Russian Revolution of 1917
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The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a series of political and social upheavals in Russia, involving first the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy, and then the overthrow of the liberal and moderate-socialist Provisional Government, resulting in the establishment of Soviet power under the control of the Bolshevik party. This eventually led to the establishment of the Soviet Union, which lasted until its dissolution in 1991.
The Revolution occurred in phases:
- The February Revolution of 1917 (March 1917 in the Western Calendar), which led directly to the fall of the autocracy of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the last Tsar of Russia, and sought to establish in its place a democratic republic.
- A period of dual power, in which the Provisional Government held state power and the national network of Soviets, led by socialists, had the allegiance of the lower-classes and the political Left.
- The October Revolution (November in the Western Calendar), in which the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the workers' Soviets, overthrew the Provisional Government and brought about a quite dramatic change in the social structure of Russia, as well as paving the way for the USSR. While many notable historical events occurred in Moscow and St. Petersburg, there was also a broadly based movement in cities throughout the country, among national minorities throughout the empire, in the rural areas, where peasants seized and redistributed land[citation needed].
See also "Russian history, 1892-1920" for the general frame of events.
[edit] Causes of the Russian Revolution
The year 1917 saw two distinct revolutions in Russia: the overthrow of the tsar and formation of the Provisional Government (February Revolution), and the October Revolution in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government.
Russian life on the eve of war and revolution was defined by enormous change and uncertainty. Cities and industry were growing rapidly, creating expanded social opportunities but also great uncertainty. Peasant villagers more and more often migrated between agrarian and industrial work environments and many relocated entirely, creating a growing urban labor force. A middle class of white-collar employees, businessmen, and professionals (doctors, lawyers, teachers, journalists, engineers, etc.) was on the rise. Even nobles had to find new ways to subsist in this changing economy. Contemporaries spoke of new classes forming - proletarians and capitalists, for example - though these were classes also divided along crisscrossing lines of status, gender, age, ethnicity, and belief. If anything, it was becoming less and less simple to speak of clearly defined social groups or boundaries. Not only were groups fractured in various ways but their defining boundaries were increasingly blurred by migrating peasants, worker intellectuals, gentry professionals, and the like. Almost everyone felt the very texture of their lives transformed by a spreading commercial culture, which remade the very surfaces of material life (buildings, store fronts, advertisements, fashion, clocks, machines) and nurtured new objects of desire.[1]
By 1917, the growth of political consciousness, impact of revolutionary ideas, and weak and inefficient system of government (debilitated by its participation in the First World War), should have convinced Tsar Nicholas II to take the necessary steps towards reform. In January 1917, in fact, Sir George Buchanan, the British Ambassador in Russia, advised the Tsar to "break down the barrier that separates you from your people to regain their confidence". He received little response from Nicholas.
The people of Russia resented the autocracy of Nicholas II and the corrupt and anachronistic elements in his government. He was out of touch with the needs and aspirations of the Russian people, the vast majority of them being victims of the wretched socio-economic conditions that prevailed. Socially, Tsarist Russia stood well behind the rest of Europe in its industry and farming, resulting in few opportunities for fair advancement on the part of peasants and industrial workers. Economically, widespread inflation and food shortages in Russia contributed to the revolution. Militarily, inadequate supplies, logistics, and weaponry led to heavy losses that the Russians suffered during World War I; this further strengthened Russia’s view of Nicholas II as weak and unfit to rule. Ultimately, these factors, coupled with the development of revolutionary ideas and movements (particularly since the 1905 Bloody Sunday Massacre) led to the Russian Revolution.
[edit] Economic and Social Changes
Peasants had good reason to be attracted to ideas of a more just social and political order. The abolition of serfdom in 1861 left peasants legally free but still economically dependent on landowners, who retained control over much of the land. Since then, rural commoners focused their discontents on a single goal: land. This “land hunger,” as it was often called, can be explained by poverty shaped by enormous population growth, low agricultural productivity, high taxes, and rising needs and wants as the economy modernized. No less important was an elementary theory of property, common to many peasants, that land should belong to those who work it. At the same time, peasant life and culture was changing constantly. Change was facilitated by the physical movement of growing numbers of peasant villagers who migrated to and from industrial and urban environments, but also by the migration of city culture into the village through material goods, the press, and word of mouth.[2]
Workers also had good reasons for discontent: overcrowded housing with often deplorable sanitary conditions, long hours at work (on the eve of the war a 10-hour workday six days a week was the average and many were working 11-12 hours a day by 1916), constant risk of injury and death from very poor safety and sanitary conditions, harsh discipline (not only rules and fines, but foremen’s fists), and inadequate wages (made worse after 1914 by steep war-time increases in the cost of living). At the same time, urban industrial life was full of benefits, though these could be just as dangerous, from the point of view of social and political stability, as the hardships. There were many encouragements to expect more from life. Acquiring new skills gave many workers a sense of self respect and confidence, heightening expectations and desires. Living in cities, workers encountered material goods such as they had never seen while in the village. Most important, living in cities, they were exposed to new ideas about the social and political order. [3]
The social causes of the Russian Revolution mainly came from centuries of oppression towards the lower classes by the Tsarist regime and Nicholas's failures in World War I. While rural agrarian peasants had been emancipated from serfdom in 1861, they still resented paying redemption payments to the state, and demanded communal tender of the land they worked. The problem was further compounded by the failure of Witte's land reforms of the early 1900s. Increasing peasant disturbances and sometimes full revolts occurred, with the goal of securing ownership of their land. Russia consisted mainly of poor farming peasants, with 1.5% of the population owning 25% of the land.[citation needed]
The rapid industrialization of Russia also resulted in urban overcrowding and poor conditions for urban industrial workers (as mentioned above). Between 1890 and 1910, the population of the capital of St Petersburg swelled from 1,033,600 to 1,905,600, with Moscow experiencing similar growth. This created a new 'proletariat' which, due to being crowded together in the cities, was much more likely to protest and go on strike than the peasantry had been in previous times. In one 1904 survey, it was found that an average of sixteen people shared each apartment in St Petersburg, with six people per room. There was also no running water, and piles of human waste were a threat to the health of the workers. The poor conditions only aggravated the situation, with the number of strikes and incidents of public disorder rapidly increasing in the years shortly before World War I.
World War I then only added to the chaos. Conscription swept up the unwilling in all parts of Russia. The vast demand for factory production of war supplies and workers caused many more labor riots and strikes. Conscription stripped skilled workers from the cities, who had to be replaced with unskilled peasants, and then, when famine began to hit due to the poor railway system, workers abandoned the cities in droves to look for food. Finally, the soldiers themselves, who suffered from a lack of equipment and protection from the elements, began to turn against the Tsar. This was mainly because as the war progressed, many of the officers who were loyal to the Tsar were killed, and they were replaced with discontented conscripts from the major cities who were much less loyal to the Tsar.
[edit] Political problems
Politically, many Russians, as well as non-Russian subjects of the crown, had reason to be dissatisfied with the existing autocratic system. Nicholas II was a deeply conservative ruler. His criteria of virtue--orderliness, family, and duty--were viewed as both personal ideals for a moral individual and rules for society and politics. Individuals and society alike were expected to show self-restraint, devotion to community and hierarchy, and a spirit of duty to country and tradition. Religious faith helped bind all this together: as a source of comfort and reassurance in the face of contradictory conditions, as a source of insight into the divine will, as a source of state power and authority. Indeed, perhaps more than any other modern monarch, Nicholas II attached himself and the future of his dynasty to the myth of the ruler as saintly and blessed father to his people. This inspiring faith, many historians have argued, was blinding: unable to believe that his power was not from God and the true Russian people were not as devoted to him as he felt he was to them, he was unwilling to allow the democratic reforms that might have prevented revolution, and when, after the 1905 revolution, he allowed limited civil rights and democratic representation, he tried to limit these in every possible way, in order to preserve his autocratic authority.[4]
At the same time, the desire for democratic participation was strong. Not withstanding stereotypes about Russian political culture, Russia had a long tradition of democratic thought. Since the end of the eighteenth century, a whole pantheon of Russian intellectuals promoted ideals about the dignity and rights of the individual and the ethical and practical necessity of civil rights and democratic representation. These ideas were reflected most obviously among Russia’s liberals, though populists, Marxists, and anarchists also all claimed this democratic heritage as their own. A growing movement of opposition challenged the autocracy even before the crisis brought by World War I. Dissatisfaction with Russian autocracy culminated in the huge national upheaval that followed the Bloody Sunday massacre of January 1905, in which Russian workers saw their pleas for justice rejected as hundreds of unarmed protesters were shot by the Tsar's troops. The response to the massacre crippled the nation with strikes forcing Nicholas to offer his October Manifesto, which promised a democratic parliament (the State Duma). However, the Tsar undermined his promises of democracy with Article 87 of the 1906 Fundamental State Laws, and then subsequently dismissed the first two Dumas when they proved uncooperative. Unfulfilled hopes of democracy fueled revolutionary ideas and violence targeted at the Tsarist regime.
One of Nicholas's reasons for going to war in 1914 was his desire to restore the prestige that Russia had lost during the Russo-Japanese war. Nicholas also wanted to galvanize the diverse people in his empire under a single banner by directing military force at a common enemy, namely Germany and the Central Powers. A common assumption among his critics is that he believed that by doing so he could also distract the people from the ongoing issues of poverty, inequality, and poor working conditions that were sources of discontent. Instead of restoring Russia's political and military standing, World War I would lead to horrifying military casualties on the Russian side and undermined it further.
[edit] Causes of World War I:MAIN
- Militarism
- Alliances
- Imperialism
- Nationalism
[edit] World War I
The outbreak of war in August 1914 initially quieted political and social protests, focusing hostilities against an external enemy. But this patriotic unity did not last long. As the war dragged on inconclusively, war-weariness took its toll. But more important was a deeper fragility. Though many ordinary Russians joined anti-German demonstrations in the first weeks of the war, the most common popular reaction appears to have been skepticism and fatalism. Hostility toward the Kaiser and the desire to defend their land and their lives did not necessarily translate into enthusiasm for the tsar or the government.[5]
Russia's first major battle of the war was a disaster. In the 1914 Battle of Tannenberg, over 120,000 Russian troops were killed, wounded, or captured, while Germany suffered only 20,000 casualties. In the autumn of 1915, Nicholas had taken direct command of the army, personally overseeing Russia's main theater of war and leaving his ambitious though incapable wife Alexandra in charge of the government. Reports of corruption and incompetence in the Imperial government began to emerge, and the growing influence of Grigori Rasputin in the Imperial family was widely resented. In 1915, things took a critical turn for the worse when Germany shifted its focus of attack to the Eastern front. The superior German army - better led, better trained, better supplied - was terrifyingly effective against the ill-equipped Russian forces. By the end of October 1916, Russia had lost between 1.6 and 1.8 million soldiers, with an additional two million prisoners of war and one million missing for a total of nearly five million men. These were staggering losses. Mutinies began to occur, and in 1916 reports of fraternizing with the enemy started to circulate. Soldiers went hungry and lacked shoes, munitions, and even weapons. Rampant discontent lowered morale, only to be further undermined by a series of military defeats.
Casualty rates were the most vivid sign of this disaster. Already by the end of 1914, only five months into the war, nearly 400,000 Russian men had lost their lives and nearly a million were injured. Far sooner than expected, scarcely trained recruits had to be called to active duty, a process repeated throughout the war as staggering losses continued to mount. The officer class also saw dramatic turnover, especially in the lower ranks, which quickly filled with soldiers rising through the ranks. These men, usually of peasant or worker backgrounds, would play a large role in the politicization of the troops in 1917. The huge losses on the battlefields were not limited to men. The army quickly ran short of rifles and ammunition (as well as uniforms and food). By mid-1915, men were being sent to the front without arms; they could be equipped, it was hoped, with arms recovered from fallen soldiers on the battlefields. With good reason, soldiers felt they were treated not as human beings or even as valuable soldiers but as raw material to be squandered by the rich and powerful. By the spring of 1915, the army was in steady retreat. It was not always orderly. Desertion, chaotic flight, and plunder were not uncommon. By 1916, however, the situation improved in many respects. Russian troops ceased retreating and there were even some modest successes in offensives staged that year, though at great loss of life. Also, the problems of shortages was largely solved by a major effort to increase domestic production. And yet, by the end of 1916, morale among soldiers was even worse than during the great retreat of 1915. The fortunes of war may have improved, but the fact of the war, still draining away the strength and lives of the country and of so many families and individuals, remained an oppressive fact. The crisis in morale, as Allan Wildman, a leading historian of the Russian army in war and revolution, argued, “was rooted fundamentally in the feeling of utter despair that the slaughter would ever end and that anything resembling victory could be achieved.”[6]
The war was devastating, of course, not only to soldiers. By the end of 1915, there were manifold signs that the economy was breaking down under the heightened strain of wartime demand. The main problems were food shortages and rising prices. Inflation rapidly forced down real incomes, and shortages made it difficult to buy even what one could afford. Shortages were especially a problem in the capital, Petrograd (formerly the City of St. Petersburg), where distance from supplies and poor transportation networks made matters particularly bad. Shops closed early or entirely for lack of bread, sugar, meat and other provisions. And lines grew for what remained. It became increasingly difficult both to afford and to buy food. Not surprisingly, strikes increased steadily from the middle of 1915. And so did crime. But mostly people suffered and endured - scouring the city for food (working-class women in Petrograd reportedly spent about forty hours a week in food lines ), begging, turning to prostitution or crime, tearing down wooden fences to keep stoves heated for warmth, grumbling about the rich, and wondering when and how this would all end. With good reason, government officials responsible for public order worried about how long people’s patience would last. A report by the Petrograd branch of the security police, the Okhrana, in October 1916, warned bluntly of “the possibility in the near future of riots by the lower classes of the empire enraged by the burdens of daily existence.”[7]
Nicholas was blamed for all these crises, and what little support he had left began to crumble. As this discontent grew, the State Duma issued a warning to Nicholas in November 1916 stating that disaster would overtake the country unless a constitutional form of government was put in place. In typical fashion, Nicholas ignored them. Russia's Tsarist regime collapsed a few months later during the February Revolution of 1917. A year later, the Tsar and his entire family were executed. Ultimately, Nicholas's inept handling of his country and the War destroyed the Tsarist regime and cost him both his rule and his life.
[edit] February Revolution
This revolution broke out without definite leadership and formal plans, and it was indicative of the fact that the Russian people had had quite enough of the existing system. Petrograd was the focus of attention.
On February 23 (March 8) 1917, people at food queues demonstrated and were soon joined by thousands of women textile workers in Petrograd, the capital, who walked out of their factories - partly in commemoration of International Women’s Day but mainly to protest the severe shortages of bread. Already large numbers of men and women were on strike. These women stopped at any factories that were still working and called on workers to join them. They marched through the streets, shouting, "Bread!" and "Give us bread!" During the next two days, encouraged by the efforts of hundreds of rank-and-file socialist activists, the strike spread to factories and shops throughout the capital. By the 25th, virtually every industrial enterprise in Petrograd was shut down, as were many commercial and service enterprises. Students, white-collar workers and teachers joined the workers in the streets and at public meetings. Meanwhile, in the Duma (which was still active), liberal and socialist deputies realised a potentially massive problem and now more vehemently denounced the current government and demanded a responsible cabinet of ministers. The Tsar was encouraged to abdicate.
On the evening of Saturday the 25th, with police having lost control of the situation, Nicholas II, who refused to believe warnings about the seriousness of these events, sent a fateful telegram to the chief of the Petrograd military district, General Sergei Khabalov: "I command you tomorrow to stop the disorders in the capital, which are unacceptable in the difficult time of war with Germany and Austria."[8] Most of the soldiers obeyed these orders on the 26th, but mutiny, often led by lower-ranked officers, spread overnight. On the morning of the 27th, workers in the streets, many now armed, were joined by insurgent soldiers, often with red ribbons tied to their bayonets. With this disintegration of military authority in the capital, effective civil authority collapsed.
By nightime on the 27th, the cabinet submitted its resignation to the tsar and proposed a temporary military dictatorship, but Russia’s military leaders rejected this course. Nicholas, meanwhile, had been on the front with the soldiers, and he had witnessed Russia's defeat at Tannenburg; he was frustrated and knew that the demonstrations were big; he feared for his life; and the ill health of his son was causing difficulties, too. He accepted defeat and abdicated on 2 March, hoping, he stated in his manifesto, by this last act of service to his nation, to end the disorders and bring unity to Russia.[9] In the wake of this collapse of the 300-year-old Romanov dynasty (for Nicholas's brother, to whom he offered the crown, refused to become Tsar unless that was the decision of an elected government; he wanted the people to want him as their leader), a minority of the Duma’s deputies declared themselves a Provisional Government, chaired by Prince Lvov, a moderate reformist.
[edit] Between February and October: "Dual Power" (dvoevlastie)
The effective power of the Provisional Government was challenged by the authority of an institution that claimed to represent the will of workers and soldiers and could, in fact, mobilize and control these groups during the early months of the revolution -- the Petrograd Soviet [Council] of Workers' Deputies. The model for the soviet were workers' councils that had been established in scores of Russian cities during the 1905 revolution. In February 1917, striking workers elected deputies to represent them and socialist activists began organizing a citywide council to unite these deputies with representatives of the socialist parties. On 27 February, socialist Duma deputies, mainly Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, took the lead in organizing a citywide council. The Petrograd Soviet met in the Tauride Palace, the same building where the new government was taking shape.
The leaders of the Petrograd Soviet believed that they represented particular classes of the population, not the whole nation. They also believed Russia was not ready for socialism. So they saw their role as limited to pressuring hesitant "bourgeoisie” to rule and to introduce extensive democratic reforms in Russia (the replacement of the monarchy by a republic, guaranteed civil rights, a democratic police and army, abolition of religious and ethnic discrimination, preparation of elections to a constituent assembly, and so on).[10] They met in the same building as the emerging Provisional Government not to compete with the Duma Committee for state power but to best exert pressure on the new government, to act, in other words, as a popular democratic lobby.
The relationship between these two major powers was complex from the beginning and would shape the politics of 1917. The representatives of the Provisional Government agreed to "take into account the opinions of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies," though they were also determined to prevent "interference in the actions of the government," which would create "an unacceptable situation of dual power."[11] In fact, this was precisely what was being created, though this "dual power" (dvoevlastie) was the result less of the actions or attitudes of the leaders of these two institutions than of actions outside their control, especially the ongoing social movement taking place on the streets of Russia’s cities, in factories and shops, in barracks and in the trenches, and in the villages.
A series of political crises—-see chronology below—-in the relationship between population and government and between the Provisional government and the soviets (which developed into a nationwide movement with a national leadership, The All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets (VTsIK)) undermined the authority of the Provisional Government but also of the moderate socialist leaders of the Soviet. Although the Soviet leadership initially refused to participate in the "bourgeois" Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky, a young and popular lawyer and a member of the Social Revolutionary Party (SRP), agreed to join the new cabinet, and he became an increasingly central figure in the government, eventually taking leadership of the Provisional Government. As minister of war and later Prime Minister, Kerensky promoted freedom of speech, released political prisoners, continued the war effort and even organised a new offensive (which was no more successful than previous ones, however). Nevertheless, Kerensky faced several great challenges:
- Other political groups were trying to undermine him.
- Heavy military losses were being suffered on the front.
- Soldiers were dissatisfied, demoralised and had started defecting. (When they arrived back in Russia, however, these soldiers were either imprisoned or sent back to the front.)
- There was enormous discontent with Russia's involvement in the war.
- There were great shortages of food and supplies, which was difficult to remedy because of wartime economic conditions.
When Vladimir Lenin, exiled in neutral Switzerland, heard of the revolution, he made arrangements with the German government for permission to travel back to Russia. German officials agreed, evidently assuming that Lenin's activities might weaken Russia or, if the Bolsheviks came to power, lead to Russia withdrawing from the war with Germany. Lenin and his associates, however, had to agree to travel to Russia in a sealed car -- the Germans wanted to be certain he did not foment revolution in Germany. He arrived in Petrograd in April 1917.
The popularity of the Bolsheviks increased steadily. By September, electoral victories by the Bolsheviks, especially in the Moscow and Petrograd Soviets, made it possible and necessary, Lenin now argued, for the Bolsheviks to take power into their own hands. The patience of workers, soldiers and peasants had run out, he believed, and, given the Bolshevik program (with immediate peace, land going immediately to the peasants, and the return of the democratic liberties restricted by Kerensky), this would be a government, he argued, "that nobody can overthrow."[12] Simple but relevant and meaningful slogans (like "Peace, land, and bread", "End the War" and "All land to the peasants") were used to stir the proletariat's feelings against the provisional government.
In July, a garrison at Petrograd refused to follow the plans of the army to continue the war effort against Germany. This mutiny amounted to treason, and Lenin tried to exploit it by having a Bolshevik coup. This was unsuccessful, however, as Kerensky still had enough support to stop the unrest. Kerensky exiled Lenin, forcing him to flee to Finland (which was not too far from Russia, allowing for a quick return). Kerensky's government failed to follow up on this successful foiling of Bolshevik plans by clamping down harder on the Bolsheviks, whose popularity had not been at all destroyed by this. They had shown their support for the army, whose grievances were acknowledged by a vast number of their countrymen. Lenin, meanwhile, continued his operations underground, outside Russia's borders.
Lenin did not enjoy total support within the Bolshevik movement, but, against some doubt in his own party (including some opposition that lasted to the very day of the insurrection), a decision was approved at a meeting of the Bolshevik central committee on 10 October to organize the immediate armed overthrow of the government.
The rising popularity of the Bolsheviks is unquestionable. Bolsheviks benefited from the deepening political polarization in Russia, as liberals and conservatives gravitated toward policies such as those advocated by General Lavr Kornilov, who attempted another coup in August, this time attempting to seize power by attempting to destroy the Bolsheviks; his wish was for a return to the monarchy. In order to secure his position, Kerensky had to ask for Bolshevik assistance. He also sought help from the Petrograd Soviet, which called upon armed Red Guards to "defend the revolution." Kornilov was defeated and relieved of his position.
Growing numbers of socialists and lower-class Russians viewed the government less and less as a force in support of their needs and interests. The Bolsheviks benefited as the only major organized opposition party still standing outside the government, and they benefited from growing frustration and even disgust with the compromises of the Mensheviks and SRs, who stubbornly refused to break with the idea of national unity across all classes.
[edit] October Revolution
The October Revolution was led by Vladimir Lenin and was based upon Lenin's writing on the ideas of Karl Marx, a political ideology often known as Marxism-Leninism. It marked the beginning of the spread of communism in the twentieth century. It was far less sporadic than the revolution of February and came about as the result of deliberate planning and coordinated activity to that end. Though Lenin was the leader of the Bolshevik Party, it has been argued that since Lenin wasn't present during the actual takeover of the Winter Palace, it was really Trotsky's organization and direction that led the revolution, spurred by the motivation Lenin instigated within his party. Critics on the Right have long argued that the financial and logistical assistance of German intelligence via their key agent, Alexander Parvus was a key component as well, though historians are divided, for the evidence is sparse.
On November 7, 1917, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin led his leftist revolutionaries in a revolt against the ineffective Provisional Government (Russia was still using the Julian Calendar at the time, so period references show an October 25 date). The October Revolution ended the phase of the revolution instigated in February, replacing Russia's short-lived provisional government with a Soviet one. Although many Bolsheviks supported a soviet democracy, the 'revolution from above' model gained definitive power when Lenin died and Stalin gained control of the USSR. Trotsky and his supporters, as well as a number of other democratically-minded communists, were persecuted and eventually imprisoned or killed.
After October 1917, many SR's (members of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party) and Russian Anarchists opposed the Bolsheviks through the soviets. When this failed, they revolted in a series of events calling for "a third revolution." The most notable instances were the Tambov rebellion, 1919–1921, and the Kronstadt rebellion in March 1921. These movements, which made a wide range of demands and lacked effective coordination, were eventually crushed during the Civil War.
[edit] Death of The Royal Family
In early March, the Provisional Government placed Nicholas and his family under house arrest in the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, 15 miles south of Petrograd. In August 1917 the Kerensky government evacuated the Romanovs to Tobolsk in the Urals, allegedly to protect them from the rising tide of revolution during the Red Terror. After the Bolsheviks came to power in October 1917, the conditions of their imprisonment grew stricter and talk of putting Nicholas on trial grew more frequent. As the counter revolutionary White movement gathered force, leading to full-scale civil war by the summer, the Romanovs were moved, during April and May 1918, to Yekaterinburg, a militant Bolshevik stronghold. During the night of 16–17 July, Nicholas, Alexandra, their children, their physician, and three servants were taken into the basement and executed. Whether this was on direct orders from Vladimir Lenin in Moscow (as many believe, though there is a lack of hard evidence), or an option approved in Moscow should White troops approach Yekaterinburg, or at the initiative of local Bolsheviks, remains in dispute, as does whether the order (if there was an order) was for the execution of Nicholas alone or the entire family. The royal family was lined up as if for a picture, then the shooting commenced, which accounts by participants described as chaotic, partly because the jewels inside the women's undergarments deflected many of the initial shots.
With the royal family out of the way, that was one less problem for Lenin and the Bolsheviks, who wanted to destroy all vestiges of the past
[edit] Civil war
The Russian Civil War, which broke out in 1918 shortly after the revolution, brought death and suffering to millions of people regardless of their political orientation. The war was fought mainly between the Red Army ("Reds"), consisting of radical communists and revolutionaries, and the "Whites" - the monarchists, conservatives, liberals and moderate socialists who opposed the drastic restructuring championed by the Bolsheviks. The Whites had backing from nations such as the UK, France, USA and Japan.
Also during the Civil War, Nestor Makhno led a Ukrainian anarchist movement which generally cooperated with the Bolsheviks. However, a Bolshevik force under Mikhail Frunze destroyed the Makhnovist movement, when the Makhnovists refused to merge into the Red Army. In addition, the so-called "Green Army" (nationalists and anarchists) played a secondary role in the war, mainly in Ukraine.
[edit] The Russian revolution and the world
Lenin and Trotsky said that the goal of socialism in Russia would not be realized without the success of the world revolution. Indeed, a revolutionary wave caused by the Russian Revolution lasted until 1923. Despite initial hopes for success in the German Revolution, in the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic and others like it, no other Marxist movement succeeded in keeping power in its hands.
This issue is subject to conflicting views on the communist history by various Marxist groups and parties. Stalin later rejected this idea, stating that socialism was possible in one country.
The confusion regarding Stalin's position on the issue stems from the fact that he, after Lenin's death in 1924, successfully used Lenin's argument - the argument that socialism's success needs the workers of other countries in order to happen - to defeat his competitors within the party by accusing them of betraying Lenin and, therefore, the ideals of the October Revolution.
[edit] Brief chronology leading to Revolution of 1917
Dates are correct for the Julian calendar, which was used in Russia until 1918. It was twelve days behind the Gregorian calendar during the 19th century and thirteen days behind it during the 20th century.
| Date(s) | Event(s) |
|---|---|
| 1855 | Start of reign of Tsar Alexander II |
| 1861 | Emancipation of the serfs |
| 1874-81 | Growing anti-government terrorist movement and government reaction |
| 1881 | Alexander II assassinated by revolutionaries; succeeded by Alexander III |
| 1883 | First Russian Marxist group formed |
| 1894 | Start of reign of Nicholas II |
| 1898 | First Congress of Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) |
| 1900 | Foundation of Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR) |
| 1903 | Second Congress of Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Beginning of split between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. |
| 1904-5 | Russo-Japanese War; Russia loses war |
| 1905 | Russian Revolution of 1905.
|
| 1906 | First State Duma. Prime Minister - Petr Stolypin. Agrarian reforms begin |
| 1907 | Second State Duma, February - June |
| 1907 | Third State Duma, until 1912 |
| 1911 | Stolypin assassinated |
| 1912 | Fourth State Duma, until 1917. Bolshevik/Menshevik split final |
| 1914 | Germany declares war on Russia |
| 1915 | Serious defeats, Nicholas II declares himself Commander in Chief. Progressive Bloc formed. |
| 1916 | Food and fuel shortages and high prices |
| 1917 | Strikes, mutinies, street demonstrations lead to the fall of autocracy. |
[edit] Expanded chronology of Revolution of 1917
| Gregorian Date | Julian Date | Event |
|---|---|---|
| January | Strikes and unrest in Petrograd | |
| February | February Revolution | |
| March 8th | February 23rd | International Women's Day: strikes and demonstrations in Petrograd, growing over the next few days |
| March 11th | February 26th | 50 demonstrators killed in Znamenskaya Square Tsar Nicholas II prorogues the State Duma and orders commander of Petrograd military district to suppress disorders with force. |
| March 12th | February 27th | * Troops refuse to fire on demonstrators, desertions. Prison, courts, and police stations attacked and looted by angry crowds. |
| March 14th | March 1st | Order No.1 of the Petrograd Soviet |
| March 15th | March 2nd | Nicholas II abdicates. Provisional Government formed under Prime Minister Prince Lvov |
| April 16th | April 3rd | Return of Lenin to Russia. He publishes his April Theses. |
| May 3rd-4th | April 20th-21st | "April Days": mass demonstrations by workers, soldiers, and others in the streets of Petrograd and Moscow triggered by the publication of the Foreign Minister Miliukov's note to the allies, which was interpreted as affirming commitment to the war policies of the old government. First Provisional Government falls. |
| May 18th | May 5th | First Coalition Government forms when socialists, representatives of the Soviet leadership, agree to enter the cabinet of the Provisional Government. Kerensky, the only socialist already in the government, made minister of war and navy |
| June 16th | June 3rd | First All-Russian Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies opens in Petrograd. Closed on 24th. Elects Central Executive Committee of Soviets (VTsIK), headed by Mensheviks and SRs. |
| June 23rd | June 10th | Planned Bolshevik demonstration in Petrograd banned by the Soviet. |
| June 29th | June 16th | Kerensky orders offensive against Austro-Hungarian forces. Initial success only. |
| July 1st | June 18th | Official Soviet demonstration in Petrograd for unity is unexpectedly dominated by Bolshevik slogans: "Down with the Ten Capitalist Ministers," "All Power to the Soviets." |
| July 15th | July 2nd | Russian offensive ends. Trotsky joins Bolsheviks. |
| July 16th-17th | July 3rd – 4th | The "July Days"; mass armed demonstrations in Petrograd, encouraged by the Bolsheviks, demanding "All Power to the Soviets." |
| July 19th | July 6th | German and Austro-Hungarian counter-attack. Russians retreat in panic, sacking the town of Tarnopol. Arrest of Bolshevik leaders ordered. |
| July 20th | July 7th | Lvov resigns and asks Kerensky to become Prime Minister and form a new government. Established July 25th. |
| August 4th | July 22nd | Trotsky and Lunacharskii arrested |
| September 8th | August 26th | Second coalition government ends |
| September 8th-12th | August 26th-30th | "Kornilov mutiny." Begins when the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, General Lavr Kornilov, demands (or is believed by Kerensky to demand) that the government give him all civil and military authority and moves troops against Petrograd. |
| September 13th | August 31st | Majority of deputies of the Petrograd Soviet approve a Bolshevik resolution for an all-socialist government excluding the bourgeoisie |
| September 14th | September 1st | Russia declared a republic |
| September 17th | September 4th | Trotsky and others freed. |
| September 18th | September 5th | Bolshevik resolution on the government wins majority vote in Moscow Soviet |
| October 2nd | September 19th | Moscow Soviet elects executive committee and new presidium, with Bolshevik majorities, and the Bolshevik Viktor Nogin as chairman |
| October 8th | September 25th | Third coalition government formed. Bolshevik majority in Petrograd Soviet elects Bolshevik Presidium and Trotsky as chairman. |
| October 23rd | October 10th | Bolshevik Central Committee meeting approves armed uprising. |
| October 24th | October 11th | Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region, until October 13th |
| November 2nd | October 20th | First meeting of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet |
| November 7th | October 25th | October Revolution is launched as MRC directs armed workers and soldiers to capture key buildings in Petrograd. Winter Palace attacked at 9.40pm and captured at 2am. Kerensky flees Petrograd. Opening of the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets. |
| November 8th | October 26th | Second Congress of Soviets: Mensheviks and right SR delegates walk out in protest against the previous day's events. Congress approves transfer of state authority into its own hands and local power into the hands of local soviets of workers', soldiers', and peasants' deputies, abolishes capital punishment, issues Decree on Peace and Decree on Land, and approves the formation of an all-Bolshevik government, the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), with Lenin as chairman. |
[edit] Cultural portrayal
The Russian Revolution has been portrayed in several films.
- Arsenal ' (IMDB profile). Written and directed by Aleksandr Dovzhenko.
- Konets Sankt-Peterburga aka The End of St. Petersburg (IMDB profile).
- Lenin v 1918 godu aka Lenin in 1918 (IMDB profile). Directed by Mikhail Romm and E. Aron (co-director).
- October: Ten Days That Shook The World (IMDB profile). Directed by Sergei M. Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov. Runtimes: Sweden:104 min, USA:95 min. Country: Soviet Union. Black and White. Silent. 1927.
- Reds (IMDB profile). Directed by Warren Beatty. It is based on the book Ten Days that Shook the World.
- Anastasia (IMDB profile). Directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman.
- Dr. Zhivago
[edit] Notes
- ^ See, for example, Cambridge History of Russia (Cambridge, England, 2006), volumes 2-3
- ^ The scholarly literature on peasants is now very large. Major recent works that examine themes discussed above (and can serve as a guide to older scholarship) Christine Worobec, Peasant Russia: Family and Community in the Post Emancipation Period (Princeton, 1991); Frank and Steinberg, eds., Cultures in Flux (Princeton, 1994); Barbara Alpern Engel, Between the Fields and the City: Women, Work, and Family in Russia, 1861-1914 (Cambridge, 1994); Jeffrey Burds, Peasant Dreams and Market Politics (Pittsburgh, 1998); Stephen Frank, Crime, Cultural Conflict and Justice in Rural Russia, 1856-1914 (Berkeley, 1999).
- ^ Among the many scholarly works on Russian workers, see especially Reginald Zelnik, Labor and Society in Tsarist Russia: The Factory Workers of St. Petersburg, 1855-1870 (Stanford, 1971); Victoria Bonnell, Roots of Rebellion: Workers’ Politics and Organizations in St. Petersburg and Moscow, 1900 1914 (Berkeley, 1983)
- ^ See, especially, Dominic Lieven, Nicholas II: Emperor of all the Russias (London, 1993); Andrew Verner, The Crisis of the Russian Autocracy: Nicholas II and the 1905 Revolution (Princeton, 1990); Mark Steinberg and Vladimir Khrustalev, The Fall of the Romanovs: Political Dreams and Personal Struggles in a Time of Revolution (New Haven, 1995); Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power, vol. 2 (Princeton, 2000)
- ^ Allan Wildman, The End of the Russian Imperial Army, vol. 1 (Princeton, 1980): 76-80; Hubertus Jahn, Patriotic Culture in Russia During World War I (Ithaca, 1995); Figes, A People’s Tragedy, 257-258
- ^ Wildman, The End of the Russian Imperial Army I: 85-89, 99-105, 106 (quotation).
- ^ “Doklad petrogradskogo okhrannogo otdeleniia osobomu otdelu departamenta politsii” [Report of the Petrograd Okhrana to the Special Department of the Department of the Police], October 1916, Krasnyi arkhiv 17 (1926), 4-35 (quotation 4).
- ^ Quoted by Khabalov in his testimony of 22 March 1917, in Padenie tsarskogo rezhima: stenograficheskie otchety doprosov i pokazanii, dannykh v 1917 g. v Chrezvychainoi Sledstvennoi Komissii Vremennogo Pravitel'stva [The fall of the tsarist regime: stenographic reports of interrogations and testimony given in 1917 to the Extraordinary Investigatory Commission of the Provisional Government], ed. P. E. Shchegolev, 7 vols. (Moscow and Leningrad, 1924-1927), 1: 190-91.
- ^ Mark Steinberg and Vladimir Khrustalev, Fall of the Romanovs, 50.
- ^ N. N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution: A Personal Record, ed. and trans. Joel Carmichael (Oxford, 1955; originally published in Russian in 1922), 101-8.
- ^ "Zhurnal [No. 1] Soveta Ministrov Vremennogo Pravitel'stva," 2 March 1917, GARF (State Archive of the Russian Federation), f. 601, op. 1, d. 2103, l. 1
- ^ Lenin, Letter to Central Committee and to the Petrograd and Moscow Party Committees, 12-14 September 1917, in V. I. Lenin, Sochineniia, vol. 26 (Moscow, 1952): 1-3.
[edit] References
- Acton, Edward, Vladimir Cherniaev, and William G. Rosenberg, eds. A Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, 1914-1921 (Bloomington, 1997)
- Cambridge History of Russia, vol. 2-3, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-81529-0 (vol. 2) ISBN 0-521-81144-9 (vol. 3).
- Figes, Orlando. A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924, : ISBN 0-14-024364-X (trade paperback) ISBN 0-670-85916-8 (hardcover)
- Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution. 199 pages. Oxford University Press; 2nd Reissu edition. December 1, 2001. ISBN 0-19-280204-6.
- Lincoln, W. Bruce. Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians in War and Revolution, 1914-1918 (New York, 1986)
- Malone, Richard. Analysing the Russian Revolution, : ISBN 0-521-54141-7, Melbourne, Cambridge University Press; 1st edition, 2004
- Pipes, Richard. The Russian Revolution (New York, 1990)
- Steinberg, Mark, Voices of Revolution, 1917. Yale University Press, 2001
[edit] Further Reading
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Participants' accounts
- Reed, John. Ten Days that Shook the World. 1919, 1st Edition, published by BONI & Liveright, Inc. for International Publishers. Transcribed and marked by David Walters for John Reed Internet Archive. Penguin Books; 1st edition. June 1, 1980. ISBN 0-14-018293-4. Retrieved May 14, 2005.
- Serge, Victor. Year One of the Russian Revolution. L'An l de la revolution russe, 1930. Year One of the Russian Revolution, Holt, Reinhart, and Winston. Translation, editor's Introduction, and notes © 1972 by Peter Sedgwick. Reprinted on Victor Serge Internet Archive by permission. ISBN 0-86316-150-2. Retrieved May 14, 2005.
- Trotsky, Leon. The History of the Russian Revolution. Translated by Max Eastman, 1932. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 8083994. ISBN 0-913460-83-4. Transcribed for the World Wide Web by John Gowland (Australia), Alphanos Pangas (Greece) and David Walters (United States). Pathfinder Press edition. June 1, 1980. ISBN 0-87348-829-6. Retrieved May 14, 2005.
[edit] Primary Documents
- Ascher, Abraham, ed. The Mensheviks in the Russian Revolution (Ithaca, 1976)
- Avrich, Paul ed. The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution (Ithaca, 1973)
- Browder, Robert Paul and Alexander F. Kerensky, eds., The Russian Provisional Government, 1917: Documents. 3 volumes (Stanford, 1961)
- Bunyan, James and H. H. Fisher, eds. The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1918: Documents and Materials (Stanford, 1961; first ed. 1934)
- Steinberg, Mark D. Voices of Revolution, 1917. In the series “Annals of Communism,” Yale University Press, 2001. On-line publication of these texts in the Russian original: Golosa revoliutsii, 1917 g. (Yale University Press, 2002): http://www.yale.edu/annals/Steinberg/golosa.htm
[edit] External links
- Chronology of the Russian Revolution World History Database
- Avrahm Yarmolinsky, Road to Revolution: A Century of Russian Radicalism, 1956.
- Soviet history archive at www.marxists.org
- Russian Revolution archive at www.libcom.org
- Year One of the Russian Revolution from the Victor Serge Internet Archive on Marxists Internet Archive. Translation, editor's Introduction, and notes © 1972 by Peter Sedgwick. Retrieved April 5, 2005.
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