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Eighty years on from the October Revolution

The world’s fascination with the Soviet Union

The USSR may have disappeared but its interest has not waned. In fact, a number of historians have been calling for a Nuremberg-style trial of communism, equating Stalin with Hitler. But their two countries had quite different historical trajectories. To assess the role of the USSR and its impact on the world, we need to look back to Tsarist Russia. One of the many things we may deduce is that Soviet Russia, much like its Tsarist predecessor, was trying to resolve problems that were specifically Russian: such things as an all-powerful central authority out of step with a backward society, and a catastrophic lack of planning... (See also The USSR in 15 key dates.)

by Moshe Lewin 

To the historian’s eye, Russia’s role and the influence it has exercised for a large part of the 20th century is extremely ambiguous. Russia has played a crucially important role in the history of the world as a complex and unpredictable protagonist in an age of extremes - and was itself one of the extremes. What Russia says or does has always caused ripples in some part of the world. But if one discounts the sound and the fury that have characterised its presence in the international arena, all that Russia was basically trying to do (without much success) was to resolve problems that were specifically Russian. In a sense, one might say that Russia has been an international phenomenon despite itself.

If we read Russia’s history as basically reflecting its Russian-ness, one characteristic is particularly striking: it has been a country without the means to match the extent of its empire. Already, under the Tsars, Russia lacked the resources necessary to play a role, consistently and in depth, to match its imperial status. It had lost its capacity to defend its territory. During the first world war its army even lacked rifles. Not very impressive, as empires go...

Soviet Russia did not settle for this imperial inheritance, but went on to expand its territory still further. At one moment it appeared to be on top of the situation. It succeeded in record time in restoring its ability to conduct war and defend its frontiers. But it soon found itself at sea again, trying to deal with the realities of a complex world, and with economic and technological means that were insufficient to fulfil its allotted role. But it was still powerful enough - albeit not without substantial assistance from the West - to achieve victory over Hitler’s Germany during the second world war, In fact, in some fields its technology was superior to that of its adversaries. And if technology had not progressed beyond the level of the old heavy industries, the USSR would have been in a good (...)

Full article: 4 268 words.

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Moshe Lewin

Translated by Ed Emery

* Author of “La Formation du système sovietique”, Gallimard, Paris, 1987, and “La Grande Mutation”, La Découverte, Paris, 1989.

(1Germany’s defeat in the first world war paved the way for the revolution of November 1918, in which the Social Democratic Party (SPD) wrestled for leadership with the Independent Socialists (USPD), among whose ranks were the Spartacists who went on to found the German Communist Party (KPD). Chancellor Friedrich Ebert was alarmed by the radicalisation of the popular movement. In agreement with Von Hindenburg, over the period from January to May 1919, he drafted in mercenaries - the Freikorps, led by former reactionary officers - to crush the Spartacists. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were murdered on 15 January 1919.


(See “The USSR in 15 key dates”.)

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