The Phantom of the Soviet Thermidor

Chapter 8 describes the origins of the debate over Thermidor—the phase in the French Revolution following the Jacobin Terror—in the New Economic Policy Lenin initiated in 1921. It also shows the role the concept played in the struggle for power to succeed Lenin. The debate over what its realization in the Soviet Union would entail reflected the very real fear among the Bolsheviks that their revolution might end before the construction of socialism had even begun. To them, Thermidor was virtually a synonym for counter-revolution. For mostly political purposes—but also because their fear of it was real—Stalin and Bukharin, in the mid-1920s, argued that to evoke the danger of a Soviet Thermidor was tantamount to advocating it. Trotsky, who always considered analogies with French revolutions instructive, in the 1920s defined Thermidor as a form of counter-revolution. But since, in his opinion, it had not yet occurred in the Soviet Union, there was reason to believe it could be avoided altogether.