The October Revolution, a History

[lord of flies]

Part 1: Backdrop

Thanks to the collapse of the Kievan state, Moscow came to be the supreme power in Russia. Unlike Kiev, which had a tradition of the nobility checking the monarch's power, no one was there to challenge the prince of Moscow. People came to settle on lands that were already the prince's property, and he set the terms. With no one to check its power, Moscow established an ever-larger realm of autocratic control. They constantly defeated the aristocracy, which was never capable of acting in its class interest. Class was nothing more than closeness to the tsar. The bureaucracy of the Moscow regime, while from noble families, thought of themselves as seperate from the nobility.

 

Serfdom did not develop early, as in the west: in fact, it developed (and was ended) quite late. Russia was an agricultural country in a region that was not well suited for agriculture. Peasants lost their freedom when they borrowed from their landlords to survive, and were unable to repay their loans. There came to be two basic kinds of landlords: the lesser ones (the gentry) and the large landlords (the aristocracy). Because the aristocrats could more easily offer the peasants good terms, they endangered the position of the gentry, and the gentry formed the basis of the tsars armies, which were paid by giving the soldiers land. Slowly but surely, the state established limitations on the ability of the peasants to freely move, helping to protect the gentry, and by extension, the military power of Russia.

 

Christianity in Russia was descended from Kiev's conversion, which was gained from translated text. While this allowed its rapid integration, it also meant that there were virtually no Russians who knew Greek or Latin, a precondition of the Renaissance that rebuilt the west. With Mongol conquest and later the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, the Russian church inherited the Byzantine idea of cesaropapism, and it became a tool of the Moscovite autocracy.

 

In 1861, as part of its sporadic attempts to westernize (opposed by "Slavophiles," who prefered Russia's distinctiveness and spiritual values), serfdom was abolished. Everything was suddenly forced to be reformed, since Russia was built on these institutions. Over the next two decades, Alexander II and the statesmen serving him, created the rudiments of a modern military and judiciary. This allowed Russia to indulge in a great spurt of industrialization in at the end of the 20th century.

 

This emancipation preserved the peasant commune, a form of peasant self-government which periodically redistributed land among their members to accommodate demographic shifts. The government supported the communes by assigning collective responsibility for taxes and redemption payments.

 

In the 1890s, under finance minister Sergei Witte, the Russian economy boomed. Witte succeeded in persuading the reactionary Tsar Alexander III that without modern industry, Russia would be at the mercy of other powers. This industrialization lead to the creation of a proletariat, who, though impoverished and mostly connected to their old communes, would play a fundamental role in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917.

 

Thanks to this, and to the horrific conduct of the Russian military in the Russo-Japanese War, there would be a "revolution" in 1905. In reality, the "revolutionaries" were disorganized workers who asked only for reforms, not a destruction of the old system. By a combination of repression and timely concessions, the autocracy managed to sustain itself, at least for the near future. But in October 1905, workers spontaneously created soviets (a word meaning council), and became one of the most fundamental contributions to twentieth-century revolutionary politics. No one, not Marx or Lenin, foresaw these workers' councils. But they would come to be understood as the basis of a successful communist revolution by many Marxists, in particular the Bolsheviks. For a moment, in fall 1905, the Saint Petersburg Soviet seemed almost as powerful as the government.

 

Workers on the streets of St. Petersburg, 1905.

 

The government made some concessions in order to stop this revolution, but they were never really intended to be kept to. The Duma, for example, was initially 31 percent elected by a handful of landowners, 42 percent elected by the peasants, and 2 percent elected by the proletariat. In 1907, Stolypin adjusted the election of the Duma after dissolving it: as a consequence more than half the members of the Duma were elected by the landowners, and the peasants elected only 22 percent.

 

The policies of repression returned, and though the military establishment initially struggled against it, Russia decided in 1914 to enter the Great War. Repression, class politics, and the war finally colluded to create the revolution.

 

Part 2: The February Revolution and the Inter-Revolutionary Period

On February 23, 1917, workers of the textile factories (mostly women), went on strike and demonstrated for bread. There was nothing particularly unusual at the time about a strike or demonstration; at first, the authorities were not overly concerned. On February 24, there were between one hundred fifty to two hundred thousand demonstrators. The next day, there were even more people, and the Cossacks were becoming reluctant to disperse the crowds. On February 26, the soldiers, who had freely mingled with the crowds for days, were now ordered to shoot. Although dozens of labor leaders were arrested, in the course of the next few days Petrograd became engulfed by anarchy. As more and more soldiers joined the revolutionaries, there was soon nothing in the city garrison.

 

A large gathering of women, workers and soldiers.

 

Most liberal politicians hoped that the monarchy could be saved one way or another, but the tsar abdicated on March 2, and the provisional committee became the government. It was ultimately an extension of the Duma, with most of its members having made their reputations there, demanding liberal reforms. Meanwhile, the Petrograd Soviet would become its rival and eventually supplant it.

 

Aleksander Kerensky, a moderate Socialist-Revolutionary, was elected as one of the two vice chairmen of the Petrograd Soviet, and also gained the portfolio of justice in the government. It him having "a foot in both camps" that allowed him to gain the prominence and power he would find in the following months.

 

On March 1, the Petrograd Soviet issued Order Number One, which called on soldiers to form soviets in every military unit down to the size of companies, asked the soldiers to obey the Petrograd Soviet over the Military Commission, abolished old forms of address of officers and conferred on soldiers all rights of citizenship. It expressed the hostility the soldiers felt; the officers had already lost control over their soldiers in February.

 

The liberal government was doomed to fail from the beginning. Even in hindsight, it is hard to see what policies, which were consistent with their deeply held beliefs, would haveenabled them to retain power. The provisional government proved unable to resolve the war or land reform. It would face political crisis after political crisis, prove unable to maintain a grip on the government, and ultimately would be overthrown by the Bolsheviks.

 

The first political crisis was in April, when Miliukov (then Foreign Minister) wrote to the allied governments saying that Russia would observe obligations to her allies and fight until "decisive victory." This caused a crisis, as the leaders of the Petrograd Soviet had previously stated they were against continuing the war. Miliukov was forced to resign, followed by Guchkov. A new coalition government was formed, and Kerensky took the defense portfolio. It had been shown that the provisional government was ultimately subservient to the will of the Petrograd Soviet.

 

In June, Kerensky initiated a major and ill-considered offensive, in an attempt to reassure the Allies and to try to rekindle the fighting spirit of the army. It quickly became a disaster, as the Germans, who had been forewarned, pushed back the attackers and inflicted heavy casualties.

 

In July, serious disturbances took place in Petrograd, and for the first time the soldiers and workers of the city showed themselves to be more radical than the socialist leadership of the Soviet. A regiment that feared it would be sent to the front mutinied, and soon the soldiers were joined by workers, and the provisional government was in doubt. The government, supported by soviet leadership, brought fresh troops to Petrograd and reestablished order. It was then that Kerensky became premier.

 

Later in July, Kornilov was appointed as commander in chief of the Russian armies. He then attempted to send troops to Petrograd to disperse the soviet; when Kerensky ordered him to relinquish command, he refused. He and his fellow mutineers were arrested. His attempt at mutiny was, to put it simply, incompetent and poorly thought out.

 

Government troops fire on workers in July.

 

Meanwhile, the peasants became more and more dissatisfied at the provisional government, as it refused to implement land reform until the (constantly delayed) constituent assembly. The peasants began to simply seize the land they wanted. These seizures began in May, and grew during the summer. The peasant communes, like the workers' soviets, would come to be the basis of this revolutionary behavior.

 

Part 3: The October Revolution

Historians have asked whether the October Revolution was a coup, carried out by the Bolshevik party, or a true revolution coming from the radical workers and soldiers of Petrograd. But the most incredible element of the Revolution wasn't the behavior of the Bolsheviks or the workers, but the disintegration of the Provisional Government and its power.

 

Lenin said that waiting might prove fatal and urged the Bolsheviks to act. He succeeded in winning over the entire central committee, except for Zinoviev and Kamenev. Lenin's old comrades were so opposed that they published the date of the planned uprising in Novyi Mir, a noncommunist journal. Every politically aware person in Petrograd knew that the Bolsheviks were about to act, but the Provisional Government could not defend itself. Under the circumstances, it's obvious that one cannot really speak of a coup or a conspiracy: the Bolsheviks seized power because the country was in the throes of anarchy.

 

The actual events of October 24-25, 1917, were not particularly dramatic. From the point of view of weary contemporaries, the country simply experienced another crisis. The Bolsheviks, now in control of the Petrograd Soviet, had organized and carried out a revolutionary move: they took over the railroad stations, offices of major newspapers, and key public buildings. The last holdout was the Winter Palace, in which the provisional government was meeting (minus Kerensky, who had escaped earlier). The besiegers were a handful of poorly organized men, but that didn't matter, since the Provisional Government had practically no armed support. In order to gain some legitimacy, the Bolsheviks timed their action to coincide with the Second Congress of Soviets, claiming to act in the name of the soviets. Although moderate socialists left the meeting in protests, the Bolshevik majority supported and approved the revolutionary moves.

 

The Petrograd Soviet

 

The issues of land and peace which had brought down the provisional government, and Lenin determined to deal with these issues as completely and early as possible. The next day, he presented his decree on peace and land to the Congress of Soviets. Regarding peace, there was an appeal to all belligerents to commence negotiations for a just and democratic peace, without indemnities or annexations. Regarding the land, it was declared that all land was national property, but peasants were allowed to cultivate it as their own; in practice, this meant the Bolsheviks had officially recognized the peasants' land confiscations. While this conflicted with the Bolsheviks' Marxist vision of the future (a large landed class not being really compatible with a socialist society), Lenin realized it was essential to ensure the peasants' alliance, or at least neutrality: and to do that, they would have to allow them the land they had confiscated during the inter-revolutionary period. The Bolshevik agitators in the villages now had the task of spreading the land decree, to convince the peasants that the Bolsheviks were on their side.

 

Bolshevik explaining the new order to peasants.

 

The Council of Commissars was the new government, headed by Lenin and made up solely of Bolsheviks. The list was a disappointment to the majority of the radical soldiers and workers who had helped the Bolsheviks to power, because they had expected a coalition of socialists. A good chunk of the highest level Bolsheviks would also have preferred a coalition, and some felt so strongly that they resigned rather than participate in a one-party government. Lenin and Trotsky's conception of the new regime did not allow concessions to those who opposed taking power. A month later, the Bolsheviks did allow a few Left SRs [2] into their government, but they were allowed in on the Bolshevik's terms: they were given portfolios chosen by the Bolsheviks and could not effectively oppose Bolshevik policies. In any case, they would leave the government in protest over Lenin's decision to make peace with the Germans in March 1918.

 

And what were the future passionate anti-Bolsheviks doing? Why did they let the Bolsheviks take power so easily, considering the vehemence and force they would soon apply against them? The October Revolution did not surprise them, since the date was publicized prior to it being enacted. The military men had been recently defeated, and they were disappointed in the general populace. They hated Kerensky's government so much that they did not come to its assistance, even against the Bolsheviks. Further, they did not imagine that a bunch of radicals could succeed where the previous governments had failed: most notably, in governing the country. They were also busy fighting the Germans, and they only came into open opposition when it became impossible for them to continue to do so.

 

The Mensheviks and SRs underestimated the differences between themselves and the new government: to them, the Bolsheviks were fellow socialists. The country was preparing for elections to the Constituent Assembly [2], and coming against the Bolsheviks might compromise their position amongst the voters. After all, the Bolsheviks had managed to obtain some legitimacy by getting majority support at the Second Congress of Soviets.

 

The Bolsheviks wanted not only to reorganize society and politics, but also to remake humanity. Their program was based on their reading of Marx, and the precepts of theory and the concrete needs of the moment almost immediately clashed, and the Bolsheviks were forced to improvise. It was here that the Bolsheviks became the great innovators of twentieth century politics, and developed institutions, methods of mobilization and a vocabulary that would be rediscovered again and again.

 

It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that all of the unattractive Bolshevik policies were the consequence of these unexpected demands. They were not democrats or liberals converted to a different mode of politics by their need for survival: they were men who would quickly transform from freedom-fighters to oppressors.

 

Their rise to power was completely unforeseen by contemporary Marxists (and, by extension, Marxist-Leninists); rather than taking over a fully mature industrial society, their inheritance was one of the most backwards, uneducated and poorly industrialized nations in Europe. Rather than the anticipated world revolution, which would have granted them help from more advanced nations, they had to face off against the Germans, and later forces from much of the world. The German army in particular seemed unstoppable because the Russian army had lost its capacity to effectively resist, at least in part as a result of Bolshevik anti-war propaganda.

 

The Bolsheviks regarded themselves as an advance regiment in the international proletarian army, but it was nonetheless disturbing that, contrary to Marxist theory, the revolution did not first occur in the most industrialized nations. They explained this to their own satisfaction by arguing that the Russian proletariat had broken the chain of world capitalism at its weakest link. Thus, the primary reason for the Russian revolution was to initiate world revolution. Their revolution could only be successful if they were aided by more industrialized socialist nations. Their expectation of a worldwide revolution following WWI was by no means a nonsensical expectation, and most of their contemporaries hoped for, or feared for, just such a cataclysmic transformation. Indeed, post-war Europe was one of the most chaotic periods, and most nations underwent, or nearly underwent, a major revolution, even the victors. [3]

 

This expectation was not just theoretical, but it was the basis for much of their everyday behavior. They faced a great number of hostile governments, and this was expected. Since there was an internationalism of working classes, there was also an internationalism of capital. The Bolsheviks half-expected that the capitalist powers would forget about the Great War and come to crush the revolutionaries. To the Bolsheviks, this was likely to lead to a revolt of all exploited peoples, and thus was perhaps desirable.

 

Their first problem was not this coalition but the Germans. The Bolsheviks entered peace negotiations with the enemy. They attempted to stall, leaving the war in a cease fire. When the Bolsheviks took power, they believed that their regime had no need for a foreign policy: the governments of the world would be implacably hostile, and the world proletariat unerringly supportive. Foreign relations could thusly be reduced to revolutionary appeals, thus the attempted cease-fire in anticipation of an uprising of the German proletariat. This failed and the Germans advanced rapidly over areas the Russian army had already retreated over. On March 3, they signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and it nearly tore the Bolsheviks apart.

 

A large and influential segment of the party believed it was a mistake to conclude any treaty, or even maintain diplomatic relations with the capitalist nations. Led by Nikolai Bukharin and dubbed the left communists, they wanted to continue the war not to defend Russia's national interests, but in anticipation of a refusal of the German soldiers to fight against their Russian comrades, thus inciting a German revolution. If in the process, the RSFSR was destroyed... well, that was a worthwhile price for advancing the worldwide revolution. Such an argument was compelling to those who were certain that the new Soviet regime could not survive without the help of the world proletariat. Lenin, however, forced the Bolsheviks to make peace, and although the new regime was weak, the Germans agreed to rather than commit large numbers of troops which were needed on the western front.

 

To the great disappointment of the Bolsheviks, the Russian people did not elect them in November 1917, and the Constituent Assembly had a majority of Socialist-Revolutionaries; the Bolsheviks could count on only about a quarter of the delegates. The Assembly met in January 1918, expressed anti-Bolshevik sentiments, and was duly dispersed by the Bolsheviks. With this act, the Bolsheviks repudiated once and for all any pretense of acting on the basis of liberal democracy. Their legitimacy was not based on popular sovereignty, but on the conviction that they understood the movement of history. Indeed, it is hard to see how the Bolsheviks could have acted otherwise, for to do so was to undo the October revolution. Unlike Brest-Litovsk, this time there were no major differences of opinion: everything in their experience and outlook had prepared the Bolsheviks to take these steps.

 

Voting for the Constituent Assembly

 

While this did not cause them much difficulty, the suspension of freedom of expression did. On November 4, in the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, a number of prominent Bolshevik leaders argued for freedom of the press. They believed that if the Russian people were presented with a number of conflicting views, they would see the correctness of the Bolsheviks. Lenin opposed this, and spoke with great contempt of freedom of the press, and once again, he prevailed. While they could not immediately end all non-Bolshevik publications, within the first eight months of their rule there were no non-Bolshevik newspapers in the territories under their control.

 

Man handing out Bolshevik newspapers, post-Revolution.

 

Suspension of freedom of the press was followed by suspension of freedom of association: in areas under their control the Bolsheviks suppressed first the non-socialist parties and later all parties [4]. To carry out such policies, the Bolsheviks created a new organization. It might seem strange, but those who had suffered so heavily under the Tsarist political police, the Okhrana, established their own political police, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Struggle against Counterrevolution, Sabotage, and Speculation, known simply as the Cheka.

 

[1] The Socialist-Revolutionaries were the largest political party in Russia at this time, and were much more pro-peasant than the Bolsheviks. They took the more orthodox view that a communist revolution in Russia was impossible, since it was so feudal and agrarian, and that the country would have to advance through capitalism before it could move on to victory. The Left SRs were the Socialist-Revolutionaries who chose to side with the Bolsheviks.

 

[2] During the entire period of the various Provisional Governments, many elections were scheduled, but none were followed through on. The Bolsheviks would, in fact, follow through on the scheduled election in November.

 

[3] In the post-war order, the nations of Germany, Portugal, Hungary, Italy, and the Ottoman Empire suffered political instability and eventual revolution as a consequence of the Great War. The 1919 defections and the 1926 General Strike demonstrate that such a thing came quite close in Britain as well.

 

[4] In 1922, the Mensheviks, already a faint shadow of their former selves, were destroyed, and the Socialist-Revolutionary leaders were arrested later in the year by the Bolsheviks.

[kirottu]

tl;dr

[Humodour]

tl;dr

[Humodour]

But I did skim it and it looks interesting enough to read properly later when my migraine goes.

[GreasyDogMeat]

WAY TL;dr

[Maria Caliban]

I read it and found it very informative. I'm not sure what discussion, if any, you're looking for.

[SteveThaiBinh]

I mostly looked at the pictures.

 

Bolshevik explaining the new order to peasants.

Yeah, I'll bet. I got a shiver of horror down my spine reading that.

 

The moral of the story, for me at least, is the importance of supporting your liberal democratic system of government, even if you despise the people who currently hold office.

[Purkake]

Could you summarize it into one smallish paragraph, please?

[lord of flies]

Bolshevik explaining the new order to peasants.

Yeah, I'll bet. I got a shiver of horror down my spine reading that.

Actually, the Bolsheviks in the immediate revolutionary period (pre-Stalin), despite their repressive policies, were better for the peasants than either the Tsar's government or Kerensky's. For the peasants, the order granted by the Bolsheviks was one that recognized their land seizures, something the Whites in the Russian Civil War proved unable to do. Indeed, the very early RSFSR is rather defensible, even from the perspective of a liberal democrat; although it engaged it some... quite authoritarian practices (some of which were hardly set into history and were opposed by prominent Bolsheviks from the beginning, but pushed through by Lenin), there were still multiple parties in the primary governing body (the Congress of Soviets) up until 1922.

[Kaftan Barlast]

tl;dr

 

 

Dem pictursch surw ere purdy tho.

[lord of flies]

Oh, and there was never a liberal democratic government in Russia. The various provisional governments from February to October were never elected, and held an election literally never.

[Rostere]

I read it and found it very informative. I'm not sure what discussion, if any, you're looking for.

[Gfted1]

I fire my minigun wildly into the crowd of peasants.

[HoonDing]

I saw this in one of the episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

[Slowtrain]

I just had too see how many people would post TL;DR, lol.

 

 

Internet hint to LOF: Tellinng poeple not to do something is sure way to guarantee they do it.

[Rosbjerg]

too short.. write more!

 

I thought it was a very interesting read and I just had a history lesson about the october revolution, so this came in quite handy!

 

did you write it yourself or copy-paste it from somewhere?

[Walsingham]

I actually emitted a sigh of disgust when I saw what this was about and who it was from. Seriously.

[Humodour]

I actually emitted a sigh of disgust when I saw what this was about and who it was from. Seriously.

 

I don't find anything particularly disgusting or controversial about this thread, except the actions of the murderers under Lenin and co which LoF describes.

 

The idea is that you come in expecting a partisan, hypocritical rant on communism, but instead are greeted to a neutral, factual, interesting account of Russia during the World War eras. Roll with it.

[Walsingham]

I actually emitted a sigh of disgust when I saw what this was about and who it was from. Seriously.

 

I don't find anything particularly disgusting or controversial about this thread, except the actions of the murderers under Lenin and co which LoF describes.

 

The idea is that you come in expecting a partisan, hypocritical rant on communism, but instead are greeted to a neutral, factual, interesting account of Russia during the World War eras. Roll with it.

 

Hmph. Very well. I will give it a read later.

[Gorgon]

The pictures are indeed very nice. Other than that it reads like a high school textbook.

[lord of flies]

I actually emitted a sigh of disgust when I saw what this was about and who it was from. Seriously.

 

I don't find anything particularly disgusting or controversial about this thread, except the actions of the murderers under Lenin and co which LoF describes.

 

The idea is that you come in expecting a partisan, hypocritical rant on communism, but instead are greeted to a neutral, factual, interesting account of Russia during the World War eras. Roll with it.

Truly... this is the ultimate troll.

[Wrath of Dagon]