Russian Social Democrat Party (Bolshevik – ‘majority’ – faction) and
later the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Marx and Engels envisaged socialist revolution taking place in the
most developed capitalist countries through mass action by trade
unions and democratic socialist organisations. Lenin and Stalin
adapted the theory to suit the needs of a conspiratorial revolutionary
organisation fighting an autocratic empire in which the majority of
the population were still peasants. The adoption of representative
democracy would have meant the loss of power by the Bolsheviks
(who, at best, were firmly supported by the relatively small group of
urban workers). In order to justify permanent control of a monopoly
single-party hierarchy over the Soviet Union the doctrines of ‘the
dictatorship of the proletariat’ and ‘democratic centralism’ were
developed. The party leadership was seen as representing the emer-
gent majority – the working class – that would be the majority as
industrialisation proceeded. Lenin developed Marx’s concept of the
dictatorship of the proletariat to mean ‘the organization of the
advanced guard of the oppressed as the ruling class, for the purpose of
crushing the oppressors’ (Lenin, 1917: 225). True democracy could
only be created by eliminating the exploitative bourgeois minority.
Within the party the dominance of the leadership was defended by
appealing to their greater knowledge of the ‘scientific’ doctrine and the
prevalence of infiltrating ‘counter-revolutionary’ forces. ‘Democratic
centralism’ was defined by the 1961 Communist Party Constitution
as including the election of all party organs, strict party discipline,
subordination of minorities to majorities and lower organs to higher
organs. In practice unwelcome criticism from below was denounced as
‘factionalism’ and ‘unbusinesslike’ discussion if not downright treason
(Schapiro, 1965: 63–65). Similarly Russian dominance in the former
empire was effectively protected by a doctrine of the existence of a
new ‘Soviet’ nationality which superseded both ‘Great Russian
Chauvinism’ and ‘Bourgeois [i.e. non-Russian] Nationalism’.
The apparent success of the Soviet regime in building a strong
industrialised state capable of defeating Nazi Germany from a
previously underdeveloped peasant economy led to the imitation of
the regime in numerous East European countries, China, the Far East
and Cuba. In many cases the ‘cult of personality’ developed around
Stalin in the Soviet Union was imitated in relation to indigenous
leaders such as Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Hoxha and Castro. Most78 IDEOLOGIES