Lenin’s State, 1917–18 (Edexcel A-Level History): Revision Notes
Lenin's State, 1917–18
Overview
Lenin's new state underwent significant transformation between 1917 and 1918. Initially, it embraced radical democracy, but by summer 1918, the revolutionary state had become much more authoritarian. This shift reflected the challenges Lenin faced in establishing control and his willingness to abandon democratic principles to maintain power.
This dramatic transition from democratic ideals to authoritarian control occurred in less than a year, demonstrating how revolutionary governments often evolve in response to practical challenges and threats to power.
Creating a 'soviet-state'
The October Revolution and the soviets
In October 1917, Lenin seized power on behalf of the soviets – small democratic councils that had emerged spontaneously across Russia following the February Revolution. These soviets had played a crucial role in governing Russia between February and October 1917.
The All-Russian Congress of Soviets was formed when local soviets sent representatives to discuss Russia's future. This body first met in June 1917 and again in October. Lenin and senior Bolsheviks argued that this Congress should become the foundation of the new Russian government. The October Revolution formally transferred power to the All-Russian Congress. However, because the Congress was too large to meet regularly, it elected a smaller body to handle day-to-day governance.
The Soviet System
The word "soviet" simply means "council" in Russian. These councils represented a form of direct democracy where workers, soldiers, and peasants elected representatives from their communities. The system was intended to give ordinary people direct participation in government decisions.
Sovnarkom
Sovnarkom (the Council of People's Commissars) functioned as the new Russian cabinet. The first Sovnarkom consisted of 13 People's Commissars, with Lenin serving as Chairman. Other notable appointments included:
- Leon Trotsky – head of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs
- Joseph Stalin – head of the People's Commissariat of Nationality Affairs
All the new Commissars were experienced revolutionaries. The vast majority had supported Lenin since 1903, many had worked alongside him in exile, and all had backed the Bolshevik seizure of power.
The title 'People's Commissar' was deliberately chosen by Trotsky to demonstrate the revolutionary character of the new government, echoing the terminology used after the French Revolution. This naming choice was symbolic – it signaled a complete break with the traditional ministerial titles of the old Tsarist regime.
Lenin's early decrees
Lenin's first government passed several popular decrees that helped establish control:
Immediate decrees (October 1917):
- Decree on Land – gave peasants the right to seize land from the nobility and the Church
- Decree of Peace – committed the government to withdrawing from the First World War and seeking peace
Subsequent decrees:
- Workers' Decrees (November 1917) – established an eight-hour maximum working day and a minimum wage
- Decree of Workers' Control (April 1918) – allowed workers to elect committees to run factories
Worked Example: How the Decrees Secured Power
Consider the Decree on Land as a strategic move:
Step 1: Identify the problem – Peasants were already seizing land, and the Provisional Government had failed to address land reform
Step 2: Lenin's response – Rather than oppose the seizures, the Decree on Land officially authorized them
Step 3: The result – Peasants viewed the Bolsheviks as legitimate representatives of their interests, securing crucial rural support
Step 4: Strategic benefit – This won popular support while also preventing competing political parties from claiming credit for land reform
These measures helped Lenin establish control in two key ways. First, they won popular support from workers, peasants, and soldiers. Second, ending the First World War provided what Lenin called 'breathing space' to rebuild the economy and construct the new government.
Initial weaknesses and challenges
Despite these achievements, Sovnarkom initially had limited real power. The October Revolution had occurred in Petrograd, Russia's capital, but did not immediately grant Lenin control over other major cities or the vast rural areas that comprised most of Russia's territory.
Examples of Active Resistance to Lenin's Government:
- In late November, General Dukhonin, Chief of Staff of the Russian army, refused Lenin's direct order to stop fighting and begin peace negotiations
- The Russian State Bank and State Treasury went on strike immediately after the revolution, denying the new government essential funds
These examples demonstrate that many existing institutions openly defied the new government, revealing how tenuous Bolshevik control was in the immediate aftermath of the revolution.
Organizational chaos: Sovnarkom was extremely disorganized in its early days:
- Stalin's Commissariat for Nationalities initially consisted of just a desk in the corner of a room at the Smolny Institute (where Sovnarkom was based)
- Vyacheslav Menzhinsky's Commissariat of Finance was initially nothing more than a sofa with a piece of paper pinned to it reading 'Commissariat of Finance'
This organizational chaos reveals the improvised nature of the early Bolshevik government. Despite grand revolutionary rhetoric, the reality was a government struggling to establish even basic administrative functions.
Lenin's government would need to fight a civil war before achieving genuine control over all of Russia.
How democratic was Russia in 1918?
Lenin's claims about democracy
Lenin and the Bolsheviks claimed the new government was truly democratic. Lenin argued that the new state was based on committees of working people who participated in government daily. He contended that the soviet-state was more democratic than systems in Britain, the USA, or France, where people merely voted every four or five years.
Lenin's Democratic Arguments
Lenin distinguished between what he called "bourgeois democracy" (voting occasionally) and "proletarian democracy" (direct participation through soviets). He argued that constant participation through workplace and community councils represented a higher form of democracy than periodic elections in capitalist democracies.
Broad-based support
There is evidence that the new government enjoyed genuine democratic support initially:
Popular decrees: The first decrees were genuinely popular and reflected what the majority of workers, peasants, and soldiers wanted.
Multi-party system: In 1918, Russia was not yet a one-party state. According to the Constitution of 1918, Sovnarkom was responsible to the Congress of Soviets, which contained representatives from many political parties, including the Bolsheviks' main rivals – the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs). A faction of the SRs even supported the new government, with some SRs initially holding junior government roles.
Worker support: Many workers in Petrograd genuinely supported a Bolshevik-dominated government in the revolution's early days. For example:
- The Petrograd Trades Union Council (31 October 1917) gave full support to the new Bolshevik Government
- The First Conference of Female Factory Workers (5 November 1917) also supported the government
The support from workers' organizations and women's groups suggests that the Bolshevik government initially enjoyed genuine grassroots backing, not just power seized through force. This democratic legitimacy would later erode as Lenin consolidated authoritarian control.
The coalition debate
Many expected the government to become a coalition government representing all of Russia's main socialist parties. Moderates within the Bolshevik Party, such as Zinoviev and Kamenev, urged Lenin to form a coalition and work with other political parties. However, when Lenin refused to compromise, these moderates resigned in protest. By November, Lenin's government was dominated by those who wanted the Bolshevik Party to govern alone.
Lenin's refusal to form a coalition government marked a crucial turning point. Even members of his own party recognized that excluding other socialist parties contradicted democratic principles. Their resignations highlighted the growing tension between revolutionary ideals and Lenin's determination to maintain exclusive Bolshevik control.
The Constituent Assembly
In January 1918, Lenin demonstrated his willingness to abandon democracy. He refused to recognize the results of a nationwide election held in November 1917. The election created a Constituent Assembly with a Bolshevik minority. When the Assembly met for the first time in January 1918, Lenin closed it by force after only one day, claiming it posed a threat to the power of the soviets.
The Closure of the Constituent Assembly
This was arguably the most significant anti-democratic act of Lenin's early government. The Assembly represented the results of Russia's first truly free national election, yet Lenin dissolved it because the Bolsheviks had not won a majority. This action revealed that Lenin would only respect democratic processes when they produced results favorable to Bolshevik power.
Ignoring soviet election results
Lenin was also willing to disregard the soviets themselves. In March 1918, he approved the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which surrendered a significant proportion of Russian territory to the Central Powers to end Russia's involvement in the First World War. The treaty proved extremely unpopular, and the Bolsheviks lost soviet elections across Russia in April and May 1918.
To retain power, Lenin:
- Refused to recognize the election results, arguing they had not been fair
- Expelled Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries from the soviets
- Demanded new elections but quickly postponed them due to the outbreak of the Civil War
Expelling Rival Parties from the Soviets
By expelling the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries from the soviets after losing elections, Lenin effectively destroyed the multi-party soviet system. This marked the transition toward one-party rule, as Lenin was willing to manipulate or ignore democratic institutions rather than accept electoral defeat.
Nikolai Bukharin, the official Bolshevik Party theorist, argued that 'formal democracy' (meaning elections to the soviets) had to be abandoned to win the Civil War. Through these actions – abolishing the Constituent Assembly and refusing to recognize soviet election results – Lenin consolidated Bolshevik power, but it became increasingly difficult to argue the government was democratic.
Were the early decrees truly democratic?
While many of Lenin's early decrees were extremely popular, an alternative interpretation suggests Lenin was forced to be democratic because the new government initially had very limited power. Rather than extending the rights of Russian people, the early decrees may have merely authorized what was already taking place. Lenin had little choice but to allow peasants to seize land and workers to take control of factories.
Alternative Interpretation: Forced Democracy
Consider whether Lenin's early "democratic" decrees were genuine reforms or simply recognition of reality. If peasants were already seizing land and workers already taking control of factories, then Lenin's decrees didn't grant new rights – they simply authorized existing actions. This interpretation suggests Lenin's apparent democracy stemmed from weakness, not democratic conviction.
Key figures
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
Trotsky was already a revolutionary hero before 1917 due to his role in the failed 1905 Revolution. Although he and Lenin disagreed violently about politics before 1917, they worked closely together after the February Revolution until Lenin's death. Trotsky played a leading role in:
- The October Revolution
- The first years of Russia's Communist Government
- Leading the Communist Red Army to victory in the Civil War
Despite his brilliance, Trotsky was not universally popular among Lenin's followers. He was viewed as arrogant and unreliable, and other senior Party members successfully plotted to expel him from both the Party and Russia. This lack of personal popularity would prove crucial in his later defeat by Stalin in the power struggle after Lenin's death.
Joseph Stalin (1878–1953)
Born in Gori, Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire), Stalin initially trained as a Christian priest but abandoned the Church after reading Marx's work. He became one of the first members of the revolutionary RSDLP in Georgia and attended Party Congresses regularly from 1906, becoming known to Lenin.
Stalin was not regarded as an outstanding speaker or gifted intellectual, but he was respected as a capable administrator. Lenin valued his loyalty, which led to Stalin becoming part of Lenin's inner circle. He played small but important roles in the October Revolution and the Civil War. Stalin was highly ambitious, and once in power, his desire to dominate the Party and punish his opponents became evident.
Stalin's reputation as a capable administrator proved more valuable than intellectual brilliance in the practical chaos of revolutionary Russia. While more prominent Bolsheviks like Trotsky gained attention through oratory and theory, Stalin quietly built networks of loyalty through his administrative positions – a foundation that would later enable his rise to absolute power.
Remember!
Key Points to Remember:
- Lenin's state initially appeared democratic with popular decrees on land, peace, and workers' rights, but rapidly became authoritarian by summer 1918
- Sovnarkom was the day-to-day government body, made up of 13 People's Commissars all loyal to Lenin
- Lenin closed the Constituent Assembly by force in January 1918 after only one day, despite the Bolsheviks being in the minority
- When Bolsheviks lost soviet elections in spring 1918, Lenin refused to recognize the results and expelled rival parties
- The government's initial weakness forced Lenin to pass popular decrees, but these may have simply authorized what was already happening rather than extending genuine rights
- By 1918, Russia was transitioning from a multi-party system to Bolshevik one-party rule