Glossary re 'Stalin's Rise to Power'

Recommended by Dr. James Harris, Senior Lecturer, University of Leeds.

Bolshevik: Literally “one of the majority”. The Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party split in 1903 in a dispute over tactics. The majority (the Bolsheviks) were the more radical than the minority (the Mensheviks).

Marxism-Leninism: Lenin’s contributions to Marxist thought. For example, Lenin proposed that a revolutionary underground party could seize power in Russia and use their control of the apparatus of state to build socialism. Marx believed that communism would emerge in the process of the development of capitalism.

New Economic Policy (NEP): A radical change in regime policy initiated at the 10th Party Congress in March 1921. The preceding policy known as “War Communism” had failed, and it was deemed necessary to reintroduce some elements of capitalism.

Secretariat: A department of the Central Committee with responsibility for appointing the Party members to the most important (or “nomenklatura”) posts, such as the heads of the Commissariats (ministries) and regional Party Committees.

Circular Flow of Power: A description of the relationship between Stalin and senior Party officials presented by Robert Daniels in the 1950s and 1960s. Daniel thought that senior Party officials owed their places to Stalin personally, and voted for him at major Party meetings, in exchange for which Stalin ensured that they kept their jobs.

Party Rank and File: Party members not in “nomenklatura” posts. They made up the overwhelming majority of the membership of the Communist Party

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The Russian Provisional Government, 1917

Ian Thatcher, Brunel University.

Soviet and Western historiography has for long identified Lenin as the most influential figure in explaining how the October Revolution of 1917 took place. This follows a comment in Trotsky’s diary of 1935 that the October Revolution would have occurred without him but only on condition that Lenin was present. This talk outlines how recent scholarship has re-evaluated Lenin’s role: he failed to prevent the February Revolution, the April Theses joined an already existing debate rather than marked a completely new point of view, State and Revolution is no guide to how the Bolshevik government developed, and it is Trotsky not Lenin who organised the October Revolution. It is only be demolishing the Lenin myth that we move closer to understanding the Russian Revolution of 1917.

There is no single book on the Provisional Government. There are good chapters on it in James D. White, The Russian Revolution: A Short History and in Ronald Kowalski’s The Russian Revolution. There is also a good essay by Howard White in A Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, edited by E. Acton et. al.

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Trotsky & The Bolsheviks 1917-1924

Ian Thatcher, Brunel University.

Leon Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks in August 1917 after many years of separation. He was nevertheless a key figure in the establishment and maintenance of Soviet power. It was Trotsky’s strategy by which the Bolsheviks came to power. As Commissar for Foreign Affairs, it was Trotsky’s ‘no peace, no war’ policy that in the debates about whether to sign a separate peace with Germany saved the Bolsheviks from splitting down the middle. In his next post, Commissar for War, there has been no historical agreement about the impact of Trotsky’ military strategy, but the Red Army was formed on Trotsky’s principles and it was Trotsky who protected the specialists that led the Red Army to victory. Undoubtedly Trotsky was a major propagandist for the Bolsheviks; his civil war train was a legend in its own time. Trotsky did not however establish a firm support base at the peak of the Bolshevik elite. Many leading Bolsheviks, especially Stalin, resented Trotsky as an anti-party figure. Trotsky’s economic policies and prognoses found little support. Devoid of Lenin’s backing nothing was more certain than Trotsky’s defeat in the power struggle to be the next leader of the Soviet state. There is no better illustration of Trotsky’s isolation than his decision not to return to Moscow for Lenin’s funeral, despite Stalin’s quick action to inform Trotsky in the expectation that Trotsky would wish to be at Lenin’s burial.

For further reading see Ian D. Thatcher, Trotsky and Ian D. Thatcher, ‘Trotskii and Lenin’s Funeral’ in History, April 2009.
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The Bolshevik State: Survival & Consolidation, 1917-1924

Ian Thatcher, Brunel University.

When the Bolsheviks declared a new government in October 1917 many a commentator, including many Bolsheviks, thought that it could not survive as a one-party regime. It would have either to give way to the Constituent Assembly or to transform itself into a broad coalition of socialists of all types. This talk examines why of all the attempted communist revolutions in Europe of this time (Germany, Hungary, Slovakia etc.) only the Bolshevik regime in Russia survived. It also asks whether the price paid for survival – the consolidation of a one-party dictatorship meant that the ideal of socialism was lost.

For further reading see:
Christopher Read's detailed and readable From Tsar to Soviets (1996).
Ronald Kowalski's The Russian Revolution (1997) contains many primary documents.
James D. White's The Russian Revolution: A Short History (1994) is clear, concise and informative.


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