The Russian Revolution

Overview

• 1917: war, collapse, revolution

• Tsarist government collapsed

• Provisional government proved unable to govern

• Lenin’s Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government

• Two revolutions:– Feb/March 1917: more collapse

than overthrow, signaled failure of old autocratic system and created vacuum

– Oct/Nov 1917: Leninist seizure of power in Petrograd

To horse, Proletarian! (1919)

Incompetence of Nicholas II• Autocratic philosophy in an

increasingly democratic age

• Failed promises of 1905 (Duma, Constitutional limits)

• Decision to enter WW1 and become Commander-in-Chief linked tsar to military failure

• Dependence upon conservative, aristocratic advisers

• Family dependence upon Rasputin (killed 1916: poisoned, drowned and shot twice)

Urban Economic Disaster

• Economic infrastructure minimally developed

– Massive inflation without wage increases

– Most workers lived beneath poverty line

– During war industrial output fell by over 50%

• WW1 strained economy further: factory closures, strikes, bread riots

• Urban revolutionary potential: unemployed, riots, deserting soldiers

March Revolution• Nicholas returned from WW1 front

to chaos in Petrograd• Faced with strikes, riots, deserting

soldiers, and military losses, Nicholas II abdicated 3/17 to his brother, who also abdicated

• Abdication was final attempt to save monarchy, preferable to revolution

• Provisional Government created by Prince Lvov

• Liberals: advocated moderate change and Constitution

• Executive of P.G. by committee: Kerensky became Prime Minister

Kerensky’s Provisional Government

• Policies– Maintain the war effort to support

allies– Tsarist estates were expropriated

by state– Amnesty for all political exiles– Destruction of secret internal spy

system• Struggle within PG for power:

– Socialist Revolutionaries (leftists)– Mensheviks (moderate leftists)– Bolsheviks (radical leftists)– Conservatives (military and

bourgeoisie)• Inadequacies of PG caused local

governments to take power: Soviets

• Petrograd Soviet vied with PG for national authority

Kerensky (writing) and the PG

Bolshevik Policies• April 1917: Germany transported

Lenin from Switzerland to Petrograd in “Sealed Train”

• Lenin's "April Theses"– Exit "capitalist" war– All power to the proletariat

(workers)– Overthrow capital in Russia– No support to Provisional

Government– "All power to the soviets!"– Abolition of police, army, and

bureaucracy– Confiscation of all landed estates– Soviets to control all production– Create international socialism

• Condensed platform: "Peace, Land, and Bread!"

Leninist Seizure of Power• Use of the Petrograd Soviet:

organize military under Trotsky• Support from Battleship "Aurora" in

Petrograd harbor• 6 November 1917: Petrograd

Soviet troops seized key points in Petrograd

• 7 November 1917: – Seizure of "Winter Palace," center

of P.G.– "All Russian Congress of Soviets"

assembled– "Council of People's Commissars"

named as government– Announced elections for

Constituent Assembly• Lenin made two decrees:

– Begin efforts toward democratic peace

– Abolished private property: "state" ownership

Conclusions• Bolsheviks took power without

proof of popular support, but majority did support policies(“Vanguard of the people”)

• Authoritarian methods were to clear way for democratic ideals

• Authoritarian methods boded poorly for true of democracy

• For the allies, Bolshevik seizure implied:

– closure of the eastern front– impending focus of German

strength to west– seed for revolution in west– demonstration of fate of the losing

aristocrats– suggested that logical direction of

democratization was socialism

Nicholas II is considered a

martyred saint by some Russian

Orthodox Christians.