...and it is really, really fascinating.
Do I say that every week? Forgive me, I guess I'm becoming a bit predictable. But it's interesting to see the nuts and bolts of how the Bolsheviks are going about consolidating power.
As the description of this episode indicates, the central dilemma is that they want to create a popular government, but they also want to keep their hold on power. And as is also indicated by the description (in this case, by the ironic question at the end), Lenin is going to choose to maintain his hold on power rather than grant everyone political liberty.
At the end of the episode, they're not quite autocrats yet--there's still some democracy operating in the Soviet and the Constituent Assembly--but they are quickly consolidating power. It'll be interested to see how the consolidation is continued in future episodes.
Other notes:
* Compared to the other revolutions Mike Duncan has covered, it strikes me that this one is unique in how quickly the Bolsheviks are consolidating power for themselves. In the previous revolutions, the initial goal was to create a democratic government, and it was only after those popular governments started to fall apart that later dictators emerged from the chaos. But here, right from the first days of the revolution, the Bolsheviks are more interested in consolidating power than creating democratic governments. We have now entered the era of communist revolution--there's a tension between the desire to create democratic governments, and a desire to create a communist state, and the desire to create a communist state is given priority.
* Although, that being said, it's interesting how much Lenin seems to be the driving force for all of this autocracy. As Mike Duncan makes clear in his narrative, there are a lot of other socialist groups vying for power at the moment, and it sounds like the rest of them are all more concerned about political liberty than Lenin is. Had history gone another way, and the Mensheviks or the SRs had gotten power, maybe the history of the USSR wouldn't have been so autocratic. (Or, maybe groups that are out of power are always more concerned about protecting minority rights than groups in power. I don't know.)
* Speaking of the SRs, I'm surprised that the peasantry voted overwhelmingly for SRs. I thought the peasants were conservative and supported the Tsar. Did I miss a part where this was explained in a past episode. (I may have missed it. My attention is, after all, sometimes distracted when I listen to podcasts.)
* And speaking of things I may have missed--for several episodes now, Mike Duncan has been talking about Right SRs and Left SRs, but when and how did this split happen. Did I miss that?
* To return to the first point I made, on further consideration, I suppose it depends on when you date the start of this revolution. If you count the October revolution as a continuation of the revolution that started in February, then maybe the emergence of dictators isn't premature. Maybe this is right on schedule.
No comments:
Post a Comment