Lenin’s rule was authoritarian because he exploited on people’s fear to protect his power and implemented his ideologies forcefully even if it means to take away the people’s liberty.
Firstly, Lenin meted out harsh punishments on his opposition as a hard approach to gain compliance from Russians. He established a secret police force, Cheka to search for “foreign agents, the former Tsar spies, and all those who objected the peaceful construction of communism”, proving that everything that the people did were under the eyes of Lenin and all those suspected of wanting to counter-revolt and restore the a Tsarist Russia would be tortured and executed. The Cheka suspected and imprisoned activists without trials but based on the Cheka’s judgment. This meant that whoever wanted to oppose against his plans and opposes to the idea of a communist state would be punished. It is known that when sailors from the Kronstadt Naval Base started a revolt and accused that
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As mentioned in the article, Lenin was elected as the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars “by the Russian Congress”, which was then Bolshevik dominated. This means that Russians were not allowed to elect their own leader but the authority was concentrated on the Bolsheviks to decide on Russia’s leader. It is known that when the Bolsheviks did not garner the most votes in the November 1917 elections, they walked out in protest, claiming that the other parties were skewed towards the “bourgeois” and was unrepresentative of the peasants. Then, Lenin dissolved the constituent assembly and banned opposition political parties. This shows that Lenin had immense power such that he could remove his political oppositions easily and could remove a system that has been used for a year so that he could protect his power. At the same time, this authority was only exclusive to Lenin and no one else could make decisions as they
ought to be somebody to settle on choices for them. An ideology such as this can stem from an authoritarian government. In this day and age, most nations have a tendency to have a democracy. However, it wasn 't generally that way. Throughout history, there were nations under authoritarian rule. In order to fully understand what an authoritarian regime is, one must know the meaning of it. An authoritarian government is "an oppressive regime that rules through strict, intrusive, and violent enforcement
familiar, authoritarian regime. Russia’s inability to shake the shackles of autocracy can be directly linked to the morals, culture and history of the country. In short, deep-rooted culture and history strongly influence the structure of government in a country. Today historical analyst has dubbed Russia a hybrid regime. A hybrid regime is a pseudo-democratic regime that fosters the growth of autocratic leaders and governmental structures. While there are aspects democratic and authoritarian regimes
official Soviet historians of the time believed that Stalin was the natural heir of Lenin, opinions have changed with time. As more evidence came out of Stalin’s mass atrocities, the Soviet historians soon began to see Stalin as the betrayer of the revolution as Trotsky had always maintained,
Within the period 1894-2005, Lenin has been the most significant leader of Russia and the USSR. How valid is this statement? It can be argued that Lenin was the most significant leader of Russia and the USSR due to his revolutionary ideas, such as the implementation of socialist reforms, his New Economic Policy in 1921 and the transformation of the Bolshevik faction to the Communist Part of the Soviet Union leading to a huge Marxist-Leninist movement in the USSR. However, when assessing the ‘significance’
the paper it will be clear as to how and why the political regime of Russia is one that actually presents a completely new type of regime development that can be dubbed a quasi-democracy. Russian Political History (Kesselman and Krieger 324-330) The Russian tsarist state began its decline from the late 1800s until the revolutionary takeover in 1917. Before 1917 Russia was an autocratic state with the tsar (Russian monarch and emperor) as the head of state. Russia was a patrimonial state wherein the
George Orwell's Attack of Social Institutions in Animal Farm 'Animal Farm' is a novel from the 1950's. It was written as a reaction to the major social and political changes occurring in Europe and throughout the world in the first half of the twentieth century. The greatest of these was communism, which was a revolutionary brand of socialism that had taken hold in Russia. Orwell agreed with the principles of Communism, which promoted equality and the removal of social
Literary analysis of Animal Farm The rebellion was to escape from people and their cruel ways, but can they escape the death-grip of their own kind? The animals of animal farms are mistreated and have no rights. Mr and Mrs. Jones were the owners of Manor Farm, the human oppressors, and authoritarians of the animals. The animals rebel against the Jones and take over the farm. They create a utopian society for themselves, but the utopia quickly turns into a dystopia when the pigs take control of
victory is assured."1 "October was a classic coup d'état, the capture of governmental power by a small minority, carried out-without mass engagement."2 The October Revolution was perhaps the most momentous event of the twentieth century. It led to the creation of the Soviet Union, the first avowedly Communist nation in history, which was to become a global superpower, an inspiration to many, an object of the hatred of many more. Possibly more important was the role the memory of the October
yearly agendas, referred to as the “9th 3 year plan” in 1984 and the “Five Year Plan” in Soviet Russia (Rathbone 1). The death of Vladimir Lenin left Josef Stalin and Leon Trotsky in a deep power struggle. Stalin gained power in 1928, which began the Soviet Union’s first biggest step: spreading the economic belief of communism. The plan’s fundamental purpose was to “convert the USSR from an agrarian and weak country, dependent upon the caprices of the capitalist countries” (5) into a economically
in Russia’s rich history are Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Putin, as both have attempted to create an authoritarian form of government, the former through violence and the latter, through corruption. Stalin’s objective was to overthrow the Communist Party and abolish the leftist ideas introduced by the Bolsheviks, while moving the Soviet Union towards industrialization, and Putin, on the other hand, was faced with a different dilemma: restoring the economy and gaining supreme power over the Russian
Of course, this was not the case, since the government controlled all wealth, political officials and their friends became the new wealthy higher class. In fascist Germany, the road to equality was somewhat more sinister. Adolf Hitler’s plan for a classless society was the core of the Nazi ideology. To have a “perfect” society the Nazi’s believed that it must be made up of perfect individuals, whom they believed to be the Aryan race. Hitler’s solution of making Germany classless, was to terminate those
secret ballot system was instilled. All candidates (if their was more than one) were selected by the communist party, so the voting was quite meaningless since it lacked the element of real choice. Officials manipulated counts to make voter turnout appear higher than it actually was, and if one were to disagree with the choices listed on the ballot they were to mark the ballot publicly and be subject to the wrath of the secret police. The lack of accountability in the USSR was so shocking that anyone
culture is learned, it is not inherited, most of it is unconsciously learned from family, friends, peers, and even the media. Culture is shared, giving people the ability to predict how others act and interact with each other. With a rich culture of ballet, art, classical music and even painting it is easy to see how Russian culture has molded into the culture it is
Mussolini. The Italian dictator was loved by the majority of the population and even referred to, by some of his own generals, as a god. Regardless of what outside opinions might have been towards Mussolini the country still respected him. The question then becomes, what were the circumstances in Italy that attributed to the dictator’s rise to power? Between the years of 1909 and 1945 Italy experienced a radical change in its politics and denizens alike. The world was entering the Great War, a war
Karl Marx has been understood increasingly as a globalised figure, far from his central European intellectual orientation, political career and origins. Reversing the usual approach, this paper places Marx in the context of the political and intellectual world of nineteenth-century Germany. The article takes a critical look at his life, dictions, and ideas. The piece concludes with a brief consideration of the influence of his ideas and its implications globally. Keywords: Materialism, Exploitation