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Much of this is easily debunked in accessible books and even YouTube videos. The original Bolsheviks had indeed read their Marx. They knew that a revolution nee

by junkscience2017 9y ago

Much of this is easily debunked in accessible books and even YouTube videos. The original Bolsheviks had indeed read their Marx. They knew that a revolution needed to happen not in Russia (which everyone knew was a pre-industrial state), but in industrialized Germany and potentially Britain. Merely decimating Russian society was never the end goal of the Bolsheviks. Russia was considered by Lenin to be a staging ground for the more meaningful revolutions to follow. It wasn't until Stalin emerged as the Soviet leader that this strategy was abandoned in favor of "socialism in one country", where the exploitation of pre-industrial Russia was deemed good enough. I doubt anyone would even describe Stalin's reign in religious terms (although his upbringing was deeply religious)...but just another manifestation of history's most reliable anti-pattern: the folly of investing total power in one person.

Jenya_ 9y ago
I agree, especially Stalin was fighting with Trotsky who promoted ideas of the permanent revolution.
aqsalose 9y ago
Does the article disagree with any of that? >Slezkine is by no means the first person to draw the analogy between the Bolsheviks and sectarians (Lenin himself is reported to have taken an interest in the Münster Anabaptists and Cromwell’s Puritans as he pondered Russia’s revolutionary potential in the early twentieth century), but no one before him has extracted such analytical mileage from it. This intellectual framework allows him to explain the Bolsheviks’ striving to bring self and society, individual and history, into perfect alignment; their relentless study and exegesis of their own version of scripture (Marx and Engels, later Lenin); their jealous guarding of their purity and integrity; and their embrace of violence, which was a welcome sign of the apocalyptic confrontation that would herald the “Real Day”. Maintaining ideological purity (Lenin's policy of no collaboration with any bourgeois or other leftist elements after the February revolution and the program of immediate communist revolution after the bourgeois one were considered foolish and impractical by many); the belief in the soon-to-come apocalyptic worldwide civil war and revolution (as you said yourself); and the embrace of violent narratives on how to go about it; all of this describes Lenin's policies ~1917 quite well.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by 'belief in the soon-to-come apocalyptic worldwide civil war and revolution'? As a Marxist, Lenin certainly expected revolution to break out around the world, but World War 1's global scope and vast destruction were incontrovertible facts which seemed like definite evidence in support of Marx's economic predictions. I mean, the destruction of so much life and wealth in that war was fundamentally irrational; it was a bunch of opportunist colonial powers vying for dominance over each other. It seems rather cheeky to label the Bolsheviks as a quasi-religious sect for acting in accordance with an economic hypothesis with several years of evidence to back it up. You may recall that when WW1 broke out most of the participants were (at least publicly) optimistic about it being a short honorable affair. Trotsky, who was an astute journalist, correctly predicted that the combination of trench construction and industrialization would instead lead to a long war of attrition, and was proved entirely right about this - though he did fail to predict the innovation of tank development that would eventually break the deadlock on the Western front. But I think you have to say the Bolsheviks had more evidence for their political-economic thesis going into the revolutionary year of 1917 than the 'great powers' did for their policy in 1914. Further, the Bolsheviks succeeded in taking power not by rushing into the fray at the first opportunity, but by sticking to their political position and waiting out the other parties after the February revolution. After all kerensky's government had failed to deliver on the goal of getting russia out of the war, and it seems odd to blame the Bolsheviks for sticking to their principles on this rather important issue. Slezkine might well be right to draw his sectarian analogy based on subsequent events, but it doesn't seem fair to apply this to the 1917 policies which seem eminently rational and strategic.

Jenya_ 9y ago

I agree, especially Stalin was fighting with Trotsky who promoted ideas of the permanent revolution.

aqsalose 9y ago

Does the article disagree with any of that? >Slezkine is by no means the first person to draw the analogy between the Bolsheviks and sectarians (Lenin himself is reported to have taken an interest in the Münster Anabaptists and Cromwell’s Puritans as he pondered Russia’s revolutionary potential in the early twentieth century), but no one before him has extracted such analytical mileage from it. This intellectual framework allows him to explain the Bolsheviks’ striving to bring self and society, individual and history, into perfect alignment; their relentless study and exegesis of their own version of scripture (Marx and Engels, later Lenin); their jealous guarding of their purity and integrity; and their embrace of violence, which was a welcome sign of the apocalyptic confrontation that would herald the “Real Day”. Maintaining ideological purity (Lenin's policy of no collaboration with any bourgeois or other leftist elements after the February revolution and the program of immediate communist revolution after the bourgeois one were considered foolish and impractical by many); the belief in the soon-to-come apocalyptic worldwide civil war and revolution (as you said yourself); and the embrace of violent narratives on how to go about it; all of this describes Lenin's policies ~1917 quite well.

anigbrowl 9y ago
I'm not sure what you mean by 'belief in the soon-to-come apocalyptic worldwide civil war and revolution'? As a Marxist, Lenin certainly expected revolution to break out around the world, but World War 1's global scope and vast destruction were incontrovertible facts which seemed like definite evidence in support of Marx's economic predictions. I mean, the destruction of so much life and wealth in that war was fundamentally irrational; it was a bunch of opportunist colonial powers vying for dominance over each other. It seems rather cheeky to label the Bolsheviks as a quasi-religious sect for acting in accordance with an economic hypothesis with several years of evidence to back it up. You may recall that when WW1 broke out most of the participants were (at least publicly) optimistic about it being a short honorable affair. Trotsky, who was an astute journalist, correctly predicted that the combination of trench construction and industrialization would instead lead to a long war of attrition, and was proved entirely right about this - though he did fail to predict the innovation of tank development that would eventually break the deadlock on the Western front. But I think you have to say the Bolsheviks had more evidence for their political-economic thesis going into the revolutionary year of 1917 than the 'great powers' did for their policy in 1914. Further, the Bolsheviks succeeded in taking power not by rushing into the fray at the first opportunity, but by sticking to their political position and waiting out the other parties after the February revolution. After all kerensky's government had failed to deliver on the goal of getting russia out of the war, and it seems odd to blame the Bolsheviks for sticking to their principles on this rather important issue. Slezkine might well be right to draw his sectarian analogy based on subsequent events, but it doesn't seem fair to apply this to the 1917 policies which seem eminently rational and strategic.