Lenin’s Failed Democracy
POLI364-The Leninist Theoretical Antagonism towards Democracy
In his book What Is to Be Done? (1902) and throughout his numerous writings, Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) emerged as one of the most influential Communist writers of all times and inspired countless leaders across the world. The aim of Lenin at the beginning of the XXth century was to achieve economic and political freedom (socialism and democracy) for all of Russia. With a population exploited by the capitalistic system and submitted under a tyrannical Russian Tsarist autocracy, Lenin and some of the Social Democrats (those who followed Marx’s theories) advocated for a Revolution led by the working class. We can define autocracy as a political system in which power is held by one individual, who exercises it virtually without any constraints (Larousse 1).
Despite his hate for autocracy and his Social-Democrat ideology, Lenin (along with the Bolsheviks) led revolutionary Russia towards a renewed autocratic system, arguably more tyrannical and less democratic than the Tsarist monarchy itself and paved the way for an entity remembered as one of the most totalitarian of all times: the Soviet Union.
The quick delusion from the hopes of democratic emancipation carried by the revolution to the autocratic USSR can be explained by a multitude of factors, which we can’t review in such a short paper. Rather, we will argue here that Lenin’s theory and revolutionary strategy carried at its core fundamental anti-democratic flaws which directly contradict his pro-democratic claims, and participated in the autocratic turn undertaken by the new regime.
Therefore, we will ask ourselves what these flaws were, how they represented a contradiction within Lenin’s theory, and why they hindered the development of democracy in post-Tsarist Russia.
We will focus firstly on the context surrounding the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Social-Democrat and Leninist theory. Secondly, will try to demonstrate how Lenin’s theory and strategy to achieve the Revolution presents an anti-democratic contradiction that participated in the creation of the autocratic regime. Finally, we will study three possible solutions that could have been integrated into Leninist theory in order to increase the chances of sustainability of democracy in the new state.
Once again, we need to emphasize that what interests us today is Lenin’s theory itself and how it (partly) influenced the creation of an autocratic regime; we will not cover other factors such as World War I, foreign hostility towards Communism, or even the rise of Stalin (etc.), even though all of them played significant roles in the process.
Part I: Russian Social Democracy at the eve of the Red Revolution
Firstly, we need to set the context surrounding the Russian Communist Revolution of 1917. At the beginning of the XXth century, the Russian working class is increasingly exploited by the capitalist system, as the country progressively industrializes itself. At the same time, Russia is still governed almost absolutely by Tsar Nicholas II. In order to fight this economic and political oppression, the Russian Social Democrats (and in particular Lenin and his “Bolsheviks”) advocate for a radical solution: a revolution. This revolution would be led by the exploited working class: by overthrowing the autocratic Russian monarch, this fraction of Russians would emancipate themselves and at the same time free the rest of the population. This movement would eventually lead to a classless society, free and equalitarian: a Social Democracy.
Lenin bases this Marxist theory on two significant assumptions. On the one hand, the revolutionary movement should not rely on “spontaneous” uprisings and strikes of exhausted workers, but rather be structured and methodical in its approach in order to be successful (Lenin 41). On the other hand, the working class isn’t strong enough nor capable to organize itself (Lenin 78). This assumption is a significant problem since the revolution can only be successful if the revolutionary agent (the workers) is aware of its own power. This awareness is called “class consciousness” and is created by political exposure (agitation, syndicalism, and organization). Therefore, it is necessary to create such political exposure to “expand politically”, so that when the opportunity comes the whole working class is ready to act as one and overthrow the autocracy (Lenin 69, 78).
In order to solve these organizational and leadership problems, Lenin argues for a controversial measure (even amongst the Social Democrat movement): “professional revolutionaries” (Lenin 121). These highly motivated, trained and able individuals’ only task would be to agitate, propagate, and organize the working class in order to create the necessary class consciousness, and maximize the probability of success of the revolution (Lenin 116, 118). One controversial aspect of Lenin’s argument is that these professionals should only be a few, famously declaring that he would prefer “a dozen men [rather] than a hundred fools” (Lenin 122). Founding proof in past German examples, Lenin believes that unity at all cost is desirable under a single leadership (Makin-Waite 85) and that only a few professional revolutionaries are capable of leading a determined struggle.
Part II: The Anti-Democratic Contradiction that arises within Lenin’s theoretical framework
The Social Democrat Revolution of 1917 was initially full of hope and seemed, despite all odds, to follow its ideals: democratic, legitimized by popular support and well established in Petrograd. Revolutionary Russia allowed for the first time free newspapers, opposition parties, freedom of speech, assembly, and association (LeBlanc 50).
However, under Bolshevik leadership (and therefore Lenin’s) it progressively turned towards what they had sworn to destroy: autocracy. All the previously acquired rights were dissolved and secret police were reinstated, while the Bolshevik party increasingly exercised power alone without the consent from other political factions nor popular support (Leblanc 54). As Sartre said, “a revolution does not make miracles, but inherits the wretchedness produced by the former regime” (Makin-Waite 86): it indeed seems like the new regime eventually returned to similar tsarist autocratic ways of governing and abandoned its democratic ideals.
Before analyzing the problem itself, we need to inform the reader of an ongoing debate about Lenin’s intentions regarding the democratization of Russian political life. Did Lenin intend to establish an autocratic regime (a “dictatorship of the proletariat”) from the beginning (Carrere 180)? Did he deliberately intend to rule with authority over the new Russian “Social Democracy” and used Marxism as an excuse to legitimize it? If that was the case, our essay would be somewhat useless!
The other thesis is that the progressive “autocratic turn” was made caused by a blind Leninist utopia that lacked the practical tactics to implement its theory when the revolution occurred. Indeed, while Lenin was sincerely concerned with democratic values (Makin-Waite 85), the Bolsheviks couldn’t face the realities of power (LeBlanc 53) and were dragged into turning the socialist and democratic state into another autocracy, genuinely believing that they were safeguarding the revolution. This is, in our opinion, the most plausible solution and we will base our essay on this assumption.
Therefore, since the “autocratization” of the Russian revolution was not intended from the start by Lenin, we will study here two main theoretical flaws in the Bolshevik strategy to seize power which we believe fostered this turn of events.
Firstly, Lenin’s considerations were utopian, contradictory, and lacked practical concerns about the realization of the Revolution (LeBlanc 22). Consequently, when faced with the harsh reality of power, Bolsheviks didn’t have the theoretical tools to maintain the democratic spirit of the revolution and slowly drifted towards autocracy. Seeing the Commune of Paris as a model of workers ruling together in harmony (Carrere 177), Lenin developed a vision of a new society perfectly organized and centralized around a unified Communist Party (Carrere 179). He also believed that social and political flaws such as criminality or economic inequalities were created by the tsarist and capitalistic will to hold on to power and that they would disappear with the former regime (Carrere 178). The confusion created by this utopia is exacerbated by theoretical contradictions: on one side he argued for an anarchic vision of the proletariat based on the Commune (everyone can be elected and recalled any time, etc.). On the other side, he advocated for a vision in which centralization, unity, factory discipline, and the “no compromises policy” (Carrere 181).
Secondly, Lenin’s conception of revolutionary leadership fostered the centralization and bureaucratization of the new Social-Democrat state, a mechanism that according to many scholars played a key role in the formation of the future totalitarian regime (LeBlanc 56). Main decisions were taken by a small party of experienced revolutionaries working through a party central committee (LeBlanc 37): a minority ruled the masses, and increasingly concentrated all powers. Lenin never made any concessions and thereby prevented any unity amongst the Social Democrats, destroying democratic values. The concept of “professional revolutionaries” legitimized the centralization and monopolization of power by the Bolsheviks, since they were the only ones “qualified” to lead: the “Vanguard” of Social-Democrats (Makin-Waite 86). Obviously, the bureaucratization and centralization desired by Lenin were inconsistent with the revolutionary’s democratic goals (LeBlanc 56).
From these two structural and fundamental flaws ensued inevitable clashes and the contradiction that we previously identified: a revolution conducted for democracy that eventually turned back towards autocracy. Once in power, utopia broke down in 1918 when faced with concrete and practical challenges (LeBlanc 53), as well as the unity of the revolutionary strategy and the working-class militancy. Lenin had argued for a “simple solution” of workers’ democracy being able to fulfill all state functions: this vision broke down as well when it was found that workers did not have the experience nor the skills to carry out decisions, the national economy, develop adequate social services, formulate a coherent foreign policy, or even run a factory.
So, despite being apparently concerned with democratic and socialist values (Makin-Waite 85), Lenin’s revolution progressively shifted from a democratic movement to a centralized and autocratic State, partly because of these two fundamental theoretical contradictions.
Part III: Plausible Theoretical Adjustments to this Contradiction
We will now suggest three (among many other) plausible solutions to this contradiction. First of all, the goal is to define what measures or theoretical adjustments could have been made in order to keep the Revolution loyal to its democratic ideal, while keeping its socialist objectives. We have established three plausible solutions that could have helped to attain this goal: the non-monopolization of the political field by the Communist party, the exportation of the revolution abroad and a merger between some Menshevik arguments and the Bolshevik/Leninist theory.
The first solution to our problem would have been to modify Lenin’s utopian vision of “Democratic Centralism”. This concept, crafted by Lenin himself, was based on the model of the Parisian Commune. It described a “genuinely collectivist organization, freely, consciously, and joyfully submitting to the leadership imposed upon it by democratic scruples” (LeBlanc 36). Its leadership was of course made of professional revolutionaries, which constituted the hierarchy and organization of the new state. Clearly utopian, Lenin’s vision was based on the assumption that the masses will comply with this unified and not-so-democratic leadership: unfortunately, they didn’t (Carrere 191). As a result, the central party turned out to be more centralized than democratic (Leblanc 36). Lenin progressively shut down all forms of political opposition and criticism; this, added with the reality of power, helps understand the practical delusion of Leninist theory and why Bolsheviks eventually turned back to autocratic practices.
A solution would be to modify Lenin’s argument that there would be only “one” central communist party. Indeed in Lenin’s theory democratic principles, although desirable, should be “exclusively subordinated to the interests of [the] party” (Makin-Waite 82). Lenin therefore conceived the “democratic” new regime as being composed of one party and only a few professional revolutionaries from the beginning.
Therefore, opening up the political field and allowing for political pluralism (especially other Social-Democrat tendencies) would ensure that democratic values are as important as the socialist ones (LeBlanc 58). This way, the revolution’s ideals would be safe, socialism would still be everyone’s ultimate objective and the masses would still heavily support Lenin’s government
However, one can argue that this solution was not realistically feasible, partly because it was incompatible with Lenin’s character. Indeed, Lenin tried to solve the democratic problem by creating new layers of state and party bureaucracy (LeBlanc 58), which were already at the source of the problem and paved the way for Stalin’s totalitarianism. Once in power, his decisions also show that he was against sharing power in order to “save the revolution”. He didn’t believe in the necessity of “unity” of all socialists and was not ready to make political concessions; even several Bolsheviks didn’t approve of Lenin’s decision to monopolize power (Carrere 181).
Our second plausible solution was actually considered by Bolsheviks. Designed notably by Lenin and Trotsky, the two leaders realized once in power that their way of governing had become somewhat autocratic but were still driven by the desire to achieve democracy in Russia (LeBlanc 56); Lenin himself recognized that the socialist democracy was turning into a “bureaucratic dictatorship” (LeBlanc 57).
The Social Democrats knew that the working class was a formidable force but couldn’t lead a successful revolution by itself: it had to ally with other classes. The Bolsheviks didn’t trust the bourgeoisie for a variety of reasons (we will come back to that later) and chose to ally the workers with the peasants (LeBlanc 25). However, this alliance didn’t provide the same material basis and skills that many revolutionaries saw as necessary to maintain the revolution.
Therefore, in order to keep the revolution both socialist and democratic, Lenin and Trotsky sought to export it to the rest of Europe (especially the industrialized, liberal western democracies). The logic behind this strategy was that by adding these industrially advanced countries, the material basis for the economic and cultural development of a socialist and democratic society would have been assured (Le Blanc 57). Trotsky in particular sought to create a “wave” of European revolutions resulting in a chain of international relationships. With revolutionary events occurring simultaneously and by linking up with these more economically advanced countries, the Russian working class could open up to a “permanent revolution” without the need for the bourgeoisie’s help (Makin-Waite 85).
However, the obvious problem with this solution (which had also been identified by Lenin and Trotsky at the time) was its total reliance on the outcomes of foreign events, making it a risky bet for democracy. Since these events failed (especially the German revolt in 1919), the Leninist logic preferred socialism to democracy, and the new regime further turned to autocracy.
Finally, we studied a third plausible solution: the integration of some of the Menshevik tendency’s ideas into Lenin’s strategy in order to achieve a democratic revolution. We need to emphasize the interest of this ideology for our essay: while having similar socialist aims as the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks considered that it was necessary to ensure democracy (and the development of capitalism) as a first step before socialism could be achieved.
The Menshevik ideology was one of the many Russian Social-Democrat tendencies at the time and differed from Lenin on several fundamental assumptions. For them, two basic preconditions were necessary before a socialist transition could occur: economic development and political pluralism (democracy) (Makin-Waite 88). If achieved too quickly and without these, the Menshevik analysis predicted that the revolution could not achieve its socialist aims (Makin-Waite 88). Mensheviks had a “stages theory”: the Social Democrats’ task was to create an independent and politically conscious working class, capable of participating in running the affairs of the Russian. In order to achieve this, Mensheviks argued for an alliance with the liberal bourgeoisie: this alliance had proven effective in the past in Sweden (Makin-Waite 83) and would provide the material basis and skills needed for the revolution. The alliance with the bourgeois is pragmatic and aims at ensuring a stable economy, prevent a calamitous collapse, and a potentially destructive civil war.
As we mentioned previously, Lenin rejected this, thinking that the bourgeois had proven to be unreliable allies, arguing that their failure to overthrow autocracy by themselves in the past made them inefficient. Instead, he advocated for an alliance between the working class and the peasantry.
Ultimately, Mensheviks were discredited because the revolution happened at the time when, according to their analysis, it should not have done so. However, their prediction that “a social production without democracy could become a most oppressive bond” sadly turned out to be true (Makin-Waite 83).
Our solution would be to try to solve Lenin’s theoretical shortcomings by integrating some Menshevik ideas into it.
First of all, set democracy was a primary objective. In contrast, we already noted that Lenin accepted democratic principles as crucial only if “subordinated to the interests of [the] party” (Makin-Waite 82). It is reasonable to assume that because of this mentality, the centralization and bureaucratization of the regime would have been mitigated.
Secondly, allowing the bourgeoisie to participate in the revolution (instead of fully taking them out) would prove efficient in maintaining democracy (by ensuring political pluralism) and the country’s economic stability. As mentioned previously, since workers and peasants did not have sufficient experience (LeBlanc 25) it left the Bolsheviks free to assume (alone) all powers.
Thirdly, the Menshevik mission to create an independent and politically conscious working class very interesting (Makin-Waite 83). Their will to train and make them capable of participating in running the affairs of the Russian state is very promising. The leadership would therefore not be concentrated in the hands of a “qualified minority”, but accessible to more people and further encourage participation from the masses, not focusing only on few professional revolutionaries. It would ensure new leaders coming from the working class and from outside: we can imagine that even some liberal bourgeois favorable to the revolution could feel confident to share their managerial skills and experience, essential for a revolution.
As mentioned previously, one major flaw (among many) to this solution could be Lenin’s character, anti-democratic tendency, and unwillingness to share power.
However, these theoretical suggestions could have resulted in a patiently and carefully constructed democratic and socialist state, while keeping the core of the Bolshevik’s ideals and strategy to revolution (such as the concept of professional revolutionaries, democracy and socialism, develop class consciousness, etc.). Patience and democracy being paramount for the realization of these ideas, the chaos of Bolshevik utopia partly created the need for bureaucracy, secret police and autocracy which could have been avoided (Leblanc 25).
Conclusion
These themes are both endless and fascinating, and proposing solutions a century after one of the most significant historical events is easy. We can only fantasize about alternatives and happier scenarios for the exhausted masses that overthrew a tyrannical Tsar.
However, since Lenin was and still is a very influential writer (LeBlanc 61), providing some hypotheses to try to accommodate Marxism and Democracy can be useful. Out of our three solutions, we believe that the relative merger between Leninist and Menshevik theories is the most promising one.
Bibliography
Carrère d’Encausse, Hélène. Lenin, New York: Holmes & Meier, 2001.
https://mcgill.on.worldcat.org/oclc/46671098
Larousse Online Dictionary
https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/autocratie/6647
LeBlanc, Paul. Revolution, Democracy, Socialism: selected writings, London: Pluto, 2008.
https://mcgill.on.worldcat.org/oclc/300955037
Lenin, Vladimir. What is to Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement, International Publishers, New York, 1902.
Makin-Waite, Mike. Communism and Democracy: History, Debates and Potentials, Lawrence & Wishart, 2017.
