Der Erste Weltkrieg als Bewährungsprobe. Bolschewistische Lernprozesse aus dem «imperialistischen» Krieg

Abstract

The Crucible of the First World War. What the Bolsheviks learned from the «imperialist» war

Even before 1914, deep ethnic and social tensions in Russia resulted in violence. Labor militancy, revolutionary terrorism and tsarist anti-revolutionary repression, and, not least, anti-semitic pogroms in the countryside were typical forms of violence. When civil war broke out after the Bolsheviks seized power, violence on the left and the right reached unprecedented levels. Pre-war conflicts were recast in ideological terms, and the new regime removed all limits on violence in theory and practice. The Bolsheviks enforced their claim to power through comprehensive forms of repression, ranging from military requisition and recruitment under the threat and use of force to mass executions. Their enemies responded in kind. In addition, the regime propagated a world-view marked by a sharp dichotomy between friend and foe, and it erased all references to its own acts of violence from the memory of the civil war. All this paved the way for Stalin's murderous policies.