Lenin's Bolshevism
Better known as Communism today, Bolshevism comes from the socialist ideas of Karl Marx. Seeking to make society free and egalitarian, Lenin will have to go through a revolution to implement his ideology. The soviets are the opposite of an autocratic system, the one before 1917, when the tsar still reigned and the people were silent. Leninism strongly opposed capitalism, which it considered more guilty of the outbreak of the Great War.
But the difference between the model proposed by Karl Marx and that which Lenin tried to establish in his country was industry. England was an industrial society, while Russia was an agricultural society. So how to get the peasants to join the revolution, whose only wish was to own their land? They initially resisted, as during Red Sunday, which meant no harm to the Tsar. Lenin will have to create an intermediate system, which will be to leave owners, Kulaks, to manage with the peasants the incomes of the grounds. But Lenin is counting on this organization to remain provisional, so that there is absolutely no longer any social class.
Leninism would probably have worked immediately if Russia had been an industrial country.
Communism versus capitalism:an egalitarian ideal
As the Bolsheviks assert that capitalism has mistreated the workers too much, they now wish to come closer to the socialist model presented by Karl Marx. This model becomes attractive after Lenin demonstrates for peace in the streets of the capital. Coming from the development of the proletariat, communism concerns all the proletarians of the world, and there is a call for solidarity within the working class.
What the Bolsheviks are trying to convey is that the fall of tsarism in their country should be an example for nations still under autocratic rule, but above all that the communist model must be everywhere to be fair. Because if there are no more class differences, then there is no more relationship with other countries.
But this desire of the Communist International frightens other countries, which will remain reluctant in the face of the will of the new Leninist Russia.
Appeal of the Soviet to the peoples of the whole world
Written on March 14, 1917 and addressed to all proletarians and workers, The Appeal of the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies highlights the fall of tsarism in Russia, which gave way to socialism, with the aim of achieving freedom. The fall of the tsar would show itself as an example for other countries, because the Russian revolution is “a great victory for freedom and democracy. This Appeal from the Soviet is an appeal to the proletarians of the world, to their solidarity with the adherents of the old Russian regime. The power of Russia will allow other nations to install democracy in their Republic, to seek to acquire peace, and to begin with:to end the war, which began three years ago. The Russians are addressing themselves here particularly to Germany, whose government is semi-autocratic, and the unification of the proletarians could allow the promotion of peace and freedom, passing through the fall of "power", as the 'autocracy has fallen in Russia.
But the Communist International, other countries are afraid of it. And this will lead to the clash between the Red Army and the White Armies.
What will happen to communism in Russia?
In the 19th century, in Siberia, there were tsarist prisons, in which convicts condemned to forced labor gathered. Between 1901 and 1914, approximately 100,000 Russians knew the tsarist prisons.
It was after the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917 that the camps welcomed the bourgeois, "the enemies of the new regime", which also included the kulaks. They are locked up as hostages, as they say, until the end of the civil war. But the duration nevertheless remained indefinite.
Then will come the work camps, the gulags, which Stalin will run in the name of communism, the same one that Lenin established by seeking equality and freedom.