The world according to Marx.

The Soviet Union was born in violence and led by a man who believed deeply that communism had the potential for being the most humane form of government

For centuries Russians suffered under the absolute rule of the Tsars (kings). But, the last Tsar, Nicholas II, was overthrown in 1917.

Once the Tsar had fallen, there were many groups eager to pick over the ruins of his empire. The Bolsheviks (communists) under the leadership of V.I. Lenin proved to be the strongest. By early November 1917, Lenin was powerful enough to command forces capable of seizing control of Russia.

On 7 November, Bolshevik forces occupied Petrograd - which which was renamed Leningrad -, and put in place a Council of People's Commissars under Lenin's leadership.

There followed four years of civil war as other groups tried to wrest control from the Bolsheks. The Bolsheviks won survival of their regime by withdrawing from the war with Germany. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which brought peace with Germany, also gave freedom to Finland, the Baltic republics, Poland, and Ukraine.

At the end of the civil war, (the Bolsheviks won) the Soviet state was created. Ukraine was re-absorbed into the Soviet Union with Lenin as leader.

The people who seized control of Russia in 1917 represented a small fraction of the population. At the time of the Revolution the Bolshevik Party only had 350,000 members in a land of 150 million people. It was the single-minded leadership of Lenin that raised the Bolsheviks from being an obscure group of intellectuals to governors of the world's largest country. Lenin was a man with a mission, and this was to put into practice the theory of a German philosopher, Karl Marx.

In 1848, Marx and another German intellectual, Friedrich Engels, published The Communist Manifesto. In it, they outlined their notions about the proper order for society.

In common with many thinkers of his day, Marx was deeply interested in the ideas of freedom and equality - two commodities in very short supply for the masses in the Europe of the time. He saw that a small group of private individuals - those who owned the factories and land - held all the power. He called this ruling class the bourgeoisie; the workers he called the proletariat

Marx and Engels predicted that, as capitalism advanced, the ownership of industry would be concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. They said that capitalists would exploit workers and consumers in their drive for ever higher profits. They believed, therefore, that the means of production should be seized by the workers through revolution.

In his writings on revolution, Marx saw two stages. In the socialist stage, the workers would establish a "dictatorship of the proletariat," by overthrowing their former oppressors, the bourgeoisie. The abundance of goods created by capitalism would then, for the first time, be distributed according to socialist ideals: "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs," as Marx put it.

When this redistribution of wealth had been perfected the highest and final form of social organization - communism - would be reached. No longer would there be any exploitation, because the means of production would belong to all. Government, which acted in the interests of the bourgeoisie during the capitalist era, would be unnecessary during the communist stage and would "wither away."

Marx had believed that the workers would rise up of their own accord and pitch out their masters; Lenin recognized the need for leadership. He set up the "vanguard of the proletariat," a band of dedicated revolutionaries. It was their job to lead the workers before and after the revolution. They did this by organizing "soviets" (councils) of workers on factory floors, in soldiers' barracks, and among peasants in the fields.

One of the first acts of the new Russian government in 1917 was to issue "The Decree on Land." "Landlord property is abolished, immediately and without compensation," said the Decree. All land was declared to be the property of all the people. The big landowners, the royal family, and the church, lost all their land - 162 million hectares of it.

This seizure of land paved the way for agricultural reform. Farms were "collectivized," meaning the land belonged to the state and was worked by the peasants who had worked it before as serfs. Now, in theory, the peasants owned the land and were entitled to benefit from their farming of it. After the land had been taken over, the banks, industrial enterprises, transportation system, mines, and all other capitalist ventures were seized.

However, the notion of equality among all people just didn't work out in practice. The ideal of communism was perverted by those who preached it. The workers were liberated from the tyranny of capitalist bosses, but they were then placed firmly under the heel of communist bosses. Communism was used as an instrument of oppression. For anyone who stepped out of line the consequences were severe.

Lenin died in 1924 and he was succeeded by one of the great villains of the 20th century, Josef Stalin. He crushed opposition within the Soviet Union ruthlessly, and is thought to have been responsible for the deaths of 40 million people.

At the start of World War II, Stalin signed a pact with the German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. The deal was that the two countries would not attack each other and would carve up Central and Eastern Europe between them.

So, when Hitler invaded western Poland in 1939, the Soviet Union seized eastern Poland, and the Baltic states, and tried to take Finland. The Finns fought the vastly bigger Red Army to a standstill, and Stalin had to be content with minor gains.

On 22 June 1941, Hitler's armies caught Stalin's forces completely off guard in a surprise attack. In five months, the Germans overran Ukraine and were threatening Moscow and Leningrad. Then, winter arrived. The German advance was frozen and military aid for the Soviets began to arrive from the West. Slowly, the tide turned and the Germans were pushed back. As the Germans retreated, the Soviets took control of most of Central and Eastern Europe.

By the end of the war, in the famous words of British prime minister Winston Churchill, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an Iron Curtain has descended across the Continent."

The Soviet Union now controlled East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Albania, and Bulgaria (Yugoslavia and Albania later broke away from Soviet domination but remained communist). Communist governments, hand-picked by Stalin, were installed in each of these countries. Soviet troops occupied most areas, and any dissent was crushed by the secret police. The Cold War had began.

Forces of the East bloc (the Soviet Union and its allies) now faced those of the West (the United States and its allies). Both sides bristled with weapons, and the likelihood of another all-out world war ebbed and flowed for the next four decades.

Then, along came Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1985, Mr. Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union. The country, he said, was in a "Pre-crisis" situation. Unreformed for nearly 70 years, the Soviet economy had become a dinosaur. Based on central planning and control, about 150 government departments ran the entire economy.

As a result, between 1971 and 1985, Soviet economic growth fell sharply. Consumer goods production suffered badly because priority was given to heavy industry and military needs. Shortages were widespread. Soviet citizens had difficulty getting enough soap, shoes, toothpaste, and other products. Most serious were food shortages and rationing became extensive by the early 1980s.

Mr. Gorbachev hoped to avoid disaster through a reform program which he called, perestroika (economic restructuring). While perestroika was being unleashed on the economy, Westerners got used to hearing another Russian word - glasnost (openness).

Under the old Soviet system information was strictly controlled. The people were told only what the Communist Party wanted them to be told. Major disasters could be passed off as runaway successes because there was no independent media to tell the truth. For seven decades, Soviet citizens were fed a diet of half-truths and outright lies. Foreign radio signals were jammed so that the people were isolated from news from outside.

Under glasnost Mr. Gorbachev swept away most of the censorship and information control of the Stalinist system. For the first time, government policy was debated openly in the news media and by people on the streets. The jamming of Western broadcasts stopped. By the end of 1990, freedom of the press and religion had been approved. Books, long famous in the West but banned in the Soviet Union, such as Dr. Zhivago, could now be bought and read.

Mr. Gorbachev tried to bring about these reforms within the communist system. He failed miserably. Once the people of Central and Eastern Europe got a taste of freedom and democracy they decided they wanted the whole meal. A weakened Soviet government was no longer able to prop up its puppet leaders in other countries. In November and December 1989, the communist governments of Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, and Romania collapsed. Soon Bulgaria, Poland, and Hungary split with Moscow.

Next, the Soviet Union itself began to fall apart. By the end of 1991, it ceased to exist - split into 15 separate republics. The experiment with communism, at least in Europe, was over.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. Discuss the leadership qualities of Lenin. Through your discussion draw up a list of the qualities you think leaders should have. Do you think the qualities needed for leading a revolution are the same as those needed for running a country in peacetime? 2. For an eye-witness account of the Russian Revolution, read "Ten Days That Shook the World,' by John Reed.