Political systems in Europe

1
Political systems in Europe

• Communism of Lenin and Stalin, 1917 1953
• 7.11.2007
• Prof. Vesa Vares

2
October Revolution

• from pessimism to victory
• Revolution of February (March)
• SRs, KDs, Mensheviks
• strongholds of Bolsheviks the Soviets and the
  slogans for peace, land and bread
• ideological Lenin was also a political tactician
  the needs of the population and the demands of
  foreign policy (Germany)
• Marxist principles had to wait

3

• October Revolution (November) almost without
  bloodshed
• however, electoral support only about 25
  Lenin dismissed the Duma in January 1918
• Bolsheviks were still widely expected to be a
  temporary phenomen sort of Anarchists

4
Lenin in power

• power would not be surrendered nor multi-party
  systems be tolerated
• abolition of the Duma and other parties
• terror against class enemies
• Civil War
• however, a smallholders' country, NEP, some
  liberal reforms indicated that the goal was not
  totalitarianism
• literacy and electricity

5

• the image changed gradually
• new Ideal Society or godless, immoral,
  anti-individualist suppression
• Communist Party of the Soviet Union (b)
• World Revolution?
• ideologically a necessity
• a chance to take, if possible
• Komintern 1919
• Lenin aside in 1922, death in 1924

6

• Constitution of 1924
• "reciprocal confidence and peace, national
  liberty and equality, the pacific co-existence
  and the fraternal collaboration of peoples"
• some democratic principles, some emergency
  decrees
• Federation in principle all member states free
  to withdraw
• Paragraph 61 a seed for totalitarianism
• and of course only one Party

7
Stalin in power

• J. V. Dzugasvili
• background different from Lenin not an
  intellectual a practical man who came from the
  grassroots
• unsophisticated and vulgar but efficient as an
  administrator, an organizer (and an eliminator)
• Party Secretary
• seen retrospectively a huge success

8

• in 1917, Peoples' Comissar not yet in the
  forefront (Lenin and Trotski were the stars)
• after Lenin's death, gradually to absolute power
• change in the political climate intolerance,
  paranoia and mass eliminations of also the own
  ranks in the 1930's
• made easy for many to fall to Fascism / National
  Socialism

9

• both direct Terror, starvation in the Gulag and
  organized famine against "Kulaks" in the Ukraine
• Stalin Constitution of 1936 on paper, almost
  like a declaration of liberal policy and welfare
  state and some "conservative" values
• Socialism in one country

10

• 1929 a new revolutionary phase in the world
• failed to see the National Socialist threat
  "Social Fascists" the main enemies
• Popular Front after mid-1930's
• 1939 Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler
• 1941 the Great Patriotic War
• 1943 abolition of Komintern rehabilitation of
  the Orthodox Church

11

• collectivization and industrialization of the
  1930's
• purges and poor showing in the Winter War "a
  giant on clay feet"?
• after the Great Patriotic War, a Super Power
• Kominform 1947, Eastern bloc
• China 1949 not only welcome

12

• on the verge of new purges?
• Stalin's death in March 1953 the era of
  foundation, fight for survival and expansion was
  over