- intrigued his supposed "comrades" within the party.

In December 1924, Stalin first articulated his own twist on Marxist orthodoxy, which

he termed "Socialism in One Country." He argued that the success of Marxism in Russia was not

contingent upon a worldwide Communist Revolution, which his fellow leaders expected to begin

sweeping through the rest of the world at any moment. The global fall of capitalism would come

eventually, he said, but in the meantime it was necessary to build a successful Soviet Union.

Trotsky and his supporters vigorously attacked this viewpoint, but by this time, Trotsky's star was

in eclipse. Always considered an outsider by the older Bolsheviks, he had been a brilliant military

organizer, but was proving less adept at the cutthroat world of party politics. By January 1925,

Zinoviev and Kamenev were urging that he be expelled from the Politburo (though Stalin

actually acted as a voice of moderation and prevented the measure from passing). By this point,

Stalin was gravitating away from the "troika" and toward the other three members of the

Politburo--Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky. These three formed a so-called "Rightist" bloc,


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differing on economic policy from Zinoviev and Kamenev, who drew their support from old-line

Bolsheviks. The "Rightists" wanted to continue with Lenin's New Economic Policy, which

allowed considerable economic freedom for the peasantry, while the Zinoviev-Kamenev

"Leftists" wanted to push the country more strongly toward state control of economic life.

In 1924, the "Leftists" appeared to hold control over the Central Committee. But by

the following year, Zinoviev and Kamenev realized that Stalin, whom they had saved from

political ruin after Lenin's death, was betraying them and moving toward an alliance with

Bukharin's faction. In addition, Stalin had begun to gather a strong faction around himself,

including figures like Mikhail Kalinin, Kliment Vorishilov, and Vyacheslav Molotov. While

Trotsky, the weakest member of the Politburo, remained aloof, the Rightists and Leftists clashed

at the 1925 Party Congress, and the Rightists carried the day, despite vituperative attacks on

Stalin and his "Socialism in One Country" by Kamenev. Kalinin and Vorishilov joined the

Politburo, and the suddenly weakened Kamenev and Zinoviev turned to Trotsky for support,

forming a "United Opposition" in the summer of 1926. But they were no match for the Bukharin-

Stalin alliance. By the time of the next Party Congress, in October of 1926, Zinoviev and

Kamenev had been removed from the Politburo, and Stalin felt secure enough in his power to

urge the Party's official repudiation of their views as "anti-Leninist." Trotsky resisted, and in

1927 he was expelled from the party and exiled to Central Asia; Zinoviev and Kamenev,

defeated, begged for clemency, which the Politburo granted. Stalin was triumphant and his ally in

this struggle, Bukharin, grew nervous, as he realized that Stalin's power in the Party now

overshadowed even his own influence.

Stalin, as head of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of

the Soviet Union, had gained almost absolute power with the Great Purge in the 1930s, when

Stalin expelled other party members, justifying that they ere counter-revolutionary infiltrators.

Those targeted by the purge, were removed from the party, but there were some severe cases

when they were sent to Gulag labour camps of executed after trials by NKVD troikas.

Moreover, he also increased the scope and power of the state's secret police and

intelligence agencies, forming therefore intelligence networks in most of the countries in the

world. An example of how well could Stalin integrate the secret police came in 1940, when he

had Trotsky killed, although he was all the way in Mexico. Moreover, he also created a cult of


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personality and many villages and cities were named after him, while also changing the Russian

history in order to give himself a more significant role in the revolution of 1917.

Project - The Russian Revolution and the Emergence of Stalinism

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