In other words, while the civil war may have increased Bolshevik authoritarianism, it did not create it nor did it end with the ending of hostilities. 4 Did economic collapse and isolation destroy the revolution?
One of the most common explanations for the failure revolution is that the Bolsheviks faced a terrible economic conditions, which forced them to be less than democratic. Combined with the failure of the revolution to spread to more advanced countries, party dictatorship, it is argued, was inevitable. In the words of one Leninist: “In a country where the working class was a minority of the population, where industry had been battered by years of war and in conditions of White and imperialist encirclement, the balance gradually titled towards greater coercion. Each step of the way was forced on the Bolsheviks by dire and pressing necessities.” [John Rees, “In Defence of October,” International Socialism, no. 52, p. 41] He talks of “economic devastation” [p. 31] and quotes various sources, including Victor Serge. According to Serge, the “decline in production was uninterrupted. It should be noted that this decline had already begun before the revolution. In 1916 the output of agricultural
