I'd like to answer McGrath of Harlow.
The infant Soviet Republic had to cope first of all with the ravages of the War which had led to 20 million war dead and the ruination of the economy.
Secondly was the right wing "White armies which were deeply anti semitic and determined to wipe out the Revolution ..and indeed they tried their best.Their leaders were intent on revenge and retribution on a draconian scale and if they had succeeded the word for fascism would have been a Russian one.
Thirdly there were something like 13 foreign armies and navies including the Us and Uk military which invaded the Soviet Union to strangle it at birth.
The result was a collapse of the Russian economy,starvation and a collapse in living standards.
The Bolshevik Party itself was decimated of its older members who were killed in the civil war and the influx of new members often contained large numbers of opportunists and chancers.The Russian working class almost ceased to exist asa class as workers were forced to look for food in the countryside and workers were pitted against peasants etc
Lenin himself who had been shot and gravely wounded was to warn from his sick bed about the danger posed by Stalin but it was the failure of the German Revolution between 1919 and 11923 which was to lead to the return of Russian chauvinism and the scandal of Stalinism.
ifor