Russia 1917: Countdown to Revolution Page #6

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of a mass social revolution

which originated in February 1917.

And we see the radicalisation

of peasants, workers, soldiers,

across the country, giving a mandate

for Soviet power by October.

But Soviet power

is not what Lenin makes

of the events

of the 25th of October.

Lenin is using the cloak

of Soviet power

to establish

a Bolshevik dictatorship.

APPLAUSE:

The next day, Lenin appears at the

Congress of Soviets to announce...

We shall now proceed

to construct the socialist order.

'This is a man who had spent years

working out the theory

'of exactly what he was

going to do.'

And so the moment that they took

over, he was ready.

Trotsky is named the People's

Commissar for Foreign Affairs.

Stalin, the People's Commissar

for Nationalities.

And Lenin becomes

the leader of the government.

A new era in the history of Russia

and of the world begins.

Lenin issues scores of decrees

that transform Russia in days.

'You start to see the first

stirrings of a different kind

'of social control, for example.

'Workers' control and peasantry

having control of their own lives.

'Equal rights of men and women,

of divorce law,

'decriminalising homosexuality.'

To me, there's no question that

October represents a moment of hope.

'Just weeks after

the October Revolution,'

Lenin created a one-party state,

a totalitarian state.

'He also created the Cheka,

the secret police,

'with power over life and death,

to kill enemies of the revolution.'

He repeatedly ordered mass shootings

of thousands of innocent people.

'He specified that, you know,

'annihilation was the only way

for the party to keep power.

'So, gradually,

he created a dictatorship'

that was inherited by Stalin, and

made much more intense by Stalin.

'When the ideologue

is confronted with reality,

'that doesn't fit into his scheme,'

he can't defeat reality

with argument,

so the fist tightens.

Vladimir Lenin dies of a stroke

in 1924.

Joseph Stalin rises to power.

He eliminates his rivals.

Notably, Leon Trotsky,

who was assassinated in 1940.

Joseph Stalin,

the quiet backroom fixer,

outlasts both Lenin and Trotsky.

His reign becomes the Great Terror

that lasts for over a quarter

of a century.

The Tsars,

in their last half century,

were averaging 17 executions a year.

Within a month...

a few months of Lenin taking power,

erm, it was 1,000 a month,

executions.

And during the Great Terror,

it was more like 1,000 a week.

'Under Stalin, something like

20 million people'

would go through the concentration

camps, the Gulag camps.

Somewhere between 20 and 30 million

people were killed.

These were on the orders

not just of Stalin,

but of Lenin

and the Bolshevik Party.

Stalin is not Lenin's heir.

In his last will and testament,

Lenin made it very clear

that he should be removed

as General Secretary of the party.

Said he was not the right sort

of person to be leading the party.

Stalin's impact on Russia

lasts beyond his death in 1953

or even the death

of the Soviet Union in 1991.

ANNOUNCED IN RUSSIAN

'Putin really understands

the October Revolution.

'In many ways, he's a result of it,

one of the results of it.

'When he looks back at history,

he's really interested,'

not in Marxism or Bolshevism,

'he's most impressed

by the Red Tsar, by Stalin.

'Because Stalin

is the successful manager

'of the Russian nation.'

HE SPEAKS RUSSIAN

'Putin's not interested in the chaos

caused by Lenin and Trotsky.

'He's interested in the prestige

and the victory'

delivered by Joseph Stalin.

So, has history proved Stalin

to be more influential

than Lenin or Trotsky?

For so many years,

70 years of the Soviet Union,

it was Lenin who was always

invoked as the godlike figure,

the Father of the Revolution.

And now, in the Putin era, he's been

sort of left to one side a bit.

The statues are still there,

but somehow he's not

talked about as much.

When there was a poll recently

about some of the greatest leaders

or figures in Russia, it was Stalin

who figured, not Lenin.

But is Lenin's time coming again?

'We live today in a world of rampant

populism, of post-factual politics,

'and much of this can be

traced back to Lenin.

'That ultimate

political manipulator...'

..who, though he was

a fanatical Marxist,

was also the master of pragmatism.

'He understood that politics

was all about who controls who

'and any means were suitable

to achieving his ends.'

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