RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

1. The Age of Social Change

After the French Revolution, ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity inspired debates about restructuring
society across Europe and colonies such as India. European society, once rigidly divided into estates
dominated by the aristocracy and the church, began transitioning to new power structures.

Three distinct ideologies emerged:

 Liberals: Advocated for religious tolerance, representative governments, and protection of

individual rights. However, they supported limited suffrage, restricting voting rights to property-
owning men, and opposed universal franchise and women's suffrage.

 Radicals: Pushed for broader public participation in governance, universal suffrage, and gender
equality. They opposed wealth and privilege concentration and sought equitable property
distribution.

 Conservatives: Initially resistant to change, they gradually supported reforms, believing in

preserving traditions while incorporating measured transformations.

Industrial Society and Social Change :-

 It was a time when new cities came up and new industrialised regions developed, railways
expanded and the Industrial Revolution occurred.
 Unemployment was common, particularly during times of low demand for industrial goods.
Housing and sanitation were problems since towns were growing rapidly.
 Liberals and radicals searched for solutions to these issues.
 Many working men and women who wanted changes in the world rallied around liberal and
radical groups and parties in the early nineteenth century.
 Some nationalists, liberals and radicals wanted revolutions to put an end to the kind of
governments established in Europe in 1815. In France, Italy, Germany and Russia, they became
revolutionaries and worked to overthrow existing monarchs.
 After 1815, Giuseppe Mazzini, an Italian nationalist, conspired with others to achieve this in Italy.
Nationalists elsewhere – including India – read his writings.

The Coming of Socialism to Europe :-

 Socialists were against private property, and saw it as the root of all social ills of the time.
 if society as a whole rather than single individuals controlled property, more attention would be
paid to collective social interests. Socialists wanted this change and campaigned for it.
 Robert Owen (1771-1858), a leading English manufacturer, sought to build a cooperative
community called New Harmony in Indiana (USA).
 In France, for instance, Louis Blanc (1813-1882) wanted the government to encourage
cooperatives and replace capitalist enterprises.
 Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) added other ideas to this body of
arguments. Marx argued that industrial society was ‘capitalist’. Capitalists owned the capital
invested in factories, and the profit of capitalists was produced by workers.
  To coordinate their efforts, socialists formed an international body – namely, the Second
International.

2. The Russian Revolution

.Socialists took over the government in Russia through the October Revolution of 1917. The fall of
monarchy in February 1917 and the events of October are normally called the Russian Revolution.

The Russian Empire in 1914 :-

 In 1914, Tsar Nicholas II ruled Russia and its empire.

 the Russian empire included current-day Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, parts of Poland,
Ukraine and Belarus. It stretched to the Pacific and comprised today’s Central Asian states, as
well as Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
 The majority religion was Russian Orthodox Christianity – which had grown out of the Greek
Orthodox Church – but the empire also included Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and Buddhists.

Economy and Society:-

 About 85 per cent of the Russian empire’s population earned their living from agriculture.
 Prominent industrial areas were St Petersburg and Moscow.
 Many factories were set up in the 1890s, when Russia’s railway network was extended, and
foreign investment in industry increased.
 Workers were a divided social group according to their skill.
 Women made up 31 per cent of the factory labour force by 1914, but they were paid less than
men (between half and three-quarters of a man’s wage).
 In the countryside, peasants cultivated most of the land. But the nobility, the crown and the
Orthodox Church owned large properties.
 In Russia, peasants wanted the land of the nobles to be given to them. Frequently, they refused
to pay rent and even murdered landlords. In 1902, this occurred on a large scale in south Russia.
And in 1905, such incidents took place all over Russia.

Socialism in Russia:-

 All political parties were illegal in Russia before 1914. The Russian Social Democratic Workers
Party was founded in 1898 by socialists who respected Marx’s ideas. However, because of
government policing, it had to operate as an illegal organisation.
 Russians formed the Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1900. This party struggled for peasants’
rights and demanded that land belonging to nobles be transferred to peasants.

A Turbulent Time: The 1905 Revolution :-

 Liberals in Russia campaigned to end this state of affairs. Together with the Social Democrats and
Socialist Revolutionaries, they worked with peasants and workers during the revolution of 1905
to demand a constitution, who are supported in the empire by nationalists and in Muslim-
dominated areas by jadidists
 In 1904, Prices of essential goods rose so quickly that real wages declined by 20 per cent.
  110,000 workers in St Petersburg went on strike demanding a reduction in the working day to
eight hours, an increase in wages and improvement in working conditions.
 When the procession of workers led by Father Gapon reached the Winter Palace it was attacked
by the police and the Cossacks. Over 100 workers were killed and about 300 wounded. (Bloody
Sunday)
 During the 1905 Revolution, the Tsar allowed the creation of an elected consultative Parliament
or Duma.
 He changed the voting laws and packed the third Duma with conservative politicians. Liberals
and revolutionaries were kept out.

The First World War and the Russian Empire :-

 In 1914, war broke out between two European alliances – Germany, Austria and Turkey (the
Central powers) and France, Britain and Russia (later Italy and Romania). (1st world war)
 The First World War on the ‘eastern front’ differed from that on the ‘western front’.
 In the west, armies fought from trenches stretched along eastern France. e. In the east, armies
moved a good deal and fought battles leaving large casualties.
 Russia’s armies lost badly in Germany and Austria between 1914 and 1916. There were over 7
million casualties by 1917.
 The destruction of crops and buildings led to over 3 million refugees in Russia. The situation
discredited the government and the Tsar. Soldiers did not wish to fight such a war.
 Severe impact on industry :- German control of the Baltic Sea, railway lines began to break
down, Able-bodied men were called up to the war, as result, there were labour shortages

3. The February Revolution in Petrograd

 The workers’ quarters and factories were located on the right bank of the River Neva. On the left
bank were the fashionable areas, the Winter Palace, and official buildings, including the palace
where the Duma met.
 A lockout took place at a factory on the right bank. The next day, workers in fifty factories called
a strike in sympathy. In many factories, women led the way to strikes. This came to be called the
International Women’s Day.
 Due to uncontrollable strikes, govt. ordered curfew and put cavelery to control the situation, but
later soldiers join the same group in the Duma building. This was the Petrograd Soviet.
 Soviet leaders and Duma leaders formed a Provisional Government to run the country. Petrograd
had led the February Revolution that brought down the monarchy in February 1917.

After February :-

 Army officials, landowners and industrialists were influential in the Provisional Government. But
the liberals as well as socialists among them worked towards an elected government.
 In April 1917, the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia from his exile.
 He declared that the war be brought to a close, land be transferred to the peasants, and banks
be nationalised. These three demands were Lenin’s ‘April Theses’.
 Provisional Government power reduce and Bolshevik influence grow.
The Revolution of October 1917 :-

 As the conflict between the Provisional Government and the Bolsheviks grew, Lenin feared the
Provisional Government would set up a dictatorship.
 On 16 October 1917, Lenin persuaded the Petrograd Soviet and the Bolshevik Party to agree to a
socialist seizure of power. A Military Revolutionary Committee was appointed by the Soviet
under Leon Trotskii to organise the seizure.
 24th October - Bolshevik unprising in Petrograd.
 In a swift response, the Military Revolutionary Committee ordered its supporters to seize
government offices and arrest ministers.
 Late in the day, the ship Aurora shelled the Winter Palace. Other vessels sailed down the Neva
and took over various military points. By nightfall, the city was under the committee’s control
and the ministers had surrendered.
 At a meeting of the All Russian Congress of Soviets in Petrograd, the majority approved the
Bolshevik action.
 There was heavy fighting – especially in Moscow – but by December, the Bolsheviks controlled
the Moscow-Petrograd area.

4. What Changed After October

 The Bolsheviks were totally opposed to private property. Most industry and banks were
nationalised in November 1917.
 Land was declared social property and peasants were allowed to seize the land of the nobility.
 To assert the change, new uniforms were designed for the army and officials, following a clothing
competition organised in 1918 – when the Soviet hat (budeonovka) was chosen.
 The Bolshevik Party was renamed the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik).
 In November 1917, the Bolsheviks conducted the elections to the Constituent Assembly, but
they failed to gain majority support.
 In January 1918, the Assembly rejected Bolshevik measures and Lenin dismissed the Assembly.
 In March 1918, despite opposition by their political allies, the Bolsheviks made peace with
Germany at Brest Litovsk.
 The Bolsheviks became the only party to participate in the elections to the All Russian Congress
of Soviets, which became the Parliament of the country.
 The secret police (called the Cheka first, and later OGPU and NKVD) punished those who
criticised the Bolsheviks.

The Civil War :-

 Non-Bolshevik socialists, liberals and supporters of autocracy condemned the Bolshevik uprising.
 Their leaders moved to south Russia and organised troops to fight the Bolsheviks (the ‘reds’).
 During 1918 and 1919, the ‘greens’ (Socialist Revolutionaries) and ‘whites’ (pro-Tsarists)
controlled most of the Russian empire. They were backed by French, American, British and
Japanese troops – all those forces who were worried at the growth of socialism in Russia. As
these troops and the Bolsheviks fought a civil war, looting, banditry and famine became
common.
  Supporters of private property among ‘whites’ took harsh steps with peasants who had seized
land. Such actions led to the loss of popular support for the non-Bolsheviks.
 In Khiva, in Central Asia, Bolshevik colonists brutally massacred local nationalists in the name of
defending socialism. In this situation, many were confused about what the Bolshevik
government represented.
 Partly to remedy this, most non-Russian nationalities were given political autonomy in the Soviet
Union (USSR) – the state the Bolsheviks created from the Russian empire in December 1922.

Making a Socialist Society :-

 During the civil war, the Bolsheviks kept industries and banks nationalised. They permitted
peasants to cultivate the land that had been socialised.
 A process of centralised planning was introduced.
 They made the Five Year Plans.
 However, rapid construction led to poor working conditions.
 Cheap public health care was provided. Model living quarters were set up for workers.
 Crèches were established in factories for the children of women workers.

Stalinism and Collectivisation :-

 By 1927- 1928, the towns in Soviet Russia were facing an acute problem of grain supplies.
 Stalin, who headed the party after the death of Lenin, introduced firm emergency measures.
 He believed that rich peasants and traders in the countryside were holding stocks in the hope of
higher prices.
 To develop modern farms, and run them along industrial lines with machinery, it was necessary
to ‘eliminate kulaks’, take away land from peasants, and establish state-controlled large farms.
 From 1929, the Party forced all peasants to cultivate in collective farms (kolkhoz).
 Peasants worked on the land, and the kolkhoz profit was shared.
 Enraged peasants resisted the authorities and destroyed their livestock.
 In spite of collectivisation, production did not increase immediately. In fact, the bad harvests of
1930-1933 led to one of most devastating famines in Soviet history when over 4 million died.
 Many within the Party criticized the consequences of collectivisation.
 Stalin and his sympathisers charged these critics with conspiracy against socialism. Accusations
were made throughout the country, and by 1939, over 2 million were in prisons or labour camps.

5. The Global Influence of the Russian Revolution and the USSR

 European socialist parties disapproved of the Bolsheviks' methods of taking and maintaining
power.
 Despite criticism, the idea of a workers' state inspired global socialist movements.

Global Influence of the USSR:

 Communist parties, like the Communist Party of Great Britain, emerged worldwide.
 The USSR encouraged anti-colonial movements and trained non-Russian individuals at
institutions like the Communist University of the Workers of the East.
  Events such as the Conference of the Peoples of the East and the Comintern promoted pro-
Bolshevik socialism.

Achievements by World War II:

 The USSR became a global symbol of socialism, achieving industrial and agricultural growth and
addressing poverty.

Criticism and Decline:

 By the 1950s, it was evident that the Soviet government deviated from the ideals of the Russian
Revolution.

 Repressive policies undermined individual freedoms, tarnishing the USSR’s reputation as a

socialist model.
 By the late 20th century, the USSR's global reputation declined, but socialist ideals remained
respected.

 Socialist concepts were reinterpreted differently in various countries.