olence and terror as an instrument of policy, and the formation of the USSR as the successor of Imperial Russia. Alongside these he instituted the economic practices that became known as War Communism and the New Economic Policy.It did not take long for the true nature of Leninism to reveal itself in practice. As early as 27th October all anti-Bolshevik newspapers were closed down. On the 18th of January 1918, the freely elected Constituent Assembly met at the Tauride Palace. In the Assembly the Bolsheviks held only 175 seats while their rivals, the Socialist Revolutionaries held 410. On the 19th the Assembly was permanently dissolved on Lenin’s orders by armed Bolshevik guards. Laver observes that Lenin told Trotsky that the dissolution of the Assembly,“Means a complete and frank liquidation of the idea of democracy by the idea of dictatorship. It will serve as a good lesson… Only scoundrels and imbeciles can think that the proletariat must first win a majority of votes in elections” Likewise Maclean also quotes Lenin as saying in regard to the same matter that:“Now is not the time for parliamentary illusions!” It is clear from this that Lenin was in no doubt about the stance that the Bolsheviks would take to democracy and opposition. There would be no power sharing with any other political groups and this included even other socialists who were not Bolsheviks. In this we see the beginning of the one party state. What followed soon after was all in the same spirit. December 1917 saw the creation of the All-Russian Commission for Suppression of Counter-Revolution, Sabotage and Speculation (shortened to its Russian acronym - CHEKA). The Cheka quickly became one of the main instruments of terror and coercion. By January the arrest, imprisonment and execution without trial of political opponents was commenced. In response to a letter to a newspaper by his old friend and respected writer Maxim Gorky cri...
