Lenin's government.

[eric922]

I don't want this to come across as an attack on Lenin or anything, I just have a few questions. What was his government like, was it some form of a democracy or a dictatorship? I'm asking because it's hard to find good information on this topic, a lot of sources seem to lump him in with Stalin and pretty much consider him a bloody tyrant who killed whoever opposed him, but on the other hand even a history professor of mine said that Lenin was not a dictator and was voted down by the soviets on several issues, including ending WWI. So, what was Lenin's role in government? Would it be accurate to think of him as something similar to a prime minster or president of the USSR?

[Optiow]

I am not an expert on the subject, but the Bolshevik government under Lenin was quite autocratic during the Civil War, when they ran under 'War Communism'. The soviets were shut down, and IMO it basically it did end up as a dictatorship.

[Desperado]

What was his government like, was it some form of a democracy or a dictatorship?

These are extremely debatable words. The key issue for leftists would be whether or not Lenin's government represented the will of the working class, was a reflection of true proletarian democracy or not. Democracy for leftists is more than free elections to a senate or parliament every few years - on the contrary leftists see this as bourgeois dictatorship and class rule (however, Marx did stress that they could with extended suffrage be used to a degree of working class means - of course he lived long before the extension of corporate power, systematic capitalistic propaganda and a dilution of the differences in political parties which we see today). It is about workers haven't direct control over their lives and the means of production. It is not a state in which a minority participate, but one in which all do, and one of direct democracy and delegates rather than simply elections.

But the issue of proletarian democracy in Russia is also complicated by the fact that the people were far more dominated by peasants than workers. The peasants had long been organising themselves in democratic communes (albeit male dominated) under the tyranny of the local noblemen from above. When Marx spoke of a revolution in Russia it was on this basis of communal land ownership (and in conjunction with other revolutions in developed capitalist countries).

Don't expect any straight answers, because it's a massively controversial issue and a dividing one on this forum. It's not helped by the chaos of the period and sparse, conflicting accounts.


I'm asking because it's hard to find good information on this topic, a lot of sources seem to lump him in with Stalin and pretty much consider him a bloody tyrant who killed whoever opposed him, but on the other hand even a history professor of mine said that Lenin was not a dictator and was voted down by the soviets on several issues, including ending WWI.

Whether the soviets were a reflection of proletarian democracy is also a point of contention, especially after the October revolution. Before the fall of the Provisional Government the Soviets had become more talking shops and less organs of workers power - they were dominated by the "higher" soviets. Soviet came not only to mean those soviets which the workers partook, but soviets above which derived their power from these workers soviets. By the October revolution mass participation in the soviets had massively declined. They had given workers for the first time the chance to voice their views, but it was in the workers committees that the workers took direct control of their workplaces. Shortly after 1917 the Bolsheviks ultimately removed the other parties with power in the soviets (the Socialist Revolutionaries (more peasant based) and the Mensheviks), and encouraged the abandonment of the workers committees or slowly disciplined them centrally through the unions. Revolts against this (such as Kronstadt, one of whose demands where "soviets without Bolsheviks") where crushed as "counter revolutionaries".

Of course, many on this forum would claim that the centralisation of power by this vanguard was in the name of and to the benefit of the working class, even if the working class did not realise this, or perhaps with the civil war and need to crush the counter revolutionary Whites a necessary development.


Would it be accurate to think of him as something similar to a prime minster or president of the USSR?

Again, you are looking at democracy from a modern, Western, capitalist angle. But the answer is no. Lenin and the party (with their democratic centralism) held ultimate political power over the USSR - it meets the benchmarks of "dictatorship", though a dictatorship of the party or of Lenin is a deep matter of debate, and again, whether a "proletarian dictatorship" or not an even bigger one. The period of civil war between the revolution and the consolidation of the Bolsheviks power must also be understood - the revolution occurred in Petrograd, the civil war extended the Bolshevik control over all of Russia.

[Jose Gracchus]

The Bolshevik party became a mass popular organization in late 1917. However, this popular rank-and-file, though vital to the success of this purportedly vanguard organization, was unable to exert much meaningful influence upon the increasingly autonomous and self-perpetuating leadership. I have read some accounts that Trotsky worked to fix the apportionment of delegates of the Second Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, but not from sufficiently ideologically diverse accounts. That aside, the Bolsheviks were instrumental for the initial seizures of soviet power starting October with the deposing of the Provisional Government. However, the Council of People's Commissars, which was originally chartered as a provisional government itself, was based only on the Second Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, based on highly urban organization and excluding the peasantry which was another eighty percent. The Second Congress of Peasants' Deputies [a separate organization], was won for a Bolshevik-Left Socialist Revolutionary majority. Despite this, the Left SRs were kept as a minority coalition partner. For a mix of a lot of reasons, things went progressively south. The Left SRs were shut out of negotiations, the Moscow cell resorted to terrorism, the Bolsheviks repressed all other major parties by late 1918. By 1919, there would be machine gunners making sure the "wrongly"-elected Menshevik-Internationalists or Left SR soviet delegates would not enter buildings.

In 1921 there was an attempt by the remaining working class to reinvigorate soviet democracy, but it was repressed, and in my view, the objectively Bonapartist Bolshevik government continued to plug forward though the Soviet state became a class society, with an exploited working class.

I recommend strongly Russian Revolution, 1917, by Rex Wade. Also, The Russian Revolution in Retreat by Simon Pirani, a good introduction into how the Soviet class society was consolidated in the wake of the collapsed workers' revolution. Also, Kronstadt: Fate of a Soviet Democracy by Israel Getzler. Also, check everything ComradeOm has put up on the topic, or has in his sig. That should cover it.

[Comrade_Winter]

What we must all know is that Lenin led the people of Russia through a difficult time, and thus became an authoritarian person. The main goal that time was to unify the people and make progress with communism. This is hard enough to achieve after being governed by a socialist state for generations. I am a Leninist, and I will not deny that he had major flaws too, however we may never know his true intentions as he died before the Soviet states were united and under control. Such is hard for his enemies to understand, and I believe that is the reason he receives as much criticism as he does today, although it's nothing near like what Stalin and Castro have gotten. We may say it's unlucky he was born too early to lead the Soviet Union successfully into what he wanted to accomplish, but without him the revolution may never have happened.

[Ismail]

Again, you are looking at democracy from a modern, Western, capitalist angle. But the answer is no. Lenin and the party (with their democratic centralism) held ultimate political power over the USSRThis is partially true. Lenin was head of state and head of the party. Lenin was Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. The Council was appointed by the Central Executive Committee of the All-Union Congress of Soviets. This system stayed until 1938, when the government was revised and looked more like a parliamentary system, with a Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet.

Now the difference here is that when Lenin was Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, the relationship between the Party and the state was not yet cemented. To Bolsheviks Lenin gained his legitimacy as their leader, while to the rest of the population he gained his legitimacy through being head of state. By the time Lenin died Stalin was General Secretary of the Party, which didn't mean leader of it as such but the position became its de facto leadership by the 1930's. Besides the 1941-1953 period when the Party and state institutions began to become increasingly distinct from each other, the USSR from that point on was dominated by the Party, and the head of the Party was the country's de facto leader.

[Jose Gracchus]

Actually, all accounts I've read have described Kalinin, the Chairman of the All-Union Congress of Soviets (and before that the All-Russian Congress of Soviets), was the head of state (though generally ceremonial and irrelevant as an office in its own right). The Chair of Sovnarkom (Lenin), was the head of government.

[Ismail]

Actually, all accounts I've read have described Kalinin, the Chairman of the All-Union Congress of Soviets (and before that the All-Russian Congress of Soviets), was the head of state (though generally ceremonial and irrelevant as an office in its own right). The Chair of Sovnarkom (Lenin), was the head of government.You're probably right. The pre-1938 system was rather complicated.