Hannah Arendt 1917 Revolution Analysis

For many people, the 1917 revolution heralded a new age, much as the French revolution had. But instead of bringing on an age of secular republics, and liberalism, it brought on an age of oppressive states based on the Soviet Union’s model of government. To the untrained 20th century eye, the 1917 revolution’s model of state organization was something truly new, bizarre and intriguing. Yet, a brief synopsis of Russian history would quickly reveal that there were more similarities between the Soviet and Tsarist governments than Stalin or any other Soviet official would have cared to admit; the revolution was not as revolutionary as it seemed. This paper will use Hannah Arendt’s definition of revolution to demonstrate that the 1917 Bolshevik

coup does not qualify as a revolution. Before this can be proven, Hannah Arendt’s definition of revolution must be interpreted. Once done, this paper will seek to disprove the Soviet Union’s revolutionary credentials by demonstrating the many similarities between Soviet and Tsarist Russia’s institutions. This paper will also seek to show that throughout its existence, the Soviet Union did not strive to increase freedom, thus falling short of completing one of Hannah Arendt’s other key criteria for defining a revolution.

We begin by interpreting this definition.

Hannah Arendt identified several key features that she believed were integral for a movement to qualify as truly revolutionary. She presented these features in her book, On Revolution, when she wrote “Violence is no more adequate to describe the phenomenon of revolution than change; only where change occurs in the sense of a new beginning, where violence is used to constitute an altogether new body politic, where liberation from oppression aims at least at the constitution of freedom can we speak of revolution” (Arendt, pg 25). Hannah Arendt’s definition of revolutions can be boiled down two parts. The first is the creation of a new body politic, which can be understood as the founding

of entirely new system of governmental institutions and a transformation or re-organization of society. The second requirement could be understood as the need for a revolution to strive towards increasing freedom, which Hannah Arendt defines as “the political way of life” (Arendt, pg 23). In other wards, a revolution must actively seek to increase people’s opportunities to participate in the political process that governs them. But participation in government doesn’t just depend on being a politician or a bureaucrat. In order to truly participate in government, a person must have the right to do so according to their political own opinions. Without the freedom to believe in and follow one’s own political convictions, political participation becomes nothing more than servitude, and surrender to whichever official holds the most power. As a result, freedom and respect for political plurality are one and the same. Now that this paper put forward an interpretation of Hannah Arendt’s definition of revolution, the Soviet Union can be evaluated by these standards. This paper will begin by looking at the Soviet Union’s institutions and their similarities to Tsarist Russia. This paper will standardize its analysis by focusing on the Soviet Union’s Stalinist period, when its superpower status was truly defined.

The leadership of Joseph Stalin defined the Soviet Union and emerged Lenin’s death.

Though it existed for over 70 years, many of the Soviet Union’s structures were put in place before and during Stalin’s reign. Milovan Djilas succinctly summarized the general Soviet system in his book, The New Class when he wrote “There is no fundamental difference in the Communist system between governmental services and party organizations, as in the example of the party and the secret police. The party and the police mingle very closely…the difference between them is only in the distribution of work” (Djilas, pg 73). The system Djilas described was one where the Bolshevik party was in absolute control of the government and all its functions. This included the bureaucracy, and secret police, as well as the military. As a result, the Bolshevik party was in total control of all the Soviet Union’s levers of power. It was effectively an autocracy of the Communist party, at the head of which rested Joseph Stalin, whose power was absolute and as close to god-like, as anyone had ever had. Nikita Khrushchev testified to Stalin’s autocratic power in his book, Khrushchev Remembers, when he wrote, “Stalin adapted all methods of indoctrination to his own purposes. He demanded unthinking obedience and unquestioning faith” (Khrushchev, pg 8). Khrushchev was undoubtedly politically biased against Stalin, but his statement seems to be in line with the latter’s record of achievements. The purges of

subordinates like Yagoda and Yezhov, arguably the second most powerful men in the USSR, testify to the complete impossibility of any opposition to Stalin’s rule. The repetitive downfall of this most powerful Soviet institution’s leaders, demonstrates the disparity in power between Stalin and the running-up most powerful men in his country. If the Chiefs of the Secret police couldn’t save themselves, then it’s clear that no one was safe, and no one could oppose Stalin’s reign. Furthermore, the executions of pathetically weak political rivals, such as Zinoviev and Kamenev testify to Khrushchev’s description of Stalin’s extreme intolerance for those who didn’t give total, unquestioning loyalty in the past or present. But Stalin was by no means the first person to achieve autocratic power in Russia.

Stalin’s autocratic rule over the USSR was by no means a new phenomenon. Examples of autocratic government could clearly be found throughout Russian history, dating back to before Ivan the terrible. German Ambassador to Russia, Sigmund von Heberstein proved this when he wrote in Notes upon Russia, Volume I, that Vasily III “uses his authority as much over ecclesiastics as laymen, and holds unlimited control over the lives and property of all his subjects: not one of his counselors has sufficient authority to dare oppose him, or even differ with him, on any subject “ (von Heberstein, pg. 32). This example of autocratic power is similar to Stalin’s, but 400 years older. Power tends to be organized on a hierarchy, with higher-level officials having greater power than those below. Like Stalin’s men, the highest-ranking people in Vasily III’s Russia were powerless to oppose their ruler. Like Stalin’s men, the highest-ranking, most powerful men in Vasily’s Russia could have been killed and had their property seized at any minute. It’s clear that the level of autocracy in Stalin’s Russia was very similar to Vasily III’s. Some people might say that the 400-year difference between Vasily III and Stalin make the autocratic link between the two dubious. But autocratic rule is a recurring theme in Russian history. In his book, Letters from Russia, Astolphe De Custine actually quoted the above Heberstein passage and commented, “this letter written more than three centuries ago, describes the Russians precisely as I now see them” (Custine, pg. 101). The fact that Custine wrote this while personally travelling through Nicholas I’s Russia, testifies that Russian autocracy was a recurring theme throughout Russian history. The autocratic power of Vasily III was not a unique phenomenon, but a systematic pattern of political rule in Russia. It was a theme that Stalin could have easily drawn upon for inspiration. But the autocratic structure of Stalin’s regime was not the only similarity between Soviet and Tsarist Russia. Under both systems, the bureaucracy played the central roles in carrying out state decisions and serving as Russia’s elites.