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UNIT 24 POLITICAL REVOLUTION:RUSSIA

Structure24.1 Introduction24.2 Prelude to Revolution: Russian Specificities

24.2.1 Th e Russian Wo rking Clas s24.2.2 The Tsarist Autocra cy24.2.3 The Decem brist Uprising24.2.4 The Russ ian d te l~ i~ e n ts ia24.2.5 Populism24.2.6 Growth of Social Democracy

24.3 The 1905 Revolution: A Dress Rehearsal for 191724.4 Russia in the Sirst World War24.5 The October Revolution

24.5.1 Wh o Were the Bolsheviks24.5.2 Soviets24.5.3 Lenin's April The sis24.5.4 Wo rsening Situ ation24.5.5 The Kornilov Mutiny24.5.6 The Bolsheviks Take Pow er24.5.7 Early Legislation of the New R egime

24.6 The Legacy of the Russian Revolution24.7 Summary24.8 Exercises--- - -24.1 INTRODUCTIONThe previous Unit looked at the French Revolution not just as French or a Europeanphenomenon, but as a global one. The focus of the Unit was not on the details of theRevolution but on.how it influenced the politics and society in the post-revolutionperiod. This Unit on Russian Revolution will go into details ofthe Revol~itionrtG dsoon the 19"' century social conditions of Russia that led to it. The Russ;m Revolutionwas an unprecedented event in the sense that it was the first re ;elution that wasbased on a concrete and explicit theory of revolution. The corn;' ~ gf the revolution,though not its details, had been both predicted and anticipa?pc.Anothercrucial aspectof this Revolution was that it was not projected as a national or a Russian event.Russian Revolution was visualized as an important step in the coming of the worldsocialist revolution. It was for this reason that the Russian Revolution was called, ncta national revolution but a world revolution,by many scholars. This Unit will examinea range of factors that prepared the Russian cociety for the revolution. It would then


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focus on the major events surround ing the R evolution. Finally it will briefly talkabout the legacy of the Revo lution and what it m eant to the rest of the world.-24.2 PRELUDETO REVOLUTION: RUSSIAN

SPECIFICITIESAn important paradox of the Russian Revolution is its self-image as a globalphenom enon and the specificityof Russian conditions that brought it about in Russia.According to the M arxian theory of revolution, it was to take place first in advanceindustrial societies as a result of the maturing of the contradictions of capitalism. Butthe Socialist Revolution occurred in a backwa rd industrial country like Russia.However, the coming of the revolution w as nothing short of a storm that had adramatic impact on the society and people of Russia. The following quote is anattempt to capture this impact:

All Russia was learning to read, and reading-politics, econom ics, history-because the people wanted to know.. .In every city, in most towns, alongthe fron t, each political factio n had its newspaper - ometimes several.Hundreds of thousand s of pamphlets w ere distributed by thousands oforganizations, and poured into the armies, the villages, the factories, thestreets. The thirst for education, so long thwarted, burstwith he R evolutioninto a fienzy of expression. From Smolny Institute alone, the first six months,went out every day tons, car-loads, train-loads of literature, saturating heland. Russia absorbed reading matter like hot sand drinks water, insatiable.And it was not fables, falsified history, diluted religion, and the cheap fictionthat corrupts -bu t social and econom ic theories, philosophy, the works ofTolstoy, Gogol, and Gorky.. . (From John Reed , Ten Days That Shookthe World, 1987 Edition, Moscow, p.37.)

That was Russia in 1917 asdescribed by John Reed, an Am erican journalist, whohad come to R ussia to cover the event and who was, in the words of Lenin's w ife,Krupskaya, "not an indifferent observer, but a pass ionate revolutionary. .. " Therewere many others like him, who flocked to the city of St. Petersburg, or Petrogradas t was called fiom 1917 onwards, simply because that city sym bolized all thatthey dared to believe in and hold dear. If the French Revolution symbolized Liberty,Equality and Fraternity, the Russian Revolution symbolized much more -organizedstruggle, clarity of perspective and courage to go against the tide even if it m eantbeing isolated in the whole world wide.How did all this happen? Why did Russia and not Germany stage the first socialistrevolution, contrary to the expectations of everyone? How could the working classof this backward country, with its half-baked cap italism, have the courage tooverthrow he Tsarist autocracy and move,withalmost lightning speed from a semi-.feudal political and social order, into a socialist system, bypassing the cap italistphase almost completely?The answ ers lie in the many peculiarities of Russia. It had a weak bourgeoisieand the industrial development that had taken place in Russia fiom the 1880s wasentirely at the initiative of the Tsar and financed by foreign capital. W hile theFrench companies invested in the m ining and metallurgy sectors, oil was in thehands of the British concerns and the chemical and electrical engineeringindustries in the hands of the Germans. Within Russia, the capital forindustrialization was raised largely by taxing the peasantry even as the agrariansector continued to remain backward technologically, he best lands remaining with


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Industrialization in Russia was limited to certain pockets in the country like Political Revolution:St.Petersburgand Moscow districts, the Donetz and the Dneiper basins. They were,in the words of Maurice Dobb, no morethan industrial islands in a vast agriculturalsea. Yet, these industries gave rise to a powehl working class movement. This wasbecause the typical Russian factory was a huge industrial unit with a high level ofconcentration. All stages of production were housed under one roof This meant thatworkers of all kinds- iom the unskilled to the highly skilled-were thrown togetherand the msk ofmobilizing them was correspondingly easier.24.2.1 The Russian Working ClassThe Russian worker was part-peasant, part-worker, with strong roots in the villages.Given a situation of peasant discontentment owing to the problems mentioned above,this meant that the Russian working class reacted not onlyto the subhuman conditionsunder which they worked in the factories, but also against the crushing burden ofland taxand redemption payments that weighed their families down in the villages.Thus, the fact that Russian industrialization was built, not upon a strong agriculturalbase as in the case of England, but on a backward rural sector where many problemshad been left unresolved, contributed to the growth of an extremely volatile workingclass movement inthis country. Ofcourse, the leadership that was available to thisworking class also $-.)led a crucial role, but we shall come to that later.The Russian working class was largey ~zcentratedn the textile industries, butthere were substantial numbers of workers in the metallurgical and railway sectors aswell. In 1900, here were three million industrial workers in Russia.Ofthese, 5,50,000were working in textile factories, 500,000 n metallurgical industries and 400,000 inthe railways. Wages were paid irregularly and employers drove their men hard. Evenin 1913, the average working day ofthe Russian worker was 10 hours. Studies ofworking class budgets indicated that a large proportion of the total expenditure wenton food. Few could afford proper clothing.And yet, interestingly, the literacy levelsamong the working class were at a higher levelthangeneral literacy inRussiaAccordingto the 1897 census, 57.8% of the male workers and 28.4% of the female workers ofRussia were literate. By 1918,79.2% of the male workers and 44.2% of the femaleworkers were literate. Besides the schools run by the Zemstvos (locally electedcouncils to lookafterpublic health, education and madmaintenance), schools financedby the state, some educational institutions were even maintained by the employers.They offered evening courses and set up public libraries, which were well attended.Thus the Russian working class, eTTen hile chafing against its abysmal working andliving conditions and threatened with job insecurity, was able to absorb the floodofpamphlets and books which were being smuggled into the country, defymg all attemptsat censorship by the Tsarist authorities.Hence Russia had a peculiar combination of backwardness and modernization. Thiswas evident not just in the industrial sector.24.2.2 The Tsarist AutocracyThe Tsarist autocracy was unimaginatively backward ev211while the intelligentsiawas the most vibrant intelligentsia in the whole ofEll1ape in the nineteenth century.The autocracy, which originated in the medieval period, was said to have beeninfluenced by the Mongol tradition. For two hundred andfifty years, i.e., from 1240to 1490, Russia had been under Mongol rule. According to 'l'ibor Syamuc!;; !lieMongol concept of society, based on the unqudified submission of all to the absoi~atepower of the Great Khan, had its impact on the Russian political structure.Eve1.ymember of society was dotted his qpccitic position, to which he was bound for life


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R e v o l u t i o n s and which he cou ld never desert, on pain of death. T he G reat Khan not only hadunquestioned authority over the lives of his subjects, he was also the so le owner ofall the landwithin his domains.After the break-up of the M ongol empire, the power that emerged was that ofMuscovy, a principality centred around Moscow. This region had several naturaladvantages, since it was situated at the heart of the principal w aterways, withcom paratively easy access to all parts of the country. In M usco w, the position ofthe Tsar was one of unique strength- ll authority in the country emanated fiom him.He shared powerwithno one. There was no opportunity, eitherwithin he governmentor outside it, for the developm ent of rival centres of pow er capable of limiting,balancing or checking the authority of the ruler. What was more, these doctrines ofauthority enjoyed the f d l support of the Church.The nex t great landmark inthe history of the Tsarist autocracy was the reign of Peterthe G reat (1 682- 1725). He was the great modernizer. Until his time, the h c t i o n ofgovernm ent was primarily conceived as a negative one- o defend Muscovy againstexternal enem ies and safeguard domestic law and order. This picture changed radicallywhen Peter gave a positive role to the government. He began with a rapidmodernization of the military and naval establishments. This entailedthe setting up offact&$, mines and collieries, leading to a modernization of the economy and fiscalreforms. All this naturally enlarged the functions ofth e government and to take careof this, ten 'colleges' or rudimentary ministries, were set up. The task of supervisingand co-coordina ting the work of these 'colleges' was performed by Peter himselfand the officials of these colleges were encouraged to keep an eye on each other.Thusemerged the tradition of mutual suspicion and vertical communication with theTsar, w hich remained a characteristic feature of the Tsarist autocracy until the end.Ministers reported directly to the Tsat and even tried to undercut each othpii. In thelate nineteenth century, the M inister of Finance and the Minister ofthe Interior wereconstantly at loggerheads with each other. The form er's efforts at modernizationwould be stymied by the latter, fearful as he was of the political consequencesof anyattempts at bringing about change in the country.Until the very end the Tsarist autocracy remained a top-heavy political structure, inwhich the individual competen ce of the Tsar was of vital importance. O f course,Tsars like Alexand er 1 (1801 1 825) drew upon the talent of officials like M.M.Speranksy, who has been described as the most brilliant Russian statesman of thenineteenth century. Yet Speransky himself suffered disgrace and exile when the Tsar,puffed up w ith his victory over Napoleon and Russia's primacy in the Concert ofEurope, retracted on his reformist promises and became m ore and more reactionary.The reforms of Tsar Alexand er 11 remem bered as the m an who carried out theEm ancipation of the Serfs and instituted the Zem stvos, were carried out in anauthoritarian manner. He brushed aside all suggestions for popular participation ingovernment even though he had encouraged such expec tations.24.2.3 The Decembrist UprisingGradually, a mood of discontent spread over all of ed ucated Russia. The firstexpression of this spirit of revolt was the Decem brist uprising of 1825,known bythis name hecause the revolt occurred in the month of December. The "Decembristsy,as those who participated in the revolt came to be known, were patriotic, intelligentyoung m en o fthe aristocracy who had served as officers in the Tsar's army. Theyhad fought in the Napoleonic Wars and w hen they travelled abroadthey were greatlyinfluenced by the Western way of life and the ideas of the French Revolution. w ~ nthey returned to Russia in 18 16, they formed a secret society for constitutional and


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-judicial reform, for the abolition of serfdom that was still prevalent in Russia and for political Revolut ion:the curbing of foreign influence on the Tsarist state. When Tsar Alexander I diedunexpectedly in 1825, there were some weeks of confusion before the next Tsarascended the throne. The Decembrists used this opportunity to make their point.They tried to prevent several military regiments from taking the oath of allegiance tothe new Tsar unless he committed himself to a constitutional form of government.However, they were unable to cany out their plan successfidly. Some of the regimentsdeserted them and the new Tsar, Nicholas, had prior warning of the revolt. Hencehe was able to put down the revolt very f m l yby firing upon the insurgents.About adozen men were killed, 289 others either condemned to death or sentenced to hardlabour in Siberia.Most of the Decembrists were serving officers under the age of thirty. There werealso some senior officers of distinguished lineage. John Keep and Lionel Kochanhave described the Decembrist uprising as "an attempted revolution on the people'sbehalf by a section of the educated elite."24.2.4 The Russian IntelligentsiaThe Decembrist uprising may have been crushed brutally and news of it blacked outcompletely in the press, but it remained in popular memory as a heroic struggle andinspired several generations thereafter.As the nineteenth century advanced, thenumbers of educated Russians who turned against the Tsarist system grew by leapsand bounds. There emerged a clearly recognizable class known as the intelligentsia.In fact, the word "intelligentsia" had its origins in Russia and was first used in thiscountry in the mid-ninetee~th entwy. The word then spread to other counties andcameto signify at- Ate of writers, academicians and cultural figures, who were oftencritical of the establishment. In Western societies, the intelligentsia was not sharplydifferentialed from the professional and middle classes as a whole. But in a morebackward political order as prevailed in Russia, the intellectual elite did not growwith the society as a whole and did not share a common ethos with the other middle-class groups. The Russian intelligentsia represented a small crust ofwell- educatedpeople with a European outlook, who had few links with Russian society.!t was the reforms of Tsar Alexander 11, which marked the turning point for theintelligentsia. He was known as the reforming Tsar and when he announced hisintentions of carrying out reforms, there were great expectations amongst theintelligentsia. There was hope that he would consult the progressive sections of hispeople. But soon there was disappointment. Alexander I1 chose to carry out thereforms by authoritarian methods and brushed aside all suggestions for popularparticipation in government. When he constituted the Zemstvos, it was only thepropertied classes and the higher taxpayers who were given representation. Allsuggestions for a nationally representative body or parliament were f m l y urneddown. So great was the anger of the intelligentsia against the Tsar that he faced aseries of assassination attempts. The last one, in 1881, took his life. His successor,Alexander I11 fiercely cracked down on the intelligentsia and many intellectuals hadto flee the country. Many found refuge in Switzerland and Geneva became a centreoftheir activities.The mid-nineteenth Russian intelligentsia was of two kinds. There were theWesternizers and the Slavophiles. While the former, i.e., the Westernizers, wereashamed of Russia's past and believed that the future for Russia lay in imitating theWest, the Slavophiles maintained that Russia's salvation lay in a return to the truetraditions ofRussia. It is important to note that the Slavophiles were also in favour ofchange. But they felt that the Western values of rationalism and individualism were


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Revolut ions disintegrating forces. The strength of Russia lay in the f. th of her people and thesense of community of which the mir (village commi~qJty\ as the essence. Russia,in fact, should show the way to the West.This controversy between the Westernizers and the Slavophiles was but the first ofa series of polarizations amongst Russian intellectuals.In the last quarter of thenineteenth century Russian socialism split into the Populists and the Marxists andstill later, the Russian Marxists split into the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.In the post-Decembrist period the new intellectual tradition that unfolded wascharacterized by an indifference to political reforms. There was a general belief thatit was more important to improve the material conditions of the people than to giveRussia constitutional liberties. Chemyshevski, a leader of the radicals in the 1860s,forinstance, istinguished clearly between liberalism and democracy. While liberalism,representing freedom of speech and constitutional liberties, was essentially for theeducated class, democracy was concerned with the material welfare of the masses.Chernshevski went to the extent of stating that if the welfare of the people couldbeserved by despotic methods, he would not hesitate to support these methods.24.2.5 PopulismLnthe 1860s, almost every section of the Russian intelligentsia shared an extravagantidealization of 'the people'. There was an almost mystical belief in 'the people' asthe repository of some profound truth of life. 'The people' would even cleanse theintelligentsia, who were corrupted by worldly education and material goods.Alongside with this, however, there was also a deep-rooted conviction that 'thepeople', lefttothemselves, were incapable of overthrowing oppression and achievingthe just society.An interesting aspect of the Russian intelligentsia was that many of its memberswere creative writers who produced excellent short stories, plays and even novels.Their works were reflective of the politics of the times in a way which has seldombeen seen in other countries. Ivan Turgenev's Fathers andsons, for instance, whilebeing an important literary work, was the best account of two generations of Russianintellectuals -the men of the forties and the men of the sixties, as they were known.The generation of the '40s had been brought up on German idealistic philosophyand romanticism.According to Riasanovsky, they had ,:metaphysical, religious,aesthetic and historical approach to reality. The '60s gener??lon, on the other hand,believed in utilitarianism, positivism, materialism and especially realism. They wereobviously more radical. Socially too, they belonged to a mixed backgromd belowthe gentry being the sons of priests, petty officials and others who had made theirway up by education and effort.Hugh Seton Watson makes the point that the children of the Russian nobiliiy werequite as capable of extreme revolutionary thought as their social inferiors.Cr?tthereis a certain venom and fanaticism in the language of non-noble radicals which is i i ~ tfound in their gentleman predecessors. This became and has remained an essentialpart of the Russian revolutionary tradition.By the 1870s, anessentially ndividualist creed of nihilismhadcombinedwithpopulism.The spirit of the former, i.e., nihilism can be understood from Bakunin's famousphrase: "The passion for destruction is also a constructive passion." Between 1869and 1872 there existed a group of young revolutionaries in St. Petersburg whocalled themselves the "Chaikovsky Circle". Their first aimwas to politically educate


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_-the university students. They sold books which had been banned, distributed Polit ica l Revolution:pamphlets, organized discussion groups among workers and intellectuals.By 1873 the students were ready for their first movement to the people. They wentto the countryside and preached socialism amongst the peasantry. They were in fora rude shock, however. The peasants, far from welcoming them as their saviours,assaulted them and handed them over to the Tsarist police! Obviously there was adisconnect between their understanding of the people and the people's understandingofthem.This bitter experience made the Populists change their perspective. The newunderstanding was that social and economic issues must come before politics. Hencethe second movement to the people in 1876 was on a different basis. Groups ofyoung revolutionaries went to live among the people. They practised a normal tradeor profession- ome learnt manual trades, others went as medical orderlies ormidwives, working with the Zemstvos. Young women played a prominent part in thismovement. But even then the masses did not respond and by 1877 these groupshadbeen discovered. Mass arrests followed, thereby ending this ambitious enterprise.If the peasants would not act, then there was another way -that of terrorism andassassination.The "Land and Freedom" society, formed in 1876, launched an all-out terrorist offensive against the government. They believed that because of thehighly centralized nature of the Russian State, a few assassinations could dotremendous damage to the regime. They succeeded in killing Tsar Alexander11, butdid not manage to bring Tsarism to an end. What followed thereafter under TsarAlexander I11 was such se17ert: epression that for the next twenty five years, allRussian revolutionaq activity had to be carried on outside the country. No freepolitical discussion^ ~ouldake place within Russia.24.2.6 Growth of Social DemocracyThis period of emigrant revolutionary activity was, however, a veryproductive one.In the 1880s, even as industrialization was proceeding apace in Russia, the firstMarxist groups began to be formed among Russian intellectuals. The major voicewas that of Plekhanov who, in his pamphlets, 'Our Differences' and 'Socialism andthe Political Struggle' made the following points:1) Socialism cannot be based on the peasantry. Ithas o be based on the industrialworking class.2) Capitalism was going ahead in Russia and the growth of the working class was

inevitable.3) The village commune wasananachronism- mere survival of a pre-capitalistorder.The fundamental break had been made. Populism continued to survive in Russia,reincarnated as the Socialist Revolutionary Party, but it was now marginal to Russianpolitics. It was now Marxism and Social Democracy which became the mainstream.Meanwhile, within Russia, the first volume of Karl Marx's major critique of capitalismDas KapitaI had been published in Russian in 1872.The Tsarist censorship regardedit as too academic and irrelevant to Russian conditions to be subversive.Vladimir Ilyanovich Lenin, born in 1870,had been converted to Marxism in 1889.In 1893 he moved to St. Petersburg to work with the Marxist underground groups.


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R e v o l u t ~ o n s He also visited Plekhanov and other leaders ?Fthc Aussian Social Democratic Partyin Sw itzerland. In 1895 he, along with Martov, fo l~ n edhe St. Petersburg Union ofStruggle for the Liberation of the Working Class to disseminate Marxist ideas amongthe working classes and to prepare leaders for the future revolution. The Union alsohad branches in the cities of Mo scow and Ekaternioslav. However, Lenin was soonarrested and he had to spend the next four and a ha lf years in prison and in exile inSiberia. It was while he was thus incarcerated that he published his impo rtantwork 'The D evelopment of Capitalism in Russia', which proved conclusively hatcapitalism in Russia was an accomplished fact and contained all the conditions ofeconomic viability. This work was published illegally inRu ssia in 1899.Another group of legal Marxists had also come into being around this time.They were basically a liberal group, consisting largely of sociologists and economists.They made ap ow erfd contribution o the debate against the Populists. Peter Struve,for instance, brought out his "Cultural Remarks o n the Q uestion of EconomicDevelopment in Russiayyn 1894 in which he argued that the advent of capitalismin Russia should be welcomed since it would, along with its miseries, also bringthe material and spiritual culture of Western Europe to Russia. This includedpolitical liberty. The Legal Marxists, however rejected the revolutionary aspects ofMarxism.The League o f Combat for Liberation of the Working Class of Lenin and Martovtook activ e part in the day-to-day struggles of workers. They supported the textilestrikes of 1896 and '97. Gradually, the Russian Marxists were reaching out to awider mass base. But involvementwith industrial labouralso meant that the movementhad to concentrate on the more practical objectives, such as the achievement ofbetter wages and working conditions. Some leaders began to argue that the movementshould concentrate on such econom ic objectives because, given the peculiarconditions of Russia, any struggle for econom ic gains would naturally and inevitablylead to the demand for political objectives. Revolutionary slogans directed towardsthe overthrow of the autocracy would h gh te n and even repel the workers. However,Lenin, who was still in exile and other em igrant leaders like Plekhanov, didn ot agreewith this. They argued for the primacy ofpolitical objectives and felt that a campaignwhich confined itself to practical objectives could not become a country-wideproletarian movement. Lenin pointed out that various groups of workers, immediatelyinterested merely in securing their own, narrow. material gains may even try o securethese gain s against the interests of other group s of workers. O r they may try tosecure immediate advantages at the expense of lo~ l&-terrnnterests. "Consciousness"was m ore important than spontaneity.As E.H . Carr has pointed out, by the turn of the century there was ageneral feelingamong the Marxist groups that the tim e was ripe for paysing- Ii-om mere lecturing onSocialist principles to more systematic and political work among the masses.Thetime for making the transition from propaganda to agitation ha2 arrived. In 1898, itwas decided to hold a Congress of existing Marxist groups in oldel t 3 form a RussianSocial Dem ocratic Workers' Party. The gro ups met at M insk ir,By tlx uss ia anclprepared a Manifesto which contained the follow ing memorable passage.

The further to the east one goes in Europe, the weaker, meaner and morecowardly in the political sense becomes the bourgeoisie and the greater arethe cultural and political tasks which fall to the lot of the proletariat. On itsstrong shoulders he Russian working class must carry the work of liberty.

The Russian Social Democratic Party became a part o f the Second International. Itmay be recalled that the First International Working Men 's Association had been


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P o l i t i c a l R e v o l u t i o n :R u s s i aounded by Marx in 1864 and had existed until 1871. It symbolized the comingtogether of working class parties across national boundariesin the belief that Marxian

socialism was essentially internationalincharacterandthat all members of the workingclass shared certain common interests. The Second International, founded in 1889,was dominated by the German Social Democratic Party and continued its existenceuntil the First World War. After the Revolution of 1917, here would be a tussle overwho -.xrps to lead such an International-Russia as the first country to carry out aworking class revolution, or other forces in Europe.

24.3 THE 1905 REVOLUTION: A DRESSREHEARSAL FOR 1917

Russia's humiliating defeat at the hands of Japan in the Russo Japanese War madethe Russian people seriously wonder about the strength of their mighty empire. Theworkers were in any case agitated about their conditions of work and poor wages.On 9 January 1905, a huge crowd of workers, led by a priest, Father Gapon,marched towards the Winter Palace to subinit a petition to the Tsar, Nicholas 11.This was intended to be a peaceful procession and the participants had full faith inthe Tsar. They beliekcC!tFathe was surrounded by bad advisers, who kept the truthabout the actual plight of the peupl~,wav from him. Despite the church icons andportraits of the Tsar that they carried. the Tsaris: Guards received the petitionerswith a hail of bullets. Over a hundred fell dead, many more were injured. This wasthe last straw. It was also the signal for the revolution. Strikes spread throughout thecountry. Revolutionaries assassinated the Grand Duke Sergei, one of the leaders ofthe court coterie. Soon, peasant revolts broke out in various parts of the country.Even the fringes of the Russian Empire were affected. There were risings inPoland and in the Black Sea port of Odessa. the crew of the battleship Poteinkinjoined in the revolt.All this shook the self-confidence of the Tsar and he promised to convene a Duma,or Representative Assembly, in which, however, the working class would not berepresented. All parties of the opposition, from the Liberals to the Bolsheviks,protested against this edict. In October 1905 a general strike spread from Moscowand St. Petersburg throughout the country. The strikers of St.Petersburg elected aCouncil of Workers' Deputies, the St.Petersburg Soviet, which virtually became thecentre ofthe Revolution. The Soviet called on the country to stop paying taxes tothe Tsar. Its members, along with the chairman, Leon Trotsky, were arrested. Newstrikes broke out and the pressure led the Tsar to issue his October Manifesto of 30October, in which he promised to extend the franchise to those classes which haduntil now been excluded. There was also an assurance that no law would take effectwithout the approval ofthe Duma. The Manifesto split the ranks oftht-,lctionariesinto those who wanted to withdraw the movement and Work ~lleroposals andothers, like the Social Democrats, who wanted a Consti~~~tlLAssembly.his splitproved to be fatal for the Revolution and slowly the TsaLst forces recovered theirstrength. By 1907 he Tsar had regained his self-conf;,%nce and begun withdrawingthe semi-liberal concessions which he had been co1,qelled to make in October 1905.Yet, 1905 was an important landmark in Russia's history and things wtl; .xver thesame thereafter. The revolutionariescould learn fiom their mistakesinthis encounterand, when the next opportunity came in the First World War, they were able to plantheir strategy with gre~ter aturity.Tht Goviets, however brief their existence, werea model for the future.


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RUSSIA IN T HE FIRST WORLD WARIt has been said that the First World War was different from all previous wars in thatit was not just a test ofthe military capabilities of the warring countries. It was theireconom ies that were being put to the test and R ussia was bound to perform badly.In an epoch when "coal was king" Russia produced only 111 6th f the amount of thecoal that the US produced, 1/9thhat of Great Britain and 1/6thhat of Germany.Though Russia ranked sixth in the world production of iron, it manufactured only6% of the steel produced in the world. As for railroad, when Germany had 11kilometers per 100 square kilometers, France 8 or 9, Russia had only 400 metersexcluding Siberia. When the war began, Russia's trade with the outside world cameto a standstill and given its heavy reliance on foreign capital, this seriously dislocatedthe economy.Moreover, large sections of Russia were horrified and disillusioned at the way TsarNichola s I1 conduc ted the war effort. There were so me parties like the Cadets(Constitutional Democrats), which felt that if the conduct of the war was given overto them , they would do a better job of it. In fact, through the greater part of 1916,the cou ntry was being gov erned not by the Tsar or by his bureaucracy or by thecourt, but by private associations which had sprung up more or less sirnultaneously.Red Cross Comm ittees which had started out modestly, little by little took over theadministration ofpu blic health. The Zemstvos, locally elected councils which hadcome into existence in the time of Tsar Alexander 11, i.e., the 1860s and 1870s, had,after 1914 come together to form a Pan-Russian Union of Zemstvos to help the sickand wounded soldiers who were pouring in from the war-front. There was aCommittee of War Industries which com prised of representatives of comm erce andindustry. They became like a parallel government, trying to streamline war production.This w as because the Tsarist authorities were increasingly proving themselves to beincapable of even looking after defence production of the country.There was also a huge consum ers co-operative movement w hich was spreadingrapidly, trying to tackle the difficulties of everyday life such as price increases. A bagof potatoes, which would cost one rouble before the war had gone up to 7 roublesby 1917. Ap ood (equivalent to 36 pounds) of w heat flour, costing 6 roubles 50kopecks before the war was now selling at 40 roubles. On m ost essential itemsthere had been a seven-to-eigh t-fold increase, and , needless to say, wages had notkept up with this rise in prices. It was not just the industrial worke rs who we1.eaffected. Civil servants and w hite-collar workers were also badly hit and this w aswhy, when the w orkers came out on the stree ts in demonstrations, they too joinedthe protests- omething which had not happened in the 1905 Revo lution.The adm inistrationwatched helplessly as it was slow ly divested of itspowers. Everyworkin g group was getting organized and without realizing it, the Russians werebeginning to govern themselves. The Durna or the Russian Parliament, which hadbeen constituted after the 1905 Revolution, though largely comprised of supportersof the Tsarist regime, and boycotted by the more radical groups, tried to open theTsar's eyes to the growing abyss between the co urt and public opinion but had noeffect. Su ch were the times that even this loyalist Durna became more and morecritical of the government and finally on 25 February 1917, matters came to a headwith the Tsar deciding o prorogue the Duma. He accused this body ofhaving nstigatedthe strikes in major industrial units like the Putilov arms works, the streetdemonstrations and the defiance by sold iers of their officers. But so complete was


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R e v o l u t i o n s proletariat of some other major industrial country of Europe to create a socialistrevolution. Only then would it be possible for Russia to bypass its bourgeois-democratic stage and create a socialist revolution.Thus, in many ways, Lenin was able to anticipate the turn of events in Russia. Wlierehe, as well as many of his fellow revolutionary leaders, went wrong was in theirexpectation that the first socialist revolution would occur in Germany or any otherhighly industrialized country of Europe. That was not to happen and it fell to the lotof Russia to carry out this task.Leon Trotsky, a charismatic leader who was to play a dynamic role in the StPetersburg Soviet, was a Menshevik for a long time even though his views werequite close to those of Lenin. Where he differed with Lenin was on the question ofthe peasantry's potential. He was skeptical of the peasants and firmly believed that

From F ebruary to OctoberAfter the February Revolution, the internal contradictionswithin Russia becameevident and were accentuated over time. The Provisional Government, headed byPrince Lvov, and representing the moderate forces, was committed to carrying onthe war effort. The more radical forces were concentrated in the Petrograd Soviet.They were in favour of introducing democratic reforms, confiscation of lahded estatesand promulgating an eight-hour day for workers. They also wanted to enter intonegotiations with the proletariat of other countries in order to bring an end to thewar.Though the Provisional Government was the official regime inthe eyes of the world,within Russia it was unable to take a single important decision unless it was endorsedby the deputies of the Soviet.24.5.2 SovietsWhat was the Soviet? First constituted in the course of the 1'905Revolution theSt.Petersburg Soviet was a Council of Workers' Deputies, which, in the words ofIsaac Deutscher, "soon became the most spectacular centre of the revolution." Theorders and instructions of this Soviet commanded universal obedience. It was thepeople's parliamentparexcellence and in the absence of any parliamentary institutions,it was the broadest and most representative body that Russia possessed. In 1917,a few days after the Tsar's abdication the St. Petersburg Soviet was reconstituted.Its members were elected from factories, workshops and later in the barracks ofregiments that were stationed in the capital. They were not elected for any fixedterm- he electorate had the right to replace them by other men at any time. It wasalso the de facto executive power in Russia. The writ of the Soviet ran in factory,railway depot, post office and regiment alike. In fact the Provisional Governmentwas virtually a prisoner in the hands of the Soviet.Inthe months after the February Revolution, Soviets mushroomed all over Russia-in provincial towns and in villages. Because of the mode of their election, hey didnot represent the nobility and the middle classes. By August 1917, there were 600Soviets in Russia. They had assumed all the responsibilities of government.24.5.3 Lenin's April ThesisIn April 1917 Lenin arrived in Russia from Finland and issued his 'April Theses' inwhich he set forth the new slogan "All power to the Soviets". Capitalismhad to beoverthrown and the war brought to an end. The bourgeoisie and the Mensheviks


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were deceiving the proletariat. The Revolution had entered the socialist phase. Landand banks should be nationalized, the police and the army abolished. Tho se whoheard Lenin's ideas were stunned and thought that he had taken leave of his senses.It was like an avalanche and som e of the proposals sounded completely like flightsof fancy. But s lowly, in the following w eeks, the ideas seeped inand Lenin was ableto win over many to his views.24.5.4 Worsening SituationMeanwhile the Provisional Governm ent was alienating itself fio m the peoplecontinuously. They wanted peace but the G overnment had already declared that allthe Tsarist Government's comm itments to the war would be adhered to. In the faceof moun ting opposition, the mem bers of the first Provisional Governm ent had toresign and in May, a new govern me nt, still headed by Prince Lvov, but with s ixsocialist Ministersdrawn fiom the Soviets, was constituted. But this new governmentwas even less able to tackle the problem s of the day. These were internal differences:while the liberalgroup wanted to delay certainfundamental reforms until the conveningof a Constituent Assembly, the socialists were anxious to respond to the populardemands for imm ediate reform.The economic situation grew worse. When workers demanded more wages, theindustrialists,unwilling to g rant them any increase, began to close dow n factories.The Governmen t provided no protection to the workers. To add to the problems aRussian military offensive in Galicia ended disastrously. The Provisional Governm entwas unable to handle thk wave of popular unrest which was triggered off by theoffensive and Prince Lvov had to resign.Thus, by July 1917, in Litle more than four months, a third Provisional Governmenthad been constituted Clearly these Governments were incapable of providing stabilityto Russia and tackling its pressing problems. Sensing heir own incom petence, heGovernm ent became more and more defensive. They began directing their angeragainst the Bolsheviks, who were the only group among the socialists which had notjoined the Provisional Government.Order5 were issued for the arrest of Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders like Zinovievand Kamenev. Lenin and Zinoviev evaded arrest and escaped to Finland whileKamenev got arrested. It was at this time that Trotsky and several other mem bersof the Menshevik party decided to join the Bolsheviks. They too were promptlyarrested.Throughout this period, there was g rowing unrest in the countryside. Thoroughlydisillusioned with one Provisional Governm ent after another, the peasants decidedto c any out a veritable agrarian revolution on their own. They seized the estates ofthe landlords and began cultivating them with the help of local land committees.Peasant anger also found reflection in the m y , s more and more soldiers begandeserting he war fiont and returning to the villages.24.5.5 The Kornilov MutinyThereafter, events moved with lightening speed. In August 1917 here was an attemptat a military coup. General Kornilov, the head of the armed forces, had been invitedby Kerensky to the capital in order to help him crush the Bolshevik forces. ButKornilov exceeded his brief. He thought he could seize this opportunity o wipe ou tnot just the Bolshevik s but also the Soviets, the m oderate Socialists and Kerenskyhimself!

Pol i t ica l Revolut ion:


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3 -Revo lu t i on s The Kerensky government was panic-stricken . It realize? that it could not defeat

the forces of Kornilov without the help of theB olsheviks, niany of whom werebehind bars. They were released. Trotsky's services were sought for obtaining thehelp of the K ronstadt sailors (Kronstadt was a naval base outside Petrograd), whowere extremely radical and powerfil. Trotsky used to address the Kronstadt sailorsfrequently. They faithfd ly followedhim, even idolized him.The Soviets formed a Committee for struggleagainstCounter-Revolution. Kornilov'stroops deserted him. The railway workers stopped his trains, he telegraph operatorsrefused to relay his messages.This aborted military coup clearly showed where the actual power resided. TheKerensky Government had lost face and credibility. A fifth Provisional Governrnentwas formed on 21 September. It had ten Socialist ministers and six others. T heBolsheviks continued to steer clear of the government. However, they were steadilygaining more and more seats in the Soviets.In October 1917, following a series of defeats in the war, the Provisional Governmentplanned to shift the capital from Petrograd to M oscow. This was seen by thepeople as the final act of betrayal and the Bolshev iks, along with the Soviets, calledfar a defence of Petrograd as the capital of the revolution. They managed to get thesupport of all the parties and the Provisional Government thereby stood exposed.Lanin, though still in hiding, had moved closer to the scene of action by this time. Ina short article titled 'The Crisis is Ripe', h e wrote: "we stand on the threshold of aworldw ide proletarian revolution". It was imp ortant to seize the moment - hetiming was crucial. Trotsky on the other hand was adamant that any armed insurrectionmu st coincide with the convening of the All R ussian Congress of Soviets. Leninwarned that if they were to "let slip the present mom ent, we shallruin the revolution".On 9 October Lenin came to Petrograd in disgu ise and o n 10 October the CentralCom mittee of the Bolshevik Party met. By a majority vote of 10 to 2,the Comm itteevoted in favour of armed insurrection. A 'political bureau' consisting of seven memberswas to be formed to carry out the task. In the meantime, the Petrograd Soviet hadalso formed a Military Revolution Committee (MRC) to make the militarypreparations for the coming resolution.Thereafter the Bolsheviks and the Soviets began acting inunison ;n the countdownfor the revolution. In any case the Soviet had already assumed the responsibility forthe defence of the capital,thus lifting itself to a new prom inence and authority whichwould enable it to undo the Provisional Government.24.5.6 The Bolsheviks Take Bower25 O ctober (7 November according to the English Calendar)was thedate fixed ro~the revolution. The All Russian Congress of Soviets was to meet in the eveninga dthe insurrection was to be carried out before that. The final touches were given onthe eve of the revolution. The members of the Bolshevik Central Committeealongh t h hose of the MRC took charge of the different arms of the government- ostsa d elegraphs, railway communications, food supplies and even the P r o v i s i dGovernment itself!Barly on the morning of the 2 5 ~ ,he Bolshevik forces went into action. Tfre keypoints in the city were occupied and mem bers of the Provisional Governmentwere


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taken into custody. There was virtually no resistance to this takeover. The news Pol i t i ca l Revolut ion:R u s s i aagency, Renters, reported only two causalties whereas in February over 1000peoplehad been killed or wounded.Inthe afternoon,Leninannounced to a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, the triumph,f +heworkers' and the peasants' revolution. Inthe evening, the Second All RussianCongress of Soviets proclaimed the transfer of all power to the Soviets throughoutRussia. It may be mentioned here that when the first All Russian Congress of Sovietshad been convened in June 1917, the Bolsheviks had been treated with disdain.One of the speakers had challenged the delegates o say whether there was a singleparty in Russia that was prepared to shoulder the responsibility for government.Lenin had got up and said that his party was willing to do so. His words weredrowned in hilarious laughter.Now Lenin had shown that he meant what he had said. In the confused, ever-changing scenario that had unfolded fiom February to October, it was the Bolsheviksalone, under the leadership of Lenin that had understood the needs of the peopleand assessed the true strengths and weaknesses of the various classes in the country.It had figured out that the capitalist class was a weak one, whereas the peasantryhad revolutionary potential.It was with this clarity of perspective that, on the day following the revolution, threeDecrees were promulgated: The Decree on Peace, the Decree on Bread and theDecree on Land. These were the three issues that wereuppermost in the minds ofthe Russian people: they wanted Russia to pull out of the war immediately; theywanted anamelioration of the con&tions of acute food scarcity; and the redistributionof the large landed estates. l'hough the Land Decree proclaimed that henceforththere would be no privat., property in land and all land was to pass into the hands ofthe Soviets, it was realized that the small peasants would be unwilling to part withtheir lands yet. Hence the Land Decree was only partially implemented.24.5.7 Early Legislation of the New RegimeThe new regime was keen to show that it represented a radically new and differentorder. A ~ Insri~~tio~lsnd customs associated with the autocracy were tobeabolished.All ranks, titles and decorations were to be done away with. Army commanders aswell as judges were to be elected. All agencies of local government were set asideand replaced by a hierarchy of Soviets. Women were given equal rights with men.All banks and joint stocks companies were nationalized. Payment of interests anddividends were prohibited. Safe deposit boxes were opened and all valuablesconfiscated, since t h q were now considered national property. In January 1918, itwas announced that ill state foreign and domestic loans would be annulled. Thiscaused the new regime to become extremely unpopular, especially in the eyes ofthose countries which had loaned large sums for Russian's industrialization.In the factories, an eight hour day was introduced. For the first time in the world,workers' control of industrial enterprises became legal. Universal labour servicewas introduced and only those with workers' books could receive rations. Leninexplained that his immediate purpose in introducing compulsory labour service wasto fight the forces of counter-revolution.Many of these policies were to be revised and even reversed later. But thecommitment to ending Russia's involvement in the war was steadfast and so was thatof redistributing the nobility's estates amongst the peasants. These were the reasonsfor the survival of the Bolsheviks and the spreading of their influence in the crucialmonths after the October Revolution.


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R e v o l u i i o n s 24.6 THE LEGACY O F THE RU,CIANREVOLUTION

The new regime set up by the Bolsheviks survived, no doubt with many changes andeven distortions, for some seventy-odd years, until the 1990s. Though regardedwith apprehension, suspicion and at times with aw e, Soviet Russia influenced thecourse of events in many parts o f the w orld, som etimes in predictable but moreoften in unpredictable ways. Some historians regard the Russian Revolution as themost significant event ofthe twentieth century and seemost ofthe m ajor developmentsin the w orld du ring this period and e ven thereafter, as being related to th is event insom e way or the other. In the words o f E.J.Hobsbawm in hisAge of Extremes:. with the significant exception of the years from 1933 to 1945, theinternational politics of the entire S hort Twentieth C entury since theOctober revolution can best be understood as a secular struggle by theforces of the old order against social revolution, believed to be embodiedin, allied with, or dependent o n the fortunes of the Sov iet Union andinternational communism.

The o ld order was that of capitalism and imperialism. It felt threatened by the onsetof socialism from the very outset. When Russ ia signed the Treaty of Brest Litovskwith Germany in March 1918and pu lled out of the First World War, the Allies feltbetrayed. They regarded this action as strengthen ing the ha nds o f Germany, theirenemy, even though Soviet Russia had pulled out of the W ar as much because itcould no longer sustain the war effort as because of the ideological commitment ofthe Bolsheviks to end all inlperialist wars. The subsequent surge ofconfidence amongstall left-minded groups in Europe and in other parts of the world caused great alarmto entrenched political systems based on exploitation and maximization ofprofit. Arevolutionary wave swept Europe in 1918 and 1919, with G erman revolutionarysailors carrying the banner ofthe Soviets through the country. Spanish revolutionariesexperienced a new burst of energy, a short lived socialist republic was proclaimed inBavaria in 1918 and another one in Hungary in M arch 1919. Other parts of theworld w ere also in ferment. "Soviets" were formed by tobacco workers in Cuba,revolutionary student movem ents erupted in Argentina and inChina. InMexico, therevolutionary forces under Erniliano Zapata now drew insp iration fiom revolutionaryRussia and in India too, M.N.Roy and later many o thers were greatly influenced bycom munism. Jawaharlal Nehru has explained, in his Aulobiography, what Russiameant to people like him:

Russia, following he great Lenin, looked into the f i r 2 nd thought onlyof w hat was to be, while other countries lay numbed under the dead handof the past and spent their energy in preserving the ~is el es selics of abygone age.

Yet, there were ce rtain negative aspects too. There w as a strong au tho lim an streakin Boshevism w hich carried over into Comm unist Russia as well. The :picit ofdemocracy was o ften comprom ised with and individual Comm unist Parties whichwere set up in different countries were too closely tied to the apron strings ofth zCom intem (The Communist International, set up by Soviet Russia in 1919 o promotethe world revolu tion) for them to grow in a healthy, organic fashion. Within Russiatoo, especially in the Stalinist years, terror and dictatorial methods became the orderof the day and a bureaucratic machine replaced the Soviets which had caught thei.magination of the world. Though Stalin's Russia heroically defended itself againstthe onslaught of Hitler and was responsible for beating back the forces of Fascism


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to a significantextent, in the years that followed the regime turned inwards, drawingan iron curtain across Europe and cutting itself off from the outside world. Anti-cosmopolitanism and xenophobia came to replace the internationalism of the earlyyears and that was the great irony. It negated the very spirit of the Russian Revolution,which had an ingrained internationalism, which had discarded old divisions ofnationality as obsolete and whose vanguard, the Bolshevik,had once proudly regardedhimself as a citizen of the world.24.7 SUMMARYThis Unit was a discussion of the Russian Revolution, as an important politicalphenomenon of the 20d'century, that had global implications. One major feature ofthe Russian Revolution was that although the revolution occurred in Russia, it wasnot conceived of as a national event but rather as a global event. It was hoped andanticipated that a series of socialist revolutions in various parts of the world wouldcumulatively create a world revolution. The leaders ofthe revolution actually provideda theory of the transformation of the world from a capitalist order into a socialistone. The revolution inspired similar activities in other parts of the world and alsomotivated a number of anti-imperialist liberation struggles taking place inAsia,A.fiicaand Latin America against colonial domination.The main purpose of this Block is to familiarize you with the range of revolutionaryexperiences that the modern world goes through:As case studies of politicalrevolutions, you read about the French and the R-ussianRevolutions. The next twoUnits ofthis Blockwillexamine two entirely different ypes ofrevolutions-KnowledgeRevolution and Technological Revolution- hat were not organized around politicalevents. Neither were they consciously brought about by political actors or leaders.But these revolutions played an equally, if not more, important roleiribringing abouta transformation n human life.24.8 EXERCISES

P o l i t i c a l R e v o l u t i o n:

1) Why did the Socialist Revolution take place in Russia?2) In what ways were the ideas ofthe Socialist Revolution different h m he mannerin which the revolution actually came about?3) Write a note on the legacy of the Russian Revolution.

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