This study has sought to contribute to a larger debate, begun just after the October Revolution, concerning the relationship between Marx's project and Soviet society. Is the Soviet system a necessary part of the fulfilment of Marx's project, or a travesty of that project? The study has focused, however, only on the directly political aspects of the matter by examining whether early Soviet authoritarianism was the necessary and logical outcome of Marx's attitudes and beliefs. Since Lenin's practice and Lenin's theory, which I have taken to be two sides of the one coin, largely determined and justified the early political character of the new Soviet state, the examination has been confined to the theoretical links between Leninism and Marx. How far is Marx causally responsible for Leninism, and thus for Soviet authoritarianism?

While Leninism was not the only causal factor, it was certainly the chief cause of the origins of Soviet authoritarianism. Some other factors were the existence of fierce bourgeois and foreign military resistance to the Bolshevik coup, and the destruction visited upon Russia during the First World War. These other factors, however, were not decisive in the formation and subsequent development of Soviet authoritarianism. They may have provided opportunities for Lenin to consolidate Bolshevik rule, and they have since been cited to justify the nature of that rule, but they were subsidiary causes.

Which characteristics of Leninism produced Soviet authoritarianism? Uppermost among them was Lenin's attitude towards, and conception of, opposition.