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HISTORY OF
COMMUNISM

Precursors Securing power

Marx and Engels
Radical Russia Lenin is swift in the steps taken to establish the Bolshevik
1917 party as the unmistakable (and soon to be unremovable)
1918-38 government of Russia.
Securing power
New Economic Policy In a definitive break with the recent past he moves the seat of
Union of republics government, on 10 March 1918, from Petrograd to Moscow.
Rise of Stalin
Industrialization, collectivization The centre of power is now back in the historic heart of the
Purge and Terror country, once again associated with the forbidding walls of the
Sections missing Kremlin. In the same month the Bolsheviks adopt a more
To be completed national profile, changing their name to the Russian
Communist Party. And as a gesture of modernity these days
and months are now the same as those used by the rest of the
world. From midnight on 31 January 1918 Lenin converts
HISTORY OF Russia to the Gregorian calendar. The next day is declared
COMMUNISM Timeline to be February 14.

These are symbolic changes. The practical imposition of

Share | Communist power throughout Russia is a harder task, but
Lenin seems to relish the prospect of using the techniques of a
police state to impose control through terror. He believes
passionately in the need for the Dictatorship of the
Proletariat (albeit only as a stage in the progress towards a
Communist utopia in which there is no need for government),
and he is in no way averse to all the techniques of repression
and cruelty invariably associated with dictatorship.

One might expect the imposition of the Communist

US Presidents dictatorship to be delayed or modified by the urgent need to
fight a civil war. But if anything the war helps Lenin's cause

Trotsky, a man with a genius for organization, is put in charge

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of building up the Red Army. He does this with great efficiency.
The more intelligent peasants, conscripted from the villages,
become a valuable source of political activists. Educated by the
army, they find in party membership their escape from the
bleak life of rural poverty.
Meanwhile the demands of the civil war give the party an
excuse to impose centralized control in what becomes known
as War Communism. Food is forcibly collected for government
distribution in the battle for grain waged against reluctant
peasants by thuggish Food Brigades. Market trading of any
kind is suppressed. And the management of factories is placed
under Communist control.

This campaign, the world's first imposition of the managed

economy which subsequently characterizes all Communist
states, provokes profound opposition among peasants and
workers alike. From the summer of 1918 there is increasing
unrest, both in farms and factories. But it is not until after
1920, when the Whites have been defeated in the civil war,
that the full extent
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widespread demand for the revival of the local soviets, the
form of grassroots democracy which was the common cause of
the majority in 1917.

The spring of 1921 confronts Lenin with his gravest crisis, as

furious peasants and workers resort to violence.

All over the country Communist officials and soldiers are

attacked in rural areas, often with incredible savagery, as
peasant armies carry out ruthless guerrilla warfare (reprisals
are no less brutal). A rash of strikes sweeps through the cities,
beginning in Moscow in February 1921. At the end of the same
month there is a mutiny by the sailors in the Kronstadt naval
base near Petrograd. Their demands include free elections.

With every likelihood of the mutiny spreading to other

garrisons, Lenin takes decisive action. On March 16 a massive
attack is launched on the naval base, with artillery fire, aerial
bombing and an assault across the ice by 50,000 Red Army
troops. By the following day 10,000 Red Army troops are dead,
but the mutiny is over (some 2500 rebels are subsequently
shot without trial).

At this defining moment of Communist ruthlessness, the Tenth

Party Congress is taking place in Moscow. Lenin uses the crisis
of the mutiny to press home his advantage.

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A pressure group within the party, calling itself the Workers'

Opposition, is arguing for trades union rights. Lenin moves a
motion condemning them and receives a massive majority. He
then goes further. He succeeds in passing a resolution which
bans the formation of factions within the party. Henceforth
decisions of the Central Committee may be criticized, but only
by individuals. So, from March 1921, the control of the Central
Committee over the Communist party is as secure as the
control of the Communist party over the nation.

New Economic Policy

Though inflexible on any topic affecting the power of the

Communist party, Lenin is prepared to yield on other issues.
Acknowledging that the attempt to requisition the peasants'
entire harvest has been a disaster (corn is successfully hidden,
fewer fields are planted, resentment is extreme), he persuades
the Tenth Party Congress to vote for a U-turn. In what
becomes known as the New Economic Policy (NEP), peasants
are to be allowed to keep the surplus of their product after a
tax in kind has been paid to the state. At the same time the
ban on markets is lifted.

A vigorous rural trade revives at astonishing speed (though it

also brings with it a rash of profiteers, much resented as
Nepmen - from the initials of the New Economic Policy).

While this measure goes a long way towards appeasing the

rural districts, those peasants actively involved in revolts are
suppressed without mercy by the Red Army during the
summer of 1921. Artillery, armoured cars, bombers and even
poison gas are used in the campaign. Many of the captured are
shot. Others (about 50,000) are herded into the first specially
constructed concentration camps of the Soviet Union.

Lenin takes this opportunity to remove any further threat from

the rival socialist parties, the Mensheviks and Socialist
Revolutionaries, many of whom have supported the peasants.
Some 500 Mensheviks are arrested during 1921. In show trials
in the following year all members of the SR party are branded
'enemies of the people'.

Union of republics

Immediately after the October revolution the heart of the

Russian empire (from Petrograd and Moscow through Siberia
to the Pacific coast) is given a new name - the Russian Soviet
Federated Socialist Republic. The hint of federalism is a way of
accomodating the nationalist aspirations of the many
minorities in this vast swathe of land. It does not imply any
intention of relaxing control from the centre, which by 1921 is
absolute.

During the course of the civil war various regions outside this
central bloc (Ukraine, Belorussia, Georgia, Armenia,
Azerbaijan) fall under the control of Communist governments,
secured by the local power of the Red Army.

It is a natural next step to bring these regions into a closer

relationship with Moscow. Early in 1922 Joseph Stalin, the
general secretary of the Communist party, is given the task of
drawing up a plan of federation. He brings together the first
Congress of Soviets in Moscow in December of the same year.
On December 30 the soviet republics of Russia, Belarus, the
Ukraine and the Transcaucasian Federation agree to form a
closer union. The following summer a constitution is
established for a new state, the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics. The USSR officially comes into being on 6 July 1923.

The constitution gives each republic the right to secede, but

this is somewhat notional since each is governed by the same
Communist party with its headquarters in Moscow. The political
monolith which remains intact for nearly seventy years is now
in place.

But at the same time the new state, born of violent revolution,
begins to achieve international acceptance. A turning point is a
Russian famine in the summer of 1921, the result of crop
failure aggravated by Communist policies. Some 20 million
people are threatened with starvation, prompting a massive
international aid effort spearheaded by the USA.

With this first international contact, a pariah state starts to

edge back into the fold. There are the beginnings of foreign
trade. In 1922 Germany re-establishes full diplomatic relations

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and by the end of 1924 most other European countries have
recognized the USSR. But by this time the Russian leadership
has had to cope with a new crisis.

Rise of Stalin

Since the October revolution in 1917 the leadership of the

Communist party, and thus of the nation, has been
unmistakably in the hands of one man. While Trotsky has been
an extremely able assistant, the ruthless securing of the
revolution has been Lenin's achievement. But the unremitting
work load takes its toll. In May 1922 he has a stroke. Not till
October does he get back into his office. Just two months later
a second stroke paralyzes his right side. He survives, an
incapacitated invalid, for another year, dying in January 1924.

Trotsky has long been his obvious successor. But in April 1922,
just a month before his first stroke, Lenin introduces a dark
horse to the race.

Joseph Stalin, a committed Bolshevik from his early twenties

and a passionate supporter of Lenin, has been in the inner
circle of the party since the revolution. But the real growth of
his power begins in April 1922 when Lenin creates a new post
for him - General Secretary of the Communist Party.

In this position Stalin has direct control over party

appointments. It gives him the perfect chance to prepare for
the coming struggle after Lenin falls ill in May. During the
remainder of 1922 Stalin appoints some 10,000 of his own
supporters as provincial officials. When Lenin gets back to
work in September, he finds that Russia is effectively ruled by
a triumvirate of Stalin, Lev Kamenev and Grigorii Zinoviev.

The three are united in their hatred of Trotsky, widely seen as

a detached and arrogant intellectual. Both Kamenev and
Zinoviev, considering themselves candidates to succeed Lenin,
believe that they are using Stalin as a pawn in their personal
strategy. But the reverse proves to be the case, as Stalin
steadily strengthens his own faction.

Lenin, taking up the reins again, becomes for the first time
aware of Stalin's character and ambition. As a result he is busy
trying to reinforce Trotsky's position, as a counterweight to
Stalin, when he has his second stroke, in December 1922.
Stalin moves quickly. He takes charge of Lenin's doctors and
persuades the central committee that the leader should be
kept, for his own sake, in isolation. Lenin becomes, in effect,
Stalin's prisoner.

In secret Lenin dictates a series of brief notes, intended for a

forthcoming Party Congress, in which he condemns Stalin's
behaviour and recommends his removal from the post of party
secretary. He orders these notes (subsequently known as
Lenin's Testament) to be sealed and kept for the moment in
strict secrecy.

They are destined to remain secret for many years (until

1956), because in March 1923 Lenin suffers a third devasting
stroke which robs him of the power of communication. He can
only watch helplessly from the sidelines as Stalin continues to
strengthen his position. In October Trotsky is censured for
factionalism by a massive majority at a plenary session of the
Politburo, the Communist executive committee. He narrowly
escapes being expelled from the party.

Stalin, instinctively cautious, argues against Trotsky's

expulsion. And he moves only slowly against Kamenev and
Zinoviev, his partners in the triumvirate. But by 1926, with
these two and Trotsky now allied in opposition to him, Stalin is
strong enough to remove them from the Politburo. He expels
them from the party in the following year. In 1928 he exiles
Trotsky to remote Kazakhstan and in 1929 expels him from the
USSR.

Kamenev and Zinoviev are shot in 1936, prominent victims of

the show trials through which Stalin finally secures his
personal reign of terror. Trotsky dies in a suburb of Mexico City
in 1940, victim of an assassin sent to his home by his old
adversary. Meanwhile Stalin, using methods as ruthless as his
treatment of political rivals, has totally transformed the world's
first Communist nation.

Industrialization, collectivization

There is much debate among the leadership of the Soviet

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Union during the 1920s as to whether the NEP, enabling the
economy at least to tick over in a traditional way, should be
replaced by a strong centralized drive to improve Russia's
industrial and agricultural output. While he is unsure of his
own power, Stalin trims on the issue - supporting the views of
those who are most useful to him. But by 1929 he feels strong
enough to force through a drastic plan of reform.

The first Five Year Plan, adopted by the party in 1929, predicts
an increase during the period of 200% in industrial output and
of 50% in agricultural produce. Such ambitions depend
inevitably on harsh coercion of the work force.

The Five Year Plan is in a sense a return to the War

Communism of the civil war years, and once again the
supposedly rich peasants, the kulaks, bear the brunt of the
policy. Not only is their land seized by the state to form
collective farms, but they and their families are transported to
Siberia and put to work in agricultural labour camps.

It is calculated that one in five of them, mainly the women and

children, die on the journey - in the cattle trucks or on forced
marches. When they arrive and are put to work, the barbarous
conditions soon account for more. Six million of these uprooted
peasants are believed to have died, in a tragedy barely
perceived outside Russia until years later.

By 1935, two years after the end of the first Five Year Plan,
more than 90% of Russia's agricultural land is farmed
collectively. But the result is a massive drop in production
rather than the predicted increase. When forced to merge their
own smallholdings in a collective farm, the peasants tend to
slaughter their animals thus reducing the common stock. And
no amount of coercion is sufficient to make them plough and
sow for the future with anything like their previous
commitment.

During the early 1930s there are renewed famines and millions
of deaths. But this time, unlike in 1921, there is no foreign aid
to lessen the suffering - largely because Stalin does his best to
suppress news of the disaster.

While collectivization is a failure, it turns out to be more

feasible to impose industrialization. Determined to give Russia
her own heavy industry, Stalin diverts production away from
consumer goods - a change requiring the public to accept
unprecedented scarcities.

He secures efficiency in his new factories by incentive schemes

for managers and skilled workers (conveniently disregarding
Communist notions of equality), while using what is in effect
slave labour to keep down the state's bill for wages. Some 25
million peasants are moved from the land to the factories,
where they are forced to work at subsistence levels under
harsh industrial discipline. But the policy succeeds. By the end
of the second Five Year Plan, in 1937, rural Russia has become
a major industrial nation.

Both the method and the cost of these achievements can be

seen in a prestige project dear to Stalin's heart - the
construction of a canal to link the Baltic and the White Sea.
The fulfilment of this difficult task, in the near-Arctic north, is
entrusted to the political police (at this stage the OGPU, later
to be known as the KGB). They are to provide the workers
from the prisons and camps under their control. Of the
300,000 transported north to dig and labour, 200,000 die
before the canal opens in 1933.

The human cost of industrialization and the evident failures of

collectivization provoke pockets of dissent even within the
tightly controlled Communist party. But by the mid-1930s
Stalin feels strong enough to settle once and for all his political
scores.

Purge and Terror

The period subsequently known as the Great Terror lasts in

Russia from 1936 to 1938, but there is a turning point in this
direction in 1934. Stalin has not until now used assassination
of his comrades as a political weapon. But there is evidence
(admittedly inconclusive) to suggest that his hand is behind
the death in this year of his one-time protégé, Sergei Kirov.

In 1926 Stalin appointed Kirov, in place of Zinoviev, as head

of the party in Leningrad (the new name given to Petrograd

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after Lenin's death in 1924). But now, in the early 1930s, Kirov
is showing marked signs of independence, even perhaps to the
point of seeming a potential rival to Stalin. In 1934 Kirov is
assassinated in his office by a young party member.

Stalin acts swiftly, ordering the immediate death of the

assassin and thirteen supposed accomplices. He follows this
with the execution of hundreds of Leningrad comrades and the
deportation of thousands of others for supposed involvement
in the plot.

This is the first of Stalin's major purges, which become known

to the world primarily through three great show trials held in
Moscow in successive years from 1936. The first relates again
to the Leningrad assassination. Stalin's one-time close
colleagues and subsequent opponents, Zinoviev and Kamenev,
are now charged with conspiring to kill not only Kirov but the
entire Communist leadership.

They and their co-defendants are described by the prosecutor,

Andrei Vyshinsky, as 'Mad Fascist police dogs! Despicable
rotten dregs of humanity! Scum of the underworld!'. They
confess to the trumped up charges and are shot.

The next show trial, in 1937, charges the accused more

specifically with being terrorists in league with Trotsky (now
living in exile and doing his best to publicize the truth about
Stalin). Again all are convicted and nearly all are shot. The
third, in 1938, brings together a more motley selection of
victims - including some notable opponents of Stalin from the
right-wing of the party and even the police chief who had
prepared one of the earlier trials.

These high-level victims are what the world sees of Stalin's

purges, but they are the tip of an iceberg. During the same
period the party hierarchy is purged of almost everyone who
had a part in achieving the revolution. The non-Russian Soviet
republics suffer particularly severely. In some regions almost
no-one above the age of 35 remains in place in the civil
service, army or police. Trotskyite sympathies and bourgeois
nationalism are the main charges against these 'enemies of
the people'.

The figures are unknown, but it is probable that millions of

officials and their families are variously executed, imprisoned
or exiled. This scale of terror makes Hitler's slightly
earlier Night of the Long Knives seem almost a parochial
event.

By the end of 1938 the purges are complete. Stalin for the first
time has total personal power. And his nation is one to be
reckoned with, in terms of its industrial and military muscle.

But in the twenty years of its existence the first Communist

state has provided a bleak image of Communism. Marx and
Lenin predicted that dictatorship would be needed to secure
the rule of the proletariat, and that for at least a generation
little progress would be possible (while the majority of adults
were still formed by pre-revolutionary society). But the ideal
has always been that thereafter, with class warfare a thing of
the past, the straitjacket of strict government can be
abandoned in a society of peaceful equality.

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