De tweede revolutie

Samenvatting

The occurrence of an autocratic revolution in communist countries is discussed. Robert Tucker's idea (Tucker, Robert C. [Ed], Stalinism, Essays in Historical Interpretation, New York, 1977) that Joseph Stalin accomplished a "second Russian revolution," restoring continuity with the Tsarist past, can also be applied to China during the Cultural Revolution. Both Stalin & Mao Tse-tung used mass mobilization & mass action to break up, in a violent way, the old party-bureaucracy oligarchy, & both installed a personal dictatorship or autocracy. Their personal secretariats became the apex of the new power structures, controlling the army, the police, & the party. Their leadership was charismatic; their ideology stressed Fuhrerist & populist elements of Marxist-Leninism. This system differed greatly from the earlier Leninist oligarchic rule. Evidence suggests that a similar type of autocratic revolution may also have taken place in North Korea, Pol Pot's Cambodia, & Albania, though not in other Communist countries such as Yugoslavia, Rumania, Vietnam, & Cuba. Modified HA