Lenin: A Revolutionary Life by C. Read

Author:C. Read [Read, C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: aVe4EvA
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2011-06-28T16:34:42+00:00

6

FROM CLASSROOM TO LABORATORY – EARLY EXPERIMENTS

Almost from the very first day of the October Revolution Lenin’s hopes and expectations for it began to collapse. His opponents had predicted as much. Lenin’s assertion that the transition to soviet power would be ‘gradual, peaceful and smooth’ was so far off the mark that observers have wondered if he seriously meant it or if it was simply a propaganda device. In October, the Bolsheviks had appeared to offer, as far as the population was concerned, four things above all. They were: soviet power; peace; bread (i.e. economic and material security); and land. The delivery of these promises was faltering at best. At the same time the Bolsheviks were gradually improving the toehold on power they had achieved in October. October was no more than a beginning from which more secure consolidation had to be achieved. Opposition also gained momentum but was divided between the anti-Bolshevik soviet left and the more broadly counter-revolutionary propertied classes of the centre and right. Social and economic disruption deepened at an alarming rate. The war against Germany did not disappear overnight. The essential condition for success – world revolution – showed little sign of appearing quickly.

Such was the unpromising situation into which Lenin stepped on 25 October (OS). Up to that time he had been mainly a professor and teacher of revolution, a frequenter of Europe’s great libraries, who constantly produced articles of analysis and denunciation. Even in the crucial weeks and months before the October Revolution Lenin had been in hiding and his weapons continued to be words not deeds. Events over which he had no control, like the Kornilov affair, had propelled him into power. In no sense had Lenin, up to this point, exerted leadership over the revolution. As we have seen, he had found it hard enough to exert his authority over the tiny band of ardent supporters in the various higher committees of his own party. With what success would he make the transition to practical politician, to activist? He was stepping out of his professorial classroom and study into a laboratory where actions were judged by their results. But it was no ordinary laboratory. It was chaotic, near-bankrupt and threatened with external attack. Experiments conducted in these conditions would be risky in the extreme and the odds would be strongly stacked against them working successfully. It is hardly surprising that it took Lenin several attempts to get the formula right – at least to his own satisfaction. Maybe even the final formula he bequeathed to his party and people – the New Economic Policy – was flawed in ways that only came to light after his death. The remainder of our study of his life will centre on how Lenin coped with the immense challenges he, and the Revolution, faced.

INITIAL CONSOLIDATION AND THE FIRST CIVIL WAR

Whose power?

In Lenin’s own words in The Dual Power of 9 April 1917, ‘the basic question of any revolution is state power.’ [SW 2 18] The first task was to secure power.

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