FREE ESSAY ON LENIN AND STALIN IDEOLOGY

LENIN AND STALIN IDEOLOGY

Compare and contrast the ideologies and the political and economic practice of Lenin and
Stalin.
Every state is based upon and driven by some ideology. Imperial Russia was based upon
autocratic absolutism for over 400 years. Following the Bolshevik seizure of power in
1917, a new era dawned upon Russia. For the next 36 years she would be in the hands of
two men that would attempt to apply a new, vastly different creed in ruling and
transforming this country. Vladimir Ilich Lenin, as the leader of the Bolshevik party,
ruled Russia from October 1917 till his death in January 1924. He was succeeded by Joseph
Vissarionovich Stalin, who also ruled until his death in March 1953. Both men claimed to
ascribe to the broad ideology of Socialism and Marxism; both were to develop their own
versions - later to be called Leninism and Stalinism; both were to attempt to practically
apply their respective ideologies whilst attempting to deal with a plethora of prevailing
conditions such as internal resistance and civil war, economic collapse and foreign
invasion. This paper will examine the similarities and differences between both the
ideologies, and the actual economic and political practice, of Lenin and Stalin's
beliefs.
A significant historiographical issue to be aware of in the comparison of Lenin and
Stalin is that between the two, Lenin was by far the greater political theorist and
ideologue and yet had much less effective time, 6 years, to put his ideas into practice .
Stalin on the other hand, was much more a man of action who produced comparatively far
less written material, but who exercised his power for almost 30 years. Also Lenin had
the unique opportunity to oversee the installation of a new order from scratch whereas
Stalin came to power with the foundations of the new state already laid and therefore had
the responsibility of continuing the work already begun. As such any comparison then,
will be somewhat uneven as we will compare not only actions to actions, but in Stalin's
case, his actions to Lenin's theory as well as to speculation, as to what Lenin may have
done in practice, if he had lived longer.
The main aspects of Lenin's ideology were outlined in a number of written works, the most
important of these were: "What Is To Be Done" (1902) and The State and Revolution (1917).
In "What Is To Be Done?" Lenin presented the idea that although the Russian peasantry was
a potential revolutionary force, it was not capable of developing a revolutionary
consciousness of its own. Marx had regarded revolutionary class consciousness to be the
natural and spontaneous product of the life experience of the working class . Lenin, by
contrast, concluded that "class political consciousness can be brought only from the
outside". Without the assistance of the revolutionary intelligentsia, he argued, the
working class could only develop a "trade-union consciousness" . 
Lenin's solution was a revolutionary vanguard party that would come not from the
peasantry or proletariat, but from the bourgeoisie and be composed of mainly middle class
intellectuals. (Strangely enough he seemed to fit this criteria quite snuggly!) This
party, he postulated, would have to be a small, closely knit, highly centralized, highly
disciplined, conspiratorial and quasi-military organization of professional
revolutionaries. It would have to be a fighting organization composed of men totally
dedicated to the destruction of the old and the establishment of a new social order .
Lenin said, "Give us an organization of revolutionaries, and we will turn Russia upside
down!" 
Also amongst the core principles of Lenin's vanguard party would be the use of violence
as an instrument of policy. Lenin stipulated the need for smashing and destroying the
bourgeois state and was not shy in saying in reference to class enemies (a term applied
to priests, Imperial Army officers, large and small businessmen, landowners and anyone
else who opposed his brand of socialism), that "one has to beat their heads in without
mercy." In this respect especially, as will be shown, Stalin was to be in complete
concordance with Lenin. 
The aspect of Lenin's ideology, from which Stalin was to later most significantly differ
and diverge from, was that regarding international socialist revolution. In 1915 Lenin
published two pamphlets, "The Collapse of the Second International" and "Socialism and
War". These were followed in1916 by his second major ideological work - "Imperialism, the
Highest Stage of Capitalism". The main thrust of these works was that, as exemplified by
the war, capitalism was in crisis and that now more than ever there was a need for
revolution not just in Russia, but across all of Europe. Lenin wrote, 
" To the question, 'What would the party of the proletariat do if the revolution placed
it in power in the present war?' we answer: 'We would propose peace to all the
belligerents…all the oppressed, and those who do not have equal rights…And we
would also raise in rebellion, the Socialist proletariat of Europe against their
governments. " 
It was Lenin's hope that once it had occurred in Russia, revolution could and should
spread to the rest of Europe, with Communist Russia playing a leading role in the
process. This was to remain a contentious issue amongst the Bolsheviks until well after
Lenin's death and was to engender a serious rift between Stalin and Trotsky, ultimately
leading to the latter's demise.
The first point that needs to be made in comparing Stalin's ideological stance to
Lenin's, is that politics did not cease after the Revolution and Stalin was also a
politician. Because Lenin in life, and more so in death, acquired god-like status as the
new state's liberator, leader and saviour, his heir had to be seen to pay him the due
respects. Stalin went to great lengths to be seen as a strict follower of Lenin's
ideological principles. Thus, delivering Lenin's funeral oration he said:
"We Communists are people of a special mould. We are made of special stuff. We are those
who form the army of the Great Proletarian Strategist, the army of Comrade Lenin. There
is nothing higher than belonging to this army…In leaving us Comrade Lenin abjured
us to hold high and keep pure the great title of member of the party. We vow to thee
Comrade Lenin, that we shall honourably fulfill this thy commandment." 
On numerous points Stalin fully concurred with Lenin. Service remarks that as a young
Bolshevik, it was reported that Stalin reacted with great enthusiasm to themes of
dictatorship, terror, modernity, progress and leadership in Lenin's writings. Once in
power he stressed that the party was the institutional cornerstone of the October
Revolution. This had been Lenin's attitude in practice but not in his theoretical works.
In 1924 Stalin gave a series of lectures on The Foundations of Leninism that gave
expression to this. 
Probably Stalin's most notable ideological contribution was The History of the All-Union
Communist Party: A Short Course that was published in 1935. In A Short Course , Stalin
presented his variety of socialism as a direct, scientific development of thought begun
by Marx and Engels and continued by Lenin and through to himself. He presented his
socialism not only as being pure, but as also the only acceptable variant of socialism.
In this work, Stalin can be seen as the ultimate ideological pragmatist. Unlike Lenin,
who once he had crystallized his ideology remained a "true believer", Stalin's ideology
also served an ulterior purpose of reinforcing his legitimacy and authority. Furthermore
A Short Course was not just purely an ideological work but a political justification as
its final chapter dealt with "The Liquidation of the Remnants of the
Bukharinite-Trostskyist Gang of Spies, Wreckers, and Traitors to the Country". Here
Stalin presented himself as defender of the Faith against the "heretics" - in reality his
political enemies. 
The most serious deviations in A Short Course was regarding Lenin's beliefs that after
the revolution a classless society would come into being and that the state would wither
away . Stalin stated that although a new social and economic order had been built, there
still existed 3 classes: the working class, the peasantry and the working intelligentsia
eg. administrators, teachers. These 3 classes however, were not in conflict and had
"non-antagonistic" interests and drew common benefit from the state's provision of
employment, education, health care, nutrition and shelter. Also, no indication was given
that this social structure would change in the near future. In respect to the withering
away of the state, Stalin put forward his official line at the Eighteenth Party Congress
in 1939: 
"Will our state be retained also in the period of Communism? Yes, it will be retained
unless capitalist encirclement is liquidated and unless the danger of a military attack
from abroad is liquidated also." 
Given his obsession with power and the unlikelihood of either of these two preconditions
becoming reality at anytime near to when he was speaking, it can be confidently said that
Stalin had no intention of ever ushering in a stateless society in his lifetime. 
One of the most major points of doctrine where Stalin openly differed from Lenin was
regarding the issue of Worldwide Socialist Revolution. As we have seen, Lenin believed
that the Russian Revolution would spark off socialist revolutions across Europe. This did
not occur and in December of 1924, Stalin proposed his idea of "Socialism in One Country
". This idea suggested that basically it was not necessary for the Bolsheviks to have
International Revolution as a major policy priority and that the focus should be on
peaceful coexistence with the West, whilst building a Socialist society at 
home. Once again, below this difference of ideology was a deep and confusing power play
between Stalin and Trotsky . A number of sources speak of this as being the real reason
for Stalin's deviation. Stalin's most renowned biographer Isaac Deutscher gives us some
insight when he says:
"His immediate purpose was to discredit Trotsky and to prove for the nth time that
Trotsky was no Leninist. Searching in Trotsky's past, the triumvirs came across the
theory of permanent revolution. They started a polemic against it:; and it was in the
course of that polemic that Stalin arrived at his formula [of socialism in one country]"

and
"Now the operative part of Stalin's thesis of Socialism in One Country, the thing that
was really new and striking in it, was the assertion of the self-sufficiency of the
Russian Revolution. All the rest was a repetition of traditional Bolshevik
truisms…[It] represented a radical revision of the party's attitude. But the
revision was undertaken in a manner that seemed to deny the very fact of revision and to
represent it as straight continuation of an orthodox line of thought. We shall not lead
the reader farther into the thick of this dogmatic battle. Suffice it to say that Stalin
did his best to graft it on to the body of doctrine he had inherited from Lenin." 
It can be seen then, that in the area of ideology the main difference between Lenin and
Stalin is that Stalin was far greatly inclined to subjecting purity of doctrine to
political expediency. It is true Stalin operated in an atmosphere that was a lot more
highly charged in respect to his hold on power (as "Father of the Revolution" Lenin's
status was unchallenged) and with serious opponents like Trotsky, anything, even ideology
could become a malleable weapon in the political battle. Certainly this would be
something that Stalin would develop into an art form - one that peaked at the show trials
of the mid 30's. Every enemy was a "Bukharinite" or a "Trotskite" or some other political
shade of heresy to the one true creed of Stalinism. We can only speculate how Lenin's
theorizing would have changed had he lived longer and possibly been faced with the
challenges Stalin was. Ultimately the essential fact is that ideology is one thing and
practice is another. One is theory and the other is reality and THEORY rarely translates
too precisely into REALITY. Let us now examine and compare how Lenin and Stalin put into
practice, that what they preached.
Lenin's political practice was characterized by the elimination of all opposition and
entrenchment of the one-party police state, the institutionalization of violence and
terror as an instrument of policy, and the formation of the USSR as the successor of
Imperial Russia. Alongside these he instituted the economic practices that became known
as War Communism and the New Economic Policy.
It did not take long for the true nature of Leninism to reveal itself in practice. As
early as 27th October all anti-Bolshevik newspapers were closed down. On the 18th of
January 1918, the freely elected Constituent Assembly met at the Tauride Palace. In the
Assembly the Bolsheviks held only 175 seats while their rivals, the Socialist
Revolutionaries held 410. On the 19th the Assembly was permanently dissolved on Lenin's
orders by armed Bolshevik guards. Laver observes that Lenin told Trotsky that the
dissolution of the Assembly,
"Means a complete and frank liquidation of the idea of democracy by the idea of
dictatorship. It will serve as a good lesson… Only scoundrels and imbeciles can
think that the proletariat must first win a majority of votes in elections" 
Likewise Maclean also quotes Lenin as saying in regard to the same matter that:
"Now is not the time for parliamentary illusions!" 
It is clear from this that Lenin was in no doubt about the stance that the Bolsheviks
would take to democracy and opposition. There would be no power sharing with any other
political groups and this included even other socialists who were not Bolsheviks. In this
we see the beginning of the one party state. What followed soon after was all in the same
spirit. December 1917 saw the creation of the All-Russian Commission for Suppression of
Counter-Revolution, Sabotage and Speculation (shortened to its Russian acronym - CHEKA).
The Cheka quickly became one of the main instruments of terror and coercion. By January
the arrest, imprisonment and execution without trial of political opponents was
commenced. In response to a letter to a newspaper by his old friend and respected writer
Maxim Gorky criticizing the Bolshevik actions, Lenin wrote:
"As the State is only a transitional institution which we are obliged to use in the
revolutionary struggle in order to crush our opponents forcibly, it is pure absurdity to
speak of a Free People's State. During the period when the proletariat still needs the
State, it does not require it in the interests of freedom, but in the interests of
crushing its antagonists." 
One of the most defining characteristics of Lenin's political practice was the use of
violence. The ultimate expression of this was the formation of the Red Army that would
conduct a ruthless Civil War against all opposition from 1918 to 1921. 
In terms of the political structuring, the new state used the various town and country
Soviets as the organs of government. Each local Soviet elected delegates to the next
level of Soviets - district, provincial, or republican. Supreme power was held by the
All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which elected a central executive committee to exercise
power between meetings. The executive committee in turn appointed a cabinet, the
Politburo which was headed by Lenin. 
In the early days, a number of sources tell us that although the Party was dictatorial,
Lenin was not a dictator in the Party and allowed some freedom of opinion and dissent
within it. Laver states: 
"His practice was to allow free debate amongst colleagues, although he disliked bowing to
a majority if he demurred on any particular issue." 
Likewise Christian notes that:
"In the early months after the revolution, the Party was loosely organized, debate and
controversy were endless. Contacts between the center and the local Party cells were
sporadic. And local Party officials frequently rejected, criticized or ignored orders
from the center. At the center itself, the crucial decisions - especially over
Brest-Litovsk - provoked bitter controversy and debate". 
This "liberal" situation was permanently changed by the demands of the Civil War. By the
eighth Party Congress in March 1919, Lenin decreed in his seventh point that:
"The Party finds itself in a situation in which the strictest centralism and most severe
discipline are an absolute necessity. All decisions of a higher body are absolutely
obligatory for lower ones. Every decree must be implemented…In this sense outright
military discipline is needed in the Party in the present epoch. All party enterprises
which are suitable for centralization (publishing, propaganda, etc) must be centralized
for the good of the cause. All conflicts are decided by the corresponding higher party
body." 
As will be shown later, it was precisely in this Leninist trend of centralization that
the true seeds of Stalinist dictatorship were sown. 
One of the most overlooked political legacies of Lenin, was the creation of the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics as a geopolitical entity on the 1st of January 1923. This was
one rare issue where there was a practical disagreement between Lenin and Stalin in
regard to a matter of policy, while the former was still alive. Stalin, who headed the
People's Commissariat for Nationalities, wished to deprive the Soviet republics of even
their formal independence by turning them into autonomous republics within the Russian
Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Under his model, Ukraine, Belorussia,
Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia would be part of an enlarged RSFSR. Service remarks that
Lenin thought Stalin's project smacked of Russian imperial dominance and his counter
proposal was to federate the RSFSR on equal terms with the other republics. As we know it
was this proposal that came to pass. 
Lenin's first move in the sphere of economics was the decrees on land and on workers'
control of industry which abolished private property in productive resources (above all
in land and capital), which had been the economic foundation of the old ruling group.
These decrees effectively abolished the two basic classes of tsarist Russia - the landed
nobility and the moneyed bourgeoisie. At this time the Russian economy which was in very
bad shape, was further strained by the worsening civil war. This drastic situation
necessitated drastic action from Lenin and the economic program he instituted became
known as War Communism. 
War Communism was characterized by increased central control of the economy, the
nationalization of banks, factories and the abolition of private trade. In the country,
where it was more difficult for the Bolsheviks to gain control, Lenin sanctioned the
unrestrained use of violence. The forced requisitioning of grain for below market prices
became state policy and this in turn led to terrible conflict with the peasantry. It was
at this time that term "kulak" (literally "fist") was coined for those peasants who
refused to co-operate. It was the crime of being a "kulak" that was to cost over 5
million people their lives, most of them as we shall see, during the rule of Stalin. 
By 1920 the civil war had seen a Red victory at the price of an economy in complete
collapse. It took a rebellion at the Kronstadt naval base (that was of course viciously
suppressed) to convince Lenin that the continuation of War Communism would lead to
disaster. "The flash which lit it up reality better than anything else," he called it.
The response was something that would show, that even someone as obsessed with ideology
as Lenin, would make popular concessions and even go against ideology, if it was
expedient to do so. In March 1921, with the approval of the 10th Congress of the
Communist Party, Lenin announced the introduction of what became known as the New
Economic Policy (NEP). The NEP was a retreat from the brutalities of War Communism and
meant a partial return to capitalism. It was characterized by the abandonment of grain
requisitioning, lowering of taxes and the resumption of local private trade. The
government still controlled the "commanding heights" - large industry, finance, railways
and foreign trade but many other areas were allowed back into private hands.
A good comparison of a similar tactical retreat in Stalin's time, can be seen in Stalin's
reopening of the churches in World War Two. For many years Stalin savagely persecuted the
Russian Orthodox Church and actively encouraged militant atheism as state policy. However
seeing the dire need of the people for true moral/spiritual invigoration after the Nazi
invasion, he reopened the churches and even allowed the election of a new Patriarch.
Stalin too, could be flexible if it was expedient to do so. Let us now examine the
political and economic practices of Stalin compared to those of his "master".
"Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, has unlimited authority concentrated in
his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority
with sufficient caution." - Lenin 1923 
Although he was never to know it, Lenin had only picked at the tip of the iceberg with
these words. After his death in 1924, Stalin began to ruthlessly consolidate his power
using the post of Party General Secretary. This is because this post gave him the power
to appoint and dismiss all Part functionaries. In the next few years he set about
eliminating his rivals on various ideological grounds. Trotsky was removed from the
Politburo in 1926 and expelled from the USSR in 1929. Likewise Kamenev and Zinoviev were
also expelled. In this instance we see the application of political tactics that were to
characterize Stalin's rule - the removal of opposition on trumped up charges of
subversion, spying, sabotage and ideological heresy. The accused were demonized as
enemies of the state. The secret police - NKVD, were given unlimited power and served
Stalin in total obedience. By 1930 Christian tells us, Stalin was already undisputed
"boss" of Party and government. 
The greatest change came in 1934. According to Robert Conquest, writer of the definitive
work on the period, The Great Terror - A Reassessment, before 1934 there was still some
underground opposition to Stalin (eg. Mikhail Ryutin) and the Politburo as the highest
organ of both Party and state could still overrule him. 
In 1934 with the shooting of Leningrad Party chief Sergei Kirov, Stalin launched an
unprecedented campaign of terror to purge the party of all opposition. In the next 5
years under Stalin's orders, the NKVD arrested and executed thousands of party officials.
Kamenev and Zinoviev were show trialled and executed. In 1937 Stalin moved into a
position of complete dictatorship with the subjection of the Politburo to a special
commission of which he was head and on which sat only the most loyal and fully obedient
lackeys - namely Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich and Yezhov. From this point until his
death, Stalin's power was absolute. As Maclean describes:
"It was greater power than that exercised by Lenin or by any of his Imperial
predecessors, power unquestioned and absolute, power ruthlessly used, power that reached
out into the remote valleys of the Caucasus and Pamirs and across the frozen Siberian
tundra, power supported by an active and ubiquitous secret police. 'Imagine Jenghiz Khan
with a telephone' Tolstoi had said towards the end of his life. His prophecy had more
than been fulfilled". 
On the political level Stalin certainly became far more powerful than Lenin was. Lenin
was never an absolute dictator and mostly operated as leader of the Party but still
within it. With him the dictatorship was of the party and not in spite of it. Stalin
simply left the Party behind in a blaze of fear and terror. Eventually he hovered above
it. Unlike Lenin who was completely against his deification before or after his death,
Stalin in life actively encouraged his "Cult of Personality", that would later be so
denounced by Khrushchev. In the main, the use of violence and terror is a major
similarity in Lenin and Stalin's political practice with the only difference being that
Lenin used it mainly against external opponents while Stalin used it against everyone and
on an infinitely greater scale. "One death is a tragedy," he would say. "A million just
statistics." The best example of Stalin's violent excess can be seen in his economic
practice. 
The main events of Stalin's economic practice were the 5 year plans, collectivization and
industrialization. In November 1929, Stalin published an article called The Great Turn.
His main argument was that for the USSR to move into the modern age she had to
industrialize and the agrarian problem had to be solved once and for all. His solution
was to collectivize all agriculture and to destroy the "kulaks" as a class. Over the next
six years the Russian and Soviet peoples endured a holocaust comparable to that suffered
by the Jews in World War 2, one that would cost over 5 million lives. The language Stalin
used was as evil as any denunciation of the Jews by Hitler:
"To take the offensive against the kulaks means to deal the kulak class such a blow that
it will no longer rise to its feet…Of course the kulak can't be admitted to a
collective farm. He can't because he's an accursed enemy…" 
Compare and contrast the ideologies and the political and economic practice of Lenin and
Stalin.
Every state is based upon and driven by some ideology. Imperial Russia was based upon
autocratic absolutism for over 400 years. Following the Bolshevik seizure of power in
1917, a new era dawned upon Russia. For the next 36 years she would be in the hands of
two men that would attempt to apply a new, vastly different creed in ruling and
transforming this country. Vladimir Ilich Lenin, as the leader of the Bolshevik party,
ruled Russia from October 1917 till his death in January 1924. He was succeeded by Joseph
Vissarionovich Stalin, who also ruled until his death in March 1953. Both men claimed to
ascribe to the broad ideology of Socialism and Marxism; both were to develop their own
versions - later to be called Leninism and Stalinism; both were to attempt to practically
apply their respective ideologies whilst attempting to deal with a plethora of prevailing
conditions such as internal resistance and civil war, economic collapse and foreign
invasion. This paper will examine the similarities and differences between both the
ideologies, and the actual economic and political practice, of Lenin and Stalin's
beliefs.
A significant historiographical issue to be aware of in the comparison of Lenin and
Stalin is that between the two, Lenin was by far the greater political theorist and
ideologue and yet had much less effective time, 6 years, to put his ideas into practice .
Stalin on the other hand, was much more a man of action who produced comparatively far
less written material, but who exercised his power for almost 30 years. Also Lenin had
the unique opportunity to oversee the installation of a new order from scratch whereas
Stalin came to power with the foundations of the new state already laid and therefore had
the responsibility of continuing the work already begun. As such any comparison then,
will be somewhat uneven as we will compare not only actions to actions, but in Stalin's
case, his actions to Lenin's theory as well as to speculation, as to what Lenin may have
done in practice, if he had lived longer.
The main aspects of Lenin's ideology were outlined in a number of written works, the most
important of these were: "What Is To Be Done" (1902) and The State and Revolution (1917).
In "What Is To Be Done?" Lenin presented the idea that although the Russian peasantry was
a potential revolutionary force, it was not capable of developing a revolutionary
consciousness of its own. Marx had regarded revolutionary class consciousness to be the
natural and spontaneous product of the life experience of the working class . Lenin, by
contrast, concluded that "class political consciousness can be brought only from the
outside". Without the assistance of the revolutionary intelligentsia, he argued, the
working class could only develop a "trade-union consciousness" . 
Lenin's solution was a revolutionary vanguard party that would come not from the
peasantry or proletariat, but from the bourgeoisie and be composed of mainly middle class
intellectuals. (Strangely enough he seemed to fit this criteria quite snuggly!) This
party, he postulated, would have to be a small, closely knit, highly centralized, highly
disciplined, conspiratorial and quasi-military organization of professional
revolutionaries. It would have to be a fighting organization composed of men totally
dedicated to the destruction of the old and the establishment of a new social order .
Lenin said, "Give us an organization of revolutionaries, and we will turn Russia upside
down!" 
Also amongst the core principles of Lenin's vanguard party would be the use of violence
as an instrument of policy. Lenin stipulated the need for smashing and destroying the
bourgeois state and was not shy in saying in reference to class enemies (a term applied
to priests, Imperial Army officers, large and small businessmen, landowners and anyone
else who opposed his brand of socialism), that "one has to beat their heads in without
mercy." In this respect especially, as will be shown, Stalin was to be in complete
concordance with Lenin. 
The aspect of Lenin's ideology, from which Stalin was to later most significantly differ
and diverge from, was that regarding international socialist revolution. In 1915 Lenin
published two pamphlets, "The Collapse of the Second International" and "Socialism and
War". These were followed in1916 by his second major ideological work - "Imperialism, the
Highest Stage of Capitalism". The main thrust of these works was that, as exemplified by
the war, capitalism was in crisis and that now more than ever there was a need for
revolution not just in Russia, but across all of Europe. Lenin wrote, 
" To the question, 'What would the party of the proletariat do if the revolution placed
it in power in the present war?' we answer: 'We would propose peace to all the
belligerents…all the oppressed, and those who do not have equal rights…And we
would also raise in rebellion, the Socialist proletariat of Europe against their
governments. " 
It was Lenin's hope that once it had occurred in Russia, revolution could and should
spread to the rest of Europe, with Communist Russia playing a leading role in the
process. This was to remain a contentious issue amongst the Bolsheviks until well after
Lenin's death and was to engender a serious rift between Stalin and Trotsky, ultimately
leading to the latter's demise.
The first point that needs to be made in comparing Stalin's ideological stance to
Lenin's, is that politics did not cease after the Revolution and Stalin was also a
politician. Because Lenin in life, and more so in death, acquired god-like status as the
new state's liberator, leader and saviour, his heir had to be seen to pay him the due
respects. Stalin went to great lengths to be seen as a strict follower of Lenin's
ideological principles. Thus, delivering Lenin's funeral oration he said:
"We Communists are people of a special mould. We are made of special stuff. We are those
who form the army of the Great Proletarian Strategist, the army of Comrade Lenin. There
is nothing higher than belonging to this army…In leaving us Comrade Lenin abjured
us to hold high and keep pure the great title of member of the party. We vow to thee
Comrade Lenin, that we shall honourably fulfill this thy commandment." 
On numerous points Stalin fully concurred with Lenin. Service remarks that as a young
Bolshevik, it was reported that Stalin reacted with great enthusiasm to themes of
dictatorship, terror, modernity, progress and leadership in Lenin's writings. Once in
power he stressed that the party was the institutional cornerstone of the October
Revolution. This had been Lenin's attitude in practice but not in his theoretical works.
In 1924 Stalin gave a series of lectures on The Foundations of Leninism that gave
expression to this. 
Probably Stalin's most notable ideological contribution was The History of the All-Union
Communist Party: A Short Course that was published in 1935. In A Short Course , Stalin
presented his variety of socialism as a direct, scientific development of thought begun
by Marx and Engels and continued by Lenin and through to himself. He presented his
socialism not only as being pure, but as also the only acceptable variant of socialism.
In this work, Stalin can be seen as the ultimate ideological pragmatist. Unlike Lenin,
who once he had crystallized his ideology remained a "true believer", Stalin's ideology
also served an ulterior purpose of reinforcing his legitimacy and authority. Furthermore
A Short Course was not just purely an ideological work but a political justification as
its final chapter dealt with "The Liquidation of the Remnants of the
Bukharinite-Trostskyist Gang of Spies, Wreckers, and Traitors to the Country". Here
Stalin presented himself as defender of the Faith against the "heretics" - in reality his
political enemies. 
The most serious deviations in A Short Course was regarding Lenin's beliefs that after
the revolution a classless society would come into being and that the state would wither
away . Stalin stated that although a new social and economic order had been built, there
still existed 3 classes: the working class, the peasantry and the working intelligentsia
eg. administrators, teachers. These 3 classes however, were not in conflict and had
"non-antagonistic" interests and drew common benefit from the state's provision of
employment, education, health care, nutrition and shelter. Also, no indication was given
that this social structure would change in the near future. In respect to the withering
away of the state, Stalin put forward his official line at the Eighteenth Party Congress
in 1939: 
"Will our state be retained also in the period of Communism? Yes, it will be retained
unless capitalist encirclement is liquidated and unless the danger of a military attack
from abroad is liquidated also." 
Given his obsession with power and the unlikelihood of either of these two preconditions
becoming reality at anytime near to when he was speaking, it can be confidently said that
Stalin had no intention of ever ushering in a stateless society in his lifetime. 
One of the most major points of doctrine where Stalin openly differed from Lenin was
regarding the issue of Worldwide Socialist Revolution. As we have seen, Lenin believed
that the Russian Revolution would spark off socialist revolutions across Europe. This did
not occur and in December of 1924, Stalin proposed his idea of "Socialism in One Country
". This idea suggested that basically it was not necessary for the Bolsheviks to have
International Revolution as a major policy priority and that the focus should be on
peaceful coexistence with the West, whilst building a Socialist society at 
home. Once again, below this difference of ideology was a deep and confusing power play
between Stalin and Trotsky . A number of sources speak of this as being the real reason
for Stalin's deviation. Stalin's most renowned biographer Isaac Deutscher gives us some
insight when he says:
"His immediate purpose was to discredit Trotsky and to prove for the nth time that
Trotsky was no Leninist. Searching in Trotsky's past, the triumvirs came across the
theory of permanent revolution. They started a polemic against it:; and it was in the
course of that polemic that Stalin arrived at his formula [of socialism in one country]"

and
"Now the operative part of Stalin's thesis of Socialism in One Country, the thing that
was really new and striking in it, was the assertion of the self-sufficiency of the
Russian Revolution. All the rest was a repetition of traditional Bolshevik
truisms…[It] represented a radical revision of the party's attitude. But the
revision was undertaken in a manner that seemed to deny the very fact of revision and to
represent it as straight continuation of an orthodox line of thought. We shall not lead
the reader farther into the thick of this dogmatic battle. Suffice it to say that Stalin
did his best to graft it on to the body of doctrine he had inherited from Lenin." 
It can be seen then, that in the area of ideology the main difference between Lenin and
Stalin is that Stalin was far greatly inclined to subjecting purity of doctrine to
political expediency. It is true Stalin operated in an atmosphere that was a lot more
highly charged in respect to his hold on power (as "Father of the Revolution" Lenin's
status was unchallenged) and with serious opponents like Trotsky, anything, even ideology
could become a malleable weapon in the political battle. Certainly this would be
something that Stalin would develop into an art form - one that peaked at the show trials
of the mid 30's. Every enemy was a "Bukharinite" or a "Trotskite" or some other political
shade of heresy to the one true creed of Stalinism. We can only speculate how Lenin's
theorizing would have changed had he lived longer and possibly been faced with the
challenges Stalin was. Ultimately the essential fact is that ideology is one thing and
practice is another. One is theory and the other is reality and THEORY rarely translates
too precisely into REALITY. Let us now examine and compare how Lenin and Stalin put into
practice, that what they preached.
Lenin's political practice was characterized by the elimination of all opposition and
entrenchment of the one-party police state, the institutionalization of violence and
terror as an instrument of policy, and the formation of the USSR as the successor of
Imperial Russia. Alongside these he instituted the economic practices that became known
as War Communism and the New Economic Policy.
It did not take long for the true nature of Leninism to reveal itself in practice. As
early as 27th October all anti-Bolshevik newspapers were closed down. On the 18th of
January 1918, the freely elected Constituent Assembly met at the Tauride Palace. In the
Assembly the Bolsheviks held only 175 seats while their rivals, the Socialist
Revolutionaries held 410. On the 19th the Assembly was permanently dissolved on Lenin's
orders by armed Bolshevik guards. Laver observes that Lenin told Trotsky that the
dissolution of the Assembly,
"Means a complete and frank liquidation of the idea of democracy by the idea of
dictatorship. It will serve as a good lesson… Only scoundrels and imbeciles can
think that the proletariat must first win a majority of votes in elections" 
Likewise Maclean also quotes Lenin as saying in regard to the same matter that:
"Now is not the time for parliamentary illusions!" 
It is clear from this that Lenin was in no doubt about the stance that the Bolsheviks
would take to democracy and opposition. There would be no power sharing with any other
political groups and this included even other socialists who were not Bolsheviks. In this
we see the beginning of the one party state. What followed soon after was all in the same
spirit. December 1917 saw the creation of the All-Russian Commission for Suppression of
Counter-Revolution, Sabotage and Speculation (shortened to its Russian acronym - CHEKA).
The Cheka quickly became one of the main instruments of terror and coercion. By January
the arrest, imprisonment and execution without trial of political opponents was
commenced. In response to a letter to a newspaper by his old friend and respected writer
Maxim Gorky criticizing the Bolshevik actions, Lenin wrote:
"As the State is only a transitional institution which we are obliged to use in the
revolutionary struggle in order to crush our opponents forcibly, it is pure absurdity to
speak of a Free People's State. During the period when the proletariat still needs the
State, it does not require it in the interests of freedom, but in the interests of
crushing its antagonists." 
One of the most defining characteristics of Lenin's political practice was the use of
violence. The ultimate expression of this was the formation of the Red Army that would
conduct a ruthless Civil War against all opposition from 1918 to 1921. 
In terms of the political structuring, the new state used the various town and country
Soviets as the organs of government. Each local Soviet elected delegates to the next
level of Soviets - district, provincial, or republican. Supreme power was held by the
All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which elected a central executive committee to exercise
power between meetings. The executive committee in turn appointed a cabinet, the
Politburo which was headed by Lenin. 
In the early days, a number of sources tell us that although the Party was dictatorial,
Lenin was not a dictator in the Party and allowed some freedom of opinion and dissent
within it. Laver states: 
"His practice was to allow free debate amongst colleagues, although he disliked bowing to
a majority if he demurred on any particular issue." 
Likewise Christian notes that:
"In the early months after the revolution, the Party was loosely organized, debate and
controversy were endless. Contacts between the center and the local Party cells were
sporadic. And local Party officials frequently rejected, criticized or ignored orders
from the center. At the center itself, the crucial decisions - especially over
Brest-Litovsk - provoked bitter controversy and debate". 
This "liberal" situation was permanently changed by the demands of the Civil War. By the
eighth Party Congress in March 1919, Lenin decreed in his seventh point that:
"The Party finds itself in a situation in which the strictest centralism and most severe
discipline are an absolute necessity. All decisions of a higher body are absolutely
obligatory for lower ones. Every decree must be implemented…In this sense outright
military discipline is needed in the Party in the present epoch. All party enterprises
which are suitable for centralization (publishing, propaganda, etc) must be centralized
for the good of the cause. All conflicts are decided by the corresponding higher party
body." 
As will be shown later, it was precisely in this Leninist trend of centralization that
the true seeds of Stalinist dictatorship were sown. 
One of the most overlooked political legacies of Lenin, was the creation of the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics as a geopolitical entity on the 1st of January 1923. This was
one rare issue where there was a practical disagreement between Lenin and Stalin in
regard to a matter of policy, while the former was still alive. Stalin, who headed the
People's Commissariat for Nationalities, wished to deprive the Soviet republics of even
their formal independence by turning them into autonomous republics within the Russian
Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Under his model, Ukraine, Belorussia,
Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia would be part of an enlarged RSFSR. Service remarks that
Lenin thought Stalin's project smacked of Russian imperial dominance and his counter
proposal was to federate the RSFSR on equal terms with the other republics. As we know it
was this proposal that came to pass. 
Lenin's first move in the sphere of economics was the decrees on land and on workers'
control of industry which abolished private property in productive resources (above all
in land and capital), which had been the economic foundation of the old ruling group.
These decrees effectively abolished the two basic classes of tsarist Russia - the landed
nobility and the moneyed bourgeoisie. At this time the Russian economy which was in very
bad shape, was further strained by the worsening civil war. This drastic situation
necessitated drastic action from Lenin and the economic program he instituted became
known as War Communism. 
War Communism was characterized by increased central control of the economy, the
nationalization of banks, factories and the abolition of private trade. In the country,
where it was more difficult for the Bolsheviks to gain control, Lenin sanctioned the
unrestrained use of violence. The forced requisitioning of grain for below market prices
became state policy and this in turn led to terrible conflict with the peasantry. It was
at this time that term "kulak" (literally "fist") was coined for those peasants who
refused to co-operate. It was the crime of being a "kulak" that was to cost over 5
million people their lives, most of them as we shall see, during the rule of Stalin. 
By 1920 the civil war had seen a Red victory at the price of an economy in complete
collapse. It took a rebellion at the Kronstadt naval base (that was of course viciously
suppressed) to convince Lenin that the continuation of War Communism would lead to
disaster. "The flash which lit it up reality better than anything else," he called it.
The response was something that would show, that even someone as obsessed with ideology
as Lenin, would make popular concessions and even go against ideology, if it was
expedient to do so. In March 1921, with the approval of the 10th Congress of the
Communist Party, Lenin announced the introduction of what became known as the New
Economic Policy (NEP). The NEP was a retreat from the brutalities of War Communism and
meant a partial return to capitalism. It was characterized by the abandonment of grain
requisitioning, lowering of taxes and the resumption of local private trade. The
government still controlled the "commanding heights" - large industry, finance, railways
and foreign trade but many other areas were allowed back into private hands.
A good comparison of a similar tactical retreat in Stalin's time, can be seen in Stalin's
reopening of the churches in World War Two. For many years Stalin savagely persecuted the
Russian Orthodox Church and actively encouraged militant atheism as state policy. However
seeing the dire need of the people for true moral/spiritual invigoration after the Nazi
invasion, he reopened the churches and even allowed the election of a new Patriarch.
Stalin too, could be flexible if it was expedient to do so. Let us now examine the
political and economic practices of Stalin compared to those of his "master".
"Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, has unlimited authority concentrated in
his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority
with sufficient caution." - Lenin 1923 
Although he was never to know it, Lenin had only picked at the tip of the iceberg with
these words. After his death in 1924, Stalin began to ruthlessly consolidate his power
using the post of Party General Secretary. This is because this post gave him the power
to appoint and dismiss all Part functionaries. In the next few years he set about
eliminating his rivals on various ideological grounds. Trotsky was removed from the
Politburo in 1926 and expelled from the USSR in 1929. Likewise Kamenev and Zinoviev were
also expelled. In this instance we see the application of political tactics that were to
characterize Stalin's rule - the removal of opposition on trumped up charges of
subversion, spying, sabotage and ideological heresy. The accused were demonized as
enemies of the state. The secret police - NKVD, were given unlimited power and served
Stalin in total obedience. By 1930 Christian tells us, Stalin was already undisputed
"boss" of Party and government. 
The greatest change came in 1934. According to Robert Conquest, writer of the definitive
work on the period, The Great Terror - A Reassessment, before 1934 there was still some
underground opposition to Stalin (eg. Mikhail Ryutin) and the Politburo as the highest
organ of both Party and state could still overrule him. 
In 1934 with the shooting of Leningrad Party chief Sergei Kirov, Stalin launched an
unprecedented campaign of terror to purge the party of all opposition. In the next 5
years under Stalin's orders, the NKVD arrested and executed thousands of party officials.
Kamenev and Zinoviev were show trialled and executed. In 1937 Stalin moved into a
position of complete dictatorship with the subjection of the Politburo to a special
commission of which he was head and on which sat only the most loyal and fully obedient
lackeys - namely Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich and Yezhov. From this point until his
death, Stalin's power was absolute. As Maclean describes:
"It was greater power than that exercised by Lenin or by any of his Imperial
predecessors, power unquestioned and absolute, power ruthlessly used, power that reached
out into the remote valleys of the Caucasus and Pamirs and across the frozen Siberian
tundra, power supported by an active and ubiquitous secret police. 'Imagine Jenghiz Khan
with a telephone' Tolstoi had said towards the end of his life. His prophecy had more
than been fulfilled". 
On the political level Stalin certainly became far more powerful than Lenin was. Lenin
was never an absolute dictator and mostly operated as leader of the Party but still
within it. With him the dictatorship was of the party and not in spite of it. Stalin
simply left the Party behind in a blaze of fear and terror. Eventually he hovered above
it. Unlike Lenin who was completely against his deification before or after his death,
Stalin in life actively encouraged his "Cult of Personality", that would later be so
denounced by Khrushchev. In the main, the use of violence and terror is a major
similarity in Lenin and Stalin's political practice with the only difference being that
Lenin used it mainly against external opponents while Stalin used it against everyone and
on an infinitely greater scale. "One death is a tragedy," he would say. "A million just
statistics." The best example of Stalin's violent excess can be seen in his economic
practice. 
The main events of Stalin's economic practice were the 5 year plans, collectivization and
industrialization. In November 1929, Stalin published an article called The Great Turn.
His main argument was that for the USSR to move into the modern age she had to
industrialize and the agrarian problem had to be solved once and for all. His solution
was to collectivize all agriculture and to destroy the "kulaks" as a class. Over the next
six years the Russian and Soviet peoples endured a holocaust comparable to that suffered
by the Jews in World War 2, one that would cost over 5 million lives. The language Stalin
used was as evil as any denunciation of the Jews by Hitler:
"To take the offensive against the kulaks means to deal the kulak class such a blow that
it will no longer rise to its feet…Of course the kulak can't be admitted to a
collective farm. He can't because he's an accursed enemy…"