Martin McCauley - Whos Who in Russia since 1900

Martin McCauley is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London. He has specialised in the politics and economics of Russia and Eastern Europe for over twenty-five years, and he acts as a consultant for investment in the former Soviet Union. He is the author of Stalin and Stalinism, The Origins of the Cold War, The Khrushchev Era, and is writing a biography of Mikhail Gorbachev.

Other Who's Whos (available in USA from Oxford University Press):

Who's Who in the Old Testament
Joan Comay

Who's Who in the New Testament
Ronald Brownrigg

Who's Who in Classical Mythology
Michael Grant and John Hazel

Who's Who in Non-Classical Mythology
Egerton Sykes, new edition revised by Alan Kendall

Who's Who in Shakespeare
Peter Quennell and Hamish Johnson

Who's Who in World War Two
Edited by John Keegan

Who's Who in Jewish History
Joan Comay, new edition revised by Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok

Available from Routledge worldwide:

Who's Who in Military History
John Keegan and Andrew Wheatcroft

Who's Who in Nazi Germany
Robert S.Wistrich

Who's Who in World Politics
Alan Palmer

Who's Who in Christianity
Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok

Martin McCauley

London and New York

First published 1997
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

1997 Martin McCauley

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be printed or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
McCauley, Martin.
Who's Who in Russia Since 1900/Martin McCauley.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. RussiaBiographyDictionaries, 2. Soviet UnionBiographyDictionaries. I. Title.
CT1203.M37 1997 9642009
920.047dc20 CIP

ISBN 0-203-13782-5 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-17903-X (Adobe eReader Format)

ISBN 0-415-13897-3 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-13898-1 (pbk)

The October Revolution in 1917 gave birth to the Soviet Union. It took place in an underdeveloped country and this had a significant impact on the nature of the state which emerged. The majority of the population supported revolution in 1917 but what type of revolution was it to be? The Bolsheviks, who had launched the successful bid for power, were quite clear in their own minds. It was to be a socialist revolution. Lenin, their leader, was convinced that Karl Marx had arrived at a definitive analysis of world history and that, by following his writings, the Bolsheviks would succeed in building a new society in the Soviet Union. This would not only be true of the Soviet Union but the whole world would eventually become Marxist socialist. A major disadvantage of Marx's writings was that they declared the inevitability of socialism but did not provide a blueprint on how to get there. To Marx, capitalism would inevitably collapse and socialism take over. Hence Lenin and the Bolsheviks used Marx as an inspiration but had to find their own route to the promised land. Given the fact that imperial Russia was an autocratic state, only just beginning the process of industrialisation and the move to representative institutions and democracy, it was almost inevitable that the new Bolshevik state would borrow heavily from the old regime. Russia, an empire, was a strong, centralised state, or aspired to be one. There was considerable debate among the Bolsheviks about the direction of the new state: should it be weak or strong? In October 1917 Lenin proclaimed that a new state had come into being, one ruled by Soviets, hence it was called Soviet Russia and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. In October 1917 the Bolsheviks set up their own government, the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) and the division of responsibilities mirrored very closely the last imperial government. There was a people's commissariat for internal affairs, for foreign affairs, for finance, and so on. To Lenin the key question was not administrative, it was who the official in the commissariat was. If he was a Bolshevik everything would be fine. Lenin chose to be head of the new government and remained so until his death in 1924. If the government was to exercise executive power, what was to be the role of the Communist Party (the name adopted for the Party in 1918)? Would it be consultative and restrict itself to providing ideological inspiration for the new government and state? There was certain to be tension between the government and the Party and how was conflict to be resolved? One of the striking features about the Soviet Union was that the relationship between the government and the Party was never defined. Which is more important? This problem was never resolved.

The experience of the Bolsheviks during their first four years in power shaped the Soviet Union. One of the first problems facing Lenin's government was how to end the war with Germany and its allies. This issue split the Bolsheviks, Lenin wanted peace at any price, Bukharin wanted revolutionary war and Trotsky proposed neither peace nor war. Lenin eventually had his way and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed in March 1918. However, it had to be ratified. In a free vote, there was not a majority in the Congress of Soviets, the parliament, for ratification so Lenin insisted that Bolshevik members did not vote according to their conscience but according to the decision of the Bolshevik Party to ratify the treaty. This was democratic centralism in action, and discipline held. The treaty was ratified. This underlined one of the problems of the rule of soviets; they would not necessarily do Lenin's bidding. Bolsheviks were often in the minority in the soviets. The onset of the Civil War in the summer of 1918 brought the problem of the relationship of the soviets and the Bolshevik Party to a head. The soviets were directly elected and enjoyed legitimacy. To the Bolsheviks their primary function was to implement central policy but the soviets wanted to rule their locality. The situation became so desperate that the Bolsheviks became more and more dictatorial in order to survive. The first Soviet government was all Bolshevik but in December 1917 Lenin bowed to pressure from within his own party to fashion a coalition socialist government but it did not survive the conflict over the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Hence from the spring of 1918 the Bolsheviks, a minority in the country, formed the government.

Lenin had not given much thought to the role of the Communist Party after October but the conflict over Brest-Litovsk and the onset of civil war drove the Bolsheviks in on themselves. Democracy within the Party was restricted because of the desperate struggle to survive, and democracy outside the Party, in the soviets, also suffered the same fate. All the leading Bolsheviks in the government were also members of the Party Central Committee (CC). The CC became too large for effective decision making and so a Politburo came into being in 1919, consisting of the top Bolsheviks, most of whom occupied key government posts. Gradually it emerged that the Politburo was more important than Sovnarkom. Given a choice, a minister would miss a Sovnarkom meeting but not a Politburo meeting. Lenin hastened this process by allowing ministers, outvoted in Sovnarkom, to appeal to the Politburo. By 1921, at the end of the Civil War, a pecking order had emerged: first, the Politburo, then Sovnarkom, then the soviets.