It is for this reason that discerning men have described Communism as reversing and negating history. It has turned man against himself. Instead of solving the many complex problems of modern life, Marxism’s negative approach has simply resurrected primitive problems which past generations of struggling humanity had already succeeding in solving.
To more fully appreciate precisely what has been happening we shall now examine the circumstances which led to the launching of the first Communist controlled nation in the history of the world.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Rise of the Revolutionary Movement in Russia
The events described in this chapter are intimate facts in the minds of all well-informed Marxists. Communists often base their arguments on their interpretation of these events and therefore the student should find this historical background helpful.
This chapter also includes the biographies of the principal Communist leaders—Nikolai (V.I.) Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin.
A review of the following questions will indicate some of the answers which this chapter is designed to provide.
• Who launched Marxism in Russia in 1868? Why did Marx consider this man his “enemy”? After the assassination of Alexander II what did Marx say about the possibility of a Communist revolution in Russia?
• What kind of environment produced Nikolai Lenin? Why was his brother hanged?
• Who organized the Bolsheviks? What does the name mean? What did they call their enemies? Was this an accurate designation or a matter of strategy?
• What was the background of Leon Trotsky? How did he get this name? How did he escape from Siberia? Why did he oppose Lenin in 1903?
• Was the Russian Revolution of 1905 led by a few radicals or was it a general uprising of the whole people? Why did Lenin and the Bolsheviks oppose the “October Manifesto” which promised the people representative government?
• From what kind of home did Joseph Stalin come? Why was he expelled from the seminary where he was being trained as a priest? What did the criminal activities of Joseph Stalin during 1907 reveal about his personality? How extensive were Stalin’s activities as a union organizer, propagandist and revolutionary leader during this period? What was his relationship to Lenin?
• What brought Russia to the brink of another general uprising during the First World War? What was the Tsar’s attitude during this crisis?
Marxism Comes to Russia
In 1885 a U.S. citizen, Andrew D. White, returned from a tour of duty as attache in the American Embassy at St. Petersburg and described the Russian situation as follows: “The whole governmental system is the most atrociously barbarous in the world. There is on earth no parallel example of a polite society so degraded, a people so crushed, an official system so unscrupulous.”{65}
When White made this statement, the population of Russia was slightly over 70,000,000. Of these, 46,000,000 were in virtual captivity as serfs.
It will be recalled that Marx and Engels had been aroused to wrathful vehemence when they saw conditions among the industrial workers of England, but the status of life among the English was far above that of the peasants in Russia. The Russian serfs were not only starved, exploited and pauperized, but they were subjected to an iron-clad system of feudal political suppression. Always there was the plague of the secret police, the threat of arrest and sentencing to forced labor camps in Siberia and the cruel indecencies imposed upon them by the Tsar’s everpresent military. A Russian serf seemed to enjoy no sacred immunities whatever, neither in his person, his possessions, his children, nor, sometimes, his wife. All were subject to the petty whims of grasping officials in the Tsar’s corrupt bureaucracy.
Between 1861 and 1866, Tsar Alexander II sincerely attempted to do away with the institution of serfdom by approving several acts of emancipation. However, for all practical purposes, the impoverished lives of the peasants continued to be insecure, harsh and austere. Circumstances leading to a revolution were in the making.
Marxism came to Russia in 1868 when Bakunin’s translation of Capital escaped the Tsar’s censors and passed among liberals and radicals like a choice morsel of spiritual meat. For Russia it meant the kindling of the bright red flame in the original Communist Manifesto: “Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains…. Working men of all countries, unite!”
Russian revolutionary movements soon began to take shape and by 1880 Marxism could be described as definitely taking hold. The first significant violence came in 1881 when Tsar Alexander II fell dying beneath the shattering impact of a bomb which was hurled into the royal carriage by Ignatius Grinevitsky, a member of a revolutionary group called “The People’s Will.”
The successful murder of the Tsar led many Marxists to feel that the hour for unrestricted revolution might be very near. Over in London, the aging Marx began receiving inquiries from his Russian disciples. They wanted to know whether or not it might be possible to have a revolution in Russia even though the Russian economy had never passed through the capitalistic development which Marx had always said was a prerequisite. Marx studied the problem diligently. Finally, he gave it as his opinion that Russia had “the rarest and most suitable opportunity ever offered to any country to avoid (skip) the phase of capitalistic development.” In other words, Marx was suggesting the possibility of an early revolution in Russia.
This was a complete theoretical switch for Marx. He was also admitting the error of one of his earlier prophecies; namely, that the revolution would come first among highly developed capitalistic nations such as Germany and England. Among his friends he declared: “It is an irony of fate that the Russians, whom I have fought for twenty-five years, and not only in German (publications), but in French and English, have always been my patrons.”
It was indeed ironical that the Russian Marxists had remained loyal to Marx and his theories in spite of the verbal and editorial abuse he had heaped upon them. This was never truer than in the case of Bakunin, the first Russian Marxist, who promoted the theories of Marx and Engels with such zeal, that they both feared he might take over the First International. They, therefore, marked him for political liquidation.
Even at the end, however, Bakunin reaffirmed his faith in Marxism, and after referring to the “furious hatred” of Marx toward himself, he concluded: “This has given me an intense loathing of public life. I have bad enough of it, and after devoting all my days to the struggle, I am weary…. Let other and younger persons put their hands to the work. For my own part, I no longer feel strong enough…. I therefore, withdraw from the arena, and ask only one thing of my dear contemporaries—oblivion.”
In 1876 Bakunin laid down the burden of his life, but the “younger persons” to whom he bequeathed Marxism and the Russian people’s revolution were already commencing to make their appearance among men.
In 1870, Nikolai Lenin was born, and in the year 1879, there arrived on earth both Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky. Others would come, but these three were to be the principal leaders in carrying forward the traditions of Bakunin and at the same time doing for Marx what he was never able to do for himself; these three would convulse a great nation in a revolution and would serve as midwives at the birth of the world’s first Communist dictatorship.