Revolution concepts and historical significance

Revolution

The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which gave rise to the Soviet Union, was the product of a particular historical time and place, and of the antagonisms between its supporters and its opponents. In History of the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky writes in his chapter "Peculiarities of Russias's development," that "the fundamental and most stable feature of Russian history is the slow tempo of her development, with the economic backwardness, primitiveness of social forms and low level of culture resulting from it." The considerable economic growth during the late nineteenth century still left the Russian Empire trailing behind Britain, France, and Germany in terms of economic power. In that century, Russia was a divine-right monarchy. The Soviet state was founded October 1917.

The political machinations of the soviet state were largely given shape by Vladimir Lenin, and were adopted by lands in Eastern and Central Europe, China, Indochina, North Korea, and Cuba. Moreover, much of the developing world adopted different versions of its one-party rule and vertically integrated (top-down) state micromanaged economy. During Lenin's lifetime, Bolshevik followers viewed him as a secular saint who set the country, as well as the world, on the path towards socialism. Others condemned the revolution, writing: "A revolution is a rising of all the people…But here what we have? Nothing but a handful of poor fools deceived by Lenin and Trotsky….Their decrees and their appeals will simply add to the museum of historical curiosities…." (Reed 165)

The Bolshevik Party represents the main force involved in the abandonment of Russia's former course for that of another. The justification they oft used pointed to Marx's dialectical notion that a clash of opposites brings about a new synthesis. The revolution aimed to institutionalize a new process of cultural production, which served to hasten the spread and implementation of radical social ideas and change consciousness by achieving two goals: to use a new aesthetics that was anxious to depart from old traditions and, simultaneously, to engineer such experiments and innovations under the guide of the vanguard party. In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, Lenin wrote in a letter that the Communists "must strive with clear consciousness to control [the cultural process] in order to form and define its results." (Yurchak 12)

In his "Reminiscences of Lenin," Nadezhda Krupskaya wrote:

The seizure of power in October had been carefully thought out and prepared by the Party of the proletariat -- the Bolshevik Party. The uprising during the July days had started spontaneously, but the Party, keeping a sober mind, had considered it premature. The truth had to be faced, and that truth was that the masses were still unprepared for an uprising. The Central Committee therefore decided to postpone it. It was no easy thing to restrain the insurgents whose fighting blood was up. But the Bolsheviks did their duty, painful though it was, for they appreciated the vital importance of choosing the right moment for the insurrection.

In Russia, the latter half of the nineteenth century was a rebellious time period. Russia suffered defeat by Britain and France in the Crimean War of 1853-1856. Tsar Alexander II (1853-1856) embarked upon the Great Reforms as a means of addressing perceived shortcomings arisen during the war. Serfdom was abolished in 1861, an act which liberated more than twenty million peasants -- near slaves -- from aristocratic, clerical or royal owners. Alexander II created, also, a judicial system which featured trial by jury, as well as elective local and regional governmental institutions to provide schooling and other services. He spearheaded fiscal reform, opened up censorship laws, and initiated measures to improve upon education at all levels, for all classes.

To be sure, the Great Reforms failed to do away with Russia's hereditary class privilege, in which nobles, merchants, priests, as well as lower-class city residents above peasants in law, education and economic life. These inequalities, despite not being repealed, lost their justification amidst an atmosphere of democratic reform, and so served as a source of discontent for the general population.

During the time after the reforms and leading up to the revolution, the availability of public education spread rapidly. The number of pupils in primary and secondary schools rose more than tenfold -- from 955,000 in 1860 to 9,656,000 in 1914. In higher education, enrollments increased upwards of fifteen-fold. The 1897 census showed that 29% of men and 13% of women in the Empire were literate. Literacy among the younger generations, especially males, and among urbanites was on the rise. In 1920, over three-fourths of the population of St. Petersburg -- the capital of Russia -- was literate, and over two-thirds of Moscow's population. Despite the increased educational opportunities, an ongoing debate in the historiography hinges upon whether or not pre-Revolutionary Russia would have failed economically if the Bolsheviks had not come to power, for Russia, at that time, endured political and economic hardship.

The autocracy's intellectual critics came to be known as the intelligentsia. While Lenin was young, the intelligentsia consisted of two main groups: One being liberals, who sought a Russian parliamentary democracy akin to that of England, and the other being populists, who worked for an egalitarian society based on Russia's traditional peasants communes, the village councils of heads of households that periodically divvying up the farmland according to the number of working males in the household.

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, as Lenin started participating in politics, revolutionary action was merely a hobby for individuals. Over time, however, he and many of his contemporaries worked to turn this hobby into a profession. Many active and ambitious Russians hedged a bet on the future in favor of revolutionary activities over other vocations. Many believed, as did Lenin, that they would know what to do with such power, once they acquired it. Early Marxists in Russia foresaw an industrialized Russia of the future, with the proletariat, or working class, at the helm. These persons were excited by the industrialization and urbanization in Russia at the time.

While Populism and Marxism have certain key features in common, such as fundamental utopianism, they were near opposites. Partial to social reform as opposed to political reform, Populists, it might be argued, saw individuals as historical actors, impinging on the trajectory of history. Marxists, on the other hand, analyzed historical development, based in classes, as if it were a science. Lenin and the others, furthermore, were stalwarts for strong state power. Populists oft argued against capitalist industrialization, while Marxists, despite being generally anti-Capitalist, championed capitalist industrialization as the fourth of Marx's five socioeconomic stages of development (primitive, slave-holding, feudal, capitalist, and communist). Therefore, this step was crucial to the future appearance of a communist society. (Brooks 8)

Lenin diverged from Marx and Engels with respect to the stages of history. Marx and Engels argued that every society had to go through a feudal and then a bourgeois (capitalist) stage to reach proletarian rule: Lenin wanted Russia to advance more rapidly. Although the proletariat constituted only a tiny minority of the population, Lenin hoped to use the state to realize the promise of proletarian revolution. At first, Lenin expected backward Russia to be rescued by revolutions in more advanced countries. When these revolutions did not materialize he was eager to create a socialist society in Russia alone. Lenin began organizing workers in the early 1890's, while writing anti-populist pamphlets and working with Marxist organizations. (Brooks 10)

While in Siberia, Lenin finished his first book, a semi-academic study, The Development of Capitalism in Russia. Published under the pseudonym "Ilin," the book was a success, earning Lenin a reputation as an economist. His thesis that capitalism was transforming rural Russia by dividing the peasants into rich and poor seemed indisputable to many young people, who had grown up amidst rapid change. The more energetic and successful peasants were adopting new implements and tools, such as iron plows and harrows, as well as improving their houses with brick stoves and tin roofs. They even donned machine-made clothing. The populists bewailed the corruption of rural life, but Marxists applauded this confirmation of Marx's schema in which the rise of capitalism foreshadowed the future proletarian revolution. (Brooks 12)

In 1902's What is to Be Done? Lenin shared his ideas in roughly one hundred pages. He desired an elite conspiratorial party of professional revolutionary leading the masses to socialism. He expressed his faith that a few "wise men" could lead the proletariat in the coming revolution. Within months, Lenin led his own faction to victory at the Second Congress of the fledgling Russian Social Democratic Workers Party. At the Second Congress, which took place in Brussels and London during the summer of 1903, Lenin's factions, which favored an underground elitist party over a mass party outvoted their opponents who were dubbed Mensheviks (the minority), and took the name Bolsheviks (majority). The tags stuck, although the Bolsheviks soon lost the majority. In What Is To Be Done, Lenin penned: (Brooks 42)

We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we have to advance almost constantly under their fire. We have combined, by a freely adopted decision, for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not of retreating into the neighboring marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very outset, have reproached us with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliation…there can be no talk of an independent ideology formulated by the working masses themselves in the process of their movement, the only choice is -- either bourgeois or socialist ideology. There is no middle course (for mankind has not created a "third" ideology, and, moreover, in a society torn by class antagonisms there can be a non-class or an above-class ideology)."

The Revolution of 1905 developed in two phases. First, a diverse group opposing the Tsar and encompassing much of the political spectrum took form. This group included moderate liberals, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, heirs to revolutionary populist, and the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party (SD) on the left, as well as the non-Russian nationalities, particularly Ukrainians, Poles, Georgians, the Baltic peoples, and Finns. Lenin returned to Russia in November 1905 to take advantage of liberties enacted by the October Manifesto. Lenin now headed his own group of radical organizers and intellectuals. The lessons that Lenin drew from the failure of the Revolution of 1905 was that Marxists should lead workers and peasants to "a real and decisive victory," since the bourgeois liberals had failed to do so. (Brooks 11)

World War I was a tragic struggle in which Russia joined with Britain, France, and other nations against Germany, Austro-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria. Each side had its reasons for fighting, but the longer the war continued, the less compelling these reasons seemed to many Russians. The Russian Army suffered serious defeats at the outset, stabilized the front in late 1915 and early 1916, and then embarked on an unsuccessful offensive that produced massive casualties and widespread discontent for the remainder of 1916 and 1917.

The February Revolution of 1917 (which actually took place in March according to our calendar), in which the tsarist government was overthrown by a spontaneous uprising that began with food riots, confirmed Lenin's prognosis that the world war weakened capitalism. Not only did the Russian autocracy find few defenders in view of the unpopular war, but the foreign governments that Lenin believed might have propped up the old regime were unable to do so. When protests spread, the Russian police lacked the force to reestablish order, and many in the army and among the Cossacks, special army units of hereditary frontier soldiers who traditionally suppressed disorder, lacked the will. The workers in the streets saw the police and military as their collective enemy. Disgusted by the units who had fired upon workers, one young, peasant sergeant convinced his soldiers to join the protest: (Figes 312)

"I told them that it would be better to die with honor than to obey any further orders to shoot at the crowds: 'Our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and brides are begging for bread…Are we going to kill them? Did you see the blood on the streets today? I say we shouldn't take up positions tomorrow. I myself refuse to go."

The autocracy had fumbled the crisis, and power passed to a provisional government composed of the Duma and a revived Soviet, now including representatives of army units as well as workers, trade unionists, and leaders from socialist parties. The Tsar abdicated and Russia became a republic. Cafe and Restaurant owners fed soldiers and workers without charge. One Cafe had a sign out front:

FELLOW-CITIZENS! In honor of the great days of freedom, I bid you all welcome. Come inside, and eat and drink to your hearts content.

The Provisional Government was mostly centrist. Conceived in liberal and democratic spirit, the Provisional Government instituted considerable reform with respect to individual rights and the rights of women. Nevertheless, it squandered its authority by continuing the war, mismanaging the economy, delaying land reform, alienating restive nationalities, and postponing elections for a constituent assembly or constitutional convention. In the Provisional Government, power was given to AF Kerensky, a socialist on the Petrograd Soviets executive committee, who broke ranks to become minister of justice. He was a virtual dictator during the summer and fall of 1917. (Brooks 13)

The February revolution raised expectations that went unsatisfied. After an ill-conceived military offensive in July 1917, the Russian Army began to disintegrate. Living conditions in Russian cities deteriorated. Workers' demands for control over their workplaces went unmet. In the countryside, peasants began to seize land from private estates, the Orthodox Church, and the Tsar's family. Soldiers, exposed to antiwar propaganda from Bolsheviks and others, deserted, hoping for a share of whatever land was being seized.

While the Provisional Government floundered, Lenin and the Bolsheviks became the most visible organized alternative to the status quo, winning new influence in city government, trade unions, and, most importantly, the soviets that were created in all cities, in many counties and in the army. Lenin had long sought a centralized, secretive political party. Still living in Switzerland, he hoped to use that party to take power in a socialist revolution with both workers' and peasants support. He must have been delighted when the German government agreed to send him home by train with other antiwar emigres in the hope that they would undermine the Russian war effort. Lenin reached Petrograd on April 3.There he shocked Bolsheviks and others by denouncing the war and the Provisional Government. The next day he presented his famous "April Theses" to two party meetings. In these documents, he urged transfer of all power to the soviets. Initially, Lenin's Bolsheviks were a minority in the soviet, s but by September 1917, they controlled the soviets in Petrograd, Russia's capital and in its second largest city, Moscow. (Brooks 14)

Why, among the handful of established parties, did Lenin's party succeed while others failed? Historians' explanations range from those that emphasize Lenin's and the Bolsheviks skill and the comparative ineptness of their rivals and the Provisional Government to those that seek answers beyond the actions of individual historical actors and see an explanations in the extent of Russia's problems, its lack of democratic traditions, its weak civil society, and its long authoritarian rule. One man, who had known and worked with Lenin since 1894, explicated Lenin's appeal: (Figes 392)

"Only Lenin was followed unquestioningly as the indisputable leaders, as it was only Lenin who was that rare phenomenon, particularly in Russia -- a man of iron will and indomitable energy, capable of instilling fanatical faith in the movement and the cause, and possessed of equal faith in himself. Once upon a time I, too, was impressed by this will-power of Lenin's, which seemed to make him into a 'chosen leader.'

Regardless of explanation, neither leadership nor tradition can be comfortably ignored. When the Russian Revolution began, the Bolsheviks were weak. Other groups initially enjoyed the support of various social strata, but they did not articulate specific programs to address demands for bread, land, peace, and the rights of nationalities within the empire. Only the Bolsheviks, under Lenin's direction, did so, however demagogically. (Brooks 14)

With the imperial troops and police failing in quelling the uprising, many Russians suspected that foreign powers would intervene and dissuade the revolutionary movement. Russian capitalist Stepan Georgevitch Lianozov, known as the "Russian Rockefeller," said: (Sutton 23)

"Revolution "is a sickness. Sooner or later the foreign powers must intervene here -- as one would intervene to cure a sick child, and teach it how to walk. Of course it would be more or less improper, but the nations must realize the danger of Bolshevism in their own countries -- such contagious ideas as 'proletarian dictatorship,' and 'world social revolution' -- There is a chance that this intervention may not be necessary. Transportation is demoralized, the factories are closing down, and the Germans are advancing. Starvation and defeat may bring the Russian people to their senses -- ."

Foreign powers did intervene, although in much different terms than Lianozov anticipated. Because Bolsheviks are at the left end of the political spectrum and Wall Street financiers on the right side, we tend to think the two have nothing in common and would therefore never ally. There is much evidence, contrarily, of intimate connections between influential people among the two interest groups.

For one, there is the telling relationship between Bolshevik banker Olof Aschberg and the Morgan controlled Guaranty Trust Company in NY before, during and after the Russian Revolution. In tsarist times, Aschberg was the Morgan agent in Russia and the negotiator for Russian loans in the U.S.; during 1917 Aschberg was financial intermediary for the revolutionaries, and after the revolution Aschberg became head of the Ruskombank, the first Soviet international bank, while Max May, a vice president of the Morgan controlled Guaranty Trust, became director and chief of the Ruskom-bank foreign dept. There is not only evidence of a long-term working relationship between the Guaranty Trust Corp. And Bolsheviks, but also of transfers of funds from Wall Street bankers to international revolutionary activities. For example, there is the statement (substantiated by cablegram) by William Boyce Thompson -- a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a large stockholder in the Rockefeller-controlled Chase Bank, and a financial associate of the Guggenheims and the Morgan's -- that he (Thompson) contributed one million to the Bolshevik Revolution for propaganda purposes.

While it seems a foreign idea to connect New York Capitalists with Russian Communists, New York bankers and other corporatists had much to gain in the expansion of a specific foreign market. After the Revolution, additionally, the up-and-coming Russian empire was in tatters. Despite the revolution, and many centuries after the middle Ages, it seemed Russia was returning to barbarism. In interpreting the evolving laws of their new country, workers relied on draconian punishments to those who did not fall in line: