The Russian Revolution, Stalin and Stalinism

Introduction

It is important to understand exactly what the Russian revolution was and what it was not. Most mainstream accounts portray the main actors, either misguidedly leading the masses to what they thought would be liberation, or cunningly manipulating them into granting Lenin, Trotsky and others the dictatorial powers of which they had always secretly dreamed. It was expected that the counter-revolution would come from outside, via intervention from capitalist nations, or from the wealthy layer of the peasantry. But the final defeat of socialism in Russia ultimately came at the hands of the bureaucracy that formed ...