In direct contrast, the Tsar valued and promoted capitalism. The “fundamental laws” of 1832 issued by Nicholas I showed he expected the people to accept his total authority willingly and be obeyed. Autocracy, nationality and orthodoxy were supposed to keep Russia away from harmful influences for change, such as democracy. The orthodoxy part of this belief emphasized the relationship between the Tsar and the Orthodox Church, while autocracy represented the Russian view of total submission to the Tsar of all his subjects. There was more of an expectation from the Tsars that God had given them total power and therefore they were responsible for the welfare of the people, and the fostering of a patriotic spirit and distinct identity. The Communists didn’t have this natural belief, and they relied on the charisma and personal authority of the leader to rule effectively. Overall, there are similarities of the aims of the two regimes in controlling the population – Lenin and Stalin required a certain level of dictatorial control in order for Communism to work and continue to work, whereas the Tsar harbored a genuine belief that it was their duty to lead the Russian people, and thus autocracy and almost dictatorial power were their god-given rights.
It is questionable whether either regime was truly dictatorial anyway. Perhaps there was a dictatorship of Party Leadership by Lenin within the Communist party. The Tsar wasn’t able to rule Russia on his own, due to its sheer scale and diversity of people. Instead, the Nobility had their own assemblies within each of the 50 provinces throughout Russia. This system not only ensured corruption was rife, but also made any opposition resort to violence due to the lack of political freedom. The Imperial Council of State met to advise the Tsar on policy and new laws, but the Tsar often ignored it. The Legal System was overseen by the senate, and was made up of the highest members of this aristocracy. However, all who served on these bodies were appointed by the Tsar, and therefore could be ‘relieved of their duties’ should the Tsar wish. Therefore, it could be questioned whether Tsarist Russia was a dictatorship, since the Provincial Governors and local officials actually had a lot of freedom due to the size of Russia and the difficulty of communication. However, the fact that the Tsar was responsible for all these Governors and officials directly mean Tsarist rule was essentially a dictatorship. The huge number of revolts faced by the Tsar were all dealt with in a similar way.
Rather than having a divine right to rule, Lenin effectively created a dictatorship within the party, enabling him to rule Russia using dictatorial devices, although he can’t actually be termed a dictator. The Cabinet became the Sovnarkom and Ministers became People’s Commissars. Lenin believed only Bolsheviks could build the new world – so refused to invite other socialists into his government. He saw “political terror” as an inevitable stage in establishing the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Perhaps Lenin saw himself as a temporary dictator on the road to this ultimate goal. However, initially the Russian people chose to accept and embrace Communism simply because they offered the prospect of a better future. The army favored it because of Lenin’s promise to end the war with the Germans, whatever the cost. However, facing opposition to Russia’s ‘betrayal,’ the Sovnarkom soon banned all Bourgeois parties and their newspapers, and this was later extended to all other political parties. The Bolsheviks also took control of many local Soviets and opposition groups were disbanded or went underground. Thus a Bolshevik dictatorship was essentially already in place by July 1918.
Late Tsarist Russia, under Tsar Nicolas II however, was beginning to reform anyway. At the beginning of his reign, between 1855 – 1865, he emancipated the serfs, and established the Zemstva. Reforms also occurred in education and generally throughout Russian society. Despite his more conservative attitude later in his life, he definitely had a more modern view on the degree in which the population should be controlled. Similarly, documents Lenin dictated after his strokes suggest he was contemplating more local autonomy for the republic, greater openness in the party and less power for the bureaucracy.
However, these changes never occurred, due to Stalin’s reign of terror. His Show trials and The Great Purge served as terrifying example for any opponents, and he controlled the population through terror, giving an obvious example of how disloyalty would be dealt with. The Tsarist regime was often just as aggressive. Bloody Sunday serving as a good example of what the Tsar was capable of when he ordered two hundred thousand workers to be murdered outside his palace. Obviously, both the Purges and the Tsar’s treatment of protestors or strikers were similarly ‘uncompromising.’ In this way, both regimes did indeed have similar aims on controlling the population, as the initial quote states.
Eventually, the fact that the Tsar lost the support of the army was crucial in the regime’s downfall, since it was a key tool of Tsarist power. It was poorly paid but was responsible for quashing civilian unrest. Between 1883 – 1903, there were 1500 revolts. Since there were only a few thousand law enforcement officers apart from the secret police, the army played a major part in maintaining law and order. The very fact that the army was central to the Tsar ruling Russia was quite dictatorial, in a similar way to the Cheka for the communists. The Cheka were not restricted by the law, and could execute people without trial (50000 people in 1918). At some point under communist rule, the Cheka, OGPU, NKVD and KGB were used to control the population.
In conclusion, the initial statement is accurate. However, the Tsar’s aims on controlling the population were motivated by his desire for the people to accept his divine right to rule and appreciate he was their autocratic ruler, whereas the Communists were simply forcing the population to remain submissive and accept what was happening to Russia even if they didn’t like it. Similarly, it could be argued whether or not either regime was dictatorial. The Tsar was as much a dictator as any autocratic ruler. Theoretically, every later Tsar had to appease both the Reformists and the Traditionalists. However, the Westernisers desire for a constitution was never possible as it contradicted the Tsar’s core beliefs. It could be argued that the Communist regime was more of a dictatorship than the Tsarist regime, both as a party ruling Russia and Lenin and Stalin as figures within the party.
