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Lara Douds examines the practical functioning and internal
political culture of the early Soviet government cabinet, the
Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), under Lenin. This study
elucidates the process by which Sovnarkom's governmental
decision-making authority was transferred to Communist Party bodies
in the early years of Soviet power and traces the day-to-day
operation of the supreme state organ. The book argues that
Sovnarkom was the principal executive body of the early Soviet
government until the Politburo gradually usurped this role during
the Civil War. Using a range of archival source material, Lara
Douds re-interprets early Soviet political history as a period
where fledging 'Soviet' rather than simply 'Communist Party' power
was attempted, but ultimately failed when pressures of Civil War
and socio-economic dislocation encouraged the centralising and
authoritarian rather than democratic strand of Bolshevism to
predominate. Inside Lenin's Government explores the basic mechanics
of governance by looking at the frequency of meetings, types of
business discussed, processes of decision-making and the
administrative backdrop, as well as the key personalities of
Sovnarkom. It then considers the reasons behind the shift in
executive power from state to party in this period, which resulted
in an abnormal situation where, as Leon Trotsky commented in 1923,
'leadership by the party gives way to administration by its
organs'.
How did a regime that promised utopian-style freedom end up
delivering terror and tyranny? For some, the Bolsheviks were
totalitarian and the descent was inevitable; for others, Stalin was
responsible; for others still, this period in Russian history was a
microcosm of the Cold War. The Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution
reasons that these arguments are too simplistic. Rather, the
journey from Bolshevik liberation to totalitarianism was riddled
with unsuccessful experiments, compromises, confusion, panic,
self-interest and over-optimism. As this book reveals, the
emergence (and persistence) of the Bolshevik dictatorship was, in
fact, the complicated product of a failed democratic transition.
Drawing on long-ignored archival sources and original research,
this fascinating volume brings together an international team of
leading scholars to reconsider one of the most important and
controversial questions of 20th-century history: how to explain the
rise of the repressive Stalinist dictatorship.
How did a regime that promised utopian-style freedom end up
delivering terror and tyranny? For some, the Bolsheviks were
totalitarian and the descent was inevitable; for others, Stalin was
responsible; for others still, this period in Russian history was a
microcosm of the Cold War. The Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution
reasons that these arguments are too simplistic. Rather, the
journey from Bolshevik liberation to totalitarianism was riddled
with unsuccessful experiments, compromises, confusion, panic,
self-interest and over-optimism. As this book reveals, the
emergence (and persistence) of the Bolshevik dictatorship was, in
fact, the complicated product of a failed democratic transition.
Drawing on long-ignored archival sources and original research,
this fascinating volume brings together an international team of
leading scholars to reconsider one of the most important and
controversial questions of 20th-century history: how to explain the
rise of the repressive Stalinist dictatorship.
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