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The Rise Of Communism In Russia

      "Unless we accept the claim that Lenin's coup d'etat gave birth
to an entirely new state, and indeed to a new era in the history of
mankind, we must recognize in today's Soviet Union the old empire of
the Russians -- the only empire that survived into the mid 1980's"
(Luttwak, 1).

      In their Communist Manifesto of 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels applied the term communism to a final stage of socialism in
which all class differences would disappear and humankind would live
in harmony. Marx and Engels claimed to have discovered a scientific
approach to socialism based on the laws of history. They declared that
the course of history was determined by the clash of opposing forces
rooted in the economic system and the ownership of property. Just as
the feudal system had given way to capitalism, so in time capitalism
would give way to socialism. The class struggle of the future would be
between the bourgeoisie, who were the capitalist employers, and the
proletariat, who were the workers. The struggle would end, according
to Marx, in the socialist revolution and the attainment of full
communism (Groiler's Encyclopedia).

      Socialism, of which "Marxism-Leninism" is a takeoff, originated
in the West. Designed in France and Germany, it was brought into
Russia in the middle of the nineteenth century and promptly attracted
support among the country's educated, public-minded elite, who at that
time were called intelligentsia (Pipes, 21). After Revolution broke
out over Europe in 1848 the modern working class appeared on the scene
as a major historical force. However, Russia remained out of the
changes that Europe was experiencing. As a socialist movement and
inclination, the Russian Social-Democratic Party continued the
traditions of all the Russian Revolutions of the past, with the goal
of conquering political freedom (Daniels 7).

      As early as 1894, when he was twenty-four, Lenin had become a...