War and Revolution

• Many countries were on the verge of collapse after the people had become tired of the war. Russia was the only one that actually experienced complete collapse with the Russian Revolution to follow.

The Russian Revolution

• The Revolution of 1905 in Russia failed to bring any changes and Tsar Nicholas II used the military and power to keep his position. However, World War I became increasingly challenging for the Tsar system.
• Russia’s army pretty much sucked all around. There was no technology and no good leadership. Nicholas II insisted on taking charge of the army but had no military background. Russia’s army experienced the most losses.
• Russians were enthusiastic at first but their own government destroyed that enthusiasm. They were suspicious of industrialists and stopped their efforts.
• The Tsar repealed all of the concessions made in 1905 and peasant discontent continued. Workers concentrated in few large cities making them frustrated while the tsar was isolated from events by his wife, Alexandra.
• Alexandra was a German born princess that was influenced by the only man that could heal his hemophiliac son, Rasputin. Rasputin then gained political power.
• Unrest by the citizens of Russia eventually led to the assassination of Rasputin and the severe weakening of the monarchy. People had lost all faith in the tsarist system.

THE MARCH REVOLUTION

• Strikes broke out in Petrograd (St. Petersburg).
• Bread rationing = skyrocketing prices.
• # of women in Petrograd that worked doubled.
• March 8th- International Women’s day: Ten thousand women marched thru city shouting “Peace and Bread” and “Down with Autocracy”
• Nicholas ordered troops to disperse crowds with guns. But the troops? Let’s just say they joined the demonstration too and umm….the Tsar got owned.
• The Duma took control of the government. One week later the tsarist regime fell apart but wasn’t really overthrown because there was no actual revolution.
• Constitutional Democrats were responsible for establishing the provisional gov’t. Represented primary mid class and liberal aristocrats.
• Civil liberties was the agenda, but they could not satisfy the workers nor the peasants.
• Provisional government was under the authority of the soviets, or council of workers and soldier deputies.
• Soviets were radical and the most numerous were the Socialist Revolutionaries who wanted peasant socialism by seizing estates and creating a rural democracy. The Socialist Revolutionaries used political terror to accomplish goal.
• There was also the Marxist Social Democratic Party divided into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. Mensheviks wanted Social Democrats to be a mass electoral socialist party based on Western model. They were willing to cooperate with the parliament.
• The Bolsheviks were a small part of the Russian Social Democrats led by Vladimir Ulianov a.k.a V.I Lenin. Lenin was a born into mid. class. He became a lawyer and blah blah blah, dedicated enemy of tsarist and his older brother executed for planning to assassinate the tsar.
• Lenin was looking for revolutionary faith and found Marxism. He moved to St. Petersburg and organized the Union for the Liberation of the Working Clas. He was arrested for this and shipped to Siberia. He went exiled to Switzerland after release. He assumed leadership of the Bolshevik wing of Russia S.D. Party. S.D. = social democrats
• His party was dedicated to violently revolt against capitalism and needed small party of self disciplined revolutionaries.
• Provisional gov’t was the key to Bolshevik success. He came in contact with the German High Command who wanted to wreak havoc in Germany. Lenin, his wife, and his followers were shipped to Russia via Finland in a sealed train.
• He issue the “April Theses” as a way to blueprint his plan for revolution.
• He promised to the people that he would end the war.
• Bolshevik slogans “Peace, Land, Bread” “Worker Control of Production” and “All Power to the Soviets”
• Provisional gov’t struggled to gain control of Russia and promised a constitutional convention to redistribute land.
• Petrograd soviet issued Army Order No. 1 to remove all officers and replace with elected representatives of lower ranks causing chaos.
• The army dissolved as masses of peasants that turned their backs on officers and returned home.

THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION

• Lenin and Bolsheviks were falsely accused of trying to overthrow the provisional gov’t and he fled to Finland.
• Alexander Kerensky of the Socialist Revolutionaries became prime minister.
• General Lavr Kornilov attempted to march on Petrograd and seize power. Kerensky released imprisoned Bolsheviks. Lenin now saw how weak the provisional government was as the general never made it to Petrograd.
• Bolsheviks now had the majority by the end of October.
• Leon Trotsky was a fervid revolutionary and was chairman of the Petrograd soviet.
• Nov. 6- prosoviet and proBolshevik forces seized Petrograd under the slogan “All Power to the Soviets”. The government buckled with little bloodshed. Russian Congress of Soviets confirmed a shift in power. At the second session on Nov. 8; Lenin announced new Soviet gov’t, the Council of People’s Commissars. The Constituent Assembly remained an obstacle and they were forced to dissipate under the control of Lenin.
• However the Bolsheviks (now called Communists) were not done yet.
• Lenin needed to seize the opportunity to gain mass support as quickly as possible by fulfilling promises. Lenin declared the land nationalized and handed it over to local rural soviets. The peasants seizure of land was ratified and gave them the support of the peasants. Lenin also turned over factory control to committees of workers satisfying the workers although Lenin saw this as temporary.
• New gov’t also intro social changes. Alexandra Kollontai, a supporter of revolutionary socialism while in exile in Switzerland, led the Bolshevik program for women’s rights and social welfare reforms.
• She made her attempt to give healthcare to children and women by creating “palaces for the protection of maternity and children”.
• 1918-1920, a series of reforms that made marriage a civil act, legalized divorce, men and women were considered equal and abortions were permitted.
• Women’s bureau established called Zhenotdel in the Communist Party.
• Bureau sent men and women to parts of Russia to explain the new social order and also helped women with regards to women’s rights and divorce.
• Zhenotdel members were killed in eastern provinces by males that disliked the idea of liberating women. The communist party also undid Kollontai’s reforms in favor of other interests.
• Lenin knew peace was a hard task when he promised it to the people. He knew this would be a loss of territory for them. It was unavoidable, however, and the new government signed an agreement, Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, with Germany and gave up eastern Poland, Ukraine, Finland and Baltic provinces. Lenin argued that it made no difference since the spread of socialist revolution throughout Europe made the treaty irrelevant. Peace was still not achieved as now Russia was engulfed in a civil war.

CIVIL WAR

• Great opposition against Bolsheviks from groups loyal to tsar and bourgeois and aristocratic liberals and anti-Leninist socialists such as Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. Thousand of Allied troops were sent to different parts of Russia to drag her back into the war.
• 1918-1921- the Bolshevik (Red) Army was fought on many fronts.
• First serious threat came from Siberia, an area situated with White (anti-Bolshevik) forces controlled by Admiral Alexander Kolchack. His forces pushed westward and almost reached the Volga River before being stopped.
• Ukranians also attacked from the southeast and the Baltic regions also were engaged.
• White Forces controlled by General Anton Denikin swept through Ukraine and almost made it to Moscow.
• Three separate White armies closed in on the Bolsheviks but got forced back later.
• Ukraine was retaken after the push back and the Communist regime also received control of nationalist governments of Georgia, Russian Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
• The royal family was another victim. The tsar abdicated and his wife and five children were taken into custody. They were taken to Tobolsk in Siberia in August 1917 and April 1918 to Ekaterinburg, a mining town. They were murdered and burned in a nearby mine shaft.
• How Lenin triumphed:
  • Red Army was well disciplined and formidable, genius organization by Leon Trotsky.
  • Draft reinstated by Trotsky
  • Advantage of interior line of defense; able to move troops quickly from point A to B.
• How White Army failed:
  • Disunity of the anti-Communist forces; political differences created distrust among white army.
  • Admiral Kolchak insisted on restoring tsarist government but others wanted a more liberal and democratic program.
  • White forces forced to act on exterior of Russian Empire.
  • Difficulty in achieving military cooperation.
  • No common goal.
• Furthermore:
  • New socialist order
  • Possession of determination and revolutionary fervor and revolutionary convictions.
  • Translated revolutionary faith to practical instruments of power.
  • “War communism” meaning nationalization of banks and industries, forcible requisition of grain from peasants and centralization of state administration under Bolshevik control. More supplies for Red Army
  • “Revolutionary terror”- Red Secret Police aka Cheka. Red Terror was destruction of all those opposed to new regime
  • “class enemies” were the bourgeoisie and were singled out
    • Thousands were executed…this somehow resembles the “Reign of Terror” in French revolution.
  • Intervention of foreign armies enabled communists to appeal to the powerful force of Russian patriotism.
• Allied countries kept on sending troops in order to encourage Russians to return to the war but they did not. Allied troops remained to show discontent toward the Bolsheviks.
• Troops gave material assistance to anti-Bolsheviks.
• This gave the Communists a way to arouse patriotic Russians to rid Russia of the foreigners who were the Allied forces.
• The Communist cause was furthered by the Allied troops, not hindered.
• Communists succeeded and also transformed Russia into a bureaucracy dominated by a single party.
• They were hostile to the Allies.
• Russian Revolution probably would not have happened if there was no total war and Russia did not collapse.

Last Year of War

• Russia’s withdrawal gave Germany hope.
• Ludendorff tried to make a final military gamble to rush troops to the Western front. They advanced 40 miles and were 35 miles from Paris but did not anticipate that fresh American troops and a counterattack would occure.
• Defeat was on the horizon and Ludendorff told the German leaders it was time to give up. They gave up and instituted a liberal government so they could make peace with the allies who did not wish to make peace with an autocracy.
• People were angry at the tardiness of reforms and mutinied causing Wilhelm II to abdicate and socialists under Friedrich Ebert declared a republic. Ceasefire occured on Nov. 11, 1918. War was over but revolutionary forces were not done.

Revolutionary Upheavals in Germany and Austria-Hungary

• Germany began to disintegrate but the Social Democrats were united enough to clean up. Many were still happy with parliamentary democracy.
• There were some socialists that were angry at social democrats for voting for the war and formed the Independent Social Democratic Party in 1916.
• Radical members eventually united by Karal Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg formed the German Communist Party in December 1918.
• Two parallel gov’ts established = parliamentary republic by Social Democrats and revolutionary socialist republic under Radicals.
• Germany’s radicals failed because the war ended, stopping a source of dissatisfaction
• The moderate socialists were able to call on the Army when the rads tried to seize power.
• Free Corps were a group of volunteers against revolutionaries that also helped to crush the rebels. Luxemburg and Liebknecht were brutally murdered.
• A deep fear of communism was created.
• Austria-Hungary was also a mess causing empire to break up.
• Minorities wanted nat’l independence.
• Eastern Europe was weakened after Austria-Hungary was divided up.
• Only in Hungary experienced a revolution when Bela Kun est. a Communist state. It was crushed after 5 month state.