Draft:Outline of the Russian Revolution

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Russian Revolution:

The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social change in the Russian Empire, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government following two successive revolutions and a bloody civil war. The Russian Revolution can also be seen as the precursor for the other European revolutions that occurred during or in the aftermath of World War I, such as the German Revolution of 1918–1919.

Below is a structured list of topics related to the Russian Revolution.

Pre-Revolution Russia

• Final true autocracy in Europe
• No representative political institutions
• Nicholas II became Czar in 1884
• Believed he had the divine right of kings
• Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)
  • Defeat led to political instability

The Revolution of 1905

• Rapid growth of (discontented) working class
• Vast majority of workers concentrated in St. Petersburg and Moscow
• Little help from the countryside
  • Impoverished peasants
• No individual land ownership
  • Rural Famine

Conservatism Continues: 1905-1917

• Czar neglected the Duma
• Political parties suppressed
  • Only token land reform was passed
• Nicholas became increasingly remote as a ruler
• Numerous soviets began to appear

Alexandra: The Power Behind the Throne

• Even more blindly devoted to autocracy than her husband
• She was under the influence of Rasputin
• Origins of Rasputin’s power - ?
• Scandals surrounding Rasputin served to discredit the monarchy

World War I: “The Last Straw”

• War revealed the ineptitude and arrogance of the country’s aristocratic elite
• Corrupt military leadership had contempt for ordinary Russian people
• Average peasants had very little invested in the War
• Ill-trained, ineffective officers, poorly equipped (Russia was not ready for ind. war) = mass desertions and 2 million casualties by 1915
  • Result: Chaos and Disintegration of the Russian Army

The Collapse of the Imperial Government

• Nicholas left for the Front (September, 1915)
• Alexandra and Rasputin threw the government into chaos
  • Complete mismanagement of the wartime economy
    • Industrial production plummeted
    • Inflation and starvation were rampant
    • Cities were overflowing with refugees
• Alexandra and other high government officials accused of treason
• Rasputin assassinated (December, 1916)
• Cities became a hotbed for political activism
  • This was ignited by serious food shortages in March 1917, esp. in St. Petersburg

The March Revolution: March 12, 1917

• Origins of the revolution
  • Food riots and strikes
• Duma declared itself a Provisional Government (March 12)
• Czar ordered soldiers to intervene
  • Instead they joined the rebellion
    • The Czar thus abdicated on March 17
• Menshevik, Alexander Kerensky headed the Provisional Government, along with Prince Lvov
  • Very Popular Revolution
  • Kerensky favoured gradual socialist reform
    • He saw the war effort as a major priority

Kornilov Affair

Main article: Kornilov Affair

• General Lavr Kornilov attempted to overthrow Provisional Government with military takeover
• Kerensky prevented this takeover by freeing many Bolshevik leaders from prison and supplied arms to many revolutionaries

The Petrograd Soviet

• Leftists in St. Petersburg formed the Petrograd Soviet
  • Which they claimed to be their legitimate government
• Germany was aware of the Russian situation and began to concentrate on the Western Front
• Germany even granted Lenin "safe passage" in order to return Russia (April, 1917)
  • Allowing Lenin to create a revolution

Soviet Political Ideology

• More radical and revolutionary than the Provisional Government
• Most influenced by Marxist socialism
• Bolsheviks and Mensheviks

Vladimir Lenin: Founder of Bolshevism

Main article: Vladimir Lenin

• His Early Years
  • Exiled to Siberia (1897)
• Devoted to Class Struggle and Revolution
• Moved to London in 1902 and befriended Leon Trotsky
• What is to be Done?
  • Stated that a vanguard party is required to lead a revolution
    • This divided the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party into two factions
      • Bolsheviks and Mensheviks

Lenin Steps into This Vacuum

• Lenin’s arrival in Petrograd
• A tremendously charismatic personality
  • Lenin and his fellow Bolsheviks promised "Peace, Land, and Bread."
  • “All Power to the Soviets”
  • He preached that the war was a capitalist/imperialist war that offered no rewards for the peasants/workers; he also believed the war was over with the czar’s abdication
• Bolshevik party membership exploded; their power was consolidated
• Lenin formed the Military-Revolutionary Council and in May 1917 he urged the Pet. Soviet to pass Army Order #1
  • This gave control of the army to the common soldiers
    • Discipline thus collapsed, and Kerensky was undermined

The November Revolution: Nov. 6, 1917

• This was the ideological aspect of the revolution
• The coup itself planned by Leon Trotsky had gained the confidence of the army
• All private property was abolished and divided among the peasantry
• Largest industrial enterprises nationalized
• Political Police organized called the CHEKA
• Revolutionary army created with Trotsky in charge called the "Red Army”
• Bolshevik Party renamed Communist Party of the Soviet Union (March 1918)
• Lenin’s first task was to get Russia out of the war
  • To concentrate on economic reform
• The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk negotiated with the Germans
  • Giving them much Russian territory, population, and resources
• Civil War: 1917-1920
  • Complete breakdown of Russian economy and society

The Reasons for the Reds victory:

• The Reds occupied the strategic center of the nation; the Whites were on the fringes.
• The White opposition was ideologically fragmented, including reformists, Mensheviks, Czarists
  • This wartime coalition proved to be incompatible
• Trotsky had increased the efficiency of the Red Army
  • Strict military discipline (e.g. deserters were shot)
  • Made use of czarist officers and their military experience
• Lenin made use of Revolutionary Terror (Cheka – a secret police force)
  • Kept the citizens in line
  • They were responsible for killing the Czar and his family, including the youngest daughter, Anastasia (1918)
• “War Communism”
  • Period of strict government and economic control
• Foreign intervention (eight western nations, notably France, aided the Whites)
  • Promoted a sense of nationalism that aided the Reds.
  • Lenin used this as a propaganda device
  • The intervention of the western nations was based on ideological grounds
    • They feared communism

End of Civil War

• Reds emerge victorious in 1921
• Lenin renames country USSR (United Soviet Socialist Republic)
• Lenin implements NEP (New Economic Policy)
  • “One step back to go two steps forward”
• Small scale capitalism to jumpstart the stagnated Russian economy

The New Economic Policy

• An attempt to rebuild agriculture and industry thru a free market system
• Many dissidents were shipped off to the gulags
• Lenin was presumably ready to return to Marxist principles when the NEP did work
  • But his health deteriorated after a 1922 stroke, and Lenin died in 1924
    • This created a power vacuum and a struggle between Trotsky and Stalin

Leon Trotsky

• Opposed the NEP
• Intellectual, head of the Red Army
• Favored the doctrine of World Revolution
• Felt that the USSR could not survive as the sole communist state
• The USSR must therefore seek to export revolution to world

Josef Stalin

• Supported the NEP
• Favored “Socialism in One Country”
• Believed the USSR should strengthen itself and lead the communist world by export
• Became the Party’s General Secretary in 1922
  • Appointed many assistants crucial to Stalin’s rise
• Power struggle lasted until 1928, when Stalin’s complex system of alliances and ability w/ realpolitik allowed him to succeed

Stalin Prevails

• Trotsky was forced into exile and eventually murdered in Mexico City in 1940
• Stalin went on to condemn all deviation from the party line
• He also created a “Cult of Lenin” and worked to connect himself to the fallen leader

External links

• Museum of Communists
  • Vladmir Lenin
• Lenin's Works
  • Lenin's Speeches on Gramophone Records