Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

When the Russian Communist Party held its Eighth Congress in March 1919, the fate of the party and the new Soviet republic was anything but certain. The party, commonly known as the Bolsheviks, had come to power in October 1917 proclaiming a new type of government, a Soviet government of workers and peasants, devoted to ending Russian participation in World War I and to creating a socialist society. Those goals angered many Russians and many European governments. Within months, civil war and foreign interventions turned Russia once again into a battle-ground. The treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the civil war, and the government's early policies led to a hemorrhaging of the nation's wealth. The party that met in March 1919 governed (if that is the appropriate verb) a Russia that was but a fraction of its former size and was besieged by foreign and domestic armies.Yet there was also cause for optimism and optimists abounded within the party. Much to everyone's surprise, the Soviet republic still existed. The end of World War I meant the collapse of old empires and the rise of new nation-states, the political definition of which remained uncertain. The hopes the Bolsheviks had for other socialist revolutions were not unfounded in 1919. Just as the Eighth Congress opened, a Soviet republic was proclaimed in Hungary. Although it lasted only eight months, it exemplified the revolutionary unrest ... log in or subscribe to read full text