significant ideas of the period - autocracy, Marxism, communism, Leninism, Stalinism, Collectivisation

Question 1

Autocracy

Answer 1

• A system of government in which supreme political power to direct all the activities of the state is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularised mechanisms of popular control

Question 2

features of autocracy

Answer 2

o Rule by a supreme leader, who makes major decisions and has power of life and death over his subjects
o Well-developed system of ranks and privileges
o State Police used to support the state and deal with critics and opposition
o Lack of free speech and censorship
o No tradition of democratic political institutions

Question 3

• Autocracy under Tsar Nicholas II was implemented through:

Answer 3

o The government – made up of the Imperial Council (who were the Tsar’s personal advisers and answerable only to him); the Cabinet of Ministers and the Senate (who transformed the Tsar’s ideas into state laws). All three bodies simply implemented the Tsar’s will
o The bureaucracy – the civil service (who put official policies into practice) had regressed into a complex web of inefficiency and undeserved privilege
o The police – divided into two groups which included the Okhrana who were the Tsar’s secret police who protected the interests of the state and involved in surveillance of suspected enemies of tsarism. The second group maintained law and order among the people. In addition, the Cossacks were used to keep order during times of significant unrest
o The church – who played a crucial role in legitimising the Tsar’s autocratic powers (divine right to rule)

Question 4

Communism

Answer 4

• A radical form of socialism founded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
  o Note – Socialism is:
   An economic and social theory where the factors of production are owned by the public and operate for the welfare of all
   Socialists argued that the government should plan the economy rather than depend on free-market capitalism to do the job
   They argued that government control of factories, mines, railroads, and other key industries would end poverty and promote equality
   Public ownership, they believed, would help workers, who were at the mercy of their employers
• This new theory came to prominence in The Communist Manifesto published in 1848
• It proposed that history was a series of class struggles that would inevitably lead to the demise of capitalism and the rise of communism
• Believed the proletariat (industrial working class) would come to challenge and eventually overcome, the bourgeoisie (middle class and business owners) and result in the victory of the workers [see Marxism below]

Question 5

Marxism

Answer 5

• Marxism advocated:
  o the withering of the state apparatus
  o the dictatorship of the proletariat
  o the development of a classless society with communal control of the means of production

Question 6

Leninism

Answer 6

• Leninism advocated:
  o the use of a strong party to implement Marxist theory
  o the need for a state apparatus to operate in the transitional period
• Lenin saw this all as being possible in Russia
• Lenin believed they could bypass the capitalist stage and move straight to socialist society
• Party needs to plan the revolution and seize power as the ‘vanguard of the proletariat’
• When Leninism was put into practice, the results were the strengthening of the Party, the growth of the state apparatus and the introduction of measures which actually fostered the development of social classes
• Figes, p181 ‘Lenin is dead, Leninism lives,’ declared Zinoviev at Lenin’s funeral. The term ‘Leninism’ was thus used for the first time.

Question 7

Stalinism

Answer 7

• Stalinism involved revolutionary social and economic changes as well as massive repression and terror
• Key features of Stalinism:
  o Substantial inequality throughout society (hierarchy of ranks both within the party and outside)
  o Strict censorship of all media
  o No independent social or cultural organisations permitted
  o Extensive use of propaganda to put across the party’s messages and the desired image of the leader
  o Strong emphasis on nationalism and patriotism
  o Great emphasis on the role of the leader – an all knowing, omnipresent god-like figure
  o A system of privileges used to keep the party elite loyal to the leader
  o Tremendous personal power in the hands of the leader
  o Highly centralized control from Moscow over the party and the government
  o Terror used to control the population
  o A command economy – a centralised planning system with the emphasis on heavy industry
  o Low priority given to the needs of citizens
  o Minimal rights for workers
  o Fear and terror used to control any potential opposition inside the party
• Under Stalin, the power of the party was concentrated in the persons of Stalin and his handpicked Politburo
• Symbolic of the lack of influence of the party rank and file, party congresses met less and less frequently. State power, far from “withering away” after the revolution as Karl Marx had predicted, instead grew in strength
• Stalin’s personal dictatorship found reflection in the adulation that surrounded him; the reverence accorded Stalin in Soviet society gradually eclipsed that given to Lenin

Question 8

Collectivisation

Answer 8

• Process/idea of achieving socialism in the countryside
• For all members of the Party socialised farming meant collective farms
• Based on the principle that large units of production, organised along the lines of industrial enterprises and with access to mechanised equipment, were far more efficient and would permit the extraction of greater surpluses than the traditional strip farming practiced by Russian peasants
• Another idea was that the kulaks represented a counterweight to Soviet power in the villages and by their very nature constituted a “class-alien” element that had to be eliminated