Source Analysis: Lenin's Rise to Power

That V.I. Lenin left behind volumes of his own writings is helpful in determining his justifications for his historic actions. For example, two of his essays, "The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution," from April 1917, also known as the "April Theses,"[1] and "Theses on the Constituent Assembly"[2] from six months later, help to determine Lenin's thinking in the period from the March Revolution that removed the tsar and established a parliamentary republic and the Bolshevik seizure of power in November. By examining the two texts in juxtaposition with each other, it is possible to determine the reasons for Lenin's decision to embrace extremism by eliminating parliamentary democracy during the first few months of Soviet rule, including the continuing war, the difficulties inherent in minority status, and his observations of the Marxist theory of revolution unfolding at an expedited pace.

In the "April Thesis," Lenin writes, "I attacked the Provisional Government for not having appointed an early date or any date at all, for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, and for confining itself to promises."[3] He goes on to remind his reader that he merely argued that such an assembly would not work in the absence of workers' councils (i.e., Soviets) to represent workers and soldiers. In offering his argument for such a position, the first topic he broaches is the ongoing war against the Central Powers. In Lenin's view, the continuation of the "predatory imperialist war"[4] was being undertaken the provisional government. Because the parties that would participate in elections to the Constituent Assembly would be bourgeois parties, Lenin emphasizes the need to counterbalance the assembly with Soviets that represent the proletariat.

However, once the Bolsheviks have seized power and he promulgates his "Theses on the Constituent Assembly," Lenin is satisfied to nullify the results of the election to the Constituent Assembly, arguing, "Only now are the broad sections of the people actually receiving a chance fully and openly to observe the policy of revolutionary struggle for peace and to study its results."[5] Because the "mass of the people" did not realize this possibility at the time of the elections, he argues, the Bolsheviks must be given the opportunity to express the will of the people. In explaining Lenin's point of view, Orlando Figes seizes on Point 13 of the "Theses on the Constituent Assembly," which argues that the October Revolution had "shifted mass opinion to the left since the election."[6] Ironically, the Bolsheviks would resort to using force to impose this "mass opinion."

Lenin also argued at first for the combined presence of a Constituent Assembly and People's Soviets in recognition that the Bolsheviks were a minority party, even within the Soviets themselves. In the "April Theses," he writes, "in most of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies our Party is in a minority, so far a small minority, as against a bloc of all the petty-bourgeois opportunist elements."[7] He concedes that, as a minority, the Bolsheviks must focus their efforts on propagandizing the working class "so that the people may overcome their mistakes by experience."[8] All the while, Lenin makes it clear in the "April Theses" that the long-term goal would not be a parliamentary democracy but a Soviet republic.

Once he had seized power, however, Lenin was happy to impose minority rule. Robert Mayer writes that, at least in part, Lenin was willing to take revolutionary action only once the Bolsheviks had gained majority control over the soviets in Petrograd and Moscow. He "claimed a majority mandate within the proletariat for the October Revolution, and he justified Bolshevik rule thereafter on [that] basis."[9] To Mayer, this decision amounts to a rejection of previous denunciations by Lenin of Blanquism,[10] at least on a national level, as well as the expression of his willingness to impose a Tocqueville-esque "tyranny of the majority" on the Soviets themselves.[11]

Finally, in accepting the calls for a Constituent Assembly in the "April Theses," Lenin seems to embrace the orthodox Marxist notion of a two-stage revolution, according to which a bourgeois-democratic revolution must precede the proletarian revolution that seizes power for the working classes. In the "Theses on the Constituent Assembly," however, Lenin argues that the bourgeois-democratic state must be smashed a mere six months into its life cycle and mere weeks after elections to its parliament. To many readers, this shift represents the greatest transformation in Lenin's thinking, if not outright hypocrisy.

Jonathan Frankel has argued, however, that assuming a radical shift in theory or hypocrisy on Lenin's part is too hasty. Rather, at least from Lenin's other writings, Frankel summarizes Lenin's view as one that "the revolution had gone much farther than anticipated and control of the state had already passed from the feudal to the bourgeois class (in the form of the Provisional Government."[12] In short, even before elections to the Constituent Assembly had been called, Russia had already achieved bourgeois-democratic status. Once "the actual power of the Soviets was so immense that they in fact constituted (albeit in passive form) the long-awaited dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry,"[13] presumably on the basis of Bolshevik majorities, at least in Petrograd and Moscow, it would be a betrayal of the revolution to revert to a parliamentary state.

In conclusion, reading the two sets of theses by Lenin provides an opportunity for insight into his decisions during 1917. The continuation of World War I by the Provisional Government was a major reason for Lenin’s rejection thereof, and he feared the Bolsheviks had not been able to mobilize public opinion against the war before the elections to the Constituent Assembly occurred. Moreover, the Bolsheviks remains a minority party throughout 1917, despite gains in the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets. Although Lenin’s decision to dismiss the Constituent Assembly and establish a Soviet dictatorship can appear hypocritical, it was also the pace of events over the course of the year that large affected his change in tactics.

Bibliography

Figes, Orlando. Revolutionary Russia. Accessed April 15, 2016. http://www.            revolutionaryrussia.com/

Frankel, Jonathan. “Lenin’s Doctrinal Revolution of April 1917.” Contemporary History,

            4, no. 2 (1969): 117-142.

Lenin, V.I. "The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution." Translated by Isaacs

Bernard. Accessed April 15, 2016. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/
1917/apr/04.htm

Lenin, V.I. "Theses on the Constituent Assembly." Translated by Yuri Sdobnikov and

George Hanna. Accessed April 15, 2016. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/
works/1917/dec/11a.htm

Mayer, Robert. “Lenin, the Proletariat, and the Legitimation of Dictatorship.” Journal of

            Political Ideologies, 2, no. 1 (1997): 99-115. doi: 10.1080/13569319708420752.

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[1] V.I. Lenin, "The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution," trans. Isaacs Bernard, accessed April 15, 2016, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/04.htm

[2] V.I. Lenin, "Theses on the Constituent Assembly," trans. Yuri Sdobnikov and George Hanna, accessed April 15, 2016, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/dec/11a.htm

[3] Lenin, “Tasks,” point 10, para. 9.

[4] Ibid, point 1, para. 1.

[5] Lenin, “Theses,” point 15, para. 2.

[6] Orlando Figes, “Section 6: The October Revolution 1917,” Revolutionary Russia, accessed April 15, 2016, http://www.revolutionaryrussia.com/section6_TheOctoberRevolution1917/TheConstituentAssembly.php, para. 5.

[7] Lenin, “Tasks,” point 4, para. 1.

[8] Ibid, point 4, para. 3.

[9] Robert Mayer, “Lenin, the Proletariat, and the Legitimation of Dictatorship,” Journal of Political Ideologies, 2, no. 1 (1997): para. 18, doi: 10.1080/13569319708420752

[10] Ibid, para. 17.

[11] Ibid, para. 15.

[12] Jonathan Frankel, “Lenin’s Doctrinal Revolution of April 1917,” Contemporary History, 4, no. 2 (1969): 127.

[13] Ibid.