the rumors of a ghost

Discontinuity and the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union began as an experiment in communism that was to stand on the shoulders of Marxist theory, initiated by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Party. The basic tenets of the abolition of private property, ownership of the means of production by the community and an eventual classless, stateless society were ostensibly the goal of implementing Marxism in Russia. However, Lenin’s ideas of a forced revolution by vanguardism, misconceptions of the theory of history and adherence to an authoritarian government marked a clear break from traditional Marxist theory, while the arbitrary violence, establishment of the totalitarian “socialist State”, collectivization, political repression and rapid, forced industrialization of Joseph Stalin proved to be both a break from Leninism and especially from Marxism.

It may be useful to think of Marxism as theory and Leninism as an example of the theory put into action in one country. A fundamental idea of Marxism as laid out in The Communist Manifesto is the concept of the working class revolution to overthrow the upper class bourgeoisie. While there are several important tenets of Marxism that were implemented to varying degrees by the USSR, such as the abolition of private property, centralization of the economy and central control of the means of production, it is important to note that the very conception of Lenin’s revolution was a break from what Marx prescribed. As Kellner notes, the Bolsheviks performed their revolution in the name of Marxism, but instead of having a people’s democracy and liberation of the working class by only the working class themselves, the revolution was carried out by a party of professional revolutionaries and privileged violent insurrection (Kellner 3). This was a major departure, as well as was the idea of attempting communism in a single country. The Communist Manifesto explained that the “communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working-class parties” and that they “do not set up any sectarian principles of their own by which to shape and mold the proletarian movement” (Engels). Clearly, the institution of a vanguard Communist party to command revolution and limit dissenting opinion is in sharp contrast with the principle of the proletariat acting as an international whole abiding by its own shared interest.

While the vanguard party of Lenin sought to force a revolution from the top down rather than allow for a natural bottom up revolution at the climax of capitalism, Lenin further conflicts with Marxism with his idea that imperialism is the final stage preceding socialism and eventual communism. This is nowhere to be found in the writings of Marx or Engels and in the end, the communist party as it came to exist in the Soviet Union under Lenin did not represent the interests of the proletariat as a whole, but rather began to use coercion to command control and advance its own sectarian ideas while disallowing any type of opposition. The implementation of “War Communism” in 1918 required the use of force and coercion to spur radical transformation and to aid in the effort to win the concurrent civil war. As such, a streak of rebellion and revolt across the country eventually brought this to an end in 1921 and gave way to the New Economic Policy. This can be seen as a backtracking by Lenin towards capitalism just to keep the state economy afloat, which was required due to the aberrant and false implementation of Marxism. In the end, while Lenin attempted to instill the basic ideas of Marxism in Russia, the de facto dictatorship under the guise of communism known as the USSR was left in its place.

The creation of the Bolshevik Party as a base, the establishment of the KGB and the early use of coercion instilled by Lenin gave way to the reign of Joseph Stalin after his death in 1924. There is in fact a fair amount of similarity between the ideas of Lenin and Stalinism, but it is not a necessary or inevitable progression. Stalin in many cases took what Lenin had done too an extreme, for example during the Great Purges. Lenin had performed a party purge of 200,000 members, but for the most part this was not arbitrary, nor was other arbitrary violence or coercion widely employed. Stalin’s Great Purge is associated with as many as 2 million death under the euphemism of “political repression” to consolidate authority and eradicate dissenting opinion. Again, this is a major break from Marxism, which emphasizes the non-separation of political parties under the umbrella of the proletarian movement. In fact, Stalin’s regime goes against the goal of classless society and establishes bureaucratic communism with select members at the top consolidating power (Kellner 5). This, in combination with the radical, forced move toward collective farming during 1928-1933 in turn alienated workers. The theme of alienation is a major aspect of traditional Marxism and the establishment of the kolkhoz serves only to further this problem.

There is also a clear problem here regarding the idea of class and the “Socialist state.” Marxism argues that the State as it is commonly known is the product of class disparity and that doing away with such disparity would lead to the end of the State. The totalitarian State created and solidified by Stalin is thus a fundamentally incorrect interpretation of Marxism. Finally, the massive industrialization efforts, especially during the first of the Five-Year Plans that began in 1928, went much further than the state control of the NEP under Lenin. While the economy did expand during these years, many peasants suffered and prisoners were forced into the gulags as workers.

The experience of the Soviet Union certainly does not invalidate Marxism, but it does serve as a shining example of the ability for it to fail when incorrectly implemented. Other communist countries have gone on to survive and thrive at some level today, such as China and Cuba, though these c1ountries have made their own tweaks of the original Marxist ideas. The major flaw with the implementations of Marxist ideas in the 20th century and today is the lack of natural, international worker’s revolution. This was key to Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto. In the Soviet Union, a perhaps valiant attempt was made at this new form of society, but its differences with Marx led to its eventual downfall. This inevitable failure of Communism as we have known it can be seen today as China rapidly conforms to many of the principles of capitalism and Cuba (as a dictatorship) most likely turns away from its Communist aspects after the recent resignation of Fidel Castro. Additionally, as other Latin American countries such as Venezuela have come to hold a socialist interest, they too suffer from many of the same flaws (dictatorship and lack of real political discourse).

Perhaps the world-wide communism Marx envisioned cannot be implemented in the world as it currently exists without a total reconfiguration of the idea of what the state is or through allowing the grotesque class disparities created by market capitalism to become too great. Lenin and Stalin’s attempts at Marxist theory in the end failed due to the vanguardism which led to an authoritarian state from 1917 to 1924 and the arbitrary violence and totalitarianism of Stalin’s USSR.

Engels, Karl Marx and Friedrich. The Communist Manifesto. 1 Oct. 2008

http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html

Kellner, Douglas, “The Obsolescence of Marxism?” in Bernd Magnus and Stephen
Cullenberg, eds., Whither Marxism? Global Crises in International Perspective (New York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 3-30.
Malia, Martin E. The Soviet Tragedy : A History of Socialism in Russia 1917-1991. New
York: Free P, 1995.