The Secret of the Bolshevik Party

Before the revolution, joining the bolsheviks meant voluntarily joining an utterly fringed party of fanatics tilting at revolutionary windmills. But after more than a year in power, and with the communist party itself now taking on larger importance, that's exactly what it became. Party members were increasingly living high on the hog at everyone else's expense. Sale of public property for private gain, requisition of goods for personal gain, became endemic within the party. Whatever they had better or more exclusive access to went up for sale on the black market. They used their public rolls as inspectors or managers or bureacrats or local officials to exploit every imaginable opportunity for graft and self dealing.