Rights And Freedoms Russia 191724 Essay Research

Rights And Freedoms, Russia 1917-24 Essay, Research Paper

After the October revolution of 1917, the population of Russia had many expectations of Lenin and the Bolshevik government. In some areas of Russian life freedom and individual choice were restricted, whereas in others the government was more lenient. The purpose of this essay is to determine whether the Russian people had the rights and freedoms they had had during the tsarist regime. By rights and freedoms, we mean privileges, entitlements, liberty and independence. It will be argued that in Lenin´s Russia there was a lot of suppression of certain rights and freedoms, although this did not affect all aspects of life, by examining four major aspects of this subject – the structure and role of the government, the role and status of women, the role and status of religion and the state of contemporary art and culture.

Firstly I will analyse the government under Lenin. In April 1917, following the introduction by the Provisional Government of a series of measures designed to guarantee basic liberties, Lenin declared that Russia was one of the freest countries in the world. In reality, however, under the Bolshevik regime Russians were deprived of most of the rights they had briefly had in 1917.

Lenin´s Russia was in spirit a one-party state. The Constitutional Democrats were outlawed in 1917 and the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks were openly barred from taking part in political activity in June 1918 and were driven underground by 1922. Because of this there was almost no political opposition to Bolshevism and consequently the government was unfairly represented. This meant that the people´s rights and independence were suppressed since the majority of them could not represent themselves and their interests politically.

Between 1917 and 1918 the Bolshevik Government was distinctly inexperienced. The Sovnarkom was formed in October 1917 and was responsible for making everyday political decisions. It met daily under its chairman, Lenin, and undertook an efficient supervisory role. The Soviets, in particular the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, were very powerful in the early years of Lenin´s rule. Although they met infrequently they were in theory the supreme lawmakers. They were extremely influential and well used and a reasonable representation of the Russian people from 1917 to 1918.

However, between 1919 and 1924 the government radically but gradually transformed. The Sovnarkom began to lose power to the Communist Party institutions, principally the newly formed Politburo. Its meetings became less frequent and Commissars sent their deputies instead of attending in person. Therefore there was less representation of certain parts of society, namely the proletariat and the peasantry. The Soviets drastically lost importance at the expense of the new Communist Party institutions and by 1924 they had marginalised and become little more than figureheads.

The Politburo was founded in 1919 and consisted of nine members. It replaced the Sovnarkom as the key decision making body, and therefore eroded internal democracy within the Communist Party and concentrated the power over millions in the hands of the few. It marked the centralisation of power and the decline in democratic state institutions. Because of this, rights and freedoms were vastly restricted.

Between 1917 and 1924 the Bolshevik Government took a progressively clearer shape and made evident two distinct trends. Firstly the Communist Party grew in importance at the expense of democratic state institutions (i.e. Soviets). Secondly internal democracy eroded within the Communist Party and power was concentrated in the hands of the few members of the Politburo. Both of these developments significantly suppressed the political rights and freedoms of the majority of the population by reducing democracy within Russia.

As far as the arts were concerned, the Revolution of 1917 had provided a range of pressures, from radical experimentation with new ideas to more conservative tastes, which were often pushing in different directions. By 1924 popular culture and the arts were in a state of flux. The Bolsheviks, whilst not seeing culture as apriority in 1917, did have some ideas on how it could be used politically advantageously, but their impact was mixed. According to Lenin, culture was vital but subordinate to class conflict and the retention of power. He saw a desire for the party to keep high quality writers and artists on its side as much as possible, as they were potentially dangerous in spreading bad words of the government if such an occurrence should happen. After renouncing the restrictive censorship policies of the tsarist regime, Lenin encouraged many artists, and he appeared to be prepared to accommodate those artists who were not Communism-orientated, but who were sympathetic to the ideals of the Revolution. In this way Lenin was very lenient and deliberately did not suppress the rights and freedoms of the artistic members of society.

A popular cultural movement conceived by the Bolshevik Alexander Bogdanov, a member of the bourgeoisie, brought into existence after the Revolution was devoted to eradicating bourgeois culture and developing new, proletarian art forms. It opened theatres, studios, libraries and exhibitions across Russia, and in this way gave indepe