Excellent article. A small corrective: the notion of “socialism in one country” was not a Leninist formation, it was used by Stalin after Lenin’s death to justify a host of counter revolutionary activities. I am not aware that Lenin ever used the phrase but I might be wrong about that.
The Bolsheviks were well aware that without an extension of the revolution beyond Russia, the revolution would eventually fail and Capitalism would triumph.
Excellent article. A small corrective: the notion of “socialism in one country” was not a Leninist formation, it was used by Stalin after Lenin’s death to justify a host of counter revolutionary activities. I am not aware that Lenin ever used the phrase but I might be wrong about that.
The Bolsheviks were well aware that without an extension of the revolution beyond Russia, the revolution would eventually fail and Capitalism would triumph.
Which is exactly what occurred in 1989.
In the footnotes, I put a source for this:
Erick van Ree “Lenin’s Conception of Socialism in One Country, 1915-1917,” 'Revolutionary Russia,' November 20, 2010 – https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09546545.2010.523068
In 1989, there was socialism in more than one country. There was the Warsaw Pact, China, etc. Their inability to unify would seem to be the issue.