History in Focus: The October Revolution

Lenin during the October Revolution

As I am writing we are coming up to the centenary of possibly the most influential revolution in the history of the twentieth century. On November 7 1917, October 25 in Russian using the Julian calendar, the first successful revolution Marxist revolution took place which would go on to change world history. A deeply politicized aspect of history regardless of where you stand on the October Revolution it remains one of the most significant events to shape the world we live in. Before we look at the October Revolution, Lenin, Trotsky, and the Soviets we must first understand how this revolution came to pass.

Background to Revolution

The October Revolution was not the first revolution to hit Russia in 1917. In February (March) a revolution rocked the Russian Empire which we looked at in February, which I would suggest reading to better understand the October Revolution. As a result we shall only briefly discuss the long term origins of the October Revolution. Since the mid-nineteenth century Russia had hoped to 'catch up' to the states of western Europe - France, the UK, and Germany especially - starting with the reforms of Tsar Alexander II, including abolishing serfdom in 1861. Russia hoped to be an industrialized, capitalist power without the powerful democratic institutions which the UK and France had. Although they accepted some form of democracy, like the creation of the local governments called zemstvos, power was supposed to remain with the tsar. After the assassination of Alexander II by Narodnaya Volya (People's Will) in 1881 his successors opted for more autocracy than Alexander. Russian society had changed by this time. Industrialization had created a new class of people, universities had allowed left-wing ideas to flourish, and nationalism was slowly emerging in the multi-ethnic empire. Internationally Russia was seen as backward and autocratic with it facing a humiliation over the Russo-Japanese War which saw Russia defeated by Japan. This inspired the 1905 Revolution which actually saw Leon Trotsky arrive on the scene. Although defeated the 1905 Revolution led to the creation of a parliament, called the Duma, which was extremely weak. The tsar could, and did, dissolve it whenever he wished and the first prime minister, Pyotr Stolypin, was actually chosen because he crushed the rebellion in 1905.

Soldiers in Sarikamish

After years of dissatisfaction from several sectors of society the principal factor in causing the revolution was not in fact domestic in origin. Russia had been portraying itself as the guardian of the Slavic peoples and had created an alliance with Serbia. When Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia following the assassination of heir to the throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand Russia was drawn into the war. Thus the First World War began. However, Russia was vastly unprepared. Initially the Russian populace was in favor of the war seeing Tsar Nicholas II in a positive light; all except the radical left-wingers of the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin. Like the Russo-Japanese War military setbacks caused the populace to turn against the war. Thousands were killed as they were caught in between advancing German artillery and the Russian army's scorched earth tactics. Between 5 and 10 million civilians 'voluntarily' left their homes. 

Marxism and Lenin

Karl Marx

In 1848 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels released their seminal pamphlet The Communist Manifesto. Since 1848 the writings of Marx and Engels have influenced up to possibly millions around the world, and they expanded upon it with works such as Das Capital. To summarize Marxist ideology, it opposes capitalism and where private property, as a form of means of production, is communally owned. The writings of Marx and Engels spread across the world with future member of the Mensheviks, the less radical leftists, Vera Zasulich personally writing to Marx saying: You are not aware that your Capital enjoys great popularity in Russia. Although the edition has been confiscated, the few remaining copies are read and re-read by the mass of more or less educated people in our country. The October Revolution was not the first time there was an attempt to create a state inspired by Marxism. Following the collapse of the Second French Empire the Paris Commune was formed which was brutally suppressed by the French army; later Lenin would count to see if his communist state would outlast the Paris Commune. This brings us onto Lenin. Vladimir Lenin, born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, became involved in Marxism while in university, and his brother Aleksander was also a Marxist. Aleksander was later executed for his involvement in an assassination attempt of a tsar which may have caused Lenin's radicalization. In 1902 he had caused a stir with his booklet What is to be done? calling for a disciplined, centralized party to act as a vanguard of the working class which he elaborated on in 1905 stating that the Romanov monarchy should be abolished in favor of a 'provisional revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry.' To achieve this rather paradoxical idea revolutionary terror, similar to that of the French Revolution, would be required. He would also expand upon Marx in 1917, in what is now described as Marxist-Leninism, stating that imperialism was the last stage of capitalism.

Lenin was not the only revolutionary in Russia. He was part of the Social Democratic Labour Party which was split between the Bolsheviks, Lenin and like-minded individuals, and the Mensheviks (Minoritarians). The Mensheviks called for a more decentralized party without the projected dictatorship. Meanwhile, there was also Viktor Chernov's Socialist Revolutionaries who disagreed with the Social Democrats in who the revolutionary class were. The Democrats viewed the urban proletariat as this class whereas the Revolutionaries viewed the peasantry holding this distinction. In 1897 Lenin and his family were exiled, and with a few exceptions spent most of his time in exile until 1917.

The February Revolution

The February Revolution

On March 8 (February 23) in Petrograd, (St. Petersburg), on International Women's Day the socialist Social Democrats issued leaflets to women waiting in food lines. These leaflets read:

The government is guilty; it started the war and cannot end it. It is destroying the country and your starving is their fault. The capitalists are guilty; for their profit the war goes on. It's about time to tell them loud: Enough! Down with the criminal government and all its gang of thieves and murderers. Long live peace!

Through this the women started protesting which in turn inspired factory workers in the Vyborg District and Putilov Factory. As protests escalated the troops Tsar Nicholas II sent to put down the protests mutinied and joined the protesters as mutineers in the navy threw their officers into the sea. In the 1905 workers' councils called soviets were formed to organize the working classes and they returned in the February Revolution. However, Lenin and Leon Trotsky were in political exile when they were formed. Two shadow governments were formed in Petrograd: the Provisional Government and Petrograd Soviet. The Provisional Government began arresting the tsar's ministers as a way to prop themselves up, and to protect them from the Soviet. Then with no option Nicholas II released this statement on March 15:

In agreement with the State Duna, we have thought it best to abdicate the throne of the Russian state and to lay down the supreme power. Not wishing to part with our beloved son, we hand down our inheritance to our brother, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich.

Grand Duke Michael, however, could not keep control and just after a day he abdicated ending four hundred years of Russian Tsardom. The Provisional Government took over under liberals, conservatives, businessmen, liberal nobles, and professionals under Prince Georgy Lvov. Only major socialist was part of this government, the Justice Minister Alexander Kerensky who the tsarina had even called for him to be hung. Inspired by Europe and the USA they established freedom of speech, and 'an immediate and complete amnesty in all cases of a political and religious nature, including terrorists acts, military revolts, and agrarian offences.' If there were these reforms why did the October Revolution happen?

Between Revolutions

Catherine Evtuhov and Richard Stites has described the Provisional Government as 'dual powerlessness.' The Government was intensely divided with it having moderate socialists like Kerensky, and former nobility like Prince Lvov. While the liberal Kadets wanted to keep the old tsarist administration whereas the socialists wished to grant non-Russian peoples increased autonomy, like in Ukraine. During the February Revolution the Soviets had become powerful but the Government became distant from the Soviets; in early June soviets around the country sent representatives to Petrograd to the First All-Russia Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. Most importantly the Government had continued to fight the very unpopular war. Soldiers were executed for desertion, food was diverted from the starving population to the front, and Russia was still facing military setbacks. At the start of April Lenin presented his April Theses criticizing the apparent failures of the February Revolution and that power should lie with the soviets who should bring about socialism. Germany, wishing to disrupt Russia, smuggled Lenin into Russia via train from Switzerland as others returned from internal or external exile, including Trotsky and Joseph Stalin. In April workers and soldiers protested in Petrograd due to the continuation of the war, and following another protest in July the state chose to brutally crush it and blame the Bolsheviks. Many Bolsheviks were arrested and Lenin had to go into hiding. The people were dissatisfied and started turning to the Bolsheviks seeing the moderate socialists as betraying them. A former soldier in Moscow said:

You [The Provisional Government] have the audacity to say that freedom has come. But isn't your current power over the people that the bourgeoisie delivered to you, based on coercion?...The bourgeoisie is striving for democratic forms of governance because in them it sees the most convenient method of oppression and exploitation.

Following the July Days Kerensky took over the government but anger at the government remained. Unlike Lvov he was more eager to use violence against deserters and protesters, such as sending troops to suppress the 'Tsaritsyn Republic' declared by radicalized soldiers and Bolsheviks. Then the Kornilov Affair happened. Commander-in-Chief General Lavr Kornilov wished to end left-wing protests, and some of his followers wanted him to seize power. However, he just wanted to hang soviet members and see order return to Petrograd. When Kerensky asked Kornilov to come to Petrograd to help restore order in September the general opted to purge the government, so Kerensky released Bolsheviks, including Trotsky's Red Guard, to stop him. Soldiers deserted Kornilov when the Red Guard infiltrated his army, and workers and railway workers went on strike disrupting his supply lines. In the end Kornilov's coup failed and there was a drastic swing to the left in the soviets and army. Thus the stage was set for October.

October

Lenin speaking to soldiers during the Revolution

Following the July Days Lenin had been hiding in Finland where he had been advocating armed revolution. In October he returned, in secret, to Petrograd to plan a revolution. On October 23 the Bolshevik Central Committee voted 10-2 to oust Kerensky's government, and they formed a committee under Trotsky to organize the revolution itself. They were so confident that they didn't even bother concealing their plans so Kerensky actually knew some details of it! However, Kerensky's weak position and, the radicalization of the urban masses and army meant there was little he could do other than seize the Bolshevik press, which he soon lost control of. On October 25 armed forces occupied railway stations and military strongholds while at Kronstadt sailors announced their allegiance to the Bolsheviks. The next day the Provisional Government's headquarters, the Winter Palace, was seized and ten years later was mythologized in, what has been regarded as a cinematic epic, Sergei Einstein's October. Despite popular depictions the seizing of the Winter Palace was not actually violent; often the October Revolution has been described as a bloodless revolution. Thus history was made.

Aftermath

Although the Revolution itself was bloodless the aftermath was not. A bloody three-way civil war lasting several years broke out between the Bolsheviks, (the Reds), the peasant armies (Greens), and anti-Communists and foreign powers (Whites). Costing between seven and ten million lives the Russian Civil War was a brutal affair which devastated entire communities. The Bolshevik Revolution did inspire people all across the world. In Germany the Spartacists under Rose Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht tried to form a communist government without the revolutionary terror and dictatorship of Leninism until they were crushed in 1919; a similar attempt was made in Hungary under Bela Kun; mass movements across the globe from China to Argentina; and the rise of Communist Parties across the world. Regardless if they agreed with Lenin, like the newly formed Japanese Communist Party, or virulently disagreed with him, like Luxemburg, people across the world became inspired. There was also a right-wing backlash. Many countries including the USA, UK, Japan and France actually fought the Red Army during the Civil War, and at home anti-communism was rife. The First Red Scare hit the USA in the 1920s, the forged 'Zonviev letter' helped cause the British Labour Party to be defeated in the 1924 General Election, and when Japan enfranchised all men in the mid-1920s it came with a law suppressing radical politics. Left and Right were greatly influenced by the October Revolution.

Conclusion

The October Revolution is by far one of the most significant events of the twentieth century, and perhaps the most important political revolution since the French Revolution. To this day millions have been affected or inspired by the October Revolution. It made Marxism the most discussed ideology until the 1990s and recently Marxism has returned. I myself am a Marxist, although I am a Luxemburgist instead of a Marxist-Leninist, and I became one through reading the Menshevik-Bolshevik debates. Regardless of your political standing you cannot deny the significance of the October Revolution. Whether you believe it changed history for good or for ill it went on to shape the entire history of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The events of 1917 affect our lives in 2017.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-A History of Russia since 1800: Peoples, Legends, Events, Forces by Catherine Evtuhov and Richard Stites

-The Penguin History of Russia: From Tsarism to the Twenty-First Century by Robert Service

-The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, 1917-1991 by Richard Sakwa

-The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923. Vol. 1 by E.H. Carr

-Russia: People and Empire, 1552-1917 by Geoffrey Hosking

-A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924 by Orlando Figes
-The Age of Extremes, 1917-1991 by Eric Hobsbawm

-History of the Russian Revolution by Leon Trotsky

-Imperialism, The Highest State of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or get me on Twitter @LewisTwiby

History in Focus: The February Revolution

February Revolution

This year we will see the centenary of possibly one of the most important revolutions in modern history: the communist October Revolution in Russia. However, there was another revolution which preceded the famous communist revolution. This revolution, the February Revolution, took place between March 8 and March 16 1917 (Russia still used the Julian calendar then), and caused the end of the Russian Empire. To understand the later October Revolution we first have to understand the February Revolution.

Long Term Origins

Tsar Nicholas II

Since the mid-nineteenth century Russia had been slowly industrializing and liberalizing. The industrialization effort went slowly but the liberalization efforts were more rocky. Tsar Alexander II has been seen as the one who started this process but after his assassination by members of a socialist organization called Narodnaya Volya (People's Will) the liberal reforms were setback. By the time that Nicholas II became Tsar (1894) Russian society was rapidly changing. Industrialization had brought people from the countryside to cities like Moscow; university educated intelligentsia started agitating for more democratic institutions like in France and Britain; and socialists and anarchists started agitating for more radical changes to Russian society. Russia was caught between a growing industrial power, and the old feudal, aristocratic order. The intelligentsia, anarchists and socialists began educating the lower classes about new politics and societal orders which could change their lives. Then in 1904 war with Japan broke out. Russia had regarded the growing Japanese Empire as a 'backward Asian island' so had not taken Japan seriously over the claims to the Liaodong peninsula in China. Russia had been using a port there, Port Arthur, as a warm-water port and had the Trans-Siberian Railway ending in the region. Meanwhile, Japan wanted to expand into China and did not want Russian influence in the area. The Russo-Japanese War was an utter failure for Russia. In 1904 at the Battle of Liaoyung 125,000 Japanese troops with 485 guns defeated 160,000 Russians with 592 guns, and at the Battle of Tsushima in April 1905 the Japanese navy decimated the Russian navy which had been making its way from the Baltic.

Thanks to military setbacks during the war grievances over poverty, nationality, and various other reasons flared up into revolution in January 1905. Orthodox priest Gregory Gapon had led a march to the Winter Palace to deliver a petition to Tsar Nicholas II. The Imperial Guard opened fire where the government claimed 96 died while the anti-government media claimed 4000 died. Socialists and nationalists organized strikes as a result. In Warsaw the Polish Socialist Party and Social Democratic Party triggered a strike which ended violently while there were major strikes and demonstrations in Riga. On October 30 1907 the October Manifesto was created which set out a constitution and Duma (parliament) which Nicholas II only accepted when Grand Duke Nicholas threatened to shoot himself. In July 1906 P.A. Stolypin became prime minister thanks to his suppression of rebellion in Saratov Province. Unlike Congress in the United States or Britain's Parliament the tsar still held huge amounts of power. Only Nicholas could change the Fundamental Laws; the Duma's budget did not include court, naval and military expenditures; the Duma could be dissolved by the tsar; and Article 87 allowed the tsar to issue emergency decrees when the legislature was not in session. Meanwhile, the press boomed with the Gazeta kopeika (The Kpock Newspaper) reached a circulation of 250,000 in only the second year of publication. These papers told the literate the many affairs and criticisms of the ruling elite, who would then inform the masses. One such example are the rumors and innuendos about Grigori Rasputin's religious and sexual activities. Among these rumors was that Rasputin was sleeping with the tsarina and helping influence Russian politics through this. Before 1914 the Dumas were constantly being dissolved and Stolypin himself was assassinated in 1911 by a leftist called Dmitry Bogrov, although Nicholas' canceling the judicial investigation made many believe that the conservative monarchists were truly behind the assassination. As domestically the tsar was losing control in Sarajevo heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated sparking the First World War.

World War One

Russia in the War

On July 28 1914 Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, an ally of Russia, causing Nicholas II to order Russia's mobilization. Germany declared war on Russia and thus Russia entered the First World War. Just like with the war with Japan the First World War went disastrously for Russia. Initially the war had caused a surge of nationalism and loyalty towards the Tsar with the only group opposing the war being the Bolshevik Party and Vladimir Lenin. Lenin (who would lead the October Revolution) opposed the war seeing it as an imperialist war. This unity soon dissipated as the Russian army faced defeat after defeat. Despite several victories, such as under the Brusilov Offensive in 1916, the military saw many catastrophic defeats, like at Tannenburg. Germany quickly pushed into Poland and horrific tragedies occurred. People in Poland and the Baltics first had to endure shelling from the German forces, and then had to face forced removals by the Russian military as they were seen as 'enemy aliens'. This 'Great Retreat' of 1915 by the Russian military led to burning of buildings and farms, mass raping women, and mass deportations. It is estimated that a million were driven out of their homes, and a further 5-10 million 'voluntarily' left their homes. One Russian said:

Polish peasants who had fled from their villages sat or lay on the ground near their covered wagons. Babies howled, turned blue in the arms of their exhausted and disheveled mothers.

Thousands of Jews, Polish, Lithuanians, Latvians, and Ukrainians faced the cold, hunger, disease, and mistreatment. In Kazakhstan Russian homesteaders clashed with Kazakhs and Kirgiz causing thousands of deaths. The Tsarist army had relied on the Allies to supply arms but the German fleet blockaded the Baltic, and the Turkish blockaded the Black Sea straits cutting off this supply. It took until 1916 for Russian industry to produce enough shells. As major grain producing regions of Poland and Ukraine were lost grain prices skyrocketed so people printed more money to counteract this which in turn caused mass inflation. The Tsar still mistrusted the Duma seeing it as trying to usurp his power. Angry over Rasputin's influence over government appointments several nobles assassinated the monk in 1916. By 1917 the situation was at breaking point.

The Revolution

Students firing at police

On March 8 (February 23 in Russia) Petrograd Social Democrats on International Women's Day issued leaflets. Food production problems, rising inflation rates, and war setbacks had caused mass dissatisfaction with the regime, and the Social Democrats handed leaflets to women waiting in food lines. Their leaflets read:

The government is guilty; it started the war and cannot end it. It is destroying the country and your starving is their fault. The capitalists are guilty; for their profit the war goes on. It's about time to tell them loud: Enough! Down with the criminal government and all its gang of thieves and murderers. Long live peace!

Women started bread protests which inspired factory workers in the Vyborg District and the Putilov Factory. Activists joined the protests and protesters crossed the frozen Neva River where they clashed with the police beginning the revolution. Two days later Tsar Nicholas II ordered the garrison to put down the revolt but many units joined the crowd with a few killing their officers. Ships anchored in Helsinki and Kronstadt had sailors throwing their officers overboard, or into furnaces. The Duma urged Nicholas to implement immediate political measures but in response he dismissed the Duma. On March 12 the tsar's crack units, the Volynian Regiment, mutinied and joined the revolt. The same day two shadow governments were formed: the Provisional Government made of senior Duma members at the Tauride Palace, and the Petrograd soviet in another wing of the palace. The Provisional Government soon arrested some of the tsar's ministers although this was done to protect them from revolutionaries. With the monarchy losing all control on March 15 Nicholas II made this statement:

In agreement with the State Duna, we have thought it best to abdicate the throne of the Russian state and to lay down the supreme power. Not wishing to part with our beloved son, we hand down our inheritance to our brother, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich.

Michael reigned for just a day ending Russian monarchy which had ruled for a thousand years, four hundred years of Tsardom, and three hundred years of Romanov rule. Incidentally this decade saw the end of many monarchies across the world: in 1910 Japan annexed Korea ending the monarchy there, 1910 the Portuguese monarchy was overthrown, 1911 Qing emperor Puyi abdicated ending monarchy in China (although in 1916 Yuan Shikai declared himself emperor briefly before becoming president again), 1914 Portugal ended the Kongolese monarchy, defeat in the war ended monarchies in Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, newly independent Finland and Lithuania became republics when Germany surrendered, and Montenegro lost its monarchy when it merged into Yugoslavia. 

Aftermath

Lenin in the October Revolution

The Provisional Government was set up to replace the tsar under Prince Georgy Lvov. This government was made of the moderate conservative Octobrists, the liberal Kadets, the Marxist Social Democrats (SDs), with two branches (the moderate Mensheviks and radical Bolsheviks), and the peasant-oriented Socialist Revolutionaries. However, the Provisional Government was extremely weak thanks to the economic woes from tsarist rule, and it chose to continue fighting the war. Many viewed the war negatively and saw no need to continue an imperialist war. Vladimir Lenin arrived in April from his exile in Switzerland and started criticizing the Provisional Government. By November with the war still waging, mass mutinies, and rising unpopularity a second revolution took place. A hundred years ago the tsardom fell, and later this year a hundred years would have passed since the first successful communist revolution.

Thank you for reading and the sources I have used are as follows:

-A History of Russia since 1800 by Catherine Evtuhov and Richard Stites

-Russia: People and Empire, 1552-1917 by Geoffrey Hosking