Was Stalin a true Leninist or did he betray the revolution as conceived by the

“old Bolsheviks”?

Stalin was a not Leninist in the same manner as the ‘old’ Bolsheviks. Stalin
continued the Leninist practice of using violence to in the name of a greater good.
But Stalin took Leninist ideology down avenues that Lenin would not have
dreamed of. Stalin drew from parts of Leninism. But you could also argue that he
drew from parts of Russia’s Tzarist History. His policies were forced on
industrialising the Soviet Union not creating a truly socialist state. Stalin twisted
Lenin’s words to suit his own agenda. Stalin enforced his own interpretation of
Lenin and cultivated a cult of personality around himself and Lenin.

Stalin ideology and action were not the same as Lenin’s. But was Stalin
developing Lenin’s thought or was he making a break with Lenin. One of the
defining features of Stalin’s reign was his violence. Was this violence the product
of Stalin’s paranoid personality or was it the out working of Leninist ideology. If
we argue that Stalin was in continuity with the old Bolsheviks we can point to the
writings of the Nikolai Bukharin who said that “proletarian compulsion in all it’s
forms, beginning with execution by shooting and ending with compulsory labor
obligation is – however paradoxical this might sound – the means for producing
a communist humanity from human material of the capitalist epoch” 1 Lenin
made a note on the margins of this text “Precisely2 We can reasonably assume
that Lenin agreed with Bukharin. Lenin was agreeing to a programme of social
hygiene. The Bolsheviks had an image of an idea society in their imagination. The
idea society was a communist one. This would be harmonious society free from
strife where the division between exploiter and exploited would not exist. The
beauty of the future communist society was contrasted in their minds with
ugliness of the present one. They made a moral calculation that future harmony
was worth violence and discord now. This would entail brutal social engineering.
The Cossacks were among the first to face Bolshevik violence 1919. They had
mainly fought on the side of rebels against Bolshevik rule in the Russian Civil
War. The Bolsheviks judged them to be a “bandit element”3. In the word of one
party member they wanted to “make the territory healthy” 4. They set out to
physically destroy the vast majority of the Cossacks. They were an “element” that
had to be removed like a tumor from the body. This was for the health of the
wider socialist society. Stalin too would use the language of social engineering to
justify his purges in the 1930’s.

But the continuity between Stalinism and the old Bolshevik position is disputed.
The argument for continuity rests on the idea that “seeds” of Stalinism can be
identified in original Bolshevik movement. But Bolshevism was diverse field with
many different political opinions. Looking for ‘seeds’ poses problems for
1
Peter Holquist, “Total Violence as Technique: The logic of Violence in Soviet
Totalitarianism,” in Landscaping the Human Garden. Twentieth-Century
Population Management in a Comparative Framework, (Stanford, Stanford
University Press, 2003), 19
2
Holquist, Total Violence, 19
3
Ibid, 26
4
Ibid,25
historians. You can look at earlier Russian history and find ‘seeds’ of Stalinism.
For example you could characterise Stalin as a ‘Red Tzar’. His autocracy looks
like a modern form of traditional society. Feudalism is replaced with
collectivisation. Many aspects of Stalinism were replicated in other societies.
Nationalism, bureaucratisation, absence of democracy, censorship and police
repression all found expression in other societies. `Where in ‘old’ Bolshevism
was the Stalinist cult of personality? It was something Stalin invented himself.
Ideology is seen, by those who argue for continuity, as something that is not
affected by the context it is used in. But official ideology changed under Stalin
making. Stalin tapped into Russian nationalism and traditional attitudes. During
the Second World War soldiers were told to fight for ‘holy Russia’. The idealism
of Lenin a true Marxist intellectual was forgotten in the face of cold realities.
Stalin was statist and regressive. Laws favouring women children and minority
cultures were revoked. Egalitarianism was forgotten in favour elitist
bureaucracies. The focus in Stalinism turned from the people as the driving force
of change to the leaders. This was a corruption of Leninism.
Stalin was focused on making Russia an industrial power Lenin was working at a
more theoretical level. Stalin was adopting Leninism for the situation he was in.
Discuss more

Stalin’s primary aim was to increase the industrial capacity of the Soviet Union.
In order to do this Stalin developed a huge bureaucracy. Central planning and
expertise were emphasized instead of democratic control. Stalin abandoned the
New Economic Policy. The NEP was nearly capitalist. It allowed profit-making
businesses that were on a small scale. Lenin understood NEP as a strategic
retreat from capitalism. Lenin wrote that Russia was “not civilised enough to
pass directly to socialism”5 He believed in a stage theory in which socialism
would emerge from capitalism. The inequalities of capitalism would drive the
working classes to rise up and overthrow the exploitive ruling classes. This is not
what happened in Russia. Lenin believed that Russia would need to develop an
advanced capitalist culture. The NEP was a method of developing a capitalist
culture. Stalin gave up on the more ephemeral aspects of ‘old’ Bolsheviks such as
stage theory. Stalin nationalised the major industries and started planning to
rapidly industrialise Russia. Lenin had envisioned factories under worker
control. Stalin changed this to control by industrial experts. Stalin’s
industrialisation was successful in bringing Russia up to the level of the western
powers but it didn’t do much to engender communism in Russia

Stalin’s policy of socialism in one country was an intellectual justification of his

focus on rapid industrialisation instead of revolution. Stalin twisted Lenin’s
words in order to find justification for his policies. The general thrust of lenin’s
thought was that revolution could not be secured in one country alone. In 1906
Lenin said that “the Russian Revolution can conquer by it’s own strength, but can
in no way maintain and consolidate it’s conquests unaided”6. Lenin always
insisted that socialism could not exist in one country especially one as backward
as Russia. Lenin did a large amount of speaking and writing. He would emphasize
5
Boris Souvarine, Stalin, A Critical Survey of Bolshevism, (New York, Octagon
Books, 1972), 293
6
Souvarine, Critical Survey, 292
one aspect of the theory over another to suit the audience he had. Stalin took
some sentences and made a theory out of them. So Lenin’s statement just before
the revolution that socialism would come about “first in a few capitalist countries
or even alone”7 It was tentative musing that goes against the general tenor of the
Lenin’s thought. But Lenin’s thought was ambiguous. Stalin and Zinoviev were
both able to compile lists of quotations that proved the opposite of each other’s
book. But Stalin was guilty of twisting Lenin’s words to prove something they
were never meant to prove.

After Lenin’s death Stalin went out of his way to develop a cult of personality
around him. His was body was embalmed and put on display in Moscow His
brain was extracted so that scientists could examine the source of such obvious
genius. This was against Lenin’s wishes. It all seems redolent of the cult of Saints
in the Russian Orthodox Church. Having exalted Lenin as the hero of the working
classes Stalin was anxious to associate himself with Lenin. But it did he did it in
subtle fashion. He emulated Lenin’s modesty advising a friend “thrust aside the
principle of devotion to persons […] it isn’t the Bolshevik way. But the cult of
personality was growing any way. Tributes flooded in from across the Soviet
Union calling him the truest discipline of Lenin etc. An American journalist said
that the cult of personality exposed a weak side to Stalin’s character. This was
reported to Stalin who replied that they were “bastards” 8 Articles spoke of how
close Stalin was to Lenin. Sycophantic poetry was written calling him the “Wise
master” of the communist garden. The cult of personality was focused on
proclaiming how true to the ‘old’ Bolsheviks Stalin was. But by developing a cult
of personality Stalin was deviating from the Old Bolsheviks who stressed
frugality.

Stalin interpretation of Leninism was one of many that existed. It became the
orthodoxy because Stalin was a more cunning politician. He managed to out
maneuver the other contenders for the leadership. Stalin was not a competent
Marxist philosopher. He continued in the belief that the means justified the ends.
But his ends were not the same as Lenin’s. Stalin was much more focused on
developing Russia as an industrial and military power. You can draw a line from
some of Lenin’s policies to Stalin’s. But there are also glaring contradictions. If
you wished you could draw a line from Tzar’s policies to Stalin. Because Stalin
used political power to enforce his revised version of Leninism he was not a true
Leninist as the ‘old’ Bolsheviks would have understood Leninism.

Bibliography

7
Ibid, 294
8
Robert C. Tucker, “The Rise of Stalin’s cult of Personality,” The American
Historical Review 84 (1979): 349
Peter Holquist “State Violence as Techique: The logic of Violence in Soviet
Totalitarianism”, in Landscaping the Human Garden. Twentieth-Century
Population Management in a Comparative Framework, ed. Amir Weiner.
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 19.

Hiroaki Kuromiya, Stalin: Profiles in Power (London, Longman Pearson, 2005)

Robert Service, A history of Modern Russia: From Nicholas II to Putin (London,

Penguin, 2003)

Boris Souvarine, Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevik (New York, Octagon Books,
1972)

Robert Tucker, Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation (New York, Norton,

1977)

Robert C. Tucker, “ The Rise of Stalin’s cult of Personality,” The American

Historical Review 84 (1979): 397

Chris Ward, “Stalin’s Russia,” (London, Arnold, 1999)