Interlude: A short history of the Russian Revolution, 1917

 

Interlude: A short history of the Russian Revolutions, 1917

 

As already alluded to earlier, the Russian Revolution was in fact the upheaval of the aristocracy—namely the Romanov dynasty—from the throne at Petrograd, followed by the overthrow of the liberal and moderate-socialist interim governments that same year, leading to the seven-decade rule of the Soviet Union beginning in 1922.

Nineteen seventeen was a hotbed for civil upheaval: more peasants were moving to urban areas, creating a shortfall of food, and a middle-class (mainly white-collar workers) began to rise in strength. This criss-crossing of social boundaries led to more difficulty placing groups in certain strata, such as the aristocracy or a peasant. Sir George Buchanan, ambassador to the British embassy in Moscow, said on the subject that the emperor must “break down the barrier that separates you from your people to regain their confidence.” [1] The people of Russia abhorred the autocracy of Nicholas II, as well as the wretched socio-economic situations they dealt with daily. These, along with revolutionary parties and movements, were the immediate factors that led to the Russia Revolution.

Nicholas II, throughout his reign, kept to the idea that the Tsar of Russia was like a father, and the Russia people were his misguided children; this utopian ideal made him blind towards the deterioration of Russia’s actual path. The Marxists, who composed the total majority of the opposition, demanded the abdication of the monarch and a new democracy, to be led by the Marxists themselves. The Tsar, in an attempt to quell this treasonous monstrosity from reaching too far into the heart and mind of mother Russia, declared the October Manifesto in October 1916. However, the manifesto was particularly harsh against the Duma, which simply incited more violence from the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks (moderate socialist revolutionaries, the minority), whereas the moderate Octobrists accepted the offer and fought against the more radical parties.

Various difficulties and turmoil lit aflame February 1917, beginning with the mass striking in Petrograd. The grand-scale work-to-rule lead the Duma—mainly bourgeoisie—to urge the Tsar to abdicate before things became any worse; nonetheless, as in 1905, he ordered the Petrograd police to interfere with the riots, yet in this instance there were no loyal Tsarists; mutinies took place all over, soldiers sharing guns with civilians. With this disintegration of military power, the civil authorities of Russia merely vaporized. The cabinet soon resigned, leaving the Tsar as his own forlorn island—by March 2, the Tsar had unwillingly abdicated the throne; he considered this not cowardice, but his last final great act for his nation. Revolutionaries later arrested and assassinated the entire royal family at Yekaterinburg.

The Duma held state elections following the Tsar’s abdication, leading to the rise of the Social Revolutionary Party. Until a formal Duma was set up, the Soviets wished to hold dual power with the Liberals, but the newly empowered moderates were dubious in giving away that much power to radicals. However, the Russians, it was said, were unready for socialism, and the government instead decided to ease the people into Marxism through democratic reforms and the allowance of civil liberties. The Prime Minister at the time, Kerensky, suffered many political hardships, especially with the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin. Eventually, the Marxist radicals overthrew Kerensky, beginning the new resolution proposed in the October Manifesto of a Bolshevik government to commence.

This began the October Revolution, virtually the final step in Russia’s bloody and turbulent history before the advent of Communism and the Soviet Union (the final step being the Russian Civil War). Lenin himself, based on his theories of Marxism (the basic philosophical structure now for all of communism), led this upheaval. The insurgency was essentially putting the ineffective interim government against the ever-growing power of the socialists. In the end, the socialists took control of the Winter Palace, leading to the Great Russian Civil War of 1918-1920.

Briefly, the civil war pitted the white army—the liberals and monarchists—against the radicals, or the Red Army. After four years of terrible hardship, the Reds emerged once again the victors under Lenin and Trotsky, initiating the true beginning of the Soviet Union through the ashes of the Romanov monarchy.

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[1] Wikipedia, (2008). The Russian Revolution (1917).