Either We or Them! A's&B's of Communist History in 20th Century

The first thing everyone should know about communism, is that its fundament of existence is to topple capitalism! Many people get carried away in speculating what had been, what could have been done differently, how feasible it is as a system, or how much of it is a utopia. What they seem to forget is that in order to exist, communism must constantly fight and try to overtake the world. In its own dialect this process was called The World Revolution, which must be carried out until all states and territories on the globe become communist; in other words, until total communist globalization had been carried out. This is the fundamental of communism which does not change.

How a world revolution should be carried out was an issue, which was debated by many infamous communists, from the fathers Marx and Engels, to the titans Lenin and Trotsky. Generally, Trotsky stood for a constant world revolution, where at any time at any place all forces must be mobilized to try and spark a revolt, overtake a government, fight an “imperialist army” whatever needed to eliminate the capitalist system. Lenin, on the contrary believed in organized and prepared revolt which should take place during or at the end of a major war. The logic behind it being that in tragic calamity such as war, any regime is weakened: its military and police forces are concentrated on fighting the enemy outside the state; its population is exhausted and brought to misery and poverty by the war, the economy is weak. In precisely such circumstances Lenin and his band of Bolsheviks took the power in Russia, with the aid of Germany. Once the Bolsheviks gained the upper hand in the following civil war, the question of what next came up on their agenda. Trotsky insisted on continued efforts to expand into war thorn Europe, and it was the Polish army which saved the day, by stopping the Red Army, under the command of M.N. Tukhachevsky.

This was the turning point when Lenin realized that Russia was too weak to undertake such serious steps. Lenin realized that Russia its economy and army must be rebuild first, and only then to prepare another major step in spreading the world revolution further. So socialism in one country was adopted as the next step in the new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The idea behind it was to rebuild the country and the military and prepare for the next opportunity to expand the world revolution. Such opportunity was another major European war, which after the Versailles treaty seemed to be a very plausible possibility.

Many historians take socialism in one country as the definitive sign that the communists had given up on the world revolution. There is no proof of this, but there is a proof of the fact that communism cannot exist together with capitalism. Such was the view of the fathers of communism Marx and Engels, and of their followers. The logic behind their viewpoint is clear and simple: communism was a system which foresaw the mobilization of the entire society into labor camps, abolishment of family, among other inhumane plans, all of which were against basic human nature! Communists understood that better than anyone, and thus had no choice on giving up the world revolution, even if they wished so. Socialism in one country was a necessary step which the Bolsheviks were forced to take if they stood any chance in expanding communism further. And expanding communism further was their only ticket to survival according to their own philosophy.

Stalin was a follower of Lenin. He had clearly understood Lenin’s plan and was prepared to carry it out. Anyone who took the time to explore the history of the Soviet Union after Lenin and before the German invasion would see one and one thing only: the turning of a major country into a huge military camp with its own military industry. This was so true, that the Soviet Union until its end in 1991 was capable of producing some of the finest arms and general military products in the world, but was severely lacking behind in any civil technology had it been TV sets, automobiles, or cosmetic products. As a result of its dogma, the Soviet Union massed the largest quantities of tanks, aircraft, artillery, rockets, and what not in the military sphere.

During the course of establishing communism in one country it became apparent that Marx’s formula on mobilizing society into labor camps and abolishing family was quite undoable. Stalin was forced to balance between traditional and communist values, and even with such moderate formula, tens of millions of people had to be eliminated. Trotsky on the other hand was more conservative and insisted on following the original recipe provided by the fathers of communism. The difference between Stalin and Trotsky were so fundamental, that Stalin was forced to kick Trotsky out of the country, and ordered his elimination only after Trotsky failed to keep quite on the future plans of communism.

Trotsky was very popular then and had his followers up in the communist elite, whom Stalin had to remove from power in order to assure that his plans and orders would not be sabotaged by Trotsky sympathizers, as a means of protest against Trotsky’s removal from both the power and the Soviet Union. Most of these high ranking Bolsheviks were eliminated during the Great Purge of 1937-1938. Along were purged a great number of NKVD (later known as KGB) employees, and some military personnel. Today the traditional line of Soviet historiography claims that the Great purge was mainly aimed against the Red Army, and therefore the army was left decapitated, which is also claimed to be one of the reasons for the Red Army’s poor performance in the first months of the German invasion. The issue got cleared by the publishing of the lists of the purged, which clearly showed the majority of those purged to be staff of the NKVD, rather than of the Red Army. Some historians just cannot let go, and keep on claiming the standard old assumption about the Great Purge despite the existence of clear evidence of its incorrectness! A purge which was mainly aimed against NKVD, was a purge which could be claimed left the NKVD decapitated, but why the Red Army?