RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

In the years leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917, the country had a
succession of wars. These were, The Crimean War (1854-56), The Russo-Turkish
War (1877-78), The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), and World War I (1914-18).
All of these required a lot from the state, including tax dollars and manpower. Russia
suffered defeat in all, except against Turkey. This series of war caused great
discontent among the people and caused suffering in the country's economy and
government.

Along with these wars, there were three major parties that contributed to the cause
of the revolution. First, there were the peasants, who maintained the majority of the
population in Russia. They were excessively poor and could barely escape famine
from harvest to harvest. The population boom in Russia from 1867-1896 was felt
most drastically by the peasants. The increase of 30 million people in less than 30
years was too great that the land to the peasants' disposal did not increase
sufficiently. The government tried to help, but war took precedence. Second, there
was a rise of the industrial working class. These workers were employed in the
mines, factories and workshops of the major cities. They suffered low wages, poor
housing and many accidents. Again, the government tried to help by passing factory
acts to restrict the amount of hours one could work. However, their efforts were at
too small a scale to have any real effect. As a result, there were many strikes and
constant conflicts between the workers and the police. Lastly, the tsar of Russia was
the cause of much disapproval. Tsar Nicholas II was much more interested in his
family life, than matters of the state. He had an obsession with retaining all his
privileges and the belief that he was chosen by God to rule. Also, he didn't
understand the forces of industrialization and nationalism that were growing
throughout Russia. His disregard for the struggles of the people led them to lose faith
in him and the long-standing tradition of autocracy. The people were not content and
were ready to revolt. They just needed a good reason and a strong leader.

REPORTS

The Russian Revolution of 1917 was one of the most significant events in the 20 th
century. It completely changed the government and outlook on life in the very large
country of Russia. The events of the revolution were a direct result of the growing
conflict in World War I, but the significance of an empire collapsing and a people
rising up extends beyond the war effort.
In 1914, Russia entered the war with much vigor. However, their enthusiasm was
not enough to sustain them and the army suffered many casualties and loss of
artillery supplies. Russia lacked mobilization skills to counter its losses, but more
importantly it lacked good leadership. Tsar Nicholas II (r. 1894 – 1917) had
complete control over the bureaucracy and the army. He refused to share his power
and the masses began to question his leadership. In the summer of 1915, the Duma
(parliament), demanded a government with democratic values and which responded
to the people’s needs. Later that year, however, Nicholas dissolved the Duma and
went to the war front. His leaving was detrimental.

The government was taken over by Tsarina Alexandra and her unique counterpart,
Rasputin. Alexandra was a very strong-willed woman, who disliked parliaments and
supported absolutism. She attempted to rule absolutely in her husband’s absence by
dismissing and electing officials on a whim. Her favorite official, Rasputin, which
means "Degenerate", was a Siberian preacher. He belonged to a sect that mixed
sexual orgies with religion and he had mysterious healing powers. As a result of
rumors of the two being lovers, Rasputin was murdered in December 1916 by three
aristocrats. In the cities, food shortages continued to rise and the morale of the people
fell. Riots broke out on March 8, 1917 in the city of Petrograd. (The Julian calendar
that Russia used at the time was 13 days behind the western, Gregorian, calendar.
Therefore, some date the riot on February 24th.) It was started by women demanding
more bread, but eventually spread to other industries and throughout the city. Even
the soldiers on the front joined in the revolution. The Duma set up a provisional
government on March 12, 1917 and a few days later the tsar stepped down.

The provisional government established a liberal program of various rights. These

included freedom of speech, religion and assembly; equality before the law; and the
right of unions to organize and strike. The leaders of this new established
government, including Alexander Kerensky, were still opposed to social revolution
and saw the continuation of the war effort as a national duty. The government had
to compete for power with the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.
This group scrupulously watched the provisional government and even made decrees
of their own. One of which took away the authority of the officers and placed it with
elected committees. This lead to a collapse of army discipline. Later that year,
soldiers began returning home to seize some land for their families. Peasants were
looting farms and having food riots because the provisional government had not
overcome the problem of food supply. Anarchy was taking the place of liberty and
this was the perfect situation for a radical socialist like Vladimir Ilyich Lenin to take
control.
Lenin (1870-1924) was a strong supporter of Marxian socialism. He believed that
capitalism would only disappear with a revolution and this was only possible under
certain conditions. The socialism party was split between Lenin’s, Bolsheviks, or
"majority group" and the Mensheviks, or "minority group". Lenin’s group did not
stay the majority, but he kept the name and developed a disciplined, revolutionary
group. The Bolsheviks attempted to seize power in July, but failed. Lenin fled from
Petrograd and went into hiding in Finland. The party’s popularity, however, grew
tremendously throughout the summer.

By the autumn of 1917, it was clear that the main social and economical problems
that caused the uprising in March still existed. In the second half of September, there
was a debate in Petrograd between the Bolsheviks and the other parties (socialists
and Mensheviks). The voting figures clearly pointed towards a Bolshevik majority.
Leon Trotsky was elected as chairman of the governing body. Trotsky (1879-1940)
was a radical Marxist, amazing orator and huge supporter of Lenin. Outside
Petrograd, the feelings of the population coincided with the Bolshevik convictions.
The people wanted to see the end of Kerensky's government, the end to the war and
they wanted new land distribution. Trotsky and Lenin saw the answer to all these
desires in a Bolshevik seizure of power.

From Finland, Lenin urged the Bolshevik committee to plan an armed uprising.
Many thought it was too premature and reckless. However, after Lenin made a trip
to Petrograd incognito and they debated with them for ten hours, the Bolsheviks
were convinced. Trotsky masterfully executed the revolution. He formed a military-
revolutionary committee to head the arming of workers throughout Petrograd.
Factory meetings were held to boost the workers' enthusiasm. Finally, on the night
of November 6 (or October 26), the combined forces of the Bolshevik soldiers and
workers stormed the city and seized government buildings. They went on to gain the
majority in the congress and declared Lenin as their new leader.

Lenin declared an end to the fighting and made armistice proposals. He also decreed
the nationalization of land. However, he was far from solving the problem of hunger
among the people. Lenin and his Bolsheviks had increased opposition in the next
few years. Civil war broke out and external fears persisted. Earlier in the fighting,
Tsar Nicholas II and family had been interned in the Ipatiev house, located on the
Bolshevik base at Yekaterinburg. In July 1918, the royal family was killed. They
were murdered out of fear that if they remained alive they could serve as a focus of
the anti-Bolshevism movement. By the end of 1920, when some stability did return,
Russia emerged as an entirely different country.
 Late tsarist Russia

Sometime in the middle of the 19th century, Russia entered a phase of internal crisis
that in 1917 would culminate in revolution. Its causes were not so much economic
or social as political and cultural. For the sake of stability, tsarism insisted on rigid
autocracy that effectively shut out the population from participation in government.
At the same time, to maintain its status as a great power, it promoted industrial
development and higher education, which were inherently dynamic. The result was
perpetual tension between government and society, especially its educated element,
known as the intelligentsia. Of the socioeconomic causes of tsarism’s ultimate
collapse, the most important was rural overpopulation: tsarist Russia had the highest
rate of demographic growth in Europe; in the second half of the 19th century the
rural population increased by more than 50 percent. Potentially destabilizing also
was the refusal of the mass of Russian peasantry, living in communes, to
acknowledge the principle of private property in land.

In the late 19th century the political conflict pitted three protagonists: tsarism, the
peasantry (with the working class, its subdivision), and the intelligentsia.

The tsar was absolute and unlimited in his authority, which was subject to neither
constitutional restraints nor parliamentary institutions. He ruled with the help of a
bureaucratic caste, subject to no external controls and above the law, and the army,
one of whose main tasks was maintaining internal order. Imperial Russia developed
to a greater extent than any contemporary country a powerful and ubiquitous security
police. It was a crime to question the existing system or to organize for any purpose
whatsoever without government permission. The system, which contained seeds of
future totalitarianism, was nevertheless not rigidly enforced and was limited by the
institution of private property.

Some eighty percent of the empire’s population consisted of peasants. The vast
majority of Russian peasants lived in communes (obshchiny), which held land in
common and periodically redistributed it to member households to allow for changes
in family size. The communal organization, composed of heads of households,
exercised great control over members. Communal peasants did not own their land
but merely cultivated it for a period of time determined by local custom. Under these
conditions they had little opportunity to develop respect for private property or any
of the other qualities necessary for citizenship. Politically they tended toward
primitive anarchism. To some extent this also held true for industrial workers, some
two million strong at the turn of the century, most of whom came from the village.
The intelligentsia was partly liberal, partly radical, but in either case unalterably
opposed to the status quo. Radical intellectuals tried in the 1860s and ’70s to stir the
peasants and workers to rebellion. Having met with no response, they adopted
methods of terror, which culminated in 1881 in the assassination of Emperor
Alexander II. The government reacted with repressive measures that kept the
revolutionaries at bay for the next two decades. In the meantime the field was left to
liberal intellectuals, who in January 1904 formed the Union of Liberation, a
semilegal political body committed to the struggle for democracy.

The oppositional groups received their chance in 1904–05 when Russia became
involved in a war with Japan. Caused by Russia’s designs on Manchuria, the war
went badly from the start, lowering the regime’s prestige in the eyes of the people.
The Union of Liberation, moving into the open, presented a program of fundamental
political reforms. In January 1905, following the massacre of a worker
demonstration bearing a petition drafted by the Union of Liberation (“Bloody
Sunday”), the country exploded in rebellion, which, ebbing and flowing in response
to news from the front, reached a climax in October 1905. On October 17 (October
30, New Style), faced with a general strike, Emperor Nicholas II issued a manifesto
that promised the country a legislative parliament. The October Manifesto in effect
ended the autocratic system. The following year Russia was given a constitution.
Elections took place to a representative body, the State Duma, which was
empowered to initiate and veto legislative proposals. The population received
guarantees of fundamental civil liberties. Censorship was abolished.

Between 1906 and 1911 Russia was administered by the greatest statesman of the
late imperial era, Pyotr Stolypin. Stolypin both ruthlessly suppressed disorders and
carried out extensive reforms. The most important of these were laws allowing
peasants to withdraw from the commune and establish independent farmsteads.
Stolypin hoped to create a self-reliant yeomanry to act as a stabilizing force in the
countryside. He also had other social and political reforms in mind. These were
frustrated by the hostility of the court as well as of the opposition parties. He was
murdered by a revolutionary in 1911.

The constitution of 1906 was frequently violated by both the government and the
opposition. The former misused its emergency clauses to adjourn the Duma and rule
by decree. The latter, especially the radical parties, sabotaged the legislative process.
Even so, in its last decade Russia enjoyed greater freedom than ever before. It also
enjoyed relative prosperity: on the eve of World War I it was the world’s leading
producer of petroleum and exporter of grain. Conditions in the countryside gradually
improved, and in 1916 peasants owned or rented 90 percent of the arable land.
 The February Revolution

World War I weakened tsarism. The humiliating defeats that the Russian army
suffered at the hands of the Germans, who expelled it from Poland, lowered the
prestige of the monarchy further. There were also unsubstantiated rumours that
Empress Alexandra, a German by origin, betrayed military secrets to the enemy. The
opposition, instead of rallying behind the crown, exploited its difficulties to wrest
further powers so as to be in a position to take charge once the war was over. The
government, for its part, clung jealously to all its prerogatives, from fear that
involving public figures in the war effort would make it impossible to reassert strong
tsarist authority once peace was reestablished. In no other belligerent country were
political conflicts waged as intensely during the war as in Russia, preventing the
effective mobilization of the rear. One result of this was disorganization of food
supplies. Although Russia produced more than enough to feed itself, economic
mismanagement combined with the breakdown of transportation led in the third year
of the war to a sharp rise in prices and to food shortages in the cities.

The final assault on the monarchy began in November 1916, when the head of the
liberal Constitutional Democratic Party, Pavel Milyukov, during a session of the
Duma, implied the government was guilty of treason. During the exceptionally
severe winter of 1916–17, food and fuel deliveries to the major cities, especially the
capital, Petrograd (the name given to St. Petersburg between 1914 and 1924),
continued to decline. Dissatisfaction with the government’s conduct of the war,
coupled with economic hardships, led in late February 1917 (early March, New
Style) to an outburst of popular fury. The revolt began with a mutiny of the Petrograd
garrison, staffed by superannuated reservists; from them it spread to the industrial
quarters. Nicholas II, persuaded by his generals that he and his wife were the main
obstacle to victory, agreed to abdicate (March 2 [March 15, New Style]).

Instead of improving Russia’s war effort, the abdication of the man who, however
unqualified to rule, symbolized for the mass of the population the idea of statehood
led to the rapid disintegration of the country.

Authority was nominally assumed by a provisional government, issued from the

Duma and headed by Prince Georgy Lvov. In fact, it was from the outset exercised
by the Petrograd Soviet (“Council”), a body that claimed to represent the nation’s
workers and soldiers but actually was convened and run by an executive committee
of radical intellectuals nominated by the socialist parties. Similar soviets sprang up
in other cities. In the summer of 1917, their socialist leaders united to form in
Petrograd the All-Russian Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. The All-
Russian Soviet assumed responsibility for ensuring that the provisional government,
which it labeled “bourgeois,” did not stray from the path of progress. It legislated on
its own without bearing responsibility for the consequences. On March 1 (March 14,
New Style), fearing a counterrevolution, the Soviet issued “Order No. 1,” which
instructed the troops to disarm their officers. Its effect was to cause a breakdown of
discipline in the armed forces.

The regime of “dual power” quickly brought disarray to the country. In May
representatives of the Petrograd Soviet entered the government, but this action did
not stop the slide to anarchy as peasants seized land, soldiers deserted, and ethnic
minorities clamored for self-rule. An offensive that the minister of war, Aleksandr
Kerensky, launched on June 16 (June 29, New Style), 1917 in the hope of rallying
patriotic spirits soon ran out of steam.
 Lenin and the Bolsheviks

From the beginning of the 20th century there were three principal revolutionary
parties in Russia. The Socialist Revolutionary Party, whose main base of support
was the peasantry, was heavily influenced by anarchism and resorted to political
terror. In the first decade of the century, members of this party assassinated
thousands of government officials, hoping in this way to bring down the government.
The Social Democrats (Russian Social Democratic Worker’s Party) believed such
terror to be futile; they followed the classic doctrines of Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels, according to which the development of capitalism inevitably created a
radicalized proletariat that would in time stage a revolution and introduce socialism.
The party split in 1903 into two factions, which soon developed into separate parties.
The Mensheviks, loyal to traditional Social Democratic teachings, concentrated on
developing ties with labour and rejected as premature political revolution in agrarian,
largely precapitalist Russia. The Bolsheviks, who in some respects were closer to
the Socialist Revolutionaries, believed that Russia was ready for socialism. Their
leader, Vladimir Ilich Lenin, was a fanatical revolutionary, who managed to organize
a relatively small but totally devoted and highly disciplined party bent on seizing
power. Convinced that workers by themselves could not progress beyond peaceful
trade- unionism, he wanted the party to direct the working class on the revolutionary
path.

During World War I Lenin, living in neutral Switzerland, agitated for Russia’s
defeat. This attracted the attention of the Germans, who came to realize that they
could not win the war unless they somehow succeeded in forcing Russia to sign a
separate peace. In April 1917 they arranged for Lenin’s transit through Germany to
Sweden and thence to Russia, where they hoped the Bolsheviks would fan antiwar
sentiment. To this end they generously supplied Lenin with the money necessary to
organize his party and build up a press.

Sensing the weakness of the provisional government and the inherent instability of
“dual power,” on arrival in Russia (April 3, 1917 [April 16, New Style]) Lenin
wanted to launch a revolution immediately. He had to contend, however, with the
majority of his followers who doubted it would succeed. The skeptics were
vindicated in July 1917 when a putsch led by the Bolsheviks badly misfired. They
were near success when the government released information on Lenin’s dealings
with the Germans, which caused angry troops to disperse the rebels and end the
uprising. Abandoning his followers, Lenin sought refuge in Finland.
After the abortive Bolshevik July rising the chairmanship of the provisional
government passed to Kerensky. A Socialist Revolutionary lawyer and Duma
deputy, Kerensky was the best-known radical in the country owing to his defense of
political prisoners and fiery antigovernment rhetoric. A superb speaker, he lacked
the political judgment to realize his political ambitions. Aware that such power as
he had rested on the support of the All-Russian Soviet, Kerensky decided that the
only threat Russian democracy faced came from the right. By this he meant
conservative civilian and military elements, whose most visible symbol was General
Lavr Kornilov, a patriotic officer whom he had appointed commander in chief but
soon came to see as a rival. To win the support of the Soviet, still dominated by
Socialists Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, Kerensky did not prosecute the
Bolsheviks for the July putsch and allowed them to emerge unscathed from the
debacle.

By general consent the decisive event in the history of the provisional government
was Kerensky’s conflict with Kornilov, which broke into the open in August
(September, New Style). Although many aspects of the “Kornilov affair” remain
obscure to this day, it appears that Kerensky deliberately provoked the confrontation
in order to be rid of a suspected competitor and emerge as the saviour of the
Revolution. The prime minister confidentially informed Kornilov that the
Bolsheviks were planning another coup in Petrograd in early September (which was
not, in fact, true) and requested him to send troops to suppress it. When Kornilov did
as ordered, Kerensky charged him with wanting to topple the government. Accused
of high treason, Kornilov mutinied. The mutiny was easily crushed.

It was a Pyrrhic victory for Kerensky. His action alienated the officer corps, whose
support he needed in the looming conflict with the Bolsheviks. It also vindicated the
Bolshevik claim that the provisional government was ineffective and that the soviets
should assume full and undivided authority. In late September and October the
Bolsheviks began to win majorities in the soviets: Leon Trotsky, a recent convert to
Bolshevism, became chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, the country’s most
important, and immediately turned it into a vehicle for the seizure of power.
 The Bolshevik coup

The events of February 1917 merit the name of Revolution because they were
essentially spontaneous. October 1917 (November, New Style), by contrast, was a
classic coup d’état carried out by a small group of conspirators.

The Bolshevik Central Committee made the decision to seize power at a clandestine
meeting held on the night of October 10 (October 23, New Style). There were
considerable disagreements over the timing: Lenin wanted the coup to be carried out
immediately; Trotsky and most of the others preferred to convene a national
Congress of Soviets, packed with Bolsheviks, and have it proclaim the overthrow of
the provisional government. A compromise was struck: the coup would take place
as soon as practicable, and the Congress of Soviets would ratify it. This decided,
Lenin returned to his hideaway, leaving the direction of the coup in the hands of
Trotsky.

Disregarding the authority of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet,

dominated as before by the Mensheviks and Socialists Revolutionaries, the
Bolsheviks invited those local soviets in which they enjoyed majorities to attend a
national congress beginning on October 25 (November 7, New Style). In the
meantime they built up an armed force to carry out a coup. The task was facilitated
by the decision of the Soviet to form a Military Revolutionary Committee to
organize Petrograd’s defense from an expected German attack. Since the Bolsheviks
were the only organization with an independent armed force, they took over the
Military Revolutionary Committee and used it to topple the government.

During the night of October 24–25, Bolshevik Red Guards peacefully occupied
strategic points in Petrograd. On the morning of October 25, Lenin, reemerging from
his hideaway, issued a declaration in the name of the Military Revolutionary
Committee, which had no authority to do so, that the provisional government was
overthrown and all power was assumed by the soviets. The declaration referred
neither to the Bolsheviks nor to socialism, for which reason the inhabitants of the
city had no inkling how profound a change had occurred. Kerensky tried to rally the
armed forces to save his government but found no response among officers furious
at his treatment of Kornilov. On October 26 the rump Congress of Soviets confirmed
the transfer of power and passed several decrees submitted to it by Lenin, including
one that socialized nonpeasant private land. It also formed a new provisional
government, chaired by Lenin, that was to administer until the Constituent Assembly
convened.
In Moscow the Bolshevik coup met with armed resistance from cadets and students,
but they were eventually overcome. In the other cities of Russia soldiers, lured by
Bolshevik slogans of immediate peace, crushed the opposition. The march to power
was facilitated by the ambivalence of the Mensheviks and Socialists Revolutionaries
who, though opposed to the October coup, feared a right-wing counterrevolution
more than Bolshevism and discouraged physical resistance to it.

The Bolshevik dictatorship

Although Lenin and Trotsky had carried out the October coup in the name of soviets,
they intended from the beginning to concentrate all power in the hands of the ruling
organs of the Bolshevik Party. The resulting novel arrangement—the prototype of
all totalitarian regimes—vested actual sovereignty in the hands of a private
organization, called “the Party,” which, however, exercised it indirectly, through
state institutions. Bolsheviks held leading posts in the state: no decisions could be
taken and no laws passed without their consent. The legislative organs, centred in
the soviets, merely rubber-stamped Bolshevik orders. The state apparatus was
headed by a cabinet called the Council of Peoples’ Commissars (Sovnarkom),
chaired by Lenin, all of whose members were drawn from the elite of the Party.

The Bolsheviks were solemnly committed to convening and respecting the will of
the Constituent Assembly, which was to be elected in November 1917 on a universal
franchise. Realizing that they had no chance of winning a majority, they
procrastinated under various pretexts but eventually allowed the elections to
proceed. The results gave a majority (40.4 percent) of the 41.7 million votes cast to
the Socialists Revolutionaries. The Bolsheviks received 24 percent of the ballots.
They allowed the assembly to meet for one day (Jan. 5 [Jan. 18, New Style], 1918)
and then shut it down. The dispersal of the first democratically elected national
legislature in Russian history marked the onset of the Bolshevik dictatorship. In the
months that followed, one party after another was outlawed, non-Bolshevik
newspapers and journals closed, and all overt opposition suppressed by a new secret
police, the Cheka, which was given unlimited authority to arrest and shoot at its
discretion suspected “counterrevolutionaries.” The Peasant Union, representing
four-fifths of the country’s population, which had opposed the October coup, was
subverted from within and replaced by an organization created and run by
Bolsheviks.
 CONCLUSION

The events of the Russian Revolution that brought the Soviet Union about had a deep
impact on the entire world. It generated a new way of thinking about economy,
society and the government. The Bolsheviks set out to cure Russia of all its injustices
that arouse from social class differences. They succeeded in some ways. Even still,
the revolution marked the end of a dynasty that had lasted 300 years and concluded
with the seizure of power by a small revolutionary group. The tsar was replaced with
a Council of People’s Commissars and private ownership was abolished. The
Communist movement began to grow worldwide, which frightened the capitalist
world. Although the strength of Communism did not last, because it existed at all is
proof that the Russian Revolution was a major event of the twentieth century.

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2. Kochan, Lionel. The Russian Revolution. New York: Wayland (Publishers) Ltd., 1971.
3. Marples, David R. Lenin's Revolution: Russia, 1917-1921. London: Pearson Education
Limited, 2000.
4. Massie, Robert K. The Romanovs: The Final Chapter. New York: Random House, 1995.
5. Shukman, Harold. The Russian Revolution. Great Britain: Guernsey Press Company
Limited, 1998.
6. Wade, Rex A. The Russian Revolution, 1917. New York: Cambridge University Press,
2000.