Genetics of Russian Revolution

Indian Political Science Association
GENETICS OF RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONARY VISION, 1825-1917

Author(s): P. V. Ranade
Source: The Indian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 41, No. 4 (December 1980), pp. 543-585
Published by: Indian Political Science Association
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GENETICS OF RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONARY
VISION, 1825-1917
P.V . Ranade
"And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out

my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters
shall dream dreams, your youngmen shall see visions".
Visions compose a large part of human prognostics and praxis *

The interplay of prognostics and praxis nowhere so brilliantly sur-
faced as in the drama of Russian Revolution of 1917. The essay
attempts at tracing the intellectual elements of the Russian revolu-
tionary cycle that opened with the abortive Decembrist uprising of
1825 and came to a fruitful close with the October Revolution of
1917. It offers an overview of the travelouge of the vision and crea-
tivity of revolutionary will that marked the endeavour and endura-
nce of Russian youth over a century. Primarily, the discussion in
the essay focuses on the historical genetics, ancestry, fraternity of a
travelbuge of a vision that moved men who made the Bolshevik
Revolution of 1917.
The word vision normally means the act or power of sensing with
eyes. In a broader sense it means the act or power of anticipating
that which will or may come to be. It may also mean an experience
in which a thing or event appears vividly or credibly to the mind
although not actually present. Vision is thus a part of mental culture.
Vision presupposes forethinking and prognosis. Critical appreciation
of reality and anticipation of desirable direction of events together
make a vision. Revolutionary vision is the inner eye of the mind of
men and women who have bound their lives for the cause of human
liberation. Ideas tempered by passions make a vision. History is an
incessant flow of social movement and this flow which makes human
progression possible is unthinkable without ideas. Though all
thinking is reflection, it is not a neutral carbon copy of external
♦ Prognostics and Praxis are words of Greek origin. Prognostics means predic-
tion, forecast or forethinking; Praxis signifies purposeful arid creative actiyvit.
543
544 INDIAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
phenomenon. Human ideas are always selective, interpretative

value-oriented. It is through the catalysis of ideas that human
transformation process occurs. Ideas act as catalysis, devices and
auxiliaries which social forces forge and wield in order to push their
historical projects. Revolutionary vision in short is a ballistic of
passionate convictions that moves men to action.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 is one of those momentous events

that have gone in the making of our epoch -catclysmic epoch crowded
with great social upheavals. The issues that were raised, the conflicts
that were stirred and forces that were released in the wake of Russian
Revolution, are unprecedented, to say the least. The present script
gives an overview of the ancestry and antecedents of the Russian
revolution by tracing the vision and artistic creativity that had gone
in its making of the idea that backward Russia while following western
Europe was destined to chart a distinct path w^s not a Lenin's fancy.
It had a long ancestry in the intellectual and cultural forces that had
been active in the Russian aftermath of the Napoleonic war. Pushkin's
poetic belief that the spark of Decemberist uprising of 1825
shall become the flame of revolution was fulfilled by the October
Revolution of 1917. From that uprising to lhe October
Revolution of 1917, from Pestel to Lenin, Russian history marks a
linear rhythm of a single rhyme- the song of insurrectionary brother-
hood. It is a story of a travelogue of a vision. When Lenin wrote
his celebrated April Theses giving green signal for the proletarian
seizure of power, he was certainly acting on Marx's forecast that the
democratic revolutions of his epoch would be preludes to the imme-
diately following proletarian revolutions. Marx's forecast had turned
out wrong for Germany, but proved more than true for Russia.
Lenin's vision as embodied in the April Theses, however, stemmed
not only from Marx's forecast, but also from Lenin's lively and
affectionate ties with Russian revolutionary tradition. The entire drift
of the Russian revolutionary heritage and the lively dialectical grasp
of the situational possibilities, together flowed straight into Lenin's
April Theses.
The curvicature of Russian history from 1825 to 1917 records vast

changes and transformations in its politics and society. The thirty
years of Nicholas's repressive regime were followed by the succession
of Alexender II whose rule has been described as thaw following
GENETICS OF RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONARY VISION, 1825-1917 545
Nicholas's; winter the main events of Alexender's reign were

abolition of the serfdom and administrative reforms. The relatively
freer atmosphere of Alexander's reign gave birth to new and strong
manifestations of revolutionary upsurge among the Russian youth.
After mid- 1860s the temporary honeymoon between the Tsar and
the Russian people was cut short and the next fifty years were marked
by the involvement of Russian government in foreign military adven-
tures and internal repression. In the midst of these shifting scenes, a
streak of remarkable unity and continuity is provided by progressive
Russian intellectuals* vision of insurrectionary Russia; the vision of
insurrectionary brotherhood was racing for a political conquest. Not
that there were no souls in Russia who dreamt of peaceful utopias.
Tolstory's Utopian experiments drew a world audience, but they did
not click in Russia. It was Lenin's vision of insurrectionary brother-
hood that was translated into a throbbing reality in the Russian
Winter of 1917. That was so because Lenin's revolution was over
92 years in the making.
The Tsarist police state was the target of attack at the

hands of Russia's revolutionaries from the time of the abortive
Decemberist uprising of 1825. The most talented and dedicated
Russian intellectuals were found in the ranks of the terroristic
conspirators who throughout the nineteenth century tried to
overthrow the Russian autocracy.' But these 19th century Russian
revolutionaries could not get a mass base. They cried in the
wilderness. The stirrings of industrialization created the con-
ditions for the emergence of a mass base for revolutionary doctrines
that had been worked out by the Russian intellectuals in the
opening years of the 20th century. Ambitious and gifted young
men like Lenin, Lunacharsky and Trotsky could find a base
and frame for realistically tackling the issues of Marxian prognostics,
relating to the actual business of organising a proletarian insurrecťon.
More and more groups of young Russian intellectuals began to
understand that Russian historical development will have to pass
through the same trajectory as elsewhere in Europe, and that Russia
like other countries would have to go through the capitalist phase of
development before creating a socialist society. And that the
industrial proletariat and not the peasants would be driving force in
the coming socialist revolution ; workers, power and not the
peasant commune would be the fulcrum of social change in Russia.
Reared in the tradition of Russian revolutionary movement

in infancy to absorb the most advanced ideas of the West E
enlightenment, the younger generations of Russian Marxism
opening year of 20th century, found themselves living in a tu
epoch. They lived remarkably well in those turbulent even
made a tryst with the destiny of Marx's prophecy. They n
paid back a debt which the Russian revolutionary tradit
incurred by learning from the West, but trailed a brillian
for the entire toiling humanity moving in search of the path
emancipation. The different expositions of why, how an
kind of revolutionary upheaval occurred in Russia in Octob
display not only a diversity of approaches but also a variation
judgement. A work, published sometime back, has brou
in one volume the entire range of this intepretative variety.1 T
unfolds as wide a spectrum as to include in it such varying sha
interpretation as: a non-class modernization theory, a the
circumstantial causation, an anti-Soviet theory of conspiracy, a
of uneven and combined development, a theory of gamble
default, and a theory that holds October Revolution to be a
Marxist revolution, A sober and level-headed historiograph
reveal that the historical determinants of the Bolshevik revolution were
shaping for over a century and that those determinants dramatically
surfaced in October 1917 as linkage of ideas, mean and situational
propitiation. Integration of Marxian prognosis with Russian revolu-
tionory tradition and its linkage with situational configuration caused
by the First World War led to the October upheaval.
Tsarist Russia was a vast land that spanned an immense terrain

of two continents stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean
and from Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea. In between these distant
frontiers lay a continent, one sixth of the globe. Tall pine trees that
stand still in heavy snows, the birch trees that rustle their silvery leaves
in sunshine, wide and flat rivers that flow through the Russian grassy
plains, the mighty rivers that roll to the Arctic. Such is the Russian
landscape where 150 million people - slavs, Baits, Georgians, Armen-
ians, Uzbegs and Tartars-lived in cities, towns and villages on the eve
of the Russian Revolution. Thjs mass of humanity belonged to various
1 Med I in, Virgil D: THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION ( Illinois , The Dryden

Press) 1974.
epochs of cultural evolution. The most advanced and the most

archaic clusters of human progress lived in each other's vicinity. This
humanity worked all summer before the winter would transform the
Russian earth into a frozen wasteland. People of this vast land-
mass made a tryst with history in the twentieth century by unleashing
an unprecedented experiment of social engineering that opened a
new. epoch in world history. But before the twentieth century opened
its floods-gates of wars and revolutions, Tsarist Russia was considered
to be a conservative preserve of social stagnation and political
reaction.
This very Russian State and society from the 16th century onward
turned out to be the most disturbed segment of humanity. Russians
were actually living on a volcano and beneath their feet lay an abyss,
filled with boiling lava which bursted on a number of occasions.2
Uprising of Stephan Rezin in 1670-71, Pugachev mutiny in 1773, the
Decemberist uprising of 1825, the terror and violence of Norodnic
youth, upheaval of 1905 and finally the February and October
revolutions of 1917 marked the growing linear rhythm of insurgence
in Russian history.
While the history of Tsarist Russia records a long cycle of peasant

protests and uprisings, the modern era of Russian revolutionary politics
begins with the Decemberist uprising of 1825. From that date begins
the permanent split between the revolutionary masses led by the
progressive intellectuals and the Tsarist government in Russia. The
split remained unhealed over a century and the dichotomy was
finally resolved on the basis of proletarian seizure of power in 1917.
The dynamism that Peter the Great had once tried to inculcate in the
Tsarist polity had long exhausted and it could never be revived in
Tsarist Russia. That made the Russian revolution inevitable. A land
whose people had been subjected to a long siege of backwardness took
a long leap. With the whip of a historical disadvantage, a condemned
life of primitive existence compelled the Russian intellect to assimilate
the material and cultural conquests of the advanced capitalist nations
to take a long jump of social advance. Russian revolutionary cycle
that began with Decemberist uprising of 1825 and closed with October
Revolution of i 9 17 was a long exercise in that historical long jump.
2 Pokrovskii, M N: RUSSIA IN WORLD HISTORY (The University of Michi-
gan Press) 1970 p. 89.
This cycle embodies a panoramic travelogue of a single idea of ski

over hurdles and pitfalls of western capitalist path of develop
through a political long jump. It constitutes the main interest of
modern Russian history.
This is not to suggest that October Revolution led by Len

theory of revolution was a peculiarly Russian phenomenon. L
vision basically remained internationalist and global. This is tr
every phase of his career. In Marx's vision of modern prole
politics, global human scene is considered as a unified area wh
single gigantic struggle encompasses many individual and nat
components. Marx did not keep any issue limited to a na
framework. He could always discern a single thread conn
an issue with tens of events in all parts of the globe. Lenin
inherited and cultivated this Marxian streak of global vision
could keep itself completely free from national prejudice and
In Lenin's vision Russia's destiny was only a single element
world gigantic struggle for the remaking of human life. And yet
possesses a Russian dimension. Only a man of Lenin's stature
inspire and lead the October Revolution. Of all his cont
araries Lenin alone could build a bridge between the Russian
tradition of revolutionary politics and international socialist
ment. He could do so since he had an organic bond with the m
stream of Russian revolutionary tradition. Lenin's brother was a
Norodnic martyr. Blood of a Russian revolutionary connected Lenin
with native springs of revolutionary action. His revolutionary
career recapitulated and condensed the entire past development of
Russian revolutionary politics. In that sense Lenin had a profoundly
national profile and the entire course of Russian national history
prepared before hand His revolutionary profile.
In no other country is the like of the 19th century Russian

Social Radicalism found asserting itself so consistently and doggedly.
In Russia, generation after generation, groups of dedicated intellec-
tuals stormed the Tsarist autocracy and broke their heads against its
walls. The Decemberist rebels in the twenties, and circles that
gathered round Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky and other revo-
lutionary intellectuals held the Tsarist Russian political and social
structure to be obsolete, barbarous and a stupid monstrosity and they
totally dedicated their lives to destroy it.
Nineteenth century radical thought in Russia was shaped by

those very intellectual currents which swept West Europe and gave
birth to Marxian socialism. Hegel, Feuerbach, Saint-Simon, Fourier,
Robert Owen, Adam Smith, Ricardo, Proudhon and such other
precursors of Marxian dialectical vision had entered Russia and
influenced the formation of a revolutionary movement. Belinsky,
Herzen, Dobrolyubov, and Cherneshevsky represent the most eminent
intellectual tradition of nineteenth century Russia. They represent
the best of Russian journalism, literary criticism, and philosophy in
the nineteenth century. They created th» movement of Russian
populism -Norodnism. Norodnism was neither Ta single united
political movement nor a coherent body of doctrine. It was a wide-
spread radical movement. The intellectuals who created this move-
ment had absorbed and assimilated the cultural conquests of
Western Europe quite creatively. Stimulated to follow the de-
veloped West Europe, populist revolutionaries of the nineteenth
century backward Russia just did not slavishly imitate the
West. They enjoyed what Trotsky calls the privileges of
historic backwardness which permitted them or rather compelled
them to adopt whatever was ready in advance of their own
times, in order to skip a series of intermediate development
stages*. Norodnic theorization relating to the possibility of
«kipping over intermediate steps and reaching post-capitalist
phase directly was historically speaking quite premature but
that was certainly a first rate intellectual achievement of the
nineteenth century. Russian revolutionary intellectuals represen-
ted by a whole series of stalwarts like Belinsky, Herzen, Dobro-
lyubov, Bakunin and Chernyshevasky were thus^the forerunners
of Plekhanov, Martov and Lenin. The progenitors of those
later Russian revolutionaries were the men who led the Decemberist
uprising of 1825.
Revolutionary Ethos in Literature
The entire drift of the ethos of Russia's creative literature was

in the direction of revolutionary freedom. The pre-revolu-
3 Trotsky's theorization about the law of uneven and combined development

was strongly rooted in the writings of Belinsky, Herzen and Chernysbevsky. See
Trotsky, L: THE HISTORY OF RUSSIAN REVOLUTION (London, Pluto Press)
1977, pp. 25-27 (first edition. 1930).
tionary Russian literature has often recorded the premonition

ethos of the coming revolution. Anton Chekhov, one of the
politically involved Russian writers has rendered in almost. a ly
expression the deeply felt Russian -longing for the happiness
joy the coming revolution would bring. Many of Chekhov
characters often speak about the life not as it is, nor as they thin
ought to be but as they see it in their dreams. And in their dr
they do not seldom see the vision of future life. Like prisoners cas
to a deep, empty well, they know not where they are, and what aw
them. All is hidden from them, yet they are confident that in t
cruel struggle with the devil they are destined to conquer. ( Sea Gu
One of Chekhov's characters predicts that their Cherry Orcha

was bound to become happy, rich and prosperous. Chekhov fe
moon of happiness was bound to cheer the Cherry Orchard. He f
coming. He could hear its footsteps. And if he and his conte
poraries could not hear or see, how did it matter ? Others would
after them. ( The Cherry Orchard )
Chekhov could feel an avalanche moving down upon Russ

mighty clearing storm which was coming. It could blow the lazin
the indifference and the rotten boredom out of Russian societ
another twenty five or thirty years every one will have to work
Russia. In years to come life on earth will be unimaginably beaut
and marvellous. The present seemed hateful to Chekhov, bu
could see a light that was dawning in the distance. He could se
freedom coming. ( Three Sisters )
Marx and Russia's Destiny
Marx and his comrade-in-arms, Engels had a praxis-centric vi

which incorpórated a variety of ideas and blue-prints of social en
neering. Marxian vision is an exercise of overcoming the dist
between is and ought. The assertion of man's creativity and abili
intervene consciously to change the course of social life is th
of Marx's revolut onary vision. This vision is a praxis of soc
engineering which integrates proletarian hegemony in mult
alliance with revolutionary peasants and oppressed nations.
was therefore concerned with the multiplicity of revolutions
bourgeois, the proletarian* the peasant and the nationa
could not afford to have one single blue print for revolutio
It is a vulgar interpretation of Marxism that treats Marx's thought as

a simplistic economic determinism according to which revolutionary
transformations in the social process take place as straight and instant
reflect of vulgar belief. Marxian vision of historical progression
stresses the dynamic unity of casual determinism and conditional
determinism. Marx's philosophy of history is actually a theory of
social initiative in terms of the situational possibilities. He has
often been credited with the discovery of the so-called law of
inexorable and inevitable stages of human development in which
unavoidable and long-term growth of capitalism is taken for granted.
A careful reading of Marx's writings will show his vision of
historical development in a much more subtle and complex colour.4
Marx and Engels were a pair of exceptionally gifted globe-

watchers of the nineteenth century, who had a sharp nose for
minutest prospect of a revolutionary outburst in any Part of the
world. They had an unusually sharp propensity for a sensitive
comprehension of the symptoms of imminent social upheavals. In
their final view, Russia turned out to be one of the storm centres of
world revolutionary process that needed to be watched.
Initially both Marx and Engels had a very poor opinion of

the Norodnic enthusiasm about to the prospects of Russian revolut-
ion. In one of his letters Engels in (1852) ridiculed Herzen
for his belief that Russia with her roots in primitive communes was
bound to bring socialism to Europe. Engels dubbed it as a "Pan-
Slavist dodge of turning the ancient slavic commune into Commu-
nism".
When in 1868 Marx learnt that Das Capital was being printed in
Russia, he confessed a surprise. In a letter to Kugleman he wrote:
"It is an irony of fate that these very Russians with whom I have
quarreled for twenty five years, have turned out to be my patrons...
Russians always run after the most extreme ideas that the West has to
offer".6 In 1881 in a letter to a young Russian Marxist, Vera Zasulich,
4 This aspect of Marx's philosophy of history has been very ably discussed by
Horowitz, David: IMPERIALISM AND REVOLUTION (London, Allen Lane)
1969.
5 Nevskii, V.l: OCHERKl POISTORI RUSSISKOI KOMMUNISTICHESKI PART

II (Petrograd) 1923, Vol. I. p. 177.
Marx conceded that he had been finally convinced that the

commune was the point ď appui for social regeneration in Russ
were purged of certain deleterious influences that assail it f
sides.6
The so-called inconsistencies of Marx allegedly found in his

ments of contemporary Russian development, if closely ex
would appear to be a practical man's concern with meeting the
ing situational possibilities. Marx in the Communist Manifes
had declared that the communists would turn their attention c
to Germany because that country was on the eve of a bou
revolution that was bound to be carried out under the more advanced
conditions of European civilization. Marx's prediction for Germany
contained an insight relating to a historical breakthrough that could
be exercised by way of a leap. Lenin acted at * Marx's behest when
he resolved to organize the October Revolution. A closer acquain-
tance with Marx's actual observations regarding Russian contempo-
rary scene would make this point more vivid and clear. It will also
reveal many interesting facets of the Russian revolutionary travelogue.
Marx and Engels on Russian Prospects7

1 853
Engels to Joseph Weydmeyer

Mandiester April 12, 1853
Internal movements in Russia, a revolution in Petersburg started by
the aristocracy and bourgeoisie with an ensuing civil war inside the
country, is quite within the realm of possibility. Mr. Herjen made
the problem much easier for himself. For in the Hegelian manner
he projects a democratic -social - communist - proudhonist Russian
republic headed by the triumvirate of Bakunin - Herzen - Golvin, so
that it can't ¿o wrong... .
1 859
Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle
London, February 4, 1859

Russia is fortified by the prospect of an internal agrarian revolution.
6 Wilson, Edmond: TO THE FINLAND STATION (New York, Doubleday Anc-

hor Books) 1940, p. 348.
7 Marx & Engels : SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE (Moscow, Progress) 3rd

edition, 1975, pp. 69, 107, 241, 282, 289, 348, 361-63.
1871
Marx to Sigfrid Meyer
London, Jan. 21, 1871
at the beginning of 1870 1 began "to study Russian
also wanted to familiarise myself with the

of Cherry-Shevsley (who was as a reward se
mines where he has been serving him for
The intellectual movement now taking pla
the fact that fermentation is going on deep
are always connected by invisible thread
people.
1875
Engels to August Babel
London, Oct. 15, 18
should focus our attention remains Russia... It almost looks as if the

next dance is going to start in Russia ..
1877
Marx To F. A. Sorge
London, September 27, 1877

This crisis in new turning point in European history. Russia... has
long been standing on the threshold of an upheaval, all the elements
of it are prepared...
The upheaval will begin secundum artem (according to the rules of

the game) with playing at Constitutionalism and then there will be
a fine row. If mother Nature is not particularly ill-disposed towards
us, we shall live to see the fun.
The stupid nonsense the Russian students are perpetrating is merely

a symptom* worthless in itself. But it is a symptom. All sections
of Russian society are full of decomposition, economically, morally,
and intellectually.
This time the revolution begins in the East, hitherto „the unbroken
bullvvařk and reserve army of counter-revolution...
/ 884
Engels to Vera Ivanova Zasuli eh

London, March 6, 1884.
...What you tell me about the increasing study in Russia of books

on socialist theory has given me great pleasure. Theoretical and
critical thought, which has almost vanished from our German sc-
hools, seems to have taken refuge in Russia.
1885
Engels to Vera Ivanova Zûsulich

London, April 23, 1885.
I am proud to know that there is a party among the youth of Russia

which frankly and without equivocation accepts the great economic
and historical theories of Marx and has definitely broken with all
the anarchist and also the few existing Slavophil traditions of its
predecessor... It is an advance which will be of great importance
for the revolutionary development of Russia.
What I know or believe I know about the situation in Russia make
me think that the Russians are approaching their 1789. The
revolution must break out there within a given time; it may
break out any day. In these circumstances the country is like a
charged mine which only needs a match to be applied to it. Es-
pecially since March 1 3*. This is one of the exceptional cases where
it is possible for a handful of people to make a revolution, i.e., by
giving a small impetus to cause a whole system, which (to use a me-
taphor of Plekhanov's) is in more than liable equilibrium, to come
crashing down, and by an action in itself insignificant to release
explosive forces that afterwards become uncontrollable. Well, If
ever Blanquism -the fantastic idea of overturning an entire society
by the action of a small group of conspirators- had a certain raison
ď etre% that is certainly so now in Petersburg. Once the spark has
been put to the powder, once the forces have been released and na-
tional energy has been transformed from potential into Kinetic
(another favourite image of Plekhanov's and a very good one) - the
people who laid the spark to the mine will be swept along by the
explosion, which will seek its vent where it can, as the economic
forces and forces of resistance determine.
Suppose these people imagine they can seize power, what harm does
it do ? ... people who boasted that they made a revolution have
* On March 13, 1881 Alexander II was killed.
always seen the day after that they had no idea what they were
doing, that the revolution made did not in the least resemble the
one they intended to make. That is what Hegel calls the irony of
history, an irony which few historical personalities escape...
To me the important thing is that the impulse in Russia should be

given, that the revolution should breakout. Whether this faction
or that faction gives the signal, whether it happens under this flag
or that is a matter of complete indifference to me. If it were a pala-
ce conspiracy it would be swept away tomorrow. In a country where
the situation is so strained, where the rovlutionary elements have
accumulated to such a degree, where the economic conditions of the
enormous mass of the people become daily more impossible, where
every stage of social development is represented, from the primitive
commune to modern large-scale industry and high finance, and
where all these contradictions are arbitrarily held in check by an
unexampled despotism, a despotism which is becoming more and
more unbearable to a youth in whom the dignity and intelligence
of the nation are united - when 1789 has once been launched in such
a country, 1793 will not ba far away"...
Historical conditions were working for the outbreak of a prolet-

arian revolution ever since the rise of capitalist servitude. Beubef-led
conspiracies of the 'Society of Equals' in France, Chartist movement
of England and the uprising of the Paris commune indicated the
ascending graph of the proletarian protest movement in the pre-
October era. These earlier proletarian movements were the har-
bingers of the great storm that burst out in Russia in the wake of the
first World War. Lenin and his comrades who were in the centre of
this storm could turn the situational tide into a socialist revolution
because a century old tradition of a revolutionary vision had prepared
them to take the tide of Russian affairs at its flood point and move
to fortunes. Lenin certainly had fraternal bonds with the interna-
tional revolutionary Marxism, but he also had ancestral ties with
Russia's century old revolutionary tradition.
Back Drop of Decemberist Ideas

"Dear friend have a faith : The wakeful skies presage a dawn of
wonder - Russia shall from her age-old sleep arise - " (Pushkin, 1818)
Neva's banks that skirted the city of Petersburg had been rocked
several times by the eruption of revolutionary zeal of Russian youth.
When on 25th October 1917 (old style) a cruiser named Aurora fired
the salvoes and announced the dawn of a successful proletarian revo-
lution, a revolutionary cycle of Russian history came to a

point of completion. The vicinity of Peter-Paul fortress
Senate Square of Peter had resounded with similar noise of
some ninetytwo years back.
Uprising of 14th December 1825 set of the spark that l

the whole Russian history on fire. A strange group of men w
organised secret societies among the officers of the Imperial
army had staged an uprising against the Tsar; it was attempte
section of the Russian aristocracy, many of whom had par
in the anti-Napoleonic, war. The war had generated a hig
nationalist feeling among the various sections of Russian peop
they felt like putting aside their sectional enmities and exp
rare moments of patriotic fervour. The most enthusiastic am
patriotically inspired youngmen were the army officers w
quite forgot those exalted moments. Aftermath of Napole
had provided them with an opportunity of three years sojourn
During their stay in Paris some of the Russian army offic
impressed by the French life still suffused in the spirit of the
tion the French nation had lived in the recent past. W
men of Paris still cherished the memory of the martyrdom o
revolutionaries as Babeuf and his comrades of the Society o
In 1797, Babeufs society of equals had plotted an insurrection
against the men of property and issued a manifesto that
raised the question of building a planned society based on
national community of goods". "Society of Equals" was sup
by Napoleon and Babeuf was guillotined. But the defence w
put forth at his trial was an impressive document the full text
was not disclosed to the world for almost a hundred years. Th
of Babeufs defence, however, trickled far and wide. Russian army
officers returning from anti-Napoleonic campaign brought in their kit
* grains of new radical ideas inspired by Babeufs example. Among
such army officers was one Pavel Pestel who had cultivated most of
the emerging revolutionary ideas. During Pestel's stay in France
the intellectual atmosphere was shaping in the direction of romantic
clamour for socio-economic measures that would redress the miseries
of the poor. Sismondi's New Principles of Political Economy was
imparting a Utopian socialistic flavour to intellectual ferment in Paris.
He was arguing for an extensive State Intervention to establish
in economic life the natural and health standards which the spontan-
cous process of capitalist development was constantly undermining.3

Sismondi's new economic doctrine was an intellectual acknowledge-
ment of the still glowing embers of a suppressed fire of Babeuf's
ideas.
The Decemberist rebels were recruited from the ranks of the

Russian army as well as from the free thinkers of the Masonic Lodges
which functioned as secret societies where men inspired by the
ideas of service and charity met and made plans. This movement
called Free Masonry flourished in Russia, was suppressed from time to
time by the Tsarist police; yet it continued to enlist a wide range of
adherents. In 1822, the Tsar prohibited the running of such lodges.®
The aftermath of Napoleonic war in Russia was marked by the

formation of new secret societies. The Union of Salvation (St.
Petersburg, 1816), Union of Public Good (St. Petersburg, 1818), The
Southern Society of Ukrain (1822), 'The Northern Society (St.
Petersburg, 1822), and the Pan-Russian Society of the United Slavs
(1825) constituted the network of secret societies that engaged the
youthful energies of Russian army-officers who were deeply attached
to the cause of emancipation. The ideas that gripped the youthful
minds of the revolutionaries comprised a mingling of humanitarian
philanthropy, the philosophy of the European enlightenment and a
romantic aesthetics that preached freedom from the thraldom of
medieval tyranny. Among the army officers returning from France,
Colonel Pavel Pestel was the most intelligent and visionary activist
who can be identified as the earliest prototype of the future figures
of Russian revolutionary1 movement. Pavel Pestel was the chief
organiser of the secret society called the Welfare Union. This young
Russian army officer was of German descent. Educated at Dresden,
he had a distinguished military career. His chief claim to a plaçe in
Russian revolutionary history, however, rests on his reputation as the
inspirer of the Decemberist uprising and as the author of Russkaya
Pravada , the first comprehensive exposition of a revolutionary
doctrine in Russian letters. The radical ring of Pestel's ideas was
8 Nikin, A: A SCIENCE IN ITS YOUTH (Moscow, Progress) 1975, p. 288.
9 Westwood, J N: ENDURANCE AND ENDEAVOUR , RUSSIAN HISTORY

18,2.1917 (Oxford University Press) 1973, p. 33
10 Masaryk, T.G: THE SPIRIT OF RUSSIA , Vol. I, (London, George Alien &
Unwin) 1919, p.100.
acknowledged by the revolutionaries of the next generation of

history; Herzen called him "A Socialist before socialism".10
Among the secret bodies, the Southern Society led by Pestel

acquired a strikingly well- formulated action programme. Pe
his revolutionary associates regarded the programmatic fram
of Russkaya Pravada as a basis for Russia's transformation.
flavour of thoroughness and Russian enthusiasm for the new
truth characterized the rhetoric and style of Russkaya Pravada
secret treatise was a sort of Russian constitution that would be
mented by the post-revolutionary regime. In Pestel's words
"an announcement to the nation of what it would be liberated from
and what it could expect.11 Intellectual stance of Russkaya Pravada
was the Russian version of the western social radicalism that had
sprouted in the wake of French revolution; Russian radicalism had
its local peculiarities and colouring. It shared the enthusiasm of
Western radical thought for philosophic speculation, legislative
wisdom and reconstructive energy. Pestel's Russkaya Pravada
contained a Russian version of this radical programme for social
reconstruction. The substance and theme of Russkaya Praavda were
anticipated in a series of articles that Pestel had written under the
influence of Sismondi's Principles d'economie politique .
The Russkaya Pravda contemptuously branded the parliamentary

institutions of England and France as cover up for the domination
of the upper class and as such not worthy of revolutionary goals. It
also rejected any scheme of federal organization as utterly ruinous
and evil for Russian people. It however entitled Poland to a status
of independent state in view of its size and historical past. The title
Polish Independence was however subject to a condition that its
political system would be organised on the Russian model and its
aristocratic and other feudal privileges would be abolished. Pestel's
Russkaya Pravda , the main doctrinal legacy of the Decemberist move-
ment, had spelt the sociological goal of their movement in the follow-
ing words : -The state organization's true aim must necessarily be ;
the greatest possible happiness of the greatest number."
10 Masaryk, TG: THE SPIRIT OF RUSSIA Vol.1, (London, George, Allen &
Unwin 1919, p. 100
11 Quoted by Ulam, Adam B: LENIN AND THE BOLSHEVIKS (Glasgow, Fon-

tana) 1975. p. 31.
GENETICS OF RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONARY VISION, 1825-19 17 559
The most radical provisions of the Russkaya Pravda related to the

proposed structural changes in the Russian agrarian system. Pestel'i
proposed solution of agrarian question raises him above the bourgeok
democratic vision of the French revolution and lifts his agitation
from a liberal reformist type into something of a revolutionary move-
ment. Pestel re-examined the entire problem of agrarian law from the
standpoint of a principle that inside the state all men must form a
single estate. Equal distribution and collectivism were the twin
principles of Pestel's scheme of agrarian reorganisation. Reviewing
the contemporary opinions on the question of land relations, Pestel
observed :
"Some say earth is the common property of the entire human race and
not of private owners. It cannot therefore be divided among a few
men to the exclusion of others.. .Others object that work is at the origin
of all property and that the man who cultivates the land, farms its
different products must have exclusive right of possession."
Pestel then seeks to reconcile these two extreme positions. He
envisages an agrarian system in Russia that would incorporate the
wisdom of both positions. His scheme proposed to integrate the right
to life contained in the first theory with the right of earning reward
contained in the second one. Pestel proposed the motto : "We must
consider granting the necessity of life to every one ; at the same time
we must create plenty".1* In his scheme of agrarian reorganisation
Pestel proposed to divide the land in each district into two parts. The
first of these would constitute common land, and the other would
consist of private land. Common land would belong collectively to
the entire community of each district. Private land would belong either
to the sta£e or to private persons -to create plenty. Pestel proposed to
link the re-distribution of landed property with the traditional Russian
custom called obschina whereby common lands were periodically
redistributed in Russian villages. The obschina delinked from the
earlier rural structure was to function as the fulcrum of new social
change. A recent study has rightly detected the early bearings of
agrarian socialism in Pestel's plan.1* Abolition of serfdom and class
differences based on birth, nationalization of land and its redistribu
tion, and right of self-determination to a subjugated country like
12 Pestél, P. I: RUSSKAYA PRAVDA (Hamburg) 1930, pp. 203-3.
13 Venturi, Franco: ROOTS OF REVOLUTION (London, Weidenfeld & Nicol-
son) 1960, p. 7.
Poland were sufficiently radical elements that entitled Pestel to

remembered as a socialist before socialism.
The idea of individual's sacrifice for the people, the principle of

building a bridge between the enlightened elite and the peasantry by
means of sacrifice, constituted the important elements of the ideology
of the Decembrists who sought to overthrow the existing political
regime. The aims of the secret societies that organised the
Decembrist Uprising were in the beginning quite vague and ill-defined.
They comprised a mingling of humanitarian philanthropy, the
philosophy of enlightenment and designs to work for political and
social freedom. Pestel's Ruskava Pravda -Russian Truth- however
summed up the general drift and direction of the Decembrist pro-
gramme. The work was circulating secretly all over Russia. When
the Decembrists were put on trial, Pestel's work was discovered.
Tsar Nicolos I was frightened by the content of Pestel's work and he
considered the document such a dangerous piece that he did not allow
it to be seen even by the Committee of Inquiry. He ordered its burial
in a secret and sealed,, archive. It was finally discovered and printed
after the revolution of 1905. But the ideas of Pestel's document did
travel all over Russia and these very ideas were articulated in the
writings of the later day Russian Norodnic thinkers.
Among the leaders of various other secret societies, Pester»

radicalism was not shared by many. Nikita Muraiev and Sergey
Trubetskoy for instance favoured liberal form of constitutional
monarchy and they were willing to leave the entire settlement to a
constituent assembly. Despite these differences they decided to join
hands with Pestel to plot an insurrection on 14 December 1&5.
Decembrist Uprising 1825
Nicolas Karamzin, a noted Russian historian bad, in 1811, presen-

ted to Tsar Alexander a sharply worded portrait of the contempo-
rary Russian scene. He had warned the Tsar that Russia was seething
' with dissatisfaction, that the people had no confidence in the govern-
ment and that they were condemning its aims and policies.14
14 Riha, Thomas (Ed) READINGS IN RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION, Vol. II (Uni-

versity of Chicago Preis) 1969, p. 282.
Fourteen years after these words were written, the popular dis-
content against the Tsarist regime burst into an armed insurrection in
the wake of Alexander's death in 1825. By a queer coincidence
that was also the year of Peter the Great's death centenary. Peter
was Russia'^ first princely statesman who looked ahead of his time.
The Decembrist uprising was perhaps a proper tribute the Russian
history paid to Peter's memory in the year of his centenary.
The protagonists of this uprising were the leaders of the secret

societies that had sprung up in all parts of the Russian empire.
These leaders were also the Kindred spirits of early Russian enlighten-
ment and literary florescence. Michael Bestuzhev-Rumin, one of the
Decembrist leaders testified at the time of his trial that he acquired
liberal ideas while reading the works of Voltaire, works on Roman
Law as well as political economy. He told his prosecutore that he
heard everywhere the verses of Pushkin which were read with enthusi-
asm.15 Similarly Pavel Pestel in his testimony before the court told
his prosecutors that a survey of the events of his time would show
how many thrones were toppled. He asked his tormentors to look
at the global scene and note that theirs was a century of revolutionary
ideas. If they could see, they would observe the same thing, from
one end of Europe to the other -the spirit of revolution.11
Bestuzhev-Rumin, Muraev and Pavel Pestel were the ring leaders

of the various secret societies that were planning the overthrow of
Tsarist regime. Variance of ideological positions pulled these
societies in different directions. Except the Southern Society led by
Pavel Pestel, most of the other societies did not have any clearly
defined social objectives. A vague feeling of humanitarian philanth-
ropy and romantic philosophy of enlightenment, however, united them
in a common bond ; and by 1825 Muraev and Pestel were convinced
that a military coup was the only way to overthrow the existing
regime. The sudden demise of the Russian emperor Alexander I
followed by a dynastic crisis offered an excellent opportunity to the
revolutionary leaders. A joint consultation between the leaders of
Northern and Southern Societies was held and a plan for military
15 Raef, Marc: THE DECEMBRIST MOVEMENT (Engel wood Cliffs, N.J.) 1966,
OP. 56-57.
16 Riha, op, ci/., p. 296
revolt in St. Petersburg was drawn up. A most daring attempt

made on 14 December 1825 in the Senate Square near Peter's st
The attempt failed, yet it opened an epoch of revolutionary battle
Russian history.17
Emperor Alexander's death led to a crisis of dynastic success

on account of the extraordinary arrangement that the childless
ceased emperor had made regarding the imperial succession. T
heir-presumptive Grand Duke Constantine had to renounce his rig
to the throne to get the dispensation to divorce his earlier wife
marry a commoner in 1820. The succession was therefore dec
in favour of the youngest brother Nicholas. This odd arrangem
however was not announced and the concerned manifesto was
deposited in a sealed envelop in the Moscow Uspensky Cathedral and
copies were entrusted to the State Council, the Senate and the Holy
Synod with the instruction to open the sealed envelop upon
Alexander's death. Nicholas and Constantine were both aware of the
arrangement. Nicholas was unpopular with the army and the guards.
The Senate and the Council of State were also not very enthusiastic
about him. Following Alexander's death, the Russian capital
and army rushed to swear allegiance to Constantine. The Grand Duke
Constantine, in Warsaw at that time, honoured his ^commit-
ment and reaffirmed his renunciation of the imperial title in favour
of his younger brother Nicholas, who was hesitating to administer the
oath of allegiance to the army and the court. A great confusion,
exciement and uncertainty prevailed in St. Petersburg following Alex-
ander's death on 19 November 1825. In those days of excitement
and uncertainty the leaders of the Secret Societies resolved to plot
the regicide and seizure of power. It was resolved to capture the
Winter Palace, to surround the Senate and force it to proclaim a
Manifesto to the Russian people announcing the abolition of
autocracy and serfdom aud formation of a republic.
On the morning of 14, December 1825, the Moscow Regiment

led by Alexander Betuzhev, a naval column under Nikolai Bestuzhev,
and a regiment of Granadiers, took up positions under the statue of
17 For a good account of the Decembrist Uprising following works may be con-
■ulted: Raeff, op. cit.; Riasanovsky, Nicholas: A PARTING OF WAYS (Oxford)
4976 and HISTORY OF THE USSR , Part I (Moscow) 1977.
Peter the Great, opposite the Senate building. The new Tsar however
had already got the smell of the plot. He had moved into action even
before the insurgents could strike. Pavel Pestel could not make hi»
appearance in the Senate Square for he had already been put under
arrest. The rebels could muster only a little over one thousand men
and in the short mid-day hours of 14 December they found themselves
surrounded by the Tsar's loyal troops. The immediate objective of
the rebels was to prevent the Senate and the army from taking the
oath and compelling the Senate to declare Russia a Republic.
The plan could not be carried out as most of the troops obediently
took the oath and swore allegiance to the new Tsar. About 3,000 men
led by 39 officers however marched into the Senate Square and
shouted in favour of Constantine's succession. The rebel leaders
were confused and proved ineffective in executing their plan. In the
meantime the Senate and the State Council had gone ahead with the
swearing in ceremony. The Tsar, who had got the prior intelligence
about the proposed mutiny had moved 10.000 loyal troops to the
Senate Square. The Tsar's artillery opened fire at the insurgents.
Many of them were killed and wounded. Those who could
run fled across the ice on the Neva. The civilians who had come to
the Senate Square to watch the event had already disperssed though
some workers near the Cathedral of St. Isaac threw stones at Nicholas
I, the new Tsar and his suite. The St. Petersburg uprising of
14, December 1825 was miscarried. A mutiny in the south was
attempted within a few weeks' time but it proved as futile as that
in St. Petersburg. The new Tsar dealt ruthlessly with the rebels.
Over 600 people were arrested and interrogated, and more than 120
were put on trial. Pavel Pestel, Seroji Muraiev, Mikhail Bestuzhnev,
Kondraty Ryleyev and Pyotr Khokovsky were executed; and over a
hundred were exiled to Siberia.
Failure of the Decembrist Uprising

Measured in the scales of Russian revolutionary history, the
Uprising has been underassessed as well as overassessed. One
Russian historian has gone to the length of saying that properly
speaking there had been no uprising at all because the conspirators
having gathered several regiments of guards on the Senate Square
refrained from attacking the government troops, and firing back when
they were attacked. The author of this assessment however acknow-
ledges that the Decembrist conspiracy had an exceptionally

significance for the development of the ideology of the R
intellgentsia18. The most sensitive young men and women o
fater generation in Russia began to believe more and more
words of Pushkin that "from the spark (of 1825) shall com
flame" of revolution.
Despite their failure to bring down the old regime, the Decem-
brists succeeded in sowing the seeds of revolutiouary thought and
action that were destined to grow and blossom in the Russian youth-
ful hearts. Pesters Russkaya Pravda -Russian Justice- that spelt out
a blue-print for the transformation of Russian life on agrarian
utopean socialist lines remained the main doctrinal legacy of the
Dcccmbrist movement. In Herzen's words the guns in St. Issac's
Square awakened a whole generation. Recalling his early child-
hood impressions about the Decembrist uprising Herzen later wrote:
"The stories of the revolt and the trial and the horror seized Moscow,
shook me deeply. A new world opened for me and became the centre
of my spiritual life. The execution of Pestel and his comrades woke
me forever from my youthful dreams".19
Towards Populism
In between the Decembrist uprising and the October Revolution,

there intervene many sparkling curves and brilliant careers of revolu-
tionary tradition. The main interest of the intervening period is
provided by the doctrine of Norodnichesivo , i.e., Populism and the
spread of the network of revolutionary organisations such as Zemlya-i -
Volya (Land and Liberty), Norodnaya Volya (People's Liberty).
Norodnichestovo or Norodnism is a term derived from the movement
in the student and intellectual circles of Russia in the mid-nineteenth
century called norod , a romantic movement of young intellectuals to
go among the rural people. The Russian peasants however refused
to respond to their call for revolution. The movement was a frustrat-
. ing experience for the Russian radical intellectuals. They turned to
the path of individual terrorism and eventually a section among them
18 Pokrovskii, M. N: RUSSIA IN WORLD HISTORY (The University of Michi-

gan Press) 1970, p. 94.
19 Quoted by Venturi, Franco: ROOTS OF REVOLUTION (London, Weidenfeld

& Nicolson) 1960, p. 2.
turned to Marxism. Norodnism thus bccamc a prelude to Bolshevik

brand of Russian Marxism.
Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Bakunin and host of other

Russian writers of this period impress us by the astonishing combina-
tion of literary and theoretical talents in their writings: Hegelian
idealistic dialectics, utopain socialistic vision, classical political
cconomy, Marxian historical dialectics and other attainments of
Western culture got filtered in Russian letters.
Russian revolutionary thought was immersed in the literary

scientific and artistic culture of West Europe. Russian populism
participated in the intellectual world of the Age of Reason and Revo-
lution. French Socialism, British political economy and German
philosophy loomed large, yet Russian revolutionary thought possesses
a distinct colour and hue. Russian populism was born on the battle-
field and not in the aristocratic saloons and clubs. Whereas the pre-
Marxian enlightenment expressed the class interests of the rising
bourgeoisie the Russian enlightenment of the nineteenth century
reflected the position of the oppressed humanity. Russian thought
traversed the same curving line of the West European enlightenment,
yet the prophetic vision of Russian populism was quick to grasp the
fact that socio-political forces of Europe were drying up in an epoch
of bourgeois ascendancy.
Bakunin
Michael Bakunin (18 14-1 876) and Prince Kropotkin (1842-1921)

were the two most arresting and romantic figures of world anarchist
movement. Their participation in the revolutionary politics was more
global than Russian. Prince Kropotkin was more a theorist and
traveller than a revolutionary agitator. He wrote some interesting
anarchist tracts and returned to Russia in June 1917 and watched
with interest the Russian revolutionary development and pcacefuliy
died in 1921. Michael Bakunin led a fantastically rich life of a
romantic revolutionary and his life remains an interesting enigma of
nineteenth century socialist history. Escaping from the Tsarist
prisons, Bakunin led a stormy life trying to cook up rebellions in more
than half a dozen states. Till he breathed his last, an undiluted
programme of revolution that touched political, social and national
566 ÎNDTAN JOURNAL OF POLTTICAL SCIENCE
issues continued to torment his restless soul. His shopping list

long. Kings and emperors were to be dethroned, capitalist topdo
were to be destroyed, unjust imperial complexes were to be dissolve
and a federation of free republics was to be setup. His grandio
presence in most of the European capitals won for him great ovatio
from the cheering crowds and expulsion from the rulers.
Bakunin rubbed soulders with Marx, Engel», Mazinee and a
great many figures of his time» and ended his relations with
most of them in bitter quarrels. He wrote and spoke what was
written and spoken by Proudhon and Marx earlier. The words he
wrote and spoke invariably harped on a single idea that the state was
the force by which the propertied classes keep the people docile and
enslaved. The state must be destroyed so that the slumbering popular
creativity would be awakened, and organization of society on the
basis of cooperative confederacy set up. These were the bubbles
of ideas out of which Bakunin wanted to build the castle of
world revolution. Bakunin summoned the rural poor, lumpen prole-
tariat from the cities and the middle class youth to organise a series
of insurrections that would set up a global alliance of free states.
Bakunin could sway his audience wherever he spoke but could not
build a national base for his revolutionary anarchist politics. He
remained a guest artist of European revolutionary movement. Yet
he remained an admirable figure of his times. He thought
and acted in terms of continents and epoch. Before Lenin made his
mark on world politics, Bakunin was the first Russian revolutionary
who had a global profile. *•
Decembrist Space-Out
All those who made a significant contribution to Russian culture

in the nineteenth century were children of the Decembrists. Ideas
and movements that grew in the later part of the nineteenth century
had their spiritual origin in the 'Decembrist' legend. Thinkers
Belinsky, Herzen, Dobrolyubov, Petrashevsky, Chernyshevsky, agita-
tors Peter Lavrov, Michael Bakunin, Sergy Nachaev, Peter Tkackev
and organisations Narodnaya Volya (People's will) Zembya-i-Volya -
(Land and Freedom) were all Decemberist by inspiration. Populist
20 For a biographical profile of Bakunin see Carr, E. H: MICHAEL BAKUNIN

(London, Macmillan) 1937.
phase of Russian Socialism was native bred and internationally

inspired at one and the same time. A passionate interest in the ideas
of Hegel, Fichte, Schilling, Feuerbach, Robert Owen, Saint Simon and
Fourier, coincided with the Narodnik messianic faith that Russian
nation would chart out a different path than the one chosen by the
West European countries. Populist phase of Russian socialism mani-
fested a twin rebellion against Tsarist autocracy and Western bour-
geois liberalism Mid-nineteenth century Russia was one of the least
industrialised states in Europe. Industrial proletariat did not exceed
3 per cent of the Russian population. The case of the oppressed
during this period was therefore overwhelmingly that of agricultural
serfs and poor peasants. Norodnik thinkers and revolutionaries
were the champions of the rural proletariat. While they drew their
untopias from the writings of the Western European thinkers, their
model of social experimentation was perfectly Russian. They believed
that the essence of a just and equal society already existed in the
Russian peasant commune- the Obschina organised in the form of a
collective institution called Mir . They proposed to erect a socialist
society based on Russian Obschina and Mir. They were averse to
the development of large-scale centralised industry. They wanted
to escape the path of capitalist development which they believed
would lead inexorably to the degradation and dehumanisation of
society. They insisted that Russia must avoid the Western European
despotism of a centralized economy adopting a self-governing scheme
of rural orientation. Not opposed to Western science and technology
they held that Russians should not pay the price that Western Europe
had paid for industrial development. In short, populists opted for the
preservation of Russian peasant commune and extension of its princi-
ples to industrial production. They stood for learning from the
scientific advances of the West without repeating the miseries of
capitalist industrialization. Herzen, the intellectual founder of
Russian Norodnism, put the crux of his social philosophy in the
following words: "Human development is a form of chronological
unfairness, since late-comers are able to profit by the labours of their
predecessors without paying the same price". Cherneshevsky put
it in the same strain: "History is fond of her grandchildren for it offers
them the marrow of the bones which the previous generation had
burnt its hands in breaking".21
21 Venturi, op cit„ p. xx.
Russian Populism displayed an amazing awareness of binding

together in one, two seats of different matters such as the overthrow
of absolutism and the socialist revolution. Plekhanov, the father
figure of Russian Marxism had derided this populist "madness" to
envisage the prospect of Russian development wherein the overthrow
of autocracy and socialist revolution would coincide. Must or must
not Russia go through the school of capitalism ? Must Russia pass
through all the phases of European development, or will her life
proceed according t© other laws? This was the major question
debated by Russian Populist writers all through the mid-nineteenth
century; and all. of them denied the necessity for repeating the West
European model of social development. Peter Tkachev who opted
for the technique of Russian Jacobinism had engaged Fredric Engels
in a controversy over the prospect of a socialist revolution in Russia.
In his open letter to Engels, Tkachev spells out his argument: "What
are the chances ?... We have no urban proletariat, that is true, but,
on the other hand, we have no bourgeoisie at all". Our people arc
communist by instinct. Russian people are instinctively revolutionary
It is Russia's backwardness which is her great fortune, at least from
the revolutionary point of view. In the West, the Social order is
based on a wide support Of the middle class. In Russia this class is
just coming into existence. What holds things together in our
country ? Just the state, i.e., the Police and army. What is needed to
make this state fall into fragments ? Not much: two or three military
defects... some peasant uprising... open revolt in the capital"."
Marx Comes To Russia
Marxism entered the mainflow of Russian radical politics when

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party was formed in 1898. Plek-
hanov who had broken away from the Norodnik movement was the
moving spirit behind this mobilization. As early as 1879 a secret
conference of the Norodniks meeting at Vorenezh had split into two
groups. One stuck to the traditional agrarian views; the other, led by
George Plekhnov, soon began to graft the ideas of Western industrial
socialism on the Russian revolutionary movement. Plekhanov
pioneered the truly Marxian renaissance in Russian philosophy, socio-
22 Plekhanov. G. I: SELECTED WORKS (Moscow, Progress) 1974, Vol. I, pp.

158-159.
GENETICS OF RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONARY VÍSIOV, 1825-1917 569
logy and politics. In the debate that Plekhanov conducted with the
Norodniks, a confident prediction was made about the inevitable
capitalist invasion of Russian social life and the destruction of the
primitive rural communes in its wake. An urban industrial working
class was about to grow and revolutionaries must turn their attention
to the industrial working class, he pleaded. Plekhanov also
disapproved of the technique of terror adopted by the Norodniks,
and proposed preparations .of mass working-class struggle
against autocracy. Russian Marxism naturally had to encounter
a dilemma in its revolutionary prognostics and praxis. In Western
Europe, workers were being reused by Marxism to overthrow
capitalism, whereas in Russia, all hopes rested on the growth of
capitalism. A "Manifesto of the Russian Social Democratic Labour
Party" after referring to the "Life-giving hurricane of the 1848
revolution which had blown over Europe fifty years before", noted
that the Russian working class entirely deprived of what its foreign
comrades freely and peacefully enjoy - a share in the administration
of the State, freedom of the spoken and written word, freedom of
organization and assembly. These were necessary instruments in
the struggle for workers' final liberation from private property"."
Despite their personal participation in the revolutionary events

of their times, Marx and Engels could not engineer any actual
proletarian uprising in their life time. All through their life, events
and situations slipped out of their hands and they remained isolated
figures in the contemporary politics. The capitalist development and
the world robbery that followed created a layer of the privileged
jabour aristocracy among the working men of Europe. That resulted
in the slackening of the revolutionary instinct of the workers. The
immediate next generation of Marxism witnessed imperialist
consolidation and growth of working class parties in a period of
relative lull and stagnation. Karl Kantsky and Plekhanov, the most
accomplished Marxist intellectuals of this period of relative lull,
however, succeeded in deepening and enlarging the intellectual
horizon of socialist scholarship. Yet they were taken unaware by the
changing climate of world capitalism that was surging with impetuous
technological reforms and human turbulence at the same time. The
23 Carr, E. H; THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION (London) 1954, p. 47.
younger generation of Marxism represented by Lenin, Tr

Rosa Luxemberg proved wiser in sensing the dramatic shifts
taking piace in the global politics and economics. They d
strategy and tactics of the coming revolution.24 The Russian
to be the fulcrum of Marxian engineering of the next ge
Russia, though a backward agrarian society, was fast catching
of industrial capitalism. Russia experienced a relatively qui
of industrial capital and labour. The growth of industrial
and the emergence of Marxian socialist thought together
a new genre of political activists in the last decade of th
century -the genre of self-conscious working class revolu-
tionaries. Russian Marxism represented a new bearing of the
revolutionary intellectuals who discovered people not in the
peasant masses but in the [factory workers.25 It originated in
the disenchantment that a section of Norodnic revolutionaries
experienced in their .life-process. Georgi Plekhanov (1858-1918)
broke with the Narodonic organization 'Land and Liberty'-
4 Zamlya Volyď and embraced Marxism during his sojourn in Geneva.
In the prisons and the Siberian camps of Tsarist Russia and in the
exile colonies of Europe, on the streets of St. Petersburg and in the
slums and bylanes of Russians industrial towns, the leaders of the
Revolution developed their theories and organisations. They hotly
debated the issues that raised dust in their heads and storms in their
tea-cups resulting in splits and seperations. The main split led to the
Bolshevik-Menshevik division among these revolutionaries. The splits
and seperations were followed by regroupings and reunions
Plekhanov, Martov, Lenin and Trotsky were the leading theoreticians
who talked, wrote and campaigned for their respective positions.
These leading lights of Russian Marxism were ably flanked by such
talented peisons as Sverdalov, Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamanev and
Lunacharsky.
Towards A Bolshevik Vision
Bolshevism as a distinct political trend emerged in the Russian
24 A perceptive analysis of the generational growth of Marxism is attempted in

Anderson, Perry: CONSIDERATIONS OF WESTERN MARXISM (London) 1979.
25 For a study of the economic development of pre-revoluti onary Russia see
Lyashchenko, Peter: HISTORY OF THE ECONOMY OF RUSSIA TO THE 1917,
(Ntw York, Macmillan) 1943,
Social Democratic Party in 1903 when Party split between

Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Before the 1903 Congress, Russian
Marxism had to wage and win three ideological battles. As against
the Norodniks, Russian Marxists considered the proletariat and not
the peasant as the driving force of the coming revolution, as
against the legal Marxists they preached revolutionary and socialist
action and as against the so called "Economists", they put forward
in the name of the Proletariat political as well as economic demands.2*
In 1903 afresh controversy engaged the Russian Social Democratic
Party and this time the controversy split its ranks into Bolshevik and
Mcnshevik Wings. Two distinct and opposite ideas about the
structural character of the Party divided the party. Lenin insisted
that only professional revolutionaries, those who are engaged in the
underground apparatus of the Party should be regarded as
members of the Party. Lenin wanted to build up a
coherent, closely knit, and highly centralized body endowed with
unfailing striking power. Menshevik opponents of Lenin accused
him of betraying Marxism and embracing Blanquism. Lenin wanted
to build the party as an istrument of revolution, and he preferred a
split in the organization on this issue. Apparently it seemed that the
shape of that instrument was a matter of controversy. It was taken
for granted that they shared a common perspective about the nature
of the revolution they were bound to accomplish. Bolshevism
and Menshevism, however, turned out to be two distinct perspectives
about the nature of Russian Revolution itself. Bolshevism as a
revolutionary trend in Russian, Marxism grew as an alternate perspec-
tive to Menshevik orthodoxy which neglected and ignored
the possibility of the proletarian hegemony over the democratic
Russian struggle turning the revolution into socialist channels.
Lenin was a revolutionary long before the 1905 revolution but

his concept of the upcoming revolution was crystalised only when he
began to analyse the components of the unsuccessful revolution of 1905.
Lenin's analytical framework relating to 1905 enabled him to grapple
with the situation that came in the wake of the first world war. His
April Theses of 1917 were anticipated in a subtle iranner by Leon
Trotsky's writings relating to 1905 Revolution. In the Menshevik
26 Carr, THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION op. cit., p. 47.
572 INDÍAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
perspective Marx wat alleged to bave opted for a schcmeof

tionary development in industrially advanced France and E
Lenin closely examined the Menshevik argument and »bowe
Marx's own writings indicated more than one perspective of
tionary possibilities. As early as 1848 Marx had stated in Com
Manifesto : Communists turn their attention chiefly to G
because that country is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution
is bound to be carried out under more advanced conditions of
European civilization and because the bourgeois revolvtion in
Germany will be the prelude to an immediately following proletarian
revolution.27 His forecast of a proletarian revolution immediately
following a bourgeois revolution in Germany went wrong. Marx's
assignment for German proletariat proved in Lenin's hand a fore-
acknowledgement and anticipation of the Bolshevik revolutionary
strategy in 1917. Lenin's April Theses were anticipated by Marx's
final observation about the prospective German revolution : Germany
will not be able to emancipate itself from the Middle Ages unless it
"emancipates itself at the same time from the partial victories over the
middle age".2# Marx kept nobody in doubt about the limitations of
bourgeois parties in revolutionary mobilization against the feudal
despotic regimes. He held that none of the bourgeois parties had
any desire to revolutionise all of society, they only wanted to make
their own position in society more comfortable and to consolidate
the conditions of capitalist rule. Marx therefore evokes the prolet-
arian "enthusiasm" to make the revolution permanent, until all more
or less possessing classes have been displaced from the domination,
until the proletariat has conquered state power. Lenin opted for this
vision of Marx.
October Revolution
The backdrop -for the Bolshevik-led October insurrection was

provided by the scenes of war-weary soldiers fleeing the front, industry
in disarray, agricultural crops neglected for want of rural labour driven
to the war front. That was a situation wherein a determined militant
minority could turn the history by winning over the majority of the
27 Ibid., p. 58.
28 David Horowitz's article ^'Marxism and Revolution' in Lutz, William and

Brent Harry (eds) : ON REVOLUTION (Cambridge) 1971.
people for a revolutionary way out of the crisis. Men and women,
standing up in queues for bread, rioted in most of the cities. Workers
joined their ranks. February Revolution took every one by surprise.
It was a spontaneous outburst of popular anger. 'It had been the
child of no party'.**
It was on the streets of Petrograd that the fate of the Tsarist

regime was sealed. On the 8th of March 1917, on the occasion of
the International Women's Day, over a hundred thousand striking
factory workers blocked the streets of Petrograd, shouting for bread
and freedom. The Tsarist regime eollapsed under the pressure of the
workers anger. The downfall of the Russian Emperor released a train
of consequences that has affected the entire course of contemporary
history. The suppressed desires and the accumulated anger of the
Russian people were released and all sorts of political and social
issues came to the fore demanding immediate as well as long term
solutions.
The February Revolution brought into being the Dual Power of

the provisional Government and the Soviet. The Soviets were revived
in almost all the cities, towns and even villages all over Russia.
'Power was lying in the street it was any one's to take it.'8* Bolsheviks
seized it by proclaiming the slogans that masses could fully appreciate
and support -peace, land and bread, and all power to the Soviets. By
September the sharp sighted observers could feel the thrill of the
situation that called for an armed uprising. As one observer noted :
'The mass lived and breathed together with the Bolsheviks. It was
in the hands of the party of Lenin and Trotsky'.*1 The mounting
series of political crises convulsed Russia into a tumultuous process
of revolution when most of the established institutions of power and
property were broken down, when the long pent up grievances and
29 Williams, Albert Rhys : JOURNEY INTO REVOLUTION PETROGRAD
1917-1918 (Chicago, Quadrangle Book) 1969, p. 26. Together with John Reed's
TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD, Albert Rhys Williams' book captures
the surging drama of the Russian revolution. Their accounts present the most
authentic confrontation of the revolutionary events that the two young and
sensative American journalists experienced on the spot.
30 Ibid p. 27
31 Ibid p. 52
frustration of the Russian nation were suddenly released, when the r

ing class fumbled on account of the mismanaged war and finance, the
appeared a strange group of men who had consciously awaited su
a critical moment and had worked for it. At the congress of Sov
io June, a minister of the Provisional Government bad challenged an
political group to come forward and dare to take power in its ban
Lenin rose from a corner and told the house that there was such a
party that would take Russia out of the prevailing conditions of
anarchy and build a new and more effective authority."
Lenin -Dreamer and Tactician
Making a revolution calls for high gift of artistic activity. Lenin

was a creative architect of history's first successful socialist
revolution. He regarded Marx and Engels as masters of proletarian
revolutionary thought but his politics was not founded on ritua-
listic learning and repetition by rote of Marx's formulae. For Lenin,
dialectics was the soul of Marxism. Unity of Marxian prognostics
and revolutionary praxis was his chief concern. In^ the thick of
the events of the proletarian revolution, when his own trusted
comrade, Kamanev, taunted Lenin that call for Proletarian revolution
militated against the earlier Bolshevik positions which did not
anticipate in Kamanev's view a democratic revolution , taking a
socialist turn, Lenin retorted, "Theory, my friend, is grey but green
is the eternal tree of life." For Lenin eternal tree of life could
blossom into a proletarian revolution on account of the unprecedented
social forces released by the first world war. He consigned those
doubting Thomases who questioned the wisdom of proletarian con
quest of power in the midst of backward cultural conditions to th
archives of pre-revolutionary antiques. Kamanev, who otherwise
had consistently been with Lenin in earlier controversies, opposed
Lenin's plan for proletarian conquest of power in the name of earlier
Bolshevik theory that proletarian revolution will have to wait till the
bourgeois-democratic tasks of the Russian revolution were fully
fulfilled. Lenin answered Komanev with a dialectical logic: "The
Bolshevik slogans and ideas in general have been fully corroborated
by history but concretely things have turned out differently than
32 Daniels, Robert V.: RED OCTOBER , (London, Seeker & Warburg) 1967 p. 17.
could have been anticipated.. .They are more original, specific, more
variegated." Lenin's concern was more with the concrete things
than with abstract theories. He was a Marxist of a special mould.
He differed with Menshevik version of Marxism concerning
planning and organizing the practical business of proletarian revolu-
tion. He interpreted Marx's concept of conditional perspective
of historical determinism in an interview that he gave in London in
1902: "The Menshtíviks think that history is the product of material
forces acting through the process of evolution. I think with Marx,
that man makes history but within the condition and with the
materials given by the contemporary civilization and man can be a
tremendous force."
Architectonics of socialist revolution is not a play of blind forces.

Socialist revolutions are in a way preconceived blue prints plastically
rendered in terms of human engineering. Perspectives alone don't
make revolutions. Ever since the launching of Communist Manifesto
in 1848, world working class movement was equipped with a revolu-
tionary perspective. The Communist Manifesto had granted a
historical sanction to proletarian insurrection against the bourgeois
establishment. A series of revolutionary insurgencies broke out in
various parts of the world. Paris Commune and abortive Russian
Revolution of 1905, though suppressed, vindicated the perspective
of the Communist Manifesto. The honour of initiating history's first
successful Socialist revolution, however, goes to the Russian working
class.
Orthodox Marxism of George Plekhanov and Karl Kautsky must

have shuddered to note that Lenin, who hardly had any global repu-
tation at that time had the audacity to organise an international con-
ference at Zimmerwald and issue a call to the proletariat to stand on
the ground of international solidarity of working men against war.
From Zimmerwald Manifesto to April Theses, Lenin was moving with
speed and audácity to transform the war into a civil war. He did
not miss the possibilities of revolutionary options. He had been '
preparing for the October insurrection. All the major works that
Lenin wrote invariably touched the issue of organising a revolutionary
overthrow of the feudal bourgeois order. 'What the Friends of
People Are', 'What Is To Be Done', 'Two Tactics of the Social
Democracy', 'One Step Forward Two Steps Back', 'Imperialism',

'State and Revolution', and 'Left- Wing Communism' -all these work
of Lenin contain an armed vision that sought to invoke, regulate an
institutionalise the revolutionary instincts of the working ' m
His armed vision was not just a plaything of audacious spec
lation; it was backed by a creative capacity to play the game o
situational possibilities
Lenin was away from the epicentre of Russian revolutiona

upheaval in February 1917, yet he was fully alive to the potentialit
thrown open by the spontaneous outburst of revolutionary energy
the millions of Russian toilers. He had succeeded in creating a
centre of dedicated revolutionaries that could intervene in the course
of a revolution which began in February 1 9 1 7 as a single democratic
revolution against Tsarist autocracy and feudal backwardness. The
Bolsheviks led by Lenin threw their lot in such a way that this
revolution was stopped from stabilising itself and was directed to
develop into a proletarian conquest of power. Lenin could achieve
this feat because he was already working for it. In his work
'Imperialism', Lenin had described the epoch of imperialism as epoch
of wars and revolutions. While embarking on his journey to insurgent
Russia, in his Farewell letter to Swiss workers Lenin transmitted new
tidings of the time -the arrival of the epoch of proletarian revolution.
When Lenin left Geneva for Petersburg to write thei well

known April Theses , he was still torn by doubts and uneasiness about
the real prospects of a proletarian revolution in Russia. In his Fare-
well letter he wrote : "Russia is a peasant country, one of the
most backward of European countries. Socialism cannot triumph
there directly at oncc ..The Russian proletariat single-handed cannot
successfully complete the socialist revolution. But it can lend such
a sweep to the Russian revolution as would create the most favourable
conditions for a socialist revolution, and in a sense start that revo-
lution. It can render more favourable the conditions under which
its most important, most trustworthy and most reliable coadjutor the
European and the American socialist proletariat will undertake its
decisive battle"." Even after the successful proletarian revolu-
33 Mill. C. Wright : THE MARXISTS (Penguin) 1973, p. 230-
tion Lenin cautioned his audience that soon after the victory of the
proletarian revolution in at least one of the advanced countries, "a
sharp change will probably come about : Russia will cease to be the
model and will once again become a backward country in the Soviet
and the Socialist sense'*.
Lenin's career is a combination of a passionate dreamer and sober

tactician. Lenin's constant advise to the revolutionaries - "Live im
the thick of things. Know the mood of the people, know everything.
Learn to understand the masses" - underlined the Marxist concept of
dialectical tie between popular spontaneity and revolutionary conci-
ousness. One of the traits that distinguish Lenin from contemporary
Menshevik Marxists pertains to his continuous search for a
concrete theory of revolution. Lenin discovered the law of revolution
making not in a Geneva Library but in the thick of revolutionary
outbursts in Russia in 1905 and 1917. He had resolved not to
allow a revolutionary situation to slip from hands. Lenin had
actively worked for ushering in a revolutionary situation and he
deftly handled such a situation when it arose in Russia in 1917.
Lenin believed and experience vindicated his belief that revolu-

tions are attended by dramatic changes in the psychies of individuals,
masses of people, and in those of entire nations. "Every revolution",
he explained, "means a sharp train in the lives of a vast number
of people... And just as any turn in the life of an individual teaches
him a great emotional stress, so a revolution teaches an entire people
very rich and valuable lessons in a short space of time. During a
revolution, millions and tens of millions of people learn in a week
more than they do in a year of ordinary life".14 .
In Aprii Theses Lenin had worked out the next strategy of

Russian proletarian politics. Socialism was to be grafted on backward
Russian soil. In September 1917 Lenin gave the signal. He cautioned
his comrades that the crisis was ripe and the hour of the insurrection
had approached. Lenin impressed upon his comrades to grasp the
elements of the developing revolutionary situation in Russia. The
34 Quoted by Porshnev, B: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL AND HISTORY

(Moscow, Progress) 1970, p. 41.
ruling classes had landed in a blind alley on account of the unresolv

problems of war, land and national liberation. The awakened ar
no longer wanted to fight for alien aims of imperialism; peasa
were out in arms against the landlords, and oppressed nationalities
Tsarist Russia were willing to support the Petrograd Soviet.
Chain breaks at its Weakest Link
The first world war drew into its maelstorm nations at diffe-
rent stages of development. Burdens of war exposed each nation to
the cataclysmic force of social dynamics. Tsarist Russia was the
weakest link in the world capitalist chain. It was the most backward
nation among the great powers involved in the war. Industry shared a
small place in Russian economy in comparison with agriculture, the
city in comparison with the village, the proletariat in comparison with
the peasantry. That meant a low productivity of national labour. This
backward aspect of Russian economy was accompanied by an unusual
feature. In the absence of highways, Russia was compelled to build
railroads. Russia was forced to mechanise its production without
a European type of artisanry and manufacture. The social structure
exhibited a similar paradox in Russian development. It was European
finance capital that accelerated the tempo of Russian industrial
development. Against a weak Russian capitalist class that depended
on foreign patronage, a strpng proletariat with national roots among
the people had sprung up in Russia. The young, fresh, determined
Russian proletariat constituted only a tiny minority of the people.
The Russian peasantry, living in half serfdom and the oppressed
nationalities of the Tsarist empire provided the revolutionary reserves
for this revolutionary class.
The agrarian and national questions thus provided the subsoil of

the proletarian revolution in Russia. Thirty thousand big landlords
were holding major portion of land acreage in Russia's rural sector.
Peasants' hunger for land made them the natural allies of the
proletariat. The Kerensky regime failed to solve the agrarian question.
It did not dare to lift its hand against feudal property and thus
delivered a social force to the proletariat. In autumn 1917 the entire
Russian countryside was the scene of peasant rebellions. The flames
of burning villages lit up the areas of proletarian uprising in cities.
Oppressed nationalities of Tsarist Empire provided the second reserve
of the ^Russian proletarian revolution. The Bolsheviks led by Lenin

gave a call for self-determination to the oppressed nationalities of the
empire and won them over to the cause of revolution. Revolutionary
peasants and oppressed nationalities thus poured into the stream of
October upheaval.
The upheaval in October was preceded by Bolshevik prognostics.

Lenin's theory of October revolution was not a casual composition
shaped cx-post-fäcto. Lot of premeditation and anticipation had
gone into the making of October Revolution. Russian Social
Democratic circles inevitably tumbled at a vantage point from where
they could grasp the destiny of the revolution. The revolutien for
which the Russian social democrats were working was in its first sweep
anti-feudal and anti-monarchic. The Russian bourgeoisie by its
cowardly disposition was not capable of leading such a revolution.
The victory of the revolution could be assured only by a prolet-
arian bid for forcible overthrow of Tsarism. The virtue of
Lenin's vision, however, consisted in his insistence that the proletariat
will not stop at the programme of bourgeois democracy but it will
go on to the programme of socialism. The Bolshevik prognostics,
however, was coupled with artistic engineering of an armed insurrec-
tion on 7 November 1917 (New Style). Lenin's plan for armed
uprising was not based on anarcho-terrorist model. He based his
theory of insurrection on socio-psychological actualities of Russian
life. War has exhausted Tsarist Russia; It had taken a heavy toll
of Russian manhood; At the end of 1916 Tsardom heard its death
knell. Strikes and demonstrations culminated in a spontaneous uprising
that forccd the Tsar to abdicate and a Provisional Government
began its existence amid popular enthusiasm. The Provisional Govern-
ment was willingly supported by Petersburg Soviet. Soviets had
sprung into, existence in all the towns of Russia. Soviets were the
people's parliament par excellence in that a Soviet was a popular asse-
mbly from which propertied classes had been excluded. Soviets were the
broadest and the most representative bodies that Russia had in 1917.
Emergence of Soviet was an unprecedented phenomenon of Russian
history. From the first hours of its existence Petersburg Soviet wielded
a political authority that was due to its genuine popular base. Pro-
visional Government could not carry out a single important decision
without endorsement by the Petersburg Soviet. Lenin based his
580 INDIAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCH
revolutionary strategy on the real possibilities of Soviet support

the armed uprising. Before Lenin could convince the Petersbur
Soviet about the necessity of carrying out a socialist revolution
had to carry his own party with him. On 3 April 1917 Lenin
returned to Petersburg from his foreign hideout. He jotted down
ten theses and presented them to the Bolshevik conference as a new
charter of Bolshevism. He admitted that Russia considered in
isolation from the rest of Europe was not ripe for a socialist revo
tion; but Russia could make a beginning in a European Socialist
revolution. Many of his comrades taunted that Lenin was lapsin
into Trotsky's ideas. Despite such grumblings, Lenin carried the
bulk of his party with him.
February Revolution of 1917 that overthrew the Tsarist autocracy

was less planned and grew more spontaneously than October
Revolution of 1917. The February Revolution represented the con-
sensus of ail shades and generations of Russian revolutionary thought
and action. The proletarian seizure of power was an agenda of
Russian history that was not given any serious thought by the non-
Bolshevik elements. The inner logic of the revolution, however,
made February Revolution a prelude to the one in October.
The impulses of social upheaval that put the power in the hands of
the Soviets in October 1917 were inherently present in the February
of 1917 also. The eight months that intervened between February
and October, however, stirred those currents and ferments of social
ideas and popular initiatives that were needed for the release of the
proletarian revolution.
The approach of the moment of revolutionary seizure of

power marked a regrouping of men that had been talking about
revolution and also working for vit. Trotsky who had a non-Bolshevik
past, but who remained a consistent theoretician of the .proletarian
seizure of power was admitted to the Bolshevik Party and in Lenin's
words 'there was nobody more brilliant Bolshevik than Trotsky during
the days of the October Revolution'. From among the old Revolu-
tionary Norodnic ranks the Left-Wing Social Revolutionaries willy
nilly threw their lot with the Bolsheviks.85 Maria Spiridonova, the
35 Steinberg I. N.: IN THE WORKSHOP OF THE REVOLUTION (London,

Victor Oollancz) 1955, p. 41.
legendary figure among the left-wing Social Revolutionaries

concorded with Lenin to visualize what had been consistently
pondered in the Norodnic theories -Russia's destined role to trans-
cend the boundaries of bourgeois freedom. He could monitor
such strange figures as Leon Trotsky and Maria Spiridonova to the
tune of the vibrant music of the October revolution.
A point has been raised relating to the indispensable role of Lenin

in the organisation of the October Revolution. It has been suggested
that if he was not allowed to proceed in a sealed train to Russia
in March 1917 by the German War Office, the fate of the Russian
revolution would have traversed a different line of progression. *• The
entire drift of the Russian situation on the eve of October 1917 was
however searching for a daring bidder. And if Lenin were not to be
found physically present in Russia, there was plus chance of some one
else in the ranks of the Russian revolutionary leadership coming out
with the same theory and call that Lenin's April Theses presented.
Lunacharsky who had described Trotsky "as no chick but eagle that
had entered the history of the Bolshevik party somewhat unexpectedly
but with instant brilliance",37 would have made some additional
startling notings relating to the October Revolution.
A band of well-organised disciplined dedicated revolutionaries

trained and nursed by Lenin finally made conquest of power in
Russia on 7 November 1917 (New Style). The Bolshevik conquest
of power was based on an armed uprising. The organ of the insurrec-
tion was not a clandestine self-appointed group or clique of conspira-
tors but a body openly elected by broad representative assemblies
called Soviets. It was the second All-Russian Congress of Soviets
meeting in Petersburg that sanctioned the armed uprising. From 3
April to 7 November 1917, Lenin was hectically active in carrying
his own party and the broad sections of Russian people for the cause
of a proletarian revolution. He succeeded in this venture on the
basis of a confident anticipation of popular need of the Russian pro-
36 Russel, Bertrand : FREEDOM AND ORGANIZATION 1814-1914 (London,
George Allen & Unwin) 1914.
37 Lunacharsky, Anatoly V: REVOLUTIONARY SILHOUTTES , First published

in Moscow 1919, Later Allen Lane Penguin, London 1967, p. 59.
lctariat. Through incessant agitation and propoganda, Bols

succeeded in transforming their slogans and call into the slogan
calls of the Soviet power that had sprung up all over Russia. W
peasants and soldiers' Soviets, led by Bolsheviks resolved to ove
the provisional government for its. failure to solve the pro
bread, land and peace.
National and International Elements
It has been argued that in organising the October revolution

Lenin adopted the technique of Russian Jacobins, Tkaschev and his
followers who had learnt it from Blanqui or Bournarroti more than
any to be found in the writings of Marx and Engels. An objective
account of the October revolution belies this argument. The most
indubitable feature of the October revolution was the spontaneous
and direct participation of the toiling masses in the historic event of
the socialist revolution. Millions of workers, peasants and soldiers
at that crucial movement of the October uprising swept aside the
historical irrelevance called Kerensky government and created the
Soviet power. Bolsheviks led by Lenin went to Russian toilers with a
political programme that stood the test and the approval of the masses.
Lenin was a general of an army that was self-recruited. Norodnik
revolutionaries were generals without an army; they were
revolutionaries without any revolutionary class behind them. The
small conspiratorial groups of Norodniks used to keep the huge
empire in suspense; they electrified the political atmosphere. Yet
they failed to rouse the Russian peasants on whose behalf they were
acting. The Norodniks inspired by Herzen and Chernyshevsky were
the militant champions and vanguard of Russian peasantry yet, the
rural masses hardly responded to their call. Revolutionary generation
of Plekhanov, Martov and Lenin decided to look beyond peasantry
for support. They got their support among the new factory workers
that had sprung up on the Russian social scene as a result of industria-
lization. Lenin, in the long run, went beyond Plekhanov and Martov
by creating a political party of a new type that alone could ensure a
successful termination of the popular uprising. Theoretical foundation
of a democratic centralist party was laid by Lenin; and the actual
business of building up such a party was also accomplished by
him In this sense Lenin made a departure from Russia's révolu-
tionary tradition. Lenin absorbed what was vital and dynamic in

native revolutionary tradition. Norodnic sensitivity towards peasantry,
Norodnic spirit of defiance, boldness and determination influenced
the shaping of Bolshevism. The real achievement of Bolshevism,
however, lies in the acclimatization of Marxism to Russian surround-
ings. Lenin made a correct assignment to the social classes. In his
vision, workers' hegemony over the Russian revolutionary movement
was to be accomplished on the basis of multiple alliance of workers
with peaseants and oppressed nationalities. And such a multiple
alliance was to be worked out by a vanguard composed of trained
and intellectually advanced professional revolutionaries. October
Revolution was a concrete materialization of Lenin's vision. The
vision was an acknowledgement of Russia's indebtedness to west
European contribution to revolutionary thought. Lenin himself
makes this point clear : "In the course of about roughly from the
1840s till 1890s, progressive thought in Russia searched avidly for a
correct revolutionary theory and followed with remarkable zeal and
meticulousness every 'last' word that came from Europe and America.
Russia has indeed come to Marxism through extreme sufferings,
agonies, and sacrifices ...through learning, testing in practice and
engaging in a comparative study of Europe's experience. Because
Tsardom forced us to lead an emigree existence, revolutionary Russia
had at her command such a wealth of international contacts and so
excellent an awareness of all the forms and theories of revolutionary
movements all over the world as no one else possessed". M
In 1917 Lenin and his comrades considered the revolution not as

Russian business alone. They regarded themselves as skirmishers of
a global revolution. This was not outside the framework of classical
Marxism. Karl Kautsky who later renounced revolutionary Marxism,
himself had drawn, as early as 1902, a perspective of Russian revolu-
tion in the following words : "The epicentre of revolution has been
moving from the West to the East. In the first half of the nineteenth
century it was situated in France, at times in England. In 1848
Germany entered the ranks of the revolutionary nations. ..Now the
Slavs join their ranks, and the centre of gravity of revolutionary
38 Deutscher, Isaac: THE UNFINISHED REVOLUTION (Oxford University
Press) 1967, p. 19,
39 Ibid.
5S4 INDIAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
thought and action is more and more shifting to Russia. Russia

having taken over so much revolutionary initiative, from the West,
may now in her turn become a source of revolutionary energy for the
West".89
Lenin's Hint At the Future
By organising the October Revolution Lenin relegated Karl

Kautsky and Georgi Plekhanov into the lumber room of history.
In his later writings Lenin predicted the surprise for thè orthodox
Marxists who had believed that socialist revolutions would break out
only in industrially advanced societies. He asked the Social
Democrats of orthodox creed to bear in mind that the subsequent
revolutions in oriental countries which possess much vaster popula-
tions and a much vaster diversity of social conditions would un-
doubtedly display even greater distinctions than the Russian revolu-
tion.40 Lenin perhaps had China and India in view. China has
certainly gone the way Lenin had predicted. If China could do it, will
India be far behind ? But that is certainly beyond the purview of this
article.
Revolution sans Epilogue
The Russian revolution is yet to write its epilogue. It continues

to haunt the world.41 The ifs and buts and might-have-beens of
Russian history will be debated for a long time. The tragic destiny of
Trotsky and the melodrama of Stalin's coffin will engage the resources
of many future historians. The solid achievements and conquests of
the Bolshevik revolution are some of the important levers of the
historical dynamics of our time. That is so because the men who
led the October Revolution were concerned not only with the
immediate future of their own revolution but equally with the fate
- of the large and growing fraternal contingents of revolutionary forces
all over the world. Lenin even envisaged the possibility that soon
after the victory of the proletarian revolution in at least one of the
advanced countries, a sharp change will probably come about and
40 V.l. Lenin, PRAVDA (Moscow) 30 May 1923.

41 For a perceptive understanding of the fate of the Russian Revolution see,
David Horowitz: IMPERIALISM AND REVOLUTION Allen Lane, The Penguin,
(London) 1969.
GENETICS OF RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONARY VÍSION, 1825-1917 585
then Russia would once again become a backward country in the

Soviet and socialist sense.4*
October Revolution brought the world history on to the

threshold of a new revolutionary epoch dominated by the conflict
between the old capitalist powers and the new liberation movements.
Herzen's prophecy that Russia shall go through socialism to freedom
came true in November 1917. While fulfilling Herzen's behest,
Lenin and his comrades added a postcript to Herzen's prophecy :
Russians would go through socialism to freedom not in isolation from
the rest of the world, not alone. Lenin brought the wisdom of going
through socialism to freedom on the broad avenue of world history,
by invoking the revolutionary energies of the proletarian classes and
nations for making the world safe for human progress.
42 V. I. Lenin: LEFT-WING COMMUNISM -LËNtN, Selected Work*

(Progress» Moscow), 1968 p. 51.

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Indian Political Science Association

GENETICS OF RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONARY VISION, 1825-1917

"And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out

Visions compose a large part of human prognostics and praxis *

phenomenon. Human ideas are always selective, interpretative

The Russian Revolution of 1917 is one of those momentous events

The curvicature of Russian history from 1825 to 1917 records vast

Nicholas's; winter the main events of Alexender's reign were

The Tsarist police state was the target of attack at the

Reared in the tradition of Russian revolutionary movement

Tsarist Russia was a vast land that spanned an immense terrain

1 Med I in, Virgil D: THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION ( Illinois , The Dryden

epochs of cultural evolution. The most advanced and the most

While the history of Tsarist Russia records a long cycle of peasant

This cycle embodies a panoramic travelogue of a single idea of ski

This is not to suggest that October Revolution led by Len

In no other country is the like of the 19th century Russian

Nineteenth century radical thought in Russia was shaped by

Revolutionary Ethos in Literature

The entire drift of the ethos of Russia's creative literature was

3 Trotsky's theorization about the law of uneven and combined development

tionary Russian literature has often recorded the premonition

One of Chekhov's characters predicts that their Cherry Orcha

Chekhov could feel an avalanche moving down upon Russ

Marx and Russia's Destiny

Marx and his comrade-in-arms, Engels had a praxis-centric vi

It is a vulgar interpretation of Marxism that treats Marx's thought as

Marx and Engels were a pair of exceptionally gifted globe-

Initially both Marx and Engels had a very poor opinion of

5 Nevskii, V.l: OCHERKl POISTORI RUSSISKOI KOMMUNISTICHESKI PART

Marx conceded that he had been finally convinced that the

The so-called inconsistencies of Marx allegedly found in his

Marx and Engels on Russian Prospects7

Engels to Joseph Weydmeyer

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle

London, February 4, 1859

6 Wilson, Edmond: TO THE FINLAND STATION (New York, Doubleday Anc-

7 Marx & Engels : SELECTED CORRESPONDENCE (Moscow, Progress) 3rd

Marx to Sigfrid Meyer

London, Jan. 21, 1871

at the beginning of 1870 1 began "to study Russian

also wanted to familiarise myself with the

Engels to August Babel

London, Oct. 15, 18

should focus our attention remains Russia... It almost looks as if the

London, September 27, 1877

The upheaval will begin secundum artem (according to the rules of

The stupid nonsense the Russian students are perpetrating is merely

Engels to Vera Ivanova Zasuli eh

...What you tell me about the increasing study in Russia of books

Engels to Vera Ivanova Zûsulich

I am proud to know that there is a party among the youth of Russia

* On March 13, 1881 Alexander II was killed.

To me the important thing is that the impulse in Russia should be

Historical conditions were working for the outbreak of a prolet-

Back Drop of Decemberist Ideas

lution, a revolutionary cycle of Russian history came to a

Uprising of 14th December 1825 set of the spark that l

cous process of capitalist development was constantly undermining.3

The Decemberist rebels were recruited from the ranks of the

The aftermath of Napoleonic war in Russia was marked by the

8 Nikin, A: A SCIENCE IN ITS YOUTH (Moscow, Progress) 1975, p. 288.

9 Westwood, J N: ENDURANCE AND ENDEAVOUR , RUSSIAN HISTORY

acknowledged by the revolutionaries of the next generation of