Roots of Bolshevism

The revolutionary intelligentsia was a group motivated by utopian radicalism, the ecstasy of violence, the cult of the secret Organization. This was the name of Nechayev's mini-sect. At its core, the most secretive nucleus, calling itself "Hell." Suggested readings: Alain Besancon, James Billington, Albert Camus, Jacob L. Talmon, Isaiah Berlin, Leonard Shapiro, Adam Ulam, Richard Pipes. What is political nihilism? Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Herzen. And, of course, Chernyshevsky’s What is to Be Done? And Lenin’s. too.

"The revolutionary is a doomed man. He has no personal interests, no business affairs, no emotions, no attachments, no property, and no name. Everything in him is wholly absorbed in the single thought and the single passion for revolution.--Sergey Nechayev

“Although they claimed to be a political party, the Bolsheviks were really nothing of the kind. They resembled rather an order or cohort gathered around a chosen leader. What held them together was not a program or a platform—these could change from one day to the next in conformity with the leader’s wishes—but the person of the leader. It was his intuition and his will that guided the Communists, not objective principles. Lenin was the first political figure of modern times to be addressed as ‘leader’ (vozhd’).”—Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution, Vintage Books, 1991, p. 814)