what became the official doctrine of the Soviet Union, under the label of
Marxist-Leninism.
The first point, which caused conflict not only with the Mensheviks but also
with other equally radical Marxists, such as Trotsky and RosaLuxemburg,
was a very strong stress on the need for an organized, full-time professional
revolutionary cadre. This was not just a tactical issue; Lenin never accepted that
the Russian masses could be allowed much say in the revolution or its
aftermath, and continually stressed the need for e ́lite leadership and highly
authoritarian control of the party central committee (seevanguard of the
proletariat). This later became the official doctrine ofdemocratic central-
ism, and is held by many to have paved the way for the totalitarian rule of
Stalinand later periods. It is significant that Lenin was quite open in insisting
that this leadership should come from the left-wing bourgeois intellectuals, and
never allowed workers’ movements like trade unions any important role. Left
to themselves, he argued, the masses could not rise beyond a ‘trade union’
mentality, could never really throw off the chains ofcapitalism.
The second point, again contested by Trotsky, was that, knowing the
Russian industrial proletariat was too small and too new to carry out a
successful revolution itself, he advocated an alliance with the peasantry, despite
their traditional conservatism. What he then expected to happen, and which
did in fact start to happen under his rule after the October 1917 revolution, was
that the Soviet state itself, denying democracy and industrial participation,
would complete the process of industrialization until, at a later, perhaps much
later, date, fullcommunismwould be possible. He expected, in other words,
that the revolution would stop short of the full change of society. When, in
October 1917, he staged acoup d’e ́tatagainst the moderate and moderate-
left government that had taken power after the Abdication of Tsar Nicholas II,
he lost little time in abolishing all other parties, even though it would have
been possible to create a broadly based left-wing government with the
participation of the Mensheviks. Because of the rigours of the last stages of
the First World War, followed rapidly by the civil war between the ‘White’ and
‘Red’ armies, the Russian economy nearly collapsed and Lenin had to accept a
considerable weakening of the early socialist economics, in theNew Eco-
nomic Policy.
Lenin died in 1924 and the ensuing in-fighting among the Soviet leaders led
ultimately toStalinism. Lenin, more than any other single man, could have
changed the nature of Russian communism, but his real talents lay as a
tactician, rather than as a strategist or ideologue. Nevertheless, at least two
of his many writings continue to be of vital influence to communist intellec-
tuals. The first, the essayWhat Is To Be Done?(1902), set the blueprint for
democratic centralism. The second,Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism,
offered an explanation of why Marx’s economic predictions that capitalism
Lenin