Russian Revolution

Sunday, March 6, 2016

WAR AND REVOLUTION

- 1917, the war created serious turmoils in all of the European belligerent states
- most were able to cover their regimes and convinced people to continue the war
- some were coming close to collapse
- Russia was the only one that actually collapsed completely
led to the Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution
I.

Revolution of 1905 reduced the Tsar's power

A. Tsar Nicholas II relied on the army & bureaucracy to uphold his regime

II. WWI magnified the problems of the tsarist government

A. tsar in charge of the armed forces
1. tsar lack of training
B. unable to produce weaponry
C. heavy casualties the country suffered
III. 1914, social disorder: people hated the tsar & wanted to reduce his power
A. Revolution of 1905 did
B. but the tsar restored it himself after a while
1. people wanted a constitutional monarchy
2. peasant conditions worsened
3. workers frustrated
IV. Tsarina in charge of Russia after the Tsar led the war
A. Rasputin stopped her bleeding and the tsarina believed he is a holy man
1. he was a Siberian peasant
2. gave stupid advices

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3. gained hold in politics

B. caused military & economic disasters
C. conservative aristocrats gave up hope too
D. led to the Revolution of March 1917

The March Revolution

I.

factory workers refused to work in Petrograd

A. women working doubled
B. had to work for 12 hours

II. government introduced bread rations

A. inflation of bread
B. had to stand in lines for bread
III. International Women's Day, they marched through the city
A. other workers joined
B. 10th, successfully shutting down all the factories
C. tsarina wrote letter to tsar
D. soldiers to disperse the crowd joined the riots
IV. the Duma (legislature) met on 12th
A. tsar tried to dissolve them
B. decided to take governmental responsibility
C. 15th, established a provisional government
1. a.k.a. tsar abdicated as well
V. provisional government = moderate Constitutional Democrats
A. represented aristocrats & middle-class
B. liberal agenda:
1. a parliamentary democracy
2. passing reforms that includes:
a) universal suffrage

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b) civil equality
c) 8 hour workday
VI. faced another authority - soviets
A. a.k.a. councils of workers' & soldiers' deputies
B. formed in March 1917 in Petrograd
C. represented more radical interests of the lower classes
D. composed of various socialists
1. e.g. Marxist Social Democratic Party
a) formed in 1898
b) 1903, divided in two
(1) Mensheviks: wanted to be a mass electoral socialist party based on a
Western Model
(2) Bolsheviks: willing to cooperate temporarily in a parliamentary democracy
while working toward the ultimate achievement of the socialist state
VII. Bolsheviks = Russian Social Democrats
A. led by Lenin
B. received legal education & became lawyer
C. 1887, brother executed for planning to assassinate the tsar
D. searched for a revolutionary faith which led him to MArxism
E. 1894, organized an illegal group in Saint Petersburg
1. a.k.a. Union for the Liberation of the Working Class
F. arrested for it & got skipped to Siberia
G. exiled into Switzerland after released
H. eventually assumed the leadership of the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social
Democratic Party
VIII.Bolsheviks became a party dedicated to a violent revolution that would destroy capitalist
system
A. war in 1914 gave him hope that whole European hoped for revolution

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B. also the provisional government formed in March 1917

C. connivance of the German High Command who hoped to create disorder in Russia
D. shipped to Russia with a small group of his followers
IX. Lenin's "April Thesis" opened a new stage in the Russian Revolution
A. presented a blueprint of his own version of Marxism
1. not necessary to go through bourgeois revolution
2. move directly into socialism
a) a.k.a. orthodox Marxists
B. must gain control of groups & use them to overthrow the provisional government
1. e.g. workers, peasants, soldiers
C. articulated the discontent & aspirations of the people
1. promising to end the war
2. redistribution of all land to the peasants
3. transfer of factories & industries from capitalists to committees of workers
4. relegation of government power
X. Bolsheviks winning over the majority of soviets
A. provisional government struggled to gain control of the peasants that were seizing land
of their own
B. urges soldiers to overthrow their superiors
1. created military chaos
2. collapse of all discipline

The Bolsheviks Revolution

I.

July 1917, Bolsheviks were falsely accused of inciting an attempt to overthrow the
provisional government
A. forced to flee to Finland

II. Alexander Kerensky became the prime minister

A. a Socialist Revolutionary
B. General Lavr Kornilov attempted to march & seize power

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C. Kerensky released the soviets from prison to help

1. but Kornilov's forces never reached Petrograd
a) strengthened the hands of the soviet
b) showed Lenin how weak the provisional government was
III. end of October, Bolsheviks --> 240,000 members
A. convinced that"we are on the threshold of a world proletarian revolution"
B. scared that Lenin's rank was high enough
1. gained support of the chairman
C. November 6th, took control of Petrograd
1. provisional government collapsed with a little bloodshed
2. all-Russian Congress of Soviets affirmed the transfer of power
D. November 8th, Lenin announce the new Soviet government
1. with him leading
IV. Constituent Assembly was a problem
A. because they had universal suffrage
B. to combat, Lenin declared the land nationalized & turned it over to local rural land
committees
1. gained support of peasants
C. turning control of the factories to committees of workers
1. gained support of workers
V. introduced a number of social changes
A. Alexandra Kollontai led in pushing a program for women's rights & social welfare reforms
1. provide health care
2. establishing a women's bureau
a) a.k.a. Zhenotdel
B. 1918 to 1920, enacted reforms that:
1.

made marriage a civil act

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2. legalized divorce
3. decreed the equality of men & women
4. permitted abortions
VI. many of these social reforms were later undone regarding the survival of the new regime
A. a.k.a. communism
VII. Lenin promised peace
A. had to sign humiliating treaty with Germany
1. lost lots of territory:
a) eastern Poland
b) Ukraine
c) Finland
d) Baltic provinces

Civil War
I.

great opposition to the new Bolshevik regime

A. groups loyal to the tsar
B. bourgeois
C. aristocratic liberals
D. anti-Leninist
E. socialists including:
1. Mensheviks
2. Socialist Revolutionaries

II. 1918 to 1921, Bolsheviks (Red) Army was forced to fight on many fronts
A. White force from Siberia
1. under Admiral Alexander Kolchak
2. pushed westward
B. Ukraine from the southeast
C. 1919, three white forces closing in on the Bolsheviks

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1. but were pushed back

D. 1920, White forces defeated & Ukraine retaken
E. 1921, Communist regime regained control over the independent nationalist governments
in the Caucasus
1. e.g. Georgia, Russian Armenia & Azerbaijan
III. the royal family had been taken custody after the abdication
A. August 1917, moved to Tobolsk in Siberia
B. April 1918, moved to Ekaterinburg
1. a mining town
2. July 16, local soviets murdered them and burned their bodies
IV. Red Army was a well-disciplined & formidable fighting force
A. led by organizational genius - Leon Trotsky
B. also had advantage of interior lines of defense & moving around
V. anti-Communist forces was disunited, which really weakened their efforts
A. political differences made it virtually impossible to achieve military cooperation
B. unlike Communists: single-minded sense of purpose: determination from revolutionary
fervour & revolutionary convictions
VI. succeeded in translating their faith into policy of war communism
A. nationalization of banks & industries
B. forcible requisition of grain from peasants
C. centralization of state administration
D. police eliminating all "class enemies"
1. a.k.a. Red Terror or the Cheka
VII. intervention of foreign armies enable the Communists to appeal to the powerful force of
Russian patriotism
A. Allies encouraged Russia to remain in the war
B. they were anti-Bolshevik
C. stationed troops on Russian soil

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D. urges the patriots to fight the attempts of foreigners to control their country
E. helped to start a military difference
VIII.1921, Communists retained control of Russia
A. transformed into a bureaucratically centralized state dominated by a single party during
the civil war
B. largely hostile to the Allied Powers

The Last Year of the War

I.

March 1918, the withdrawal of the Russians gave Germany hope to break the military
stalemate in the Western Front
A. succeeded in advancing 40 miles to the Marne River
B. but Allied counter-attacked with the support of the Americans
C. July 18th, Germans defeated at the Second Battle of the Marne

II. September 29th, General Ludendorff informed Germans that the war was lost
A. demanded fore peace instead of placing burden on the army
III. discovered the Allies were unwilling to make peace with the autocratic imperial government
A. they instituted reforms to set up a liberal government
B. too late for the angry soldiers
IV. November 9th, socialists established a republic
A. William II left the country
V. November 11th, armistice agreed to by the new German government
A. the war was over

The Casualties of the War

I.

devastated European civilization

A. 9 million soldiers died
B. 22 million wounded
C. birthrate declined as a result of the dying of so many young men
1. "lost generation"
D. also affected the civilians

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1. e.g. the Armenian Civil War

a) Armenian uprising against the Ottoman government
b) September 1915, 1 million were dead as the victims of the genocide