ABSTRACT
The formation of the new Soviet state was more influenced by the civil war raging in Germany and the in-between lands. In 1918, when the very life of the young Soviet state depended on reaching a solution to the problem posed by the powerful German army, the conflict between revolutionary objectives and the will to resist the German invasion split the Bolshevik Party again, only a few weeks after it had taken power. German Communism could have matured, could have exploded the fetters of inhibiting dogma, trade-union narrowness, and lack of realistic audacity, if the revolution in retreat in Russia had not added a new bridle. The defeat of the German Communists marks the close of the period of revolutionary internationalism, 1917-1923. Antagonism between the rising Nazi power and the West has virtually blacked out the contribution of Stalin’s totalitarianism to the making of totalitarian Germany.
