The Soviet government was organized two days after the October Revolution, on November 9, 1917, under the name of the Council of People's Commissars. Headed by Lenin as chairman, the Council contained such prominent members of the Bolshevik party as Trotsky, who became commissar for foreign affairs, Alexis Rykov, who became commissar of the interior, and Joseph Dzhugashvili, better known as Stalin, who assumed charge of national minorities. Lenin thus led the government as well as the party and was recognized as by far the most important figure of the new regime in Russia.
Lenin was born in an intellectual family - his father was a school inspector - in 1870 in a town on the Volga named Simbirsk, later Ulianovsk. Vladimir Ulianov proved to be a brilliant student both in secondary school and at the University of Kazan, where he studied law. He early became a radical - the execution of his eldest brother in 1887 for participating in a plot to assassinate Alexander III has sometimes been considered a turning point for him - and then became a Marxist, suffering imprisonment in 1896 and Siberian exile for the three years following. He participated in the publication of a Social Democratic newspaper,
The Great October Revolution, masterminded by Lenin, gave him power that he continued to exercise in full until largely incapacitated by a stroke in May 1922. After that he still kept some control until his death on January 21, 1924. Moreover, in contrast to Stalin's later terrorism, Lenin's leadership of the party did not depend at all on the secret police, but rather on his own personality, ability, and achievement. Perhaps ap-
propriately, whereas Stalin's cult experienced some remarkable reversals of fortune shortly after his demise, that of Lenin kept, if anything, gaining in popularity throughout the communist world until its collapse in the late 1980's.
The communist myth of Lenin does not stand far from reality in many respects. For Lenin was a dedicated Bolshevik, who lived and breathed revolution and communism. Moreover, he did so naturally, compulsively to be more exact, rather than as an imposition or a burden. Although not superhumanly clever and virtually infallible, as Soviet propaganda would have it, he did combine high intelligence, an ability for acute theoretical thinking, and practical sense to become a great Marxist 'realist.' The amalgam proved ideal for communist purposes: Lenin never wavered in his Marxist faith; yet he knew how to adapt it, drastically if need be, to circumstances. Other outstanding qualities of the Bolshevik leader included exceptional will power, persistence, courage, and the ability to work extremely hard. Even Lenin's simple tastes and modest, almost ascetic, way of life were transposed easily and appropriately from the actual man to his mythical image.
To be sure, there is another way to look at this paragon of Communist virtues. Devotion to an exclusive doctrine led to narrow vision. In the opinion of some specialists, the break between Plekhanov and Lenin, between the older Marxist who never lost humanistic standards and culture and the young fanatic confident that the end justified the means, represented a fundamental division in modern Russian history. Ruthlessness followed from fanaticism as well as from Lenin's conviction that he, and sometimes only he, knew the right answer. In the name of a future Utopia, horrible things could be sanctioned in the present. Churchill once commented on Lenin: 'His aim to save the world. His method to blow it up.' The two objectives go ill together.
The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which met in Petrograd on the seventh of November, approved the Bolshevik revolution, although moderate socialists walked out of the gathering. In Moscow Soviet authority was established only after a week of fighting, because some military units remained loyal to the Provisional Government. Relying on local Soviets, the Bolsheviks spread their rule to numerous other towns and areas. The first serious challenge to the Bolshevik government occurred in January 1918, when the Constituent Assembly, for which elections had been held in late autumn, finally met. The 707 members who assembled in the capital on January 18 included 370 Socialist Revolutionaries, 40 Left Socialist Revolutionaries who had split from the
main party, only 170 Bolsheviks, and 34 Mensheviks, as well as not quite one hundred deputies who belonged to minor parties or had no party affiliation. In other words, the Socialist Revolutionaries possessed an absolute majority. Chernov was elected chairman of the Constituent Assembly. It should be remembered that that Assembly had been awaited for months by almost all political groups in Russia as the truly legitimate and definitive authority in the country. Lenin himself had denounced the Provisional Government for failing to summon it promptly. Yet, in the changed circumstances, he acted in his usual decisive manner and had troops disperse the Constituent Assembly on the morning of the nineteenth of January. No major repercussions followed, and Soviet rule appeared more secure than ever. The lack of response to the disbanding of the assembly resulted in part from the fact that it had no organized force behind it, and in part from the fact that on the very morrow of the revolution the Soviet government had declared its intention to make peace and also had in effect granted the peasants gentry land, thus taking steps to satisfy the two main demands of the people. The Bolsheviks even enjoyed the co-operation of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries who received three cabinet positions, including the ministry of agriculture.
But the making of peace proved both difficult and extremely costly, with the very existence of the Soviet state hanging in the balance. The Allies failed to respond to the Soviet bid for peace and in fact ignored the Soviet government, not expecting it to last. Discipline in the Russian army collapsed entirely, with soldiers often massacring their officers. After the conclusion of an armistice with the Germans in December 1917, the front simply disbanded in chaos, most men trying to return home by whatever means they could find. The Germans proved willing to negotiate, but they offered Draconian conditions of peace. Trotsky, who as commissar for foreign affairs represented the Soviet government, felt compelled to turn them down, proclaiming a new policy: 'no war, no peace!' The Germans then proceeded to advance, occupying more territory and seizing an enormous amount of military materiel. In Petrograd many Bolshevik leaders as well as the Left Socialist Revolutionaries agreed with Trotsky that German demands could not be accepted. Only Lenin's authority and determination swung the balance in favor of the humiliating peace. By sacrificing much else, Lenin in all probability saved Communist rule in Russia, for the young Soviet government was in no position whatsoever to fight Germany.
The Soviet-German Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3, 1918. To sum up its results in Vernadsky's words:
The peace conditions were disastrous to Russia. The Ukraine, Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia received their independence. Part of Transcaucasia was ceded to Turkey. Russia lost 26 per cent of her
total population; 27 per cent of her arable land; 32 per cent of her average crops; 26 per cent of her railway system; 33 per cent of her manufacturing industries; 73 per cent of her iron industries; 75 per cent of her coal fields. Besides that, Russia had to pay a large war indemnity.
Or to put it in different terms, Russia lost over sixty million people and over five thousand factories, mills, distilleries, and refineries. Puppet states dependent on Germany were set up in the separated border areas. Only the ultimate German defeat in the First World War prevented the Brest-Litovsk settlement from being definitive, and in particular made it possible for the Soviet government to reclaim Ukraine.
Since Lenin's firm direction in disbanding the Constituent Assembly and capitulating to the Germans had enabled the Soviet government to survive, the great Soviet leader and his associates proceeded rapidly to revamp and even transform Russia politically, socially, and economically. In addition to letting peasants seize land, the government assigned control over the factories to workers' committees and nationalized all banks, confiscating private accounts. Foreign trade became a state monopoly, and a special commissariat was created to handle it. In December 1917, the existing judicial system was declared abolished: the new revolutionary tribunals and people's courts were to be guided by the 'socialist legal consciousness.' Titles and ranks disappeared. Authorities gradually assumed control over the scarce housing and other material aspects of life. Those who belonged to the upper and middle classes often lost their property, suffered discrimination, and were considered by the new regime to be suspect by definition. Church property was confiscated and religious instruction in schools terminated. The
