Charisma is in the eye of the beholder;
Characteristics of Lenin and his leadership
Lisanne van den Ende S2526034
Master Thesis Word count: 23.564
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Contents
INTRODUCTION ... 3
METHODOLOGY ... 11
LEADERSHIP AND MAX WEBER ... 13
LENIN AND HIS PEERS ... 21
LEON TROTSKY –ON LENIN ... 21
MAXIM GORKY –DAYS WITH LENIN ... 34
ANATOLY V.LUNACHARSKY -REVOLUTIONARY SILHOUETTES ... 42
NIKOLAI N.SUKHANOV –THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 1917 ... 50
CONCLUSION ... 60
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Introduction
“Insurrection is an art, and like all arts it has its own laws” - Trotsky1
Revolutions and leadership have always been a field of interest for scholars from multiple fields, perhaps because revolutions have taken place throughout history and their leadership will influence their outcome. Revolutions are not only a historical phenomenon but can also be found in present day societies. An example of a revolutionary wave that has taken place in recent times is the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring was a series of uprisings against several governments in the Arab world. It started with the successful uprising in Tunisia, in late 2010, which emboldened other countries to attempt similar actions to attain corresponding results.
Present day and historical revolutions have had or still have a major impact on our societies or the world as a whole. It is therefore important to fully understand and analyze these movements and their leaders. Leaders of these revolutions play a pivotal role in establishing these revolutions. The Russian revolution was one of the seminal events of the twentieth century and had large repercussions worldwide: “The revolution of 1917 has defined the shape of the contemporary world”2 as Orlando Figes has stated it in his book A People’s Tragedy.
In this thesis I will examine the perspectives of the peers of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, who is better known as Vladimir Lenin and the leader of the Russian revolution. How did they view him during the time of his rising, what qualities did he bring to the table which enabled him to lead the Russian revolution and do these qualities fit within the theory of charismatic leadership of Max Weber?
There are many publications about Lenin’s life and his role during the Russian
revolution. In 2017 Victor Sebestyen3 published his Lenin the Dictator and it has been ascribed
1 Leon Trotsky, The history of the Russian Revolution (Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books, 2017), 742. 2 Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: the Russian Revolution (London: Random House, 1997), xvii.
3 Victor Sebestyen is, amongst other works, the author of Twelve Days and Revolution 1989. As a journalist he
wrote for the Evening Standard, Daily Mail en The Times regarding Communism, Yugoslavia and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Page | 4 to be the first major work since twenty years that portrays Lenin. The main focus of this work is
Lenin’s personal life and character behind his political role. Other than biographies written about Lenin and his personal life there have also been many works published with a focus on Lenin’s role and engagement with the class struggle in Russia.
An example of a work regarding this topic is Political Practice and Theory in the Class
Struggle written by Alan Shandro.4 In his work Shandro discusses the concept of hegemony and
Lenin’s entanglement with the class struggle in Russia. Additionally he analyzes the position of Marxism in Russia and the orientation of the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks regarding
hegemony. Philip Pomper5 has written several works regarding the Russian revolutionaries.
Since one of his specializations is psychohistory he has also approached the Russian
revolutionaries from this perspective. Examples of his works are Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin and
Nečaev, Lenin, and Stalin: The Psychology of Leadership. In both of these works Pomper
integrates the psychobiography and the political careers of the revolutionaries that are discussed.
Eugene Victor Wolfenstein6 has a similar approach to the Russian revolutionaries as
Pomper. He uses his background in psychoanalysis to examine leadership qualities. He does so in his book Revolutionary Personality; Lenin, Trotsky, Gandhi. In his work he poses three
questions: Why does a man become a revolutionary? What attributes of personality enable him to become an effective revolutionary leader? What psychological attributes enable a man to effect the transition to power? Through the focus on these questions Wolfenstein assembles an argument that there is a form of revolutionary personality. Wolfenstein’s aim to construct this model of revolutionary personality ties into this research. The focus of this thesis is not specifically the personality of Lenin however, in Wolfenstein’s model he ascribes some characteristics to revolutionary personalities which can also be found in Weber’s theory of charismatic leadership.
Christopher Read7 briefly mentions Lenin’s habits and characteristics in his Lenin; A
revolutionary life. “His incredible self-belief was at the core of his political personality Lenin was
not the sort of person to sit with his head in his hands wondering if he was doing the right thing. It was not a question that arose to him, even privately, it seems. It was both his greatest
4 Alan Shandro is an associate professor at the Laurentian University in the department of political science. 5 Philip Pomper is a professor of History at Wesleyan University. The major fields of his research are Russian
History, Modern European History, and Psychohistory.
6 Eugene Victor Wolfenstein (9 July 1940–15 December 2010) was a professor of political science at University of
California. Additionally he was a psychoanalyst and an American social theorist.
Page | 5 strength and greatest weakness.”8 Additionally Read discusses Lenin’s stance towards violence.
Read claims that Lenin was not a violent person. Read argues that Lenin viewed violence as a necessary evil to be able to attain a successful revolution.9 The question of Lenin’s leadership
and personality is also briefly raised by Nina Tumarkin. She, like Read, writes about his
steadfastness regarding his beliefs and convictions.10 Robert C. Tucker in his Political Culture
and Leadership in Soviet Russia discusses general leadership in social movements:
“We may divide leadership’s activity into three interlocking phases. First, there is a diagnostic function. Leaders are expected to diagnose group situations authoritatively, wisely and in good time […]. Second, they must prescribe a policy, i.e., a course of group action or action on the group’s behalf that will resolve the problem-situation. Third, leadership has a mobilizing function. Leaders must gain the group’s support, or
predominant support, for the definition of the group situation that they have advanced and for the plan of action that they have prescribed.” 11
Tucker ties this general idea of leadership to a roster of twentieth-century leaders such as Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Hitler, Castro and Mussolini. However, he does not go into detail how these leaders specifically tie into this general notion of leadership in social movements.
Where Sebestyen, Shandro, Wolfenstein, Read and Tumarkin discuss Lenin’s leadership qualities they do not relate these qualities to a framework of leadership theory. In Tuckers work the opposite can be seen; he establishes a theory of leadership in social movements but does not specify how this theory pertains to the leaders he mentions in his chapter.
Here is where this research will offer new insight. The writings of Lenin’s peers will be analyzed through the framework of Weber’s theory of charismatic leadership hereby adding to the academic discussion on (historic) leadership and leadership styles. In particular I want to examine these assumptions about Lenin’s personality and leadership in a systematic way, making Lenin’s leadership the object of a rigorous analysis rather than simply the result of a
judgment on Lenin’s character.
8 Christopher Read, Lenin; A revolutionary life, (London and New York: Routledge, 2005) 207. 9 Ibid, 247.
10 Nina Tumarkin, Lenin Lives!; The Lenin cult in Soviet Russia, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University
Press, 1983) 45.
11 Robert C. Tucker, Political Culture and Leadership in Soviet Russia (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1987)
Page | 6 To be able to answer the posed research question I will first analyze Weber’s theory of
charismatic leadership and establish a theoretical framework. Weber’s theory of leadership is used in this thesis because is it particularly useful when analyzing leadership in a society that is undergoing change or a revolution. Weber’s theory adds to this research because it will give a theoretical framework existing out of certain characteristics and concepts which will enable me to analyze the writings regarding Lenin.
Throughout Weber’s theory there is a discussion on which qualities a person should possess to become a successful charismatic leader. The theory regarding the types of
leadership was coined by Weber in his book The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, which he further discusses in an essay named “The Three Types of Legitimate Rule”. According to Weber’s theory, all rulers derive their legitimacy on a certain claim they assert. This claim or reason for a ruler to be in control is questioned in times of crisis like during an uprising or a revolution. As the title of the essay mentions, in Weber’s theory there are three ways in which a leader can legitimize his claim upon authority.12 The first main distinction is the legal authority,
while the second authority that Weber mentions is traditional authority.13
The last and most important authority in this thesis is the element of charismatic
leadership: when this type of leadership occurs the ruler or leader legitimizes his claim to power by being charismatic. He shows to his followers that he is the right person to lead because of his unique qualities. There are no rules or traditions in place to assign this ruler to his followers. Often this ruler legitimizes his authority not only because of his personal qualities but also by virtue of magical powers, heroism or prophecies.14 Charismatic authority is thus outside of the
realm of everyday routine. Charismatic authority abandons the past, and its traditions. Therefore it forms a new way and a new structure in society and leadership.
The second part of this thesis will discuss several works written by peers of Lenin and their impressions of him: Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Leon Trotsky), Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (Maxim Gorky), Anatoly Aleksandrovich Antonov (Anatoly Vasilievich Lunacharsky), and Nikolai Himmer (Nikolai Nikolaevich Sukhanov). The writings of these four men have been chosen for a number of reasons. First of all, one criterion that all of the writings had to fulfill was that these four men have actually had personal contact and have met with Lenin. This is paramount because these authors’ observations were recorded first hand and therefore add additional value and insight into Lenin’s leadership and character.
12 Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber: an intellectual portrait, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 294. 13 Max Weber, “The three types of legitimate rule,” Berkeley Publications in Society and Institutions 4, no. 1 (1958):
3.
Page | 7 Building upon the first criterion is this second reason. These writings of these four men
concern themselves with Lenin not only as a leader but also on their personal recollections and interpretation of Lenin. This is important because in Weber’s theory the connection of the leader with their peers and followers plays a pivotal role. Without recognition of the extraordinary abilities charismatic leadership cannot exist. Therefore, the subjectivity of these men’s accounts is valuable, since a charismatic leader will always influence his or her peers and followers with a positive image. This can be done consciously or unconsciously by the leader. Additionally the subjectivity of the sources will allow me to answer part of my research question: How did they [Trotsky, Gorky, Lunacharsky and Sukhanov] view him during the time of his rising…? One cannot answer this part of the research question with objective sources.
Though the subjectivity is pivotal to the analysis of Weber’s theory regarding the four works, it is also important to recognize any other ulterior motives these four men could have had to write the works regarding Lenin. These ulterior motives will be discussed at the beginning of each section of each author. Additionally their statements will be analyzed through secondary sources to extrapolate any other ulterior motives and cross check if what these men have written is seconded by other primary or secondary sources.
Lastly, due to a language barrier, the sources this thesis had to be available in English. This is the case for all writings used here. This was the last criteria and was therefore only applied to sources that fulfilled the first two.
Lenin is most renowned for his role and leadership during the Russian revolution. He was born in Simbirsk on 22 April 1870 and started studying law at the Kazan University in 1887. In December 1887, he took part in a demonstration against the government restrictions that banned student societies. He was arrested by the police and accused of being the leader of the protest. This resulted in his expulsion from the Kazan University. Furthermore, Lenin and his family were exiled by the ministry of Internal Affairs to his family’s Kokushkino estate. During this exile Lenin passionate with Nikolay Chernyshevsky’s pro-revolutionary work What is to be
Done?15
When Lenin, in 1889, returned to the city of Kazan it was here that Lenin first came in contact with the work of Karl Marx Das Kapital.16 Nikolai Fedoseev was living in Kazan at the
same time Lenin was. He was a convinced young Marxist, who had assembled a reading list for social democrats. Lenin and Fedoseev only met briefly when they were both on their way to
15James D. White, Lenin: The Practice and Theory of Revolution. European History in Perspective. (Basingstoke,
England: Palgrave, 2001), 30.
Page | 8 Siberia. However, in 1908 Lenin told Maxim Gorky that the reading list of Fedoseev compiled
was the best reference book anyone had yet put together and that it had helped Lenin to find his way through the vast amount of political literature.17
In July 1900, Lenin left Russia for Western Europe. In Germany the paper Iskra18 was founded by Lenin and other Marxists. After the February revolution Lenin would return to Russia at the Finland station, in April 1917, to be able to participate locally in the changes that the Russian society was undergoing.
Trotsky was born in a small village of Yanovka in what is currently Ukraine on the 7th of
November 1879. He describes his childhood as being grey. By which he meant that his family was not very rich but definitely were not the poorest amongst the village population. “My
childhood was not of hunger and cold… Mine was the grayish childhood of a lower-middle-class family.”19 Trotsky joined his first revolutionary movement in 1897 and a year later he was
imprisoned. After his escape from Siberia he joined Lenin, Plekhanov20 and Martov21 in London
to work on the paper Iskra22. In 1906, when he was imprisoned for the second time, he wrote
Results and Prospects, where his theory of permanent revolution was first mentioned. He
escaped once again and lived in exile in Vienna until 1914. After 1914 Trotsky moved around in Europe and ended up in the United States. In the midst of the revolution he returned to Russia to take up his part next to Lenin (May, 1917).23
In the Bolshevik Government he became the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs,24
and rebuilt and reorganized the Red Army and led it to victory during the Civil War. He clashed with Lenin after he had advocated the militarization of labor. The year before Lenin died Stalin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev took the leadership over the party and Russia. Trotsky formed a left opposition, which was defeated in 1927 and as a consequence Trotsky was expelled from the Communist party and banned from Russia.25
17 Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: A New Biography, (New York: The Free Press, 1994), 23.
18 Iskra (the Spark) was a political newspaper of Russian socialist emigrants established as the official organ of the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP).
19 Leon Trotsky, My Life; An Attempt to an Autobiography (Mineola, New York: Dover, 2007), 1.
20 Plekhanov’s full name is Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (29 November 1856 – 30 May 1918). He was a Russian
revolutionary and a Marxist theoretician. He supported the Bolsheviks during second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party however soon after (1905) became one of the main outspoken antagonists against Lenin and Trotsky.
21 Julius Martov, also known as L. Martov or Yuliy Osipovich Tsederbaum, (24 November 1873 – 4 April 1923) was
an old friend and mentor of Trotsky. He became the central leader of the Menshevik Internationalist faction.
22 Trotsky, My Life, 144. 23 Ibid, 268.
24 John Molyneux, Leon Trotsky’s theory of revolution (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981), xi. 25 Joshua Rubenstein, Leon Trotsky; A Revolutionary’s life, (London: Yale University Press, 2011), 155.
Page | 9 The work of Trotsky titled On Lenin will be discussed in this thesis. Trotsky writes in the
foreword of On Lenin that the book is not complete and is by no means a study of Lenin’s character, yet for this research it will be an excellent source to analyze Trotsky’s ideas about Lenin and his leadership.
Maxim Gorky was a Russian writer, founder of the socialist realist literary school, and a political activist. He was born in in Nizhny Novgorod in 1868. He first started to use the
pseudonym Gorky in 1892 when his first short story was published. Gorky was politically active in the emerging Marxist social-democratic movement in Russia. He opposed the Tsarist Regime and did so publicly. Because of his political activity and his work as a writer, Gorky associated himself with Lenin and the Bolshevik movement. However, after Lenin attained power, Gorky became a critic of Lenin and his extreme ways of suppressing any counter-revolution or activity. The work of Gorky that will be used for this thesis is Days with Lenin, which was first published in 1932.
Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky was a Russian Marxist revolutionary. He was born in Poltava which is now located in Ukraine. When Lunacharsky was fifteen years old he became a Marxist and from 1894 studied at the University of Zurich. He left the university without attaining his degree, but during his time in Zurich he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party.
When the party split into the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks in 1903, Lunacharsky joined Lenin on the Bolshevik side. In addition to his political activism, Lunacharsky was also a writer and produced several works on writers such as Marcel Proust and Alexander Pushkin. The work of Lunacharsky that will be analyzed for this thesis is his Revolutionary Silhouettes, in which he discusses his impressions of Lenin, Trotsky and eight other revolutionaries.
Revolutionary Silhouettes was written in 1922 and translated in 1967.
Sukhanov was born in Moscow in 1882. In Paris, Sukhanov met with several known revolutionaries, including Lenin and Trotsky. He started his political career as a Revolutionary when he was twenty-one years old. After 1906 he left the
Socialist-Revolutionaries and only joined a new party, the Social-Democratic Party, in the middle of 1917. Sukhanov's reputation in the Russian left rose during the First World War, when he was one of the few internationalist socialists who managed to legally publish critiques of the war in Russia. His main outlet for this was the journal founded in 1915 by Maxim Gorky. The work of Sukhanov that will be used in this thesis is his The Russian Revolution 1917. This work was written by Sukhanov between 1919 and 1921 and was a seven-volume account of his personal
experiences during the revolution. It was first published in Berlin but the use of the books was suppressed by Stalin during the 1930’s.
Page | 10 The theory of Weber has been shortly introduced previously; similarly a short
background of the works and peers of Lenin has been given. In the first chapter of this thesis the theory of Weber will be discussed, hereby establishing a theoretical framework. The following chapter will be divided by the works of Lenin’s contemporary revolutionaries. These will be discussed with regards to the framework of Weber as established in the first chapter.
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Methodology
As stated in the introduction the research question of this thesis is the following: How did the peers of Lenin view him during the time of his rising, what qualities did he bring to the table which enabled him to lead the Russian revolution and do these qualities fit within the theory of charismatic leadership of Max Weber? To answer this question literary research was done. The choice to answer the research question with the use of literary research was based on the fact that to answer the research question in depth knowledge is required.
The research regarding Lenin and his peers consists of four primary sources written by Trotsky, Lunacharsky, Gorky and Sukhanov. These works from these specific authors have been chosen because of the author’s personal connection and acquaintance with Lenin.
Additionally in these four works the emphasis lies on the authors’ personal recollections of Lenin and the events before and during the Russian revolution. Personal recollections are by definition personal and therefore subjective. This subjectivity will be tackled in the beginning of and
throughout each chapter.
The four works of Trotsky, Gorky, Lunacharsky and Sukhanov have been not yet analyzed in connection to the theoretical framework of Max Weber’s charismatic theory and in connection to each other. There are many theories regarding leadership in copious amounts of situations. Weber’s theory of leadership is used in this thesis because is it particularly useful when analyzing leadership in a society that is undergoing change or a revolution. Weber’s theory adds to this research because it will give a theoretical framework existing out of certain characteristics and concepts which will enable me to analyze the writings regarding Lenin.
Additionally, many social scientists and other academics have been influenced by the Weberian theory and the idea of a leader who gains his leadership and authority not through traditional channels, such as inheritance, but to owing his power or influence to his ‘gifts of grace’. The term, ‘charismatic leader’ has become a widespread and almost over-used concept; currently almost every new emerging leader that has popular appeal is tagged as a charismatic leader.26 To avoid the meaningless use of the terms charisma and charismatic leadership it is
necessary to define them. This will be done in order to be able to successfully distinguish between the charismatic form of leadership as implied by the Weberian theory and other types of leadership.
26 Ann R. Willner and D. Willner, “The rise and role of charismatic leaders,” Annals of the American Academy of
Page | 12 One of the disadvantages of using the Weberian theory is that since it was one of the
first dealing with the subject of charismatic leadership it has not been adjusted or refined throughout time by Weber. To deal with this disadvantage secondary literature has been used regarding the Weberian theory to help establish the theoretical framework which is reliable and current. The advantage of using Weber’s theory is that it is a widely renowned theory within the scholarly field and focuses on charismatic leadership in periods where societies undergo changes.
To be able to distinguish whether according to Trotsky, Gorky, Lunacharsky and Sukhanov Lenin possessed the qualities of a charismatic leader, according to the theory of Weber, first the theoretical framework has been established. This has been done by using the works of Weber The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, The Three Types of
Legitimate Rule and secondary sources regarding the works of Weber and charismatic
leadership.
After establishing the theoretical framework an in-depth analysis has been made using this framework of charismatic leadership. The four works of Trotsky, Gorky, Lunacharsky and Sukhanov that have been used are certainly not objective. These four men have had their own political frameworks from which they wrote. Additionally, if Lenin was a charismatic leader, this form of leadership and person would inherently influence the way peers and followers would write about him. This is why at the beginning of each chapter I will offer a background sketch of the work and the peer that will be discussed. In this part of the text the political background and other motives will be taken into consideration, in order to be able to further analyze the text in regards to the framework of Weber’s theory.
The concepts and characteristics of charismatic leadership according to Weber’s theory, stemming from the first chapter, will be placed in juxtaposition to the works written by the four peers of Lenin. In doing so the leadership qualities and characteristics of Lenin described or alluded to by Trotsky, Gorky, Lunacharsky and Sukhanov in their works will be positioned within the theoretical framework of charismatic leadership. In this way it can be distinguished if the qualities that Lenin possessed, according to his peers, are qualities that fit into Weber’s framework.
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Leadership and Max Weber
“Charisma is the greatest revolutionary force.” - Weber 27
The focal point of this first chapter is charismatic leadership. As I have elaborated in my introduction, the basis of this section will be the leadership theory of Max Weber. The theory of Weber has been used for the analysis because of its suitability regarding leadership during revolutions. Charismatic leadership occurs, according to Weber, in societies which are
undergoing change. This change in society is naturally the case in societies that are undergoing revolution. Secondly, Weber’s theory investigates the relation of leadership in regards to their following and the societal norms, regulations and structure.
Mario Rainer Lepsius28 used Weber’s theory of leadership to analyze Hitler’s political
role during and after the interbellum period between the First World War and the Second World War. The analysis was part of his work Max Weber and Institutional Theory which is a collection of essays written by Lepsius between 1993 and 2013. Though the period in Germany after the First World War is not typically described as a revolutionary period, it was a period of change. Which is why Weber’s theory lend itself excellently to analyze Hitler’s role during the period.
The concept of charisma was introduced into the scholarly field of social sciences, by Max Weber, between 1915 and 1922. Weber was however not the first to introduce the concept of charisma in modern times. Originally St. Paul’s writings contained the first use of the term charisma. Rudolph Sohm was the first to reintroduce the term in modern times, this because of his examination of St. Paul’s epistles in the New Testament. Sohm approached the concept of charisma with the hope for the antirevolutionary potential of charisma as a cultural impulse.29
Weber also refers to the usage of charisma by Rudolph Sohm, Weber writes that it was due to Sohm’s work on charisma that he worked out the sociological aspect of the term charisma. 27 Max Weber, The Theory Of Social And Economic Organization (New York: Free Press, 2009), 363.
28 Mario Rainer Lepsius (8 May 1928 - 2 October 2014) was a German sociologist who specialized in Weber and his
writings.
29 Paul Joosse, “Becoming a God: Max Weber and the social construction of charisma”,Journal of Classical
Page | 14 Weber first mentions the concept of charisma in a series of articles which spoke of the
economic ethics of the world religions written for the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik. The concept was further discussed by Weber in his famous lecture, later
transcribed as an essay, “Politics as a Vocation” (Politik als Beruf). Lastly charismatic leadership was discussed in his posthumously published Economy and Society.
“In the last ten years of his life, as part of his ongoing work for the Outline of Social Economics , Weber sought to identify patterns of rulership (Herrschaft) in religious, economic, and political associations.”30 Weber especially tried to comprehend how leaders, rulers or
institutions ensured that their orders or plans were accepted and carried out by the followers or subjects.
The concept of charismatic leadership has often been related to Lenin’s style of
leadership [place a couple of names here]. While many of his peers have offered commentaries on his speeches, his behavior and his mannerisms, those have never been examined within the framework of Weber’s charismatic leadership theory.
There are three different types of authority which are discussed by Weber in his theory of leadership: the first type is charismatic authority; secondly there is traditional authority and thirdly legal authority.31 The main focus will be regarding the charismatic authority, since this is
the one most suited to analyze Lenin’s leadership and character. The other two authorities will also be discussed; this will be done to illustrate the difference between the three diverse types of leadership.
Weber’s definition of charisma is the following: “a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treaded as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers… [that] are regarded as of divine origin.”32 Originally charisma is a term that has its roots in religion. He argued that even
though charisma was most clearly found in religion it is a universal concept. Charisma was no longer an essentially Christian concept, but rather an analytic category that could be relevant to any religious group, as well as to authority in political, military and other cultural contexts. Weber
30 Joshua Derman, Max Weber in Politics and Social Thought: From Charisma to Canonization. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2012), 180.
31 Max Weber, “The three types of legitimate rule,” Berkeley Publications in Society and Institutions 4, no. 1 (1958):
4.
Page | 15 places emphasis not on the possession of grace itself, but on the belief and reliance of the
followers of a certain religious leader and by the leader himself of such possession.33
The three types of leadership are coined in Weber’s book The Theory of Social and
Economic Organization. According to Weber, charismatic authority is often thought of as resting
on magical powers, meaning that the authority the individual has depends on how the subjects of the leader view him or her. The claim of charismatic authority, according to Weber, is genuine when the charismatic mission of the leader is recognized by the followers in its quality. When the leader’s followers acknowledge and recognize the mission it will be acted upon accordingly by the followers and the leader.
The subjects of the leader play a vital role in his recognition and that of his mission. Without this recognition there is no foundation for charismatic authority. This recognition is psychologically a matter of complete personal devotion to the possessor of the charismatic quality.34 When a charismatic leader does not attain consistent proof of his charismatic
qualification to lead, the leader often thinks that his godlike or magical powers have deserted him, which will affect his charismatic power over his subjects or followers. When his leadership does not benefit his followers it is very likely that the perspective and recognition of the
charisma of the leader, in the eyes of the subjects, will suffer and in the end will cease to exist. Therefore the connection between the subjects and the charismatic leader is of direct influence and importance. There is no mediation by established institutions or doctrines. The leader grounds his claim to leadership not on the basis of office but rather upon the belief in the direct and unmediated possession of the gift of grace.
Charismatic leadership is therefore legitimized by the belief of the followers and not by the intrinsic quality of the leadership or capabilities. The leader can thus initiate or evoke a feeling of belief or hope in his subjects. An explanation for this emotional appeal towards his followers is the specific message the charismatic leader communicates: he or she will communicate messages that will arouse, in their following, the motives to achieve or work towards the end goal of the charismatic leader. As a result of this, the ruler can demand obedience from his followers. This obedience could be also partly based on the subject’s calculations of the rewards and repercussions of their actions. Weber states that this
consciousness of the subject regarding the consequences, rewards or punishment, of his or her actions is not enough to ensure the subject will follow the charismatic leader. Therefore it will
33 Joseph Bensman, and M. Givant, “Charisma and modernity: The use and abuse of a concept,” Social Research 42,
no. 4 (winter 1975): 571.
Page | 16 not suffice for a charismatic leader to solely instill fear in their subjects; one cannot maintain
power by these means. It is also necessary for the subjects to view the ruling system as legitimate, they must feel obliged to follow the charismatic leader and do anything needed to work towards the ultimate goal of this leader.35 Ergo, the subjects must feel obliged to obey out
of some kind of ethical duty or compunction; obedience must seem to them the right thing to do. “However, he [the leader] does not derive his claims from the will of his followers, in the manner of an election; rather, it is their [the subjects] duty to recognize his charisma."36
Individuals that have the potential to claim charismatic leadership do not passively wait for recognition by their followers. The charismatic leader will seek out the recognition needed to establish his or her authority.
“In the Weberian sense, the pure charismatic leader does not worry about his
image, for his image is, to him, his reality; and that reality is an attribute of God or of a power beyond himself. He need not calculate the effect of his imagery on his actions because the outcome of his actions are not the result of his own efforts but rather the effect of the power that possesses him.”37
From the leader’s perspective if there is a failure it is not the direct result of his decision-making but it is the result of his failure to retain and use the power that possesses him.
Subjects or followers of a charismatic leader can be under a spell and can accept him or her as supremely authoritative without agreeing with him or her on all matters. “In the highly argumentative atmosphere of a modern radical party, for example, a leader can be both charismatic and contested on specific points, as Lenin often was by his close followers.”38 By
engaging in the political discourse, a charismatic leader may sometimes even manifest some of his or her charisma. The capability to persuade through debates or discussion is one of the qualities of a leader which will enable him or her to acquire charisma from his or her followers’ perspective. 39
From Weber’s frame of reference, the charismatic leader is a genuine prophet. Like a military leader and every other ruler. The charismatic leader preaches, creates, or demands 35 Joshua Derman, Max Weber in Politics and Social Thought: From Charisma to Canonization. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2012), 180.
36 Joseph Bensman, and M. Givant, “Charisma and modernity: The use and abuse of a concept,” Social Research 42,
no. 4 (winter 1975): 578.
37 Ibid, 606.
38 Robert C. Tucker, “Personality and political leadership,” Political Science Quarterly 92, no.3 (autumn, 1977): 736. 39 Ibid, 736.
Page | 17 new obligations. The group that surrounds this charismatic leader closely is chosen because of
their own individual charismatic qualities. They have no training and the group does not consist of officials. In the group or party that surrounds the charismatic leader there is no hierarchy, however, certain members will experience boundaries, such as territorial or functional limits to their own charismatic power.40 The charismatic leader instead relies on personal bonds of
loyalty from disciples chosen on the basis of their own charismatic qualifications.
The subjectivity of the primary sources used in this thesis can be partially founded in this and the previous aspect mentioned of charismatic leadership. Peers and followers of a
charismatic leader will always be subjective on the basis that they are influenced by the charismatic leader. If they are not, it means that the authority that the leader holds is not charismatic but based on other foundations of authority, such as the traditional foundation.
Additionally to the close group that forms around the charismatic leader, there might be others that will also make use of their charismatic capabilities and use them to try to attain power. When two charismatic authorities collide there can only be one victor. Therefore, there is no opportunity or chance that two opposing charismatic leaders will be able to rule next to one another; there must always be a contest and therefore a winner and a loser.41 The victor will be
determined by a sort of contest or match. This could be anything from magical means to an actual physical battle of the colliding forces and the side or leader that is victorious will maintain its power. Because of this victory the losing side will be portrayed as guilty of a wrong which has to be righted. The loser of this clash will lose part of their charismatic authority, whereas the winner will gain reverence.
Legal and traditional authorities find the foundation of their claim to power or leadership in rational or bureaucratic manner. This is unlike charismatic authority, which is not based on existing institutions or laws. Charismatic authority is not in the realm of everyday routine and the profane sphere. For example, traditional authority is bound to the precedents that were handed down from the past, which can be seen as rules or routine. Legal authority can be seen as bureaucratic authority and, as the name implies, it predominantly depends on the decrees and statutes of the society which is to be ruled.
There are many different types of charismatic leadership. One could say that there is a scope between magical and prophetic charisma. Magical charisma is often attributed to a shaman or a magician who is permanently endowed with charisma, which is very conservative and supports the customs of the tribe. For this thesis prophetic charisma is more relevant: this is
40 Weber, The theory, 360. 41 Ibid, 361.
Page | 18 the charisma that, according to Weber, occurs in more complex societies and it adheres to the
prophet whom proclaims that he has a divine mission or a radical political doctrine. Prophetic charisma develops out of different stressful or unruly situations in society, such as occasions of suffering. This form of charisma and charismatic leadership will often lead to revolutions and social change.42
“Pure charisma, in the Weberian sense, may have order to the extent that it has coherence, but pure charisma inevitably and by definition attacks the "order" of a
society. Therefore pure charisma is always opposed to the existing social order until it is institutionalized in the newly established and ongoing order. It is important to note that political or social order as embodied in the structure of society need not be logical or coherent.”43
Charismatic authority often breaks with the past and is therefore recurrently been
interpreted as a revolutionary force. According to Weber, the rise of a charismatic authority may involve a subjective or internal reorientation which can be, for example, born out of suffering or conflicts. These occurrences then may result in a sweeping and uncompromising new
orientation and perspective. As phrased by Joseph Bensman and Michael Givant in their article about the use and abuse of the terms charisma and charismatic leadership: “It [charismatic leadership] rejects the routine life of traditional societies, the purely hierocratic elements of religions, the bureaucratic and machine operation of political organizations; and it rejects as undignified the methodical, rational pursuit of money or wealth.”44
According to David Apter, an American political scientist and sociologist, the rise of charisma and charismatic leadership takes place when: “there exists an attenuated normative situation which, although it may not challenge pre-existing norms directly, allows new
combinations, where behavioral situations show a more random basis for the selection of normative alternatives than is presupposed by an institutionalized acceptance of any one particular set, traditional or modern.”45
42 Len Oakes, Prophetic Charisma: The Psychology of Revolutionary Religious Personalities, (Syracuse: University
Press, 1997), 28.
43 Joseph Bensman, and Michael Givant, “Charisma and modernity: The use and abuse of a concept,” Social
Research 42, no. 4 (winter 1975): 587.
44 Ibid, 575.
Page | 19 The only way in which prophetic charismatic authority can keep its form is if there is
continuous change in the society that it is ruling. When the state of affairs and the general circumstances of a population evolves into a stable situation charismatic authority will shift towards either traditional or legal authority. “In its pure form charismatic authority may be said to exist only in the process of originating.”46 Additionally Peter Baehr, a sociologist who is
specialized in the history of social and political thought, notes that a charismatic leader cannot indefinitely maintain the revolutionary fervor that his authority is based upon. Therefore there is without exception always a shift from charismatic leadership towards either legal or traditional authority.47 An example of charismatic leadership or authority that transitions into either one of
the other authorities is when a leader has acquired his power through his charisma. By the time that the leader needs a successor there are multiple ways to choose him or her: if one chooses to make the power acquired with the charisma hereditary this can consequently lead to the traditionalization or legalization of the previously charismatic power.48
Charisma can in this way become attached to an office or a position. By doing so, the gift of grace will become depersonalized and will be attached to an office in an established military or political order. Because of the bond that the charisma has formed with the office, charisma itself it is no longer radical and the revolutionary. The radical side of charismatic leadership is essential to its own survival. Traditional leadership may have some charismatic components: the traditional leader could for example be a descendant of a charismatic hero whose charisma has been routinized. The foundation of this leader’s authority, is not charisma but the sanctification of usage. Legal authority, however, is according to Weber, not based upon charisma. On the contrary, when charisma has been traditionalized or legalized the authority that the charismatic office possesses rests on traditional and legal authority.49
To understand the appeal of the charismatic leader to their followers one must examine the leader’s behavior. The characteristics that are repeatedly attributed to charismatic leaders are: extremely high levels of self-confidence, dominance, and a strong conviction of their moral righteousness.50 Examples of the aspects of the leader that can be analyzed to distinguish
these characteristics are presentations, posture and verbalization. Burke's (1968) analysis of
46 Weber, The Theory, 364
47 Peter Baehr, “Identifying the Unprecedented: Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism, and the Critique of Sociology,”
American Sociological Review 67, no. 6 ( 2002 ): 825.
48 Ibid, 366.
49 Joseph Bensman, and M. Givant, “Charisma and modernity: The use and abuse of a concept,” Social Research 42,
no. 4 (winter 1975): 593.
Page | 20 Hitler is precisely such an attempt to understand the appeal of Hitler to his followers.51
According to R. S. Perinbanayagam, a sociologist specialized in contemporary sociological theory, one can look a number of aspects to ascertain an idea of a leader’s charisma:
“a) Charisma is created by symbolic processes that involve appropriate
presentation of selves, the management of enhanced identities, and the manipulation of instruments and strategies of a rhetorical nature; b) Such processes involve selective and purposive activities; hence they create audiences that are responsive, audiences that are indifferent, and audiences that are hostile. In other words, they elicit a variety of responses; c) These responses are of such a nature that they can be analytically
established to be antinomies, ambiguities, or direct responses; and d) Such responses to symbolic representations often create and sustain structures that are antithetical and inimical to each other.” 52
Since now a framework of Weber’s charismatic theory has been established it can be applied to the four primary sources written about Lenin by Trotsky, Gorky, Lunacharsky and Sukhanov. It will be applied by reviewing the writings of the four peers and comparing the characteristics of Lenin that they mention to the aspects that are prevalent in Weber’s
charismatic theory. Additionally, the ulterior motives that the peers could have had regarding the statements that are discussed are mentioned. In the following chapter, starting with Trotsky’s writings, I will use the foundation established in the current chapter to analyze the writings regarding Lenin.
51 Jay A. Conger, Rabindra N. Kanungo and Sanjay T. Menon, “Charismatic Leadership and Follower Effects,” Journal
of Organizational Behavior 21, no. 7 (November 2000): 752.
Page | 21
Lenin and his peers
Leon Trotsky – On Lenin
“On Lenin is a book that none but Trotsky could have written.” – L. Kochan 53
In the first chapter it has been discussed what it entails to have charismatic leadership
according to Weber. Here I will analyze Trotsky’s writing on Lenin to observe which qualities can be found in Lenin’s leadership through Trotsky’s perspective as presented in his book On Lenin. Throughout the first chapter several concepts have been identified which play a large part in the charismatic leadership theory. These concepts will be highlighted here by discussing them in relation to the writings of Trotsky on Lenin as a leader. The same will be done for the following chapters that will include the other peers of Lenin such as Maxim Gorky.
On Lenin offers a unique perspective upon Lenin’s revolutionary leadership. This is
because Lenin personally was quite elusive, as several historians and peers have indicated. A Soviet author, M. Koltsov, wrote in 1923: “How strange it is, we so admire, so love him, and yet know him personally so little… The living Lenin is even now wholly unknown and
incomprehensible to us.” The account of Trotsky is also invaluable due to the closeness of the two men. Trotsky first heard of Lenin during his years in prison in Moscow in 1898. There he came in contact with other revolutionaries, heard about Lenin and read his book The
Development of Capitalism in Russia.54
It is important to keep in mind what relationship Trotsky had with Lenin during their lifetimes. Trotsky only joined the Bolsheviks right before the October revolution of 1917. Though their close relationship between Trotsky and Lenin there were several occasions where they did 53 L. Kochan, On Lenin: Notes Towards a Biography (London: George G. Harrap & Co, 1971) 7.
Page | 22 not agree on how to manage or handle the political environment that they were in. For instance,
Lenin rather preferred a small group of extremely dedicated revolutionaries than a large movement with less dedication to the cause. The latter option being favored by Julius Martov, who would become the leader of the Mensheviks. Trotsky tried to mediate between the
perspectives of Lenin and Martov and stayed neutral on the subject. Bolsheviks viewed this as a disloyal position to both the movement and Lenin.
Trotsky discusses the disagreements that he had with Lenin in his autobiography My
Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography. “In this book my disagreements with Lenin assume an
importance that they never actually had. There are two reasons for this: our disagreements were the exception and as such attracted attention; after Lenin’s death they were magnified by the epigones to astronomic proportions and became an independent political factor in no way connected with either of us.”55 One has to take into consideration that Trotsky wrote this during
his power struggle against Joseph Stalin and to write that his disagreements with Lenin were not as major as described by other media outlet, works in Trotsky’s advantage. If Trotsky could minimize his disagreements with Lenin the people of Russia would be more inclined to support him, since Lenin was regarded among many as a national hero. Trotsky cuts Lenin to size and describes him as a person with many virtues and many vices. This is therefore not an idyllic picture of the events before and after the October revolution which is often attributed to the greatness and leadership of Lenin.56 Describing Lenin as a person with many virtues but also
many vices could have perhaps been done to make the audience aware that even Lenin had flaws and therefore Trotsky’s flaws in the audience’s eyes would be less significant.
On Lenin was first published in 1924 in Russia. When Trotsky fell from grace and was
exiled the book was drawn from circulations. This was because Trotsky was leading a failed struggle against Joseph Stalin and his policies. Trotsky was removed as Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs in January 1925, he was removed from the Central Committee in October 1927 and expelled from the Communist Party in November 1927. An exiled followed, in January 1928, to Alma-Ata and the year after he was exiled from the Soviet Union. During his exile Trotsky remained an opponent of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Whilst Trotsky was writing On
55 Leon Trotsky, My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography (New York: Dover Publications, INC., 2007), 462. 56 M.M. Sankhdher, “Reviewed Work: On Lenin : Notes Towards a Biography by Leon Trotsky, Tamara Deutscher,
Page | 23
Lenin, he found himself in a precarious situation. Once he was one of the most important
revolutionaries now he had to fight for any influence whilst abandoning all hope of power.57
Trotsky wrote On Lenin under strained political circumstances, towards the end of Lenin’s life and immediately after his death. Right before and after Lenin’s death Trotsky had to start defending his own personal understanding of Leninism and the revolutionary politics that came with it. Stalin was at this point (1922) allied with Kamenev and Zinoviev; together they formed an anti-Trotsky block and made the Stalinist faction grow.58 The political situation and
Trotsky’s need to defend his notions of Leninism has influenced the writings in On Lenin. By writing a book on what was and is considered one of the most important political figures in Russian history, he could influence the audience’s perspective on himself as a potential leader. The publication of the book alone, with such a personal content and emphasizing the
relationship between Lenin and Trotsky, could make people more aware of Trotsky’s
relationship with Lenin. In the few months after Lenin’s death on 21 January 1924 there was a rush in creating monuments in his memory and cities were named after him, all contributing to the Lenin cult. Therefore, by publishing On Lenin and making people aware of his close
relationship with him, Trotsky could have aimed towards winning back the power and influence that he lost when the triumvirate of Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev took power.
On Lenin does contain some points of criticism towards Lenin’s political positions, most
of which were about the days before the October Revolution. However, these points of criticism could be interpreted as a (writing) tactic. By mentioning the difficulties that Lenin and the party went through before the October Revolution, Trotsky had the opportunity to also expose the reluctance of Kamenev and Zinoviev to support revolutionary action when it was needed the most, hereby criticizing two of the people of the triumvirate that were taking over power and discrediting Trotsky’s work and thoughts on Leninism.
Since On Lenin is written from Trotsky’s point of view it is by definition subjective, just like any other work. He describes the trials and tribulations that they both went through during an intense political situation. However, when one looks at the events and actions that are described by Trotsky, taking into consideration the previously mentioned political situation, the events and actions are depicted truthfully, but still filtered through his personal lens. One can
57 Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Trotsky (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1977), 267. 58 Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: the Russian Revolution (London: Random House, 1997), 795.
Page | 24 find several characteristics or habits of Lenin that were also stated by other authors such as
Krausz, Zetkin, Gorki, Lunacharsky and Sukhanov.
Trotsky starts his work On Lenin by stating that “one should look here neither for a biography of Lenin, nor for a study of his character, nor for a full survey of his views and methods of action.” However, because of his unique insights I will use his work. Not to study Lenin’s character or his views but to analyze Trotsky’s views of Lenin. For this we will use the framework of charismatic leadership theory as explained in chapter one.
One of the main aspects of charisma and charismatic leadership is to break away from what is considered to be the established order and normality. Therefore it is important for a leader that uses his charisma and the methods of charismatic leadership to be able to break through the normalcy of current day events and politics. In On Lenin, Trotsky mentions different occasions where according to him Lenin possesses the right qualities to do this. “Lenin,
although firmly entrenched in the present, was always trying to pierce the veil of the future.”59
What made Lenin unique compared to his peers is that Lenin had the patience to see when his talents and actions were needed. Julius Martov is named as an example of someone who was also focused on renewing the everyday standard. He was the leader of the
Mensheviks and one of the political opponents of Lenin. However, Martov approaches the changing of the political scene differently than Lenin. He, according to Trotsky, makes brilliant guesses, hypotheses, and prepositions. However these prepositions and hypotheses fade into the background when Martov needs them. Lenin developed his plans, actions and propositions when he needs them in the exact moment or shortly before. By doing this all the necessary actions or plans are freshly made and therefore more easily applicable to the situation or event.
To pierce the status quo one needs to not be bound to it. Trotsky gives an example of this by recalling Lenin giving a lecture. Lenin was asked not to indulge in any polemics by the professors, but he however did not adhere to their request and gave a lecture about Marxism and the fact that, even though Marxism was a revolutionary theory, this did not detract from the scientific character of the theory.
Additionally, Lenin was not only adamant on breaking with the status quo outside of Bolshevism but also within the Bolshevik party. He organized a struggle against the old Bolsheviks who were members of the party because, according to Lenin, they were too solidified in their old ways. These old Bolsheviks learned by repetition. Repeating previously
Page | 25 learned or studied subjects did not offer any chances to renewing or reforming society. Lenin
added that instead of the repetition that occurred with the old Bolsheviks they should have started focusing on the current issues.
One crucial condition for a charismatic leader is that there have to be subjects willing to follow. One of the examples that Trotsky gives of Lenin’s way of speaking is when Lenin showed him the outside of Westminster Abbey and some other landmarks. They were talking and Trotsky writes that he does not exactly remember how Lenin phrased it but he remembers the tone and inflection that Lenin had in his voice. Lenin said: “That is their famous
Westminster”. Lenin’s tone of voice indicated that with their he did not just mean the English but the enemy’s.60 This way of speaking was inherently Lenin’s according to Trotsky. The inflection
in his tone of voice was accidental but he later also used it to talk about German artillery or the French air force. “[…]They know, they have got, they made it, they achieved—yes, but what foes they are!” (On Lenin, 30) From Trotsky’s perspective this particular use of the vocabulary indicated that the shadow of the exploiting classes, or the enemy, was imbedded in the whole human culture. This shadow was always clearly visible to Lenin.
To illustrate the support that Lenin had gained from his followers and his peers there was a speech that Trotsky held at the session of the All-Union Central Executive Committee on the 2nd of September in 1918. During this period Lenin was unable to attend because of medical
issues.
“For this new age Russian history created a new leader. All that was best in the old
revolutionary intellectuals of earlier times: their spirit of self-denial, their audacity, their hatred of oppression—all this was concentrated in the figure of this man who already in his youth, broke irrevocably with the intelligentsia because it was too strongly tied to the bourgeoisie; this man absorbed completely the spirit and the just cause of the working class. Supported by Russia’s young revolutionary proletariat, utilizing the rich experience of a world-wide workers’ movement, transforming its ideology into a lever for action, he had risen to his full stature on the political horizon. This is Lenin, the greatest man of our revolutionary epoch. (applause)” 61
This is a small excerpt from the speech Trotsky gave regarding Lenin. Even when their leader was not able to attend because of health issues he was praised immensely by his peers and with great enthusiasm of his followers.
60 Trotsky, On Lenin, 30. 61 Trotsky, On Lenin, 192.
Page | 26 Lenin’s qualities when speaking in public are also discussed by Trotsky. These qualities
are vital concerning charismatic leadership because, according to Weber, the leader is directly connected to his followers. Therefore, to be able to directly address your followers as the leader and to convince them of your intentions is imperative. Before his lectures in Paris, Lenin
experienced nervousness. Trotsky expands on this by stating that when the audiences of the speeches were less like-minded and the occasions more formal the nervousness of Lenin would be even greater. The audiences themselves did not notice anything of what Lenin was
experiencing. “As a speaker, Lenin always seemed full of self-confidence; he spoke with energy and so fast that the stenographers had a hard job to keep up with him.”62 When Trotsky recalled
what was his impression of Lenin speaking in public he remembered “a solidly built man, a sturdy, supple figure of medium height; I hear an even-flowing smooth voice with slightly rolling r’s, speaking fast, almost without pauses and, at the beginning, without any particular
intonation.” 63
If Lenin felt that his audience was in need of learning his vision he was extra enthusiastic and motivated to get his message across. “[…] his voice acquired all its vivacity, flexibility, and persuasiveness, not of the ‘oratorical’ kind, but a conversational one, adapted to the needs of the rostrum. Lenin was not particularly gifted for oratory art. However in his speeches to those whom needed his teaching or need to hear his perspective his speaking was more vivid. One may, of course, say that every speaker addresses the audience he feels to be his with more ease and success; this is perfectly true. ” 64
The style of Lenin literary and oratorical skills was simple and utilitarian. According to Trotsky, this reflected Lenin’s nature. This nature of Lenin’s character is also echoed by Philip Pomper, he writes that Lenin was not interested in creating a hero image of himself. Exactly the opposite, according to Pomper Lenin had no interest in creating a revolutionary hero story. He had no or little personal vanity and “came across as an ordinary man who did not even try to act like a great man.”65
62Trotsky, On Lenin, 48. 63Ibid, 48.
64 Ibid, 48.
65 Philip Pomper, Nečaev, Lenin, and Stalin: The Psychology of Leadership, (Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas
Page | 27
“There was no room for mystical impulses in Lenin’s thought. He did not belong in the category of revolutionaries “with a cause,” but instead embodied the rational, predictable fighter.”66
Lenin’s speaking style had its foundation in his concentration of actions and forces. One specific aspect that Lenin used in his writing and speeches is to appeal to the immediate future and goal for socialist Russia. For example in his thesis on peace which was written at the start of 1918 he claimed that “for its success socialism in Russia needs a certain spell of time, at least a few months.” In hindsight these few months mentioned by Lenin were too short of a time period for socialism to succeed in Russia. Trotsky recalled a memory of a speech that Lenin gave at the Smolny Institute during the session of the Sovnarkom.67 “During this speech Lenin
repeatedly mentions that in half a year we would have socialism and would become one of the most powerful states.”68
The effect of Lenin insinuating that events and successes of socialism were closer than one might expect, resulted in the audience focusing on the present and the near future.
Consequently, the audience would not get lost in the striving for that final goal that was only accomplishable in the long-term. The use or misuse of the indication of the time necessary to reach a certain goal is not only a writing or oratory trick according to Trotsky.
“There was something more to Lenin’s pedagogical firmness: there was the force of his idealism and the tenacity of his indomitable will which at the sharp terns of history made him cut corners and foreshorten distances. He believed in what he was saying. And so the fantastic date for socialism—six months hence—testified also to the same Leninist spirit which showed itself in his realistic approach to every immediate task.” 69
To get a feel of the audience Lenin would start his speech talking about generalities. This way Lenin could probe the listeners and establish a basic understanding of the audience. During the first part of the speech Lenin would not use persuasive non-verbal communication.
Synchronously during the first part of Lenin’s speech he would start to think about a way to approach the audience with the topic at hand. The length of the introductory period of the
66 Tamás Krausz, Reconstructing Lenin; An Intellectual Biography (NYU Press, Monthly Review Press., 2015), 43. 67 The Sovnarkom is also known as the Council of People's Commissars, which was a government institution that
was erect and established after the October revolution of 1917 in Russia. The members of the Sovnarkom include amongst others: Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky and Lunacharsky.
68 Trotsky, On Lenin, 125. 69 Ibid, 125.
Page | 28 speech was dependent on the audience, the subject matter and Lenin himself. When an idea
had been formed by Lenin on his audience his speaking manners change.
“The speaker bends the upper part of the body, sticks his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat. These gestures at once swing out head and elbows. The head by itself does not seem exceedingly large on the sturdy and strong body, well-built and balanced. What seems enormous is the forehead and the visibly protruding lumps on the skull. He moves his arms about—neither nervously not in an exaggerated manner. His hand is broad, with short fingers, ‘plebeian’, strong. Like the whole figure, it betokens
benevolence and kindliness coupled with strength.” 70
When this transformation had taken place even the most distant member in the audience is awaiting what will be said next.
“The high cheekbones glow and seem softened by indulgence and sagacity, behind which one can gauge the keen understanding of men, of social relations, of
circumstances, and understanding which reaches the very depths of things. The lower part of the face, with the reddish-greyish beard remains somewhat in the shade. The voice becomes softer, mellower, and at times slyly persuasive.” 71
After the transformation, Lenin deals with the objections or the writing of his opponent making sure that his audience comprehends that what is said by his adversaries is incorrect. Lenin accomplished this before analyzing the idea or notion of the opponent. “He pulls his thumbs out of his waistcoat, throws his body gently backwards, takes a few short steps back as if clearing the space for an assault, shrugs his thick-set shoulders either with irony or with despair, and stretches his arms expressively, spreading his pals and fingers.” 72
Lenin humiliated his opponent before getting into the opponent’s ideas or concepts. This way the audience could mentally prepare itself for what is to come. Hereafter began the
refutation of the ideas of the opponent. Lenin’s right hand followed the rhythm of his argument; the left only assists when needed. “The speaker leans towards the audience, moves to the edge of the platform, bends forward, and with circular motion of his hands, works over his own verbal material this signifies that we have reached the heart of the matter, the central point of the
70 Trotsky, On Lenin, 135. 71 Ibid, 136.
Page | 29 whole speech.”73 Very simple humor was used in the speeches of Lenin, humor that is
comprehensible for most of the audience. “His [Lenin] speeches were powerful but without hint of polish or elegance. He was confident but never haughty, refined, or pretentious.”74 But what
characterized the speeches of Lenin most is the aim towards a specific goal. He, as a public speaker, was not out to make a pompous speech. The oratorical goal of Lenin was to guide his audience to a specific conclusion, which later could set the audience into motion or action. For Lenin to be able to initiate or evoke feelings in his audience was an essential aspect for a charismatic leader according to Weber. As a consequence of the ability to initiate or evoke feelings in his public the ruler, in this case Lenin, could demand obedience from his followers.
The way that Lenin strived towards one goal in his speeches had its foundation in Lenin’s character. According to Trotsky, Lenin acted purposefully, always trying to reach the outcome he had imagined.
“Tirelessly, he was tightening the string of this bow more and more, to the limit—quietly testing: was there no flaw? No danger that it would snap? From all sides he heard warnings: do not make it any tauter, don’t! “it will not snap,” answered the master archer, “our bow is made of unbreakable proletarian stuff, and the string has to be tightened more and more, for the arrow is heavy and we have to launch it far, very far into the distance.” March 5th 1924.”75
As mentioned in the first chapter, Weber emphasized that the belief of the follower and of the leader in the possession of the gift of grace is more important than the actual possession of grace. The gift of grace certainly had a religious connotation, however in the case of Lenin it could be interpreted as his character. Therefore, it is important to get a notion of Lenin’s character through the eyes of Trotsky and how this exact character contributed to his leadership.
Weber also mentions two different types of charisma, the magical and the prophetic. The prophetic charismatic leadership can only occur when it is united by a leader or prophet that proclaims that he has the divine mission or a radical political doctrine. As a leader to be able to proclaim the radical political doctrine one needs to have self-confidence. Lenin acquired his
73 Trotsky, On Lenin, 138. 74 Tumarkin, Lenin Lives!, 43. 75 Trotsky, On Lenin, 66.
