Transcript Slide 1

Russian Revolution
The Beginning of Sorrows
• Russia was a troubled country
• Deplorable working conditions
– Perpetuation of serfdom
– Lagging industrialization
compared with rest of Europe
• Inexperienced Tsar (Цар) =
king
• Overbearing ministers
• Large country lacking
infrastructure
– Spans two continents
– 6,000 miles across with
inadequate connections
Russian Empire
1866
Tsar Nicholas II
• Most influential advisor from his
youth was
– antidemocratic/constitution
– taught to hate freedom of speech
& press
– Revolutionaries were hunted down
• Father died unexpectedly age 45
• Nicholas was thrust into
Tsarhood age 26 without
adequate formal training 1896
• Last of Romanov dynasty
1868-1918
Khodynka Tragedy
• Event marred the coronation of the new Tsar 1896
• Intended as a banquent celebration open to the people,
est up to 500,000 did attend
• Rumor spread the food ran
out, precipitated a
stampede
– Over 1,000 trampled to
death
– Thousands injured
• Interpreted by mystics as
bad omen
Organizing the Revolution
• Russia’s growing industrialization
without improvement in working
conditions led to growing unrest
• Organized local political councils =
Soviets of workers
• Large organization Russian Social
Democratic Labor Party formed
in 1903 in exile
– Divided into two disagreeing
factions:
– Bolsheviks, lead by Lenin
– Mensheviks
Russo-Japanese War 1905 Disaster
• 6,000 miles away was Port Arthur
• Overconfident, Tsar committed Russian forces in attempt to
claim Pacific port from Japanese
• Expected by everyone to win Russia was soundly defeated
because of inability to reinforce the remote area
Russo-Japanese War
• Embarrassing defeat of Russian forces by
fledgling Japanese military
• Demolished popularity of the young Tsar
• Rendered the Russian economy in shambles
• Lead to discontent that preceded Revolution
of 1905
Bloody Sunday Jan 9, 1905
• Lead by socialist priest Father Gapon, 120,000 peaceful
workers converged on Winter Palace with a petition. Carrying
pictures of Tsar and singing, crowd fully expected to meet him.
Bloody Sunday
• Against his mother &
sisters advice to face the
crowd, Nicolas listened to
his ministers
• Sent the army instead
• Shots fired
– Probably 1,000 killed or
wounded
– Far more damaging, the
Russian people no longer
trusted the Tsar
Revolution of 1905
• In wake of Bloody Sunday, a rash of mass strikes spread
across Russia and its federated neighbors
– Every oppressed group gathered in protests: ethnic minorities,
workers, farm laborers, students, doctors, lawyers, engineers
• There were ethnic uprisings between Armenians and Tartars
resulting in massacres in Caucus region. Strikes went on for
months
• After the assassination of
his uncle Grand Duke Sergei
Alexandrovich in Feb, Tsar
reluctantly tried to make
concessions
• In October, Nicholas II
issued October Manifesto
• Formed Duma a type of
parliamentary
representation
Revolution of 1905
• Morale of all fleet sailors was
low after the defeat by
Japanese
• Discipline was harsh
• Group of sailors dedicated to
revolution called Tsentralka
plotted a secret mass mutiny
• Mutiny on battleship Potemkin
occurred prematurely
– Captain and 7 of 18 officers
killed
– Remainder placed under arrest
Revolution of 1905
• Potemkin’s crew sailed to Odessa
in an attempt to support worker’s
uprising, Lenin sent
representatives to help
• Tsarist troops routed the uprising
slaughtering hundreds
• Crew fled to ship, entire Black Sea
Fleet was ordered to stop them
• As the ship escaped to Romania,
the crews on other ships refused
to fire upon them
October 28, 1987
Ivan Beshoff, Last Survivor Of Mutiny on
the Potemkin
AP
DUBLIN, Oct. 27— Ivan Beshoff, the last survivor of the 1905 mutiny on the Russian
battleship Potemkin, a harbinger of the Russian Revolution, died Sunday, his family said
today. His birth certificate said he was 102 years old, but he contended he was 104.
Born near the Black Sea port of Odessa, Mr. Beshoff abandoned chemistry studies and
joined the navy, serving in the engine room of the Potemkin.
The mutiny over poor food was the first mass expression of discontent in Czar Nicholas
II's military and later came to be seen as a prelude to the 1917 Russian Revolution.
The mutineers killed the captain and several officers. The entire Black Sea fleet was
ordered to suppress the rebellion, but crews refused to fire on the battleship, and it
sailed for 11 days before surrendering.
Mr. Beshoff had said he fled through Turkey to London, where he met Lenin. He settled
in Ireland in 1913, saying he had tired of the sea.
Mr. Beshoff worked for a Soviet oil distribution company and was twice arrested as a
Soviet spy, but became a beloved figure in the Irish community.
After World War II, he opened a fish and chips shop in Dublin. His sons opened
branches elsewhere in the city.
Revolution 1905
• Most significant event occurred in Moscow in Dec
• Dec 5 General Strike began
• Dec 7 government troops crack down
– Bitter street fighting followed
– Artillery used to break up demonstrations and shell workers districts
– Thousand people killed, city in ruins
• Dec 18 Bolsheviks
surrender
Revolution 1905
•By April1906, the Revolution was ended
•14,000 executed, 75,000 imprisoned
•Tsarist forces had stabilized the country
•1905 was a dress rehearsal, the revolution of
1917 would be conclude what had been
started
• Unlike that of 1917, the was no central
organization behind the Revolution of 1905
Terrorist Activity 1906-1909
• Socialist Revolutionary Party & Bolsheviks carried out
campaign of terrorism
– Killed 7,293 people including 2,640 assassinations of government
officials
– Wounded 8,061
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Dmitry Sipyagin – Minister of Interior. Killed April 2, 1902 in Saint Petersburg.
Nikolai Bobrikov – Governor-General of Finland. Killed June 17, 1904 in Helsinki.
Vyacheslav von Plehve – Minister of Interior. Killed July 28, 1904 in Saint Petersburg.
Eliel Soisalon-Soininen – Chancellor of Justice of Finland. Killed February 6, 1905 in
Helsinki.
Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia – Killed February 17, 1905 in Moscow.
Victor Sakharov – former war minister. Killed November 22, 1905.
Admiral Chukhnin – the Black Sea Fleet commander. Killed July 11, 1906.
Aleksey Ignatyev – Killed 9 December 1906.
Stalin, Lenin & Trotsky
Lenin
• Born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, pseudonym Nikolai Lenin
• Father was practicing Christian, an official in Tsarist regime
who labored to improve the lot of the people by establishing
schools
• Lenin’s natural arrogance kept in check by father
• Two tragedies profoundly affected him
• At age 16, his father died unexpectedly
• While at University of St Petersburg, his
older brother Aleksandr was arrested
for involvement in revolutionary plot to
kill the Tsar. He was hung May 7, 1887
• Transformed Lenin into political radical
• He vowed to make them pay
Lenin at Kazan University
• Assisted by Prof. Kerensky young
Lenin was able to get in to Kazan
University
• As law student he applied
himself to study Marx & other
revolutionaries
• Eloquent orator and superb
organizer Lenin welcomed into
Marxist student society
• Involved in riot, Lenin was
expelled, then kept under
surveillance by police
St Petersburg and Back
• Finished law here; 1892 awarded first class law diploma,
distinguished in Latin & Greek, fluent in German
• Practiced law in Samara a few years
• 1892 famine struck farms surrounding Samara and peasants
fled to the city
• Lenin refused to take part in humanitarian relief efforts:
• “...famine today performs a progressive
function...Psychologically this talk of feeding the starving
is nothing but an expression of the saccharin sweet
sentimentality so characteristic of our intelligentsia.”
• 1895 founded League of Struggle for the Emancipation of
the Working Class in city of St Petersburg
• Arrested Dec 1895 for plotting against the Tsar
• In 1897 exiled to Siberia
Siberia
• There he met Georgy
Plekhanov, who
introduced Marxism to
Russia
• Met Nadyezhda Krupskaya
who help him organize a
worldwide network of
revolutionaries
• She became his wife
Russian Social Democratic Party
• Lenin came to prominence in 1903 when he joined
RSDP when it held second congress in exile in London
• RSDP, a Marxist organization, held its first congress but
was disbanded when all nine of its delegates were
arrested in 1898 (This was what Plekhanov organized)
• Split into 2 irreconcilable
factions
– Bolsheviks (“majority”)
– Mensheviks (minority”)
– Bolsheviks were led by
Lenin
Russian Social Democratic Party
• Lenin’s position on democratic centralism* caused
split
• Bolshevik (Lenin) members limited to professional
revolutionaries
• Mensheviks believed in more open membership
• Bolsheviks separated in 1912 as the Russian Social
Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) which changed to
Communist Party after 1917
*Policy
to be determined by free discussion, vote, with the Party
subscribing unquestioningly to majority vote
Revolutionary Interlude
• In Nov 1905, Lenin returned to Russia for the
Revolution of 1905, but his exact role is unclear
• After Tsarist defeat of the Revolution, he was
forced back into exile in 1907.
• During ten years in exile, Lenin traveled Europe
organizing world revolution
• He developed Leninism which justified the
Dictatorship of the Proletariat
Leninism
• Based on failures of 1905 Revolution,
Lenin made changes
• Lenin adapted Marxism to the Russian
agrarian society:
1. Reversed Marx order to: politics over
economics
2. Allowing for revolution to be lead by
vanguard of professional
revolutionaries
3. Establish Dictatorship of Proletariat
4. Education of Proletatiat by the
vanguard party
5. Decentralized democracy practiced via
Soviets (councils) where workers
exercise political power
Dictatorship of the Proletariat
• “. . . the dictatorship of the proletariat — i.e. the
organisation of the vanguard of the oppressed as
the ruling class for the purpose of crushing the
oppressors. . . . An immense expansion of
democracy, which for the first time becomes
democracy for the poor, democracy for the
people, and not democracy for the rich: . . . and
suppression by force, i.e. exclusion from
democracy, for the exploiters and oppressors of
the people — this is the change which democracy
undergoes during the transition from capitalism
to communism.”
Leon Trotsky
• Born Lev Davidovich Bronstein of Jewish heritage, his family was
not religious
• He became a revolutionary at age 18 and was arrested, imprisoned
age 19 for 2 years.
– During which he studied and identified with the RSDP
• Subsequently exiled to Siberia from 1900-1902
• Escaped in 1902 and fled to London to join party and first met Lenin
and Plekhanov. He would always be more moderate than Lenin.
• At the age of 23, expected to side with Bolsheviks but
in 1903 during second Congress, he supported the
Mensheviks
• Soon parted company with Mensheviks and remained
with the RSDP as “non-factional”
• During Bloody Sunday, secretly returned to St
Petersburg where he helped both the Bolsheviks and
the Mensheviks and tried to influence the latter to a
more radical position.
St Petersburg Soviet
• Soviets (Russ. For council) = organizations that represent
workers political demands
• Mensheviks established non-party St Petersburg Soviet
under Khrustalyov-Nosar, a compromise figure
– Consisted of a mix of Mensheviks, Bolsheviks, others
– Trotsky returned from exile 1905 to be vice-chairman
– After Nosar arrested, Trotsky took a more aggressive approach
• Soviet was very popular among worker’s despite Bolshevik
opposition
• Surrounded by Tsarist troops, Soviet disbanded in Dec 1905
when leaders (incl Trotsky) arrested
– While in court, Trotsky, delivered some of the best speeches in
his life and solidified his reputation
– Convicted, he was deported and remained in exile until 1917
Trotsky and RSDP in Exile
• Trotsky joined the RSDP in London and tried to influence a
more moderate course
– Lenin wanted to break and form pure revolutionary Bolshevik
party
– Markov wanted to keep party open
• Long interlude between revolutions led to heightened
tension within RSDP between competing factions
• Most serious disagreement between Trotsky/Mensheviks
and Lenin/Bolsheviks was over “expropriations”
– Robbing banks & companies to acquire funds banned by RSDP
but continued by Bolsheviks
• Trotsky newspaper “Pravda” (truth) was copied by
Bolsheviks added further insult to injury
Split of the RSDP in 1912
• Lenin & Bolsheviks expelled their opponents
from the party and renamed it Russian Social
Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP)
• Trotsky unified remaining factions in Vienna
in August 1912 (“August bloc”)
• His attempts to reunify with Bolsheviks failed
until 1914
Trotskyism
• While in exile Trotsky developed a form of
Marxism distinct from that of Lenin and Stalin
• Agreed w/ Lenin re: establishment of vanguard
party (dedicated revolutionaries)
• Opposed “one country” view of Stalin in favor of
proletarian internationalism
– Worker class must act globally to defeat capitalism
– Reject nationalism in favor of world communism
• Advocated dictatorship of proletariat based on
democratic principles
Iosep Stalin (1878-1953)
• The only true proletariat among the leadership of
the RSDP
• Born in Georgia as Ioseb Besarionis dzhe
Jughashvili
• Attended orthodox seminary but expelled 1899
– Unclear reasons
• After reading Lenin’s writing, joined RSDP 1903
– Full time revolutionary and outlaw
– Bolshevik bad guy: organizing paramilitaries, inciting
strikes, spreading propaganda and raising money
through bank robberies, ransom from kidnappings and
extortion
Stalin
World War I
• The Tsar entered World War I against Germany
– In “defense of our brethren Orthodox Slavs in Serbia”
– In hopes of reviving patriotism and nationalism
• Ottoman Empire joined in alliance with Germany,
cutting off most Russian ports in Black Sea
• By mid 1915, the war was demoralizing, dissention
once again was building
• Strikes mounted in 1916, the Tsar attempted to
close the Duma
• In early 1917, a general strike in St Petersburg
erupted into street fighting within the capitol city
February Revolution (1917)
• Beginning in Feb 1917, the Duma refused to
disband, and the army sided with the striking
workers
• With the arming of the workers, the police were
overcome and also changed sides
• Finally the ministers met with Nicholas II and
persuaded him to abdicate the throne on March 2,
1917.
• A Provisional Government was established to
control Russian State apparatus under Alexander
Kerensky but fell into competition with the
socialists St Peterburg Soviet
February Revolution (1917)
• The revolution caught Lenin (in exile) by
surprise, he immediately sought to return
• He took a gamble and went to Germany
for help.
• As he surmised, Germany, wanting to get
Russia out of the war, knew that further
revolution would derail the Russian war
effort, AGREED
• They hasted Lenin in a specially sealed
military train across Germany and thru
Sweden to the Russian border
February Revolution (1917)
• Lenin denounced Provisional Govt
• Stalin & Trotsky were in exile: Stalin
in Siberia and Trotsky in New York
City when Feb Revolution occurred
• Hasted back to St Petersburg
• Coalition formed of :
– Bolsheviks led by Lenin
– Left Socialist Revolutionaries (“Esers”
from СР)
– St Petersburg Soviet (workers council)
led by Trotsky
Provisional Government
• The uneasy arrangement of “Dual Authority”
between the Provisional Government and the St
Petersburg Soviet was destabilizing
• Alexander Kerensky (son of Prof at Kazan Univ)
promised freedom of speech, elections and release
of political prisoners but decided to maintain
involvement in WW I.
• He faced insurmountable challenges:
– Growing unrest with unpopular involvement in WW I
– Lenin openly criticized the govt and circulated anti-govt
propaganda
– People’s expectations of the govt to relieve starvation,
loss of lands and jobs were no met in time
Bolsheviks Organize
• By mid 1917, the leaders of the Bolsheviks had
assembled in St Petersburg.
• Trotsky returned to influence the St Petersburg
Soviet, the most powerful organization in the city
– Realizing the need for unity, Trotsky decided to bring the
Soviet over to Bolshevik position
– By October it was Bolshevik-controlled
– Formed Red Army from workers
– Created Military Revolutionary Committee within Soviet
• Lenin led Bolshevik RSDLP = the vanguard
The October Revolution
• The Bolsheviks formed worker militias under their
control called the Red Guards
– The Red Guards were led by the capable Leon Trotsky
– Bolsheviks came under the leadership of Lenin
– Their cry was “Peace, Land and Bread!”
• Bolsheviks allied with the St Petersburg Soviet, on
signal from the cruiser Aurora, stormed the Winter
Palace & overthrew the Provisional Government on
October 25, 1917,
– (one month before free elections were to be held.)
• Conspiracy was strong; Bolsheviks encountered little
to no opposition, almost no casualties
• Red Guards secured the surrounding countryside
Aftermath
• October 26th, 1917 congress of all Russian Soviets
met
– Bolsheviks had upper hand in agenda
– Mensheviks and SRs walked out in protest
– Congress approves handing over of state power to
Bolsheviks
• Decree of Peace = immediate withdrawal of Russia
from World War I (Treaty of Brest-Litovsk)
• Decree of Land = abolition of all private property,
redistribution of estates among peasants
• Formation of all Bolshevik government, Lenin as
chairman
Trotsky’s Rising Star
• Successfully defeated counter-attack by troops loyal to
provisional govt brought back from German front in
November 1917
– “All practical work in connection with the organization of
the uprising was done under the immediate direction of
Comrade Trotsky, the President of the Petrograd Soviet. It
can be stated with certainty that the Party is indebted
primarily and principally to Comrade Trotsky for the rapid
going over of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the
efficient manner in which the work of the Military
Revolutionary Committee was organized.”
• By the end of 1917, Trotsky was second only to Lenin
as the leader of new government
Almost a Failure
• National elections were already scheduled on November
25, 1917 and rather than provoke public ire, the
Bolsheviks allowed elections to precede
– Contrary to their hopes, Bolsheviks received vote of no
confidence
– SRs were given a clear victory (almost twice as many votes as
Bolsheviks)
• Jan 5th 1918, Bolsheviks
– by force dismissed the Constituent Assembly and
– subsequently banned all opposing political parties
• Russian Civil War 1918-1920
– Red Army vs “Whites” (coalition of monarchists, conservatives,
liberals and anti-Bolshevik socialists)
– White Army backed by England and America
Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
• Bolshevik actions against
national elections resulted
in 2-5 years of fierce
fighting:
– European ended 1920
– Asian carried on 1923
• Bolsheviks formed Cheka
State security force (KGB
later) and also Red Army
• Because of Treaty of BrestLitovsk, Western Allies
were against Soviets &
directly supported White
Army
Russian Civil War
• Bolsheviks eventually were victorious and White Army
was desperately evacuated by the British Royal Navy in
1920
• Between WWI and Russian Civil War 20 million
Russians were killed but more (15 million) died in the
Civil War than in WWI (5 million)
• In 1922 there were 7 million Russian orphans “street
children”
• Cheka carried out 250,000 executions of “enemies of
the people”
• For their involvement in White Army “decossackization”
expelled 300,000-500,000 Cossacks
Russian Civil War
• By 1921, cultivated land had shrunk to 62 percent of the
pre-war area, and the harvest yield was only about 37
percent of normal. The number of horses declined from
35 million in 1916 to 24 million in 1920, and cattle from
58 to 37 million. The exchange rate with the U.S. dollar
declined from two rubles in 1914 to 1,200 in 1920
• Bolsheviks were firmly in control but not by popularity
• Lenin instituted New Economic Plan (NEP) in order to
provide relief and assuage public unrest
– Allowed some private ventures and capitalist investments to
fund industrial and development projects
The Third International
• International Communist
Organization (“Comintern”)
• Formed in Moscow 1919
• Russian becomes the official
language of Communism
• Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, feared
that they would be crushed by
capitalism of the world unless
revolution swept all of Europe
• Things were ripe as Europe still
reeling from WWI
Kronstadt Rebellion
• Bolsheviks ruined their country’s economy
– In 1921, mine and factory production fell to 20% of
prewar levels
– The Ruble fell to 1/600th of prewar value
– Led to uprisings in countryside, strikes & violence in
factories
• Kronstadt sailors who aided the revolution in 1917
sent delegation to Petrograd to investigate situation
• Learning of Bolshevik heavy-handed repression of
workers, battleship crews held emergency meeting
Lenin’s Tomb is Just Another
Communist Plot