The author holds that the features we associate with the defunct Soviet Union were actually inherited from Russia’s Czarist past.
The totalitarian features of the Soviet Union were not new for the Russian people. From historical times, from the times of Ivan the Terrible, Russia had been under the sway of absolute rulers. Democracy had never been a feature of life in Russia. The secret police, and political prisoners, were also a feature of Czarist rule. Though officially the Soviet Union was atheist, and there were restrictions on the public practice of religion, it tolerated the Orthodox Church to some extent.
Interestingly, under the constitution, the states that constituted the Soviet Union had the legal right to secede. However, these rights remained mostly only on paper until the counter-revolution ushered in by Gorbachev and Yeltsin. This also was nothing new – since the times of Peter the Great, Russia has periodically flirted with liberal Western ideas, only to lapse into its isolationist shell.
The intense patriotism that the Soviet Union fostered and encouraged among its people could be regarded as the continuation of the old doctrine of Pan-Slavism, albeit under a new name and a new form. Russia draws strength from its belief in its historical destiny. And Russia has periodically come into conflict with the West because of its expansionist ambitions. This, too, is nothing new and had earlier lead to the Crimean War involving the Western powers.
Lenin believed that a country is ready for Revolution after defeat in war – and events seem to have proved him right. The basic mistake of the Kerensky government (which took power after the Czar abdicated) was to try to continue the hugely unpopular war.
The army (or large sections of it) mutinied, and Lenin was thrust into power. As with the Czars they replaced, many of the aims and ambitions (the New Economic Policy, the Constitution of 1936) of the leadership were praiseworthy in principle, but were either short-lived or were never put into practice.
After the death of Stalin, the Soviet Union moved from dictatorship to the rule of an oligarchy; and card-carrying members of the Communist party became the new bourgeoisie, to replace the one they had overthrown and / or eliminated. The stage was set for the arrival of Gorbachev and Yeltsin on the scene.