The story One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich depicts life grievances and hardship caused by Soviet system and Bolshevism to ordinary citizens like Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. In this story, Solzhenitsyn unveils drawbacks and limitations of the Lenin’s views and their consequences for an ordinary man. Repressions and spying was a result of Soviet ideology and the suppression of local initiative. Thus, it is possible to find the roots of these problems in Lenin’s April Theses promulgated dominance of the working class and struggle against dissidents.
The main thesis which influenced the course of Russian history was a strong leadership role of the Party. Solzhenitsyn unveils that the party ruled lives of people and determined their destiny. The use of “cellule” for the smallest party units, and “rayon” for the next level of regional organization were typical for camps. The most lasting effect of Stalinization was the proletarianization of the party leadership. Leninism initially rationalized the existence of a disciplined revolutionary party made up of intellectuals and downwardly mobile persons claiming to be the avante-garde of the working class. Solzhenitsyn unveils that even in concentration camps the Party paid special attention to propaganda and ideology: “There were three artists in the camp. They painted pictures for the bosses, free, and also took turns painting numbers on work parade.” (Solzhenitsyn).
Many of the characteristics associated with Stalinism were a logical consequence of the party’s dominance. April Theses shows that the Bolsheviks spontaneously opened their ranks to politically conscious workers only during the revolutionary months of 1917. The Party very early became a mass party led by bureaucrats recruited through a deliberate policy of selecting the most talented of the workers for special training and promotion. Stalinist bureaucratic techniques proved to be adaptable for specifically internal reasons. While they did nothing to help the Bolsheviks achieve revolution, they did effectively block integration. The unschooled workers who came to leadership positions looked for guidance to the USSR.
The Russians obliged by providing advisers and policy directives which could be mechanically applied. The Lenin’s Theses provided a justification for the elite’s domination and conceptual tools easy to master and adequate to explain the world in which the party operated. The promotion of proletarian literature and socialist-realist art helped insure that workers would continue to dictate to intellectuals rather than the reverse. When the party entered political coalitions, however, its mode of co-opting elites came into conflict with the values of the new social strata to which the party had to appeal. Solzhenitsyn portrays: “The zeks go in through the camp gates like warriors returning from a campaign — blustering, clattering, swaggering: “Make way there, can’t you!” (Solzhenitsyn). Strict order and dominance of the ruling elite was established in Lenin’s thesis. Given these contradictions, internal struggles invariably erupted within the party leadership, always carefully hidden to prevent nonCommunist opinions and attitudes from weighing in the outcome. Indications of struggle could be gleaned from the party press, however, and the party oscillated back and forth in its line. The structure and Bolsheviks’ views were reflected in April Thesis: “The masses must be made to see that the Soviets’ of Workers. As long as this government yields to the influence of the bourgeoisie, to present a patient, systematic, and persistent explanation of the errors of their tactics, an explanation especially adapted to the practical needs of the masses” (Lenin).
The horrors of the Soviet system were a result of ideology stipulated by Lenin. Communist party organization became a corollary of colonial classification. Conscientious objection, while courageous, was individualist and unsuitable for mass emulation. Desertion was cowardice and sabotage treason. Lenin taught that the duty of a Communist was to depart for any war into which he had been conscripted and carry on the (party) struggle where circumstances placed him. In order to fulfill this thesis, Stalin introduced concentration camps as the main tool of oppression and civil control. The Party was not against nationalization. But it was fearful of the electoral consequences of too radical an image and stressed that only the largest industries were ripe for takeover. Nothing was sacred except the strong ideology protected with state control. Lenin states: “As long as we are in the minority we carry on the work of criticizing and exposing errors and at the same time we preach the necessity of transferring the entire state power to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, so that the people may overcome their mistakes by experience” (Lenin). This thesis reflects life and ideology of the camp where the Bolshevists reserved the highest category of associated state, denoting equal and independent status.
In sum, Solzhenitsyn reveals that life experiences and hardship faced by his character were inevitable stipulated and promulgated by Lenin in 1917. Solzhenitsyn unveils that concentration camps and strict control were the main tools used by Stalin but the ideology and dominance of workers as a social class been promulgated in April Theses by Lenin
Works Cited
Lenin, V. April Thesis. n.d. Web.
Solzhenitsyn, A. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. n.d. Web.