Professor Marjan Britovšek (1923–2008) was the first Slovenian historian to systematically and scientifically research the history of the international workers' movement, especially Stalinism and destalinisation in the Soviet Union, while he was at the same time known as the foremost Slovenian/Yugoslav expert in the conflicts between the fractions in the former Soviet Union and Comintern. With his analyses, based on the archive and documentary materials that he studied in the archives and libraries in Moscow, Berlin, Leipzig, Amsterdam, Vienna, etc., he asserted himself as one of the renowned international researchers of Stalinism. Britovšek's research of this segment of contemporary history was valuable especially because our (Slovenian/Yugoslav) historical conscience was not burdened with the political outlooks and one-sided explanations of the Soviet historiography, which was notable in the other socialist countries before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Britovšek's work on this topic culminated in the lengthy books, crowning the author's research of the "Russian reality" since the beginning of the 19th century until the destalinisation in the 1950s and 1960s: Revolucionarni idejni preobrat med prvo svetovno vojno. Lenin v boju za tretjo internacionalo (Revolutionary Ideological Watershed During World War I. Lenin in the Struggle for the Third International, 1969); Boj za Leninovo dediščino (The Struggle for Lenin's Legacy, 1976); Carizem, revolucija, stalinizem. Družbeni razvoj v Rusiji in perspektive socializma (Tsarism, Revolution, Stalinism. Social Development in Russia and the Perspectives of Socialism, 1980); Korenine stalinizma in negativne posledice kulta osebnosti (The Roots of Stalinism and the Negative Consequences of the Personality Cult, 1980); Stalinov termidor (Stalin's Thermidor, 1984). At the time of their publication, Britovšek's works, based on hands-on research, stirred up considerable attention of the expert as well as the general public, as they raised numerous historical, ideological, sociological, and political questions; while they at the same time represented a foundation for a broader examination of Stalinism, the cult of personality, as well as the October and its ultimate destiny. Britovšek did not research the "Russian October" (the envisioned Bolshevik Revolution) merely as the Bolshevik act of the revolutionary takeover of power, but rather – as it is already obvious from the titles of the aforementioned books – understood and examined it in the wider framework of issues, topics, and time. This framework began with the Russian Revolution 1905–1907 as a "dress rehearsal" for both revolutions that took place in 1917, and extended into the middle of the 1930s when Stalin – who emerged victorious from the struggle between fractions that kept taking place in the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) – hereinafter VKP(b). Stalin's "administrative revolution from above" and "Thermidor" ultimately put an end to the ideals of the October Revolution. The paper examines the key issues and dilemmas regarding the socio-economic and political development of the Soviet Russia or the Soviet Union, which the disunited Bolshevik leadership faced during the first two decades after their takeover of power, including the following: wartime communism, new economic policy, terror, bureaucratisation, prohibition of fractions, role and position of trade unions, national question, federation, industrialisation, collectivisation, and so on. Britovšek's research of these issues in the period of Leninism and Stalinism (which Britovšek distinguished rather than equated!) is based on the empirical facts, resulting in the synthesis between the macro level of the research (social processes, conflicts between fractions, etc.) and the micro level (personalities of Bolshevik leaders, their ideological platforms, etc.). He researched the relationship between Stalin as a political leader and the VKP(b) especially closely. The one-sided views like those found in Isaac Deutscher's research – which represented "the case study" at the time of Britovšek's work – encouraged Britovšek to start studying the causal relationship between the political system and the disputable ideological standpoints. He paid special attention to the leading ideas of the Party fractions (Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Radek, Kamenev, and others). Britovšek verified the thesis of the "Thermidor character" of Stalin's political activities in its political and ideological sense – as the degeneration of the primary goal of the October Revolution: the construction of a democratic society where socialism was only supposed to be the first stage of development. If a revolution is a violent authoritarian act of assuming the power, then a wide range of questions present themselves about the constitution of the whole socio-economic and political system after the takeover of power in the name of the working class. Neither the leftist nor the rightist opposition disputed the unavoidability of the violent methods at the initial stages of the assumption of power. However, both of these sides were wrong: partially due to the underestimation of the factor of Russia's backwardness and historical heritage, and partially due to the revolutionary demands for swifter and substantive changes of the Soviet society. Naturally, the "Russian October" in all its complexity was not merely an internal Russian/Soviet matter, as it characterised the polarisation of the world in the 20th century (capitalism–socialism) as well as influenced the international workers' movement fatally. The Zimmerwald movement, based on the demise of the Second International due to the outbreak of the World War, accepted Lenin's ideas about the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war merely on the theoretical level. Long-term revolutionary actions, capable of bestowing authenticity upon the Bolshevik politics, were required in order to change this situation in the radical sense; and this did not happen until the (planned) October Revolution. On the basis of either supporting or rejecting the Revolution (as an undemocratic act of assuming the power), after World War I the workers' movement split, in terms of its organisation and ideology, into the socialist and communist movements – in the national as well as international sense. Since the very first day of its existence, the main driving force of the new Communist International included Lenin, the Bolsheviks, and the October Revolution. The important question whether the Communist International was a Stalinist organisation or an epiphenomenon of Stalinism is nowadays a priori mostly answered in the affirmative. However, even in this regard we should take into account the historical standpoint, which indicates – as Professor Britovšek emphasises – that we should not simply equate the Communist International with Stalinism. As it happened, the Communist International was forged in the revolutionary fire in Europe in 1919, and it was inspired mostly by Lenin's ideas and topics, formulated as the fundamental ideas of the Communist International at the first five congresses (1919–1924). Therefore the Communist International was – in the organisational, ideological, and theoretical sense – established without Stalin or with his minimal and non-essential cooperation. In this sense the period between 1924 and 1929 was very important, as at that time Stalin started gradually "taking over" and "Bolshevising" the Communist International, while transforming the revolutionary organisation with global goals into an instrument of his domestic and foreign politics. According to Professor Britovšek, it is vital that this period be studied, as everything that defined the subsequent fate of the Soviet Union and the Communist International happened during this time, and because this was when the system that would later be defined as Stalinism actually took shape and established itself. Namely, not only were the officials of the Communist International replaced as of 1930, but the ideological foundations started changing as well. With the thesis of the unconditional support to the construction of "socialism in a single country", which was supposed to be the priority of every Communist Party, a revision of the fundamental principles of proletarian internationalism, as formulated by Lenin, was carried out. The struggle for the security of the Soviet Union became the main goal, while the Communist International itself gradually transformed from an independent organisation into a "section" of the VKP(b). With the cult of Leninism, Stalin created the ideological foundations for his practical and theoretical domination as well as his absolute personal authority, after he subordinated the VKP(b) as well as the central bodies of the Communist International – and consequently also more or less the whole Communist Party as a section of the Communist International – to his own apparatus. This topic calls for much attention: to date it has not yet been analysed comprehensively, and even Professor Britovšek only described the basic outlines in his works.