How did the Bolsheviks’ ideology change in the period between 1917 and 1941?
The ideological position of the Bolshevik Party changed significantly in the period from 1917 to 1941. Some of these changes were made by Lenin, but the majority were introduced by Stalin. He transformed Russia from a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, as Marx had envisioned to a ‘dictatorship over the proletariat’ – a totalitarian state.
When the Bolsheviks were preparing to seize power in 1917, they were firm adherents to Marxist ideology. Marx believed that all societies passed through a series of stages, the most important of which was capitalism. Its historical role was to build up the forces of production (in other words, to facilitate industrialisation). The problem with capitalism was that its ability to generate wealth was not matched by an ability to equitably distribute it. This meant that workers were exploited by those who owned the economy. Marx’s prediction was that workers would rise up in revolution and replace capitalism with socialism, a system in which workers would be paid their full value of their labour. In this new system, only the workers would exercise political power. There would therefore be a “dictatorship of the proletariat”.
Lenin made several important changes to Marx’s ideology. Because he was unwilling to wait until Russia had fully industrialised, he modified Marx’s view that revolution could only occur in the advanced capitalist nations. In his ‘April Theses’ of 1917, he asserted that nations in the early stages of capitalism were also ripe for socialist revolution; the industrialisation process could be completed once socialism had been achieved.
He also changed the political thrust of Marx’s theories, by arguing that revolutions could be staged not by the working class, but by a professional band of revolutionaries. The commitment and determination of these people would make up for the lack of a large working class in Russia. The corollary of this view was that the Bolshevik Party would have to rule Russia dictatorially until a large working class could be created. However, Lenin never intended that the Party itself should be run on dictatorial lines. He only ever used his powers of persuasion to convince his colleagues to accept his advice.
By the end of his life, Lenin had settled on NEP as the path to socialism in Russia. Begun as a stopgap measure to restore economic and political stability following the chaos of the Civil War, NEP proved popular with the peasants and workers. Lenin came to see it as an acceptable means of hastening Russia through its capitalist phase – something which was necessary before the nation could progress to pure socialism.
Stalin also made significant changes to Bolshevik ideology, for economic, political and personal reasons.
The first major change he made was to subordinate Marxism’s emphasis on internationalism to the development needs of the Russian state. Trotsky’s preference for ‘permanent revolution’ was replaced by the notion of ‘socialism in one country’. Stalin did this for economic and political reasons, since internationalism offered little prospect of success following the destruction of the German revolution. He also found it politically convenient, since it allowed him to attack Trotsky, thereby centralizing power in his own hands.
Once he had discredited his rivals, Stalin turned his energies to the issue of economic development. Like many other prominent Bolsheviks, he was dissatisfied with the progress of NEP, and believed it was incompatible with the principles of Marxism. In its place, he introduced the ‘Law of Industrialisation’, which stated that central planning would create the industrial development necessary to build socialism. He did this for economic and political reasons. Economically, it offered the best prospect of achieving fast economic growth; politically, it increased his own power and that of the Party.
With industrialization under way, Stalin attacked his political rivals. In preparation for this, he began asserting that class conflict would intensify after the revolution rather than decline. This provided an ideological rationale for the purges.
Linked to this change in Marxist ideology was Stalin’s insistence that the state would not wither away for the foreseeable future. Instead, it would need to assume almost total control over society and the economy, in order to defend the nation against internal enemies and ‘capitalist encirclement’. Stalin made this change for political reasons, since it justified his centralisation of power.
As the purges progressed, he also found himself able to eliminate the notion of collective leadership. Following Lenin’s death and Trotsky’s expulsion, he put an end to democratic decision-making within the Party. Then, with the death of Kirov, he dispensed with consultation altogether, and replaced it with a system of dictatorship. One-man rule was contrary to the principles of Marxism-Leninism, but Stalin turned the notion of ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ to his own ends, interpreting it to mean ‘dictatorship over the proletariat’.
Hence, by 1941, Stalin’s ideology had become a grotesque version of Marx’s. For him, theoretical issues had to be subsumed to the all-important concerns of centralising power and the industrialising the nation.If those things could be achieved within Marx’s original conception, then well and good. If not, wholesale changes had to be made.