HW#6: The Russian Revolution (842-849)

Lenin peace with Germany

He acknowledged that Russia lost the war with Germany. Germany demanded that the Soviet government give up all its western territories, areas inhabited primarily by Poles, Finns, Lithuanians and other non-Russians. At first Lenin's fellow Bolsheviks refused to accept such great territorial losses. But wen German armies resumed their unopposed march into Russia in Feb 1918, Lenin had his way. A third of old Russia's population was sliced away by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed by Germany in March 1918.

Alexander Kerensky

He refused to confiscate large landholdings and give them to peasants, in fear that such an act would complete the disintegration of Russia's peasant army. The continuation of war to him was still a national duty. Human suffering and war weariness grew, testing the limited strength of the provisional government.

Meeting of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in London

Other Russian Marxists challenged Lenin's ideas. Lenin wanted a small disciplined, elitist party dedicated to Communist revolution while his opponents wanted a more democratic, reformist party with mass membership. The Russian Marxists split into tow rival factions. Lenin called his the Bolsheviks or "majority group". His opponents were Mensheviks or "minority group". Bolsheviks had only a tenuous majority of a single vote, but Lenin kept the name for propaganda reasons and they became the revolutionary party he wanted.

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

Pease treaty signed in March 1918 between the Central powers and Russia that ended Russian participation in World War I and ceded Russian territories containing a third of the Russian empire's population to the Central Powers. With peace, Lenin could pursue his goal of absolute power for the Bolsheviks--now also called Communists--within Russia.

February Revolution

Unplanned uprising accompanied by violent street demonstration begun in March 1917 (old Russian calendar February) in Petrograd, Russia that led to the abdication of the tsar and the establishment of a provisional government. This was led by hungry and angry people.

Petrograd Soviet

A huge, fluctuating mass meeting of two to three thousand workers, soldiers, and socialist intellectuals modeled on the revolutionary soviets of 1905.

The Fall of Imperial Russia

Russia had embraced war with patriotic enthusiasm in 1914. Tsar Nicholas II vowed that Russians will not make peace as long as the enemy stood on Russian soil. Russia's lower house Duma supported the war. Conservatives anticipated expansion in the Balkans, while liberals and most socialists believed that alliance with Britain and France would bring democratic reforms. Enthusiasm for the war soon disappeared as German armies inflicted terrible losses for them. By 1915 substantial numbers of soldiers were sent to the front line without rifles. They were told to find rifles from dead soldiers. Russia's peasant army nonetheless continued to fight. The government set up special committees to coordinate defense, industry, transportation and agriculture. These efforts improved the military situation but overall Russia mobilized less effectively than the other combatants.

The reason Bolshevik came to power

1. By later 1917, democracy had given way to anarchy. Power was there for anyone to take it. 2. Lenin and Trotsky the Bolsheviks had an utterly determined and superior leadership which both the tsar and provisional government lacked. 3. Bolshevik policies appealed to ordinary Russians. Exhausted by the war and weary of tsarist autocracy, they were eager for radical changes.

Reason for Bolshevik victory

1. Reds controlled central Russia and the crucial cities of Moscow and Petrograd. 2. Whites attacked from the fringes and lacked coordination. 3. Whites had poorly defined political program of mishmash of liberal republicans and monarchs incapable of uniting the Bolshevik's enemies. 4. The Bolsheviks promised ethnic minorities in Russian -controlled territories substantial autonomy, the nationalist Whites sought to preserve the tsarist empire. 5. The Bolsheviks mobilized the home front for the war by establishing a system of centralized controls called War Communism. 6. Revolutionary terror also contributed to the Communist victory. Lenin and the Bolsheviks set up a fearsome secret police known as the Cheka, dedicated to suppressing counter-revolutionaries. During the civil war, Cheka imprisoned and executed without trial tens of thousands of supposed "class enemies." Victims included clergymen, aristocrats, the wealthy Russian bourgeoisie, deserters from the Red army and political opponents of all kinds. The tsar and his family were callously executed in July 1918.

Problems with Russia

1. Weak leadership. Tsar Nicholas II had complete power over the government and the military. He did not trust the publically elected Duma and resisted popular involvement in government. Excluded from power, the Duma, the educated middle-classes and the masses became critical of the tsar's leadership. 2. In September of 1915, parties ranging from conservative to moderate socialist formed the Progressive bloc, which called for a completely new government responsible to the Duma. In response Nicholas II dismissed the Duma temporarily. He then announced that he will travel to the front line and left his wife in charge. 3. Tsarina Alexandra dismissed loyal political advisers. She turned to her court favorite the disreputable and unpopular Rasputin, Siberian preacher. He was to cure Alexis hemophilia disease, the only son and heir to the throne. Three members of the high aristocracy murdered Rasputin in December of 1916. This further undermined support for the tsarist government. 4. Tens of thousands of soldiers deserted the war. By early 1917, the cities were short of food, heating fuel and the economy was breaking down. In March, violent street demonstrations broke out in Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg), spread to the factories and then engulfed the city. The tsar ordered the army to open fire on the protesters but the soldiers refused to shoot and joined the revolutionary crowd instead. The Duma declared a provisional government on March 12, 1917. Three days later Nicholas left power.

The Russian Revolution of 1917

After the WWI, Russian revolution of 1917 was one of modern history's most momentous events. For some, the revolution was Marx's socialist vision come true, for other, it was the triumph of a Communist dictatorship. It presented a radically new prototype of state and society.

Dictatorship and Civil War

Bolsheviks' great accomplishment was keeping the power it gained. Over the next 4 years, it conquered the chaos they had helped create and began to build a Communist society. Lenin had the genius to profit from development over which the Bolsheviks had little control. In the summer, peasants had seized for themselves the estates of the landlords and the church. So then Lenin mandated land reform, he merely approved what peasants were already doing. Urban workers had established their own local soviets or committees and demanded direct control of individual factories. This too, Lenin ratified with a decree in November 1917. The Bolsheviks proclaimed their regime as "provisional workers' and peasants' government", promising that a freely elected constituent Assembly would draw up a new constitution. But free election led to Bolsheviks winning only 23% of the elected delegates. The Socialist Revolutionary Party (the peasants party) had a clear plurality with 40% of the vote. The Bolsheviks army under the order of Lenin disbanded the Constituent Assembly. By January 1918, Lenin had moved to establish a one-party state.

Vladimir Llyich Lenin (1870-1924)

He became an enemy of imperial Russia when his older brother was executed for plotting to kill the tsar in 1887. As a law student he studies Marxist socialism, which began to win converts among radical intellectuals during Russia's industrialization in the 1890s. Lenin update the Marx's revolutionary philosophy to address existing conditions in Russia. Three concepts were important for Lenin 1. only violent revolution could destroy capitalism. Peaceful revolution would go against Marx's message of violent class conflict. 2. Under certain conditions a Communist revolution was possible even in a predominantly agrarian country like Russia. Peasants could take the place of Marx's traditional working class in the coming revolutionary conflict. 3. The possibility of revolution was determined more by human leadership than by historical laws. He called for a highly disciplined workers' party strictly controlled by a small, dedicated elite of intellectuals and professional revolutionaries. This elite will not stop until revolution brought it to power. Lenin's version of Marxism had a major impact on events in Russia and ultimately changed the way future revolutionaries engaged in radical revolt around the world.

Red terror

Of 1918 to 1920 helped establish the secret police as a central tool of the new Communist government. By the spring of 1920, the White armies were almost completely defeated and the Bolsheviks had retaken much of the territory ceded to Germany under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Red Army reconquered Belarus and Ukraine, both of which had briefly gained independence. The Bolsheviks moved westward into Polish territory but the were stopped in Warsaw by troops under the leadership of the Polish field marshal and chief of state Jozef Pilsudski. This defeat stopped Bolsheviks attempts to spread communism further into Europe. The Russian Civil War was over by 1921. The Bolsheviks had won am impressive victory.

Russian Civil War

People who supported self-rule in November saw that once again they were getting dictatorship. White opposition to the Bolsheviks in southern Russia, Ukraine Siberia and the area west of Petrograd. The Whites were united only by their hatred of communism and the Bolsheviks-the Reds. By the summer of 1918, Russia was in civil war. Eighteen self-proclaimed regional governments several of them represented the minority nationalities challenged Lenin's government in Moscow. In October 1919 Whites closed in on central Russia from three sides and it appeared they might triumph but the did not. Lenin and the Red Army beat back the counter-revolutionary White armies. Red Army had better army and Trotsky's leadership was decisive. In March 1918, Trotsky became war commissar of the newly formed Red Army. He re-established strict discipline and the draft. Soldiers deserting or disobeying an order were shot. Moreover, Trotsky made effective use of former tsarist army officers who were actively recruited and given unprecedented powers over their troops. Trotsky's disciplined and effective fighting forced repeatedly defeated the Whites in the field. Foreign military intervention, Western Allies ( US, Britain, France and Japan) came to help the Whites fight against Reds mainly to stop the spread of communism. Yet their efforts were limited and halfhearted. Westerners were sick of war after the WWI and few politicians wanted to get involved in a new military crusade. Allied intervention failed to offer effective aid to the White. The Bolsheviks appealed to the patriotic nationalism of ethnic Russians who objected to foreign involvement in Russian affairs.

Trotsky and the Seizure of Power

The Bolsheviks greatly increased in their popular support in the summer. Party membership increased rom 50,000 to 240,000. Bolsheviks gained a fragile majority in the Petrograd Soviet. Lenin's supporter Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) brilliantly executed the Bolshevik seizure of power. Trotsky convinced the Petrograd Soviet to form a special military-revolutionary committee in October and make him its leader. Thus military power in the capital passed into Bolshevik hands. On the night of November 6, militants from Trotsky's committee joined with trusted Bolshevik soldiers to seize government buildings in Petrograd and arrested members of the provisional government. They then went to the Congress of Soviets and declared that all power had passed to the soviets and named Lenin head of the new government.

War Communism

The application of centralized state control during the Russian Civil war, in which the Bolsheviks seized grain from peasants, introduced rationing, nationalized all banks and industry and required everyone to work. The leadership nationalized banks and industries and outlawed private enterprise. Bolshevik commissars introduced rationing, seized grain from peasants to feed the cities and maintained strict workplace discipline. These measures maintained labor discipline and kept the Red army supplied with men and material.

Provisional government

The patriotic upper and middle classes embraced the prospect of a more determined war effort, while workers anticipated better wages and more food. The provisional government established equality before the law; freedom of religion, speech and assembly; and the right of unions to organized and strike. Both liberals and moderate socialist leaders rejected these broad political reforms. Though the Russian people were sick of fighting, the new leaders would not take Russia out of the war. A new government formed in May 1917 included the fiery agrarian socialist Alexander Kerensky, who became prime minister in July. From the beginning, the provisional government had to share power with the Petrograd Soviet (or council) of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. Modeled after the 1905 revolutionary soviet, the Petrograd Soviet comprised of two to three thousand workers, soldiers, and socialist intellectuals. The Soviet acted as a parallel government. It issued its own radical orders, weakening the authority of the provisional government. The most famous edict of the Petrograd Soviet was Army Order No 1 issued in May 1917. This stripped officers of their authority and placed power in the hands of elected committees of common soldiers. The order led to a collapse of arm discipline. In July 1917 the provisional government ordered a poorly considered summer offensive against the Germans. It was a miserable failure and desertions mounted as peasant soldiers returned home to help their families get a share of the land. By the summer of 1917, Russia was going into anarchy. It was an opportunity for the most radical and talented of Russia's man revolutionary leaders, Vladimir Llyich Lenin.

Bolsheviks

There was no national flag for the Bolsheviks. Lenin viewed the war as a product of imperialist rivalries and an opportunity for socialist revolution. After the February Revolution of 1917, the German government provided Lenin with safe passage across Germany and back into Russia. German hoped that Lenin would undermine the sagging war effort of the provisional government. Lenin rejected all cooperation with what he called the "bourgeois" provisional government. His slogans were radical in the extreme "all power to the Soviets". His promise of "Peace, Land and Bread" spoke to the expectations of suffering soldiers, peasants and workers and earned the Bolsheviks popular support. But a premature attempt to seize power in July collapse and Lenin went into hiding. This little set back did not make any difference in the long run. The army commander in chief, General Lavr Kornilov, led a coup against the provisional Kerensky government in September. In the face of this rightist counter-revolutionary threat, the Bolsheviks were rearmed. Kornilov's forces disintegrated ,but Kerensky lost all credit with the army, the only force that could have saved democratic government in Russia.