Kissinger-esque Excuses
The standard Leninist defense of the authoritarian actions of the Bolsheviks after coming to power is that it was necessary to defeat the Whites, imperialists, etc. and prevent the gains of the revolution from being destroyed. This is wrong for several reasons. The Revolutionary Insurgent Army of the Ukraine (Makhnovist) was able to defeat the Whites, imperialists, etc. under conditions more difficult than the Bolsheviks had in Russia without their authoritarian policies. Thus, these authoritarian policies could not have been the only way the Bolsheviks could have defeated the Whites since there are successful examples of other ways to fight the counter-revolution.
The Bolsheviks were already becoming increasing dictatorial by the time the civil war, imperialist invasions, etc. happened. The civil war started on May 25th, 1918 with the revolt of the Czech legion. In spring 1918 the Bolsheviks lost the soviet elections. Their response was to disband all the soviets that voted the wrong way. This is what caused party dictatorship to come about, not the civil war. They also started disbanding factory committees in March 1918 and in April launched raids against anarchists. Anarchists (and others) were jailed and newspapers shut down, all before the civil war start. It is rather difficult to blame the civil war for Bolshevik authoritarianism when their authoritarian policies began before the civil war.
This pre-civil war authoritarianism actually played a role in starting the civil war and undermining popular support for the Bolsheviks. Far from being absolutely necessary to defeat the Whites, Bolshevik brutality probably helped the White cause. These actions caused many uprisings against the Bolsheviks, which the Whites took advantage of, and decreased eagerness to fight against the Whites. Bolshevik totalitarianism was the only way they could keep themselves, and the new ruling class created as a result of the "dictatorship of the proletariat," in power, not the only way to stop the Whites from winning.
If these "objective circumstances" (civil war, imperialism, etc.) caused Bolshevism to degenerate and become authoritarian then Bolshevism will always degenerate and become authoritarian because those "exceptional circumstances" commonly occur with revolutions. Revolutions are frequently caused and accompanied by economic and/or political crises. The revolution will inherit this crisis. A successful revolutionary strategy must be capable of dealing with it without degenerating. In State and Revolution (and elsewhere) Lenin claimed that a "dictatorship of the proletariat" was needed in order to defeat capitalist counter-revolutionary armies in civil war. If this "proletarian" state cannot do that without degenerating into a totalitarian hellhole then it should be avoided because it is incapable of achieving it's goal and will always degenerate into a totalitarian hellhole. It's pretty unrealistic to think that you can have a revolution without resistance from the capitalists. If Bolshevism cannot overcome that resistance without turning into a totalitarian nightmare then Bolshevism is to be avoided because it will always turn into a totalitarian nightmare.
This justification for Lenin's dictatorship cannot possibly justify the suppression of the Workers Opposition faction of the Bolsheviks party. The Workers Opposition was not only defeated but also banned. All factions within the Bolshevik party were banned, making Stalin's rise to power much easier since no one was allowed to organize against him. Nor can it justify the imperialism engaged in by Soviet Russia in the early 20s. They invaded not only Ukraine, where the anarchists had defeated the bourgeoisie, but also other states, which had become independent of the Russian Empire during the course of the revolution and civil war.
Repression not only continued after the civil war but increased, making the civil war excuse even more implausible. Many Leninists defend this by claiming that the country was too exhausted for genuine Soviet Democracy, and had they not continued party dictatorship the right would have come to power. The country obviously wasn't too exhausted at the end of the civil war because they were quite capable of launching numerous large revolts against the Bolsheviks (Kronstadt, Tambov, the Volynka, etc.). It is quite possible that had the Bolsheviks held free elections the SRs or Mensheviks might have won (the Bolsheviks would almost certainly have lost). It is further possible that this might have resulted in a restoration of the capitalists to power, through a Kolchak-style coup, a Menshevik-SR slide to the right or some other means. But the Bolshevik dictatorship resulted in the rule of the capitalist class anyway. I'm referring here not only to the eventual downfall of the USSR but the fact that the Bolsheviks established themselves as a new state-capitalist ruling class shortly after coming to power. Their dictatorship was defending one capitalist class against a different capitalist class (and the workers and peasants) - not the workers against the capitalists. All of the political parties represented different forms of capitalism, even if they called their version "socialism." The only real way to end bourgeois rule would have been the anarchist solution using partisan warfare along the lines of the Makhnovshchina. The triumph of any of the parties, including the Bolsheviks, meant the triumph of capitalist rule. It is contradictory to argue that Bolshevik authoritarianism was necessary to defend the gains of the revolution because Bolshevik authoritarianism destroyed the gains of the revolution by gerrymandering soviets, shutting down factory committees, repressing opposition socialists, etc. Bolshevik methods brought about the very thing they were allegedly supposed to stop.
Another defense of this is the claim that the Russian working class had become "declassed" or "atomized." Allegedly, the proletariat had effectively ceased to exist as a proletariat due to the depopulation of the cities brought about by the civil war and thus the party had no choice but to substitute it's own dictatorship for the rule of the proletariat. It is true that Russian cities underwent large-scale depopulation during the civil war due both to the civil war and the disastrous set of policies known as War Communism. Those who fled the cities tended to be those who had come to the cities more recently and still had ties to villages. The "hardcore proletarians" who had been born in the city and lived there for their whole life were less likely to leave. These "hardcore proletarians" were the ones who went on strike and rebelled against the Bolsheviks, culminating in the Volynka. The working class obviously had not ceased to exist or lost its ability to engage in collective action since it was quite capable of taking collective action, including strikes and other actions, against the Bolshevik dictatorship.1
The "it was necessary" defense of Lenin's dictatorship is the same as the defenses offered by John Ashcroft, Henry Kissinger, the CIA and other apologists of American imperialism. They claim that repressive measures are necessary in order to "stop the terrorists" and other boogeymen. They too reject both "pure democracy" and "pure repression." The CIA only imposes police states on other countries when it is needed to maintain US imperialism. When it is not necessary they do not usually impose a police state. If it is necessary both Leninists and the CIA will use extreme terror to force their vision of how the world should be organized on the majority. Associating Leninism with brutal dictatorships is no different than associating the CIA with brutal dictatorships. There are no circumstances in which it is ever acceptable to implement a police state (or any other kind of state). A police state can never be used to defend workers' rule because all police states have a tiny minority ruling at the top over the proletariat. Implementing a police state guarantees that a classless and stateless society will not come about.
Notes:
1 Aves, 124-126; Figes, People’s Tragedy p. 610; Anarchist FAQ section H.7.5
