大象传媒

Stalin crushes all opposition to emerge as Lenin's successor - despite Lenin's attempts to warn colleagues against him. The revolution was only 7 years old when Lenin died, but his cult had already been established and with it a belief that communism in Russia had a holy destiny to change, educate and perfect the human species. The baton had passed from church to party, but the message and methods were the same.

Emerging from Lenin's Mausoleum, Sixsmith reflects: "the dimmed lights, the chilly silence, the reverential guards - all tell you that this is the very epicentre of a messianic force which spread its tentacles across the whole world. The Party would lead the people from the grim, corrupted present to a cleansed, harmonious future. But in return it demanded unquestioning obedience: any deviation or dissent would be mercilessly punished".

Stalin abandoned the idea of world revolution, but not the model of an all-powerful centralized autocrat. And, if world revolution had been put on hold, communism still had to be secured at home. The newly formed Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was made up of a hundred or so national groups, and not all of them were convinced. Many nationalities, pressing for independence under the tsars, expected the revolution to grant it to them. Lenin favoured patience, understanding and sensitivity, but Stalin set the tone when he responded to Georgian demands for greater independence by sending in the Red Army. The Georgia Affair was an indication that the rhetoric of greater freedom for the national minorities ran counter to the increasingly centralised structure of state and party rule. This fatal contradiction would cause decades of smoldering conflict and, ultimately, the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

Historical Consultant - Professor Geoffrey Hosking

Producers: Adam Fowler & Anna Scott-Brown
A Ladbroke Production for 大象传媒 Radio 4.