The Russian Revolution and the First Triumph of Totalitarianism
The principle of state intervention to reshape society made huge strides, especially after 1902, when Lenin’s ideas prevailed at the Second Congress of Russia’s Social Democratic Labor Party, at which he advocated revolutionary radicalism and the triumph of the proletariat by violent means.
At this point there appeared “Bolsheviks” (“members of the majority”) and “Mensheviks” (“members of the minority”), led by Julius Martov, who advocated a “social-democratic” approach to change, more in keeping with Marxist orthodoxy since 1872.[1002]17.5.1 Lenin and the Soviet Revolution
Vladimir Illich Ulianov (1870-1924), a lawyer and intellectual (alias “Lenin” as all Russian revolutionaries used pseudonyms to evade the tsar’s police) dissented from Marx in his belief that the road of social democracy, as proposed by the author of Das Kapital to transform the social order, was too circuitous. Instead, he advocated a more expeditious route: violent revolution led by a select group of professional revolutionaries. Among this cadre Lenin included losiv Dzugashvili (1878-1953), better known by his revolutionary nickname, Stalin, or “man of steel”, who was of humble origins and, in contrast to Lenin, not an intellectual but a man of action.[1003]
Lenin’s strategy led to victory in nothing less than three revolutions: that of 1905 and the February and October Revolutions of 1917 (Haimsom 2005). The first did away with autocracy, the second with monarchy, and the third with private property. These revolutions can be called “soviet” in that they replaced the traditional political and social order of the Russian monarchy with a collectivist regime led by soviets—groups of workers and soldiers designed in 1905 by Leon Trotsky, the pseudonym of Lev Davidovich Bronstein (1879-1940), one of the Russian Revolution’s most radical and effective leaders.[1004]
17.5.2 International Proletarianism vs. the Capitalism
of the Liberal Nation-States
World War I Germany’s high staff actually contributed decisively to the October Russian Revolution by making the decision to allow Lenin and all the leading Russian revolutionaries, who had taken refuge in Switzerland, to travel to St.
Petersburg in a special train, via Helsinki (Pearson 1991).[1005] [1006] Since the outbreak of the war, the Germans had been forced to fight on two fronts, and wished to overthrow the tsar to be spared fighting the Russians in the east. The German plan seemed to work at first, as after the triumph of the Soviet Revolution Lenin signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty (March 3, 1918), in which the new Bolshevik Russian regime (Hardach 1981, 233-234) not only pledged to cease hostilities against Germany, but also suffered significant territorial losses.The German generals did not take into account that Lenin considered the World War I a struggle between capitalists and that, consequently, he was convinced that German workers would not fight against their Russian comrades, but against the German oligarchies that had enslaved them. The Germans perceived the danger posed by the triumph of the Soviet Revolution too late and, as a result, ended up seeking an armistice to end World War I, signed on November 11, 1918.48 Just months later the Third International, or Kommintern (of International Communism) met, with the precise objective of fomenting proletarian revolution throughout the world.[1007]
In fact, in the year 1919 a wave of revolutionary processes swept through Europe, starting in recently defeated Germany, where in January of 1919 the Spartacist Uprising (January Strike) broke out, headed by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg (December 1918-January 1919), violently put down by the government of the Weimar Republic, under the leadership of the socialist Friedrich Ebert (Henig 2006, 8-12).
17.6