One of Tsarist Russia’s hallmarks, apart from its autocratic power, was its reliance on a bureaucracy to implement imperial policies. By nature, autocracies like Russia lacked the political interest groups a weaker, decentralized state might rely on to carry out political policies. As a result, Tsarist Russia relied on the bureaucracy to fill this void and carry out its orders. As a result, members of the bureaucracy didn’t just implement orders; they formed the country’s political elite, and were rewarded with economic privileges. The political and economic power invested in these elites was clearly described by Custine when he wrote:
“Russia is governed by a class of subaltern employees, transferred direct from the public schools to …show more content…
Therefore, Trotsky’s criticism might have been a product of axe grinding on his part. However, Trotsky was not the only famous critic of the Soviet Union to raise concerns that the Bolshevik party had replaced the bureaucratic elites of pre-revolutionary Russia. Milovan Djilas raised similar criticisms when he wrote, “In practice, the ownership privilege of the new class manifests itself as an exclusive right, as a party monopoly, for the political bureaucracy to distribute national income” (Djilas, pg 44). Djilas went on to write that the “Party control over society, identification of the government and governmental machinery with the party, and the right to express ideas dependent on the amount of power and the position one holds in the hierarchy; these are the essential and inevitable characteristics of every Communist bureaucracy” (Djilas, pg 78). Djilas leveled accusations against the Communist parties in all the Eastern-bloc and Soviet Union that were similar to Trotsky’s, namely that Communist parties had economic privileges and elite status because they had total control over society. In short, it’s clear that Trotsky’s criticisms had at least some legitimacy, because other famous apostates repeated them. But apart from relying on a bureaucratic elite to carry out its will, the Soviet Union also relied on a police state where terror was spread generously throughout society. The use of violence to terrorize society was not a Soviet innovation because it was also used in Tsarist
“Russia is governed by a class of subaltern employees, transferred direct from the public schools to …show more content…
Therefore, Trotsky’s criticism might have been a product of axe grinding on his part. However, Trotsky was not the only famous critic of the Soviet Union to raise concerns that the Bolshevik party had replaced the bureaucratic elites of pre-revolutionary Russia. Milovan Djilas raised similar criticisms when he wrote, “In practice, the ownership privilege of the new class manifests itself as an exclusive right, as a party monopoly, for the political bureaucracy to distribute national income” (Djilas, pg 44). Djilas went on to write that the “Party control over society, identification of the government and governmental machinery with the party, and the right to express ideas dependent on the amount of power and the position one holds in the hierarchy; these are the essential and inevitable characteristics of every Communist bureaucracy” (Djilas, pg 78). Djilas leveled accusations against the Communist parties in all the Eastern-bloc and Soviet Union that were similar to Trotsky’s, namely that Communist parties had economic privileges and elite status because they had total control over society. In short, it’s clear that Trotsky’s criticisms had at least some legitimacy, because other famous apostates repeated them. But apart from relying on a bureaucratic elite to carry out its will, the Soviet Union also relied on a police state where terror was spread generously throughout society. The use of violence to terrorize society was not a Soviet innovation because it was also used in Tsarist