Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution
25Socialism in Europe and
the Russian Revolution
1 The Age of Social Change
In the previous chapter you read about the powerful ideas of freedomand equality that circulated in Europe after the French Revolution.
The French Revolution opened up the possibility of creating a
dramatic change in the way in which society was structured. As you
have read, before the eighteenth century society was broadly divided
into estates and orders and it was the aristocracy and church which
controlled economic and social power. Suddenly, after the revolution,
it seemed possible to change this. In many parts of the world including
Europe and Asia, new ideas about individual rights and who
controlled social power began to be discussed. In India, Raja
Rammohan Roy and Derozio talked of the significance of the French
Revolution, and many others debated the ideas of post-revolutionary
Europe. The developments in the colonies, in turn, reshaped these
ideas of societal change.
Not everyone in Europe, however, wanted a complete transformation
of society. Responses varied from those who accepted that some
change was necessary but wished for a gradual shift, to those who
wanted to restructure society radically. Some were ‘conservatives’,
others were ‘liberals’ or ‘radicals’. What did these terms really mean
in the context of the time? What separated these strands of politics
and what linked them together? We must remember that these terms
do not mean the same thing in all contexts or at all times.
We will look briefly at some of the important political traditions of
the nineteenth century, and see how they influenced change. Then
we will focus on one historical event in which there was an attempt
at a radical transformation of society. Through the revolution in
Russia, socialism became one of the most significant and powerful
ideas to shape society in the twentieth century.
1.1 Liberals, Radicals and Conservatives
One of the groups which looked to change society were the liberals.Liberals wanted a nation which tolerated all religions. We should
remember that at this time European states usually discriminated in
Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution Chapter ll
India and the Contemporary World 26
favour of one religion or another (Britain favoured the Church of
England, Austria and Spain favoured the Catholic Church). Liberals
also opposed the uncontrolled power of dynastic rulers. They wanted
to safeguard the rights of individuals against governments. They
argued for a representative, elected parliamentary government, subject
to laws interpreted by a well-trained judiciary that was independent
of rulers and officials. However, they were not ‘democrats’. They
did not believe in universal adult franchise, that is, the right of every
citizen to vote. They felt men of property mainly should have the
vote. They also did not want the vote for women.
In contrast, radicals wanted a nation in which government was based
on the majority of a country’s population. Many supported women’s
suffragette movements. Unlike liberals, they opposed the privileges
of great landowners and wealthy factory owners. They were not
against the existence of private property but disliked concentration
of property in the hands of a few.
Conservatives were opposed to radicals and liberals. After the French
Revolution, however, even conservatives had opened their minds to
the need for change. Earlier, in the eighteenth century, conservatives
had been generally opposed to the idea of change. By the nineteenth
century, they accepted that some change was inevitable but believed
that the past had to be respected and change had to be brought about
through a slow process.
Such differing ideas about societal change clashed during the social
and political turmoil that followed the French Revolution. The
various attempts at revolution and national transformation in the
nineteenth century helped define both the limits and potential of
these political tendencies.
1.2 Industrial Society and Social Change
These political trends were signs of a new time. It was a time ofprofound social and economic changes. It was a time when new cities
came up and new industrialised regions developed, railways expanded
and the Industrial Revolution occurred.
Industrialisation brought men, women and children to factories. Work
hours were often long and wages were poor. 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.
New words
Suffragette movement – A movement to
give women the right to vote.
Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution
27
Almost all industries were the property of individuals. Liberals and
radicals themselves were often property owners and employers.
Having made their wealth through trade or industrial ventures, they
felt that such effort should be encouraged – that its benefits would
be achieved if the workforce in the economy was healthy and citizens
were educated. Opposed to the privileges the old aristocracy had by
birth, they firmly believed in the value of individual effort, labour
and enterprise. If freedom of individuals was ensured, if the poor
could labour, and those with capital could operate without restraint,
they believed that societies would develop. 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. Nationalists talked of
revolutions that would create ‘nations’ where all citizens would have
From: Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, 1861.
India and the Contemporary World 28
Activity
equal rights. After 1815, Giuseppe Mazzini, an Italian nationalist, conspired
with others to achieve this in Italy. Nationalists elsewhere – including India
– read his writings.
1.3 The Coming of Socialism to Europe
Perhaps one of the most far-reaching visions of how society should bestructured was socialism. By the mid - nineteenth century in Europe, socialism
was a well-known body of ideas that attracted widespread attention.
Socialists were against private property, and saw it as the root of all social ills
of the time. Why? Individuals owned the property that gave employment
but the propertied were concerned only with personal gain and not with
the welfare of those who made the property productive. So 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.
How could a society without property operate? What would be the basis of
socialist society?
Socialists had different visions of the future. Some believed in the idea of
cooperatives. Robert Owen (1771-1858), a leading English manufacturer,
sought to build a cooperative community called New Harmony in Indiana
(USA). Other socialists felt that cooperatives could not be built on a wide
scale only through individual initiative: they demanded that governments
encourage cooperatives. In France, for instance, Louis Blanc (1813-1882)
wanted the government to encourage cooperatives and replace capitalist
enterprises. These cooperatives were to be associations of people who
produced goods together and divided the profits according to the work
done by members.
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. The conditions of workers could not improve
as long as this profit was accumulated by private capitalists. Workers had to
overthrow capitalism and the rule of private property. Marx believed that
to free themselves from capitalist exploitation, workers had to construct a
radically socialist society where all property was socially controlled. This
would be a communist society. He was convinced that workers would
triumph in their conflict with capitalists. A communist society was the natural
society of the future.
List two differences between the capitalist
and socialist ideas of private property.
Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution
29
Activity
1.4 Support for SocialismBy the 1870s, socialist ideas spread through Europe. To coordinate
their efforts, socialists formed an international body – namely, the
Second International.
Workers in England and Germany began forming associations to
fight for better living and working conditions. They set up funds to
help members in times of distress and demanded a reduction of working
hours and the right to vote. In Germany, these associations worked closely
with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and helped it win parliamentary
seats. By 1905, socialists and trade unionists formed a Labour Party in
Britain and a Socialist Party in France. However, till 1914, socialists never
succeeded in forming a government in Europe. Represented by strong
figures in parliamentary politics, their ideas did shape legislation, but
governments continued to be run by conservatives, liberals and radicals.
Imagine that a meeting has been called in
your area to discuss the socialist idea of
doing away with private property and
introducing collective ownership. Write the
speech you would make at the meeting if you
are:
! a poor labourer working in the fields
! a medium-level landowner
! a house owner
–
2 The Russian Revolution
In one of the least industrialised of European states this situation was
reversed. 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.
How did this come about? What were the social and political
conditions in Russia when the revolution occurred? To answer these
questions, let us look at Russia a few years before the revolution.
2.1 The Russian Empire in 1914
In 1914, Tsar Nicholas II ruled Russia and its empire. Besides the
territory around Moscow, 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.
Fig.3 – Tsar Nicholas II in the White
Hall of the Winter Palace,
St Petersburg, 1900.
Painted by Earnest Lipgart (1847-1932)
Fig.4 – Europe in 1914.
The map shows the Russian empire and the European countries at war during the First
World War.
Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution
31
2.2 Economy and Society
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the vast majority of
Russia’s people were agriculturists. About 85 per cent of the Russian
empire’s population earned their living from agriculture. This
proportion was higher than in most European countries. For instance,
in France and Germany the proportion was between 40 per cent and
50 per cent. In the empire, cultivators produced for the market as
well as for their own needs and Russia was a major exporter of grain.
Industry was found in pockets. Prominent industrial areas were
St Petersburg and Moscow. Craftsmen undertook much of the
production, but large factories existed alongside craft workshops.
Many factories were set up in the 1890s, when Russia’s railway
network was extended, and foreign investment in industry increased.
Coal production doubled and iron and steel output quadrupled. By
the 1900s, in some areas factory workers and craftsmen were almost
equal in number.
Most industry was the private property of industrialists. Government
supervised large factories to ensure minimum wages and limited hours
of work. But factory inspectors could not prevent rules being broken.
In craft units and small workshops, the working day was sometimes
15 hours, compared with 10 or 12 hours in factories. Accommodation
varied from rooms to dormitories.
Workers were a divided social group. Some had strong links with
the villages from which they came. Others had settled in cities
permanently. Workers were divided by skill. A metalworker of St.
Petersburg recalled, ‘Metalworkers considered themselves aristocrats
among other workers. Their occupations demanded more training
and 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). Divisions among workers showed
themselves in dress and manners too. Some workers formed
associations to help members in times of unemployment or financial
hardship but such associations were few.
Despite divisions, workers did unite to strike work (stop work) when
they disagreed with employers about dismissals or work conditions.
These strikes took place frequently in the textile industry during
1896-1897, and in the metal industry during 1902.
In the countryside, peasants cultivated most of the land. But the
nobility, the crown and the Orthodox Church owned large
properties. Like workers, peasants too were divided. They were also
Fig.5 – Unemployed peasants in pre-war
St Petersburg.
Many survived by eating at charitable
kitchens and living in poorhouses.
Fig.6 – Workers sleeping in bunkers in a
dormitory in pre-revolutionary Russia.
They slept in shifts and could not keep their
families with them.
India and the Contemporary World 32
deeply religious. But except in a few cases they had no respect for the Source A
nobility. Nobles got their power and position through their services
to the Tsar, not through local popularity. This was unlike France
where, during the French Revolution in Brittany, peasants respected
nobles and fought for them. 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.
Russian peasants were different from other European peasants in
another way. They pooled their land together periodically and their
commune (mir) divided it according to the needs of individual families.
2.3 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. It set up a
newspaper, mobilised workers and organised strikes.
Some Russian socialists felt that the Russian peasant custom of dividing
land periodically made them natural socialists. So peasants, not
workers, would be the main force of the revolution, and Russia could
become socialist more quickly than other countries. Socialists were
active in the countryside through the late nineteenth century. They
formed the Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1900. This party struggled
for peasants’ rights and demanded that land belonging to nobles be
transferred to peasants. Social Democrats disagreed with Socialist
Revolutionaries about peasants. Lenin felt that peasants were not
one united group. Some were poor and others rich, some worked as
labourers while others were capitalists who employed workers. Given
this ‘differentiation’ within them, they could not all be part of a
socialist movement.
The party was divided over the strategy of organisation. Vladimir
Lenin (who led the Bolshevik group) thought that in a repressive
society like Tsarist Russia the party should be disciplined and should
control the number and quality of its members. Others (Mensheviks)
thought that the party should be open to all (as in Germany).
2.4 A Turbulent Time: The 1905 Revolution
Russia was an autocracy. Unlike other European rulers, even at the
beginning of the twentieth century, the Tsar was not subject to
Alexander Shlyapnikov, a socialist
worker of the time, gives us a description
of how the meetings were organised:
‘Propaganda was done in the plants and
shops on an individual basis. There were
also discussion circles … Legal meetings
took place on matters concerning [official
issues], but this activity was skilfully
integrated into the general struggle for
the liberation of the working class. Illegal
meetings were … arranged on the spur
of the moment but in an organised way
during lunch, in evening break, in front
of the exit, in the yard or, in
establishments with several floors, on
the stairs. The most alert workers would
form a “plug” in the doorway, and the
whole mass piled up in the exit. An
agitator would get up right there on the
spot. Management would contact the
police on the telephone, but the
speeches would have already been
made and the necessary decision taken
by the time they arrived ...’
Alexander Shlyapnikov, On the Eve of
1917. Reminiscences from the
Revolutionary Underground.
Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution
33
Activity
parliament. 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. They were supported in the empire
by nationalists (in Poland for instance) and in Muslim-dominated
areas by jadidists who wanted modernised Islam to lead their societies.
The year 1904 was a particularly bad one for Russian workers. Prices
of essential goods rose so quickly that real wages declined by 20 per
cent. The membership of workers’ associations rose dramatically.
When four members of the Assembly of Russian Workers, which
had been formed in 1904, were dismissed at the Putilov Iron Works,
there was a call for industrial action. Over the next few days over
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. The incident,
known as Bloody Sunday, started a series of events that became known
as the 1905 Revolution. Strikes took place all over the country and
universities closed down when student bodies staged walkouts,
complaining about the lack of civil liberties. Lawyers, doctors,
engineers and other middle-class workers established the Union of
Unions and demanded a constituent assembly.
During the 1905 Revolution, the Tsar allowed the creation of an
elected consultative Parliament or Duma. For a brief while during
the revolution, there existed a large number of trade unions and
factory committees made up of factory workers. After 1905, most
committees and unions worked unofficially, since they were declared
illegal. Severe restrictions were placed on political activity. The Tsar
dismissed the first Duma within 75 days and the re-elected second
Duma within three months. He did not want any questioning of his
authority or any reduction in his power. He changed the voting
laws and packed the third Duma with conservative politicians. Liberals
and revolutionaries were kept out.
2.5 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). Each country had a global empire
New words
Jadidists – Muslim reformers within the
Russian empire
Real wage – Reflects the quantities of
goods which the wages will actually buy.
Why were there revolutionary disturbances in
Russia in 1905? What were the demands of
revolutionaries?
India and the Contemporary World 34
Activity
The year is 1916. You are a general in the
Tsar’s army on the eastern front. You are
writing a report for the government in
Moscow. In your report suggest what you
think the government should do to improve
the situation.
Fig.7 – Russian soldiers during the First
World War.
The Imperial Russian army came to be known
as the ‘Russian steam roller’. It was the
largest armed force in the world. When this
army shifted its loyalty and began supporting
the revolutionaries, Tsarist power collapsed.
and the war was fought outside Europe as well as
in Europe. This was the First World War.
In Russia, the war was initially popular and people
rallied around Tsar Nicholas II. As the war
continued, though, the Tsar refused to consult the
main parties in the Duma. Support wore thin. Anti-
German sentiments ran high, as can be seen in the
renaming of St Petersburg – a German name – as
Petrograd. The Tsarina Alexandra’s German
origins and poor advisers, especially a monk called
Rasputin, made the autocracy unpopular.
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. In the east, armies moved a good deal and
fought battles leaving large casualties. Defeats were
shocking and demoralising. Russia’s armies lost
badly in Germany and Austria between 1914 and
1916. There were over 7 million casualties by 1917.
As they retreated, the Russian army destroyed
crops and buildings to prevent the enemy from
being able to live off the land. 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.
The war also had a severe impact on industry. Russia’s own industries
were few in number and the country was cut off from other suppliers
of industrial goods by German control of the Baltic Sea. Industrial
equipment disintegrated more rapidly in Russia than elsewhere in
Europe. By 1916, railway lines began to break down. Able-bodied
men were called up to the war. As a result, there were labour shortages
and small workshops producing essentials were shut down. Large
supplies of grain were sent to feed the army. For the people in the
cities, bread and flour became scarce. By the winter of 1916, riots at
bread shops were common.
Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution
35
In the winter of 1917, conditions in the capital, Petrograd, were grim.
The layout of the city seemed to emphasise the divisions among its
people. 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. In February 1917, food shortages were deeply felt in
the workers’ quarters. The winter was very cold – there had been
exceptional frost and heavy snow. Parliamentarians wishing to
preserve elected government, were opposed to the Tsar’s desire to dissolve
the Duma.
On 22 February, 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. Demonstrating workers crossed from the
factory quarters to the centre of the capital – the
Nevskii Prospekt. At this stage, no political party
was actively organising the movement. As the
fashionable quarters and official buildings were
surrounded by workers, the government imposed
a curfew. Demonstrators dispersed by the evening,
but they came back on the 24th and 25th. The
government called out the cavalry and police to
keep an eye on them.
On Sunday, 25 February, the government
suspended the Duma. Politicians spoke out against
the measure. Demonstrators returned in force to
the streets of the left bank on the 26th. On the
27th, the Police Headquarters were ransacked. The
streets thronged with people raising slogans about
bread, wages, better hours and democracy. The
government tried to control the situation and
called out the cavalry once again. However, the
cavalry refused to fire on the demonstrators. An
officer was shot at the barracks of a regiment and
three other regiments mutinied, voting to join the
striking workers. By that evening, soldiers and
3 The February Revolution in Petrograd
Fig.8 – The Petrograd Soviet meeting in the Duma, February 1917.
India and the Contemporary World 36
Box 1
Activity
striking workers had gathered to form a ‘soviet’ or ‘council’ in the
same building as the Duma met. This was the Petrograd Soviet.
The very next day, a delegation went to see the Tsar. Military
commanders advised him to abdicate. He followed their advice and
abdicated on 2 March. Soviet leaders and Duma leaders formed a
Provisional Government to run the country. Russia’s future would
be decided by a constituent assembly, elected on the basis of universal
adult suffrage. Petrograd had led the February Revolution that
brought down the monarchy in February 1917.
Women in the February Revolution
‘Women workers, often ... inspired their male co-workers … At the Lorenz telephone
factory, … Marfa Vasileva almost single handedly called a successful strike. Already that
morning, in celebration of Women’s Day, women workers had presented red bows to the
men … Then Marfa Vasileva, a milling machine operator stopped work and declared an
impromptu strike. The workers on the floor were ready to support her … The foreman
informed the management and sent her a loaf of bread. She took the bread but refused to
go back to work. The administrator asked her again why she refused to work and she
replied, “I cannot be the only one who is satiated when others are hungry”. Women
workers from another section of the factory gathered around Marfa in support and
gradually all the other women ceased working. Soon the men downed their tools as well
and the entire crowd rushed onto the street.’
From: Choi Chatterji, Celebrating Women (2002).
3.1 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. Restrictions
on public meetings and associations were removed. ‘Soviets’, like
the Petrograd Soviet, were set up everywhere, though no common
system of election was followed.
In April 1917, the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin returned to
Russia from his exile. He and the Bolsheviks had opposed the war
since 1914. Now he felt it was time for soviets to take over power.
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’. He also argued that the Bolshevik Party
rename itself the Communist Party to indicate its new radical aims.
Most others in the Bolshevik Party were initially surprised by the
April Theses. They thought that the time was not yet ripe for a
Look again at Source A and Box 1.
! List five changes in the mood of the
workers.
! Place yourself in the position of a woman
who has seen both situations and write
an account of what has changed.
Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution
37
socialist revolution and the Provisional Government needed to be
supported. But the developments of the subsequent months changed
their attitude.
Through the summer the workers’ movement spread. In industrial
areas, factory committees were formed which began questioning
the way industrialists ran their factories. Trade unions grew in
number. Soldiers’ committees were formed in the army. In June,
about 500 Soviets sent representatives to an All Russian Congress
of Soviets. As the Provisional Government saw its power reduce
and Bolshevik influence grow, it decided to take stern measures
against the spreading discontent. It resisted attempts by workers
to run factories and began arresting leaders. Popular
demonstrations staged by the Bolsheviks in July 1917 were sternly
repressed. Many Bolshevik leaders had to go into hiding or flee.
Meanwhile in the countryside, peasants and their Socialist
Revolutionary leaders pressed for a redistribution of land. Land
committees were formed to handle this. Encouraged by the
Socialist Revolutionaries, peasants seized land between July and
September 1917.
Fig.9 – A Bolshevik image of Lenin
addressing workers in April 1917.
Fig.10 – The July Days. A pro-Bolshevik demonstration on 17 July 1917 being fired upon by the army.
India and the Contemporary World 38
3.2 The Revolution of October 1917 Box 2
As the conflict between the Provisional Government and the
Bolsheviks grew, Lenin feared the Provisional Government would
set up a dictatorship. In September, he began discussions for an
uprising against the government. Bolshevik supporters in the army,
soviets and factories were brought together.
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. The date of the event
was kept a secret.
The uprising began on 24 October. Sensing trouble, Prime Minister
Kerenskii had left the city to summon troops. At dawn, military
men loyal to the government seized the buildings of two Bolshevik
newspapers. Pro-government troops were sent to take over telephone
and telegraph offices and protect the Winter Palace. 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.
Uprisings took place in other cities. There was heavy fighting –
especially in Moscow – but by December, the Bolsheviks controlled
the Moscow-Petrograd area.
Fig.11 – Lenin (left) and Trotskii (right) with
workers at Petrograd.
Date of the Russian Revolution
Russia followed the Julian calendar until
1 February 1918. The country then changed to
the Gregorian calendar, which is followed
everywhere today. The Gregorian dates are
13 days ahead of the Julian dates. So by our
calendar, the ‘February’ Revolution took place
on 12th March and the ‘October’ Revolution
took place on 7th November.
Some important dates
1850s -1880s
Debates over socialism in Russsia.
1898
Formation of the Russian Social Democratic
Workers Party.
1905
The Bloody Sunday and the Revolution of
1905.
1917
2nd March - Abdication of the Tsar.
24th October - Bolshevik unprising in
Petrograd.
1918-20
The Civil War.
1919
Formation of Comintern.
1929
Beginning of Collectivisation.
Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution
39
4 What Changed after October?
The Bolsheviks were totally opposed to private property. Most
industry and banks were nationalised in November 1917. This meant
that the government took over ownership and management. Land
was declared social property and peasants were allowed to seize the
land of the nobility. In cities, Bolsheviks enforced the partition of
large houses according to family requirements. They banned the
use of the old titles of aristocracy. 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. He thought the All
Russian Congress of Soviets was more democratic than an assembly
elected in uncertain conditions. In March 1918, despite opposition
by their political allies, the Bolsheviks made peace with Germany
at Brest Litovsk. In the years that
followed, 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.
Russia became a one-party state.
Trade unions were kept under
party control. The secret police
(called the Cheka first, and later
OGPU and NKVD) punished
those who criticised the
Bolsheviks. Many young writers
and artists rallied to the Party
because it stood for socialism and
for change. After October 1917,
this led to experiments in the arts
and architecture. But many became
disillusioned because of the
censorship the Party encouraged. Fig.13 – May Day demonstration in Moscow in 1918.
Fig.12 – A soldier wearing the Soviet hat
(budeonovka).
India and the Contemporary World 40
Box 3
Activity
The October Revolution and the Russian Countryside: Two Views
‘News of the revolutionary uprising of October 25, 1917, reached the village the following day and
was greeted with enthusiasm; to the peasants it meant free land and an end to the war. ...The day
the news arrived, the landowner’s manor house was looted, his stock farms were “requisitioned”
and his vast orchard was cut down and sold to the peasants for wood; all his far buildings were
torn down and left in ruins while the land was distributed among the peasants who were prepared
to live the new Soviet life’.
From: Fedor Belov, The History of a Soviet Collective Farm
A member of a landowning family wrote to a relative about what happened at the estate:
‘The “coup” happened quite painlessly, quietly and peacefully. …The first days were unbearable..
Mikhail Mikhailovich [the estate owner] was calm...The girls also…I must say the chairman
behaves correctly and even politely. We were left two cows and two horses. The servants tell them
all the time not to bother us. “Let them live. We vouch for their safety and property. We want them
treated as humanely as possible….”
…There are rumours that several villages are trying to evict the committees and return the estate
to Mikhail Mikhailovich. I don’t know if this will happen, or if it’s good for us. But we rejoice that
there is a conscience in our people...’
From: Serge Schmemann, Echoes of a Native Land. Two Centuries of a Russian Village (1997).
4.1 The Civil War
When the Bolsheviks ordered land redistribution, the Russian army
began to break up. Soldiers, mostly peasants, wished to go home for
the redistribution and deserted. 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. By January 1920, the Bolsheviks
controlled most of the former Russian empire. They succeeded due
Read the two views on the revolution in the
countryside. Imagine yourself to be a witness
to the events. Write a short account from the
standpoint of:
! an owner of an estate
! a small peasant
! a journalist
Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution
41
Activity
Source B
to cooperation with non-Russian nationalities and Muslim jadidists.
Cooperation did not work where Russian colonists themselves turned
Bolshevik. 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. But
since this was combined with unpopular policies that the Bolsheviks
forced the local government to follow – like the harsh discouragement
of nomadism – attempts to win over different nationalities were
only partly successful.
Central Asia of the October Revolution: Two Views
M.N.Roy was an Indian revolutionary, a founder of the Mexican Communist Party
and prominent Comintern leader in India, China and Europe. He was in Central
Asia at the time of the civil war in the 1920s. He wrote:
‘The chieftain was a benevolent old man; his attendant … a youth who … spoke
Russian … He had heard of the Revolution, which had overthrown the Tsar and
driven away the Generals who conquered the homeland of the Kirgiz. So, the
Revolution meant that the Kirgiz were masters of their home again. “Long Live the
Revolution” shouted the Kirgiz youth who seemed to be a born Bolshevik. The
whole tribe joined.’
M.N.Roy, Memoirs (1964).
‘The Kirghiz welcomed the first revolution (ie February Revolution) with joy and the
second revolution with consternation and terror … [This] first revolution freed them
from the oppression of the Tsarist regime and strengthened their hope that …
autonomy would be realised. The second revolution (October Revolution) was
accompanied by violence, pillage, taxes and the establishment of dictatorial power
… Once a small group of Tsarist bureaucrats oppressed the Kirghiz. Now the same
group of people … perpetuate the same regime ...’
Kazakh leader in 1919, quoted in Alexander Bennigsen and Chantal Quelquejay,
Les Mouvements Nationaux chez les Musulmans de Russie, (1960).
Why did people in Central Asia respond to the Russian Revolution in
different ways?
New words
Autonomy – The right to govern
themselves
Nomadism – Lifestyle of those who do
not live in one place but move from area
to area to earn their living
Source
India and the Contemporary World 42
Box 4
Socialist Cultivation in a Village in the Ukraine
‘A commune was set up using two [confiscated] farms as a base. The commune
consisted of thirteen families with a total of seventy persons … The farm tools taken
from the … farms were turned over to the commune …The members ate in a communal
dining hall and income was divided in accordance with the principles of “cooperative
communism”. The entire proceeds of the members’ labor, as well as all dwellings and
facilities belonging to the commune were shared by the commune members.’
Fedor Belov, The History of a Soviet Collective Farm (1955).
Fig.14 – Factories came to be seen as a
symbol of socialism.
This poster states: ‘The smoke from the
chimneys is the breathing of Soviet Russia.’
4.2 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. Bolsheviks used confiscated land to demonstrate what
collective work could be.
A process of centralised planning was introduced. Officials assessed
how the economy could work and set targets for a five-year period.
On this basis they made the Five Year Plans. The government fixed
all prices to promote industrial growth during the first two ‘Plans’
(1927-1932 and 1933-1938). Centralised planning led to economic
growth. Industrial production increased (between 1929 and 1933 by
100 per cent in the case of oil, coal and steel). New factory cities
came into being.
However, rapid construction led to poor working conditions. In
the city of Magnitogorsk, the construction of a steel plant was achieved
in three years. Workers lived hard lives and the result was 550
stoppages of work in the first year alone. In living quarters, ‘in the
wintertime, at 40 degrees below, people had to climb down from the
fourth floor and dash across the street in order to go to the toilet’.
An extended schooling system developed, and arrangements were
made for factory workers and peasants to enter universities. Crèches
were established in factories for the children of women workers.
Cheap public health care was provided. Model living quarters were
set up for workers. The effect of all this was uneven, though, since
government resources were limited.
Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution
43
Source C
Dreams and Realities of a Soviet Childhood in 1933
Dear grandfather Kalinin …
My family is large, there are four children. We don’t have a father – he died, fighting
for the worker’s cause, and my mother … is ailing … I want to study very much, but
I cannot go to school. I had some old boots, but they are completely torn and no
one can mend them. My mother is sick, we have no money and no bread, but I want
to study very much. …there stands before us the task of studying, studying and
studying. That is what Vladimir Ilich Lenin said. But I have to stop going to school.
We have no relatives and there is no one to help us, so I have to go to work in a
factory, to prevent the family from starving. Dear grandfather, I am 13, I study well
and have no bad reports. I am in Class 5 …
Letter of 1933 from a 13-year-old worker to Kalinin, Soviet President
From: V. Sokolov (ed), Obshchestvo I Vlast, v 1930-ye gody (Moscow, 1997).
Fig.17 – Factory dining hall in the 1930s.
Fig.15 – Children at school in Soviet Russia in the
1930s.
They are studying the Soviet economy.
Fig.16 – A child in Magnitogorsk during the
First Five Year Plan.
He is working for Soviet Russia.
Source
India and the Contemporary World 44
4.3 Stalinism and Collectivisation
The period of the early Planned Economy was linked to
the disasters of the collectivisation of agriculture. By 1927-
1928, the towns in Soviet Russia were facing an acute
problem of grain supplies. The government fixed prices
at which grain must be sold, but the peasants refused to sell their
grain to government buyers at these prices.
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.
Speculation had to be stopped and supplies confiscated.
In 1928, Party members toured the grain-producing areas, supervising
enforced grain collections, and raiding ‘kulaks’ – the name for wellto-
do peasants. As shortages continued, the decision was taken to
collectivise farms. It was argued that grain shortages were partly due
to the small size of holdings. After 1917, land had been given over to
peasants. These small-sized peasant farms could not be modernised.
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.
What followed was Stalin’s collectivisation programme. From 1929,
the Party forced all peasants to cultivate in collective farms (kolkhoz).
The bulk of land and implements were transferred to the ownership
of collective farms. Peasants worked on the land, and the kolkhoz
profit was shared. Enraged peasants resisted the authorities and
destroyed their livestock. Between 1929 and 1931, the number of
cattle fell by one-third. Those who resisted collectivisation were
severely punished. Many were deported and exiled. As they resisted
collectivisation, peasants argued that they were not rich and they
were not against socialism. They merely did not want to work in
collective farms for a variety of reasons. Stalin’s government allowed
some independent cultivation, but treated such cultivators
unsympathetically.
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.
Fig.18 – A poster during collectivisation. It
states: ‘We shall strike at the kulak working for
the decrease in cultivation.’
Fig.19 – Peasant women being gathered to
work in the large collective farms.
New words
Deported – Forcibly removed from one’s own country.
Exiled – Forced to live away from one’s own country.
Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution
45
Source E
Official view of the opposition to collectivisation and the government response
‘From the second half of February of this year, in various regions of the Ukraine
… mass insurrections of the peasantry have taken place, caused by distortions
of the Party’s line by a section of the lower ranks of the Party and the Soviet
apparatus in the course of the introduction of collectivisation and preparatory
work for the spring harvest.
Within a short time, large scale activities from the above-mentioned regions
carried over into neighbouring areas – and the most aggressive insurrections
have taken place near the border.
The greater part of the peasant insurrections have been linked with outright
demands for the return of collectivised stocks of grain, livestock and tools …
Between 1st February and 15th March, 25,000 have been arrested … 656 have
been executed, 3673 have been imprisoned in labour camps and 5580 exiled …’
Report of K.M. Karlson, President of the State Police Administration of the Ukraine
to the Central Committee of the Communist Party, on 19 March 1930.
From: V. Sokolov (ed), Obshchestvo I Vlast, v 1930-ye gody
Source D
This is a letter written by a peasant who did not want to join the collective farm.
To the newspaper Krestianskaia Gazeta (Peasant Newspaper)
‘… I am a natural working peasant born in 1879 … there are 6 members in my
family, my wife was born in 1881, my son is 16, two daughters 19, all three go
to school, my sister is 71. From 1932, heavy taxes have been levied on me that
I have found impossible. From 1935, local authorities have increased the taxes
on me … and I was unable to handle them and all my property was registered:
my horse, cow, calf, sheep with lambs, all my implements, furniture and my
reserve of wood for repair of buildings and they sold the lot for the taxes. In
1936, they sold two of my buildings … the kolkhoz bought them. In 1937, of two
huts I had, one was sold and one was confiscated …’
Afanasii Dedorovich Frebenev, an independent cultivator.
From: V. Sokolov (ed), Obshchestvo I Vlast, v 1930-ye gody.
Many within the Party criticised the confusion in industrial
production under the Planned Economy and 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.
Most were innocent of the crimes, but no one spoke for them. A
large number were forced to make false confessions under torture
and were executed – several among them were talented professionals.
Source
Source
India and the Contemporary World 46
Box 5
Existing socialist parties in Europe did not wholly approve of the
way the Bolsheviks took power – and kept it. However, the possibility
of a workers’ state fired people’s imagination across the world. In
many countries, communist parties were formed – like the
Communist Party of Great Britain. The Bolsheviks encouraged
colonial peoples to follow their experiment. Many non-Russians from
outside the USSR participated in the Conference of the Peoples of
the East (1920) and the Bolshevik-founded Comintern (an international
union of pro-Bolshevik socialist parties). Some received education in
the USSR’s Communist University of the Workers of the East. By
the time of the outbreak of the Second World War, the USSR had
given socialism a global face and world stature.
Yet by the 1950s it was acknowledged within the country that the
style of government in the USSR was not in keeping with the ideals
of the Russian Revolution. In the world socialist movement too it
was recognised that all was not well in the Soviet Union. A backward
country had become a great power. Its industries and agriculture
had developed and the poor were being fed. But it had denied the
essential freedoms to its citizens and carried out its developmental
projects through repressive policies. By the end of the twentieth
century, the international reputation of the USSR as a socialist
country had declined though it was recognised that socialist ideals
still enjoyed respect among its people. But in each country the ideas
of socialism were rethought in a variety of different ways.
5 The Global Influence of the Russian
Revolution and the USSR
Writing about the Russian Revolution in India
Among those the Russian Revolution inspired were many Indians. Several
attended the Communist University. By the mid-1920s the Communist Party was
formed in India. Its members kept in touch with the Soviet Communist Party.
Important Indian political and cultural figures took an interest in the Soviet
experiment and visited Russia, among them Jawaharlal Nehru and Rabindranath
Tagore, who wrote about Soviet Socialism. In India, writings gave impressions of
Soviet Russia. In Hindi, R.S. Avasthi wrote in 1920-21 Russian Revolution, Lenin,
His Life and His Thoughts, and later The Red Revolution . S.D. Vidyalankar
wrote The Rebirth of Russia and The Soviet State of Russia. There was much
that was written in Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu.
Fig.20 – Special Issue on
Lenin of the Indo-Soviet
Journal.
Indian communists
mobilised support for the
USSR during the Second
World War.
Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution
47
Source G
Source F
An Indian arrives in Soviet Russia in 1920
‘For the first time in our lives, we were seeing Europeans
mixing freely with Asians. On seeing the Russians mingling
freely with the rest of the people of the country we were
convinced that we had come to a land of real equality.
We saw freedom in its true light. In spite of their poverty,
imposed by the counter-revolutionaries and the imperialists,
the people were more jovial and satisfied than ever before.
The revolution had instilled confidence and fearlessness in
them. The real brotherhood of mankind would be seen here
among these people of fifty different nationalities. No
barriers of caste or religion hindered them from mixing freely
with one another. Every soul was transformed into an orator.
One could see a worker, a peasant or a soldier haranguing
like a professional lecturer.’
Shaukat Usmani, Historic Trips of a Revolutionary.
Rabindranath Tagore wrote from Russia in 1930
‘Moscow appears much less clean than the other
European capitals. None of those hurrying along the
streets look smart. The whole place belongs to the
workers … Here the masses have not in the least been
put in the shade by the gentlemen … those who lived in
the background for ages have come forward in the open
today … I thought of the peasants and workers in my
own country. It all seemed like the work of the Genii in
the Arabian Nights. [here] only a decade ago they were
as illiterate, helpless and hungry as our own masses …
Who could be more astonished than an unfortunate Indian
like myself to see how they had removed the mountain of
ignorance and helplessness in these few years’.
Activity
Compare the passages written by Shaukat
Usmani and Rabindranath Tagore. Read
them in relation to Sources C, D and E.
! What did Indians find impressive about
the USSR ?
! What did the writers fail to notice?
India and the Contemporary World 48
Questions
? 1. What were the social, economic and political conditions in Russia before
1905?
2. In what ways was the working population in Russia different from other
countries in Europe, before 1917?
3. Why did the Tsarist autocracy collapse in 1917?
4. Make two lists: one with the main events and the effects of the February
Revolution and the other with the main events and effects of the October
Revolution. Write a paragraph on who was involved in each, who were the
leaders and what was the impact of each on Soviet history.
5. What were the main changes brought about by the Bolsheviks immediately
after the October Revolution?
6. Write a few lines to show what you know about:
! kulaks
! the Duma
! women workers between 1900 and 1930
! the Liberals
! Stalin’s collectivisation programme.
Activities
1. Imagine that you are a striking worker in 1905 who is being tried in court
for your act of rebellion. Draft the speech you would make in your defence.
Act out your speech for your class.
2. Write the headline and a short news item about the uprising of 24 October
1917 for each of the following newspapers
! a Conservative paper in France
! a Radical newspaper in Britain
! a Bolshevik newspaper in Russia
3. Imagine that you are a middle-level wheat farmer in Russia after
collectivisation. You have decided to write a letter to Stalin
explaining your objections to collectivisation. What would you write about
the conditions of your life? What do you think would be Stalin’s response
to such a farmer?
Activities
