INTRODUCTION

In a comprehensive study of communism, the Soviet Union requires special attention in regard to its past and present, its doctrines and practices, its domestic and foreign affairs, for three major reasons: Russia was the first country in the world to fall under Communist rule.

Second, since the time of the Bolshevik revolution, the Soviet Union has unquestionably been the directive base of the world Communist

movement.

Third, for the preceding two reasons, the Soviet Union serves the adherents of communism-today, as during the past forty years—as a pilot state.

The present volume, accordingly, is devoted to the emergence and growth of bolshevism-communism in Tsarist Russia, its seizure and power there, the transformation of the old regime into the Soviet government, and the history of the Soviet Union during the past four decades. It deals, in the main, with Soviet domestic affairs, leaving the subject of Soviet international relations to a later volume.

Since there exists no stronger weapon against communism than the simple truth, this volume is a factual presentation of developments in Russia. Great stress is placed on original statements by the founders of communism as well as pertinent comments by scholars in the free world. All quotations have been carefully checked and their sources are given for those readers encouraged to pursue further study.

Prior to February 14, 1918, Russia used the old-style Julian calendar which was 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar used in the Western World. Volume II of Facts on Communism presents all events in Russia between 1900 and February 14, 1918 according to our own Western calendar. Many old-style Russian calendar dates denoting events in the crucial period leading up to the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, however, have become familiar to Western readers; for example, the Bolsheviks' "October" revolution of 1917 occurred in October (on the 25th), only according to the Russian calendar; the corresponding date on our own Western calendar was November 7, 1917. For that reason, this volume will frequently give the reader the corresponding old-style Russian calendar date in brackets when referring to prerevolutionary and revolutionary events in Russia.

This volume is basically the work of Dr. David J. Dallin, whose broad knowledge of Soviet history particularly qualified him for the task of compiling and arranging the extensive quotations and for preparing the explanatory text.

Born in Russia and an eye witness to the Bolshevik revolution, Dr. Dallin was educated at the Universities of St. Petersburg, Berlin, and Heidelberg. He obtained a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. A resident of Germany and France in the 1920's and 1930's, he emigrated to the United States in 1940 and became a United States citizen.

In this country, Dr. Dallin has engaged extensively in lecturing and writing on the subject of Russian history and Soviet international relations. He is presently teaching a course in political science at the University of Pennsylvania.

Among his numerous books are: The Changing World of Soviet Russia; Soviet Espionage; Soviet Russia's Foreign Policy 1939-1942; Russia and Postwar Europe; The Big Three-The United States, Britain and Russia; The Real Soviet Russia; Soviet Russia and The Far East; The Rise of Russia in Asia; and The New Soviet Empire. His treatise, Soviet Foreign Policy After Stalin, will be published in January, 1961.

THE SOVIET UNION, FROM LENIN

TO KHRUSHCHEV

Chapter I. The Bolshevik Party

1. The Predecessors of Bolshevism

There has never been in Russia, or perhaps anywhere else, a political party whose birth, growth, and maturity were so closely tied to the personal history of a single leader as in the case of the Bolshevik Party and its creator, Vladimir Lenin. For about two decades, from its inception to the start of the First World War, Lenin was not only the supreme, but the only enduring and authoritative, leader. Others came and went; some associated themselves with him for a time only to turn against him afterward, or they were very young men of small stature who made no impact on the philosophy, literature, or strategy of their movement. From the very start Lenin wielded almost unlimited power in his party. This was a phenomenon so unique and unprecedented that many observers have come to the conclusion that without Lenin there would have been no Communist regime in Russia.

We must know Lenin if we are to understand the Soviet Communist system. Lenin himself was an heir of Russia's long revolutionary tradition and, like all the others who played a prominent role in the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, he took over ideas and philosophies from a long line of predecessors of earlier generations.

Revolutionary movements in Russia aimed at the overthrow of the autocratic political system had been in existence for 90 years before they achieved their goal in 1917. Up to about the end of the 19th century the movements had been restricted to the circles of the "intelligentsia," among whom university students played a substantial role; rarely were other groups of the population attracted in large numbers. The revolutionary movement was clandestine and operated in the underground; it spread antigovernment propaganda by means of books, pamphlets, leaflets, and verbally. Some groups of the underground called for popular uprisings and the assassination of the Tsar and members of his government. The government retaliated by imprisoning, deporting, and sometimes executing the revolutionists.

The movement did not advance on a steady course; it had ups and downs, failures and disappointments. From low points it would flare up again, each time with new leaders, a new philosophy and a new program and strategy. The most important revolutionary trend during the

second half of the 19th century was represented by the Populist groups (Narodniki), which tried to arouse the peasantry against the political system and thus achieve a socialist transformation of Russia before other countries even entered on the path of socialism. A part of the Populists, disappointed in the lack of popular support of the movement, turned to the strategy of "individual terror," that is, attempts on the lives of the Tsar and his aides. The most notorious terroristic act of these Populists, who called themselves Narodnaya Volya (The People's Will), was the assassination of Tsar Alexander II on March 1, 1881. An attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander III, son of Alexander II, was prepared in 1887, but the group was arrested before it could carry out the plot. One of the group, Lenin's elder brother Alexander, was hanged on May 8, 1887.

Mention must be made of two predecessors of later bolshevism, groups of revolutionaries of the period around 1870, whose emergence and influence are proof that the tendency toward a terroristic Communist dictatorship was a product of Russia's political history. These two groups, the Nechaev and Tkachev groups, were not Marxist and they did not seek the support of the working class. They believed in wellknit organizations of revolutionists, strict discipline, and activities of a conspiratorial type. Their goal was the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a minority rule.

Sergei Nechaev, who was active around 1870, was the head of the small People's Retribution group, or Society of the Axe, whose slogan was "Everything for the revolution. The end justifies the means."

Sergei Nechaev, a teacher in a parish school in Petersburg, emerged unexpectedly during the February and March student disorders in 1869.

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He was a man of great energy and could subjugate to his will not only people of his own age but older people as well.

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...

Each of the students he recruited was expected in turn to organize a circle. . . which was not let into the ultimate aims of the conspiracy; at the top there was supposedly a mysterious (actually fictitious) committee, of which Nechaev claimed to be the agent. To heighten the mysteriousness he told people, in confidence, that all Russia was covered with a network of secret societies.

the rules of the organization were very strict and detailed; the members were designated by numbers in order to hinder the uncovering of the conspiracy.1

'A. Thun, Istoriya Revolyutsionnykh Dvizhenii v Rossii (The History of Revolutionary Movements in Russia) (St. Petersburg: Biblioteka dlya Vsekh (Library for Everybody), n.d.), pp. 106-108. Taken from the report of court proceedings of the trial of the Nechaev group of July 1871.