This blog assignment is due Monday, April 4.
In his famous April Theses, Lenin repudiated any attempt at collaborating with the Provisional Government on the grounds of its disingenious handing of democracy: while promising to call the Constituent Assembly, new Russian government kept on withholding recognition from the Soviets and waging the war which has long lost much of popular support.
Rosa Luxemburg, on the other hand, accused the Bolsheviks of supplanting democracy with dictatorship of a small party clique. Although she saw this in the light of hardships befalling the young Bolshevik Russia, her observation concerning the emerging party state proved nothing short of prophetic.
I want you to reflect over the question which had troubled politicians, historians and ordinary citizens alike ever since the momentous events in 1917: namely, why did the Party, claiming to support unequivocally principles of democratic rule, became the basis of a new dictatorship? Was it, as Rosa Luxemburg asserted, the result of unfortunate circumstances of war and occupation into which the Republic was born? Or was that evolution inscribed into the inner code of the Party itself, as an element of its program or a part of an algorithm pushing it towards dictatorship with an ineluctability of а chrysalis pupating into a butterfly?
In his famous April Theses, Lenin repudiated any attempt at collaborating with the Provisional Government on the grounds of its disingenious handing of democracy: while promising to call the Constituent Assembly, new Russian government kept on withholding recognition from the Soviets and waging the war which has long lost much of popular support.
Rosa Luxemburg, on the other hand, accused the Bolsheviks of supplanting democracy with dictatorship of a small party clique. Although she saw this in the light of hardships befalling the young Bolshevik Russia, her observation concerning the emerging party state proved nothing short of prophetic.I want you to reflect over the question which had troubled politicians, historians and ordinary citizens alike ever since the momentous events in 1917: namely, why did the Party, claiming to support unequivocally principles of democratic rule, became the basis of a new dictatorship? Was it, as Rosa Luxemburg asserted, the result of unfortunate circumstances of war and occupation into which the Republic was born? Or was that evolution inscribed into the inner code of the Party itself, as an element of its program or a part of an algorithm pushing it towards dictatorship with an ineluctability of а chrysalis pupating into a butterfly?
In my opinion, dictatorship was an actual goal of the Bolsheviks from the begining. They used a weariness of war and how people were exhausted because of it (bad situation in agriculture, weakness of provisional government), to exploit it to demolish the authority in February. Then in October Bolsheviks started to relalize thier plans. Revolution happened with almost fully people`s support, union of proletarians and peasants, and army`s desertion determined the outcomes of revolution.
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ReplyDeleteI can agree with Rosa Luxemburg, Socialism without political freedom – is not socialism. Perhaps the Bolsheviks initially pursued right goals but they have forgotten that they are trying to manage a large mass of people (but not the mass of which Marx said), in addition maybe people misunderstood Marx or the specially treated incorrectly. In general, I want to say that they were originally in the way of dictatorship, after all, when a little-educated, angry and envious people to come to power, it does not lead to a well thing.
ReplyDeleteAlso what the Bolsheviks did after gaining power which wasn't very peaceful. How many people did they execute without trial? And was it really necessary to murder the tsar entire family, even the children? What about the purges and executions of other socialists and anarchist parties their old allies? What about the Tambov Rebellion were peasants, resisting grain confiscation were killed with poison gas? Was this still fighting for the people? In my opinion it was a dictatorship that can not give the people anything but cruelty
Я же утверждаю, что жестокость - была необходимостью.
DeleteУбийства, запугивание, репрессии, ограничение свобод, иначе захват власти в одни руки - это всё были средства прихода к победе. На самом деле, не будь власть столь жесткой, то не будь вообще никакого советского общества. На самом деле, диктатура захватила своими железными руками революцию и спрятала её подальше от врагов, и что более важно, подальше от несозревших к этому людей.
Да, я согласен что тогда настали трудные времена для правительства. Но это не может быть оправданием жестокости. Ведь тогда Большевики потеряло контроль над ситуацией, даже больше потеряла контроль над собой. Из-за своей собственной не компетентности они должны были предпринять жесткие меры.А то что они якобы пытались спрятать революцию от врагов было ни чем иным как само оправдание. Ведь они не хотели терять власти даже скорее всего не хотели ее делится именно поэтому они стали так поступать. Не во имя людей, не во имя государства а во имя собственных интересов(в принципе как и все политики).И даже после революции голод и репрессии продолжались, разве подобно может пойти во благо люде и родины ?
DeleteНет, трудные времена оправдывают правительство. И они не теряли контроль, а напротив, удерживали его.
DeleteИ ты немного неправильно меня понял насчет "укрытия революции". Сам подумай, зачем им её прятать? Я имел ввиду, что эту революцию нужно было законсервировать и спрятать, как говорится "в подвал", на время.
И это тот случай, когда не во властолюбии только всё дело стоит, а еще именно в желании сделать как можно лучше для страны и идей. Откуда ты знаешь, как думают все политики?
И самый главный вопрос на фрагмент "И даже после революции голод и репрессии": а революция когда закончилась?
I tried to accept the idea that Lenin introduced a dictatorship in order to lead the country toward communism, not only for the war. As a result, every time I come to the conclusion that the dictatorship was not conducive to communism. The dictatorship undermined the will to fight the dictatorship destroyed civil society.
ReplyDeleteAre Party thought to use a dictatorship not only against the war, but also used for development of communism? Perhaps, they justified their actions by the ideas of communism. In this case they are even believed in it, but in fact it was just a good way to fight the war. This in itself does not bring more features and nothing else could bring. At the same time, without a victory over the external threat, the Soviet Union would not have been built.
War had to be won, and all of these actions were necessary. It did not bring any benefit to socialism and communism. When the dictatorship came to power, the road to communism became closed. Civil society was transformed into a surviving company.
But there is a good side: the revolution has been conserved by these actions. Revolution hid like a time bomb in this surviving company. The dictatorship of the Soviet Union is not a part of the revolution, but only storage of this revolution...
And here, Stalin came to power and all have forgotten it all... but the revolution has not disappeared anywhere.
The conception of democracy bears a pretty volatile, misleading and treacherous meaning in my mind. I can treat it as a veil covering some other hidden intentions. While standing behind the curtain of democracy you are given free rein to do whatever you deem to be auspicious for the advance of your plans. When the time comes you amass sufficient sway and in a latent fashion proceed by renouncing the course offered by democracy and establish the regime of yours. I guess, I do not firmly grasp the authentic notion of democracy, thereby throughout this comment I will be sticking to the meaning which implies necessary presence of a variegated parlament (I would call this parlamentarism) appointed as a result of competetive elections.
ReplyDeleteLet us mentally return back to the conditions under which Russia had marched through the war until the beginning of 1917. Reportedly Russia suffered considerable losses, fierce economic downturn and as a direct consequence furious workers, impelled by the bread shortage and an early oncoming of spring dethroned the tsar. Even though these motives represent the official and popular standpoint, for me personally they do not appear as fully plausible and reflecting an understandable rationale behind the agenda of February Revolution. I cannot comprehend the reason why people all of a sudden decided to take radical actions againts the current government in the midst of the potential victory in war, incurring the imminent defeat and rendering all the losses and efforts of the last three precious years vain. And yes, I fully admit that the time of war was not delightful at all for Russians, but at least it was not so considerably worse than those of Central and the rest of Allied Powers. Statistically, Germany was beaten in a twofold degree on the eastern front than on the western one. Taking into account Russian rising military power and her newly revitalized artillery, she most resolutely could lay claim to a deserved share in the total victory along with her Allies. This obscure but rather momentous serendipitous contingency, named February Revolution, will for a long time have an astounding yet sinister savour of distrust, if not nonsense in me.
Ok, let us not to dwell on this point and keep on moving. Here we come across the very dichotomy between totalitarism and democracy. I think that it was not totalitarism that was inscribed in the claims of Bolsheviks as an inevitable part of the algorithm, but rather a dim notion of democracy serving as a means to attain power. People yearned for a democratic elections to the Constituent Assembly. If Bolshevik's nascent agenda opposed the forthcoming elections, then definitely they would not live long. By definition Provisional Government was established to arrange for the future Assembly, but found itself faltering along the way. Lenin had no precise political aims at that time, his entire preoccupation dedicated to the plans of conducting a coup d'état as soon as possible, especially before the Assembly would congregate, meanwhile luring people's credit by making commitments in the name of democracy (e.g. April Theses). As Lenin wrote: "Взятие власти есть дело восстания; его политическая цель выяснится после взятия."[1]. Lenin carried on issuing various decrees after the takeover in October and brought the process to an end by dissolving the parliament. But why Bolsheviks from that time onward took a totalitarian model of political system hitherto remains for me quite controversial. Maybe such measures were really necessary to raise the economy and turn Russia into a strong industrial state.
[1] http://leninism.su/works/73-tom-34/1716-pismo-chlenam-czk-34.html
Стоит согласиться, что народ не должен совершать переворот в момент войны, потому что из этого следует уязвимость государства. Однако, что, если народ не сплочен и его не волнует война? Что, если народ не хочет войны и у него нет вообще чувства общества? Ему только дали клич "Можешь не идти на войну!" и он сразу же воспользовался своим правом. Неужели, это не показатель?
DeleteИ не было сплоченности, но были люди, которые захотели захватить власть и наладить верный курс развития страны. Это были большевики. Ты сам в конце указываешь, что это, возможно, нужно было для построения индустриального общества.
Тяжело признать, но во время тяжелых времен все "идеи" были перенесены в самом деле на задний план. Все возвышенные беседы о великом коммунизме и о советском человеке были только попыткой сплотить сообщество. Власти нужно было сплотить страну, пусть и мерой очень жестких и лицемерных мер. С чисто личного человеческого взгляда рассматривать все те события еще потому сложно, потому что жить в этом мире не хотелось бы никому из нас. Но это надо откинуть, потому что не позволяет оценить ситуацию в полной мере, в историческом масштабе.
Тогда вся эта диктатура и жесткие меры происходили именно из-за будущих сложностей. Ведь правда, какой еще можно было рассматривать вариант в то время? Возможно, нашелся бы гениальный политик, который был бы круче даже такого персонажа, к примеру, как Иисус, но это уже невозможно. (Круче Иисуса не может быть никого!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
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DeleteI think that Bolshevik government had all the ingredients to become a strong dictatorship, even if it was not meant to become one (which, no one knows for a fact). It had a very charismatic leader in face of Lenin and it had a very distinct opposition and strong propaganda.
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