The Bolsheviks: The Intellectual And Political History Of The Triumph Of Communism In Russia

THE BOLSHEVIKS THE BOLSHEVIKS 'The Intellectual and Political History of the 'Triumph of Communism in Russia WITH A NEW PREFACE ADAMB. ULAM HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, Massachusetts LONDON, ENGLAND Copyright © 1965, 1998 by Adam B. Ulam All rights reseIVed Printed in the United States of America First HaIVard University Press paperback edition, 1998 Originally published by Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, New York Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 65-18463 ISBN 0-674-07830-6 This book has been digitally reprinted. The content remains identical to that of previous printings. CONTENTS Preface, 1998: Lenin among the Bolsheviks I II The Family vii 1 The Revolutionary Tradition 21 1. The Decembrists 2. Bakunin and H erzen 3. Chemyshevsky 4. Populism m Apprenticeship 96 1. Samara 2. St. Petersburg 3. Siberia 4. Marxism IV 160 The Leader 1. The Iskra Period 2. What Is To Be Done 3. From the Rift to the Revolution of 1905 v Revolution and Reaction 217 1. The Revolution of 1905 2. The Ebb VI The Years of Waiting: 1908-1917 1. Splits and Scandals 2. On the World Stage: 1912-1917 VII 1917 1. A Kind and Considerate Revolution 2. Toward the Great October v 26g vi CONTENTS vm Victory 382 1. The Statesman 2. The Dictator IX The Worlds of Communism 449 1. The Old Economic Policy 2. The World of the Comintem X The Last Struggles 51 5 1. Medicine and Administration 2. Intrigue and Death Index 583 PREFACE, 1998: LENIN AMONG THE BOLSHEVIKS What was Lenin's impact on the world? Could someone else have done the same thing? In retrospect, no one other than Lenin could have brought about "the Great October," the November 1917 coup that established the Soviet state and communism, which in tum-this hackneyed phrase in this case is literally true-changed the course of history. The Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991. Communism continues to rule China, North Korea, and a handful of other states, but in a form that would have astounded Lenin. In their heyday, however, both affected, in some cases disastrously, every nation on the planet. The French Revolution threw up quite a number of young, brilliant, and ambitious military commanders. Even without Napoleon France might have made its bid for the domination of Europe, incidentally spreading the ideas of the Revolution allover the continent. It is harder, but not inconceivable, to think that someone other than Hitler could have led to fascism a nation lacerated by the military defeat in World War I and ravaged by the Great Depression. But count the occasions when it was Lenin and Lenin alone who propelled his followers-and history-toward what would become communism. He was the founder of Bolshevism in 1903. In subsequent years it was his leadership that kept what was formally but a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party from losing its identity within the general movement. Arriving in Russia in April 1917, after the overthrow of tsarism, he was the only politician of stature, even among the Bolsheviks, to urge further revolutionary action and no truck with the Provisional Government. Within weeks the Bolsheviks submitted to his leadership. It was at his feverish insistence that his followers undertook the armed coup in November, and la