Chapter Content
Okay, so, like, Chapter 15, right? It’s all about "Really-Existing Socialism." And, well, what that *really* means.
So, basically, think about the Great Depression. People, you know, they really felt like the world order, the whole shebang, had just totally failed. It wasn’t delivering the goods, you know? It promised prosperity, a land fit for heroes – all that jazz – but it just… didn't. People couldn't find work, they felt insecure, they weren't making enough money. It was bad. And even things like property rights, which were supposed to be, like, the cornerstone of a market society, even *those* were shaky.
The Depression showed that even if you owned something, a dysfunctional economy could screw it all up. And with these new political movements popping up, even those rights could be challenged. Add in mass politics, the radio, the tabloids… respect for authority? Gone. Societal consensus? Kaput. Basically, the old system… just wasn’t working anymore.
And this old system, what was it? It was this… pseudo-classical, semi-liberal thing. It wasn't really *old*, it was something invented by the rich folks to keep things… well, the way they were. You know that quote, "If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change"? That kind of vibe.
It was *semi*-liberal because, like, pushing for a free market was a fight, always. Any change that threatened the rich? Forget about it. They wanted people to be judged by how much money they had, but that money then just got you into their little exclusive social circle.
So, a few people still clung to this idea, this “Old Order,” even into the 30s. They wanted to go back to before World War I and the Depression. You know, Herbert Hoover, he was all about balancing the budget and keeping the gold standard, even as things were falling apart.
But, by the mid-30s, most people had lost faith. They didn't think just “liberalizing” markets could fix anything. So, they started looking at alternatives, right? Like fascism, which was new and, you know, *visible*, or socialism, which was… based on Marx and Engels, but kind of a dream. Everyone agreed that what was actually happening on the ground was… a long way from the ideal.
Lenin's regime was the first time anyone actually tried to put Marx's ideas into practice, “really-existing socialism,” through this thing called the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Now, “dictatorship” didn’t mean what it sounds like today. Back then, it meant temporarily suspending all the usual checks and balances so the government could make the necessary changes, even if it meant using force. At least, that’s what it *originally* meant to Lenin.
But, you know, who would this government be working *for*? Lenin thought it would be for the proletariat, the working class. Why not just have democracy? Because he believed that everyone else was just selfish and would hold back progress towards this… socialist utopia.
And, let me tell you, this "really-existing socialism" became one of the most brutal and murderous ideologies of the 20th century. It’s important to acknowledge that up front.
Before it actually *existed*, "socialism" could mean all sorts of things. In Western Europe and North America, most socialists thought a good society would have tons of individual freedom, diversity, local control, liberal values, and even some private property. The goal was to get rid of the unequal distribution of wealth that kept people trapped in poverty.
They figured out whether to use price controls or public ownership by working it out on a case-by-case basis. Most trusted democracy and debate to settle things. But others wanted something more radical. But, it wasn't until Lenin grabbed power that people began to see all the compromises that had to happen for a "really-existing socialism" that worked towards killing the power of the market.
Lenin and his followers started with a simple belief: Marx was right. About everything. Or, at least, he would be if they interpreted him right.
Marx thought the business class were really the most ruthless revolutionaries *ever*. They created this market economy that ended scarcity and oppression, which was pretty cool, right?
But Marx also thought this system would eventually get in the way of human happiness. It created wealth, but couldn't share it evenly. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and they were stuck in poverty. So, the only answer was to completely destroy the market's power.
And when I say "inescapable" and "inevitable," I mean it. Inevitability was key for Marx. He tried to prove that the system *guaranteed* a dystopia. He believed things would just keep getting worse for workers and, eventually, they'd overthrow the whole thing and create a socialist society.
In this society, private property would be gone. And instead, there'd be "individual property based on cooperation" and everyone would own the land and means of production *together*. He thought it'd be easy. Just "expropriate a few usurpers," and then everyone would democratically decide how to run things. Utopia!
Except… Marx was wrong.
This increasing inequality and inevitable revolution just didn't happen. Living standards improved for the working class in Britain after 1850. Inequality *did* increase up until World War I in Europe and up until 1929 in North America. But, the big jump in economic growth after 1870 meant that working people got richer.
Marx only had one example to look at: Britain. And, in Britain, things *did* get worse for some workers in the early 1800s. New machines put people out of work. But, by the time he died, Marx’s theories were already looking shaky. By 1914, his idea of inevitable misery was more like a religion than a logical conclusion.
So, why even bother talking about Marx? Because he became a *prophet*. His writings became sacred texts for a major world religion. Reading Marx, it reminded me of that Great Voice that John the Theologian heard in the Bible. Socialism was supposed to be Heaven on Earth: the New Jerusalem made real.
So, a small group of people, including Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin, took up Marx’s ideas. It’s kind of mind-blowing to think how things might have been different if other people had been in charge. They *were* smart, capable, and… ruthless.
Lenin and his successors took Marx’s ideas seriously and tried to put them into practice. But they weren’t gods. They wanted true socialism, but they created "really-existing socialism." It claimed to be as close to Marx's vision as possible, but it was also a *compromise* with reality. It was, according to them, as close to utopia as they could possibly get.
Marx probably would have hated it. Prophets tend to dislike it when people are taking their words and making it real! But in order for it to *exist*, socialism had to be changed a lot from his predictions. And Russia in the early 20th century was *not* where anyone thought socialism would first take hold.
In 1914, Russia was poor and unequal. Life expectancy was super low. The rich were mostly landowners who didn’t do anything useful. Instead of things like private property, they used the old feudal system.
But, Russia *did* absorb Western ideas about equality and democracy. These ideas, including those of Marx and Engels, came through St. Petersburg, which was a major port and connected Russia to the West.
In February 1917, the czar was out. In October, Lenin took over. In December, he shut down the assembly that was supposed to write a constitution. Now the Communist Party was in charge. And that’s pretty much all they had going for them.
Then came a brutal civil war. Supporters of the czar, local strongmen, Lenin's followers, and even foreign forces fought back and forth for three years.
To win, the communists had to use old czarist army officers. But could they trust them? Trotsky came up with a solution: put each officer under the watch of a political commissar who would indoctrinate the soldiers. This "dual administration" system was applied to everything. That was the origin of the party always watching the technocrats.
Lenin’s regime had to survive, first. But, it also wanted to get rid of capitalism by nationalizing everything. How do you run an economy without business owners who have something invested and would keep things running? Lenin's answer was to run the economy like an army: top-down, planned, with managers promoted, fired, or shot based on how well they followed orders.
During the Civil War, Lenin tried to implement "war communism," to match Germany’s wartime economic mobilization.
Lenin was impressed by the German economy during World War I. He thought it showed that capitalism was ready to become socialism. He believed that if Germany could direct its economy from one central institution, so could the working class. But how do you run an economy without private property or a market?
During WWI, the German government bought things it needed at whatever price the market demanded. When prices went up, it imposed price controls. Then, materials started getting diverted away from the government, so the government started rationing. It tracked materials and decided what military uses they should go towards.
So, Germany became the inspiration for war communism in the Soviet Union.
War communism started with the government nationalizing industries. Then it commanded the industries to supply raw materials at fixed prices, and then rationed scarce materials. Boom. The Soviet Union had a centrally planned economy. A few key commodities were controlled from the center, factory managers were given orders, and they had to, you know, beg, borrow, and steal to make it happen.
It was really inefficient, and it was very corrupt. But it did focus attention on producing the things the government prioritized.
War communism was also an agricultural disaster. Peasants took land for themselves, which was nice, but they weren't interested in giving their grain to the cities. The government tried to take the food by force. The peasants hid it. Hungry city workers went back to their family farms. Factories struggled.
Even though it was inefficient and corrupt, war communism managed to produce enough resources for the Bolsheviks to win the Civil War.
Lenin and the communists won because Trotsky was good at organizing the army, because the peasants hated the Whites even more (since the Whites would bring back the landlords), and because Feliks Dzerzhinsky was good at running the secret police. They also won because they were just… incredibly ruthless. A "command economy" turned out to need a "command polity."
Lenin was perfect for this ruthlessness. The writer Maxim Gorky said that Lenin loved Beethoven’s music but he didn’t have time to stroke people’s heads and say nice things. He was too busy hitting them on the head, to save their civilization.
Around 10 million people died during the Russian Civil War. Add that to the dead from the flu, World War I, and the war against Poland, and it’s a mess. By 1921, Russia’s prosperity had fallen by two-thirds, production was way down, and life expectancy was awful. A big chunk of land had broken off. The czarist generals were dead or gone. And any liberal, democratic, or social democratic opposition had been wiped out. The former czarist empire was now Lenin’s: the USSR.
The socialist agitators who had gathered under Lenin now had to figure out how to run a country and build a utopia through "really-existing socialism."
They thought other communist revolutions would follow in the West. They believed that those countries would help Russia industrialize, so Lenin could stay in power and guide the country to a socialist utopia. He pinned his hopes on Germany, the most industrialized country in Europe.
Communist republics briefly rose to power in Hungary and Bavaria, but they did not last. "Really-existing socialism" was stuck in one, very large, country: Russia.
At first, they had to pull back from war communism and embrace the "New Economic Policy." They allowed prices to rise and fall, people to buy and sell, and managers to make profits. They even let a class of merchants grow. It was capitalism, but controlled by the state.
Part of the reason for this shift was that the Soviet government just didn’t have the control it needed. Even by the 30s, they could only track material balances for about one hundred commodities. Producers who didn’t fulfill their goals were punished. Otherwise, goods were exchanged through the market or through "blat," connections. Knowing people mattered.
When blat, market exchange, or central planning failed, there was another option: the "tolkachi," barter agents. They would find out who had what you needed and what you could trade for it.
One secret of capitalist business is that companies’ internal organizations were actually a lot like the Soviet planners’ material balance calculations. People swap favors, follow priorities, and use social engineering to get things done. Market, barter, blat, and the organization’s primary purposes always rule, but in different amounts.
But a standard business is embedded in a larger market economy, so it can always decide whether it’s more efficient to get a resource from inside the company or to just buy it from outside. This keeps businesses efficient. Also, factories are surrounded by middlemen. In the Soviet Union, they were missing. As a result, the economy was wasteful.
But material balance control *is* something that societies use during wartime. Then, hitting a small number of specific goals becomes the highest priority. In times of total mobilization, command-and-control seems like the best we can do. But do we want a society where all times are times of total mobilization?
Lenin only lived five years after the revolution. He had a stroke in 1922, recovered, and then had two more. He died in 1924. Before he died, he wrote what he thought of his possible successors.
Stalin, he said, had too much power and might not use it carefully.
Trotsky was capable but had too much self-assurance and focused too much on administration.
Some people had “Great Russian chauvinism.”
Bukharin’s theoretical views were questionable.
Pyatakov focused too much on administration.
Lenin also said that Stalin was too coarse, which would be “intolerable in a General Secretary.” He thought they should replace him with someone "more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate." This was a "detail" of "decisive importance."
Lenin had made Stalin general secretary after the Civil War because it seemed like a boring job for someone with a good work ethic. But Stalin’s control of personnel was more powerful than anyone realized.
Lenin failed to set up a way to find out what the people or even the workers wanted. He didn’t attend to this "detail," which would be of "decisive importance."
So the party chose Lenin’s successor. But Stalin had been appointing people, too. He appointed local committee secretaries. And the local secretaries appointed people who chose the delegates to the Communist Party congresses.
And it led back to Stalin.
After Lenin’s death, the party chose Joseph Stalin in 1927.
By 1927, the Soviet Union had recovered to where it had been in 1914. They had met the survival, existential threat. And now they had removed the czarist aristocracy who consumed the country's resources. As long as they didn’t screw things up too badly, it would be hard for them to fall out of favor.
The Soviet Union still feared that capitalist powers would try to overthrow them. They had fought two wars already. So they desperately needed to strengthen their economy and political system. They had ideology, a small group of ruthless people, and a bureaucracy that sort of ran an economy that had now made it back to its 1914 level. But they didn't have time.
And they were right.
On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union. They wanted to wipe out Jewish Bolshevism and enslave or kill most of the Soviet population. They needed the land for German farmers and more "living space" for the German nation.
It didn’t *have* to be this way, but Lenin’s failure to plan for succession or create normal political systems in the Communist Party meant that Russia was likely to fall back into its old pattern of being controlled by a czar. And in this case, it was the Dread Joseph Stalin, a paranoid psychopath and one of the greatest mass murderers in history.
Stalin had become a revolutionary after being kicked out of a seminary. He was exiled to Siberia four times. And each time he escaped. Trotsky and others claimed that he had actually been spying on the communists for the czar’s secret police.
Regardless, in 1912, Lenin picked Stalin to stir up trouble in the empire. He was the first major Bolshevik to return to what was the capital after the czar fell in 1917. He then became editor of the party newspaper. During the Civil War, he worked to cement the revolution among ethnic minorities. As party general secretary, Stalin determined who would be in the party. It is unsurprising then that Stalin came out on top, although he made many enemies.
Dzerzhinsky died in 1926 before Stalin consolidated power. Stalin killed all the others that Lenin had mentioned in his testament, except Trotsky and maybe Ordzhonikidze. Trotsky was exiled and then killed by the Soviet police in Mexico City. Maybe Ordzhonikidze killed himself before the secret police could get him. We don't know. Either way, Stalin silenced and then executed all of his former peers. And he promoted people who were completely dependent on him.
The Bolsheviks thought that the non-socialist powers saw them as a threat. And they all agreed that Russia needed to industrialize quickly to survive. But how would they persuade the peasants to produce more food if they didn’t have consumer goods to trade for the grain?
Marx had written that British landlords stole land from the peasants and squeezed their standard of living. This forced them to move to cities and work in factories.
The Bolsheviks took this idea and made it their business model. They wanted to squeeze the peasants as much as possible to feed the growing cities. They would keep urban wages high enough to attract migrants, but not higher. This was the first of the Five-Year Plans.
The policy resulted in a shortage of manufactured goods in the cities and caused them to shift from consumer goods to capital goods and from light industry to heavy industry, which would later cause the farmers to fall into famine. The prices of industrial goods continued to rise to meet the government’s investment targets and the price of farm goods fell, which the Bolsheviks called the “scissors crisis.” The farmers were unable to buy manufactures and unwilling to sell food.
Stalin blamed the farmers called the “kulaks” for hoarding grain to extort the cities with unfair prices.
The government decided to confiscate the kulaks’ land and animals and force them onto collective farms with other peasants. This way the party would take all the food to the cities without having to send consumer goods to the countryside.
The government was wrong.
Around 94 percent of the Soviet Union’s twenty-five million peasant households were forced onto state and collective farms. Many peasants were shot; others died of famine. Millions were exiled to Siberian prison camps. Approximately fifteen million people died. Agricultural production dropped by a third. The number of farm animals dropped by half.
Did the policy have any benefits? No. They could have gotten more food on better terms by producing consumer goods the farmers would want to buy and trade with. Serfdom is not an efficient way of squeezing food from the countryside. And it would have been far more efficient to keep those people alive who were killed.
But this doesn’t mean that the Bolsheviks didn’t get results. During the First and Second Five-Year Plans, Soviet statisticians said that industrial production was way higher than it was in 1913. Heavy industry was the highest priority: coal, steel, chemicals, and electricity. Consumer goods were to come later.
The plans consisted of goals that had to be met, no matter what the cost. They were to buy or make the technology that American heavy industry was using. They built a "steel city" in the Urals and supplied it with coal from the Chinese border. Without the city, Stalin couldn't have won World War II, because the factories of western Russia were under German occupation. Dams and automobile factories were built east of Moscow.
How was Stalin going to get workers to run these factories, if he couldn't pay them enough? He would draft the population. Internal passports destroyed people’s freedom of movement. Access to housing and ration books depended on keeping your job. And those that didn’t meet those standards were exiled to Siberia, shot in the neck, or accused of being “plan-wreckers.”
Squeezing the rural standard of living led to mass migration. More than twenty-five million people moved to cities and factories during the 1930s. And it worked. The Soviet Union was able to outpace Germany and Britain in war weapons production during World War II. However, they only had a certain shelf life to be used in intensive combat before they were no longer usable.
The claims of nearly sevenfold growth in industrial production from 1913 to 1940 were exaggerated. Industrial production was maybe three and a half times of what it had been. The Soviet economy grew at a rate of approximately four and a half percent per year. But the human cost was high.
Factory workers were shot or exiled for not meeting production targets. Intellectuals were shot or exiled for being insufficiently pro-Stalin. Communists, bureaucrats, and secret policemen fared no better. Millions of government officials and party members were killed or exiled in the Great Purge of the 1930s.
The Siberian concentration camps were filled by the millions, again and again and again. It was filled with the deportation of farmers, purges, and then Poles, Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians, and Moldavians when the Soviet Union annexed those territories on the eve of World War II. After the war, perhaps four million Soviet soldiers who had been captured by the Germans were sent to the Gulag. They were left to rot and die.