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