NationStates Jolt Archive

I've been studying all the available histories of the Russian Revolution that I can find, but I still cannot decide at what point everything went to hell in a hand basket. There were certainly dozens of setbacks and mishaps along the way, and a number of perversions of socialist ideology, but I still cannot decide when the problems reached critical mass.

To review for those unfamiliar with the Russian Revolution, the sequence of events can be summarized as follows: February of 1917, revolutionaries force Czar to abdicate most of his powers, and establish a provisional democratic republic. At the same time, the Russian lower classes organize the Soviets, directly democratic councils of workers, peasants or soldiers. The socialists in the soviets end up sharing power with the provisional government until October. That October, the Petrograd Soviet, controlled by an alliance of Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Left-Communists and Anarchists, under the leadership of V.I. Lenin, forces the abolition of the interim State government. Lenin says he plans to follow the program he set forth in The State and Revolution which involves direct democracy and an end to the old order of Russia, but within mere months abandons the programs. His deputy, Trotsky, as leader of the Red Army, abolishes the election of officers, and centralizes the military under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party elite. With the Red Army firmly under their control, the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky begin systematically dismantling the Soviets, and with them all means of popular control of the means of governance or production. The Russian Civil War breaks out. Three years later, the Bolsheviks are masters of Russia and other allied nations. Within 2 years, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is declared, ironically without any Soviets to serve as the means of popular control. All production and distribution is centralized under the control of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 2 years, Lenin dies, and in the resulting power struggle, Trotsky is forced to flee as Stalin assumes absolute power. The horror of the five year plans begins soon, and the nomenklatura coordinators of the Soviet Economy are rendered institutionally corrupt by Stalin's purges, which place greedy, unscrupulous men into the bureaucracy.

So, my question is, at which point in this sad affair did the original revolution become corrupted beyond repair?

At the point a powerhungry, paranoid madman got control.

When Stalin took over one of the departments and made it more powerful than anyone else even though it was not designed to be such.

Stalin.

Lenin creating the 'dictatorship of the people' when he realised not everyone agreed with him.

Well, I'd start with ideology, but if required to assign a date, that would be the date (Nov. 6-8 1917)upon which Vladimir Ilyich overthrew the provisional government because they didn't agree with him. After that, the NKVD was just a half-step away.

You must remember, the system composed of the independent Soviets was not exactly a democratic one, rather they were more akin to political parties or interest group equipped with guns.

Abolishment of the New Economic Policy. These were the chance to establish an efficient mix of government-controlled big industries (they conglomerate into gov't-like structures if left to themselves anyway) and small private companies running smaller-scale commerce without creating severe stratification and income inequality.

The Soviet Union economy collapsed not due to weakness of the big industry or lack of science - these were on the rise - but, isolationism aside, due to lack of localized commercial control over agricultural, service and other consumer-oriented businesses. If the government had maintained the NEP, the system could work fine still, and there would be no Cold War due to business connections importance.
Quite possibly even no WWII; not to the extent to become a world war, more precisely. It was opposition of Europe and USSR intending to use Germany as a tool for beating each other, which caused the Reich rise and the war itself - otherwise the conflicts could be solved Korea/Vietnam-style.

While there was an opportunity to establish a moderate government in 1917, NEP has compensated for the mistakes of overdoing the revolution as it was halted. And it was Lenin who introduced NEP - he wasn't the problem. Furthermore, Lenin was the one who tried to make NEP a long-term, fundamental policy. It was Stalin who stopped it in favor of his authoritarianism.

When they decided to set up a 'dictatorship of the proletariat' and a communist government instead of a democracy - it is invariably downhill from there.

When they decided to set up a 'dictatorship of the proletariat' and a communist government instead of a democracy - it is invariably downhill from there.When China decided to set up a 'dictatorship of the proletariat' and a communist government instead of a democracy - it is invariably downhill from there.

of course when I say "invariably".. I actually mean "dont try this at home kids" ;)

When Lenin set up his "Dictatorship of The Proletariat" and gave the Cheka free reign to smash dissent.

The moment they adopted communism.

Communism just doesnt work.

Was there a single country with democracy in the 19-21 centuries? The democracy benchmark is two parties, both consisting of the same social class, obviously predominantly serving its interests. Both with incoherent programs (ex.: gun rights), often different just for the sake of differing, and acting quite the same in many aspects (ex.: Kosovo and Iraq). The last real democracy probably was about two millenia ago, and all near-democracies functioned only a short time after they were founded. What exists today is a big TV show source with an option to tilt it one or other side in some low-significance choices; and even that all comes through media with full control of the media.

Whom do you think the Soviets would elect if there were elections? If you aren't sure, remember the personality cults... Would they even think about electing anyone but Stalin, in his time? Probably they would think, and that's where it ends. Democracy or monarchy are just ways of letting people feel better about their government. A commoner has neither time nor information resources to make thought-out decisions about persons and monitor the actions of his candidate; all the choices are made by a small group of people in all contemporary government forms.

So that isn't a factor. Modern democracy is mostly just about making people blame themselves for electing wrong persons, regardless of whether they had choice to elect someone who would act differently.

Well, I'd start with ideology, but if required to assign a date, that would be the date (Nov. 6-8 1917)upon which Vladimir Ilyich overthrew the provisional government because they didn't agree with him. After that, the NKVD was just a half-step away.

You must remember, the system composed of the independent Soviets was not exactly a democratic one, rather they were more akin to political parties or interest group equipped with guns.

What we have to remember about the overthrow of the provisional government is that nearly everybody participated in that. The provisional government lost all support of the people, and very few people opposed its abolition. If I'm correct, Cheka (the predecessor to the NKVD) came into being just after Trotsky centralized the Red Army and abolished officer elections.

The Soviets, though autonomous, almost all banded together in the abolition of the provisional government. They were the organs of popular control in Revolutionary Russia. I don't think it is proper to consider them "political parties or interest groups with guns". Much of their operation was the control of the everyday mundane tasks of the emerging industrial society in Russia.

According to Marx it was doomed from the beginning. Marx did not consider Russia the country where communism would start. He thought that the first country to go communist would be the UK.

Russia was an agrarian country, with little in the way of concentrated working classes in the cities. Hence there was little oppurtunity for free movement of ideas amongst the working classes, hence there they did not develop a collective identity, and instead it was imposed upon them by on high by a group of ideologues. Hence setting the premise for a social elite within communist Russia - the Party.

That's my thought-about-this-for-about-30-seconds synopsis.

Personally, I feel it was Brezhnev. Many of Stalin's abuses could have been reversed, as attempted under the leadership of Malenkov and Khrushchev when they broke the grip of Stalinism on the Soviet Union, but those same abuses resurfaced when Brezhnev tried to rehabilitate Stalin and resurrect neo-Stalinist policies and politicians. The result was corruption and stagnation, with eventual collapse.

Remember, the Soviet Union under Khrushchev saw rising living standards, increasing personal freedom (at least until the early 60's), as well as a tame military budget and investment in improving living conditions rather than focusing solely on weapons. People actually believed in the ideals, and the cynicism that Brezhnev's tenure inspired didn't really exist.

Whom do you think the Soviets would elect if there were elections? If you aren't sure, remember the personality cults... Would they even think about electing anyone but Stalin, in his time? Probably they would think, and that's where it ends. Democracy or monarchy are just ways of letting people feel better about their government. A commoner has neither time nor information resources to make thought-out decisions about persons and monitor the actions of his candidate; all the choices are made by a small group of people in all contemporary government forms.

The Soviets (once again, the Russian worker councils) never elected anyone. They directly controlled their local communities, and where composed of all of the adults in the community/factory. The idea of the Russian Soviet was to allow direct democracy and to unify political power and economic power in the hands of the people. By the time Stalin came to power, the Soviets had long been smashed Lenin & Trotsky's Red Army.

According to Marx it was doomed from the beginning. Marx did not consider Russia the country where communism would start. He thought that the first country to go communist would be the UK.

Russia was an agrarian country, with little in the way of concentrated working classes in the cities. Hence there was little oppurtunity for free movement of ideas amongst the working classes, hence there they did not develop a collective identity, and instead it was imposed upon them by on high by a group of ideologues. Hence setting the premise for a social elite within communist Russia - the Party.

That's my thought-about-this-for-about-30-seconds synopsis.

I'll throw in with this guy.

Communism, much like spandex, heroin, VH1, and religion, is a wonderful idea. It only gets fucked by people and their implementation.

Personally, I feel it was Brezhnev. Many of Stalin's abuses could have been reversed, as attempted under the leadership of Malenkov and Khrushchev when they broke the grip of Stalinism on the Soviet Union, but those same abuses resurfaced when Brezhnev tried to rehabilitate Stalin and resurrect neo-Stalinist policies and politicians. The result was corruption and stagnation, with eventual collapse.

Remember, the Soviet Union under Khrushchev saw rising living standards, increasing personal freedom (at least until the early 60's), as well as a tame military budget and investment in improving living conditions rather than focusing solely on weapons.

If that's the case, then I guess that Kennedy and Johnson are partly to blame as well. Kennedy's escalation of the Cold War along with Johnson's war mongering made detente all but impossible. Khrushchev's faction was probably blamed for being too weak in the Cold War, and fell out of favor, which leads to the rise of Brezhnev and the end to any hope of reform.

That's an interesting point of view. I'm surprised that you're the one to voice it. I'll have to give it some thought.

It started going wrong from beginning, its really hard to say where was critical point.

Btw, I once heard theory that whole communist revolution was originally simply plan to crab as much money, art and everything else valuable as fast as possible and then get away with it and head revolutionaries were very suprized then they actualy managed to stay at power.

Olmedreca;12508103']It started going wrong from beginning, its really hard to say where was critical point.

Btw, I once heard theory that whole communist revolution was originally simply plan to crab as much money, art and everything else valuable as fast as possible and then get away with it and head revolutionaries were very suprized then they actualy managed to stay at power.

No doubt a lot of things went wrong from the beginning. But considering the sheer number of people who spontaneously (by that I mean without someone telling them to do it) organized the strikes and the final expropriations from the Boyars and landed gentry, it's hard for me to believe that some small cabal decided to start it just to get rich quick. For a period of time, people's lives did improve, but after that, it's hard to tell when everything went wrong.

"Russian revolution". It was only in Russia. Theres yer problem.

No doubt a lot of things went wrong from the beginning. But considering the sheer number of people who spontaneously (by that I mean without someone telling them to do it) organized the strikes and the final expropriations from the Boyars and landed gentry, it's hard for me to believe that some small cabal decided to start it just to get rich quick. For a period of time, people's lives did improve, but after that, it's hard to tell when everything went wrong.

You shouldn't forget what situation Russia was at. Army was collapsing, economy was collapsing, Imperial Germany was advancing. In that situation its logical that masses liked communist promise "peace, land, bread". I would say that everything went wrong already when communists didn't fulfill first promise, they didn't give peasants land.
About that theory of simply crabbing money in revolution, i don't believe its fully true, but i wouldn't be suprized if it were partially true and some high revolution planners actualy planned to use revolution simply for their own good. Also lets not forget that revolutionary leaders were directly connected to German Empire. So its quite complicated picture.

btw, interesting sidenote, if october revolution had failed and Russia would had stayed in war until collapse of Germany then probably Lenin(for cooperating with enemy) would be in modern Russia about as popular as Vlassov.

To review for those unfamiliar with the Russian Revolution, the sequence of events can be summarized as follows: February of 1917, revolutionaries force Czar to abdicate most of his powers, and establish a provisional democratic republic. At the same time, the Russian lower classes organize the Soviets, directly democratic councils of workers, peasants or soldiers. The socialists in the soviets end up sharing power with the provisional government until October. That October, the Petrograd Soviet, controlled by an alliance of Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Left-Communists and Anarchists, under the leadership of V.I. Lenin, forces the abolition of the interim State government. Lenin says he plans to follow the program he set forth in The State and Revolution which involves direct democracy and an end to the old order of Russia, but within mere months abandons the programs. His deputy, Trotsky, as leader of the Red Army, abolishes the election of officers, and centralizes the military under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party elite. With the Red Army firmly under their control, the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky begin systematically dismantling the Soviets, and with them all means of popular control of the means of governance or production. The Russian Civil War breaks out. Three years later, the Bolsheviks are masters of Russia and other allied nations. Within 2 years, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is declared, ironically without any Soviets to serve as the means of popular control. All production and distribution is centralized under the control of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 2 years, Lenin dies, and in the resulting power struggle, Trotsky is forced to flee as Stalin assumes absolute power. The horror of the five year plans begins soon, and the nomenklatura coordinators of the Soviet Economy are rendered institutionally corrupt by Stalin's purges, which place greedy, unscrupulous men into the bureaucracy.

So, my question is, at which point in this sad affair did the original revolution become corrupted beyond repair?The part I bolded.

Went wrong for who? It probably went quite well for the people who organised it, but badly for the people who believed their utopian claims.

When China decided to set up a 'dictatorship of the proletariat' and a communist government instead of a democracy - it is invariably downhill from there.

of course when I say "invariably".. I actually mean "dont try this at home kids" ;)


Chinese prosperity is linked to china's willingness to be capitalists, most recently their law establishing private property.

The entire ideal of communism failed as soon as Karl Marx wrote it down.

The entire ideal of communism failed as soon as Karl Marx wrote it down.But it was entirely plausible when the other people before Marx wrote about it?

But it was entirely plausible when the other people before Marx wrote about it?

The idea of communism failed the first time it was conceived, because - like lead balloons and screen doors on submarines - it is fundamentally flawed and doesn't work in the real world.

Well, I'd say it's pretty much impossible for any revolution to end up with a utopian society (which, if I recall, is roughly what the communists goal was), especially an extremely violent one like the Russian Revolution. the idealists are all killed by the time peace returns; Only the tacit supporters of the ideology that fueled the revolution are able to end up alive and in charge, the people who are willing to do away with scruples in the attempt to reach their ends, and in the process, they twist said ends to mesh with their means, so they can justify anything.

In other words, I'd say that such a violent death-spiral like the Russian Revolution was doomed from the start not to reach it's original goals.

I've been studying all the available histories of the Russian Revolution that I can find, but I still cannot decide at what point everything went to hell in a hand basket. There were certainly dozens of setbacks and mishaps along the way, and a number of perversions of socialist ideology, but I still cannot decide when the problems reached critical mass.

To review for those unfamiliar with the Russian Revolution, the sequence of events can be summarized as follows: February of 1917, revolutionaries force Czar to abdicate most of his powers, and establish a provisional democratic republic. At the same time, the Russian lower classes organize the Soviets, directly democratic councils of workers, peasants or soldiers. The socialists in the soviets end up sharing power with the provisional government until October. That October, the Petrograd Soviet, controlled by an alliance of Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Left-Communists and Anarchists, under the leadership of V.I. Lenin, forces the abolition of the interim State government. Lenin says he plans to follow the program he set forth in The State and Revolution which involves direct democracy and an end to the old order of Russia, but within mere months abandons the programs. His deputy, Trotsky, as leader of the Red Army, abolishes the election of officers, and centralizes the military under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party elite. With the Red Army firmly under their control, the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky begin systematically dismantling the Soviets, and with them all means of popular control of the means of governance or production. The Russian Civil War breaks out. Three years later, the Bolsheviks are masters of Russia and other allied nations. Within 2 years, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is declared, ironically without any Soviets to serve as the means of popular control. All production and distribution is centralized under the control of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 2 years, Lenin dies, and in the resulting power struggle, Trotsky is forced to flee as Stalin assumes absolute power. The horror of the five year plans begins soon, and the nomenklatura coordinators of the Soviet Economy are rendered institutionally corrupt by Stalin's purges, which place greedy, unscrupulous men into the bureaucracy.

So, my question is, at which point in this sad affair did the original revolution become corrupted beyond repair?

The two bolded parts.

1) Military commanders with political power are not interested in peace and democracy... at least, that's what history shows.

2) Absolute power doesn't bring anarcho-communism (what Marx described). Doesn't work...

"Russian revolution". It was only in Russia. Theres yer problem.

Fortunately, such a similar event is extremely unlikely, even in the long term, in most of the modern world.

When the Bolsheviks usurped the power of the more moderate Mensheviks

don't know the date

Nikolai was a n00b

when stalin>trotsky, basically.

When the Bolsheviks usurped the power of the more moderate Mensheviks


Yes. Those poor mensheviks. They had done so well in a governmental coalition with the capitalists, they managed to stop the war. oh wait. Well at least they solved the land hunger problems in the countryside. oh wait. But at least they ended the famine in the cities. oh wait.

Hang on, why should we give a fuck about the mensheviks and their lousy stagist approach?

It went wrong with the abolition of the soviets. It went to hell when Stalin took over.

The idea of communism failed the first time it was conceived, because - like lead balloons and screen doors on submarines - it is fundamentally flawed and doesn't work in the real world.

Why is it fundamentally flawed? You're asserting. You have to prove why its flawed with some reasoning.

Well, I'd say it's pretty much impossible for any revolution to end up with a utopian society (which, if I recall, is roughly what the communists goal was), especially an extremely violent one like the Russian Revolution. the idealists are all killed by the time peace returns; Only the tacit supporters of the ideology that fueled the revolution are able to end up alive and in charge, the people who are willing to do away with scruples in the attempt to reach their ends, and in the process, they twist said ends to mesh with their means, so they can justify anything.

In other words, I'd say that such a violent death-spiral like the Russian Revolution was doomed from the start not to reach it's original goals.

Revolution is a process, not an event. Violent revolutions may be unsustainable in the long run, but in some cases they are necessary. If the goal of a revolution is precisely to end the sort of power differentials that oppress people, it would make little sense to abide by people who would only use the revolution for their own ends.

The two bolded parts.

1) Military commanders with political power are not interested in peace and democracy... at least, that's what history shows.

2) Absolute power doesn't bring anarcho-communism (what Marx described). Doesn't work...

George Washington didn't use his control of the military to make himself King. He could have and his men would have supported him. While clearly an abomination, it is not always the end of a revolution. I don't think that Trotsky's centralization of the Red Army is the point of no return, but it is certainly the beginning of the end.

It is certainly true that absolute power will never bring about communism. My question is more of at what point did the revolution reach the point of no return.

Why is it fundamentally flawed? You're asserting. You have to prove why its flawed with some reasoning.
.

For the same reason lead balloons and screen doors on subs are flawed, because it doesnt take into account the facts of the world.

In the first two cases, the density of lead and the porousness of screens are not compared with the density necessary to float or the property of repelling water.

In the second case, a fundamental failure to understand human behavior leads to a theory that doesnt result in what it predicts.

Lead balloon theory + facts of buyoncy in air = failure of theory.

Communist theory + facts of human behavior = failure of theory.

How many more millions of innocent unfortunates need to die under the lead balloon of communism before you people will realize you're wrong?

When Lenin set up his "Dictatorship of The Proletariat"

Over. And there's your problem.

Add a horrifically bad set of circumstances that to a certain degree forced his hand.

The October revolution was the downfall.

Not heeding Bakunin’s advice was a silly mistake: “They [the Marxists] maintain that only a dictatorship—their dictatorship, of course—can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it”

And again: “[the] dictatorship of the proletariat [will] concentrate the reins of government in a strong hand [and] divide the the masses into two great armies–industrial and agricultural–under the direct command of state engineers who will constitute a new privileged scientific and political class”.

Why is it fundamentally flawed?

Study economics and you'll learn why.

under the direct command of state engineers who will constitute a new privileged scientific and political class”.
Doesn't sound bad at all. Sounds very effective, in fact.

Doesn’t sound bad at all. Sounds very effective, in fact.
Sounds very effective maybe, but in reality deterministic centralised planning turns into bankruptcy, Gulags and general absurdity.

I've been studying all the available histories of the Russian Revolution that I can find, but I still cannot decide at what point everything went to hell in a hand basket. There were certainly dozens of setbacks and mishaps along the way, and a number of perversions of socialist ideology, but I still cannot decide when the problems reached critical mass.

To review for those unfamiliar with the Russian Revolution, the sequence of events can be summarized as follows: February of 1917, revolutionaries force Czar to abdicate most of his powers, and establish a provisional democratic republic. At the same time, the Russian lower classes organize the Soviets, directly democratic councils of workers, peasants or soldiers. The socialists in the soviets end up sharing power with the provisional government until October. That October, the Petrograd Soviet, controlled by an alliance of Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Left-Communists and Anarchists, under the leadership of V.I. Lenin, forces the abolition of the interim State government. Lenin says he plans to follow the program he set forth in The State and Revolution which involves direct democracy and an end to the old order of Russia, but within mere months abandons the programs. His deputy, Trotsky, as leader of the Red Army, abolishes the election of officers, and centralizes the military under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party elite. With the Red Army firmly under their control, the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky begin systematically dismantling the Soviets, and with them all means of popular control of the means of governance or production. The Russian Civil War breaks out. Three years later, the Bolsheviks are masters of Russia and other allied nations. Within 2 years, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is declared, ironically without any Soviets to serve as the means of popular control. All production and distribution is centralized under the control of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 2 years, Lenin dies, and in the resulting power struggle, Trotsky is forced to flee as Stalin assumes absolute power. The horror of the five year plans begins soon, and the nomenklatura coordinators of the Soviet Economy are rendered institutionally corrupt by Stalin's purges, which place greedy, unscrupulous men into the bureaucracy.

So, my question is, at which point in this sad affair did the original revolution become corrupted beyond repair?

When the Communists fired on Kerensky.

When the courageous, moral and well-meaning Kerensky was usurped by the illegal seizure of power by the Red Guard militia.

The closure of the democratically elected Constituent Assembly was the last straw.

People actually believed in the ideals

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Tanks_return_budapest_3_1956.jpg

These ideals?

Khrushchev was better than Stalin, but he was nevertheless an authoritarian statist and murderer whose socialist credentials perhaps slightly exceed John Maynard Keynes's.

...whose socialist credentials perhaps slightly exceed John Maynard Keynes’s.
:D

:D

Originally I wrote "Milton Friedman's", but I decided that that might be pushing it a bit too far.

So I went with someone else who liked state intervention for mostly non-socialist reasons.

So I went with someone else who liked state intervention for mostly non-socialist reasons.
Fooked oop reasons if you ask me...

But enough of this sham and hijack!

For the same reason lead balloons and screen doors on subs are flawed, because it doesnt take into account the facts of the world.

In the first two cases, the density of lead and the porousness of screens are not compared with the density necessary to float or the property of repelling water.

In the second case, a fundamental failure to understand human behavior leads to a theory that doesnt result in what it predicts.

Lead balloon theory + facts of buyoncy in air = failure of theory.

Communist theory + facts of human behavior = failure of theory.

How many more millions of innocent unfortunates need to die under the lead balloon of communism before you people will realize you're wrong?

If by Communist theory you mean Marxist-Communist theory, you are most certainly correct. Though, I am once again inclined to ask you what certain facts of human behavior make communist-anarchism impossible. You'll have to elaborate.

But, when we look at human behavior, it is largely a product of our social surroundings. Very few things people do are genetically determined. In short, with rare exceptions, people can act in whatever way they choose to. When you look at human society 10,000 years ago, it is very similar to what communists seek to accomplish now. All property was owned in common, all decisions where made by direct democracy, and there were no formal leaders. Nothing in human behavior rules out those simple ideas being translated to a modern, computerized industrial society. It is very much possible for workers to control their workplaces democratically, without the need for any masters. People can be provided with what they need without having to deal with market exchange or private property. The Spanish Revolution and the current cooperative movement show us that worker self managed socialism is not only less authoritarian then capitalism, but also more humanistic and more efficient.

These ideals?

Khrushchev was better than Stalin, but he was nevertheless an authoritarian statist and murderer whose socialist credentials perhaps slightly exceed John Maynard Keynes's.

True. But at the same time, liberal elements in the Soviet Union had a lot more influence and a lot more potential to dismantle the statist elements that had been built by Stalin. Khrushchev was hardly a liberal leader, but the environment in the Soviet Union was such that his policies provided a lot more opportunity than at any time in the past for liberal reform. Had he stayed in power, there is a good chance that the USSR would have seen reforms similar to those briefly implemented in Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Nevertheless, the murderous Soviet incursion in to Hungary is unacceptable; the USSR was completely wrong in what it did and there is no excuse for Khrushchev's decision to violate their national sovereignty.

But, when we look at human behavior, it is largely a product of our social surroundings.

Why do you maintain that?

Study economics and you'll learn why.

That's a limpwristed answer. Having heard all of the neo-classical and Austrian critiques of what they consider communism, I have heard a compelling critique against anything but central planning. I have never considered central planning to be synonymous with socialism, and what I consider to be socialism- worker self-management- has never critiqued in any compelling fashion.

"Russian revolution". It was only in Russia. Theres yer problem.
QFT. I mean look at Russia now. They are a totalitarian capitalist democracy. Had they been the west, everything could have turned out peachy, but everything Russia touches turns to oppression.

If by Communist theory you mean Marxist-Communist theory, you are most certainly correct. Though, I am once again inclined to ask you what certain facts of human behavior make communist-anarchism impossible. You'll have to elaborate.

But, when we look at human behavior, it is largely a product of our social surroundings. Very few things people do are genetically determined. In short, with rare exceptions, people can act in whatever way they choose to. When you look at human society 10,000 years ago, it is very similar to what communists seek to accomplish now. All property was owned in common, all decisions where made by direct democracy, and there were no formal leaders. Nothing in human behavior rules out those simple ideas being translated to a modern, computerized industrial society. It is very much possible for workers to control their workplaces democratically, without the need for any masters. People can be provided with what they need without having to deal with market exchange or private property. The Spanish Revolution and the current cooperative movement show us that worker self managed socialism is not only less authoritarian then capitalism, but also more humanistic and more efficient.

The world today isnt the world 10,000 years ago, that is a fact.

When two people want something they can't both have, there is potential for conflict, another fact.

The ratio of things to people is dramatically, categorically different from the way it was 10,000 years ago.

Everything in human behavior indicates that people do not behave the same way in large, dense communities that they do in small, isolated ones.

Nowhere has it ever been demonstrated on a large scale or over the long term that people can get along somehow without market forces.

The market came about spontaneously, it was not an invention, it is the most efficient way of allocating goods and services in a large population.

Communist countries invariably have capitalist black-markets, because the communist-10000-years-ago model was naturally superceded by the market system.

The argument that people will behave in the 6+billion people world of 2007 the same way they behaved in the some-number-of-millions world of 8,000BC is absurd. It doesnt take into account human behavior. It is trying to fly lead balloons because molten lead floats in molten uranium.

Human behavior can be learned about only through observing it. What do the observations of the last 2000 years tell us about people's inclination to move toward or away from a market system?

Why do you maintain that?

human behavior =/= human nature. Behavior is a product of individual choices, past experiences + behavior and human nature. Naturally, if any variable in this equation is changed, the outcome (e.g., human behavior is changed.) Its not hard to deduce. Human nature is a constant, granted, but it allows a large variety of different behaviors. How people choose to behave is determined by their past behavior choices as well as their environment (how they were raised, social and economic background etc.). That's why I maintain that human behavior is not a constant.

True. But at the same time, liberal elements in the Soviet Union had a lot more influence and a lot more potential to dismantle the statist elements that had been built by Stalin.

Insofar as the aim of the Russian Revolution was "All Power to the Soviets!", its success and failure can be judged by the degree to which decentralized democratic worker power was actually practiced.

We learn from Khrushchev that even under a comparatively liberal leader anything even resembling such a political organization was seen as necessitating the intervention of the Soviet military - assuming it decided to do things the Soviet government didn't like, anyway.

Such a system bares no resemblance to a union of soviets, whoever is in power, and went wrong sometime long before 1964.

The October revolution was the downfall.

Not heeding Bakunin’s advice was a silly mistake: “They [the Marxists] maintain that only a dictatorship—their dictatorship, of course—can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it”

And again: “[the] dictatorship of the proletariat [will] concentrate the reins of government in a strong hand [and] divide the the masses into two great armies–industrial and agricultural–under the direct command of state engineers who will constitute a new privileged scientific and political class”.Like what I said. Only with a greater knowledge of history. Me, I was just rambling about the few bits of Marxism that I know.

Nowhere has it ever been demonstrated on a large scale or over the long term that people can get along somehow without market forces.

Human behavior can be learned about only through observing it. What do the observations of the last 2000 years tell us about people’s inclination to move toward or away from a market system?
qua?

Are you really suggesting the market is inherent to human nature?

The majority of humanity has lived without a market system. Taking the country I currently reside in, the market wasn’t an applicable force for most Scots up until the 1600s. And to play devil’s advocate for a second, I’ll wager that the majority of humanity has existed in communal subsistence farming societies, rather than market-driven ones.

Naturally, if any variable in this equation is changed, the outcome (e.g., human behavior is changed.)

That doesn't tell us in what way or to what degree human behavior is changed, just that it is.

Why would anyone want to live in a society that continually had to indoctrinate them into ignoring their natures?

I would say that it was mainly because of Kerensky fucking up, if he stayed on track without humiliating himself, the Bolsheviks may not have gained as much support.

If you ask me, Lenin was pretty shitty as well. Trotsky was a good leader, but he was pretty corrupt.

qua?

Are you really suggesting the market is inherent to human nature?

The majority of humanity has lived without a market system. Taking the country I currently reside in, the market wasn’t an applicable force for most Scots up until the 1600s. And to play devil’s advocate for a second, I’ll wager that the majority of humanity has existed in communal subsistence farming societies, rather than market-driven ones.

Some situations, like communal subsistence farming, are not conducive to a market.

When people need everything they have, there isn't much a role for exchange in general, much less market exchange.

Trade and actual, literal markets goes back a long long way though, in societies large and successful enough to make use of them.

The world today isnt the world 10,000 years ago, that is a fact.

When two people want something they can't both have, there is potential for conflict, another fact.Why couldn't they both share it?

Communist countries Have yet to exist.

The argument that people will behave in the 6+billion people world of 2007 the same way they behaved in the some-number-of-millions world of 8,000BC is absurd. It doesnt take into account human behavior. It is trying to fly lead balloons because molten lead floats in molten uranium.

Human behavior can be learned about only through observing it. What do the observations of the last 2000 years tell us about people's inclination to move toward or away from a market system?Nothing. In some situations, people have moved towards market systems. In others, they've moved away from them.

Some situations, like communal subsistence farming, are not conducive to a market.

When people need everything they have, there isn't much a role for exchange in general, much less market exchange. And since a properly run anarcho-communist community would provide people with everything they need, there would be no need for market exchange.

Insofar as the aim of the Russian Revolution was "All Power to the Soviets!", its success and failure can be judged by the degree to which decentralized democratic worker power was actually practiced.

We learn from Khrushchev that even under a comparatively liberal leader anything even resembling such a political organization was seen as necessitating the intervention of the Soviet military - assuming it decided to do things the Soviet government didn't like, anyway.

Such a system bares no resemblance to a union of soviets, whoever is in power, and went wrong sometime long before 1964.

It's probably a difference in terms of what we are comparing. I look at the Soviet Union's success in improving the material well-being of its people, their comparative improvements in personal freedom, and the equality of income and services, all of which improved considerably during the first half of the Soviet era, and stagnated and declined at the beginning of the 1970's when Brezhnev's policies moved towards neo-Stalinism.

But in terms of achieving the political and social goals originally set by the party, it was a failure from the beginning.

It's probably a difference in terms of what we are comparing.

Yes, it probably is.

Capitalism, competently managed, can get you more stuff faster any day, if that's what you want.

The part with, Communism being a no reward system. Why does a doc have the same payment rate as a garbage collector? (my opinion)

The part with, Communism being a no reward system.

So are political forums.

Stop violating human nature.

The part with, Communism being a no reward system. Why does a doc have the same payment rate as a garbage collector? (my opinion)

It wasn't so much that; the USSR did have rewards for doing more work and for higher-level occupations.

The problem was that increases in monetary wealth didn't correspond to increases in living standards for a large number of people; the shortages and low quality of many consumer goods meant that even if you made 10,000 rubles per year, you really weren't any better off than someone making 5,000 per year.

Yes, it probably is.

Capitalism, competently managed, can get you more stuff faster any day, if that's what you want.

It's not "stuff" as much as it is living standards. The Soviet Union during the first 50 years or so of its inception greatly reduced incidence of infectious diseases, raised life expectancy, increased access to education and healthcare, provided it to all members of their society and tried to maintain income equality as much as possible. They also integrated women and minorities in to their economy, something that would have been unthinkable under the czars.

It's not "stuff" as much as it is living standards. The Soviet Union during the first 50 years or so of its inception greatly reduced incidence of infectious diseases, raised life expectancy, increased access to education and healthcare, provided it to all members of their society and tried to maintain income equality as much as possible. They also integrated women and minorities in to their economy, something that would have been unthinkable under the czars.

So if there had been a "Moscow Spring"... what do you think would have come of it?

That doesn't tell us in what way or to what degree human behavior is changed, just that it is.

The point I was trying to get at is that a "communism is incompatible with human nature/behavior" argument falls flat on its face because it ignores not only the difference between nature and behavior, but also the fact that it can very well be argued the capitalism is against human nature. What I'm trying to say is that human behavior is greatly varied, i.e., there is no single way that humans act.

Why would anyone want to live in a society that continually had to indoctrinate them into ignoring their natures?

Which is exactly why we should get back to abolishing capitalism. :p

The world today isnt the world 10,000 years ago, that is a fact.

When two people want something they can't both have, there is potential for conflict, another fact.

Both are very true. But what the changes in the world have brought are the means of organization that will allow people to get along without fighting over scarce resources. My point is that you can't deny that people can live quite well without private property or markets.

The ratio of things to people is dramatically, categorically different from the way it was 10,000 years ago.

Everything in human behavior indicates that people do not behave the same way in large, dense communities that they do in small, isolated ones.

The idea is that large dense communities can be effectively subdivided into confederations of smaller, more closely knit communities. The greater complexity of modern life doesn't preclude decentralization. In fact, modern technology makes it both possible and desirable.

Nowhere has it ever been demonstrated on a large scale or over the long term that people can get along somehow without market forces.

The market came about spontaneously, it was not an invention, it is the most efficient way of allocating goods and services in a large population.

Medieval Iceland did it fairly well. Native American Tribes did it very well. The anarchists in the Spanish Revolution were well on their way to proving it until they were crushed by the both the Stalinist backed Republicans and the Nazi backed Fascists.

Markets indeed are an invention, created by people. Just because no one set out to create them doesn't mean they are not an invention. Furthermore, even if markets meet their ridiculously impossible preconditions of perfect information and perfect competitiveness, they will be inefficient because monetary prices hide much more important qualitative information, such as the human costs of production.

Communist countries invariably have capitalist black-markets, because the communist-10000-years-ago model was naturally superceded by the market system.

The argument that people will behave in the 6+billion people world of 2007 the same way they behaved in the some-number-of-millions world of 8,000BC is absurd. It doesnt take into account human behavior. It is trying to fly lead balloons because molten lead floats in molten uranium.

Human behavior can be learned about only through observing it. What do the observations of the last 2000 years tell us about people's inclination to move toward or away from a market system?

Organic societies (to use the proper term) were not naturally superseded by market systems, they were destroyed from within by the rise of hierarchy. Markets came only after the combine of the priestly caste and the military fraternities into the pre-state corpus.

I never advocated that people today should live exactly like people did 12 thousand years ago. I said that we could learn some very important things about how to be more human to our fellow human beings. I'm not a primitivist. I think that rather we should take the lessons of the past and apply them to our modern society. The observations of the past 2000 years show us that most people rightly fear the market system's control over their lives. Even in the most capitalist of countries, the US, the ordinary person is still highly skeptical of the way the market works. He, however, still has faith in the system, and blames individuals rather then the system for the failure.

Firstly, I dispute the axiom that; the Bolshevik seizure of power in October was a revolution, and, that Russia could be artificially rendered a communist utopia.

However, that notwithstanding, and predicating this upon the idea that genuine communisation was possible, I point to the deaths of Sverdlov, Dzerzhnisky and Lenin as central to the failure of the revolution.

but also the fact that it can very well be argued the capitalism is against human nature.

Which is exactly why we should get back to abolishing capitalism. :p

Right. My point exactly.

The problem is that too many socialists maintain, very unconvincingly, that there is no "real" human nature - that human behavior is essentially the result of social forces, with no natural roots.

This argument tends to convey the impression that socialists intend to indoctrinate people into being something radically other than what they are - a task that, it seems (probably correctly) to most people, is not only doomed to failure, but is likely incompatible with freedom and happiness.

To point out that the capitalist economic system is, in fact, built upon such unnatural structures - as, indeed, the advocates of capitalism themselves admit each time they insist that people must be bribed or deprived to get them to cooperate - is the better response.

1) When the Reds decided to stop playing by the rules and just couped.
2) When Lenin died.

[img]Khrushchev was better than Stalin, but he was nevertheless an authoritarian statist and murderer whose socialist credentials perhaps slightly exceed John Maynard Keynes's.

The only Soviet leader who wasn't an outright fascist was Gorbachev.

The moment it spread beyond one person.

Where did it all go wrong? My money is on the moment when Kerensky lost.

OK, first point where it went wrong -

1st January, 1918

They could have had a much more stable state by allowing parliamentary democracy, and instead they shut down the largest political establishment in Russia at the time.

Had this been done, the majority of the SRs, the Mensheviki and maybe even the Kadets (although not the hardcore Tsarist elements) could have been coerced into making a better Russia, and bringing together the opinions of a wider group of people.

The second -

All of those times they could have shot Stalin but didn't

Lenin saw the risk that Stalin posted, which was pretty clever of him, to be honest, and it's a shame that Trotsky and the other leaders of the Politburo weren't on the ball enough to see the problem too.

It would have been relatively simple : CHEKA go 'round to his house, kiss kiss bang bang, job done. Millions of lives saved.

The third, which was the nail in the coffin -

Lenin's Letter

You know, the one delivered between the eleventh(?) Congress of the All-Russian Soviets.

Scared the shit out of everyone.

Bukharin "Not a real Marxist", Trotsky "capable yet arrogant", Stalin "a great threat to the revolution" and the rest of the politburo attacked too.

Probably not the best idea to write a letter saying everyone with power is a traitor, mainly based on Stalin being rude to your wife. But such it was. And with tensions a bit frayed, everyone formed themselves into little factions of the Left and Right in the Politburo, and Stalin got exactly what he wanted, using the Decree on Factions to kick out anyone he didn't like from the Party.




But oh well.

It's all pretty much in the past now, and it's more an academic exercise than anything else.

If you ask me, Lenin was pretty shitty as well. Trotsky was a good leader, but he was pretty corrupt.
Trotsky wasn't corrupt, he was just stupendously arrogant, and because of his intelligence, he argued with Lenin and his ideas after his death, when doing anything other than worshipping any ground Lenin had every walk on was seen as dangerously counter-revolutionary.

See also Trotsky not turning up to Lenin's funeral, which played right into Stalin's hands.

See also Trotsky not turning up to Lenin's funeral, which played right into Stalin's hands.

I believe Stalin made sure Trotsky was misinformed of when Lenin's funeral was.

I believe Stalin made sure Trotsky was misinformed of when Lenin's funeral was.
Such was his excuse.

When the Communists fired on Kerensky.
You have to keep in mind that the normally pro-government Petrograd Garrison actually fired on Kerensky, too.

He basically pissed everyone off and what happened in a series of days was the result of that key fact.

According to Marx it was doomed from the beginning. Marx did not consider Russia the country where communism would start. He thought that the first country to go communist would be the UK.

Russia was an agrarian country, with little in the way of concentrated working classes in the cities. Hence there was little oppurtunity for free movement of ideas amongst the working classes, hence there they did not develop a collective identity, and instead it was imposed upon them by on high by a group of ideologues. Hence setting the premise for a social elite within communist Russia - the Party.

That's my thought-about-this-for-about-30-seconds synopsis.

I've always wondered at Lenin's insistence on revolution in Russia, given Marx's analysis that you mention. Lenin certainly tried to use Marxism to justify the revolution, but I don't think it made sense from within Marxism. Was it just because his brother was killed by the Czar for being a terrorist? Was he just made paranoid by that and many other troubles in his life? Was he just an arrogant ass? Some combination of these?

I've always wondered at Lenin's insistence on revolution in Russia, given Marx's analysis that you mention. Lenin certainly tried to use Marxism to justify the revolution, but I don't think it made sense from within Marxism. Was it just because his brother was killed by the Czar for being a terrorist? Was he just made paranoid by that and many other troubles in his life? Was he just an arrogant ass? Some combination of these?
I think that what it actually was will never be known, but as far as I see it you have Lenin, who is undoubtedly a genius, surrounded by a great many politically minded and also intelligent people, all of whom are hoping for a utopia in their own land that will spread across the world.

At the point of the revolution in 1917, the Russian populace is becoming more interested in literature, democracy and philosopy. Russian industry was looking like it could quickly sort itself out if it got out of the Great War somehow. With this industry, a large working class could be created, and this would be the solid base for the rest of the system.

What actually happened was that Lenin inherited a battered Russia, with a small working class, an enormous level of poverty, a large national debt, limited industrial capacity, a public which had been rioting since 1914 because of their use as cannon fodder for the geopolitcal games of the rich and influential, and 80% of the population working on the land.

Had the revolution occured 10 years later, after the war had ended and Russia had got back on its feet, it might have been more successful in its aims. Russia would have the working class necessary, a more quiet public and several years without a war killing off the working population. Maybe urbanisation would have occured. Who knows?

On the other hand, 10 years later, the public mood would have quietened down and the revolution would have been suppressed in the same way as the July Days, and by 1929, when the Wall Street Crash occured, Russia would simply have taken the brunt of it, because the Tsar wouldn't have been going anywhere soon, and fascism seemed popular enough in Europe for there to be no revolution.

Anyway, yes, completely hypothetical. Sorry if that was rambling and useless.

I think that what it actually was will never be known, but as far as I see it you have Lenin, who is undoubtedly a genius, surrounded by a great many politically minded and also intelligent people, all of whom are hoping for a utopia in their own land that will spread across the world.

At the point of the revolution in 1917, the Russian populace is becoming more interested in literature, democracy and philosopy. Russian industry was looking like it could quickly sort itself out if it got out of the Great War somehow. With this industry, a large working class could be created, and this would be the solid base for the rest of the system.

What actually happened was that Lenin inherited a battered Russia, with a small working class, an enormous level of poverty, a large national debt, limited industrial capacity, a public which had been rioting since 1914 because of their use as cannon fodder for the geopolitcal games of the rich and influential, and 80% of the population working on the land.

Had the revolution occured 10 years later, after the war had ended and Russia had got back on its feet, it might have been more successful in its aims. Russia would have the working class necessary, a more quiet public and several years without a war killing off the working population. Maybe urbanisation would have occured. Who knows?

On the other hand, 10 years later, the public mood would have quietened down and the revolution would have been suppressed in the same way as the July Days, and by 1929, when the Wall Street Crash occured, Russia would simply have taken the brunt of it, because the Tsar wouldn't have been going anywhere soon, and fascism seemed popular enough in Europe for there to be no revolution.

Anyway, yes, completely hypothetical. Sorry if that was rambling and useless.

Not at all. It was quite a good analysis.

I can see why Lenin would see it as him being damned if he did and damned if he didn't. What I'm curious about is why he didn't just give up on revolution in his lifetime and wait for it to occur much later as Marx would have predicted. Yes, it would have been after Lenin's death, but dying quietly after working for the revolution to come is no less noble than dying for the revolution in progress, in my opinion.

I've been studying all the available histories of the Russian Revolution that I can find, but I still cannot decide at what point everything went to hell in a hand basket. There were certainly dozens of setbacks and mishaps along the way, and a number of perversions of socialist ideology, but I still cannot decide when the problems reached critical mass.

To review for those unfamiliar with the Russian Revolution, the sequence of events can be summarized as follows: February of 1917, revolutionaries force Czar to abdicate most of his powers, and establish a provisional democratic republic. At the same time, the Russian lower classes organize the Soviets, directly democratic councils of workers, peasants or soldiers. The socialists in the soviets end up sharing power with the provisional government until October. That October, the Petrograd Soviet, controlled by an alliance of Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Left-Communists and Anarchists, under the leadership of V.I. Lenin, forces the abolition of the interim State government. Lenin says he plans to follow the program he set forth in The State and Revolution which involves direct democracy and an end to the old order of Russia, but within mere months abandons the programs. His deputy, Trotsky, as leader of the Red Army, abolishes the election of officers, and centralizes the military under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party elite. With the Red Army firmly under their control, the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky begin systematically dismantling the Soviets, and with them all means of popular control of the means of governance or production. The Russian Civil War breaks out. Three years later, the Bolsheviks are masters of Russia and other allied nations. Within 2 years, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is declared, ironically without any Soviets to serve as the means of popular control. All production and distribution is centralized under the control of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 2 years, Lenin dies, and in the resulting power struggle, Trotsky is forced to flee as Stalin assumes absolute power. The horror of the five year plans begins soon, and the nomenklatura coordinators of the Soviet Economy are rendered institutionally corrupt by Stalin's purges, which place greedy, unscrupulous men into the bureaucracy.

So, my question is, at which point in this sad affair did the original revolution become corrupted beyond repair?
It could be argued that previous events made that all but inevitable, though, but that's where I think it started to go horribly wrong.

I can see why Lenin would see it as him being damned if he did and damned if he didn't. What I'm curious about is why he didn't just give up on revolution in his lifetime and wait for it to occur much later as Marx would have predicted. Yes, it would have been after Lenin's death, but dying quietly after working for the revolution to come is no less noble than dying for the revolution in progress, in my opinion.
I think it was that he saw the potential in himself and the group he was in (who later mostly became the Polituro for a few years) to make a real difference to the lives of the average Russian.

He could see the reasons for the riots, mainly in that there weren't the kind of facilities that could keep the population happy - the schools were overfilled, the clinics and hospitals were near to non-existant as far as help for the general public went. The housing for the vast majority of Russians was extremely poor, and the rich lived in palaces at the same time as the poor lived in back-to-back slums or worse.

Whilst the Orthodox Church was extremely well-provisioned, the Muslims to the south and and the Jews all over Russia were oppressed and their faiths weren't at all funded outside of personal donations.

I think that he basically tried to overcome all of those problems extremely quickly (see especially the Decrees on Religion, at least before Stalin got into power) by taking power, to try and help the average Russian out, albeit at the expense of the rich.



Maybe he was just compelled by looking around him at the problems and seeing that something could be done about them, without too much effort, and although he probably knew that he was going to run into problems, I'd assume that he thought that the group he was with, in addition to his own abilities, could overcome them fairly easily.

Possibly it was overconfident compassion and a belief in an ideology that ticks all of the right boxes, as long as the capital and the leaders already exist, that made him launch his revolution.

Or maybe it was simply a desire to do something to get into the history books without making the same mistakes as his brother, or his own knowledge that he would die of neurosyphallis in a few years' time, and that he needed to fulfill his aims in life in whatever time he had left, or possibly the efforts of those close to him, that may have been corrupt, to try and gain more power for themselves.

It's very, very difficult to tell, to be honest, especially since the man was fairly secretive in some respects and that absolutely everything said about him at the time was, in one way or another, propaganda.

Trotsky wasn't corrupt, he was just stupendously arrogant, and because of his intelligence, he argued with Lenin and his ideas after his death, when doing anything other than worshipping any ground Lenin had every walk on was seen as dangerously counter-revolutionary.

See also Trotsky not turning up to Lenin's funeral, which played right into Stalin's hands.

At least Trotsky was practical, he knew that a revolutionary millita was the most pathetically useless fighting force you could use, and realised that he had to bring back the old imperial army along with ranks and discipline.

You have to keep in mind that the normally pro-government Petrograd Garrison actually fired on Kerensky, too.

He basically pissed everyone off and what happened in a series of days was the result of that key fact.

Hmph. Didn't know that.

At least Trotsky was practical, he knew that a revolutionary millita was the most pathetically useless fighting force you could use, and realised that he had to bring back the old imperial army along with ranks and discipline.
Oh yeah, he was a pragmatist to the core, and I respect him for that, just as much as Lenin.

I was simply stating the truth, which is that he was extremely arrogant.

Hmph. Didn't know that.
Do some research into the topic first -

What happened was the Kerensky, having just heard about what occured in Petrograd, came down to the town with a few thousand of his best armed chums (IIRC they were Don Cossacks or similar).

The townspeople had been sorting out defences, digging trenches and the like, and the Red Guards had been armed up a bit from the local armouries (the army vaguely went along with Lenin's request for a million rounds, so this was possible for them).

The garrison didn't really want any bloodshed to occur, so to start with, they were neutral to the whole affair and remained in barracks, although they kept hold of their weapons.

This would have stayed that way, were it not for Kerensky telling them to join up with his forces or risk being attacked themselves, at which point they openly rebelled against him and helped the Red Guards in defending Petrograd.

As you probably know, Kerensky then buggered off to America, in something of a precursor to the Cold War.

You have to keep in mind that the normally pro-government Petrograd Garrison actually fired on Kerensky, too.

He basically pissed everyone off and what happened in a series of days was the result of that key fact.

The provisional government had lost all support of the people. We have to also keep in mind that the majority of Russians were at least supportive of its removal.

At least Trotsky was practical, he knew that a revolutionary millita was the most pathetically useless fighting force you could use, and realised that he had to bring back the old imperial army along with ranks and discipline.

The revolutionary militia were not useless, unless it is ones intent to use them for authoritarian ends. The point of the armed masses that made up the revolutionary militias was to prevent counter revolution. While they retained their revolutionary character, there was no significant counter-revolution. When the Bolsheviks turned them into a statist-army, they became the single greatest counterrevolutionary force in Russia. With the newly centralized and professionalized Red Army, Lenin and Trotsky dismantled all means of popular control in revolutionary Russia.