The “Russian Revolution” is known worldwide for a number of reasons.
It managed to put an end to a long series of mistreatment of the tsarist regime in the Russian Empire. Caused the arrival of the United States to the Great War. Finally it drove to the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
On the other hand, this revolution, developed a new series of governments which made the situation worse.
However, these could have been avoided if the liberal ideas that were proposed not only in the Empire but throughout Europe had been respected. Having said all this, we will explain how, totally abandoning the ideas of liberalism contributed to the downfall of the USSR.
“What is Liberalism about?”
To begin with, it is necessary to explain what liberalism is. Alberto Benegas Lynch jr describe it as: “the unrestricted respect for the life project of the other”, that is to say that what Liberalism proposes, is the overlap of freedom in every sense of the individual and full and total equality before the law on equality (except with respect to the law) and aspects such as “Social Justice”.
Having this question clarified, we can move to the first argument, which is that: starting from the sentence of liberalism explained, if a government of this kins had been carried out, it would have been impossible to impose restrictions, controls and social repressions which could led to authoritarian effects, unlike the Marxist ideas that were eventually implanted, which according to the word of Lenin himself sought to create a Dictatorship of the Proletariat against the “capitalists” where freedoms were restricted to the detriment of what the “workers” wanted,
“Liberalism and the Great War”
As a second argument, liberalism should have remained, since it was the thing that caused the situation during the First War to improve.
The opening to the free market and acceptance of foreign capital helped Russia not to end up collapsing due to economic problems in the middle of the war. Policies of Tzar Alexander II allowed to reduce the finantial pressure of the Empire in the War.
“Provisional Liberal Russian Government”
As a third argument, we should remember that with Kerensky’s Liberal provisional government and the Dumas, there was greater justice in the Assemblies where there were discussions about how to deal with instability by also including certain members of the nobility and middle class close to the Tzar as opposed to the Soviets where almost all members were of the same social class (the so-called worker).
This is because, regardless of what has happened in the past, it is not effective to discriminate a social sector on the pretext of past oppressions, as this just causes a new form of discrimination to exist; creating a worse social situation.
“Short Term Policies vs Long Term Policies”
And lastly, our fourth argument is that liberal policies were more effective in the medium and long term. This means that in the future it would end up benefiting the mayority of the population.
On the other side the policies of the Bolsheviks had too much emphasis on the present, but too little long term planification.
“Summary”
The abandonment of liberal ideas ended up marking a black destiny for the USSR, denying its ability to modify its productivity.
Also it caused the USSR multiple years of recessions, repressions and setbacks derived from short-term measures.
Bibliography:
Alonso, M.E (1994). Historia. El Mundo Contemporáneo. Editorial Aique
Andújar, A.N (2017). Historia Argentina y el Mundo. Buenos Aires. Santillana
Stalin, J (1951). Economic Problems of the USSR. Moscú. Foreign Language Press
Rallo, J.M (2017, november 15th). Fue la revolución rusa un éxito económico. El confidencial, A1, A5.
About The Contributor
