Communism of Karl Marx and the Soviet Union

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Stalinism and Marxism: how different are they?
Stalinist ideas
Stalin as a dictator
Conclusion

Introduction

“The Russian Revolution is the mightiest event of the world.” (Luxemburg 25) It marked the rise of the nation against the Bolshevik’s quest for power. The seizure of Winter Palace by the Bolsheviks gave birth to the communist movement in 1917, when and died in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and in 1991, when the Soviet Union was abolished. The revolution which overthrew all class relations and bourgeoise oppression brought a group of leaders who were again called authoritarian dictators by social scientists (McFarland, Ageyev and Abalakina-Paap).

Literature on communist Russia believes that the communism that was upheld by the new state was framed by Stalin and was not the original idea of Marx. Stalin is believed to have transformed the ideas as presented by Karl Marx and/or Vladimir Lenin and substantially Russified their ideologies into the dictator’s dogmatic pronouncements. Stalin’s ideologies were deeply engrained in authoritarianism, bureaucratic statehood, and patriotism. Though there exist two schools of thought regarding this: the first school believes that the dictator did indeed impose a drastic shake-up of ideologies presented by Marx in order to legitimize his dictatorship, and the second school believes that Stalin was basically reiterating established Marxists ideas (Ree). What I discuss hereafter is that (in line with the first school of thought) Stalin tried to legitimize his ideologies of authoritarianism through Marxist ideologies. The dictator did reformulate Marxism, even though to some extent his ideas remained consistent with the western revolutionary traditions. The paradox of the Russian evolution is confronted here: why and how did the Russian leaders transform Marxist ideologists to Stalinist ideologies?

Stalinism and Marxism: how different are they?

Gustav Wetter in his Der dialektische Materialism discusses Stalin’s contributions to historical materialism (Wetter). The thesis presented by Wetter posed that Stalin’s ideologies do not preserve the “socialist content” (228). He further mentioned that in soviet socialism the ideas the Marx were diffused with global socialism. In accordance with the new regime under the paternity of Stalin, Russia became the central figure for human history and names from the tsarist past, such as Ivan the Terrible or General Kutuzov, were renewed.

Scholars have argued that there lies a great schism between Marxism and Stalinism (Leonhard). This literature points out some of Lenin’s innovations to be “socialism in one country”. The idea states that the economic prerequisites of socialism may be established after industrialization which is enforced by law. Lenin also highlights his idea of collectivization of agriculture, the intensified class struggle, “strengthening of the socialist state”, sacrificing the revolution of the world for Soviet patriotism, the Great Russian chauvinism, and peaceful coexistence with the capitalist world (Leonhard 95-125).

Another criticism of Stalin’s ideologies is that he presented a counter-revolutionary digression from Bolshevism (Trotsky). It is believed Lenin’s ideologies led to the isolation of Russia with his notion of “socialism in one country” and preservation of state bureaucracy, instead of being absorbed in democratic organs, as was believed by Marxian ideologies.

Stalin presented a ‘creative Marxism’ which claimed that Russia would lead the way to socialism, and accepted the formula of “Russia One and Invincible”. This is where Stalin diverted from Lenin’s idea of ‘building socialism’, which again was a modified version of the Marxist idea that revolution could occur only in industrialized countries. But Lenin identified the need to associate with the rest of the advanced world in order to bring socialism in backward Russia. But Stalin’s version of socialism digressed further away from Marx’s concept of ‘world revolution’. Stalin propagated a revolution that was carried out ‘from above’ and was enshrined by the terroristic state bureaucracy. This was again different from the reformist ideal of Lenin, in which Stalin reinterpreted the world revolution in the spirit of the Russian revolution primarily through the Red Army operations (Tucker).

Brandenberger and Dubrovsky discuses Stalin’s ideas which introduced the new ‘national Bolshevism’ embedded in his state-oriented patriotic ideology. Stalin’s ideologies accepted the role of Bolshevism in the historical Russian state-building and celebrated the role of the individual in history, including the tsars and tsarist officials — a departure from materialist proletarian internationalism. The new Stalinist ideologies were ‘national in form, statist in content’ (Brandenberger and Dubrovsky). A recent study points out that in abandoning Marxist principles of the nation as a modern construct, Stalin adopted the ‘primordial’ interpretation of the nation as an ethnic entity with deep historical roots (Martin). Another ideology that Stalin proposed was Russian centrality which found expression through “Friendship of the Peoples” around which his communist ideologies were pivoted (Martin, p. 442).

It has been argued by Robert Vincent Daniels, Stalinism was a clear divergence from Marxism, especially in its “bureaucratic hierarchy and the totalitarian state” (Daniels, p. 199). It has been argued that under the idea of Lenin’s democratic centralism, which envisaged one-party power, the Communist Party was formed in a state which was essential “military in spirit” (Daniels, p. 201). Given this ‘culture of War Communism’, the party bureaucracy got attracted by militancy and authoritarianism (Tucker).

The dictatorial presence of Stalin has been reiterated through the demonstration of totalitarianism which was realized in Russia was applied to collectivize the peasants, militarize the urban economy, and tyrannize all sectors of cultural and intellectual life (Daniels). The totalitarian nature of the Stalinist regime has been compared to Hitler’s campaign of international genocide.

The economic thought as presented by Marx and Engels established that there should be a democratic government formed in the countries like Great Britain, Germany, and France, where the working class was in the minority. They professed that the governments of these countries should attack the private properties and bring all sectors, i.e. industries, agriculture, and trade, under the umbrella of the state. The Communist Manifesto urged all workers to nationalize all means of production and ‘multiply them as quickly as they can’ (Marx). The Russian experience demonstrated that there is no case of perfect socialism. Stalinism envisioned bureaucratic state socialism paralleling the capitalist fad of organizational concentration, which here is enforced by political and governance mechanisms of totalitarianism.

Marx believed that socialism could progress only through cooperation with the rest of the world. Stalin shut Russia from the rest of the world. The core of Stalinist foreign policy was to maximize the security and influence of the Soviet state. Under Stalin Soviet, Russia did not shy away from the capitalist world but was bitten by xenophobia that was rooted in layers of the country’s political culture which surfaced under Stalinist leadership.

The second school of thought as presented by Rees shows that there was hardly any innovation in Stalinist communist theory. This school of thought believed there were ample Orthodox ideas ingrained in Stalinist theories, only to the exception that Stalin’s formulations were dogmatic in s5tyle and presentation with hardly any element of innovation is not present (Brandenberger and Dubrovsky). It is believed that Stalin’s ideas cannot be explained by a collection of statements, but its interpretation lies in the emergence of Stalin as an all-power interpreter of Marxism. According to Kolakowski, “Marxism as codified by Stalin” showed a “bold, primitive version” of Leninism (4). He further noted that the only deviation was in Stalin’s idea of “socialism in one country” and “intensification of class struggle”, which was evident only in the pre-1950s after which Stalin reiterated traditional Marxist motives (Kolakowski, p. 12).

Some theorists believe that Stalin’s contribution to Marxism was literally non-existent. The only thing that could be said to be purely Stalinist was the nature of the closed, didactic style Marxism, and the indoctrination of its usage. As far as the ideologies were concerned, Stalin could be said to be a true “Lenin’s faithful disciple” (Walicki 398). The radical ideas of Stalin were not something new, as Lenin never rejected the option of state violence. Walicki further noted that Stalin as a dictator divided the pre-Revolutionary Russian culture into the popular and reactionary sections. Thus, Stalin’s notion of national patriotism was merely an instrument to enhance his totalitarian control.

To sum up, it can be mentioned that Marxism as an ideology was not transformed a bit by Stalin. He preserved every bit of Marx’s ideologies. But the differences arise when the practical implementation of the ideologies are seen. Stalin intensified “class struggle” so as to legitimize terrorist state activities.

Stalinist ideas

Richard Stites believes that Soviet history till the 1930s was marked with utopianism. Lenin has been accused by many scholars as to the “dreamer in Kremlin” who had given history his ideologies which were “impossible to realize, a heartless experimenter determined to turn his patrimony into a vast laboratory, and emotionally immune to the human cost” (Stites 41). It has been argued that the Russian revolution and its state afterwards which presented the dictatorial version of Marxism was Lenin’s or Stalin’s creation and its roots were embedded in the Russian culture (Stites). Marxist ideas can be negated from being utopianism because they were adopted in other countries – namely the East European countries – but they did not demonstrate the “dreaming, the maximalism, and the euphoric expectation that occurred in Russia…during the Revolution.” (Stites 4) Thus, we see that the ideas presented during the pre and post-revolutionary phase were primarily a Russian leadership construct.

In this utopia were born the Russian leaders who idealized a state that was one and singular: a state that envisaged its governance, beliefs, culture, and nationalism as one. In this pursuit, Stalin tried to enforce the ideologies of “revolution from above” in doing so the dictator crushed two elements, namely the peasantry and the Ukrainian nation (Conquest 3). The dictatorial regime of Stalin abolished the Soviet peasantry and tried to implement dekulakization and collectivism. Dekulakization means the killing and/or deportation of the peasants and their families to the Arctic. Collectivization implied the effective abolition of private property inland, and the peasantry remaining collectively as a farm under the direct control of the Party. These policies resulted in the murderous elimination of millions. Further, the 1932-4 famine in Ukraine was called the “terror-famine” which was aggravated by the policies implemented by Stalin’s regime: “grain quotas far above the possible, removing every handful of food, and preventing help from outside” (Conquest, p. 4).

The revolution from above was unique as it was a state initiative, but it failed to generate mass support (Tucker). Historical evidence shows that there was no collective effort to enforce “cultural revolution” through a long-term educational plan which would prepare the peasantry mind for voluntary acceptance of cooperative farming. The banner of collectivism, “liquidation of class” was achieved through the lives of millions of people and the establishment of socialist cooperatives as a formal façade. The second phase of the revolution from above wanted to enforce an industrialization drive [again] from above. This resulted in a “state-directed, frantic, military-oriented industrialization drive whose very slogan, “Fulfill the Five Year Plan in Four” reflected the gap between what actually happened and the Plan” (Tucker, p. 83). Some historians believe that mass collectivization was the means to extract the agricultural surplus to finance the great authoritarian designs of industrialization as it was used to pay for “importation of foreign machinery and technicians and to supply the urban population with food and industry with raw materials.” (Tucker, p. 83). The reason for this is provided by many as the process of meeting the increased scarcity of food supply to the urban population hat Stalin took this drastic measure which pushed the famine of the 1920s to reality.

This era of totalitarian control over the Soviet Union by Stalin has been called as “counterrevolution from above” (Daniels, p.269). The first phase of this was between 1928 and 1932 when Stalin enacted the “cultural revolution” similar to that of Mao Tse-tung in China. This was the era when Stalin imposed his forcible reconstruction of Soviet economic order and dictatorial control on all phases of Russian lives. In his pursuit to bring about a Russian nationalism, nationalistic history, and Russification of the Soviet minorities, Stalin left the main ideal of the Marxian revolution and only clinging to the revolutionary’s language.

While discussing the Russian revolution by Stalin, it is important to mention that orthodox Marxism believes that revolution is feasible only under the conditions of developed capitalism. According to Marx and Engels, a breakthrough to communism in Russia might be possible provided a revolutionary government could stop the disintegration of the people (Ree). But it cannot be verified [and historians believe it to be unlikely] that they said that once the country was industrialized the working-class dominating there should be proletariat government. This idea was brought by Stalin to gain support for his “proletariat dictatorship”.

Stalin as a dictator

After having clearly discussed the ideologies of Stalin and Marx, we try to ascertain if Stalin was really a communist? This question has stormed the academicians since the 1930s. The Stalinists are building is not Socialism but a social form of industrial organization based upon the exploitation of wage-labour with many objectionable features practised by Nazis and Fascists.

According to Marx, the establishment of an absolute necessity for Socialism is a highly developed industry and industrial technique. That necessary development of industry was carried out by capitalism between 1775 and 1900, that is to say, the period of the industrial revolution. But the same industrial stage had not been reached by Russia in 1917. In any case, therefore, Socialism could not have been established there at that time. As had been written in The Times issue of 6th July 1937, showed that:

“When Lenin seized power in Russia in November 1917, his views on the nature of the State were unimpeachably Marxist. The State, being in its very essence an instrument for the oppression of one class by another, was, therefore, an evil which could have no place in the classless Communist society.” (Socialist Labor Party 3).

In 1944 definition of Stalin’s “Soviet patriotism” means dedication and loyalty to the motherland, conceived by a “unified brotherly family” of different nations where the local tradition was preserved (Ree 172). The USSR was presented as the nation of all, a unified entity. The idea of Stalin’s Russia was an industrialized land with national homogeneity, developed culture and its loyalty to the state. Soviet patriotism ultimately referred to the Soviet state as the avant-garde of the internationalist communist movement and a centre for world politics. Stalin’s departure from Marx’s ideas was in his formulation of the nation as a fatherland as Marx and Engels objected to the patriotism illustrated through workers having “no fatherland”.

Once the departure between Marx’s ideals, it I important to open a discussion on the similarities or dissimilarities between Communism as professed by Stalin and fascism, between Stalin and Hitler. There are few startling similarities. Like fascism, Stalinism too came after a revolution (in Germany and Spain) or near revolutionary situations (in Italy). Fascism too functioned, like Stalinism, in a post-revolutionary dictatorship, with totalitarian regimes. The difference, nonetheless, lies in their overt ideologies.

To quote Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1890), “Any revolution from above is inevitably revolution by dictatorship and despotism” (Suny (as quoted in)). According to Ronald Suny, as Stalin assumed power as the leader of the newly formed Soviet Union, he gained paramount force and repression which was available to be used in the service of socialism, which was defined in Stalin’s mind as identical to his own policies and preservation of his personal position. Once he had reached his exalted position as a chief oligarch, he spoke in the name of the party and the Central Committee without consulting anyone else. And he moulded his own version of Leninism as an effective weapon against pretenders.

The element of Stalin’s dictatorial regime came from the snaked exercise of his authorities. But the totalitarian regime is said to have gained popularity among the sections of the society which faced repression and were victimized by White anti-Semitism. It grew popular among workers, many peasants, intellectuals, certain nationalities like the Jews. According to Figgs, “As long as the peasants feared the whites, they would go along, feet dragging, with the demands of the Soviet regime…. Thus the Bolshevik dictatorship climbed up on the back of the peasant revolution” (Figes, p. 354).

Though Stalin gained some popularity and support (which was due to his regime just after the monarchial fall) he was still considered to be an autocratic totalitarian. Moshe Lewin describes Stalin’s urge to become an autocrat as:

Stalin was not ready to accept the role of just a cog, however powerful, in his own machine. A top bureaucrat is a chief executive, in the framework of a constraining committee… But Stalin had had the power and the taste for it — for evermore of it — since he had led the early stage of the shattering breakthrough and gotten full control over the state in the process. At this point, the traits of his gloomy personality, with clear paranoid tendencies become crucial. Once at the top and in full control, he was not a man to accept changes in the pattern of -his personal -power… He, therefore, took the road of shaking up,-of destabilizing the machinery and its upper layers, in order to block the process fatally working against his personal predilection for autocracy. (Lewin 130-131)

The limitless tyranny of Stalinism was the creation of the Great Purges, which concurrently eliminated all probable opposition and created new and more loyal leaders with which the tyrant like Stalin could rule. Numerous interpretations have been offered by historians as to the causes of the Purges and what were its aftereffects were. Some have suggested that eradication or purging was completely essential for authorities based on totalitarianism in place of democratic elections. Others view the purges as simply the most extreme manifestation of the amorality of the Marxist vision. Another line of thought argues that the Purges as a more extreme form of political infighting:

The existence of high-level personal rivalries disputes overdevelopment or modernization plans, powerful and conflicting centrifugal and centripetal forces, and local conflicts…made large-scale political violence, possible and even likely (Getty, p. 206).

Thus the history of the Stalinist regime is ingrained in violent oppressions by the state on the local feudatories (particularly in the union republics), and mass arrests and executions brought in their wake. There was a regime that practised not only concentration of power at the top and centre, but even greater disorder and insecurity:

Nothing seems to warrant the traditional image of Soviet politics in the the1930s with its omnipotent dictator and his totally controlled instruments of unlimited power. Everything points to the assumption that, far from being an autocrat’s successful offensive against a whole society, the central political phenomenon of the decade resembled much more a kind of feudal anarchy or institutionalized civil war. (Tucker, p. 159).

In a more traditional term, the main reason behind the Great Purges has been seen as Stalin’s effort “to achieve an unrestricted personal-dictatorship with a totality of power that [Stalin] did not yet possess in 1934.” (Tucker xxix)

Conclusion

To sum up we may say that Stalin’s idealism and his view of communism were unlike those developed by Marx. He, though believed in the Marxian idealisms and did draw a few concepts from the original ideologies, but presented them in his own colours. His dogmatic views and totalitarian attitude in presenting a utopian idea of Marxism into operation in a state that followed complete isolation from the rest of the world and started viewing not all with suspicion was what Marx envisioned. Stalin revised Marx’s ideologies to present his own agendas. This led him to demonstrate the ideologies of “revolution from above”, Russian nationalism, and one state theory. When Stalin declared the advent of socialism in the Soviet Union and the proliferation of the world’s “most democratic” constitution, both democracies as a symbol and democracy as the empowering of the disenfranchised had become victims of his limitless despotism.

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