Thoughts on the October Revolution The Political Cost

...The monopolistic possession of the Marxist truth and virtue, then, reveals itself in the last analysis as a function of the monopoly of political power Stalin became the legitimate interpreter and augmentor of the truth of Marxism-Leninism because he was able to dislodge Trotsky and the other old Bolsheviks from political power Trotsky was exposed as a traitor, a deviationist and a saboteur because he could not keep political power When in 1956 Khrushchev denounced Stalin as a blood-stained tyrant, the despoiler of the principles of Marxism-Leninism, he performed three interconnected destructive deeds By destroying the myth of Stalin's infallibility in Marxist-Leninist terms, he cast doubt upon the legitimacy of any ruler or regime governing in the name of Marxism-Leninism By doing this, he impaired the monolithic character of Soviet rule within the Soviet Union and destroyed it abroad And if a blood-stained tyrant could rule supreme for 20 years in the name of Marxist-Leninist legitimacy, how trustworthy was the test by which the successors of Marx and Lenin were chosen9 That question was now bound to be raised with regard not only to Stalin, but to any Communist regime tracing its legitimacy from Marxism-Leninism ?including Khrushchev's and all subsequent regimes The answer is likely to depend less and less upon conformity with the teachings of Marx and Lenin, and more and more upon the pragmatic test of success and the sheer ability to hold on to power...

...Held equally by the governors and the governed, that doubt is the source of what is called the internal "liberalization" of the Soviet regime It is the peculiar nature of charismatic legitimacy to be particularly vulnerable to failure A "gift from heaven," it must at the very least guard against the exposure of being of this world Once it is so exposed, it is emptied of its substance The governors may continue to govern m its name, and the subjects may still pay obeisance to it, but both will have lost faith in the wisdom, the virtue, the unchallengeable power of the government??and this faith is the vital force of any legitimacy They may go through the motions of mouthing worn tenets and observing empty rituals, which at best serve the purpose of providing justifications and rationalizations for the actions of the government However, this is not what makes those actions acceptable to the governed That acceptance now rests effectively only upon the power of the government to enforce its will, and upon the benefits that the governed receive from it...

...The end to be achieved determined the means to be employed, and no extraneous restraint was permitted to limit the means deemed necessary to achieve the end When Lady Astor asked Stalin "When are you going to stop killing people9" Stalin replied "When it is no longer necessary " To an English journalist who asked him about the millions of peasants who had died during the collectivization crisis, Stalin countered "How many died in the Great War1" And he continued, "Over 7,500,000 dead for no purpose at all Then you must acknowledge that our losses are small, because your war ended in chaos, while we are engaged in a work which will benefit the whole of humanity " It is both intellectually easy and morally convenient to hold Stalin personally responsible for this terrible perversion of the Marxist intent This is a kind of "cult of personality" in reverse, the exorcism of the personality that is being blamed for Marxism having gone astray There is nothing new in these attempts at saving, as it were, the honor of Marxism by blaming one of its prominent exponents for its failings Harold Laski, for example, used to argue that at a particular point in his career Lenin led Marxism down the primrose path The truth is more complex, however, and less reassuring for the honor of Marxism For the perversion of the Marxist intent m practical application follows inevitably from the nature of Marxism itself...

...This is indeed the essence of the "liberalization" of the Soviet regime The Soviet government can no longer impose its will with the same totalitarian ruthlessness that characterized Lenin's and Stalin's rule It has lost that ability not from a lack of the physical power to impose its will upon a recalcitrant citizenry, but because it has ceased to believe firmly m the charismatic source of its own legitimacy It cannot maintain the monolithic character of Soviet society because it is no longer monolithic itself In short, the Soviet government has lost the moral conviction of its own legitimacy which could overcome the new moral conviction of the dissenters in its midst While the government is morally incapable of suppressing dissent after the fashion of Lenin and Stalin, it must continue to exert a considerable measure of monolithic control to maintain its monopoly of political power It cannot morally afford to suppress dissent altogether, nor can it politically afford to allow dissent free reign Thus it vacillates between the reassertion of monolithic control and "liberalization," that is, a measure of freedom to express dissent This dilemma is a function of the divorcement of political power from the legitimacy which gave birth to it The monopoly of power m the hands of the Soviet government is the political expression of the monopolistic pretense of Marxism-Leninism The monopoly of power has survived the monopolistic pretense It is power denuded of legitimacy As such, it is uncertain of itself, indecisive m application, and of dubious longevity By denying the legitimacy of Stalin's rule, Khrushchev had implicitly put into question the legitimacy of Soviet rule The question was from then on to be raised explicitly not only within the Soviet Union but throughout the Communist world Within the Soviet Union, the negative answer given resulted in the "liberalization" of the Soviet regime The same negative answer abroad resulted in polycentrism??a variety of Marxist societies and movements denying in theory and practice the Soviet monopoly of truth, virtue and power...

...In truth, the material transformation of Russia was paid for by the sacrifice of those very libertarian purposes which the French Revolution established in principle and Marx tried to put into practice "The jump from necessity to freedom," in which Marx saw the consumation of the historic process, became a jump from the necessity of wage slavery into the necessity of the utter degradation and helplessness of the individual While Hegel had postulated history as the "slaughter bank on which the happiness of the individual is sacrificed for the progress of reason," Stalin made the Soviet Union the slaughter bank on which the very existence of the individual was sacrificed for the material progress of Russia Armed with the pretense of a monopoly of truth and virtue, as well as a monopoly of power derived from and supporting that pretense and enforced by the instruments of modern technology, Stalin developed a new form of government??the totalitarian state The world had seen bloody tyrannies before, but never before had it witnessed a tyrant who was also the Pope of a secular religion and who possessed the technical means to degrade and destroy millions of men on behalf of a material end postulated by that religion...

...The Revolution not only increased the productive capacity and material power of Russia, but it also made Moscow a new Jerusalem, Mecca and Rome the fountainhead of Marxist truth and virtue, the visible manifestation of the fulfillment of the Marxist prophecies, the center that would direct and support the transformation of the world in the Marxist image The Soviet Union did not simply become one great power among others, it became the "Fatherland of Socialism," whose interests were identical with those of humanity and to which all progressive men everywhere owed' primary allegiance That moral attraction drew strength from the material power of the Soviet state, in turn, the state used its power to further its own ends...

...Marxism-Leninism, pretending to have possession of all the truth about man and society, must also pretend that the answer to any question is not extraneous to itself but is of necessity in the hands of the faithful The truth is revealed once and for all in the writing of Marx and Lenin, it only needs to be applied to concrete cases That is the task of the elect tew who, by dint of charismatic endowment, speak to the issues of the day in the voices of Marx and Lenin Since there can be only a single truth, the one propounded by the official interpreters of Marxism-Leninism, dissent from the official truth is bound to be illegitimate Since the truth has already been revealed, there can be no room in the market place for the dissenter to compete with the official view The dissenter is an outcast by definition He is not to be argued with on rational grounds or overruled because he is pragmatically mistaken He is to be denounced as a saboteur and traitor and ostracized as a "deviationist" Just as the monopolistic pretense of Marxism-Leninism is of necessity tantamount to a pseudo-religious dogmatism in theory, so this dogmatism calls forth in practice the monolithic structure of Communist society When the truth of Marxism-Leninism, as officially interpreted, is not accepted voluntarily, political power forces its acceptance, and that power is totalitarian because it exerts monopolistic control over the instruments of modern technology All regimes laying claim to the Marxist heritage show this pattern of political oppression To be sure, Stalin's bloody excesses, especially the wanton killing of innocent people, stem from the tyrant's paranoiac personality Yet political oppression for the sake of maintaining the monolithic rule of the political elite has survived his rule...

...Thus the Bolshevist Revolution presents a spectacle more awesome and more revealing of the human condition that did the French Revolution Both, by devouring their own children, showed that truth and virtue enforced are truth and virtue destroyed Yet the magnitude, permanence and rational control of that destruction in the Soviet Union mark a qualitative difference from similar destructions m the past There is an awe-inspiring majesty of Hegelian proportions in the inevitability of the progression from Marx's libertarian aspirations and devotion to the truth, to the compulsory modernization of Russia achieved in the name of Marx The progression moves from mass murder, mass deception, and the slaughter of tens of millions of people to the pragmatism of a totalitarian bureaucracy covered up with the dead ritual of quotes from Marx and Lenin, and threatened by the self-same libertarian aspirations which Marx sought to fulfill for all men...

...The Bolshevist Revolution did for Russia under the conditions of a highly developed technology what the Revolution of 1789 did for France under the conditions of primitive capitalism It destroyed the fetters of a decaying social system and put new productive forces in the hands of a new society The French Revolution liberated the rising bourgeoisie and established, at least in principle, the individual rights of all men This soil nurtured both the intellectual thrust and moral force of Marxist thought What the French Revolution had established in principle Marx set out to achieve through a radical transformation of the economic system, freeing the productive forces of the working masses and thereby restoring their humanity The Bolshevist Revolution endeavored to put into practice what Marx had taught...

...Khrushchev's attack upon Stalin went to the very heart of Communist legitimacy By destroying Stalin's reputation, it impaired his ability and that of his successors to govern in the name of Marxism-Leninism The supporters of Khrushchev and the defenders of Stalin found themselves in the same leaking boat They could not help but cast doubt upon the validity of a doctrine and the legitimacy of a political system which brought such leaders to the fore And the doctrine had no plausible argument for dispelling that doubt...

...The very freedom Marx strove for and Marxism destroyed in his name, now rises against the Marxist state...

...Thus the Bolshevist Revolution has shown what man can do for man, and what he can do to man if he allows his ends to overwhelm his means It has also shown what he cannot do to man He can degrade and kill him, but he cannot still his desire to be free This is the ultimate lesson the Bolshevist Revolution carries to all of us...

...Thoughts On The October Revolution The Political Cost By Hans J. Morgenthau Viewed from the vantage point of 1967, the October Revolution of 1917 appears as the most important political event of the 20th century It is an open question whether it will so appear from the vantage point of the year 2000 For it may well be that during the last third of this century its consequences for the world will be overshadowed by the achievements of the Chinese Revolution, provided 800 million Chinese will be able to master the instruments of modern technology Yet while our judgment of the ultimate place of the Bolshevist Revolution must perforce remain suspended, its accomplishments are clearly visible today They are three the modernization of Russia, the establishment of the first totalitarian state, the destruction of Marxism as a living political philosophy...

...It transformed the inert masses of the Russian people, and of the non-Russian nationalities of the Russian empire, into a modern working force Thus Russia become a modern state, the other great power in the world today...