Essay Database

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 …

…in theory meant that the means of production was in the hands of the state. The state, in turn, would build the future, classless society. But still, the power was in the hands of the party (Farah, 583). The next decade was ruled by a collective dictatorship of the top party leaders. At the top level individuals still spoke for themselves, and considerable freedom for factional controversy remained despite the principles of unity laid down in 1921.