1

The Great War was not the only source of Anxiety for the interwar period. Another was the
series of revolutions that had taken place during the same period. Revolutions in China, Mexico, and
Russia overthrew long-standing authorities, and tried to organize their societies on new lines. These
challenges to established orders were likewise global challenges. How was the United States to interact
with a new Mexico to its south? What did the overthrow of a 2500 year-old imperial system in China
mean for western trade and the balance of power in the Pacific? How would democratic republics
respond to the Soviet Unions call for World-wide Revolution?
1911 Revolution in China
Taiping Rebellion as a foreshadowing of the coming revolution:
The Taiping Rebellion spread through much of south China in the 1850s and early 1860s, and
almost overthrew the Qing dynasty. China was increasingly destabilized in the wake of the Opium Wars.
The Taipings offered sweeping programs for social reform, land redistribution, and the liberation of
women. They also attacked the traditional Confucian elite and the learning on which its claims to
authority rested.

Taiping soldiers
Taiping rebels smashed ancestral tables and shrines, and they proposed a simplified script and mass
literacy that would have undermined one of the scholar-gentrys chief sources of power.
The attack on the scholar-gentry was one of the main causes of the Taipings ultimate defeat. The
gentry cooperated with government forces to ensure a military victory, but also to root out corruption in
the examination system and create the self-strengthening movement which was aimed at encouraging
western investment and western-style infrastructural improvements (in railroads, in the military), much

2
like we saw with the Meiji Restoration in Japan. But Manchu rulers resisted far-reaching political and
social reformsthe imperial household and its allies clung to the old order.
By the end of the 19th century, sons of some of the scholar-gentry and especially of the merchants
in the port cities were becoming more and more involved in secret society operations (triads) and other
activities aimed at overthrowing the regime. Because many of these young men had received Europeanstyle educations, their resistance was aimed at more than just getting rid of the Manchus. They
envisioned power passing to Western-educated, reformist leaders who would build a new, strong nationstate in China pattered after those of the West, rather than simply establishing yet another imperial
dynasty. For aspiring revolutionaries such as Sun Yat-sen, who emerged as one of their most articulate
advocates, seizing power was also seen as a way to enact desperately needed social programs to relieve
the misery of the peasants and urban workers.

Dr. Sun Yat-sen

Although they drew heavily on the West for ideas and organizational models, the revolutionaries
from the rising middle classes were deeply hostile to the involvement of the imperialist powers in Chinese
affairs. They also condemned the Manchus for failing to control the foreigners. The young rebels cut off
their queues in defiance of the Manchu order that all ethnic Chinese wear their hair in this fashion. They
joined in uprisings fomented by the secret societies or plotted assassinations and acts of sabotage on their
own. Attempts to coordinate an all-China rising failed on several occasions because of personal

3
animosities or incompetence. But in late 1911, opposition to the governments reliance on the western
powers for railway loans led to secret society uprisings, student demonstrations, and mutinies on the part
of imperial troops.

4
When key provincial officials refused to put down the spreading rebellion, the Manchus had no choice but
to abdicate. In February 1912, the last emperor of China, a small boy named Puyi,

was deposed, and one of the more powerful provincial lords was asked to establish a republican
government in China.
The revolution of 1911 toppled the Qing dynasty, but in many ways a more important turning
point for Chinese civilization had been reached in 1905. In that year, the civil service exams were given
for the last time. Reluctantly, even the ultraconservative advisors of the empress Cixi had concluded that
solutions to Chinas predicament could no longer be found in the Confucian learning the exams tested. In
fact, the abandonment of the exams signaled the end of a pattern of civilized life the Chinese had nurtured
for nearly 2500 years. The mix of philosophies and values that had come to be known as the Confucian
system, the massive civil bureaucracy, rule by an educated and cultivated scholar-gentry elite, and even
the artistic accomplishments of the old order came under increasing criticism in the early 20 th century.
Many of these hallmarks of the most enduring civilization that has ever existed were violently destroyed.

5
THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION 1910-20 Tierra y Libertad

In 1910, in Mexico, urban and rural leaders rose up against the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz
(1830-1915) [Alas poor Mexico! So far from God, and so close to the US!] who had been ruling the
country since 1876. At the age of 80, Diaz seemed poised to retire from the presidency. Under his
leadership Mexico had seen the development of mining, oil drilling, and railways, in addition to
increasing exports of raw agricultural products. The middle-class urban creole elite had prospered, but
the salaries of the urban workers had declined, and rural peasants had fared even worse. 95% of the rural
peasantry owned no land, while fewer than 200 Mexican families owned 25% of the land, and foreign
investors owned another 20-25%. One single hacienda spread over 13 million acres and another over 11
million. Huge tracts of land lay fallow and unused while peasants went hungry. Finally, on a political
level, no system of orderly succession had been worked out for Mexico. The reins of power rested in the
hands of Daz and his allies alone.

Porfiro Diaz

Francisco Madero

In 1910, Diaz decided not to retire after all, and ran again for president. In spite of the ostensible
free vote for a limited electorate, Diaz imprisoned his principal challenger, Francisco Madero. Diaz won
the election, but rebellions against his continuing rule broke out across Mexico and he soon resigned and
went into exile in Paris. Various regional leaders then asserted their influence as Mexico sank into civil
war. The warfare was both personal and factional. It concerned differences in policy among the factions
and the appropriate division of power between the central government and the states.
Many of the leaders who contested for power were mestizo, people of mixed race and culture,
who demanded a dramatic break with the past control by the creole elite.

Villa & Zapata

The two most radical, Francisco Pancho Villa (1877-1923) from the northern border region and
Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919) from the state of Morelos, just south of Mexico City, advocated significant
land reform, and implemented it in the areas they captured during the civil war. They attracted mixed

7
groups of followers, including farm workers, agricultural colonists, former soldiers, unemployed laborers,
cowboys, and rabble. In November 1911 Zapata declared the revolutionary Plan of Ayala, which called
for the return of land to Indian Pueblos (villages). Tens of thousands of impoverished peasants followed
him, heeding his cry of Tierra y LibertadLand and Libertyand accepting his view that it was
Better to die on ones feet than to live on ones knees. Zapatas supporters seized large sugar estates,
haciendas with which they had been in conflict for years. By including previously scorned groups,
especially the peasantry, and attending to their agendas, the revolution became more radical and agrarian.

With Diaz in exile, Madero became president, but he was removed by a coup, and then
assassinated in 1913. General Victoriano Huerta (1854-1916) attempted to take over and to re-establish a
repressive government like that of Diaz. Opposed by all the other major leadersVenustiano Carranza,
lvaro Obregn, Plutarco Elias Calles, Villa, and Zapataand also by President Woodrow Wilson of the
United States, who sent American troops into Veracruz to express his displeasure with Huerta, the general
was forced from power in March 1914. Obregn (1880-1928), another general, who made free use of the
machine gun, won out militarily, but he agreed to serve under Carranza (1859-1920), who had himself
installed as provisional president.

Alvaro Obregon

Venustiano Carranza

The civil war continued and control of Mexico City changed hands several times, but ultimately
the more conservative leaders, Carranza and Obregn, forced out Villa and Zapata. Carranza became
president in 1916 and convened a constituent assembly which produced the Mexican Constitution of
1917, promising land reform and imposing restrictions on foreign economic control. It protected
Mexican workers by passing a labor code including minimum salaries and maximum hours, accident
insurance, pensions, social benefits, and the right to unionize and strike. It placed severe restrictions on
the church and clergy, denying them the rights to own property and to provide primary education. (Most
of the revolutionaries were anti-clerical. Zapata was an exception in this, as the peasantry who followed
him were extremely devoted to the church.) The constitution also decreed that no foreigner could be a
minister or priest in Mexico, vote, hold office, or criticize the government. (this is a response to the power
Diaz had given to foreigners in Mexico).
Enacting the new laws was easier than implementing them, but having the new constitution in
place set a standard of accountability for government and served as a beacon for the continuing
revolution. On the material level, not much changed at first. In 1920 Obregn deposed Carranza and
became president. He distributed 3 million acres of land to peasants, 10% of the peasantry benefited.
This redistribution helped to establish the principles of the revolution (Tierra!), demonstrating good faith
on the part of the state and putting new land into production, although the state did not provide the
technical assistance needed to improve productivity. Politically, Obregn began to include new

9
constituencies in his government, including the labor movement, represented by a Labor Party, and the
peasants, represented by a National Agrarian party. The institutionalization of their presence in
government promised new stability through wider representation. The representation, everyone
recognized, was not only by social class but also by ethnicity and culture. Mestizos and even indigenous
Indians achieved a place in government.
Warfare continued, however, partly in the form of factional struggles among the various leaders,
partly between the government and the church. Obregn was assassinated in 1924, and Plutarco Elias
Calles became president.

Calles
The new ruling caudillos viewed the church as a rival for power, and as the government began to extend
and enforce its anti-clerical policies in the mid-1920s, many of the clergy went on strike, refusing to
perform services. The peasantry supported the clergy, and as many as 50,000 armed peasants confronted
the government in the War of the Cristeros.

10

Blessed Miguel Pro, shortly before his execution in the Cristero War
Calles backed down, allowing the anti-clerical legislation to lapse, and beginning a more sensitive
accommodation between church and state, which has remained and deepened to the present. The
government also entered into an alliance with the largest national labor confederation, the Confederacin
Regional Obrera Mexicana (CROM).
In 1928 Calles institutional a new, more comprehensive party, the National Revolutionary Party,
which was the forerunner of todays Party of Institutionalized Revolution (PRI). The broad internal
representation of the PRI elevated the party above the individual, solved the problem of succession in
leadership, and brought an institutional stability to Mexico that has endured until today. Rule by
caudillos (strongmen ruling on their own authority) was largely ended. No other Latin American country
experienced such a fundamental program of radical revolution and agrarian reform until the 1950s.

Under Lzaro Crdenas (1895-1970), president

from 1934 to 1940, the PRI pushed the reforms still further. Crdenas redistributed 45 million acres of

11
land, starting a process by which 253 million acres would be redistributed by 1984. (Nevertheless, a
rapidly expanding population has left several million peasants still landlessin absolute terms more than
at the time of the revolution.) Crdenas also stood up to foreign control of Mexico' economy by
nationalizing Mexicos oil industry in 1938. Crdenas established a new level of national pride in
Mexico. His decision to retire from presidential politics at the end of his term in 1940 helped stabilize the
structure of the modern Mexican state.
The PRI envisioned a one-party state which would include all the major interest groups and the
contest for political power would take place within the party. The party, it argued, could institutionalize
the revolution. Most analysts have been skeptical of both claims, however, arguing that a single party
cannot balance all major factions indefinitely and that political revolutions cannot be institutionalized.
Fox was the first non-PRI president elected.

Russian Revolution
It is appropriate to compare the French and Russian revolutions, since both made their effects felt
throughout many countries for many years. Both were movements of liberation, one against feudalism
and despotism, the other against capitalism and imperialism. Neither focused solely on domestic
concerns; both promoted a world-wide message of republic or revolution. Both attracted followers in
many countries, and both raised a strong reaction in those whose way of life was endangered by the
revolution. And both followed the same pattern of revolutionary politics: first, a relative unity as long as
the object was the overthrow of the old regime; second, disunity and conflict over the founding of the new
government, resulting in the survival of a single minority revolutionary group (Jacobins in 1793,
Bolsheviks in 1918) that advanced the revolutionary cause; and finally, the suppression or liquidation of
most of the original revolutionary leaders.
Leading up to 1905, the situation in Russia had been one of industrialization and economic
westernization at the urging of Sergei Witte, prime minister to the czar. Wittes plan led to rapid
industrialization, European investment in Russia, and increased contacts between west and east.

12
Industrialization brought an increase in both the business and wage-earning classes: the
bourgeoisie and proletariat, to use Marxist terminology. Each began to develop their political interests,
reflected in the formation of new political parties.
The bourgeoisie was somewhat weaker than the new Russian proletariat class since so much of
Russian industry was either in the hands of foreign investors, or owned by the state in the person of the
Tsar. In fact, Russia had the largest state-operated economy system in the world in 1905. Nevertheless,
the rising business and professional classes, together with forward-looking landowners, formed the
Constitutional Democratic party in 1905 (Cadets), representing the liberal segment of public opinion.
They were more concerned with having a nationally elected parliament to control state policies than with
factory working conditions.
Revolutionary parties
There were two traditional sources of revolutionary fervor in Russia. One was the peasants, the
other the intelligentsia. The peasants formed 4/5 of the population, most of whom lived in their mirs, or
village communes, where land division and allocation was by community agreement, and where nobody
could leave without community permission. Peasants carried a heavy tax burden. Most of their best
product went for exporttheyre bearing some of the major costs of industrialization. The peasants
constantly want more land to relieve their burdensand feel theyre entitled to ever greater proportions
of the land on which they, or their forefathers, had been serfs. Rural population solidly divided into two
mutually exclusive groups: peasants of all types, who worked the soil, and the gentry, who resided upon
it.
Revolutionary Intelligentsia wanted a catastrophic overthrow of the tsar, not just liberal reform
(like the Cadets). They formed secret organizations, and spent most of their time debating and refining
their political theories. Most of the revolutionary intelligentsia were populists. They believed in the
power of the Russian people, and since most of the people were peasants, populists were interested in
peasant problems and peasant welfare. They admired the Russian communal village, which represented
to them the European socialist idea of the commune. While they read and respected Marx and Engels,

13
they did not believe that the proletariat was the only true revolutionary class. Nor did they believe that
capitalism had to precede socialismthey believed that Russia, with its strong peasant revolutionary
tradition, could skip right over the capitalist phase into socialism. They also believed that the revolution
could come quite soon. The populist ideas crystallized into the Social Revolutionary party (SRs),
founded in 1901.
Another arm of the revolutionary intelligentsia turned to Marxism. They found that the peasants
werent exhibiting any revolutionary tendencies, while the urban proletariat were quite busy going on
strike, etc. and otherwise acting revolutionary. Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin all were part of the Marxist
party, the Russian Social Democratic Labor party, formed in 1898. The Social Democrats (SDs) werent
more revolutionary than the SRs, they just had a different concept of revolutiona Marxist one. They
saw the revolution as an international movement, part of the process of world history. To the SDs, the
urban proletariat was the true revolutionary class, and they looked upon the peasants with suspicion, even
ridicule. They also abhorred the SRs.
In 1903 the SDs split into two factions, mainly on the issue of tactics and organization. Lenin
became the leader of the Bolsheviks (means majority, though from shortly after the split they were usually
the minority faction). The Bolsheviks wanted to restrict the party to a small revolutionary elite of hard
core workers. The Bolshevik faction was strongly centralized, with the party line being determined by the
central committee alone. Those with differences of opinion would be purged from the party membership.
The Bolsheviks were rigid Marxists, believing in irreconcilable class struggle. The Mensheviks (the rival
faction) wanted party membership more open, including sympathizers. The party membership as a whole
would help determine party policy. Policy differences were to be bridged, and they recommended
cooperation with the Cadets. The Mensheviks came to resemble the socialist parties of western Europe.
Revolution of 1905
These new political parties were one signal of political discontent. All functioned mostly as
propaganda agencies (there were no elective offices to run candidates for) all operated mostly
underground, heavily watched by the Tsars secret police. At the same time, there are other growing signs

14
of popular unrest: strikes, peasants trespassing on gentry lands, sporadic uprisings against tax collectors.
[The revolution of 1905 was the workers saying theyve had enough. Their march in St. Petersburg
reflected the discontent of all strata of society.] Specific complaints? Workers: no union representation to
alleviate their complaints of bad working conditions, no right to complain. Landed classes: taxes too
high, no real incomefamilies on brink of starvation, unjust political conditions and no justice.
Intelligentsia: they want liberal reforms like western Europe, constitutional monarchy, democracy, trade
protection. Subject nationalities: they want more autonomy.
Government refuses to make any concessions as 1905 approaches. The tsar (since 1894)
Nicholas II, regarded all criticisms as childish and un-Russian. He had no sympathy whatsoever for the
idea that persons outside government should have any control on persons inside governmenthes a
complete autocrat.
The government, seeking to ameliorate some of the unrest, allowed a priest, Father Gapon, to
organize the St. Petersburg factory workers.

Father Gapon (2nd from left)

Tsar Nicholas II

The workers and Gapon believed that if only the Tsar heard the true nature of their complaints, he
would be horrified to learn of their troubles and move immediately to rectify the situation, saving them
from the evil capitalists. What are their requests? 8 hr day, minimum wage of 1 ruble per day,
democratically elected constituent assembly to introduce representative govt. The workers march on the

15
Winter Palace on a Sunday in Jan. 1905 to express their discontent, a sign of the discontent of all strata of
society. As you know, the 200,000 men women and children singing in front of the Tsars Winter Palace
in Jan. 1905 are shot at by troops, who kill several hundred: Bloody Sunday.

The Tsar didnt want to let go of his unlimited power, and yielded little. Finally, with the country
essentially shut down through a general strike in October 1905, he issued his October Manifesto (in the
sources). What does he promise? Constitution, civil liberties, and a Duma to be elected by all classes
alike.
The tsar hoped to divide the opposition by releasing the Oct. Manifesto, and they succeeded. The
Constitutional Democrats thought with the creation of the Duma, all social problems would be henceforth
solved through parliament. Cadet supporters (liberals, industrialists, and landowners) were frightened by
the revolutionary impulses which had been let loose, and were hoping the Manifesto would be the
solution. But workers and peasants werent satisfiedtheir demands hadnt been met. The revolutionary
intellectuals tried to keep the revolution going, until their demands had been met too.

16
With the tsars opposition divided, and half of it neutralized, though, the revolution of 1905 came
to an end, and the government could reassert itself. Revolutionary leaders went again into exile, or
underground, or faced arrest and/or execution.
It was WWI which finally spelled the end of the tsarist regime. The war brought not only
logistical hardships to Russia, but reawakened all the old political debates of 1905. Conservative forces
around the tsar believed that a victory would enable them to crush liberalism and constitutionalism in
Russia once and for all. On the other hand, all elements of the population were increasingly dissatisfied
with the government.
February 1917 began bitterly cold. Life in Petrograd was unruly. The streets of Petrograd were
filled with ice. Food lines lengthened. There were 170,000 troops in the city, double the peacetime
garrison, but the secret police thought them to be "raw, untrained material, unfit to put down civil
disorders." The best troops, of course, were at the front. On February 14th, police agents reported that
army officers had, for the first time, mingled with the crowds demonstrating against the war and the
government. Food hoarding was common. Wood for heating was beyond the means of the poor and the
temperature in middle class flats was kept just above freezing. Grain trains on their way to the capital
were blocked by heavy snowfalls. International Woman's Day was held on Thursday, February 23 rd
(March 8, new style). This gave an excuse for women from textile plants to stream into the streets
shouting, "Down with hunger! Bread for the workers!" [Women and bread riots again].

17
They pelted the windows of the engineering shops to bring the men out. While such disorders were
nothing new, the attitude of the authorities seemed to have changed. Crowds began overturning tramcars
and sacked a large bakery. The "Pharaohs," slang for the police, stood by and did nothing. Agents of the
secret police noticed that skilled workers now joined the strikers. The agitators working the crowds no
longer bothered to pull their overcoats over their heads in order to hide their faces. The troops hesitated
when they were told to disperse the crowds. A Cossack officer shouted at some strikers led by an old
woman, "Who are you following? You are being led by an old crone." The woman replied, "No old crone,
but a sister and wife of soldiers at the front." Someone yelled, "Cossacks, you are our brothers, you can't
shoot us." In one instance, when a Cossack unit was ordered to charge, the horsemen rode delicately in
single file through the crowd. "Some of them smiled and one actually winked," wrote one observer.

18

The first revolution of 1917 (the February or March revolution, depending on what calendar you
use) was over quickly (March 8-12). The official death toll was 1224, the equivalent of a few hours
casualties in the war. But in the aftermath there were two governments in Petrograd. The Provisional
Government, dominated by middle-class members of the Duma, and the Soviet of workers' and soldiers'
deputies. The two governments represented different classes and sharply different political platforms. The
Soviet wanted an eight hour day, land grants to the peasants, an army with voluntary discipline and

19
elected officers, and an end to the war. The Provisional Government, on the other hand, wished to
continue the war and to keep social change at a minimum.

Alexander Kerensky
The most important leader of the Provisional government was Alexander Kerensky. Kerensky
was an SR, firmly committed to the overthrow of the tsar, and he almost single-handedly had committed
the Duma to the revolution on Mar. 12. The Provisional Government called for elections by universal
male suffrage to a Constituent Assembly, which was supposed to meet late in the year and prepare a new
constitution. The PG also tried to continue the war against Germany. They mounted a new offensive in
July, but the Russian were quickly routedthey didnt want to be there anymore. At the front armies
melted away, high officers refused to serve the new republic, and many peasants just quit and went home
they wanted to be there for the promised land redistribution, or the looting, whichever came first. Back
in Petrograd, the Petrograd Soviet called for a speedy end to the war, in opposition to the PG. PG decides
the best thing to do is extend democracy to the front lines, permitting command to be effected by
committees elected by officers and men. Discipline, not surprisingly, collapsed.
The Bolsheviks had played little role in the revolution of Feb/Mar 1917. Lenin wanted to return
to Petrograd and undermine the war effort. The Swedes would not help return him but the Germans
offered a sealed railway car which would take Lenin across enemy lines and back to Russia. "It was with
a sense of awe," wrote Winston Churchill of Lenin's German support, "that they turned upon Russia the
most grisly of all weapons. They transported Lenin in a sealed truck like a plague bacillus into Russia."
Lenin arrived at Petrograd's Finland Station late at night on April 3 and gave a speech before he had even

20
left the platform. In three sentences, Lenin outlined the Bolshevik program and his contempt for the
Provisional Government: "The people need peace. The people need bread and land. And they give
you war, hunger, no food, and the land remains with the landowners."

Lenin arrives at Finland Station

Lenin adapted the Bolshevik program to what most people seemed to want: (1) immediate peace
with the Central Powers; (2) redistribution of land to the peasants; (3) transfer of factories, mines, and
other industrial plants from the capitalists to committees of workers in each plant; and (4) recognition of
the soviets as the supreme power instead of the Provisional Govt.

Hes promising them peace, land and

bread. The Bolsheviks used this four-point program, and a variety of political strategies, including
infiltration of political opponents, to win majority support in the Petrograd Soviet and in soviets all over
the country.
On the night of Nov. 6-7, 1917, the Bolsheviks launched their revolution, taking over telephone
exchanges, railway stations, and electric power plants in the city. A warship aimed its guns on the Winter
Palace, where Kerenskys government sat. The PG could find no defenders. A newly assembled
Congress of Soviets pronounced the PG defunct and named in its place a Council of Peoples
Commissars, with Lenin as its head. Trotsky was named commissar for foreign affairs, Stalin commissar

21
for nationalities. Kerensky fled, eventually comes to the US, to Stanford where he teaches seminars on
the Russian Revolution until his death in 1970.

Bolsheviks
Storming the Winter
Palace, Nov. 1917.

First order of business at the Congress of Soviets: Lenin introduces two resolutions. One calls
for a just democratic peace without annexations and without indemnities; the second abolished all
landlord property immediately and without compensation.
This, then, was the Bolshevik, or November, revolution. Still, the long-awaited Constituent
Assembly had to be dealt with. It met in January 1918. 36 million people had voted for it. Of these, 9
million had voted for Bolshevik deputiesdemonstrating the mass appeal of the party. Almost 21 million
had voted for Kerenskys party, the agrarian, populist, peasant-oriented SRs. Lenin said, to hand over
power to the Constituent Assembly would again be compromising with the malignant bourgeoisie. The
Assembly was broken up on the second day of its sessions; armed sailors surrounded it. Dissolution of
the Constituent Assembly was a frank repudiation of majority rule in favor of class ruleto be

22
exercised for the proletariat by the Bolsheviks. The dictatorship of the proletariat was not established.
Two months later, in March 1918, the Bolsheviks renamed themselves the communist party.

Conclusions/Comparisons
What do these three revolutions have in common? What sets them apart from each other?
1. One commonality is the duration of the revolution. In China and in Russia there are prerevolutions, while the Mexican revolution continues, actually, for years. The three examples indicate
that revolution is a long and sometimes messy process.
2. In each case one factor in the revolution is frustration at the presence and privileged position of
foreigners in the country.
3. Class differences play an important role in each revolution. Most notably, in all three cases one
rallying cry is for land reform.
4. In each instance the first government after the revolution is a constitutional democracy.
5. Revolutions happen in countries that are trying to industrialize rapidly and compete with the
West.

Differences?
1. Soviet Union the only one to have a communist revolution. (In China that wont happen for
another 30 years).
2. Can you think of more?