One Leader

[Comrade #138672]

I don't know very much about Lenin yet, but apparently he was in favour of the One Leader principle. I start to think that if he weren't so in favour of One Leader, Stalin would never had so much power, because the power would be distributed among more people. Isn't this what Communism is about? It seems very risky to give a single person that much power.

So why was Lenin in favour of One Leader? How is anyone going to defend this?

[Камо́ Зэд]

I don't know very much about Lenin yet, but apparently he was in favour of the One Leader principle. I start to think that if he weren't so in favour of One Leader, Stalin would never had so much power, because the power would be distributed among more people. Isn't this what Communism is about? It seems very risky to give a single person that much power.

So why was Lenin in favour of One Leader? How is anyone going to defend this?

It would've been more conducive to discussion for you to have included a reference of some kind, but I suspect you aren't going to find one. This is my first reading anything about a "one leader principle." Already one can tell that it isn't a defensible position, mostly because it doesn't mean anything. What is a "leader" in this case and where is the precedent for it anywhere in Marx and Engels? This is to say nothing of the problems with vague statements about Stalin having "so much" power.

[citizen of industry]

Lenin worked in a collective. The bolshevik party was democratic and Lenin was overruled occaisionally.

[GoddessCleoLover]

I don't recall that Lenin favored a One Leader principle. Stalin was not empowered by Lenin's alleged belief in a One Leader principle, rather Stalin shrewdly utilized the powers of his office as the party's General Secretary to move to the forefront of the leadership. Lenin did IMO accentuate the centralizing aspect of democratic centralism in such a manner as to facilitate a dangerous accumulation of power in the office of the GenSek. My reading of Soviet history is that this was not the result of Lenin's beliefs in a One Leader principle, rather it occurred as a result of the disorganization and chaos in the Party and the Soviet state in the wake of the civil war and the need to create some level of stability and organization in the Party.

[Камо́ Зэд]

I don't recall that Lenin favored a One Leader principle. Stalin was not empowered by Lenin's alleged belief in a One Leader principle, rather Stalin shrewdly utilized the powers of his office as the party's General Secretary to move to the forefront of the leadership. Lenin did IMO accentuate the centralizing aspect of democratic centralism in such a manner as to facilitate a dangerous accumulation of power in the office of the GenSek. My reading of Soviet history is that this was not the result of Lenin's beliefs in a One Leader principle, rather it occurred as a result of the disorganization and chaos in the Party and the Soviet state in the wake of the civil war and the need to create some level of stability and organization in the Party.

Actually, Stalin attempted to resign from the post of General Security on at least three occasions over a few years; the Central Committee voted unanimously for him to retain his post. That means among those who insisted Stalin remain General Secretary were Trotsky, Kamenev, and Zinoviev.

[Ostrinski]

I actually have no clue on what you could possibly be basing this off of.

[Comrade #138672]

Then I suppose my assumption is entirely wrong. I apologize for that. I'm not sure where I got it from, but I'm pretty certain I read it somewhere. It didn't seem too far off from his idea of Vanguardism. That's why it seemed plausible to me.

[GoddessCleoLover]

At the time Stalin offered to resign as GenSek, Zinoviev and Kamenev were his allies in an anti-Trotsky leadership coalition. I would surmise that it would have been futile and in poor form for Trotsky to push for Stalin's resignation from his isolated position in the leadership.

[Tim Cornelis]

Perhaps you are confused with the one-man-management:

From the 1979 Great Soviet Encyclopedia:


[One-man management is] one of the most important principles of the management of socialist production. It consists in granting to managers of various sectors of the national economy those decision-making powers that are necessary for fulfilling the obligations entrusted to them; it also consists in establishing personal responsibility among workers for the tasks assigned to them. Examining problems of the management of the national economy, V. I. Lenin wrote that “large-scale machine industry—which is precisely the material source, the productive source, the foundation of socialism—calls for absolute and strict unity of will, which directs the joint labors of hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of people”(Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 36, p. 200). One-man management promotes the implementation of the principle of democratic centralism.

http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/One-man+Management


Dictatorial powers and one-man management are not contradictory to socialist democracy ... Our chief slogan is—let us have more one-man management, let get closer to one-man management, let us have more labour discipline, let us pull ourselves together and work with military determination, staunchness and loyalty, brushing aside all group and craft interests, sacrificing all private interests. We cannot succeed otherwise.

Speech by Lenin made in 1920.

And also this:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/sep/04.htm

[Камо́ Зэд]

At the time Stalin offered to resign as GenSek, Zinoviev and Kamenev were his allies in an anti-Trotsky leadership coalition. I would surmise that it would have been futile and in poor form for Trotsky to push for Stalin's resignation from his isolated position in the leadership.

In Stalin's letter to Molotov, he describes ultra-left tendencies as having coalesced around Zinoviev. Zinoviev is described as having been more a danger to the unity of the Party than Trotsky.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Lenin definitely accentuated centralism, both in Party matters and on the issue of one-man management. Whatever its merits in early Twentieth century Russia, such an emphasis on centralism is IMO outdated and symptomatic of real obstacles in convincing workers that revolution can result in workers' liberation rather than a Party dictatorship.

[Камо́ Зэд]

Lenin definitely accentuated centralism, both in Party matters and on the issue of one-man management. Whatever its merits in early Twentieth century Russia, such an emphasis on centralism is IMO outdated and symptomatic of real obstacles in convincing workers that revolution can result in workers' liberation rather than a Party dictatorship.

I think "diversity of opinion, unity in action" is still applicable today, in fact perhaps now more so than ever given how centralized things actually are now.

[Manic Impressive]

Actually, Stalin attempted to resign from the post of General Security on at least three occasions over a few years; the Central Committee voted unanimously for him to retain his post. That means among those who insisted Stalin remain General Secretary were Trotsky, Kamenev, and Zinoviev.
I think that alone speaks to the sincerity of his resignation.

[GoddessCleoLover]

In Stalin's letter to Molotov, he describes ultra-left tendencies as having coalesced around Zinoviev. Zinoviev is described as having been more a danger to the unity of the Party than Trotsky.

Would be interested in knowing the date of that letter. At least in the time period of 1923-1924, Stalin and Zinoviev were allies. By 1926 they were no longer allies and from what I know of the history of that era, the contents of the Stalin-Molotov letter do not surprise me.

[Камо́ Зэд]

Would be interested in knowing the date of that letter. At least in the time period of 1923-1924, Stalin and Zinoviev were allies. By 1926 they were no longer allies and from what I know of the history of that era, the contents of the Stalin-Molotov letter do not surprise me.

It was June 25, 1926, so this would be after the period you've mentioned. But around 1924, Zinoviev was still considered a part of the opposition to which Krupskaya allied herself.

[GoddessCleoLover]

The sources with which I am familiar indicate that while Krupskaya was respected as a person and as Lenin's widow, she was not in the leading ranks of the Party leadership. Every source I have read indicates that Zinoviev and Kamenev feared that Trotsky would become the Party leader following Lenin and formed an alliance with Stalin in 1923. Clearly that alliance had broken by the time of the Stalin-Molotov letter and frankly it had probably broken down well before then.

[Камо́ Зэд]

The sources with which I am familiar indicate that while Krupskaya was respected as a person and as Lenin's widow, she was not in the leading ranks of the Party leadership. Every source I have read indicates that Zinoviev and Kamenev feared that Trotsky would become the Party leader following Lenin and formed an alliance with Stalin in 1923. Clearly that alliance had broken by the time of the Stalin-Molotov letter and frankly it had probably broken down well before then.

Krupskaya's role was mostly limited to issues surrounding the "Testament." By 1926, she had officially broken away from the opposition and essentially faded from politics.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Krupskaya's role was mostly limited to issues surrounding the "Testament." By 1926, she had officially broken away from the opposition and essentially faded from politics.

Thanks. That is basically what I remember back when I read Soviet history. BTW at the time of the "Testament" issue didn't Zinoviev and Kamenev favor not using the "Testament" against Stalin? Also seem to recall that Trotsky denied the existence of the "Testament" when questioned about it by Max Eastman.

[Камо́ Зэд]

Thanks. That is basically what I remember back when I read Soviet history. BTW at the time of the "Testament" issue didn't Zinoviev and Kamenev favor not using the "Testament" against Stalin? Also seem to recall that Trotsky denied the existence of the "Testament" when questioned about it by Max Eastman.

I don't recall for sure, but I think you're right about Kamenev and Zinoviev. And Trotsky was very open about his exchanges with Eastman, which show that Eastman was really stretching things with regards to the Testament. Trotsky would even forward the book to Stalin to call his attention to the claims therein and defend himself, as I believe Trotsky was implicated in the book as buying into the Testament.

[Ismail]

Lenin was actually never the formal leader of the Party. Nor was Stalin, of course, but over time "General Secretary" became analogous to leader of the Party.

Others in this thread have noted that the original poster confused one-man management with "one leader."

The Webbs in their 1935 book Soviet Communism made a reasonably accurate analysis of how "one leader" came about:

Stalin... may be thought to have become irremovable from his position of supreme leadership of the Party, and therefore of the government. Why is this? We find the answer in the deliberate exploitation by the governing junta of the emotion of hero-worship, of the traditional reverence of the Russian people for a personal autocrat. This was seen in the popular elevation of Lenin, notably after his death, to the status of saint or prophet, virtually canonised in the sleeping figure in the sombre marble mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square, where he is now, to all intents and purposes, worshipped by the adoring millions of workers and peasants who daily pass before him. Lenin's works have become ‘Holy Writ’, which may be interpreted, but which it is impermissible to confute. After Lenin's death, it was agreed that his place could never be filled. But some new personality had to be produced for the hundred and sixty millions to revere. There presently ensued a tacit understanding among the junta that Stalin should be "boosted" as the supreme leader of the proletariat, the Party and the state. His portrait and his bust were accordingly distributed by tens of thousands, and they are now everywhere publicly displayed along with those of Marx and Lenin. Scarcely a speech is made, or a conference held, without a naïve – some would say a fulsome reference to "Comrade Stalin" as the great leader of the people....

It seems to us that a national leader so persistently boosted, and so generally admired, has, in fact, become irremovable against his will, so long as his health lasts, without a catastrophic break-up of the whole administration. Chosen originally because he was thought more stable in judgment than Trotsky, who might, it was felt, precipitate the state into war, Stalin is now universally considered to have justified his leadership by success; first in overcoming the very real difficulties of 1921, then in surmounting the obstacle of the peasant recalcitrance in 1930-1933; and in the successive triumphs of the Five-Year Plan. For him to be dismissed from office, or expelled from the Party, as Trotsky and so many others have been, could not be explained to the people. He will therefore remain in his great position of leadership so long as he wishes to do so. What will happen when he dies or voluntarily retires is a baffling question. For it is a unique feature in Soviet Communism that popular recognition of pre-eminent leadership has, so far, not attached itself to any one office. Lenin, whose personal influence became overwhelmingly powerful, was President of the Sovnarkom (Cabinet) of the RSFSR, or, as we should say, Prime Minister. On his death, Rykov became President of the Sovnarkom of the USSR, to be followed by Molotov, but neither succeeded to the position of leader. Stalin, who had been People's Commissar for Nationalities and subsequently President of the Commissariat for Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspection, had relinquished these offices on being appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party. It is Stalin who has, since 1927, "had all the limelight".In most other states it was reasonably obvious how "one leaders" emerged. Kim Il Sung, Tito, Castro, Hoxha, Mao and Ho Chi Minh led national liberation struggles and were closely associated with the states they headed.


Lenin worked in a collective. The bolshevik party was democratic and Lenin was overruled occaisionally.This was actually the case (albeit to an increasingly lesser extent) with Stalin as well. Ironically one example of this was related to the personality cult.

"While some members of the Politburo approved the renaming [of a electromechanical factory after Stalin in 1936], others proposed a discussion of the issue. However Stalin declared emphatically that he was not in favour, writing 'I am against. I advise that it should take the name of Kalinin, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kosior, Postyshev or another of the leading comrades.' Nevertheless, despite Stalin's objections, on 25 March the Politburo went on to approve the attaching of Stalin’s name to the factory."
(Balázs Apor, Jan C. Behrends, Polly Jones & E.A. Rees (eds). The Leader Cult in Communist Dictatorships: Stalin and the Eastern Bloc. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 2004. p. 39.)

[GoddessCleoLover]

Query whether the Russians and other Soviet peoples were so benighted that they required a figure of reverence. The Webbs were so teddibly, teddibly upper-crust British. Other than that, the Webbs' quote is a decent elucidation of the points that Ismail is making. I recall reading from some reliable source that Ho Chi Minh had delegated a great deal of his powers to others by the 1960s.

[Ismail]

Yes, Tito and Ho gradually became "father figures" who decentralized decisions as the decades passed, whereas Fidel Castro has pretty much retired from politics outside of the occasional comment.

[Камо́ Зэд]

I doubt we're going to have a similar problem in the U.S. Our national pass-time is blaming the president.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Then I suppose my assumption is entirely wrong. I apologize for that. I'm not sure where I got it from, but I'm pretty certain I read it somewhere. It didn't seem too far off from his idea of Vanguardism. That's why it seemed plausible to me.

"Vanguardism" has nothing to do with inner-party politics but rather with social political politics. Vanguard-ism merely means that the communist party is the most class conscious part of the working class, "that part of the working class which pushes forward all others" (Communist Manifesto). It has nothing to do with the inner-party politics, which are for leftist parties always very democratic. Hierarchy is a necessary tool for working class organisation, because some members of the working class know more about the class struggle, are generally more knowledgeable and are charismatic. In a superficial capitalist world where arguments sadly do not count for too many things, having such front-man structures is a necessity.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Yes, Tito and Ho gradually became "father figures" who decentralized decisions as the decades passed, whereas Fidel Castro has pretty much retired from politics outside of the occasional comment.

"Uncle figures" would be more accurate, considering that fathers have more authority in the traditional family structure than uncles.

[Manic Impressive]

"Sheep cannot be said to have solidarity. In obedience to a shepherd, they will go up or down, backwards or forwards as they are driven by him and his dog. But they have no solidarity, for that means unity and loyalty. Unity and loyalty, not to an individual, or the policy of an individual, but to an interest and a policy which is understood and worked for by all."

Never trust anyone who wants to be a leader

[#FF0000]

I don't know very much about Lenin yet, but apparently he was in favour of the One Leader principle. I start to think that if he weren't so in favour of One Leader, Stalin would never had so much power, because the power would be distributed among more people. Isn't this what Communism is about? It seems very risky to give a single person that much power.

So why was Lenin in favour of One Leader? How is anyone going to defend this?

Didn't read the thread, but this is dead wrong. Lenin was hella important in the bolshevik party and definitely had a sort of de-facto leadership thing going on but the idea that he was calling all of the shots and had total control is a complete myth that kinda comes from the cult of personality that was cultivated when he died.

In fact the Bolsheviks in Lenin's time would have described themselves as "leaderless".

[Mr. Natural]

The OP suggests THE PROBLEM with the Russian Revolution: for a variety of reasons it was a top-down revolutionary process, while communism is a bottom-up relation. It took much intelligence, luck, skill, courage, and determination to make the Russian Revolution, but it was stillborn.

Life and communism are bottom-up processes. The individual cells of life and the social individuals of human communities come together with others to form new, emergent, "higher" levels or organization with new, emergent properties as required. Thus a revolutionary becomes a cell/group, which grows into a political expression that becomes a political party that becomes a revolutionary process that .... Life and communism must be grassrooted, otherwise their higher levels would lose contact with the base. Otherwise, in human societies we would have some form of top-down dictatorship, as in the Soviet Union.

My point is that we must all learn to be the leaders of our lives in company with others. The living systems of life self-organize in dynamic interdependence with others, and this is the pattern of organization for anarchism/commjunism as well. There is a role for traditional leaders and vanguard parties to play if they focus on bringing communist self-organization to local persons and communities, but then these leaders and vanguard parties must disappear into the people/proletariat.

But anarchist/communist revolutionary processes must become grassrooted, or they will abort. Revolutionaries must be very careful with the initial organizational relations they establish, for anarchist/communist processes must begin with anarchist/communist relations.

My red-green best.

[Камо́ Зэд]

The OP suggests THE PROBLEM with the Russian Revolution: for a variety of reasons it was a top-down revolutionary process, while communism is a bottom-up relation. It took much intelligence, luck, skill, courage, and determination to make the Russian Revolution, but it was stillborn.

This is grossly idealist, mostly for the fact that the analysis exists entirely in the abstract. This unfortunately means I can really only respond to it in abstract terms: "Bottom-up" is too vague to have any solid meaning in concrete politics, and nowhere do Marx or Engels use the term. That's why I wonder if communism isn't a horizontal structure rather than the old structure flipped upside-down. Turning one of the Giza pyramids upside-down, for instance, would compromise the integrity of the entire structure; the base is big because it is made up of so many bricks. The proletariat are a base-like segment of humanity.

The problem with all of the above is that it is entirely subject to the whims of analogy; arguing in that way will never produce an answer, only further argument.

You owe us, then, some explanation for why you call the Russian Revolution stillborn. This is something we're going to disagree on and I'm not in the mood to speak in metaphor.

[Q]

Lenin worked in a collective. The bolshevik party was democratic and Lenin was overruled occaisionally.

He was overruled quite often actually. In 1917 he was more time in the minority than in the majority in fact.

So, how did he got to be a majority? Well, his arrival on Finland station in April 1917 is a point in case. What did he do? He rejected the welcome committee the Kerensky government sent to the station (the party majority was pro-government at this point) and he turned to the masses the flocked to see Lenin and held a famous speech on how the party was wrong and the government needed to be overthrown.

All self-proclaimed Leninists know this story, yet take radically opposite conclusions when it comes to "democratic-centralism" which means by most definitions that comrades have to shut up about their own opinions in public.

Majorities in any real democracy are not static entity but a dynamic reality. Follow Lenin comrades, speak out loud and passionately! Only this way worker-leaders are born!

[Mr. Natural]

Kamo Zed/Simon Ter-Petrossian, I'm not sure why you decided to object to the "idealism" of my post. It's probably because I focused on the material organizational relations of communism and successful anarchist/communist revolutionary processes, while you want material things/facts. So this seems like one of those "organization vs. things" beefs, but life's and societies "things" are both physical stuff and its organization.

I'm looking at the organization that underlies your correct observation that "The proletariat are a base-life segment of humanity." I'm looking at the organization of the proletariat under capitalism and under communist revolutionary processes.

Successful anarchist/communist revolutionary processes must be bottom-up. Marx didn't use the term? Well, no, but he did write in the Manifesto that "We shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all." Aren't such associations "bottom-up"? And is Marx being "idealist" here? He certainly didn't supply any details or facts.

You don't like metaphor or "whims of analogy"? But metaphor and analogy show systemic similarities, and I'm a revolutionary systems theorist. So were Marx and Engels, whose materialist dialectic understood "nature, human society, and thought" (Anti-Duhring) as organic, systemic processes. Bertell Ollman's scholarship and, especially, his Dance of the Dialectic (2003) seem definitive on the matter of Marx's dialectic. This materialist dialectic works with relations and organization, and you seem to find such a focus "idealist."

Life and societies consist of self-organized material things. Working with organizational relations and expressing them in metaphor and analogy is not idealist. Life and society are more than a collection of separate things. What is the organization of those things that brings them (and revolutionary processes) to life?

I'm frankly nonplussed at your objection to my observation that the Russian Revolution was "stillborn." My analysis says the internal and external conditions of the time made communism impossible to achieve, and I believe current revolutionaries need to go to school on this failure and learn important lessons about initiating revolutionary processes. Chaos theory tells us that the outcomes of systemic processes are extremely sensitive to their initial conditions.

We also seem to have a disagreement over the outcome of the Russian Revolution, which I view as an unmitigated horror. Stalin/Kamo was the revolutionary from hell--a godfather, really. And the picture of "comrades" lining up to butcher each other at Stalin's/Yezhov's/Beria's whims and bogus charges thoroughly discredits the Russian Revolution and also suggests some ugly propensities of human nature that revolutionaries must learn to avoid.

You're a bright guy, Kamo Zed, and you seem to be a committed revolutionary. Might you and the rest of the human species be ignoring life's organizational relations to focus on the "things" we all readily perceive? Might this be a near-universal and fatal error? Revolutionaries sure haven't been able to organize successful anarchist/communist revolutionary processes. Might this be due to a refusal to engage organizational relations and an apprehension of them as "idealist" or "mystical" or whatever else reductionism might term life's organization?

My red-green best.

[Le Socialiste]

I don't know very much about Lenin yet, but apparently he was in favour of the One Leader principle. I start to think that if he weren't so in favour of One Leader, Stalin would never had so much power, because the power would be distributed among more people. Isn't this what Communism is about? It seems very risky to give a single person that much power.

So why was Lenin in favour of One Leader? How is anyone going to defend this?

I assure you, Lenin was not responsible for Stalin's rise to power; to claim otherwise would be to buy into the idea that it's great men and women who effect change, not the underlying conflicts inherent in capitalist styles of production and the material development of class society. History isn't decided by a handful of "natural" leaders, but by forces within one's class. Marx and Engels put it best when they famously said "[T]he history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles," correctly placing material conditions - in how they relate to shifts and movements within class society - at the forefront.

I'd really like to see where Lenin advocated a "One Leader" policy. The point however is this: Stalin didn't get where he was just because a single man (in this instance Lenin) spoke in favor of having a single leader. The fact that the revolution in Russia didn't spread, effectively dying in Germany, coupled with the disastrous ruination of the economy via civil war and foreign intervention, basically crippled the Russian revolution (which I'd assert died by 1924). Stalin's ascension to power was as much a result of these setbacks as it was a reaction to the country's political and economic isolation. Stalin essentially rolled back all the policies and changes implemented by people like Lenin (and the working-class as a whole), all while the Party was in a state of degeneration (it would later solidify again, divorced from the working-class who's name it reigned in). Lenin was in favor of placing the working-class in power, and he worked actively around this goal. Contrary to what some believe, the Bolsheviks were serious when they said "all power to the soviets."

[Камо́ Зэд]

Stalin essentially rolled back all the policies and changes implemented by people like Lenin (and the working-class as a whole), all while the Party was in a state of degeneration (it would later solidify again, divorced from the working-class who's name it reigned in). Lenin was in favor of placing the working-class in power, and he worked actively around this goal.

I would invite you to demonstrate any of this to any degree whatsoever.

[Ismail]

Contrary to what some believe, the Bolsheviks were serious when they said "all power to the soviets."Indeed, and as the Eighth Party Congress in 1919 resolved: "The Communist Party makes it its task to win decisive influence and complete leadership in all organizations of the workers: in trade unions, cooperatives, village communes, etc. The Communist Party strives especially to establish its programme and its complete leadership in the contemporary state organizations, which are the Soviets." (quoted in Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution Vol. I, p. 225.)

As Erik Van Ree has noted, in the last years, at a time when Trotsky was calling on the Party to butt out of a number of state affairs, Lenin was calling for the strengthening of the Party's role in the state, against bureaucracy and specialists whose loyalty to the Soviet Government was always suspect.

[Le Socialiste]

I would invite you to demonstrate any of this to any degree whatsoever.

1) Policies concerning the role(s) of women and childrearing:

The Bolsheviks were quick to set up a number of benefits that were helpful to women in the early years of the revolution prior to Stalin's rise, despite economic constraints. These included communal laundries, kitchens, and childcare centers which, while not perfect, went some way in raising women beyond the constraints of the home so they could pursue their own interests. It was easier than ever to obtain a divorce, women had the vote, and abortion services were readily available. Stalin would later argue that the state of the economy necessitated that these centers be dismantled and closed, which coincided with his views surrounding the more traditional family social unit. Policies were implemented to this effect, essentially reversing these gains; divorce became more and more difficult to obtain and one had to make sizable payments in order to get one. Abortion rights were scaled back and eventually abolished, save for exceptions where the woman's health was in question, and the government often urged women to "enjoy motherhood" in order to increase the size of the population. Mothers were awarded medals if they had nine children, essentially reducing women to their reproductive abilities.

Source: Jen Pickard, "Women in the Soviet Union."

2) Homosexuality

Homosexuality was decriminalized in the immediate aftermath of the revolution, prompting something of a small-scale - albeit short-lived - sexual liberation movement. Following the October Revolution the entire Criminal Code was done away with, and the new Russian Criminal Codes of 1922 and 1926 removed the "offense" of muzhelozhstvo from the law. These were rolled back in the 1930s, in accordance with Stalin's pro-family policies. Homosexuality was recriminalized in 1933, and the new law punished muzhelozhstvo with up to five years. At the height of the purges, raids and arrests concerning this were rather common.

Source: "Russian Gay History." (http://community.middlebury.edu/~moss/RGC2.html)

Just a couple examples, should I continue?

[Le Socialiste]

Indeed, and as the Eighth Party Congress in 1919 resolved: "The Communist Party makes it its task to win decisive influence and complete leadership in all organizations of the workers: in trade unions, cooperatives, village communes, etc. The Communist Party strives especially to establish its programme and its complete leadership in the contemporary state organizations, which are the Soviets." (quoted in Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution Vol. I, p. 225.)

As Erik Van Ree has noted, in the last years, at a time when Trotsky was calling on the Party to butt out of a number of state affairs, Lenin was calling for the strengthening of the Party's role in the state, against bureaucracy and specialists whose loyalty to the Soviet Government was always suspect.

Yes, but this question of leadership wasn't much of a question at all, seeing as the working-class and layers of the peasantry were supportive of the bolsheviks. The bolsheviks weren't a leadership a part, but a leadership composed of the more experienced and theoretically advanced members of the proletariat, and even then the party had a more than sizable amount of regular workers in their ranks. Who made up that leadership then, if not the workers themselves and their self-emancipative, organizational bodies - finding their fullest expression(s) in and through the bolshevik party?

[Камо́ Зэд]

Just a couple examples, should I continue?

No, and next time I'll watch my big mouth.