The Beginning of Communism

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, both Germans, published the Communist Manifesto in 1848; “The most celebrated pamphlet in the history of the socialist movement…Marx was also the author of the movement’s most important book, Das Kapital. These writings and others by Marx and Engels form the basis of the body of thought and belief known as Marxism.”-Britannica.com.

“Vladimir Lenin of Russia, was founder of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), inspirer and leader of the Bolshevik Revolution (1917), and the architect, builder and first head (1917-1924) of the Soviet state.” Marxism and Leninism were conjoined to become the world view of Communism.-britannica.com.

Russia. 1861. The largest group of underprivileged group of people in Russia, were the peasants. “When they were freed from serfdom in 1861, the peasants got some land and the promise of more.”….

“In 1914, there were few really landless peasants. Most peasants families owned land either individually or as part of a collective group called a commune. But their holdings were so small that most of them had to work as tenants or farm hands on the estates of big land owners, or on the farms of richer peasants, or on land owned by the state or church.”….”In 1917 Russia had not only factory workers who sought to overthrow an industrial capitalist class, but masses of peasants without enough land to make their living on. They wanted more land and hoped to obtain it at the expense of such great landowners as the monarchy, the nobility, the church, and most important of all, the state. The actual coup that brought Lenin to power, however, was carried out by a group of professional revolutionaries, with the support of the mutinous Petrograd (St. Petersburg) garrison. It is important to note that this coup overthrew the Kerensky government, which was seeking to establish a democratic regime after having overthrown Czarism in March, 1917.”

“The November revolution was led by a group of intellectuals (The Bolshevik leaders), most of whom had never seen a worker’s bench or used a peasants plow. Many of them, notably Lenin and Trotsky, had lived in exile abroad because their views had brought them into conflict with the Czarist government. The guiding spirit of the revolution was Lenin, who came from the intelligentsia and had spent his life not in manual work but in writing and speaking.”-historians.org.

The founders of “Bolshevism” were Alexander Bogdanov and Lenin; it became a major organization by 1905. “Supporters of the party were mostly workers who believed in democratic centralism and saw themselves as the leaders of the Russian revolutionary working class.”-historyonthenet.com.

“Factory workers played an important role in destroying the old government and in defending the new Soviet regime as it proceeded to socialize production ( first in industry and trade, then in agriculture). But measured by the size of the forces engaged, the revolution of 1917 was chiefly an agrarian revolt. The slogan of the Bolshevik leaders in 1917 was: “Peace, Land and Bread.” Bread was desired by everyone, since World War I (The Russians fought against Germany) had disrupted transportation, and created shortages of food in the cities. Peace, too, was desired by many, especially by the soldiers at the front, who lacked munitions. But land, above all, was desired by the peasants, who for 50 years had suffered from acute “land hunger.”- historians.org.

“In 1917 many peasants thought they were going to oust all the big landowners and become individual owners of land themselves. This did not happen, because the Soviet government had no intention of transforming peasants into individual property owners.”…”The Soviet authorities were determined to destroy all possible roots of capitalism in Russia. Their plan was to create the same status for workers in factories, who do not own the plant, and merely receive wages for operating machinery, and for workers on farms where the peasants would also become wage earners. The land, like the factories, banks and natural resources of the country, was to become the property not of the individual peasants but of the state.”….The plans of the Soviet leaders met with bitter and stubborn opposition by the peasants. They fought the government tooth and nail for many years…the government retaliated by…sending offenders to remote areas of the country where they were forced to work on roads, railways, and other tasks.”….”Now, practically all land in Russia is the property of the state…the most crucial struggle of Soviet leaders was between the Bolsheviks and the peasants….the Soviet government claimed to represent factory workers, so it also created a struggle between factory workers and peasants.”-historians.org.

The other struggle of the Bolshevik Revolution was to make Russia “independent from the outside world.”…dependence on the outside world, threatened to make Russia a colony of advanced industrial powers.”….-historians.org.

As far as how religion played into Bolshevism, “Alexander Bogdanov, was one of the founders of the tendency known as “G-d Building”- an esoteric, heretical Bolshevism that hoped to harness the human impulse toward faith and channel it into the service of socialism.”- americanaffairsjournal.org./ 2018.

Conclusion: So, the moderate, democratic regime of the Kerensky government, overthrew the Czarist regime of Russia; then the Bolsheviks( Communists) overthrew the Kerensky government. The Bolsheviks, in the process of obtaining the backing of the factory workers and peasants, made false promises, as most politicians usually do, especially when trying to overthrow the government and replace it with its own. The Bolshevik slogan of “Peace, land and bread,” was trusted by the Russian people, that the people would actually benefit personally. They were very wrong. Peace was obtained as a result of World War I ending, at a tremendous sacrifice by Russia; Bread was obtained, only by a working wage, and land was only a pipe dream. The Bolsheviks never had any intentions of allowing the vast majority of the Russian population to own land, a capitalist idea, which they wanted no part. / Done