Soviet Politics 1917-1991

Based on extensive research and a first-hand knowledge of the Soviet system, Soviet Politics: 1917-1991 offers an authoritative and lively history of the entire spectrum of Soviet politics, from the October Revolution and the rise of Lenin to the emergence of the Commonwealth of Independent States. McAuley ranges from the Revolution to the unprecedented crash industrialization and social mobility, to dictatorship and mass terror under Stalin, to conservative state control under Krushchev, Kosygin, and Brezhnev, and finally to the swift collapse of the state. The author offers a particularly stimulating analysis of the developments that brought an end to communist party rule and the breakup of the Soviet Union. She describes, for instance, how the 1989 elections undermined the Communist Party's assumption of unqualified popular support (Yeltsin, the bete noire of the Moscow party, was swept in, and Soloviev, a deputy member of the Politburo, who ran unopposed in Leningrad, failed to garner 50% of the vote). She shows how the Congress of that year, televised nationally, revealed to a wrapt nation a Party no longer solidly united behind one stand, where deputies openly criticized the government, the KGB, and the Afghan war. And she paints a striking portrait of Gorbachev trying to reconcile irreconcilable interests, to heal the rift between Democrats and Party conservatives, as the center began to unravel.

By the end of 1991, the USSR was gone forever, with momentous and unpredictable consequences not only for the peoples of the former Soviet Union, but for the world as a whole. Soviet Politics helps readers make sense of the developments since 1985, showing how and why the system fell apart. It will interest anyone wanting a full understanding of current world events.

It introduces, but doesn't go into detail about, a variety of viewpoints from various schools of thought - the West vs. contemporary Russian thinkers vs. past Russian politicians (Trotsky, Bukharin) - and highlights the fundamental problems with the Russian communist political ideology.

How could a vanguard party guide and lead without controlling the apparatus? How could such a party maintain its purity if it was supposed to embrace all social groups? And if they believed, as Lenin and Krushchev did, that there was one common aim and only one right way of moving forward - who was to decide what it was? Also, if there was only one right way, by definition all opposition had to be wrong - and therefore unnecessary; which resulted in a dangerous lack of checks-and-balances within the system.


A political history of three revolutions   December 19, 2003
Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States(cashbacher@yahoo.com))
Given that at least three revolutions have taken place in the Soviet Union during the time frame of this book, 123 pages does not seem enough to adequately cover them. The first was of course in 1917, toppling the monarchy and bringing the Bolsheviks to power, the second was in the 1930's and was twofold. An internal struggle took place within the party, where all Bolsheviks who had at some point stood in opposition to Stalin were liquidated. The second component of this revolution was the rapid industrialization of the country. Done by literally starving millions of peasants to death, the best estimates are now that over 20 million people perished in the struggle. The final one was the most amazing, where the Soviet Union and its' external empire fell apart, literally overnight and almost without bloodshed. All three of these revolutions are examined, with conclusions that many will disagree with.
There is little to dispute about how the Bolsheviks were able to take power in 1917. As a consequence of Russian involvement in World War I, the country was prostrate, starving and still illiterate. The Bolsheviks were the only group with a simple agenda and the determination to carry it out. While they were essentially a splinter party, so were all the others, so they were able to dominate in a situation where it should not have been possible. Their simple agenda of "peace, land and bread" is the epitome of a simple political slogan that all could understand. As the author points out very well, while the Bolsheviks had the most intellectual leadership, they were by far the most adaptable, which is how they were able to emerge victorious.
Even after he has been dead for a half-century, it is still difficult to analyze the rule of Joseph Stalin. To many, he was a paranoid madman, and yet it is sheer folly to consider him to be only that. He was a masterful, ruthless politician, a man who understood the simple political dictum of divide and conquer as well as anyone ever has. McAuley will be accused by many as an apologist for Stalin in her treatment of his actions, but she is quite correct in pointing out at least the possibility that he may not have had a choice in some of the things he did. Her examination of Stalin is honest, in that the brutality and murders are acknowledged, but the basic question of whether there was any other way that the country could be rapidly industrialized is at least asked. We in the west tend to forget that industrialization in Western Europe and the United States took several centuries and large numbers of people perished. The civil war fought in the United States was largely based on the conflicts between an industrial north and an agrarian, feudal society.
The weakest part of the book is the last revolution, where the Communist party and Soviet Union ceased to exist. Written in 1992, there was not yet sufficient distance between the events and the book to allow for the proper perspective. Nevertheless, there are some fundamentally accurate themes put forward. Distilled down, the Soviet Union had for years been in economic and political stagnation, with few new ideas being put forward in either area. While change was necessary and inevitable, without the threat of significant force being applied to maintain it, the Soviet Empire could no longer stay together. As was the case in 1917, when a country suddenly goes from having only one political party to many, the body politic tends to splinter into a large number of groups, where the party members generally show very little loyalty. Once again, a determined individual, in this case Boris Yeltsin, was able to overcome significant odds and rise to power. McAuley explains all of this well, describing the rapid demise of the Communist party by pointing out that it was due to a very slow rot, and collapsed under its' own weight.
The rapid rise, brutal history and equally rapid decline of the Soviet Union is one of the most intriguing stories of the twentieth century. Being part of human history, it has internal political components, which are often ignored by western historians. McAuley adds a significant piece to the historical record, raising some questions that should be considered by anyone trying to make sense of how it all happened.