Organising the Soviet government: 1917–1918

The Provisional Government had planned for a Constituent Assembly to be elected in November 1917; despite Lenin's objections, Sovnarkom allowed the vote as scheduled.^[160] In the election, the Bolsheviks gained about a quarter of the vote, losing to the agrarian-focused Socialist-Revolutionaries.^[161] Lenin argued that the election did not reflect the people's will, claiming the electorate was unaware of the Bolsheviks' programme, and that candidacy lists were outdated, having been drawn up before the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries split from the Socialist-Revolutionaries.^[162] Nevertheless, the newly elected Russian Constituent Assembly convened in Petrograd in January 1918.^[163] Sovnarkom claimed it was counter-revolutionary because it sought to remove power from the soviets, but the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks denied this.^[164] The Bolsheviks presented a motion to strip the Assembly of most of its legal powers; when the Assembly rejected this, Sovnarkom declared it counter-revolutionary and forcibly disbanded it.^[165]

Lenin rejected repeated calls, including from some Bolsheviks, to establish a coalition government with other socialist parties.^[166] Though Sovnarkom refused a coalition with the Mensheviks or Socialist-Revolutionaries, it allowed the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries five cabinet posts in December 1917. This coalition lasted only until March 1918, when the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries left the government over disagreements about the Bolsheviks' approach to ending the First World War.^[167] At their 7th Congress in March 1918, the Bolsheviks changed their name from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party to the Russian Communist Party, as Lenin wanted to distance his group from the increasingly reformist German Social Democratic Party and emphasize its goal of a communist society.^[168]

Although ultimate power officially rested with Sovnarkom and the Executive Committee (VTSIK) elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets (ARCS), the Communist Party was de facto in control in Russia, as acknowledged by its members at the time.^[169] By 1918, Sovnarkom began acting unilaterally, citing a need for expediency, with the ARCS and VTSIK becoming increasingly marginalized,^[170] so the soviets no longer had a role in governing Russia.^[171] During 1918 and 1919, the government expelled Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries from the soviets.^[172] Russia had become a one-party state.^[173]

Within the party, a Political Bureau (Politburo) and Organisation Bureau (Orgburo) were established to accompany the existing Central Committee; decisions of these bodies had to be adopted by Sovnarkom and the Council of Labour and Defence.^[174] Lenin was the most significant figure in this governance structure, being Chairman of Sovnarkom and sitting on the Council of Labour and Defence, the Central Committee, and the Politburo.^[175] The only individual with comparable influence was Lenin's right-hand man, Yakov Sverdlov, who died in March 1919 during a flu pandemic.^[176] In November 1917, Lenin and his wife took a two-room flat within the Smolny Institute; the following month, they went on a brief holiday in Halila, Finland.^[177] In January 1918, he survived an assassination attempt in Petrograd; Fritz Platten, who was with Lenin at the time, shielded him and was injured by a bullet.^[178]

Concerned by Petrograd's vulnerability to German attack, Sovnarkom began relocating to Moscow in March 1918.^[179] Lenin, Trotsky, and other Bolshevik leaders moved into the Kremlin.^[180] He survived another assassination attempt in August 1918.^[181]

To All Workers, Soldiers and Peasants. The Soviet authority will at once propose a democratic peace to all nations and an immediate armistice on all fronts. It will safeguard the transfer without compensation of all land—landlord, imperial, and monastery—to the peasants' committees; it will defend the soldiers' rights, introducing a complete democratisation of the army; it will establish workers' control over industry; it will ensure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly on the date set; it will supply the cities with bread and the villages with articles of first necessity; and it will secure to all nationalities inhabiting Russia the right of self-determination ... Long live the revolution!

—Lenin's political programme, October 1917^[182]

Upon taking power, Lenin's regime issued several decrees. The first was the Decree on Land, nationalizing the landed estates of the aristocracy and the Orthodox Church for redistribution to peasants by local governments. This contrasted with Lenin's preference for agricultural collectivisation but acknowledged the widespread peasant land seizures that had already taken place.^[183] In November 1917, the government issued the Decree on the Press, closing opposition media outlets deemed counter-revolutionary. Although claimed to be temporary, the decree faced criticism, including from Bolsheviks, for undermining freedom of the press.^[184]

In November 1917, Lenin issued the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, granting non-Russian ethnic groups the right to secede and form independent nation-states.^[185] Many declared independence (Finland, Lithuania in December 1917, Latvia and Ukraine in January 1918, Estonia in February 1918, Transcaucasia in April 1918, and Poland in November 1918).^[186] The Bolsheviks then promoted communist parties in these new states,^[187] while at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of the Soviets in July 1918, a constitution reformed the Russian Republic into the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.^[188] The government also switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, aligning Russia with Europe.^[189]

In November 1917, Sovnarkom abolished Russia's legal system, replacing it with "revolutionary conscience."^[190] Courts were replaced by Revolutionary Tribunals for counter-revolutionary crimes,^[191] and People's Courts for civil and criminal cases, instructed to follow Sovnarkom decrees and a "socialist sense of justice."^[192] November also saw the military restructured with egalitarian measures, abolition of previous ranks, titles, and medals, and the establishment of soldiers' committees to elect commanders.^[193]

In October 1917, Lenin decreed an eight-hour workday for all Russians.^[194] He also issued the Decree on Popular Education, guaranteeing free, secular education for all children,^[194] and a decree establishing state orphanages.^[195] A literacy campaign was launched to combat mass illiteracy, with an estimated 5 million people enrolling in courses from 1920 to 1926.^[196] Embracing gender equality, laws were passed to emancipate women, giving them economic autonomy and easing divorce restrictions.^[197] The Zhenotdel was established to promote these aims.^[198] Lenin's Russia became the first country to legalize first-trimester abortion on demand.^[199] The regime was militantly atheist, seeking to dismantle organized religion.^[200] In January 1918, the government decreed the separation of church and state and banned religious instruction in schools.^[201]

In November 1917, Lenin issued the Decree on Workers' Control, calling on workers to form elected committees to monitor their enterprise's management.^[202] That month, Sovnarkom also requisitioned the country's gold,^[203] and nationalized banks, viewing this as a key step toward socialism.^[204] In December, Sovnarkom established the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh), overseeing industry, banking, agriculture, and trade.^[205] The factory committees were subordinated to trade unions, which were in turn subordinate to VSNKh, prioritizing the state's central economic plan over local workers' interests.^[206] In early 1918, Sovnarkom canceled all foreign debts and refused to pay interest.^[207] In April 1918, it nationalized foreign trade, establishing a state monopoly on imports and exports.^[208] In June 1918, it nationalized public utilities, railways, engineering, textiles, metallurgy, and mining, though often only in name.^[209] Full-scale nationalization did not occur until November 1920, when small-scale industrial enterprises were brought under state control.^[210]

The "Left Communists" criticized Sovnarkom's economic policy as too moderate, advocating for the immediate nationalization of all industry, agriculture, trade, finance, transport, and communication.^[211] Lenin deemed this impractical and argued for the nationalization of only large-scale capitalist enterprises, allowing smaller businesses to operate privately until they could be successfully nationalized.^[211] Lenin also opposed the Left Communists' syndicalist approach, arguing in June 1918 for centralized economic control, rather than factory-level worker control.^[212]

Both Left Communists and other Communist Party factions critiqued the decline of democratic institutions in Russia from a left-libertarian perspective.^[213] Internationally, many socialists condemned Lenin's regime, highlighting the lack of widespread political participation, popular consultation, and industrial democracy.^[214] In late 1918, Czech-Austrian Marxist Karl Kautsky authored an anti-Leninist pamphlet criticizing Soviet Russia's anti-democratic nature, to which Lenin responded with The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky.^[215] German Marxist Rosa Luxemburg echoed Kautsky's views,^[216] while Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin described the Bolshevik seizure of power as "the burial of the Russian Revolution."^[217]

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: 1917–1918

[By prolonging the war] we unusually strengthen German imperialism, and the peace will have to be concluded anyway, but then the peace will be worse because it will be concluded by someone other than ourselves. No doubt the peace which we are now being forced to conclude is an indecent peace, but if war commences our government will be swept away and the peace will be concluded by another government.

—Lenin on peace with the Central Powers^[218]

Upon taking power, Lenin believed that a key policy of his government must be to withdraw from the First World War by establishing an armistice with the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary.^[219] He believed that ongoing war would create resentment among war-weary Russian troops, to whom he had promised peace, and that these troops and the advancing German Army threatened both his own government and the cause of international socialism.^[220] By contrast, other Bolsheviks, in particular Nikolai Bukharin and the Left Communists, believed that peace with the Central Powers would be a betrayal of international socialism and that Russia should instead wage "a war of revolutionary defence" that would provoke an uprising of the German proletariat against their own government.^[221]

Lenin proposed a three-month armistice in his Decree on Peace of November 1917, which was approved by the Second Congress of Soviets and presented to the German and Austro-Hungarian governments.^[222] The Germans responded positively, viewing this as an opportunity to focus on the Western Front and stave off looming defeat.^[223] In November, armistice talks began at Brest-Litovsk, the headquarters of the German high command on the Eastern Front, with the Russian delegation being led by Trotsky and Adolph Joffe.^[224] Meanwhile, a ceasefire until January was agreed.^[225] During negotiations, the Germans insisted on keeping their wartime conquests, which included Poland, Lithuania, and Courland, whereas the Russians countered that this was a violation of these nations' rights to self-determination.^[226] Some Bolsheviks had expressed hopes of dragging out negotiations until proletarian revolution broke out throughout Europe.^[227] On 7 January 1918, Trotsky returned from Brest-Litovsk to St. Petersburg with an ultimatum from the Central Powers: either Russia accept Germany's territorial demands or the war would resume.^[228]

In January and again in February, Lenin urged the Bolsheviks to accept Germany's proposals. He argued that the territorial losses were acceptable if it ensured the survival of the Bolshevik-led government. The majority of Bolsheviks rejected his position, hoping to prolong the armistice and call Germany's bluff.^[229] On 18 February, the German Army launched Operation Faustschlag, advancing further into Russian-controlled territory and conquering Dvinsk within a day.^[230] At this point, Lenin finally convinced a small majority of the Bolshevik Central Committee to accept the Central Powers' demands.^[231] On 23 February, the Central Powers issued a new ultimatum: Russia had to recognise German control not only of Poland and the Baltic states but also of Ukraine or face a full-scale invasion.^[232]

On 3 March, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed.^[233] It resulted in massive territorial losses for Russia, with 26% of the former Empire's population, 37% of its agricultural harvest area, 28% of its industry, 26% of its railway tracks, and three-quarters of its coal and iron deposits being transferred to German control.^[234] Accordingly, the Treaty was deeply unpopular across Russia's political spectrum,^[235] and several Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries resigned from Sovnarkom in protest.^[236] After the Treaty, Sovnarkom focused on trying to foment proletarian revolution in Germany, issuing an array of anti-war and anti-government publications in the country; the German government retaliated by expelling Russia's diplomats.^[237] The Treaty nevertheless failed to stop the Central Powers' defeat; in November 1918, the German Emperor Wilhelm II abdicated and the country's new administration signed the Armistice with the Allies. As a result, Sovnarkom proclaimed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk void.^[238]

Anti-Kulak campaigns, Cheka, and Red Terror: 1918–1922

[The bourgeoisie] practised terror against the workers, soldiers and peasants in the interests of a small group of landowners and bankers, whereas the Soviet regime applies decisive measures against landowners, plunderers and their accomplices in the interests of the workers, soldiers and peasants.

—Lenin on the Red Terror^[239]

By early 1918, many cities in western Russia faced famine as a result of chronic food shortages.^[240] Lenin blamed this on the kulaks, or wealthier peasants, who allegedly hoarded the grain that they had produced to increase its financial value. In May 1918, he issued a requisitioning order that established armed detachments to confiscate grain from kulaks for distribution in the cities, and in June called for the formation of Committees of Poor Peasants to aid in requisitioning.^[241] This policy resulted in vast social disorder and violence, as armed detachments often clashed with peasant groups, helping to set the stage for the civil war.^[242] A prominent example of Lenin's views was his August 1918 telegram to the Bolsheviks of Penza, which called upon them to suppress a peasant insurrection by publicly hanging at least 100 "known kulaks, rich men, [and] bloodsuckers."^[243]

The requisitions disincentivised peasants from producing more grain than they could personally consume, and thus production slumped.^[244] A booming black market supplemented the official state-sanctioned economy,^[245] and Lenin called on speculators, black marketeers and looters to be shot.^[246] Both the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries condemned the armed appropriations of grain at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets in July 1918.^[247] Realising that the Committees of the Poor Peasants were also persecuting peasants who were not kulaks and thus contributing to anti-government feeling among the peasantry, in December 1918 Lenin abolished them.^[248]

Lenin repeatedly emphasised the need for terror and violence in overthrowing the old order and ensuring the success of the revolution.^[249] Speaking to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets in November 1917, he declared that "the state is an institution built up for the sake of exercising violence. Previously, this violence was exercised by a handful of moneybags over the entire people; now we want [...] to organise violence in the interests of the people."^[250] He strongly opposed suggestions to abolish capital punishment.^[251] Fearing anti-Bolshevik forces would overthrow his administration, in December 1917 Lenin ordered the establishment of the Emergency Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, or Cheka, a political police force led by Felix Dzerzhinsky.^[252]

In September 1918, Sovnarkom passed a decree that inaugurated the Red Terror, a system of repression orchestrated by the Cheka secret police.^[253] Although sometimes described as an attempt to eliminate the entire bourgeoisie,^[254] Lenin did not want to exterminate all members of this class, merely those who sought to reinstate their rule.^[255] The majority of the Terror's victims were well-to-do citizens or former members of the Tsarist administration;^[256] others were non-bourgeois anti-Bolsheviks and perceived social undesirables such as prostitutes.^[257] The Cheka claimed the right to both sentence and execute anyone whom it deemed to be an enemy of the government, without recourse to the Revolutionary Tribunals.^[258] Accordingly, throughout Soviet Russia the Cheka carried out killings, often in large numbers.^[259] For example, the Petrograd Cheka executed 512 people in a few days.^[260] There are no surviving records to provide an accurate figure of how many perished in the Red Terror;^[261] later estimates of historians have ranged between 10,000 and 15,000,^[262] and 50,000 to 140,000.^[263]

Lenin never witnessed this violence or participated in it first-hand,^[264] and publicly distanced himself from it.^[265] His published articles and speeches rarely called for executions, but he regularly did so in his coded telegrams and confidential notes.^[266] Many Bolsheviks expressed disapproval of the Cheka's mass executions and feared the organisation's apparent unaccountability.^[267] The Communist Party tried to restrain its activities in February 1919, stripping it of its powers of tribunal and execution in those areas not under official martial law, but the Cheka continued as before in swathes of the country.^[268] By 1920, the Cheka had become the most powerful institution in Soviet Russia, exerting influence over all other state apparatus.^[269]

A decree in April 1919 resulted in the establishment of concentration camps, which were entrusted to the Cheka,^[270] later administered by a new government agency, Gulag.^[271] By the end of 1920, 84 camps had been established across Soviet Russia, holding about 50,000 prisoners; by October 1923, this had grown to 315 camps and about 70,000 inmates.^[272] Those interned in the camps were used as slave labour.^[273] From July 1922, intellectuals deemed to be opposing the Bolshevik government were exiled to inhospitable regions or deported from Russia altogether; Lenin personally scrutinised the lists of those to be dealt with in this manner.^[274] In May 1922, Lenin issued a decree calling for the execution of anti-Bolshevik priests, causing between 14,000 and 20,000 deaths.^[275] The Russian Orthodox Church was worst affected; the government's anti-religious policies also harmed Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, Jewish synagogues, and Islamic mosques.^[276]

Civil War and the Polish–Soviet War: 1918–1920

The existence of the Soviet Republic alongside the imperialist states over the long run is unthinkable. In the end, either the one or the other will triumph. And until that end will have arrived, a series of the most terrible conflicts between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois governments is unavoidable. This means that the ruling class, the proletariat, if it only wishes to rule and is to rule, must demonstrate this also with its military organization.

—Lenin on war^[277]

Lenin expected Russia's aristocracy and bourgeoisie to oppose his government but believed that the numerical superiority of the lower classes, coupled with the Bolsheviks' organizational skills, would ensure a swift victory.^[278] He did not anticipate the intensity of the violent opposition that ensued.^[278] The resulting Russian Civil War (1917–1923) pitted the Bolshevik Red Army against the anti-Bolshevik Whites, with the Reds ultimately emerging victorious. The conflict also included ethnic clashes and anti-Bolshevik peasant and left-wing uprisings across the former Empire.^[279] Historians often view the civil war as two conflicts: one between revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries, and another among different revolutionary factions.^[280]

The White armies were formed by former Tsarist officers,^[281] including Anton Denikin's Volunteer Army in South Russia,^[282] Alexander Kolchak's forces in Siberia,^[283] and Nikolai Yudenich's troops in the Baltic states.^[284] The Whites gained support from 35,000 members of the Czech Legion, who allied with the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), an anti-Bolshevik government in Samara.^[285] Western governments, angered by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and fearing Bolshevik calls for world revolution, also backed the Whites.^[286] In 1918, Britain, France, the U.S., Canada, Italy, and Serbia landed 10,000 troops in Murmansk and Kandalaksha, while British, American, and Japanese forces landed in Vladivostok.^[287] Western troops soon withdrew, offering only material support, but Japan remained, seeking territorial gains.^[288]

Lenin tasked Trotsky with forming the Red Army, with Trotsky organizing a Revolutionary Military Council in September 1918 and serving as chairman until 1925.^[289] Lenin allowed former Tsarist officers to serve in the Red Army, monitored by military councils.^[290] The Reds controlled Moscow, Petrograd, and most of Great Russia, while the Whites were fragmented and geographically scattered on the peripheries.^[291] The Whites' Russian supremacism alienated national minorities.^[292] The White Terror against Bolshevik supporters was more spontaneous than the state-sanctioned Red Terror.^[293] Both sides attacked Jewish communities, leading Lenin to condemn antisemitism as a product of capitalist propaganda.^[294]

Thumb — White anti-Bolshevik propaganda poster, depicting Lenin aiding Bolsheviks in sacrificing Russia to a statue of Marx, c. 1918–1919

In July 1918, Sverdlov informed Sovnarkom that the Ural Regional Soviet had overseen the execution of the former Tsar and his family in Yekaterinburg to prevent their rescue by White troops.^[295] Some historians believe Lenin sanctioned the killings,^[296] while others, like James Ryan, argue there is "no reason" to believe so.^[297] Lenin viewed the execution as necessary, likening it to the execution of Louis XVI during the French Revolution.^[298]

After the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries saw the Bolsheviks as traitors.^[299] In July 1918, the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Yakov Blumkin assassinated German ambassador Wilhelm von Mirbach to provoke a revolutionary war against Germany.^[300] They then launched a coup in Moscow, shelling the Kremlin and seizing the central post office before Trotsky's forces suppressed them.^[301] The party's leaders were arrested but treated more leniently than other Bolshevik opponents.^[302]

By 1919, the White armies were in retreat, and by 1920, they were defeated on all fronts.^[303] The Russian state's territorial extent was reduced as non-Russian ethnic groups sought national independence.^[304] In March 1921, during the Polish–Soviet War, the Peace of Riga split disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between Poland and Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia aimed to re-conquer newly independent nations but had limited success. Estonia, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania repelled Soviet invasions, while Ukraine, Belarus (as a result of the Polish–Soviet War), Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia were occupied by the Red Army.^[280]^[305] By 1921, Soviet Russia had defeated the Ukrainian national movements and occupied the Caucasus, though anti-Bolshevik uprisings in Central Asia persisted into the late 1920s.^[306]

Following the Armistice and the withdrawal of German Ober Ost garrisons, Soviet and Polish armies moved to fill the vacuum.^[307] Both Soviet Russia and the new Polish state sought territorial expansion.^[308] Polish and Russian troops first clashed in February 1919,^[309] escalating into the Polish–Soviet War.^[310] Unlike previous conflicts, this war had significant implications for the export of revolution and Europe's future.^[311] Polish forces advanced into Ukraine, taking Kiev by May 1920.^[312] After forcing the Polish Army back, Lenin urged the Red Army to invade Poland, expecting a proletarian uprising that would ignite a European revolution. Despite scepticism from Trotsky and others, the invasion proceeded, but the Polish proletariat did not rise, and the Red Army was defeated at the Battle of Warsaw.^[313] The Polish Army pushed the Red Army back into Russia, forcing Sovnarkom to sue for peace, culminating in the Peace of Riga, where Russia ceded territory to Poland.^[314]

Comintern and world revolution: 1919–1920

After the Armistice on the Western Front, Lenin believed that the breakout of the European revolution was imminent.^[315] Seeking to promote this, Sovnarkom supported the establishment of Béla Kun's soviet government in Hungary in March 1919, followed by the soviet government in Bavaria and various revolutionary socialist uprisings in other parts of Germany, including that of the Spartacus League.^[316] During Russia's Civil War, the Red Army was sent into the newly independent national republics on Russia's borders to aid Marxists there in establishing soviet systems of government.^[317] In Europe, this resulted in the creation of new communist-led states in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine, all of which were nominally independent from Russia but in fact controlled from Moscow,^[317] while further east it led to the creation of communist governments in Outer Mongolia.^[318] Various senior Bolsheviks wanted these absorbed into the Russian state; Lenin insisted that national sensibilities should be respected, but reassured his comrades that these nations' new Communist Party administrations were under the de facto authority of Sovnarkom.^[319]

In late 1918, the British Labour Party called for the establishment of an international conference of socialist parties, the Labour and Socialist International.^[320] Lenin saw this as a revival of the Second International, which he had despised, and formulated his own rival international socialist conference to offset its impact.^[321] Organised with the aid of Zinoviev, Nikolai Bukharin, Trotsky, Christian Rakovsky, and Angelica Balabanoff,^[321] the First Congress of this Communist International (Comintern) opened in Moscow in March 1919.^[322] It lacked global coverage; most of the delegates resided within the countries of the former Russian Empire, and most of the international delegates were not recognised by any socialist parties in their own nations.^[323] Accordingly, the Bolsheviks dominated proceedings,^[324] with Lenin subsequently authoring a series of regulations that meant that only socialist parties endorsing the Bolsheviks' views were permitted to join Comintern.^[325] During the first conference, Lenin spoke to the delegates, lambasting the parliamentary path to socialism espoused by revisionist Marxists like Kautsky and repeating his calls for a violent overthrow of Europe's bourgeoisie governments.^[326] While Zinoviev became Comintern's president, Lenin retained significant influence over it.^[327]

The Second Congress of the Communist International opened in Petrograd's Smolny Institute in July 1920, representing the last time that Lenin visited a city other than Moscow.^[328] There, he encouraged foreign delegates to emulate the Bolsheviks' seizure of power and abandoned his longstanding viewpoint that capitalism was a necessary stage in societal development, instead, encouraging those nations under colonial occupation to transform their pre-capitalist societies directly into socialist ones.^[329] For this conference, he authored "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder, a short book articulating his criticism of elements within the British and German communist parties who refused to enter their nations' parliamentary systems and trade unions; instead, he urged them to do so to advance the revolutionary cause.^[330] The conference had to be suspended for several days due to the ongoing war with Poland,^[331] and was relocated to Moscow, where it continued to hold sessions until August.^[332] Lenin's predicted world revolution did not materialise, as the Hungarian communist government was overthrown, and the German Marxist uprisings suppressed.^[333]

Famine and the New Economic Policy: 1920–1922

Within the Communist Party, there was dissent from two factions, the Group of Democratic Centralism and the Workers' Opposition, both of which accused the Russian state of being too centralised and bureaucratic.^[334] The Workers' Opposition, which had connections to the official state trade unions, also expressed the concern that the government had lost the trust of the Russian working class.^[335] They were angered by Trotsky's suggestion that the trade unions be eliminated. He deemed the unions to be superfluous in a "workers' state", but Lenin disagreed, believing it best to retain them; most Bolsheviks embraced Lenin's view in the 'trade union discussion'.^[336] To deal with the dissent, at the Tenth Party Congress in February 1921, Lenin introduced a ban on factional activity within the party, under pain of expulsion.^[337]

Caused in part by a drought, the Russian famine of 1921 was the most severe that the country had experienced since that of 1891, resulting in around five million deaths.^[338] The famine was exacerbated by government requisitioning, as well as the export of large quantities of Russian grain.^[339] To aid the famine victims, the US government established the American Relief Administration to distribute food;^[340] Lenin was suspicious of this aid and had it closely monitored.^[341] During the famine, Patriarch Tikhon called on Orthodox churches to sell unnecessary items to help feed the starving, an action endorsed by the government.^[342] In February 1922, Sovnarkom went further by calling on all valuables belonging to religious institutions to be forcibly appropriated and sold.^[343] Tikhon opposed the sale of items used within the Eucharist and many clergy resisted the appropriations, resulting in violence.^[344]

In 1920 and 1921, local opposition to requisitioning resulted in anti-Bolshevik peasant uprisings breaking out across Russia, which were suppressed.^[345] Among the most significant was the Tambov Rebellion, which was put down by the Red Army.^[346] In February 1921, workers went on strike in Petrograd, resulting in the government proclaiming martial law in the city and sending in the Red Army to quell demonstrations.^[347] In March, the Kronstadt rebellion began when sailors in Kronstadt revolted against the Bolshevik government, demanding that all socialists be allowed to publish freely, that independent trade unions be given freedom of assembly and that peasants be allowed free markets and not be subject to requisitioning. Lenin declared that the mutineers had been misled by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and foreign imperialists, calling for violent reprisals.^[348] Under Trotsky's leadership, the Red Army put down the rebellion on 17 March, resulting in thousands of deaths and the internment of survivors in labour camps.^[349]

You must attempt first to build small bridges which shall lead to a land of small peasant holdings through State Capitalism to Socialism. Otherwise you will never lead tens of millions of people to Communism. This is what the objective forces of the development of the Revolution have taught.

—Lenin on the NEP, 1921^[350]

In February 1921, Lenin introduced a New Economic Policy (NEP) to the Politburo; he convinced most senior Bolsheviks of its necessity and it passed into law in April.^[351] Lenin explained the policy in a booklet, On the Food Tax, in which he stated that the NEP represented a return to the original Bolshevik economic plans; he claimed that these had been derailed by the civil war, in which Sovnarkom had been forced to resort to the economic policies of war communism, which involved the nationalization of industry, centralized distribution of output, coercive or forced requisition of agricultural production, and attempts to eliminate money circulation, private enterprises and free trade, leading to the severe economic collapse.^[352]^[353] The NEP allowed some private enterprise within Russia, permitting the reintroduction of the wage system and allowing peasants to sell produce on the open market while being taxed on their earnings.^[354] The policy also allowed for a return to privately owned small industry; basic industry, transport and foreign trade remained under state control.^[355] Lenin termed this "state capitalism",^[356] and many Bolsheviks thought it to be a betrayal of socialist principles.^[357] Lenin biographers have often characterised the introduction of the NEP as one of his most significant achievements, and some believe that had it not been implemented then Sovnarkom would have been quickly overthrown by popular uprisings.^[358]

In January 1920, the government brought in universal labour conscription, ensuring that all citizens aged between 16 and 50 had to work.^[359] Lenin also called for a mass electrification project of Russia, the GOELRO plan, which began in February 1920; Lenin's declaration that "communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country" was widely cited in later years.^[360] Seeking to advance the Russian economy through foreign trade, Sovnarkom sent delegates to the Genoa Conference; Lenin had hoped to attend but was prevented by ill health.^[361] The conference resulted in a Russian agreement with Germany, which followed on from an earlier trade agreement with the United Kingdom.^[362] Lenin hoped that by allowing foreign corporations to invest in Russia, Sovnarkom would exacerbate rivalries between the capitalist nations and hasten their downfall; he tried to rent the oil fields of Kamchatka to an American corporation to heighten tensions between the US and Japan, who desired Kamchatka for their empire.^[363]

Declining health and conflict with Stalin: 1920–1923

To Lenin's embarrassment and horror, in April 1920 the Bolsheviks held a large party to celebrate his 50th birthday, which was also marked by widespread celebrations across Russia and the publication of poems and biographies dedicated to him.^[364] Between 1920 and 1926, twenty volumes of Lenin's Collected Works were published; some material was omitted.^[365] During 1920, several prominent Western figures visited Lenin in Russia; these included the author H. G. Wells and the philosopher Bertrand Russell,^[366] as well as the anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman.^[367] Lenin was also visited at the Kremlin by Armand, who was in increasingly poor health.^[368] He sent her to a sanatorium in Kislovodsk in the Northern Caucasus to recover, but she died there in September 1920 during a cholera epidemic.^[369] Her body was transported to Moscow, where a visibly grief-stricken Lenin oversaw her burial beneath the Kremlin Wall.^[370]

Lenin became seriously ill by the latter half of 1921,^[371] experiencing hyperacusis, insomnia, and regular headaches.^[372] At the Politburo's insistence, in July he left Moscow for a month's leave at his Gorki mansion, where he was cared for by his wife and sister.^[373] Lenin began to contemplate the possibility of suicide, asking both Krupskaya and Stalin to acquire potassium cyanide for him.^[374] Twenty-six physicians were hired to help Lenin during his final years; many of them were foreign and had been hired at great expense.^[375] Some suggested that his sickness could have been caused by metal oxidation from the bullets that were lodged in his body from the 1918 assassination attempt; in April 1922 he underwent a surgical operation to successfully remove them.^[376] The symptoms continued after this, with Lenin's doctors unsure of the cause; some suggested that he had neurasthenia or cerebral arteriosclerosis. In May 1922, he had his first stroke, temporarily losing his ability to speak and being paralysed on his right side.^[377] He convalesced at Gorki and had largely recovered by July.^[378] In October, he returned to Moscow; in December, he had a second stroke and returned to Gorki.^[379]

Despite his illness, Lenin remained keenly interested in political developments. When the Socialist Revolutionary Party's leadership was found guilty of conspiring against the government in a trial held between June and August 1922, Lenin called for their execution; they were instead imprisoned indefinitely, only being executed during the Great Purge of Stalin's leadership.^[380] With Lenin's support, the government also succeeded in virtually eradicating Menshevism in Russia by expelling all Mensheviks from state institutions and enterprises in March 1923 and then imprisoning the party's membership in concentration camps.^[381] Lenin was concerned by the survival of the Tsarist bureaucratic system in Soviet Russia,^[382] particularly during his final years.^[383] Condemning bureaucratic attitudes, he suggested a total overhaul to deal with such problems,^[384] in one letter complaining that "we are being sucked into a foul bureaucratic swamp".^[385]

During December 1922 and January 1923, Lenin dictated "Lenin's Testament", in which he discussed the personal qualities of his comrades, particularly Trotsky and Stalin.^[386] He recommended that Stalin be removed from the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party, deeming him ill-suited for the position.^[387] Instead he recommended Trotsky for the job, describing him as "the most capable man in the present Central Committee"; he highlighted Trotsky's superior intellect but at the same time criticised his self-assurance and inclination toward excess administration.^[388] During this period he dictated a criticism of the bureaucratic nature of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, calling for the recruitment of new, working-class staff as an antidote to this problem,^[389] while in another article he called for the state to combat illiteracy, promote punctuality and conscientiousness within the populace, and encourage peasants to join co‑operatives.^[390]

Stalin is too crude, and this defect which is entirely acceptable in our milieu and in relationships among us as communists, becomes unacceptable in the position of General Secretary. I therefore propose to comrades that they should devise a means of removing him from this job and should appoint to this job someone else who is distinguished from comrade Stalin in all other respects only by the single superior aspect that he should be more tolerant, more polite and more attentive towards comrades, less capricious, etc.

—Lenin, 4 January 1923^[391]

In Lenin's absence, Stalin had begun consolidating his power both by appointing his supporters to prominent positions,^[392] and by cultivating an image of himself as Lenin's closest intimate and deserving successor.^[393] In December 1922, Stalin took responsibility for Lenin's regimen, being tasked by the Politburo with controlling who had access to him.^[394] Lenin was increasingly critical of Stalin; while Lenin was insisting that the state should retain its monopoly on international trade during mid-1922, Stalin was leading other Bolsheviks in unsuccessfully opposing this.^[395] There were personal arguments between the two as well; Stalin had upset Krupskaya by shouting at her during a phone conversation, which in turn greatly angered Lenin, who sent Stalin a letter expressing his annoyance.^[396]

The most significant political division between the two emerged during the Georgian Affair. Stalin had suggested that both the forcibly Sovietized Georgia and neighbouring countries like Azerbaijan and Armenia, which were all invaded and occupied by the Red Army, should be merged into the Russian state, despite the protestations of their local Soviet-installed governments.^[397] Lenin saw this as an expression of Great Russian ethnic chauvinism by Stalin and his supporters, instead calling for these nation-states to join Russia as semi-independent parts of a greater union, which he suggested be called the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia.^[398] After some resistance to the proposal, Stalin eventually accepted it but, with Lenin's agreement, he changed the name of the newly proposed state to "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)".^[399] Lenin sent Trotsky to speak on his behalf at a Central Committee plenum in December, where the plans for the Soviet Union were sanctioned; these plans were then ratified on 30 December by the Congress of Soviets, resulting in the formation of the Soviet Union.^[400] Despite his poor health, Lenin was elected chairman of the new government of the Soviet Union.^[401]