The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union 1917-1991

Book Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
Series editor's preface
Glossary of Russian terms and abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Russia and the rise of Bolshevism
Marx and the Russian Road
Document 1.1 Vera Zasulich’s Letter to Marx
Honoured Citizen,
Document 1.2 Marx’s Reply to Zasulich
Document 1.3 Later Thoughts
The Emergence of Bolshevism
Document 1.4 Manifesto of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party (RSDWP)
Document 1.5 Lenin-What is to be Done?
Document 1.6 Lenin—One Step Forward, Two Steps Backwards
Early Critics of Leninism
Document 1.7 Luxemburg—Leninism or Marxism?
Document 1.7 Trotsky—Our Political Tasks
1905 and Beyond
Document 1.8 Lenin on the 1905 Revolution
Document 1.9 Trotsky and ‘Permanent Revolution’
Document 1.10 Lenin on Party-mindedness in Literature
Document 1.11 Lenin on ‘Democratic Centralism’
The Intelligentsia and Revolution
Document 1.12 Bakunin—Statism and Anarchy
Document 1.13 Machajski—The Intelligentsia and Socialism
Document 1.14 Bogdanov on Truth
Document 1.15 Lenin on Eternal Verities
Document 1.16 The Vekhi Response—Struve
Nationalism, Imperialism and the Great War
Document 1.17 Lenin on National Self-determination
Document 1.18 Lenin—Socialism and Self- determination
Document 1.19 But Self-determination Did Not Mean Secession
Document 1.20 Lenin and the ‘United States of Europe’
Document 1.21 Lenin on Imperialism
Preface to the French and German Editions, 6 July 1920
Document 1.22 Bukharin on the Imperialist State
2 1917: From revolution to revolution
Document 2.1 Order No. 1
The Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies resolves:
Document 2.2 Lenin’s ‘April Theses’
Document 2.3 Lenin and the Imperialist War
Policy Issues and the Way Ahead
Document 2.4 Tsereteli at the First Congress of Soviets
Document 2.5 Lenin Addresses the First Congress of Soviets, 4 June 1917
Document 2.6 Kerensky’s Response
Comrades:
Document 2.7 Lenin’s State and Revolution
The Road to Power
Document 2.8 The Kornilov ‘Revolt’
Document 2.9 Lenin—The Bolsheviks Must Seize Power
Document 2.10 Lenin’s ‘Marxism and Insurrection’
Document 2.11 Lenin—‘Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?’
Document 2.12 Lenin Again Calls for the Seizure of Power
Document 2.13 Kamenev and Zinoviev Denounce Lenin’s Plans for Insurrection
The Seizure of Power
Document 2.14 John Reed on the Second Congress of Soviets, 25 October (7 November) 1917
Document 2.15 ‘To the Citizens of Russia’
Document 2.16 Lenin on the Significance of the Revolution
One of our immediate tasks is the necessity of ending the war at once. But in
Document 2.17 More Warnings
Bolsheviks in Power—First Steps
Document 2.17 Decree on Peace
Document 2.18 Decree on Land
Peasant Mandate on Land
Document 2.19 The Sovnarkom ‘Decree on the Press’
General Regulations on the Press
Document 2.20 Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia
Reactions to the Bolshevik Coup
Document 2.21 Plekhanov on the Bolshevik Revolution
Yours, G. Plekhanov
Document 2.22 Maksim Gorky and the Bolshevik Revolution
Document 2.23 Bogdanov on the Bolshevik Revolution
The Struggle for a Coalition Government
Document 2.24 Attempts to Create a Coalition Government
Document 2.25 Session of the Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP(b)
Document 2.26 The Central Committee on Opposition Within the Party
Document 2.27 The Resignation of a Group of People’s Commissars
Document 2.28 Lenin on the Rebels
Document 2.29 Lenin Defends the Bolsheviks Going it Alone
Comrades!
1917 in Perspective
Document 2.30 Trotsky Writes about the Revolution
Document 2.31 Semyon Frank on the Meaning of the Russian Revolution
3 The birth of the Soviet state, 1917-1921
The Consolidation of Power
Document 3.1 Establishment of the Secret Police
Document 3.2 Dissolution of the Constituent Assembly
Document 3.3 From the ‘Declaration of the Rights of the Toiling and Exploited People’
Document 3.4 Church and State
Peace and War
Document 3.6 Lenin on the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty
Document 3.7 The Left Communists Condemn the Brest-Litovsk Peace
Document 3.8 Trotsky and the Red Army
Industrial Democracy and State Capitalism
Document 3.9 Workers’ Control
Document 3.10 Lenin and ‘State Capitalism’
Document 3.11 The Left Communists and Economic Management
Document 3.12 Workers Protest Against Bolshevik Dictatorship over Workers
Comrade workers,
Critics of the Bolshevik Revolution
Document 3.13 Luxemburg on the Russian Revolution
Document 3.14 Kautsky on the Russian Revolution
Document 3.15 Lenin’s Response to Kautsky
How Kautsky Turned Marx into a, Common Liberal
War Communism and its Critics
Document 3.16 The Party Programme of 1919
Document 3.17 The ABC of Communism
Document 3.18 Trotsky on Terror and Militarisation
Document 3.19 The Democratic Centralists
Document 3.20 Lenin Condemns Leftist ‘lnfantilism’
Bolshevism Abroad
Document 3.21 Discipline in the Comintern
From Reform to Kronstadt
Document 3.22 Attempts at Party Reform
Document 3.23 Kollontai’s The Workers’ Opposition
Document 3.24 Programme of the Kronstadt Insurgents: ‘What We Are Fighting For’
Document 3.25 Bolshevik Bureaucratism Condemned
Document 3.26 ‘The Party’ and the People
One might ask why the Bolsheviks, while suppressing all free soviets, still
Putting the Lid on the Opposition
Document 3.27 The ‘Ban on Factions’
Document 3.28 The End of the Trade Union Debate
Bolshevism in Perspective
Document 3.29 Sukhanov, Notes on the Revolution
Document 3.30 Communism and the Salvation of Society
4 The paths diverge, 1921-1929
Launching the New Economic Policy
Document 4.1 ‘On the Replacement of Requisitioning by a Tax in Kind’
Document 4.2 Lenin on the ‘Tax in Kind’
Document 4.3 Lenin Puts NEP in Perspective
Document 4.4 Lenin Attacks the Church
Strictly secret
To Comrade Molotov for the Members of the Politburo
Document 4.5 Establishing the ‘Ministry of Censorship’
Political Controversy
Document 4.6 Lukacs on Party Organisation
Document 4.7 The Declaration of the Twenty-Two
Dear Comrades:
Document 4.8 Appeal of the ‘Workers’ Truth’ Group
Message to the Revolutionary Proletariat and to All Revolutionary Elements Who Remain Faithful to the Struggling Working Class:
The Formation of the USSR
Document 4.9 Autonomisation versus Federalism
Document 4.10 Amended Plans for the Union
Document 4.11 The 1924 USSR Constitution
Part I: Declaration
Part II: Treaty
Chapter II: Sovereign Rights of the Member Republics
Lenin’s Bequest
Document 4.12 Lenin’s Style of Politics
In the original letter in the archives this takes on a far more bloodthirsty tone:
Lenin writes:
Soloukhin comments as follows:
Document 4.13 Lenin’s Last Testament
23 December 1922
Postscript, 4 January 1923
Document 4.14 Lenin’s Advocacy of Co-operatives
Document 4.15 Lenin on the Possibility of Socialism in
Russia
Document 4.16 Lenin’s ‘Better Fewer, But Better’
The ‘New Course’ Debate
Document 4.17 Trotsky’s Letter to the CC
Document 4.18 Declaration of the Forty-Six
Document 4.19 Trotsky,The New Course
Document 4.20 The End of the ‘New Course’
Creating ‘Stalinism’
Document 4.21 Soviet Law—Pashukanis
Document 4.22 Stalin—on Leninism, the Party and Dictatorship
Document 4.23 Stalin—Against ‘Permanent Revolution’
Document 4.24 Stalin—‘Socialism in One Country’
The End of NEP
Document 4.25 Preobrazhenskii, ‘Primary Socialist Accumulation’
Document 4.26 Stalin and the Grain Crisis
Document 4.27 Bukharin Warns against Stalin
Kamenev: Is the struggle really serious?
Document 4.28 Bukharin—Notes of an Economist
Document 4.29 Nadezhda Mandelstam—‘Hope Abandoned’
5 Building socialism, 1929-1939
Foreign Policy
Document 5.1 The ‘Third Period’
Document 5.2 The Popular Front Policy
Collectivisation
Document 5.3 Stalin on ‘The Liquidation of the Kulaks as a Class’
Document 5.4 Horror in the Village
Document 5.5 Stalin—‘Dizzy with Success’
Document 5.6 Declaration of the Bolshevik-Leninist Opposition
The Party Leadership and the Party Regime
‘Declaration of April 1930’, C. Rakovsky, V. Kossior, N. Muralov, V. Kasparova
Industrialisation and the Creation of a New Intelligentsia
Document 5.7 Stalin on Industrialisation
Document 5.8 Against Wage Equality and the Creation of a New Intelligentsia
Document 5.9 The Stakhanovite Movement
Cultural Transformation
Document 5.10 Bringing History to Order
Dear Comrades!
Document 5.11 Teaching History
Document 5.12 Socialist Realism
Social Conservatism
Document 5.13 Social Policy
Document 5.14 Consolidating Soviet Nationalism
Document 5.15 The Assault on Religion Continues
Document 5.16 The Defeat of Time
Anticipating the Terror
Document 5.17 The ‘Ryutin Group’
Stalin and the Crisis of the Proletarian Dictatorship
I In the party sphere.
II In the state sphere.
III In the sphere of industrialisation.
Document 5.18 ‘The Congress of Victors’
Document 5.19 The Murder of Kirov
Document 5.20 Bukharin’s Assessment of Kirov and Stalin
Document 5.21 Bukharin on Humanism
Document 5.22 The 1936 Constitution
Chapter I: The Structure of Society
Chapter II: The Structure of the State
Chapter X: Basic Rights and Duties of Citizens
Chapter XI: The Electoral System
The Great Terror
Document 5.23 The Purge Plenum
Document 5.24 Vyshinsky and the Show Trials
Document 5.25 The Show Trials—an American View
The New ‘Civilisation’
Document 5.26 Trotsky—The Revolution Betrayed
Document 5.27 Berdyaev on the Russian Revolution
Document 5.28 Berdyaev on the Origins of Russian Communism
Document 5.29 Sidney and Beatrice Webb
The New Civilisation
Is Stalin a Dictator?
Is the USSR a Political Democracy?
Document 5.30 Raskolnikov’s Letter to Stalin
Document 5.31 The God that Failed
Document 5.32 Anna Akhmatova
Requiem
INSTEAD OF A PREFACE
DEDICATION
INTRODUCTION
6 The road to Berlin, 1939-1945
The Diet of Dictators
Document 6.1 Stalin Provokes the War
Document 6.2 Treaty on Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union
Document 6.3 Secret Supplementary Protocol to the Nazi-Soviet Pact
Document 6.4 The Soviet Occupation of Eastern Poland
Document 6.5 German-Soviet Treaty on Friendship and Borders between the USSR and Germany
Document 6.6 The Deportation of the Poles: The Dark Side of the Moon
Document 6.7 Churchill’s Radio Broadcast of 1 October 1939
Document 6.8 The Winter War
Document 6.9 Stalin’s Attitude to Alliance with Hitler
Document 6.10 The Incorporation of the Baltic Republics
Document 6.11 Katyn
Beria’s Memorandum to Stalin
Comrade Stalin,
The Titans Go To War
6.12 Hitler’s War Aims
6.13 ‘None so Deaf as Will Not Hear’
Document 6.14 ‘Secret Number One’
6.15 More Disclaimers
Document 6.16 Molotov’s Radio Broadcast of 22 June 1941
Citizens of the Soviet Union!
Document 6.17 Stalin’s Radio Broadcast of 3 July 1941
Document 6.18 Stalin’s Conduct of the War
Document 6.19 The Unexpected War
Document 6.20 Hitler’s Conduct of the War
Document 6.21 The ‘Final Solution’ in the USSR
The Soviet War
Document 6.22 From the Supreme Command of the Red Army, 16 August 1941
Document 6.23 Stalin’s Speech, 6 November 1941
Document 6.24 The People’s War
Document 6.25 From the Head of the Gulag of the USSR NKVD
Document 6.26 ‘Plans for Imprisonment’
Document 6.27 Dissolution of the Comintern
Document 6.28 The War and the Orthodox Church
Document 6.29 Stalingrad, Life and Fate
Document 6.30 The Fruits of Industrialisation and Assistance from the West
Document 6.31 The Deportations
Document 6.32 Beria on the Crimean Tatars
Towards the Post-war Order
Document 6.33 Declaration of the Three Powers of 1 December 1943
Document 6.34 The Percentages Agreement, 9 October 1944
Document 6.35 Yalta: Peace and Betrayal
I World Organisation
II Declaration on Liberated Europe
III Dismemberment of Germany
IV Zone of Occupation for the French and Control Council for Germany
V Reparation
VI Major War Criminals
VII Poland
Agreement Regarding Entry of the Soviet Union into the War agninst Japan
Document 6.36 Stalin on Poland at Yalta
Flag over Berlin
Document 6.37 ‘The Prague Manifesto’ of the Vlasov Movement
Fellow-countrymen! Brothers and Sisters!
Document 6.38 Denikin on the Anniversary of the Volunteer Army
Document 6.39 Stalin’s Victory Toast
Comrades, permit me to propose one more, last toast.
7 The cold peace, 1945-1953
The Onset of the Cold War
Document 7.1 Djilas on Stalin
Document 7.2 Stalin’s ‘Two Camps’ Speech, 9 February 1946
Comrades!
Document 7.3 Kennan’s ‘Long Telegram’ of 22 February 1946
Document 7.4 Churchill’s ‘lron Curtain’ speech
Document 7.5 Stalin’s Response to Churchill’s Speech
Reimposing Orthodoxy
Document 7.6 ‘The Most Progressive Literature in the World’
Document 7.7 Party Distortion of Science—Genetics
Document 7.8 The Attack Against ‘Cosmopolitanism’
National Relations
Document 7.9 Stalin on the Nationality Question
Document 7.10 On Deportations and ‘Pacification’
Stalinism Abroad
Document 7.11 Stalinism in Germany
Antifascists were also jailed
For the sake of plan target figures
From cold and hunger
You’ll suffer more from your own people…
Document 7.12 Djilas on the Soviet-Yugoslav Split
Containment and Beyond
Document 7.13 Kennan’s ‘Mr X’ Article
Document 7.14 Stalin’s Final Bequest—War
8 Khrushchev and reform, 1953-1964
The New Course and Agricultural Problems
Document 8.1 The New Course
Document 8.2 The Legacy of Stalinist Collectivisation: ‘Crab Meat and Green Peas’
Document 8.3 Khrushchev and the Virgin Lands Scheme
Destalinisation
Document 8.4 Khrushchev’s ‘Secret Speech’
Document 8.5 Togliatti on Destalinisation
Document 8.6 The Impact of the Secret Speech in Georgia
Document 8.7 The ‘Anti-Party’ Group
Document 8.8 Yevtushenko, ‘The Heirs of Stalin’
National Relations
Document 8.9 The Transfer of Crimea from Russia to Ukraine
Document 8.10 Partial Lifting of Deportation Orders
Document 8.11 The New Party Programme and the National Question
The Full-scale Building of Socialism
Document 8.12 1961 Party Programme on Achieving Communism
Communism-The Bright Future of All Mankind
III The Tasks of the Party in the Spheres of State Development and the Further Promotion of Socialist Democracy
VII The Party in the Period of Full-scale Communist Construction
Intellectual Critique
Document 8.13 The Marxist Revisionist Critique
Document 8.14 The ‘New Class’
Cultural Thaw and its Limits
Example 8.15 Solzhenitsyn Emerges
Khrushchev’s Foreign Policy—to the Brink
Document 8.16 Khrushchev and ‘Peaceful Coexistence’
Document 8.17 Khrushchev and the Threat from Imperialism
Document 8.18 To the Brink—Cuba
Decline and Fall
Document 8.19 Khrushchev’s Ouster
Document 8.20 Suslov’s Denunciation of Khrushchev
Document 8.21 Communiqué of the Central Committee
9 Brezhnev and stagnation, 1964-1985
The Brezhnevite System
Document 9.1 The 1965 Reforms
Document 9.2 Brezhnev on the Party and the People
Document 9.3 Detente and the Helsinki Accords
I Sovereign equality, respectfor the rights inherent in sovereiynty
II Refraining from the threat or use of force
III Inviolability of frontiers
IV Territorial inteyrity of States
V Peaceful settlement of disputes
VI Non-intervention in internal affairs
VII Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief
Document 9.4 Developed Socialism
Document 9.5 The 1977 ‘Brezhnev’ Constitution
Document 9.6 Ogarkov on Technological Backwardness and Nuclear War
Document 9.7 Gorshkov on the Navy
The End of the Thaw and the Rise of Dissent
Document 9.8 The Sinyavsky-Daniel trial
Morning session 10 February 1966
From the speech of State Prosecutor O.P. Temushkin
Document 9.9 Appeal against Restalinisation
help avert an irreparable mistake.
Document 9.10 Appeal to Stop Political Trials
Document 9.11 Novy mir is Brought into Line
Socialism with a Human Face
Document 9.12 The Action Programme of the Czechoslovak Communist Party
Document 9.13 The Brezhnev Doctrine of Limited Sovereignty
Document 9.14 The Praxis View of Humanistic Socialism
Document 9.15 Meaningful Marxism
Document 9.16 Deutscher on the ‘Unfinished Revolution’
Within-system Reform and Beyond
Document 9.17 A Reformist Programme for Democratisation
Respected Comrades:
Document 9.18 Rostropovich on Solzhenitsyn
Dear Comrade Editor,
Document 9.19 The View from Within
Top Secret
Document 9.20 Bukovsky—In the Camps
From Under the Rubble
Document 9.21 ‘As Breathing and Consciousness Return’
Document 9.22 ‘Repentance and Self-limitation in the Life of Nations’
Document 9.23 Solzhenitsyn’s Letter to the Soviet Leaders
Introduction
1 The West on its Knees
2 War with China
3 Civilization in impasse
4 The Russian North-East
5 Internal, not external, development
6 Ideology
7 But how can all this be manoged?
Document 9.24 Sakharov’s Response to Solzhenitsyn
Document 9.25 Roy Medvedev—Democratic Socialist Dissent
Document 9.26 Amalrik, Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984
Dissent and Nationalism
Document 9.27 Leonid Plyushch—Soviet Society from the Inside
Document 9.28 Internationalism or Russification?
Document 9.29 Founding Principles of the Ukrainsky Visnyk
Document 9.30 Divisions within Dissent over the National Question
Document 9.31 Russification in Latvia
Dear comrades,
The Interregnum—Andropov’s Authoritarian Reform
Document 9.32 Andropov on Continuity and Nationality Issues
The USSR: Sixty Years
Document 9.33 Andropov and the Need for Flexibility
The Teaching of Karl Marx and Some Problems of Socialist Construction in the USSR
Document 9.34 The Role of Ideology
Document 9.35 Zaslavskaya—the Novosibirsk Report
10 Crisis and fall of the Soviet system, 1985-1991
Early Experiments
Document 10.1 Gorbachev’s First Views
Document 10.2 The Anti-alcohol Campaign
Decree of the Supreme Soviet Presidium of 16 May 1985
Document 10.3 Gorbachev and the Need for Perestroika
Some Fruits of Glasnost
Document 10.4 Soviet Economic Achievements: Alternative Views
Document 10.5 The USSR Compared to the Seven Most Developed Countries (1991, per cent)
Document 10.6 Consumption of Goods and Services, and Productivity of Labour in 1991
Reform of the Political System
Document 10.7 Reform of the Political System: First Steps
Document 10.8 Gorbachev Celebrates the Seventieth Anniversary of the October Revolution
Dear Comrades, esteemed foreign guests,
I The October Road: Road of Pioneers
II Socialism in Development and Perestroika
III The October Revolution and Today’s World
Document 10.9 Gorbachev—‘Revolutionary Perestroika and the Ideology of Renewal’
Comrades,
Our plenum is taking place at an important period of perestroika, or
Document 10.10 Nina Andreeva, ‘I Cannot Forgo Principles’
I Cannot Forgo Principles
Comrades, delegates,
1.1 Assess Achievements Self-critically
1.4 Democratising International Relations
II. 1 Why a Reform of the Political System is Necessary
II.3 Perfecting the Organisation of Government
II.5 Promoting Inter-ethnic Relations
II. 6 Establishing the Socialist Rule of Law
III. 1 Democracy within the Party Should be Fully Revived
III.2 Demarcating the Functions of Party and State Bodies
III.3 Revolutionary Perestroika for a New Image of Socialism
Document 10.11 The Official Response to Nina Andreeva
Comrades, delegates,
1.1 Assess Achievements Self-critically
1.4 Democratising International Relations
II. 1 Why a Reform of the Political System is Necessary
II.3 Perfecting the Organisation of Government
II.5 Promoting Inter-ethnic Relations
II. 6 Establishing the Socialist Rule of Law
III. 1 Democracy within the Party Should be Fully Revived
III.2 Demarcating the Functions of Party and State Bodies
III.3 Revolutionary Perestroika for a New Image of Socialism
Document 10.12 The Nineteenth Party Conference
Comrades, delegates,
1.1 Assess Achievements Self-critically
1.4 Democratising International Relations
II. 1 Why a Reform of the Political System is Necessary
II.3 Perfecting the Organisation of Government
II.5 Promoting Inter-ethnic Relations
II. 6 Establishing the Socialist Rule of Law
III. 1 Democracy within the Party Should be Fully Revived
III.2 Demarcating the Functions of Party and State Bodies
III.3 Revolutionary Perestroika for a New Image of Socialism
Document 10.13 Dismantling the Apparatus
Document 10.14 The First USSR Congress of People’s Deputies
One more thing, comrades. Life has demonstrated graphically that economic
Document 10.15 Can the Party Survive?
Document 10.16 The Abolition of the Party’s Leading Role
Document 10.17 The Amendment of Article 6
Transcending the Cold War
Document 10.18 The New Political Thinking in Action
Beyond Perestroika—Yeltsin Resurgent
Document 10.19 Sakharov on Political Reform and his ‘Decree on Power’
Decree on Power
Document 10.20 Russia’s Declaration of State Sovereignty
Document 10.21 Yeltsin’s Resignation from the Party
Document 10.22 Yeltsin Becomes Russian President
Document 10.23 The Revised Party Programme
Attempts to Save the Union
Document 10.24 The Union Treaty Process
The sovereign republics which are parties to the treaty
I Basic Principles
Document 10.25 The March 1991 Referendum
The August 1991 Coup
Document 10.26 Statement by the Soviet Leadership
Document 10.27 Resolution No. 1 of the USSR State Committee for the State of Emergency
Document 10.28 Appeal to the Soviet People
Fellow countrymen! Citizens of the Soviet Union!
Document 10.29 Yeltsin’s Call for Resistance to the Coup
To the Citizens of Russia
Document 10.30 Yeltsin Decrees the Acts of the SCSE Void
Document 10.31 Yeltsin’s Address to the People of 20 August 1991
Document 10.32 The Suspension of the Russian Communist Party
The End ofthe USSR
Document 10.33 Declaration Establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
Article 1
Article 2
Article 3
Article 4
Article 5
Article 6
Article 7
Article 8
Article 9
Article 10
Article 11
Article 12
Article 13
Article 14
Document 10.34 Declaration on the Creation of the CIS
Article 1
Article 2
Article 3
Article 4
Article 5
Article 6
Article 7
Article 8
Article 9
Article 10
Article 11
Article 12
Article 13
Article 14
Document 10.35 Gorbachev’s Response to the Establishment of the CIS
Document 10.36 The Alma Ata Declaration
The independent states:
Document 10.37 Gorbachev’s Resignation, 25 December 1991
Dear Compatriots, Citizens,
Guide to further reading
Bibliography
Index