The political spirituality of Bolshevik power

A variety of causes have been put forward to explain how the Soviet superpower could collapse so suddenly. This chapter complements views that ascribe importance to factors such as imperial overstretch, economic competition, or a legitimacy crisis. I shall argue that the spiritual foundations of Bolshevik power account for the paradoxical nature of communism. Revolutionary consciousness and the modalities of the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks failed to establish constitutive foundations for communist power. The credentials of communism as a political religion were crucial for the mobilisation and legitimisation of an economically disastrous but politically fascinating and temporarily quite successful experiment. Conversely, these very spiritual foundations accounted for the structural weakness of communist power and the failure to achieve constitutive politics. My aim is not to explain what ‘caused’ the collapse of communism. Important studies have examined the inherent weakness of Soviet-type institutions and have, in a path-dependent manner, looked at paths of extrication for the new order. Rather, I am challenging the notion according to which communism was a constituted system of power.

The focus on transitions to democracy through the related processes of constitution-building, the introduction of election-based party competition, and the pursuit of a capitalist market economy deliberately overlooked the fact that political analysis must conceive of political order by distinguishing at least two levels.