mies (a term applied to priests, Imperial Army officers, large and small businessmen, landowners and anyone else who opposed his brand of socialism), that “one has to beat their heads in without mercy.” In this respect especially, as will be shown, Stalin was to be in complete concordance with Lenin. The aspect of Lenin’s ideology, from which Stalin was to later most significantly differ and diverge from, was that regarding international socialist revolution. In 1915 Lenin published two pamphlets, “The Collapse of the Second International” and “Socialism and War”. These were followed in1916 by his second major ideological work – “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism”. The main thrust of these works was that, as exemplified by the war, capitalism was in crisis and that now more than ever there was a need for revolution not just in Russia, but across all of Europe. Lenin wrote, “ To the question, ‘What would the party of the proletariat do if the revolution placed it in power in the present war?’ we answer: ‘We would propose peace to all the belligerents…all the oppressed, and those who do not have equal rights…And we would also raise in rebellion, the Socialist proletariat of Europe against their governments. ” It was Lenin’s hope that once it had occurred in Russia, revolution could and should spread to the rest of Europe, with Communist Russia playing a leading role in the process. This was to remain a contentious issue amongst the Bolsheviks until well after Lenin’s death and was to engender a serious rift between Stalin and Trotsky, ultimately leading to the latter’s demise.The first point that needs to be made in comparing Stalin’s ideological stance to Lenin’s, is that politics did not cease after the Revolution and Stalin was also a politician. Because Lenin in life, and more so in death, ...
