Lenin's Legacy

• How did Lenin exploit Russia's authoritarian tradition?

  • he had as little democracy as the tsars did -> the rule of Bolsheviks was a continuation of the absolutist tradition in Russia
  • Due to the Civil War and the foreign interventionists, the Bolsheviks could demand total conformity from the masses and any members of the party as the price of the revolution staying
• The 1917 Revolution marked the replacement of one form of state authoritarianism with another
• What was Lenin's greatest single achievement as a revolutionary?

  Was to reshape Marxist theory to make it fit with Russian conditions
• What instrument did Lenin chose for his achievement?

  The Bolshevik party
• Lenin was careful always to describe his policies as democratic
• What did Democracy mean to Lenin?


  Democracy was not to be reckoned as a matter of numbers but as a method of party rule because the party was the vehicle of historical role

  • its role was not to win large-scale backing but to direct the revolution from above, regardless of the scale of popular support
• What was the result of authority flowing from the centre outwards?

  It was the role of the leaders to lead and the role of the party members to follow

  • the term to describe this was 'democratic centralism'
• How did Lenin define 'democratic centralism'?

  Lenin defined it in these terms:

  • "Soviet socialist democracy is not in the least incompatible with individual rule and dictatorship. What is necessary is individual rule, the recognition of the dictatorial powers of one man. All phrases about equal rights are nonsense'
• Lenin's political certainties followed logically from his view of the contemporary Russian working class
• Why could the Russian working class not achieve revolution unaided?

  Its small size and limited political awareness
• What was the historical mission of the Bolshevik Party?

  To use its unique understanding of how human society worked to guide the proletariat towards its revolutionary destiny
• As a realist, what did Lenin know?

  That the peasants could not be ignored since they were the food producers in the state
• What did Lenin see the function of the peasantry?

  To serve the needs of the proletariat
• What did the rules of the dialectic teach?

  That true revolution could come only from the industrial workers
• What was a marked feature of Lenin as a revolutionary?

  His ability to adjust theory to fit circumstances
• What did Lenin's pragmatic approach often lead to?

  To diverge from the strict pattern of the Marxist dialectic with its clear-cut stages of class revolution but it made him and his followers infinitely adaptable
• In his writings and speeches, what did Lenin always insist?

  That his ideas were fully in accordance with those of Marx

  • however, in practical terms, Lenin's rule in Russia after April 1917 was that of a skilled opportunist who outmanoeuvred a collection of opponents who never matched him in sense of purpose and sheer determination
• What was Lenin's concept of the 'telescoped revolution'?

  the notion that the final two stages of revolution, bourgeois and proletarian, could be compressed into one
• What concept justified the Bolsheviks' revolution against the Provisional Government in October 1917?

  Lenin's concept of the telescoped revolution

  • without their having to wait for the Russian proletariat to grow substantially in size
• What was not necessary for the Russian workers according to lenin?

  To initiate the revolution; it was enough that it was carried out in their name by the Bolsheviks, the special agents of historical change and the true voice of the proletariat
• The Bolshevik readiness to make Marxist theory conform to practical necessity was very evident in Lenin's economic policies
• What was a basic premise of Marxism?

  Political systems were determined by the economic structure on which they rested
• How did Lenin turn the basic premise of Marxism upside down?

  His government after 1917 used its political power to determine the character of the economy

  • his flexible approach was then shown in 1921 when he introduced NEP, a policy that entailed the abandonment of War Communism and a reversion of capitalism
• Lenin was perfectly clear about what his ultimate objectives were but he was fully pragmatic in the methods he used to achieve them
• How was the approach of the end justifying the means consistent with Lenin?

  This approach was consistent with his interpretation of the scientific nature of Marxism
• Once the concept of the historical inevitability of the proletarian revolution had been accepted, what followed?

  The binding duty of revolutionaries to work for that end by whatever means necessary
• What Bolshevik belief led to the destruction of all other parties?

  The Bolsheviks' belief that they were the special agents of historical change led logically to their destruction of all other political parties

  • since history was on their side, the Bolsheviks had the right to absolute control
• What did Lenin regard himself as?

  An international revolutionary

  • Originally, he had expected that the successful Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 would be the first stage in a worldwide proletarian uprising
  • When this proved mistaken, he had to adapt to a situation in which Bolshevik Russia became an isolated revolutionary state, beset by internal and external enemies
• How did Lenin respond to the failure of a worldwide proletarian uprising?

  By making another major adjustment of Marxist theory

  • Marx taught that proletarian revolution would be an international class movement
  • Yet the 1917 Revolution had been the work not of a class but of a party, and had been restricted to one nation
  • Lenin therefore explain this in terms of a delayed revolution
• Lenin's concept of a delayed revolution:

  • the international rising would occur at some point in the future
  • in the interim Soviet Russia must consolidate its own individual revolution

  This placed the Bolshevik government and its international agency the Comintern in an ambiguous place

  • what was their essential role to be?
• In purely political terms, Lenin's strengths far outweighed his weaknesses

  • those strengths were aspects of his character and personality
• What were Lenin's outstanding attributes? Part 1

  • a total ruthlessness in pursuit of his revolutionary objectives
  • An ability to inspire dedicated support from party members and intense loyalty from government and party colleagues
  • A remarkable sense of political opportunism, which enabled him to lead his minority party into power in 1917 and then establish a Communist state
  • A driving sense of self-belief that allowed him to overcome opposition within and outside his party
• What were Lenin's outstanding attributes? Part 2

  • A gift for interpreting abstract ideas and turning them into a meaningful ideology. He shaped Marxist notions in such a way that he made communism one of the dominant ideologies of the twentieth century
  • An accompanying gift for turning ideology into a workable programme
  • A refusal to be deterred by reversal and failure which saw him survive exile, civil war, economic collapse, famine and foreign invasion
• Why does Lenin remain a controversial figure?

  Because it is equally logical to regard the list of strengths as failings. One would need to be sympathetic to Lenin's politics to be sympathetic to his methods
• What were Lenin's talents that were put to oppressive use in an unworthy cause? Part 1

  • Conviction and commitment led to him disregarding the human cost of his methods
  • Ruthless approach led to unnecessary suffering and creation of grim precedents
  • Exploiting the authoritarianism he inherited from the tsarist system, Lenin made the Bolshevik state more oppressive than its predecessor
  • By politicising all aspects of life in Russia, Lenin prevented the nation from becoming an open, progressive society
• What were Lenin's talents that were put to oppressive use in an unworthy cause? Part 2

  • Refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of any other political viewpoint that his own, Lenin stifles any possibility of genuine democracy developing in Russia
  • By outlawing all other parties, Lenin made violent conflict unavoidable
  • Lenin's basic hostility to capitalism denied Soviet Russia the opportunity to achieve sustained growth -> he did sometimes adjust economic policy for expediency's sake
• What was Lenin's greatest legacy to Soviet Russia?

  Authoritarianism

  • Returned Russia to the absolutism that it had known under the tsars
  • in that sense, Soviet Communism was a continuation, of not a break with, Russia's past
• When did Lenin die?

  21 January 1924
• At his death in 1924, what characteristics did the Soviet Union exhibit?

  • The one-party state -> all other parties other than the Bolsheviks had been outlawed
  • The bureaucratic state -> despite the Bolsheviks' original belief in the withering away of the state, central power increased under Lenin and the number of government institutions and officials grew
  • The police state -> the Cheka was the first of a series of secret police organisations in Soviet Russia whose tasks was to impose government control over the people
• At his death in 1924, what characteristics did the Soviet Union exhibit? Part 2

  • The destruction of the trade unions -> with Lenin's encouragement, Trotsky had destroyed the independence of the trade unions with the result that the Russian workers were entirely at the mercy of the state
  • The politicising of the law -> under Lenin the law was operated not as a means of protecting society and the individual but as an extension of political control. He declared that the task of the courts was to apply revolutionary justice