1917 Revolutions
In 1917 two revolutions occurred in Russia. The first in March overthrew Czar Nicholas 2nd and established a provisional government. The second took place in November, which brought the Bolsheviks to power under Lenin.
Even before the war, economic, social and cultural developments were in decline. Nicholas 2nd lacked the strength, flexibility, and wisdom to maintain rule of Russia. After his fall, the provisional government’s powers were restricted by the Petrograd Soviets, which was represented by workers, soldiers, and leftist intellectuals. The new government was crippled by its own efforts because it continued to participate in WW1.
First, what is a Soviet? Quite simple, the word “Soviet” in Russian translates to the word “Council”. So, the Petrograd Soviet is the city council of the town of Petrograd.
Second, just like today, Vladimir Putin is in big trouble because he refuses to pull out of the war in Ukraine which is very unpopular with the Russian people. Why is it unpopular? The same issue Czar Nicholas faced in WWI. The kids of the Russian people are being sent off to war and being slaughtered. Although the Russian losses in Ukraine are nothing like the Russian losses in WWI (Russia lost 6 million soldiers), the people have grown tired of the war and the mounting casualties.
So, in 1917, the Russian people revolted and overthrew Czar Nicholas whose family had ruled Russia for the past 300 years.
Can you see the similarities here?
Once the provisional government was in power, they called for elections, but the Bolsheviks (the political party of Lenin) working through the Petrograd Soviets and other Soviets, seized power before the elections could take place.
Lenin returned from Switzerland in April 1917 preaching his own brand of Marxism He had been in exile as a political dissident since 1900. He told the people what they wanted to hear; I will give you peace, land and bread along with all power to the Soviets.
What the people failed to understand was that Lenin and his party were much less democratic than they claimed to be.
This is very similar to what Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group that just tried to overthrow Putin, told the Russian people. Support him, and he will end the slaughter in Ukraine. Again, see the similarities?
Now here is the problem. When Czar Nicholas was overthrown and forced to step down, the people chose a fellow by the name of Alexander Kerensky to take over.
Kerensky was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months from late July to early November 1917.
My fear is that should Prigozhin eventually succeed in overthrow Putin, are the Russian trading one problem for another? That is what happened in 1917. What did Kerensky in was that he kept Russia in the war (WWI). He said they owed it to the dead (again, 6 million soldiers). This was not a good move. Bear in mind, Lenin is out there telling the people that he would pull Russia out of the war.
Would Prigozhin pull Russia out of the Ukraine, or would he continue the war?
While the revolution of March is taking place, the Bolshevik leader, 46 year old Vladimir Lenin, was still living in Switzerland. Lenin contacted the Germans and told them if they would get him across Germany and into Russia he would launch a revolution, and if he was successful, he would immediately pull Russia out of the war.
On the night of April 16 along with a number of other prominent Bolsheviks, he arrived at Petrograd’s Finland Station. In speeches that night and the next day, April 17, Lenin proclaimed his agenda. He opposed the Soviets policy of revolutionary support for the ongoing war and guarded support for the Provisional government.
On April 17 Lenin also called for establishment of a republic of soviets of workers, he called for the confiscation of all land and the nationalization of all land.
He wanted government control over banking, production, and distribution and the abolition of the police, army, and bureaucracy. He now changed his party’s name from Bolshevik to Communist Party.
Lenin called for a revolution of the Proletariat, the middle class, and he concluded: under the firm guidance of the party the poor peasants could also play a major part in the revolution.
In his April thesis Lenin wrote of a two stage Russian revolution. In the first, the Bourgeoisie (the middle class), gained power. In the second, the Proletariat (the working class) and the poor peasants were to take it from them.
Although he had earlier accepted the classic Marx’s belief, that a substantial period of time would separate the Bourgeoisie and the Proletarian Revolutions, the war convinced him the only way to move to communism was through radical revolution.
Lenin believed that establishment in Russia of a dictatorship Proletariat could be the spark for a world-wide socialist revolution. Lenin believed that his party spoke for the true interest of the workers. He believed that his party should be run through a strongly centralized, super-national party looking out for the welfare and equal treatment of all people.
Does that sound familiar folks?
On July 16, soldiers of the Petrograd machine gun regiment, fearful of being sent to the front, helped incite large demonstrations of soldiers and workers in the capital against the war.
This is exactly what we saw this weekend when Prigozhin and his soldiers pulled from the Ukrainian front and headed toward Moscow.
The Provisional Government now accused Lenin of being a German agent. Lenin, fearing for his life, soon fled the capital, many of his followers were arrested.
Is that what we just saw with Prigozhin and his followers stopping their advance toward Moscow?
Key to the success of Lenin’s party was the support of the workers. As the war progressed, Russia’s economic problems grew worse.
Coal, metal and other resources became harder to obtain. Inflation spiraled upward. Business leaders became increasingly resentful of the Provisional Government. The workers were also dissatisfied, the wages were not keeping up with inflation, their jobs were insecure and their bosses frequently resisted implementing new workplace concessions. The split between the employers and the employees only got worse. Not only in factories but also in white-collar jobs. Postal and telegraph workers, office workers and sales clerks, cashiers and bookkeepers all demanded better treatment as well.
Again, exactly what we see in Russia today.
When an all-Russian conference of factory workers met about a week before the November Revolution, 96 of 167 delegates were members of the Lenin’s Bolshevik party.
Also key to the success of Lenin’s party was the support of soldiers. Soldiers did not immediately desert the war effort, but many backed the Soviets call for a negotiated peace.
General Kornilov’s attempts to restore military discipline, all helped the Bolsheviks when over the growing number of soldiers who wanted to give up fighting in the war.
1917, as Lenin said, many soldiers voted for peace with their feet. More than 1 million troops deserted the front. Most soldiers were peasants, so naturally they supported Lenin’s party.
Lenin called for peasant land seizures. He wanted to take the land from the state and the Nobles and provide land to the poor people. Small village assemblies now formed known as soviets.
As the central government lost its authority these peasant soviets and their members became the chief centers of local power. Lenin’s party now tarnished the other socialist parties by criticizing them for supporting the Provisional Government. Most important in all of this was Lenin’s call for peace. Despite the support of the masses, most professional and upper class people continued to oppose Lenin’s party.
By October 1917, Lenin’s party had gained a majority of both the Petrograd and the Moscow Soviets.
Leon Trotsky, who had returned to Russia in 1917 and joined the Bolshevik party, now became the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet.
Late in October, Lenin returned to Petrograd from Finland where had been in hiding.
Lenin and Trotsky now traveled to the countryside speaking of the glory and the honor of becoming a member of the communist party.
Is that what Prigozhin will try to do in Belarus?
The all-Russian Congress of Soviets was scheduled to meet in early November.
On November 6, the day before the congress was to meet, Kerensky sparked a Communist Coup by ordering the closing of the Bolshevik Press. Troops under the direction of Trotsky and the Petrograd Soviet military revolutionary committee took up positions to prevent any counter-revolutionary moves and almost immediately assumed the offensive.
On November 7, meeting little resistance, they took control of the vital buildings of St. Petersburg. Kerensky, escaped in an automobile and sought loyal troops outside the city. Other members of his cabinet remained in the palace and weakly defended it utilizing cadets and a women’s battalion. The palace takeover in the early morning hours of November 8, after surprising little blood shed, completed the Coup.
Opposition parties within the Russian congress strongly objected to the Coup but were outnumbered by the Bolsheviks.
Finally in frustration, they stormed out in protest.
Trotsky cried out to them as they left, “You are bankrupt, your role is played out, go where you belong, into the dust bin of history.”
Shortly after, a message from Lenin was presented to the remaining delegates. It stated the congress of soviets would be assuming governmental powers from the deposed Provisional Government and they proposed a democratic peace to all nations and overseeing the transfer of landlord, imperial and monastery land to the peasants.
He then stated he would establish worker control over production, secure the right to self-determination of all nationalities of the country and ensure that a Constitutional Assembly be formed.
Again, he told the people what they wanted to hear.
The message was overwhelmingly approved by the 100’s of the remaining deputies. Later that night, Lenin presented a decree on peace.
Lenin stated they had overthrown the government of the bankers and he immediately called for an armistice ending Russia’s participation in WWI.
Shortly thereafter he introduced a decree on land. The decree proposed abolishing all state and private land and making it available to those who worked it. The Congress endorsed both decrees.
In the early hours of November 9, Congress approved a new government. Lenin was made chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars. Among the most significant of the Commissars was Trotsky who was to oversee foreign affairs and Stalin, who became Commissar of Nationalities.
The Bolsheviks success in coming to power was due to their rivals’ failures and own abilities. An unsuccessful war, breakdown in government authority, class rivalries, and peasant hunger. All contributed to the fall of the Provisional Government.
Bottom Line: The Provisional Government continued in an increasingly unpopular war and failed to give the people what they wanted….land. The Bolsheviks were successful because they promised the people what they wanted, land and peace.
Can you see now why the people of Russia are willing to back someone like Prigozhin over Vladimir Putin?
So, what happens next folks? Well, if history continues to repeat itself, we could be looking at a Civil War in Russia.
Back to our story.
Lenin was now in power, but maintaining power was another task. Lenin’s new government became increasingly undemocratic and authoritarian.
From mid 1918 to 1921 a civil war raged in Russia. This war was a war between the Bolsheviks forces (Lenin’s party) known as the Reds and all those people opposed to Lenin, known as the Whites. Lenin won the civil war but the human and economic costs were huge.
Although full-scale civil war did not break out until 1918, opposition to Lenin’s government appeared in the first week after the November Revolution.
In Petrograd, opposition Socialists Kadets and other disgruntled elements formed an all-Russian committee for the salvation of the mother land and the revolution.
It called for the people to withhold support for the new government. This group was made up of primarily professionals and intellectuals. Many white-collar workers (including government employees) now refused to work. Military cadets seized some buildings in the capital. All of this opposition was poorly led.
Outside Petrograd, it was more difficult to maintain control. In Moscow, opposition forces held off Bolsheviks forces in bloody battles for a week before finally surrendering to the Reds.
In most Great Russian Cities, Bolshevik dominated soviets now came to power. Lenin’s power now limited civil liberties.
During its first two months in power it shut down opposition newspapers, replaced old courts with new ones and established the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (we know it as Cheka, the modern KGB).
This new group’s sole purpose was to find and eliminate opponents to the new regime. The Cheka was supposed to try people on charges of revolution. But almost always just simply grabbed the people and shot them in the streets. Thousands of people were killed without trials.
From the beginning Lenin insisted he had to use violence and was not squeamish if the violence seemed excessive.
Lenin’s government also issued decrees to create a new order and abolish Russia’s old patriarchal society. The land decree of November 8 attacked Noble land interests. Soon afterward the state abolished all class distinctions, titles and ranks (including military ranks).
A new voluntary citizen’s militia replaced the old army. The government now broke ties with the Orthodox Church and confiscated church property and prohibited religious instruction in schools.
Lenin’s party also took over the banks, the insurance companies, and the means of communication and confiscated the assets of Russia’s wealthy citizens.
The Petrograd Soviet ordered those that they declared rich, to donate blankets and clothing for soldiers. That same winter, the government forced many members of the Bourgeois (middle class) to perform compulsory menial labor, including digging ditches.
In the cities, Soviets seized buildings and gave more living space to Soviet officials and workers. Former upper class families were fortunate if they were left with a few simple rooms and not kicked out entirely.
When communist officials rationed food and other goods during the civil war, the upper class received little or none. The upper class was also denied voting. Just looking like a member of the wealthy class during this period could mean trouble. In early 1918 a Bolshevik was killed for wearing a fashionable suit. He was mistaken for a member of the upper class. Glasses also made a person suspect, clean fingernails and uncalloused hands got some people shot by the Reds during the civil war.
The Bolsheviks had agreed on the necessity of forming a Constituent Assembly to decide Russia’s political fate. Despite some Bolshevik intimidation, elections were planned and allowed to proceed on November 25.
Men and women turned out in huge numbers to cast their votes in the freest most democratic election Russia had ever had.
The result was a victory for the social revolutionaries. The social revolutionaries gained 370 delegates, the Bolsheviks 175.
Wait, what?
The social revolutionaries were the party of Kerensky, the guy they had just overthrown!
In other words, when the people saw what life under Lenin’s communist rule was like, they said the heck with this, we want Kerensky back!
When the Constituent Assembly (Russian Parliament) met on January 18. It became clear the assembly was not willing to follow the Bolshevik government.
Lenin heard this and simply called out Red troops to force an end to the assembly. Upon Lenin’s orders they prevented the assembly from ever meeting again.
Lenin said this was in keeping with his platform. He stressed class struggle between the Proletariat and the Bourgeois, he said there was no place for democratic elections in his form of government.
In February of 1918 Lenin and the party leaders now sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which was finalized on March 3, 1918. Russia, as a result of this treaty, gave up 1/3 of its former cultivated lands and population. As much as people hated the treaty there was no revolution. Lenin was making good on his promise to bring peace to the people and as a result of the treaty, Russia withdrew from WW1 and turned their land over to the Germans.
In addition to the millions who died in the civil war, Russia lost nearly 2 million people who fled Russia. Most who fled were the educated elite. The civil war also contributed to a huge number of homeless children which by 1921 reached into the millions. By the civil wars’ end the country’s industrial labor force and the combined populations of Petrograd and Moscow were less than half of what they were in 1917.
So, one must ask. If people were willing to fall under Lenin’s communist rule in order to get out of WWI, are they now willing to accept any form of government to end the war in Ukraine?