The Bolshevik Party Transformed: Stalin’s Rise to Power (1917–1927)

The article was submitted on 17.01.2017.In 1917, the Bolsheviks promised the liberation of the working masses from exploitation. And yet, within twenty years, they had delivered a regime that was substantially more exploitative and repressive than that of the Tsarist regime they had overthrown. This article argues that more than a quarter of a century after the opening of the archives, we still misapprehend how it happened. Historians tend to see the process as programmatic, or planned and intentional: that the Bolsheviks were authoritarian by nature, or that Stalin hijacked the Revolution and satisfied his lust for power by building a personal dictatorship. The article argues that we have failed to grasp the extent to which the positive programme of liberation continued to motivate the Bolshevik leadership throughout the interwar period. But they had underestimated the obstacles to creating a consensual, participatory political order. Considerable progress was made overcoming basic illiteracy, but it was another matter altogether to establish a functioning administrative apparatus, to fight and win the civil war, and to rebuild a shattered economy. The breakdown of liberal (“bourgeois”) democracies in Europe encouraged complacency about the superiority of the “transitional” proletarian dictatorship. The struggle for power after Lenin’s death turned local organisations against inner party democracy. It did not seem appropriate to revive it either in the midst of collectivisation and rapid industrialisation. The survival of the Revolution and catching up to the advanced capitalist countries took precedence. But if we treat extreme political violence and dictatorship as ends in themselves, we will fail adequately to grasp the fate of the Revolution.В 1917 г. большевики обещали освобождение трудящихся масс от эксплуатации. Но в течение 20 лет они установили режим гораздо более эксплуататорский и репрессивный по своей сути, чем побежденный ими царизм. Автор утверждает, что спустя более четверти века после открытия архивов мы все еще остаемся в неведении по поводу того, почему так случилось. Историки склонны рассматривать этот исход как запрограммированный либо преднамеренно спланированный, поскольку большевики были авторитарны по своей природе, или же Сталин «оседлал» революцию и установил личную диктатуру, удовлетворяя жажду власти. До сих пор нет ясности в понимании того, в какой степени положительная программа освобождения народа продолжала мотивировать большевистское руководство в межвоенный период. Большевики недооценили препятствия на пути создания общественного порядка, основанного на согласованном политическом участии. Существенный прогресс был достигнут на пути ликвидации неграмотности, но значительно труднее было создать функционирующий государственный аппарат, бороться и выиграть Гражданскую войну, а также восстановить разрушенную экономику. Падение либеральных («буржуазных») демократий в Европе укрепляло ощущение превосходства «переходной» пролетарской диктатуры. Борьба за власть после смерти Ленина направила местные партийные организации на борьбу с внутрипартийной демократией. Возрождать ее в условиях коллективизации и ускоренной индустриализации казалось неуместным. Гораздо более важным представлялось выживание революции и стремление догнать передовые капиталистические страны. Автор отмечает, что если относиться к проявлениям политического насилия и диктатуре как к конечной цели советской власти, невозможно должным образом понять судьбу революции

Medvedkine

Chris Marker’s portrait of Alexandre Medvedkine in the 1993 film Le tombeau d’Alexandre/The Last Bolshevik is highly instructive of his own relationship to Soviet cinema. Most especially, this difficult or troubled rapport with the antecedents to cinéma vérité in the West (and its protean formal properties, in terms of structure and often satirical-critical commentary) comes forth in the figures he assembles to comment upon Medvedkine’s life work. When Medvedkine’s Scast’e (Le Bonheur/Happiness) (1934) leaked to the West (c.1967), sent like an “SOS” in multiple bottles to various film archives (one by one from deep within the Soviet film world), Marker and SLON received a copy by way of Jacques Ledoux (curator of the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, in Belgium). The film opened the floodgates of a retrospective survey of Soviet filmmaking repressed and forgotten other than by remote and distant figures (partisans) who somehow survived the Stalinist purges of the 1930s

Bonbons and Bolsheviks: The Stigmatization of Chocolate in Revolutionary Russia

This essay examines how and why how the official Party attitude toward chocolate changed rather dramatically during the first two decades of Communist rule. In the immediate aftermath of the October 1917 Revolution, zealous and idealistic Bolsheviks, inspired in part by the ascetic model provided by Lenin himself, condemned chocolate throughout most of the 1920s as a decadent luxury food item that they associated closely with the self-indulgent consumerism and egoistic, philistine way of life enjoyed by their hated class enemy, the bourgeoisie. With the onset of Stalin’s cultural revolution in the late 1920s and early 1930s, however, chocolate suddenly became transformed into a positive symbol of the economic prosperity, material abundance, and cultural progress that the building of socialism, it was claimed, had finally achieved in Soviet Russia. My essay explores some of the reasons not just for the initial Bolshevik stigmatization of chocolate, but also for this dramatic turn around in the way chocolate was perceived subsequently by the Stalinist leadership. The focus is centered mainly on the way chocolate was represented in works of Soviet literature during both decades

The Perception of Germany in the Kyivan Press: From Ukrainian People’s Republic to the Hetmanate (November 1917 — December 1918)

The 1917 February Revolution led to the reshaping of the war-era image of the German enemy. Focusing on the former imperial borderland province of the Southwestern Krai, this article unveils the national, political, and cultural considerations of the local Ukrainian and Russian-language media that affected their attitude towards the Germans. It argues that the developments of the 1917–1918 Ukrainian Revolution presented a unique case of constructing the image of the Germans due to the ongoing rivalry between the respective Ukrainian and Russian national projects. The study is based on the materials of prominent Kyivan daily newspapers, thus rendering the spectrum of the region’s political thought. Built upon the concept of imagology, the article apprehends the images of “otherness” in conjunction with the actor’s own identity

“Total and Radical Liberation”: The Religious and Philosophical Background of Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s Revolutionary Ideas

The article explores the religious and philosophical origins of Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s ideas of “honesty with oneself,” “omnilateral liberation,” and “concordism.” Two treatises, Vidrodzhennia natsii (Rebirth of a Nation, 1919–1920) and Konkordyzm. Systema buduvannia shchastia (Concordism. A System of Building Happiness, 1938–1945), illustrate the development of Vynnychenko’s worldview. In the first work, social revolution was considered as the answer to human problems, while, in the second, such a solution was found in becoming one with the universe. Despite his negative attitude towards religion, Volodymyr Vynnychenko actively used religious images and patterns in his writings. For instance, criticizing Christianity for its dogmatism, he nevertheless created his codex of thirteen rules of concordism, which had to harmonize the unbalanced forces of mankind with the universe. In this context, particular attention is paid to the significant influence of pagan concepts on Vynnychenko’s thinking

The Orthodox Church and Religious Minorities in Shida Kartli Region in Georgia in the First Quarter of the Twentieth Century

We think that it is of utmost importance to disclose the facts about the uncommon treatment that took place during Soviet rule in the 1920s towards the Georgian Orthodox Church and all the other religious confessions

A ‘Grooming Chamber’ For Antisemitism

If Jewish Bolsheviks could put an end to the imperial rule of the Romanovs, could they pose a threat to the vision of a Third Reigh? A question the German National Socialists are likely to have asked themselves before and on the eve of plotting the rise of the Nazi regime. After all, Europe had had a long-standing relationship with blaming the Jews for the world’s miseries. A relationship Germany was ready to refuel, as indicated by German Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau, when he stated that ‘the most essential aim of war against the Jewish-bolshevistic system is a complete destruction of their means of power and the elimination of Asiatic influence from the European culture.’ But the German fears of Jewish interference with their great scheme for Europe’s future, must surely have been inspired by more than just the age-old conspiratorial allegation that Jews were the main forces behind world politics. As such, this essay will seek to inspect the apparent rise of antisemitic fears at the time, and put a case forward to show how religion played into all this

Anarchism and Council Communism on the Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution, being part of the revolutionary tradition of the exploited and oppressed, encompasses sufferings, horrors and tragedies, but also unfulfilled promises, hopes and revolutionary inspirations. The subversive heritage includes, among others, the largely neglected radical critiques of the Russian Revolution that preceded analogous Trotskyist endeavours. All these forgotten critiques, unrealised potentials and past struggles could act as a constantly renewed point of departure in the fight for human emancipation. This essay examines the two radical currents of anarchism and Council Communism and their critical confrontation with the Russian Revolution and the class character of the Soviet regime. First, it outlines the major anarchist critiques and analyses of the revolution (Kropotkin, Malatesta, Rocker, Goldman, Berkman and Voline). Following this, it explores the critique provided by the Council Communist tradition (Pannekoek, Gorter and Rühle). The essay moves on to provide a critical re-evaluation of both anarchist and councilist appraisals of the Russian Revolution in order to disclose liberating intentions and tendencies that are living possibilities for contemporary radical anti-capitalist struggles all over the world. It also attempts to shed light on the limits, inadequacies and confusions of their approaches, derive lessons for the present social struggles and make explicit the political and theoretical implications of this anti-critique

A Troika of Agitators: Three Comintern Liaison Agents in Australia, 1920-22

Peter Simonoff, Consul-General in Australia for the Bolshevik regime from early 1918 to mid-1921, is known to have played an active role in the founding of the Communist Party of Australia in 1920, and in promoting the "Trades Hall" faction against the ASP faction when the new party divided. Paul Freeman and Alexander Zuzenko, both deported from Australia in 1919, made return visits to Australia from Moscow in 1921 and 1922 to carry the process further. Freeman, however, backed the ASP faction, while Zuzenko lent his support to "Trades Hall". This paper uses previously unknown reports to the Comintern's Executive Committee (ECCI) from Simonoff, Freeman and Zuzenko, as well as Australian sources, to study the relations between these men and their mutually contradictory actions