The Russian Revolution

FOURTH EDITION

Sheila Fitzpatrick

OXFORD LINIVERSITY .PRESS Contents

Acknoztiedgements v Introduction r

r The Setring t6 The society 17 The revolutionary tradition 24 The r9o5 Revolution and its aftermath; the First \ùØorld SØar 32

2 r9r7. The Revolutions of Febrrary and October 4r The February Revolution and .dual power, 45 The Bolsheviks 50 The popular revolution 53 The political crises of the summer 5g The October Revolution 6z

3 The Civil War 69 The Civil War, the Red Army, and the Cheka 73 W'ar Communism 79 Visions of the new world g5 The Bolsheviks in power gg

4 NEP and the Future of the Revolution 94 The discipline of ret¡ear 97 Theproblemofbureaucracy ro3 The Ieadership struggle rog Building socialism in one courìtry rr2 vlll Contents 5 Stalin's Revolution rzr Introduction Stalin versus the Right r25 The industrial2ation drive r3r Collectivization 86 Cultu¡al Revolution r4z DunrNc US president Nixon,s r97z visit to China, rhe conversation 6 Ending the Revolution r5o turned to the French Revolution, almost two centuries earlier. I_eg_ end has it that premier Chou 'Revolution accomplished' t1z En_I_ai, o't.irrg asked to assess the revolution,s impact, answered 'Revolution betrayed' r58 ttrat it was too soon to tell. It turns out that he probably misunderstood The the question an¿ thought fre Terror t64 was being asked about trre paris events ofi96g, but it wourd have been a good answer in any case. It i" ot*og, too early to tell about the.impact of great Noæs t75 historical events, b.ã"rrr. that impact is sta¡ic but constantly not Select Biblíography r87 clanging o* o*r, pr.r..r, circumstances and vantage-point on the past ", Index change. So it is with the Russian rys Revolution, whose memory has aheãdy gone through a series of vicissitudes, and will undoubtedly g. ,h;"gh more in the future. The second edition of The nurrni n oolutio, çr99a1 appeared in the wake of dramatic svs¡¡s-ths falr of the communist regime and the dissolution of üre Soviet union art. ."ã or r99r. Those events had all sorts of consequences ", for historians of the Russian Revolu_ tion. They opened archives that -... f..rriorrsly closed, brought forth memoirs that were hidden i" ¿r"i"..r, and released a flood of new marerial of every kind, especialy oì'tne Stalin period and the history of Soviet repression. As a åsulq the r99os and early 2ooos were particularly productive for historianr, ir.l"ai"g p..r1 Soviet Russians, newly reconnected to the international scholarly community. The expanded bibliography of the third edition (t"õ reflecred this avalanche of new i"fo.-åtio.r. ño* ** the fourth edition, we have reached rhe centenarv orã. Russian Revorution. It is an obvious time for .."rr.r.-arr, Urrt in Russia oddly " there is little eagerness to embark or, ,,r.i a project. post_Soviet Russia needs a usable past as a basis for a new national identity. The problem is to work our how th. R;i";on f,ts in. Stalin can be accommodated comparatively easily as rrltiorr_U,rilder, leading Russia (the Soviet " Union) in its great vioo.y _ the Second world War and presiding over its port*"i "r..rrrãi,rpelpower starus. But z Intoductinn Introduction 3 it is not so easy for contemporary Russians to lSoviet union meant a fundamentar reappraisal degeneradon of the meaning of their own Revolution, and of the Revolurion,l previously half ,rrrp."al that one had occurred hailed as the foundational event of at the end of the Civil the world's W.ar, when .*rro*i" collapse forced 'first socialist state, and now seen by many as a wrong into the them 'strategic ,.T31' marked UV tfr.-¡"t turning that took Russia off course for seventy_four oauction of ttre New 'western yea.s. Whilã Economic policy (NEp) in r9zr. historians had less of an adjustrnent to make, theirperspec- Yet -at at the end of the r9zos, Russia plunged tive was subtly changed by rrre end of the cold war as into another *.il upheavar-starin's 'revolution fróm above" of the Soviet rJnion. The dust has yet to "r "a associated with the settle on these intellectual industrialization drive of the First pran, reconfigurations. But one thing Five-year the collectiviza- is clear: as far as the significance tion of agriculrure, and .Cultu."l of the Russian Revolution a n rroi,rio.r, ai.....J is concerned, it is still too early to teil against the old intelligentsia-whot. f;;*, definitively, and it always will i-p"lion society was grearer be as long as the Revolution conrinues even than that of the to be taken February and Ocìober Revolutions seriously as a watershed in modern European and world and the ;i;rrj Civil War of r9.rg_zo. it was only afte. history. This book sers out to tell the story of the Revolution *ris upheaval ended and in the early r93os that signs of a clarifu the issues as they were seen by participants. ñ...idor can be discerned: But the Russian the waning of revolutionary fervour"t"rri" Revolution's meaning, rike that of the French U.ììlg.r.rrce, new policies Revolution, will be aimed at restoring order and "rrJ endlessly debated. stabiliry ..rir"r of traditional varues and culrure, solidification of a new pottic"t and sociar s.'ucn',e. Yet even t'is Thermidor was q,ri* rrr. .i¿ or*r. revorutionary Timespan of the reztolution upheaval. In a final internal "ot .rr.r, *or. devastating than .earlier surges of revolutionary"orrrrolriorr, Since revolutions are complex terror, afr. Cr."a purges of t937_g social and political upheavars, his- swept away many of the torians who write about surviving Old Bolshevit ,.irol"¡ol#.r" them are bound to differ on t}le most effected a wholesare basic questions--causes, turnover of personnel wit¡in trre poritical, revolutionary aims, impact on the society, adminisuative, political and military elites, and ,.rri _o.. rhan outcome, and even the timespan of the revolution itself. In people a million to their dearhs or imprisonment in Gulag.a tåe case of the Russian Revolution, tt. ,t".tiog point presents no In deciding on a timespan for the problem: almost everyone takes it to .February . Russian Revolution, the first be the Revolution,2 issue is the nature of the .srategic *o."J.f of r9r7, which led to the abdication of Emperor Nicholas NEp in the r9zos. II and lfas it the end of the Revolrrtion] or ttre formation of the provisional Government. But ..r".t a as such? Although when did the the Bolsheviks' avowed intention in Russian Revolution end? \ü7as it all over ,9r;;;, to use r'is interlude by October r9r7 when to gather strength for a the Bolsheviks took power? late¡ r.ne*alif the revolutionary assault, or did the end of the Revolution come there was always with the Bolsheviks' the possibility ttrat intentions would victory in the civil \üØar in rgzo?'rüØas Stalin,s revolutionary change as passions subsided. Some scholars 'revolution from above'part of the Russian Revolution? think that in the last Or should years of his life, Lenin (who died rn we take the view ttrat ttre Revolution continued ry24) came ro believe that for ttrroughout the Russia further progress rowards lifetime of the Soviet state? soc¡atism could only be achieved gradually, wittr the raising of trre In his Anatomy of Rez.tolution, Crane curturar 1.".1 or úre popuration. _ Brinton suggested that revo_ Nevertheless' Russian lutions have ro.Lry ..m"io.a iigrrtyil"ail. a life cycre passing through phases of increasing fervour during and unstable and the NEp period, and .t. p"rf;r:*iod zeal for radical ûansformation until they reach a climax remained agg¡es_ intensiry of sive and revolutibnary. The Bohhåvirc which is followed by the :Thermidtrian, phase f."-J cor¡nrer_revolurion, of dis_ remained preoccupied with the threat l.l"r, illusionment, declining revolutionary energy, from .rr.*i.s, at home and gradual moves and abroad, and consrantly expressed their dissatisfaction with 4 Introduction

unwilringness to accept as fE". To it the finar outcome of the Introdurtion 5 Revolution. tiTesran of the Russian Revotution A second issue trrat must be runs from considered is trre nature of starin,s 'revolution from above, rh.F.b;;;ãt"ffi".î"i',ilÏ:Tsrh.ãin;.;"'.;.ä;-".*..ff,ïrï'r.it tt"t io at. late r9zos. historians reject "na.JNËp Some interludeorr.r¡p,Stalin,s.r;";ì;;;;;li'l;Så:,li,ff the idea that att... *"r real continuiry Stalin's revolutionand "rrv berween r-enin's. otrr.* zul that stalin,s .revolurion, c,.;;;;;;_are :*: does not deserye the.name, 3J,ffi.Ji.:i*J9,r,. ûeated as discrere ,i"". ,t.v l-.ì¡"rr. it was not a popular uprising but something more like twenryyears,**rïr-Jiillål::ä$":î."tåî"årl"*:n::äj; on tfie society by a ruling party aiming at radical "" "rr".rft was exhauste4 andeven o".rrfor*"ion. In this boo\ I trace ,1. *;;g ð;ää,rrrirt p"rty6 continuity between upheaval and was dred of li*. f.":rrt f.i.l"rion and Stalin,s. sharedth. .rerurn the inclusion"l ..."olrraioo-tJ* As to Normalcy, *.".r"1 lo?tt;;. a ro normalcv,. of Stalin,s above, to be sur., was Revolution, in the Russian sdll unaãa¡ãJr., for German this is a question on which and the beginning of invasiån Hrto.i".r, may legitimately Soviet."**ä.iä the differ. But the issue here is came only Second \Øorld sØar *i.rfr.ïlnr, were a few years ,fr."Cr."i'pì but whether rhey w::e "., alike, tu¡ther p"r, ot.ir. ,"-Jo-".rr."nOr9z9 Napoleon,s upheaval, i... ,ro,"n.. more tionary wals revolu_ pre_r939 revolur;i,ï,*:Jï_t:.Jfli can be inàuded;.;;;ri;t territories of the Revolurion, concept of the French Soviet U"i.;;.; even if we_do rror beginning of a new, rhe r.g".ã;h;;, an embodiment of postrevorutior,".y.." spirit of 1789; and' a similar the niH::ffi:j:was tegidmate in of the Russian Revolution. rrr;;;;;:Jàrrr."po"to"J-r..ms the case coterminous ..r_r, a revolution is Wrbings about with the period of upheavalä¿ the reoolution fall instaUility between the of an old regime and the nt*^"ã"r.liJ"àon of a new one. revolutions the permanent rn rhe . for provoking ideological contours of Russia's ffiî.ï #ffi-th:f con- f'ät.oä new regime had yet nuor.,til,,-i,i;;s!,.i:åiåif The final iff *'.'llenarvortheprencr, issue of judgement is whetåer b.t t:*. ..rtorJ, attempt 1937-8 the Great purges of lá publicists ro end should be considerea p".. oi*r-Jirssian *. r.l^l,t_::lirited this revolutionary Revolution. sØas terror, or "was ff ,1,'J.f.ïi#-.the-Revorutioiää",ï_iäiïi1T;ïä'; it terror of a basically diferent historiograprw' t¡pe-totalitari¿rn ter.or: perhaps, because u"tpttl"ît; meaning a terror that serves we have n"o"Ì illîter ö systernic puqposes of a firmly the åá."ü.ã,".gi_e? rn aboutit,"*.i.,'.J,i,i:,iH#i¡"lå'jjî:rîJi::_:i*: ther of these rwo characrerrã.ã"li¡ìiät.ito* my view, nei_ purges. concenûated on recenr were a-unigue the Great rct otarlv ;*or-;J."ting ph.rromenon,î.å"ärrnt of SØestern scholarship the burgeonine $¡vbetween revolution on the boundarv on_the nrrri*nälution and postre,rolul."äiåt*rsm. fifteen years. Ilere in the past tei olutionary terror This *", ,.rr_ .t9 I *¡u in its rhetoric, .;r;.;;;ä historical perspecrive ilJ; rnowballing progress. gme""mî;* terror in works lver ;;;;#::ii.rr"åîff:ri i''¿.,.,.ved-persons bui on the Russian "od '¡"t not Before 1;;,.1yi." *ñ;;ï;".o. tr,,t'"JJå:::ii:iii it the Second worla *u,,t"tl ä;îïË.ä!r"ffi Russian war,;.; *uä was wriüen being Revolution by professior¡i;;;;, on the part of the Russian-n X:*.k*mï# in the r"i,irl"", dre were a number of fine !7est. There of r7e4 can be described Jacobin Terror eye_witness i', ;ilË;;;r3"ïäI, Jotrn Reed's Tèn memoirs, of which similariry between Another important Da'*"hirro.y that Shook th;-ü;;rî"".o"oaräA *. episodes i, t¡r"ì io well as some good *. *or, famous, as anes were among ryo uott cases revolurion_ Uv the priTay and io,rrrr"lirt, ,*. fV H. Chamberlin reasors **." À. åJrå".iorr. For I-ouis Fischer. whose alone, rhe storv ortne_nuirr*äå"ìioon dramatic i"r¡å.rt friröofio.r¡.t rti'lomacy, just needs the Great Vtor( Atrairs, remains The as the story of the F..;ãi;;rän tationly: : a classic. Thrle works of ä,m: needs trreJacobin n",iaiin-;;:ä";:;::,ffi,iffi:îLT:îáiiä#:that rraa måst 1.""-t"îìj:'i:t-: interpre- olution Betayed. The first, written . fr"arfV,s "n expulsion from 6 Iwroduction ttre Sovier Union. but not as a political Introductian descrþtion polemic, gives a vivid 7 *o ;i;ir"i at Noon (on purge a participant. Tîï*,*"ly; ro* the perspecrive of larlness ttre Great trials of Old Bolsheviks The second, an in¿ictrnãni in ttre late r93os), describes of Stalin writren in 1936, but in the scholaiþ lealm it was American Stalin,s regime f¡r*_i¿"iä'r.ra¡.rg political science that ", on the support of dominated. The toialitarian model, based bureaucratic a somewhar on ;:":i.ir:ï:.î* class aná reflecting its essentiary demonized conflation of Nazi Germany S"Xrt Russia, was the most popular interpretative framework.""¿ Of histories wriren in I;._;;: the Soviet Union before the sized the oûìnipotence of the totiitarian .levers place must be given war, pride of state and its of to a work written unãer stalin,s conrrol', paid considerable atention sion, ttre nororious close supervi- to ideology *¿ p.op"g"rraã, shorc course;;-;;;;;;"ro and largely negrected nist of the sooiet commu_ the social realm (which *", ,."o Party published in r93g. a, fragmented .¡.î.ä.r'*", this was by the totalitarian state). ¡uàri r¡ø.rt.* "r'pã;r;; a scholarly work bur one *.rr, not schorars agreed designed to hfao*o the correct .party that the Bolshevik Revolution line'-that is, the orrhod._r -", by a minori.f, ;;; r"I. ,, all Communists lacking any kind of popular supporr or" "orrp taughr in all schools___on "Ur".iü:O and legiåmary. The Revolution, all questions oi and for rhat mafter prerèvolutionaf, from the Solri., history, ranging the history of the Bolshe_ class naru¡e t]r. vik Party, were the îf !;* ää. and the reasons for studied mainly to etuci¿ate the origins Red Army's victory i" úr. Ciril rùø";-äL. totalitarianism. of Soviet .oorpir"cies against Before the r97os, few Jj,iå:ffi ;"",.ä Western historians ventured into the study }ïü"t:-*i"'t."'".tä,o¡poi..á-lfrike of Soviet history, including nor reave the sn",, i"i,u- aia the Russian Revolution, p".tty U.."rrrå ;"*;.;ff ff:il":rït the subject was so politically period. st r.. ..*á.,hio ilïl charged, and partly because access - to archives and primary sources day in the Soviet histori""t_";il;Êä1'#ii.i..L*: -' "^'. ïäî was very difficult. f*. pi."..ri"g p.of.rriorr. works by British historians The interpretation deserve rro,.r-8. FI. carr,s The Botsheaik of rh. Bol;elk Reaolurion, established Revotution that became rgrz-r923, the beginning of his Ãulti-volum. in the sov¡et Uniã;ìî Saoiet uir*i'"¡ enth¡oned Russia, of which the first volùne appeared. ar reasr un¡r t¡re in r95z,and Isaac rnia_r;;åä; J::].#å Deutscher,s classic biography of frotsþ, laic Manob.. The hophet Armed, appeared ""1"-., a üue prorerarian ¡evoluti"" Revolurion was n ry54. i" -iri.Àãr.Ëolshevik party In ttre Soviet lJnion, Khrushchevis as the vanguard of the proletari"r, served denunciation of Stalin at the ä"i. rt was Party Congress rure nor accr¿enrar_its';;;":: "rrã neither prema- T.ld:ú in 1956 and the partial de_Stalinization :ï ïli that followed opened trre ui,to,i."iuJ;"ä;-:;"iffi,:;:ï:,î¿:n:.å:1tr'iî_i:il:i: door fãr some hisiorical revaluarion and a raising of the level of scholarship. determined everything Archive_based studies of ,jr7 ln Sorrier'frisö *il*n and the rgzos began to appear, that every major poritiàal meanr in pracdce atthougtr rhere were still constraints ¿r"irior *ã, and dogmas that äir. ,i" rear poritical historv had to be observed, fãr example, on the Bolshevik revolutionary räi.,, except status as vanguard i,iå r-enin, Stalin, L"rat" of the working ctass. tt became possi_ î'åi;ïî:,:I". ble to mention non-persons like TrotsÇ and Zinoviev, b"i ;"ly in a pejorative contexr. mt*,*;:::J:i:"T:.,'"ï1,.å'":1::tr#î:."îf The great oppoi*lay that Khrushchev,s .* Secret Speech offered 'ilï::i¿:"ïï"l.li;"öiij,:::X historians *"rìå decouple I_enin and Stalin. #il:ff Reform-minded Soviet ;*ï,ff.:f historians produced áany Uooks and arti_ cles on the rgzos arguing that .Leninisa In the West, Soviet history ,roÃr, in different areas became a matter were more democradc and only after the Second of strong interest tolerant of diversity and less .o.r.i* yrrfã W".,-ffir, in a and arbitary than the practices of knowing the enemy..Th. cold war conrexr of the Stalin era. ;;îää'ilri'., For'Western readers, ,Leninist, tron, George the rone were fic_ the trend of the r96os and r97os orwell,s Nineteen E;;;;F;;'"rro was exemplified **,r. Koesder,s by Roy A. Medvedev, aurhor of Ler n;story The Origins and Consequences fu;;; of Stalinisrz, published in the West in 8 Introduction rgTf' But Medvedev's Introduction 9 work was too sharpry and overtry criticar Stalin of New archive-based biographies for the climate of the Brezhn.r, y.åi and of I_enin and Stalin appeared, publish he was unable ro and topics like Gulag and popular it in the Soviet Union. ttris resistance, previously inacces_ was rhe era of the blossoming sible to archival of samizdat (unofficial ci¡culation work, attracted many historians. R.rórdir;1; of manuscripts within the Soviet ttre break-up union) and' tamizdat ('legal pubrication of the Soviet Unio" *¿ the emergence oi*ort The most pendent of inde_ famous of the dissident "u.oad). states on the basis of the old lJnion authors emerging at this time was Aleksand¡ ..p,fbli"., ,"froU* Solzhenitsyn, like Ronald Suny and rbrry the great novelist arrã histo.icar polemicist Martin develofed Soviet nationalities whose and borderlands as a Gulag Archipelago was published in English field. Regiånal studies fl."Ã;;;; in ,973. including Stephen ry:.?.i"d !Øhile the works of some dissident Kotkin,s Magneric Miuntain on Magnitogorsk 'Western SÃiet scholars srarred to reach in audiences in rhe Urals, which fo¡ the emergence ttre r97os, \?.estern-scholarly work on the "rglr:q in the r93os of a Russian Revolution distinctive Soviet culture ('starinist civilizaãon') was still treate¿ as 'bãrrrgeors farsification, that was iåoltà, effectively and the product of the Revolution. banned fr.-* USSR (*roughio_e Social histo¡às discovered a t. works, including of ordinary wealtrr Robert Conquesr,s The Great frnoì c¡llat.a cidzens, letters to auúrority (complaints, ¿..rr,,"i"tiorrl, along appeals) in the archives, with Solzhenitslm's Gølag). All the "larrd.rtloely contributing to a rapidly aevetopmeni ,"rrr.,.o.r¿¡alons had improved scholarship for'western scholars. of on everyday life that Ë", They were il. à conducr research ,o.,.f, in common with the Soviet "o* in historical anthropolory. In contrast lJnion, albeit with rimited anJstrictty con*olled to tfr. rggos (and reflecting ro archives, access general developments whereas in earlier times conditions_ _within the historicar profession), ttre current had been so diffcult selelation of young t''at many w'estern Soviet scholatr historians has been atawn as much to culrural the Soviet union and intellectual at all, and others were summarily "."..irited history as social, using diaries and autobiographies expelled as spies or subjected to to various kinds of illuminate the subiective and indivicíuar harassment. As access to archives and primary side of soviet experience. sources in the Sovier lJnion improved in the late ,gZo, *å ,;ior, increasing numbers of young Inærpreting W.ra.* t irì*¡ans chose to study the reaolution the Russian Revolution and its histor¡ especially social history, started "t.rmatfri "rrd All revolutions have libené, égalité, to displace political ,.i.rr.. as fraærníté, and other noble slo_ discipline the dominant gans inscribed on their in American Sovieìology. banners. All revoíutionaries are enthu_ siasts, zealots; A new chapter in the schola..t all are utopians, with dreams of creating ¡ t"g"r, in the early r99os, when world a new most resüictions on access in which the injustice, cornrpdon, and apathy to archives in Russia were lifted and of the old the first works world are banished forever. They are drawing on previously classified Soviet intolerant of disagreemenq began documents incapable of compromir.; to appear. lüØith the passing *.r*L.i"ea by big, distant goals; vio_ .t.-"àf¿ war, rhe field of lent' suspicious, Soviet history became less politicl.¿"f ,Ofr.rr, and destrucdve. Revolutionaries are unrearistic n at. to its great inexperienced and advantage. Russian and other port_Sorri.t in governmenq their institutions and procedures iri.tori"rr, *.r. no longer extemporized. are isolated from their \üTesrern counrerparrs, They have intoxicating illusion of p..rorrifyirrg .émigré,, and tåe old distinctions ú. of -the 'Soviet,, and .\üTeltern; Tll, the peopl.,- yh1.h means tfrãy the people P:*..." ,.t ot"rrfrip largely van_ monolithic. They "rrrr*. is ished: among the schorars whose work are Manicheans, dividLg the world into h"¿ *ãrt influence in Russia camps: light two and outside were rhe Moscow_basea .Russiai; and darkness, the revolutior, ÿ la, .r._i.r- T't.y born) çactually, Ukrainian_ despise all traditions, received Oleg Khtevnyuk, a pioneer in archive_based wisdom, icoir, supersdtion. study of the They believe society "rr¿ Politburo, and yuri Slezkine, Mor"o*_Uoï can b e a taburaroro o. revolution former émigré, res_ write. -hi.'the will ident in ttre United States since" tfre rg8or,-;1, ose Jewish Century reinterpretation It is in the nature of revorutions to end of the i1"". oiJ._. in the in disilrusionment and :1i:1:ûon and T",^* Revotu_ disappointrnent. Zeal the Soviet intelligentsia wanes; enthusiasm becomes forced. The moment of madnessT and euphoria passes. The relationship of the ro Introduæion

people and the revolutionaries becomes complicated: Introduction the will of the people i, it appears trrat In tr rhe i."-.rl;J;,iì theory' industrialization and temptati*l .r "o, only economic modernization means to an eng ror nussian were recognition that one.doe,Fi.l';ö;îäTïffi î:ff îiå...î:; ù;;; the end being rou.-oïäeighuour But the more clearty sociatism. "o, as oneself, and *a .i"gt._;;frå; the on the means, Bolsheviks focused å::ï:å ;."'d *"* whose ross i,,oo., *. roggy-¿ir-.-*î"1å îä:lä3')y creare::";i;x is less Vhen the .buitdingTo.:. the end became. and than the revolutionari;;"*;ä, term õátü'l;;;;r. "*."r different. co,,rmon use rg30s' its meaning was-hard in the Beyond the generic .o oirri"*tli from the similarity, however. of new factories and actuar buildins industriJ;rå;:;entty in progr.rr. *l;'; ä Communists of that-generadon, d :ffi .:T:ï'tå::::' iäÉ::i ff 'î::îH'i the.r.* rirot.rracks puffng on the steppe were r,.e awav e*o..rh.-iä'1i;:Ë5iË",iffi a.*.;;;." that ttre Revolution had been vicrorious. As"rri*"æ 'the proletariar, for .th. nxr*:iim,:; a¿am tll;.iri; it, Stalin,s p.ãp'tJääri industrialization, however forced_pace historically t.".r."*.*r,"^i::::,,:i:_clat1ed that revolution was painfrrl and cor ú.l.;u, r¡,... *... lo,".y if:#'.ffi:'1il.'iî;:"*.revorurion; ;i; t'""fråäï"$,T,"*'-"i*"r""."äinì:iÏ"ä::#:P,i"î] rhe moment came, in rh. *id;;;;. and when thesupportorreád¡madGil';ïrîïTï:,ir.."Jå:,,..L::å:" rheme,. was important ,"åT'i.lirîi:i in.trre Russian Revo_ ure p'troerJå anaryricar""*;-.Ji.:.ii:,î::ä1..ïf :?'lïi,ir:-:;:#*"' iJåJn.,r, not rhe åj '.:::lltfÌ: "ir.gi";; gentsia; and the Bolsheviks rn,his ** ;;;.;;tional, bur . ffi;;.:iLiililXî1?.ï1î.¡mportance. tive of a much broader represenra_ the modernization the-.-^i.;:r"^T:*' The fi¡st is soci;;;;;"; ää úrey interpreted Revotution in rerms,of class..;i";:;;lsstnea the a speciat f:Xim:"ä.ï:äh',.J:lï:,:,ïåï*",or..."pioeîà,i r" role and ä"hijåffi "r"*' o'äi]the Bolsheviks assumed rhe third * j;;-ü;;äTffiï:i:iî i"å,: iå*"t *; *.Jitatne of revolutionary violence ;;;ä:ï,:iffi;å.J":Jff tÌ¡e Revolution dealt and terror_how i,,:å.fi H*iljï,"ffi r.,.i,."iï emi es, and what o" 1."", "i.äff I äî,î ;î'ri* J :ien ï, äi mernobre,*."*.X,T',ff term .modernizati.rì; :ä.,i::,,ïi,..ffiilï,åï.å?j ^The begun to s passé !n13¡erou¡ peasants), and even port rrodern. in an age rntelligentsia_were l"'r;;^ subject,l1_:l_-0.r.*o.a ", But that ,."ï1rs appropriate tl since the i"a""*;"i "-l':^:J'. ï-: for our peopre,.r",, .o.,ii1-iË;tïläå-,ffi:L ,rt.'s"irlliir-îo:';"":t"landtechnologicalüe'ii;;;rä *^-' ny":iæ smokestacks.;;;il.ï.,i.ìiäj:åi:ii,J,;älï*i{*åî lutionary rerror was primarily ¿i..o?ã.'"' * r ne aspecr of rhe class issue that has been most hotly hïd over rhe years is wheth.e^r debated ffi,"ff:.ff""å:ïJ|1 "r;i;ä;;;.,"".s werer in rheir o. s.lri."ilriä* to represent r"ll.o revolutionary dream. Russian,;;;rïä working ctass was ,":ll-.g. rhe a ñ.-;ä..ü." quesdon ,"r;--;;';rr*"s a simple enough revolution; ind'rstrializatig" It";;ä; if we look only at th. r. *", *,.i.tÏÏvltuÑ¡r ¡nsrstence ä: s,rrom.rã"J"'.r**" of r9r7 (which on the inevitability the working class of peggerad when o;;;t" .i'.""ìi"rr- ¡vfo."orv were radical clearly prefemed the Bolslievit, "rrat. ized and. thar, *räå political party. After however, it is not so simple. Th.ä;rlr". Hil*Hiffi ä,-î11'_qJ!.îiäî'"1"ru1*lîl"::,i# power with the Bolsheviks took working_class-supporr did not mean that they kept that *tr*.Tï.1ïïä-'ä:ii:ä,:**ffiïîä..'*ä:# :ä:å:tffî:ä;l:i:::""'*'"'ä'ì"..e*¿edtheirpartv, e sevure of power, indusuial workers. as a mere morrtrrpiåce åi 12 Introduction Ttre accusation that tåe Bolsheviks had betrayed Introduction class, first heard the working 13 by t¡e outsi¿ewä;á;;;"r."tion or regimes that intimidates stadt revolt with the Kron_ and terrifies the of rgzt,was one tåat was Uorrrrà also been rrue. to come and likely to be .h"."-.-tã,i,ti" .r Bur what kind of betraval_¡row Revolutìon _;;* .:;iiå:i::"JrirH:ïiff ,o.ì, *iA whom, with seming *: consequences? In the what of terror, in NEp period, trre s;Lheviilpæ;il revolutionaries, eves, is Ti.Alili;;;"rposeto rrre ,i; desüoy ,h.;;;ori., ofthe revolution .r,", ¡,-"ãi..*.¿ to "p the impedim..rrr ro change; b";;.r.ì;î and ffiiäni# i.,!n, "ì"r, "ior. di*.il_ of r¡,ati.on1,;;;;"ifJËl,Yä-",,ff maintaining the purity,,a.ra ,."oilo"r.^"T revorutionaries rhemselve..r ïffi*y"iii: standards and å:n#"1';il:*'Ï,r:l; n".-i.r ääliorroa.r-r..rolutionaries, the regime,s irrirr.* ãl;;üo, are extremely important ity.an effective ror rrrr¡er productivi in aII revolutiã"r. senararion û..*.h;;;;;g stealth as well ffr. .";;;;r;J;; divorce, ctass, if not a formal .o:TI ,h.y f";;;;;i, occurred irr,t. ,93or. otten "t *a .orr*piracies; tåey But wear the mask of revolutionaries. this is not the whoie story. The situation of workers qua workers under Soviei abreto*..*,-,;;åo.:ä:Jåì"î."T"?5i:trri:."*: t"ri,t,o,lui"ü,ä,äiäï:..i1ï,n*å,r,:i:ï:.ïî*::i"ffitffi":t"it1v,*,.n"r^rr,.viksconceptuarizedtheene- workers) was anorher. ny r..rrritirrg p-öä._u.rs primarily sympathies. Like m< the working class for frft*"-;;;;äl;: from the Bolsheviks october Revolution. *i".'" ;;il'!ilT.i.Tllji did a good deal to zaron::,.: and $:l#ffi.;"tr4# a workers'party. ,,rUr,Jrti"t their ctaim to conspiracy),"* the Èolshevik, They ¡ro .r."r.a be revolutionary *..Jàur..red with counrer_ for workine_ prors; b-ut their.Marxisä'Lî". the "*1.ää "*r"rrrrel there were *, a speciar ¡¡¡ist. rf ;.;;;;, or yorkers .o classes thal innately i:ilTffit#:'i',*.since p"fr whole y¡re i"î*¡"A ro the revolution, *ã,ãirl social class co,,lcr b. ,.g;à;ä a crasscomå;;;î*rï.1trå,ïLi:,å:.i:1010f Individual lîîlorr.o""cy of enemies. positi members of that :oi¡ecti ons. During the currurar revolutionary rety, be counter_ the regime il;.ËilîiiJ..,i:rif conspirators, even"ñ;;; if subj-ectiveþ cur open ïî]] minds) (úrat is, in their own ing mobility by they knew nothing of the Iarge numbers of vo'ngT:rh.r "rr""".iiàîi**o send_ ¡ ;dq thought themselves workers and *åL.rr, children supporters ofthe revolution.";;ü; --J educadon. White the poticy to higher of htrh_;;;;; .protetarian The Bolsheviks used tion'was dropped promo_ tw.o kinds of terror in ttre in the eLIy r;"r:Ë""i tion: terror against Russian Revolu_ enemies.'t.hr",rh.;:"i.i;å*j*hiï*¿er jiÍ";.iî,":;äï Revolution, *¿. p,ãr. J.;;ì died downjn A. ,gror, äîrrräo"..¿ î,:j:i:,jff f:":iåîî;*l end of the decade up again at the working-class :mru{*i wittr- collec-tivizå*i i"ä upward *"rìì.n"oîor The larer fi¡st a"rturar Revorution. the beneficiaries, T:bliry rrr. interesr. For flickered oì.riJiä.rär" however, tt.ir r.*..1iæî"*, fights at "",_" the party faction was likely to tt¡e end of the Civil røalr, the Revolution seem ;;;;;: örn.o until rezT n* ilìäi.o its promises a small-scale renor was when ä:H: i"::oorthat to the airect.a-againräiîft opposition. From then on, rhe remptation ao *rr¿*itll_scale througri tåis enemies within terror against ..#å:ï:.ffiä#t':"' book is rhe theme or the oarty was palpable. O.r..."ron Popular t:tt:. for this was that revolution; violence it i"il;.;; *", .r.irg tenor on a considerable t uol,rriorr"jli-ttT.:'.. i' enemies,1.^ scale against .class outside the narty. Another ,r,.."¡v,i,e.',î;.äffi periodic .."r-ori-*", that the party,s after. ïi":iä.l"::ä:fl purging @n¡stp¡, literally Terror, meaning ä;:.*_ïiï:"å,J,ï creansings) of its own ranks ..**¿.à'Iäi.i:.i;ï:r.rutionary an effect simila¡ to scrat, had sroups .n*r an itch. These purges, fi¡st on a nadonal scale conducted ,,, r92r, were reviews of party *.*U.rrüp T4 Introduction in which Intoductian r5 all Communisrs were summoned individualty appraisals for public number of of their comperence, small changes reflecting my response to new pva]tf, ia.tigro.rna, and connec_ information tions; and those judged and new scholarry interpretations. r have unwol]rf *.r. .¡p.U.d from the parry used rhe footrotes to call demoted to candidate or attention to important r.ec?t status. There was a'national EnglishJanguage scholarship, as well 1929, party purge in as Russian scholarship anott¡e, n ry33_!,.and then_as purging in English t and kept citation of an almost A.^p"ó-U..""'_î Russianlanguage work "o.l"ão.r] obsessive and documenrs ro a áirri*o_. The Select in Bibliography provides rapid,".";i;; iiËi#i a brief guide to furtfrer LaOing. expulsion miehr bring ;::'düf#ïi:itr ::îi: such as arresr was still comparatively Fú.1 9""iJir*.*, or edle, low,¡vYv' wirtrvv¡qr ç4u'each of(rr thetnese . upwards. party purges it crept Terror and party nyrslns (yú small .p,) finally on a massive " came together scale in the Great purges of r937_g.lo Td-;;; not a purge in the usual sense, sin"ã no systemadc review of pcrty membership was involved; but it was directed in the first lnstance against party members, particularly those in higl, oftcial positions, although aresrs fË";;;i;kly ,p.."a into the party intelligenrsia and, "."d non_ to a lesser dd;;;ä. broader population. In the Great purges, which would b.;;;.;""*"tely *"' described as .i:.Î:ï:tr:i;r lï:oi"'o" "ï;;.;;ivarent ;. ;;;;;;; counrer_revo,"o.",;:::Jå'ffi ::äïlJ,:Í*::äiH::::a The anatogy to the ie.ro, .f ,Ir. F;;;;^i"ïr,roo. has occurred to many historians, and it clearly purges o..,r.rJ to the organizers of the Great as well, since the ,..*ä._ies of rhe people,, which was applied to hose judged .;;;;.;_;.".lutionaries the purges, during Great wa, borrá*.ã t.* ä.'¡"cobin significance terrorists. The of that suggestive historical Uo*o_irrg rhe last chapter. is explored in

Note on the founh edùion Like the earlier edidons, this fourrh edition is essentially of the Russian Revolution a history ."p;;;";;;irr'n.rr.i", nor in the Russian territories that.were", non_ part of the old Russian Empire Soviet lJnion. This limitario., and the *rr.t t;;rJ"I the more strongly now rhar a livelv and valuable .ror_R,rrsian areas has developed. Sr/iù""hol;;;;ä. *ro.".'r" uonl,i1l_.:ft* üJ.ore subjecr, this edi_ ulcorporares new material that h"s æ"ãã. available since r99r as well as recenr international ..hoh.;iþ.-r;Âììe rhe¡e are no major changes in the argument or organizatioì of the booþ rhere are a I The Setting The Sening 17 aurocracy. After the r9o5 Revolution, Nicholas lished a national electedparli"Á-räöuma, gave in and estab_ legalizing ar the same poritical oarties and time habits But the ord arbitrarv of autocratiå rule and ,h.;;rä;.:";il;;;. police undermined activity of the secret Ar the these concessions. beginning of ttretwentieth After great century, Russia was one dre Bolshevik n *l"iã" powers of Europe. But of the ,f b"tob.. rgr7, manyRussian it was ;;; émigrés looked back on th. pr...rrol.rãJnäì åY;:ff:::å":":::Y'l':-'il#ff iåii"iå:ä'Htr; ;;i:Ë:.-#:l¿hl*u..";i;#;îäl:äi::,?:i,'ï:å:å; ;:"trkilJiJ.i'}iþ:ffi #:ff:ï.iå;:årunffi; 3.r..y;;"'''**üüi!,.ö,i#i#å?'.:l.X"ti::l*l nstabitity and the likelihood arizing.rrã,".;i',.',*.iï1.îfil:nÌ,îli[.ii:å:î; .rr.-ui"äiiäaval: the more.apiãly legal political parties. and no :".:å:.-J|ïä(H:i:: ,*"' *ö ii"i'.,".i,.a as progressive aurocracy survived ".rro"iã.Jed parliament, and the no.traditionorporiticar.;;""#äJ."[i:;.i::H:"ïi:rî:*i,t, ""¿i*i"iri.iiä g'..",n,.,"*..;i;;:.iïiï.ijå'ffi,Jïîå:Ë.î:#-;L1: are those of displacement nobitity had similarly au.¿iã-ã.rö destiny. -alienatiã";;Jîä or conrrol over one,s strong enough a corporate sense ofidentity To the nineteenrh_ce".r;;;ñroor", to for"" " "jj was a troika Gogot, Russia ";;;::::i careerins in. darkness t.';;k""*, 'i"rJi¿.",ioñoîåirloî::',"rT,'.3",îr]erhrone.t*-ur,;ü:: the Duma politician destination. To even though peasanr, ctergy, a¡d at.rc¡"a, c";;;,*j;"""cing ::9t?, oã .r,"r.-rylä ä**, and his Ministers Nicholas II social groups like professio""l, provision for new in 1216, was ,å*O å"ã^ïJ¡;ît "o .it "-.". along the edøe ctergyretain.a"r,yirri.,g,i,..*..î].*r".äff d'i*', *r'l* ,.äned passeiger, ïî,.:rîl.î,J# ;:r1ffiî::,it;,|"9 *h:o' ;;; and Russia's rn ryr7 the risk was taken, th¡ee _ n.""orr*'Au--t:--:swvuË movement forward decades before the . revolution. became a ptunge ishment ryrTRevolu into but an increase in natiorã;.iä;#i that Russia experienced it, n rt tr å'ili:ä; r-p*t;îä; The å:ä:ff society :ffi t,;.-få'flîiffi The Russian est development f .irÏhii"iJäTî,äî*:t:cture, and Empire covered a vast of n: entepreneurial a mod- trom poland expanse of territory, suetching w¡rich activity. úe.|.eää in the west to the pacific stn_conrl;;#*. into õ;;;; rn the easr, extendins the Arctic north. and reachin",t.-"ìä of Sea and the Turkey and Afghanirt"r, i., tn.'r;;:,il. borderi therehaã;Ëä:."*i,î,,iïiåîî:ff hub of the Empire, *", is now urrainej peasanúy,s - ".."*, ïi#::ï""ï*.åi ,,l"i'"ïiiiä:l:îT"otg 'o*.;i,il'#" ':.î**i*'"iï::::,'.ï..ä::::î*_::îi;ï:åri:åiieconomic siruation .irrr... .r,n.Ë,iotJ;il,:::_i:#,i.:3i:åtf As Russia,s Iast Ts¿ even European Russia."á ,n. ,á"uì.li :ïiilljJitiï j:;tri,,ff of the wesreur regions :î:täJä:"åå j"i'"i'i,!:j,ï Empire remained. Iargery "ää.r".a direltion lîi;.*i,îiJ: were ;;';;";.n_urbanized. something of political change-towards a handful of big urban-inäustrãrîåir.r, There ti¡s ¿ sr/.rr.Te product mosr of g""er'iã"yi.''î.,:":i;:ï,Jff of recent and rapid .*p".rriorr,-iï*l them ttre srownessorchangeandthe,*;;";i;;;J;:ffi,itrå.iïålH:å11i::i::l=._..*J;'ä tr|ff:î il;; ;. ;i:i'iä:,äï"ïåî ri.",-xr,".r.."1"iå'är.å,ï:å:ïiiî?:?Jifi;'ffïîi}.;.*:d Ërlîï r8 The Setting meallurgical centr¡1gf The Setting the Donbass, in what is now Ukraine; 19 sØarsaw, r-ndz, and in strips, e¡pand or improve their $sa ,h. *.;;;'R;tov and the oil city of hordings, or make the transition to Baku in the South. But Russian independent small-farming -most Orolrio.i"f towns were sdll sleepy backwarers at the beginning While permanent departure oiãi-*rr.¡eth century-local from the villages was difficult in administrative cenües with the post-Emancipation decades, a ._-"n *...frant population, a few it *", ."ry ro reave the v'rages schools, a peasanr marker, and temporarily to work for perhapsil"ru"v sration. hire in agricurture, construction, or mining, In the villages, much or in the towns. In fact of at. o"¿i.¡.""ì way of life remained. such work *", for many peasant The peasants still held families: the money ",r...rrity rheir land ;;;;"r"1 renure, dividing was needed for taxes and redemption payments. the village fierds into narrow The peasants who worked strips which were dned separately as seasonaf l"l*.r, (otkhodrzikfi were by the various peasanr households; y"V for many months many village s, the mír 11.: of rhe year, tea'rring thei¡ families to (village counc') wourd stin p.¡"ai""'v"naã till their land in the villages. roiroiurr..^ùoo¿.r, the strips so If th" ,;;;.y, were long_as in the that each household had an åq""f case of peâsants from central .fr"rã. ploughs were in Russian villåges who went to work common use, modern flqmS techniques in rhe Donbass mines-ttre were unknown in the otkhodniki *ig;, ,.*rn only for the villages, and peasant agriculture harvest and perhaps the *", ,råi *.t above subsistence spring ,o*irrg. Th". pr""ti". of departing level. The peasants'lutl,were fo¡ seasonal work was tong_estãbhn.a] d";J;;;ther along the viilage .rp."i"fly in the less fertile sueet, peasants slept areas of European o:.ù. stove and kept ireir animaË;.h.h.; Russia where the landloids haá e*actea in ttre house, and the in money rather f"r_; old patriarchJ;;;;. of the peasant than labour from their...g. grra survived. familv it was becoming The peasants were not much *... increasingly common in the late from ;;;;.i;"i;:i# .rrt¡, and earry twentieth serfdom: a peasant who a", ,i*ry century' pardy because more work "i".t tfre turn of tfre century was was ava'able in the towns. In the alrgldr a yor.¡ng adult at the time "t years immediately before ,i" E;;.rpation of 186r. the First !(/orld s'ar, about nine million Of cou¡se the Emancip"tio" "f p.easants took frrJ.fräËd peasant life, but it out passports for seasonal work outside .lr.i.;;;;; had been framed with great caudon village each year, and J;ì; minimize the change of these almost t *... working outside and spread it over agriculture.2 "ii time. Before E;õ;;;, the peasants their strips worked of the village. lan4 and .n;;;; one in every rwo peasant households land worked rhe masters, . Ytt| in European Russia or paid him the equivalent ortrr.ìr'rJåL including a family member who ir, *o.r.r. After the left ¿r. ,riil"g. for work_and a continued.o higher proportion in the petersbu.g _":T.tP1oo1r,^ú:ï ,"ort r¡.i. own land, and some_ Industrial Regions trmes worked for hhe on and the western provinces-the ""Jé.rr*l their former *"*r, 1""d, impression ttrat old Russia 'redempdon' payments ;hiL;;il;g almost survived to the state ao orr.i the unchanged in the villages may *.fl fr"lr. had been given lump sums that been deceptive. the randowne¡s iÃ.ãìî.. Many peasants were in fact rivin! witrr redempdon compensadon. The å". ià". i" the t¡aditionar v'- payments were scheduled"r lage world and the other in the quite (although to last for forty_nine years diflerent world of the modern in fact the state cancelled industrial town. The degree to them a few years earlÐ, and which peasants remained within úre the village communitv was.collelively t¡aditional world varied responsible for the debts not only ao geographical location all members. This måant of but also according """oùirrg that individu;i;';*,, were ,o sex. The yã,rrg were to.the.village, still bound go 1c. Tg more likely to though th¡v wele b.;J-í;;e away to work, and in addition the young collective debt and rhe mir,s men c¿rme in contact responsibility instead .f br;.rfd;. wittr a more modern world when they Emancipation The terms of the we-re catted up for army were iniended ro service. W'omen and úre aged p..,r.rri"iar, ¡rrn.r* of peasants were mãre likely to know only the into the rowns and the creadon village and the old peasant .f f""åì.* prll.t"¡ut *t ¡ch would way of life. These differences in peasanr represent a danger to,public- " e¡perience showed order. They also had the up suikingly in the literacy figures reinforcing the effect of census. of ti. Ç mir and the ol¿ ,yrt.* oí"Jirrrr.o"r The young were very much more literate and land renure, than the old, men making it almost impossible fo. were more literate than women, p."r*i, to consolidate their and literacy was higher in the less fertile areas of European Russia-that i., trr. *", where seasonar 20 The Sedng migration was most common_rhan region.3 in tl¡e ferdle Black Earth production.a The Enterprises urban working class ú. famous pr¡titov was still verv c machine_buildine B. number orp..-*.rrt the peasantry. The ytan^t r: th. t""g.ty^"T"ii:;^_ industrial worke.* å::: ptants of ,rr..oã"ï""îr"åriroy.a";ãöäå roreign_oivned"i i"..i:ä"" many thousands of According was.üË-î"å:1lJï#î','i,*i"f'"ffi ltr:ïä:i:Jî'iäit to Marxist tåeory, armost i*po,iiur..to ;;ü''o:*äiiJrt a hiehlv perm¿rnenr urban_dwelling *o.L.räfrì L.ä:lîi ä3::ï fli:f 'ffi: ""' ìí' :äïiT of the who äHr.ï.'o "ä"åi:å fi .îff i'i yearin the towns. t;*äî"ä.iasants worked most ;i::äiiiyn*!"*åt ,1äî'å.'äti.I'"1'"*'";-l;ãä"ffHiT:.-i:':iliäitivga revorutionary;:;i]..+å.ä,::Hlf;"^y:*il;ä;di, that yillages ,L.*t;;;'ä;ä; was o-o.ru.,.Ill!tÏ in from eudence of o., ¿"i,îî the r89os to r.r"- the period " _..Yiö:,i äni"ffi "ì,1-]-.=^"ïjlt|l æ{tl ;.ru;: **; j*[*ji",,'i"*:Ë-i"t.-;:"i-3în""i"'".*ãitiig ::ü:.iii'Jilïïå*ä*:J.;'dffiäi"bourrorce,t;;'.;ïî workers,il*. jr"i,",äH;^¿:3,:,;f; The main reasofr ror *rrão^iîrerconnection ïi$:,:.-.ää::;-î::lTl working class and ûr¡ berween the urban nealantrv _", ã"ì-n rrsia,s :::i#f a very rapid industrial_ åïiÍ.*:.a.-""ä,*J#;,ïi,i"ïi:ïi.îïî:the workers _ïauon.was recent orr*"-.,,ã*î. Moscow o.g".r¿.¿¿llRevolution' o.,.*î*, more than half rt *ìw¿s not until the r89os- "rt, a ce.,n,,i. aft er i'li':Britain-that *¿"o.,.i,,i.ãî;ffi:_il"å:îi:î:i,,1'åHåî::î,.änJ:""i l*e.-r.-"Ë g'ääi ::Î*y "o^- Russia .*;;;;

:i-*;ui,"tr#tr;.ri; ä"ï,î.îJ:îtå:ij.1;9rùì,."i*äå"._crassribe¡ars,drivethe su¡nmer #:,f*1î,:iff;i::Y*ffi movement p.r..r¡!1.3 of r9r4, the workers, ; ä. i' strike 3_._ llã ffi ,:,: ;Tîï.î::",,ä,ini:*:ïmï.ii ¿i*.,*io,,ìä;ffi :ä,äï'äîffi:ffi rormed i*r. nor rake the risk i:.,".*,o,.",."ä,courd .ïi *JäT¿ ." oä Jr ,n. n,r.i"n worr.i.,g ordecraring a il;ilffi;ïffi:lH:t *u* ¿*.r.i; The strength of working_ä;;;äffi; Ää:"ä, :..*îr:ï:,*r.::trf*n*îi may be explained sendment in Russia i" r "ìåi-î:;',:i-"""""ry ffi::T:::.î:ïii'.;1":'"*ì'"iii,ilFhstvorrdw",*.-,.this and peas"nt calculation clearly *o"*r'ärî.r, ::::*ätffi_ïi:iiå.i*ï"ii;;1il,ï,1,i.*j,ift ä -o;:::":u:,:nose*ui"årrí"t"' fathers o.rpi,. had been otþhodnikí. ïlIl."T.",n"o",".ui.T"f.T".Tl,,îi;:H:,il;:tîffi of underdevelop*aoar- protecdon of foreign *T: rndustry was in ,o-uo"ttnttics Russian investment, ,r"t.lrrthorities eir" #"riä"#;ri"ffi respecrs quite advanc"a u, a._ä;;.ffj to provide roops *n:l ,lF, ;*,"r;;;";te".r¿ were quick srgns of getdng enterprise showed out of hand. rh* *.ä i*r",, ::xi'l;L.f :r#Ëi.ii.tïË1"1.,::nä:Jff f H $:"äi'J;:loî:"ï:f ïï.ij:iii: manasers*i,;ùi;;iiïJåi:ï'î*äîi:ä.ïîilfi"'"¿i'i""lr**.äil$,iiifi'.;i'å:; t¡erschenkron::::::,Ë; has point.d. ï: :i"ilîäï:#i ;";;;;": rt was rænin, a Russian,M"ïr*; :î,ä ,^.r advantages: :.,i backwardness"ï*ååä had ;;-;Jä;, :*n industriahzú,tl;;;*,i"[e th; wor_kins class by its own etroits investrnent aid of large_scate coutd develop ãr, l:i"tgt and energeti.-;;;;¿ rather than a revorutionr"., ä.ii consciousness, able to skip over ;;;imvolvement, Russia ;;: ;::_l^" i*e-u¡uon advanceddn".;;;Ti,"'.1'.1î,.r11r,;:":;:,,*ï,.J.;*äËi:ro-" ^i-,i*^"::: was o1,.,.o"*"ioo*1.î"^Ht"iiï'rå":'j:;.'Ji*".".".;iil;- .In rhe second prace, theo.*';ä;;ï:nT class probably orRussia,s made it mo¡e revorutionaþ.räL working *"" ress. Russian IBEoI eqr r(c¿¡corne eqr roJ uoddns letor qtry ãûrgruoc or tlncgiJp Á¡.rer¡ncad eJâÂr uopcco^B l -rr¡Brlceu¡, ¡"oor.rr¡orã ¡o se&f¡ .r"no.ro¡n¡ ir"Uo"11o:1) ruaurzto¡drua go edÁ¡ pue "*o, su¡¡êl ur sâ^Jesruerp p"" .p¡io^ uorsse¡o.rd ¡o e¡â,n¡osercr¡odsîi:_.j:,".i.#ä:1i:äiffi:,ïi;:îî,îï: Á¡:ee¡c srãqro 'ct.lt::î.r-.r"rs,_peqlÐsep &reu erp or peãuo¡eg ...räã pernouorJ, ..p¡rng 'eu¡Ee¡ eqt ¡oJ Áwlo*¡, Ðqr lrreqcrâru, '¡L" lsrrg Jo ìcel p*'.rJr"".ronnlo,rer pe¡nûu¡oc Jo rr"r¡pärq,¡ p.r" ãrIr roJ Ðadso¡ O* se^lêsuretlt pÐgpuapl_pr¡B::r::" elelsa Flcos ,(g j1:l*. ¡"r¡or.roori"o ersrue8r¡¡erur plo ãqr ,*roi ¡""oí¡u_*Jo eç or 3o q8noua pat.rJãqq sselc eu¡os 'seprJ s¡ua reddn",{, ,r¡ .f"""""J.o -snu .e¡qneduocur 3ó Á:euopn¡oaêr r¡Ers ê.1L erâ^\ errares cp'rrn'Ðmg -uorssa¡ord rursea.rcl Blsrueqllêlq ((ecncad 0"";*:ä.åî -E¡erue 11osac n:nrrrr"Ç:lt,iJ.ll åT,#. * t"ç"åor¡" lou qEnotp) .t¡eep¡ ue¡o st6¡s reqro pue .súone¡cossB .suorsse¡o.rd äi]jj etll â.¿\res, or uopeE¡¡qo sorl¡e s..eldoad z(Iozrne¡eduo" q8noç leaa ¡o *"or"ri" ue pedo¡aaep .pe4¡nn o"*"1î__r."¡, ¡"irrr__o" p* sseursnq -reprm uopBJnpê {e{r_ãu¡pug_t.g p"t"".rpa .srãqureu¡ slr pãepûr (erers slr ãruos Erssnìr l'tp pIBs 'era¡durocur pue ãrlr or acra-¡os Jo å::ììli":jf;î"î:fo ,"^ r¡ r.ros¡nauroc ¡o ,roi"a¡1qo *oS ",ro qt"'"""{ãIJ"-'!r' "* ;"."""* ,"^..,q",'o,"*;,ño;'::io;.1."Tä:îä1,:;l:îîl;l^"Jå_ 'r""ú- ued rene¡ er¡r ur .slln{s ;'.iflåt;åi.:;11 pue uop'cnp_â e.oos rr¡r^1 åroç -r.go sepeÞos Joerpp¡ru"*0.-o,"ïij:ffiliü:11"T],:#.:'¿,åï:fi urãpo..' reç Árrrqoru u'qm p.rumdn ro,,.o**roia. írf ol epnrnfe tsruoprsoddo_.ruras .¡ecp¡.rc .¡epcn¡ed.q pue 'supã¡.u zfueuotrnlo¿er_uou ilil;;;H e Ip* .."rr;ü; rfq ,r."rrl* sr¡ JBJpFc, ro¡ Álrcedec 'leuele¡ord Srrncafo¡dgo a¡qedec aç_.rearcos¡or.r.*rarrrq ãrI¡ Jel'rsnpur pâpres B eu¡orãq Áq perrrm JoJ uJâJuoJ IEJou¡ oi_"ror^ uru{I gc¡qru dnorE ssa¡sselJ e_sg reqleJ 6âtrJâ .sseusnorJsuoc uo¡un_epBÐ, Jo lnq uB sBJJãslr ees tou prp aç arrnbce ot etstua8rJ¡elur r¡B¡ssnìJ zemstvos, .-läJio""l-government r*:: äääi:"*at had produced thar were institutionalþ q;. uoa¡es and *o;;;ä* *r. stare bureaucracy tion or ;;.'*;i;;i.'iî*;.ï, frequentlv in conflict *rh ï.ï",hïearly -rr,.,?oiå,.li.,nm:: twentietrr centurv o, n",,i". :l*..låi r*uecruars lr,o r,.ra ff.r:.î'ä:iiïl:"o ";;;; ä;.i: pr.oressionars r¿o".o.,, ili*åî#. î:,.ï notorious. sts, and so on), whose radical .^r;.Ë;:;. ï:î:å:ii:ä.iîi:î:H*¡ Engineers ***:il1:lï"ï*iïä:ff and od ¡vr"oi,,, io - oo,î*. ."åänïäif;:H'#i:îl:::*"'$'* ror the srare ol ffi ;ï:i. äLî:i:: sun gentsia groups ï:îiï i:.åi*j1f,.:,,il the regime, especiaity to feel alienated from that disagreea Jrr*trö'nop.'ir* modernization*dT1::ddr"il-il'.å:i:'jä..milä;ci"." ,il:;;.* of n"ri"rr."äää.1_ri was essendallv ;x;#"tro.am from the r86os ro thå Finance under Se¡sei,W¡n. i"-tt.l;ä"å subsequently The Russian intelligentsia äa roa"'or' from the gelerally accepted socialism ñ;, ;ä.:., made stood. by Europe,s (as under_ #il:Hr:lÏ::' every enort ro p.._¡ur"äri,.är# especiallv n"*i"ti..i_j.¿:;:ä:i.,.,"ifi 'utopians') ttt. *or, ¿.ri*ùìãi*ää.Tå, the French this was "r that Wifte,s enthusìasm :,'å'.i*î,ffiî:friï*ï:: not seen ar for economic and . ; ffi; älîj",j:'Ï..ffi.1åîïritî:"ffi reaced:ls ¡ to its i,î:,'"t#$'i,î...J1ï*by."il;;;;;:,:i*,ilî'f*.:::î:ï social isolation Uv f.äi,"A. . berween . -]ll:ï:,i n. .."æ**,.Ji i ts erf an d rrre peopre, " :iï,iLffi thought r, o ro al .- åT:.:,Ë:"#j ^^.a.."1",i;rfffin principle åîffi described nåprriirr., 3otobiect to the idea ist industriarization ", ä;;* ; objection to capitat_ in fact many .;;;ä;; (though with an of ttèm ¿i¿, ra."ll"ãil"ärî. n rrrian peasanrrv- expos're to capitarism |.tld.: as studenß ortn.Þorvt.Ãää;i", "L.Jiär'ä:-:_**--ent radical n"J i"i a destructive difficult itwas iïiåi:i:ï,ìîli,T", i*p""i for them to see the Tsariçt",r.o"r""JItl very of modernization: an "Teffective agent rom*,.r"-Jä'.'*äHi';i"ft its record *", ;;;;;;*t_as exploited ï,î.,"r":ïtrjj*fl; ideology too clearlv and its politicat industrial proletariat. reflected ;;;"ï;;'srstent, peasanrs, TI;; ;rh.a ro save the Russian coherent vision : past radrer than uaditional folm of viltas. ofthe turure. any ãrr*Jão.n, rhe commune mir, from rhe ravages or capitamå, or ;::;;;;., believed m* was an egalitarian instirution_periapîa that the The revolutionary survival of primitive tadition which Russií*ìd'. ,iffiH:r--througtr åo a separate path to inteìrigentsia ftî:i:åÏi"r$.,äïïtT had taken on irsetf intelþntsia,s was *i*ïilT"rlä,;|. idealization of the peasantry br".p,i,;;;;ï,n:'::"äT'* j::ä'.i.îïî::Íf and the prospects f.:{,ffid reform led to the ,ooo:Ï:i*ation for political om.,-p"i"ri,""',"äTliläJ":'ä".îäî;iffJif h:l 26 The Setting The Sening 27 Thousands of students and members of the intenigentsia left the and its state-imposed responsibilities for trre coflection cities to go to the villages, somedmes of taxes and envisaging themselves as redemption pa)¡ments. They asserted enlighteners of the peasantry, that capitarism constituted somedmes more humbly seeking to the only possible pattr towards acquire the socialism, and that the industrial simple wisdom of the people, and somerimes with*the proletariat produced hope by capitarist deveropment was the only class of conducting revolutionary organization prop"g"rrã". capable of bringing about true socialist revolution. These premises, The movement had no central direction and "rra no cleãrly ¿-enne¿ they claimed, could be scientifically proven by the political intent as far as most objective laws of the participants were concerned: historical development that Marx its spirit was less ùlj a politicai 9f and Engels had explained in gf campaign than a religious their writings. The Marxists scoffed pilgrimage. But the distinction at those who chose socialism as was hard får either *r. p.".äof an ideology because or it was ethically superior (it was, of course, but the Tsarist police ro grasp. The autrrorities were greatly ararmed, that was beside the point). The point about socialism and made mass arrests. The peasants was *rat, lite were suspiciousr- regarding capitalism, it was a predictable bei¡ uninvited guests stage in the development of human as offspring of the nobiiity ana piotaUiã society. class enemies, and often handing them over to the police. This To Karl Marx, an old European revolutionary debacle produced deep disappointrnent populists. who instinc_ among the They tively applauded the struggle of did not waver in their 'people's r7ill' against tJre Russian determination to serve the people, but some autocracy, concluded the early Russian ManTsar because he had freed the Marxism in Russia-as rrom::1* sertctom. i."r*., in China, India, and other developing countries-had a meaning rather different from that which it had It was in the rggos, in the wake of the two populist i; _ disasters, ttre industrialized countries of western Europe. It was that ttre Marxists emerged as a distinct an ideology group within the Rus_ of modernization as well as an ideology sian intelligentsia, repudiating of revolution. Even r-enir, the utopian"idealism, terrorist rac- who could scarcely tics, and peasant be accused of revolutionary passivity, made orientation that had characterized i.errrousty the his name as a Marxist with a weighty sntdy, The Dezteloptment revolutionary movement. Because of of the u¡favourable political cli_ Capitalism in Russia, that was both mate in Russia and their analysis and advocacy of th. pr* own repudiation of terrorism, the Marx_ cess of economic ists made modernization; and virtually all the otl¡e¡ teaàing their initial impact in intellectual debate ,"arr.. .rr"o iv Maxists of his generation in Russia produced similar works. Thã revolutionary action. They argued that capitalist industrializatioå advocacy, to be sure, is presented in the Marxist manner (,I told was inevitable in Russia, and that tlre peasant mir was already in you so' rather than 'I support. . . and a stare of internal disintegration, '), it may surprise modern profped up only by the siate 28 The Sening The Setting readers who know I-enin 29 only as an anti_capitalist revolutionary. Agitators, .progressive, seeking to realize trreir goals, have But capitalism was a phenomenon to Manrists in achieved some success, unfor- in organizing the workers to fight against late-nineteenth-cenrury Russia, a backward society 1un1telv, the government. sØithin that by Marxist the last three or four y9ars, ttre easygJing definition was still semi-feudal. i rssiarr young man has been In ideological rerms, they were in transformed into a special type of favour semi_literate inæiligen, úro f"a, oUfìg.ã of capitalism because it was a necessary stage on the to spurn family and way to religion, to disregard the law, and to deny *¿ ,.oã socialism. But in emotional terrns, the commitrn*, constituted authoriry. Fortunately *.rrt aeeper su.h yo,r.rg *.o are not numerous in the"i the Russian Marxists admired the this negrigible modern, industrial,,rrba'woìld, l""to:.rj'but haninrr....o.irà Ã. i.r.., majority of workers ¡nd were offended into following it. by the backwardness of old rural Russia. It has often been pointed our rtrar I-enin-an activist revolurionary wilting Clearly Manzemstvo nobility. of the intelligentsia and became in th; literal sense a workers, movement. Initially, the ManMensheviks lead ttto"l¿ i"rr. ioined the Marxists (including pl.f.*r""å", ¡vfarrov, in the r89os, since rhere constituted and Trotsþ) ,"", ; .h;;l;: io liberal movement a larger and more ¿irr*r. grorrp them to join; and for of p"rty members who it was equally natural that arounA ttought r-enin had overreached century the turn of the trimseir rire sptit made ritrle sense úrey left the Manliberalism' *", *rr.*hat years, in rgo3. In rater illogicai t" ú;* rerms, and I-enin was somedmes to express-pria. some perplexity to caused i., t.i"g his colleagues. lr, ..voil onary meaning by this that he considerediarge,ioosely_kni, "".rp1¡¡"r,, Lenin,s anitudå terms, however, prfit"åiã.g"] was enremely rationar. nizations to be less effective-than .*"1Ëi At a¡ound rhe ãi..¡plined radical groups same time, the R"r;; Social_Democratic demanding_a high degree of commitrne;;; repudiated the heresy leaders ideological unity. But of A"orro*irr.r,- Jr""i ,r, that some people also attributed this trait movement should the workers, to his difrcul;,; ;Ë;d"; stress economic rather than political disagreement-that'maricious were in goals. There suspiciousnlss, rrrar totsþ caned fact few articurate s.o"o.lri, 'a caricaru¡e ofJacobin partly i;äe Russian movemenr, intoleranceiin" o*är"aionary polemic. ló because Russian workers, In the years pror.ra, to progress after r9o3, the Mensheviks emerged quickly from purely eco-no-i" -rAed very as the more i.r.rå, ft ,""J., to pol¡tical orthodox in their Marxism the émigré leaders, ones. But lrrot totsþ, a Menshevik often mo¡e sensidve to Lends until mid-r9r7 but always a "orrrrtirrg Social Democracy wiùin European mavericþ, lÃs inclined to force the thal to the situatio.r-i.rria. pace of events towards revolution revisionist and Russia, feared the interested in creating reformirt t od.rr"ì.J ttr"i'i"o a tighdy organized and disciplin.¿ "rrá-1.r, German movemenr. developed in the .."orulorrâry pafty. They had I" rlr. more success than the Bolsheviks Iegal Marxism, 1.Íri;;l-;;äå'ou., E.orromism and in attracting support in the non_ the Russian.M;*. _:;:iìr"nirrg.t.".ty Russian areas of the Empire, rvhil. that they were revoluti on record tlr;;;;heviks had the edge among Russian workers..(In both parties, w_asthesociari,r_.,r.',liä:,ïï.iä:i,#i#,,"i.î#ä: ho*err.r, Jews and other non-Russians were prominent liberal bourgeoisie. in the irrt.úig.rrtrl"_dominated lead_ ershþ.) In the last prewar years, In r9o3, rgro-r4, ttre Mensheviks lost when the Russian Social_Democratic party working-class support Second held irs to the Botsheviks * an. workers, mood Congress, trr" re"ggrs te| ,". became more militant: minor issue-the G;î over an apparentlv they rv... p.r.airr.a l', *or. .respectable, composition of party with closer " ,h. J;;;;- board of the parry links to the bourgeoisie, whereas the newspaper Isþra.r5 No ¡eal wete Bolsheviks ,"Ur,*ri". ìrr.J, seen as more working class as well though to the exrenr as more revolutionary.rz rhat ,hJ;Ë;*'äì:::rifi: The Bolsheviks, unlike the Menshevito, mighr be said that ilJr.i; i"ã a single leader, and he himself wa, .t. t*ir r_defti!¡ was in large il;;lrtrrg irrrr., and that his part defined Uy Lrrirr,, ideas and ality' Lenin's person_ fi¡st distinctive uait as ¡,r"Jti rrreoretician " was his 32 The Settìng The emphasis on pa¡ty organization. Sening 33 FIe saw the party not only as the s*ength vanguard ofproletarian revorution vis-à-vis the outside world was but arso in a sense as its creator, a source of pride, an since he argued achievement that could be set trrat the proretariat alone could achieve .;ry;;;; againsa *rã internal polit_ union consciousness ical and social problems. "orroor,s and not a ¡evolutionaf o.r.. fn .ñ. rv;.-d, itrr¡Urrt.A to an early_ twendeth-century .a I-enin believed that the. core of t¡. p"rét Minister of Interior, small victorious membership shoutd the best remedy war, was consist of full-rime professional revolrrdåoaries, for Russia,s ¿o_.rj. lrirr.st. Historically, recruired both from ever, this was how_ the inteligentsia and the working a rather dubious propositiãn. Over b"ì concentraring on the century, the past halÊ political organization of "r"æ, Russia's wars had tended workers ãrrr.r aí"., any other sociar group. neither to be successful nor rn wat Is To to str- engthen society,s confidence Be Done? (r9oz),¡r. rrrrr.t.Jã., the importance in the govemment. The mili_ tralization, of cen_ tary humiliation of the Crimean strict discipline,. and ideologicai unity within \Øar had precipitated the radical These, the party. domestic reforms of,the of course, were logical pr.r".ii.iorn r86os. Th. d;ì;;atic defeat that foi" p".ry ;Ë;;; suffered after Russia clandestinery in a police state. Nerrerth.l.rr, its military involvementï the Balkans i, seemed to many of r87os produced in üre late conremporaries (and later an internal political Jri. ,fr", Tiht ro m"oy'r.totars) that I-enin,s Alexander ended only with dislike of looser mass organizations II,s assassinatigl. fn .fr. ."dyìgoos, anowúg grearer diversity and -a Russian expansion spontaneity was not purely in the Far East was pushing it towaräs expedient but refl-ected a naturar with another itarian bent. author- expansionist power in the "orrfli"t region, Japan. Though some of Nicholas I-enin II's- ministers urged differed from many other Russian cautior¡ tt ã pr..r"iliog sendment Marxists in seeming and high bureaucratic in court to desire a proletarian ,.rrotl;tio.r circles was *r", *r" lgtiptV l"ther than simply pre_ to be made dicting that one would ultimaa.ty o."rrì. i,t th. F"r.fast, a1d ,rr". rrrì, was a character trait European power, r"olitiÏtrt"Jr:"*i that would surely have endeared after all-would not ¡Jä ro¡mi¿able him to Karl Man<, despite the Initiated adversary. facr rhat it required some revision by Japan, but provoked almost .q,r"tty of orthodox Marxism. The idea in the by Russian policy *.. Iiberar bourgeoisie must Far Easr, the Russo_Japan.* Iø;;;..ke +1, u. .t. reader of Rus_ out in January sia's andaurocratic revoluti:l ""a*al rgo4. y", acceptable to I_enin; in Two Tactics ".rr.*."ff, For Russia, ttre war turned out 1d of Dr*orrory,- i*itten in t}re to be a series of disasters and tngt -Soc.iat -.h. midst of humiliations on land an$ S. Revolution, he insisted ,h", p;retariat_allied at ,.". ffr. ."rÇ patriotic enrhusiasm Russiat rebellious wirlr of respectable society quickly peasanrry_çould and sÀould play soured, ;;_", had also happened role' clearly it a dominant during the r89r famine-attempts was necessary for any Russian Marxist with by pubric organizations rike the revolutionary intentions serious zemstvos to heþ the government to find *"v .orrrrJ the doctrine in an emergency only led to geoìs revolutionary " of bour_ confl.icts with the bureaucracy leader._hip, *a r.otrLvù, to make and frusuation. This fuelled the and perhaps a similar liberal movement, since more successfui effort with hL *r.o.y .permanent autocracy always seemed least tolerable revolution'. of when it was most In l_enin,s writing from r9o5, t¡*ora, .dictatorship,, clearly perc.irreã irr.o_p.a.rrt and ineffcienq 'insurrecrion,, ¿nd .civil -i"".."rlogly and the zemsrvo nobitity and professiorJ.-.äri.¿", -"r; frequently. behind the ille_ was^in these harsh, "pp."iáã It gal Liberation movemenr, directed violent, an¿ realistic ,..ã, aU", he from Europe by petr Struve the future revolutionary conceived and other liberal activists. transfer of power. In the last ;.;.lu of t9o4, with the war still in progress, the liberals in Russia organized a banquet campaign (modeled on that used against the French King, I_ouis Philippe, rn ß47), through The ryo5 Reztolution whichLe ,oli"r .tr. demonsrrated and i* aftermath; supporr for the idea of constitutionar reform. At the the First World IVar goveûrmenr same dme, rhe was under. othe¡ kinds of pressure, including a.*"Jri I-ate attacks on officials, student Tsarist Russia w¡ demonst¡atio.rr, workers, strikes. r9o5, petersburg In rargest ..*o;;""',* :i ir'#ä:T:Jiilî:1,':äüi January workers tt.ta péa"efirl"rrd demonstration- organized not by militants " i: and revolutionaries, but by a renegade 34 The Setting priest police The Setting 35 with connections, Father Gapon_to bring their eco_ For a few monrhs, the Tsarist authorities nomic grievances to rhe aftendon handred the soviet in a of the Tsar. On BloJdy Sunday grngerly manner' (g troops and similar bodies emerged in January), fired on the demonstrators outside the sØinter Moscow and other cities. But early in December it was Palace, and the r9o5 Revolution had begun. i8 disperied by a ,rr"".rrn t poi". operation' The news of the petersburg The spirit of national solidarity attack o' th. Soviet led to the aurocracy was very an armed uprising súong during ttre fi¡st "g"irrrt by the Moscow Soviet, in which trr. nine months of r9o5. The liberals' claim tå had solrt.rrik, leadership gained considerable influence. fnis of tre revolutionary movemenr;s nor seriously ías put down by troops, chat- but the workers fought back lenged; and their bargaining position with and there were many casualties. the regime was based nor The urban revolution only on support from the of r9o5 stimulated the most serious peasant zemstvos and the new unions of middle_ uprisings pugachev class professionals since the revolt but also on the heterogeneous pressures in the late eighteenth ;";; coming But the urban and rural revolutiorr, from student demonstrations, workers, úikes, peasant -.r..roì simultaneous. peasant disorders, rioting-consisting of mutinies in the armed forces, the sacking and burning of manor houses and unrest in the non_Russian regions attacks and of the on landowners_and officials_began Empire. The autocracy, for its part, was consistently in the surnmer on the and rose to a peak in defensive, seized by panic and the late aururìn, ,,ìbrid.d, and then r.rrrl.ã"i,;;; .orrfuriorr, and apparently unable on a large to restore order. Its prospects scale in 19o6. But even in late r9o5 the regime *", for survival improved markedÇ enough to ,*oìg when \7itte managed begin rrhg.Tooo, lr, ."mp"l!, of village_by_"ih;; to negotiate peace with Japan (the liJé pacification. " of Portsmouth) By the middle of 19o6, all tire Loop, on remarkably advantageous terms in late were back from August the Far East, and discipline had r9o5. But the regime still had a million of it, been ..raor.d in the armed forces. t oop, in Manchriria, In the winter of t9o6_7, and they could not be brought much of rural Russia was under martial home on the tans-Siberian Railway law, and until the striking summary justice (including orr., thousand railwalnnen were brought back under control. .".;;;;J The was dispensed by field courts martial. " culmination of the liberal ,.rrol,raio' was Nicholas II,s Russia's landowning nobility learnt October Manifesto (r9o5), in which he conceded a lesson from the events of the principle oi 19o5-6, namely that its-interests a constitution and promised to create lay with the aurocracy a national elected parlia_ could perhaps shield fr"frlJ menr, råe Duma. The Manifesto it from a vengeful peasantry) and not divided the liberals: *re OctåU;sis the liberals.le with accepted it, while But in urban terms, tfrã ,9oj Revolution the Constitutional Democrats (Cadets) formally did not pro_ withheld duce such clear consciousness of crass po-ta.ization: acceptance and hoped for further concessions. even for most In prac_ socialists, this was not a Russian tice, however, the liberals withdrew from revolutiorrary rg4g, revealing the treacherous activiìy at nature ofliberalism and the this time, and concentrated their energies essential antagonism ofbourgeoisie and on organizing the new proletariar' The liberals-representing Cadet parties and preparing a professionar rather than R::T: :ll for the ro.-.rr.o*irrg capitalist middle class-had uuma electrons. stood asiãe in Octobe., but they had not joined the regime in an onslaught llowever, t}le workers remained actively revolutionary on the workers, revolution. until the Thei¡ atdtude to the end of the year, achieving g¡eater visibilirythan workers, andlocialist movements remained before and becom_ much more benigrr ing increasingly m'itant. In than that of liberals in most European counrries. october, the workers of petersburg The workers, organized a 'soviet' or council for trreir part, seem to have perceived the liberals of workers' fepresentadves elected rather in the factories' The practicar as a dmorous ally than a t¡eacherorrs oir.. function of the Ëetersburg Soviet to provide was The political outcome of the r9o5 trre city with a kind of emergency municipal Revolution was ambiguous, goveürment and in some ways unsadsfactory at a time when other institutions io concerned. In the Funda_ *... f"r"lyr.d and a general strike mental I-aws "tt was in progress. But of r9o6-the closest Russia came to a it arso became pårti.i forum for the workers, constitution_ and " Nicholas made known his belief that to a lesser extent for socialists from the revolutionary Russia was still an autocracy. parties True, the autocrat now (Trotsþ, then a Menshevik, became consulted with an elected parliament, and one of the Soviet,s leaders). political parries had been legalized. But the Duma had limited 36 The Sening powers; The Setting Ministers remained responsible solely to the autocrat; and, 37 of legal after the first rwo Dumas proved insubordinate and political institutions and a new were arbitrarily rmportant,3:._1-**0.. breed of self_ dissolved, a new chanering liberar politicians erectoral system which virtually disfranchised some (to summarize Lenin,s view social groups of them, which did not greatly and heavily over-represented the landed nobility was differ from Nicholas II,s). It was also introduced. deeply almost unbearably disappointin, The Duma,s main importance, perhaps, lay in pro_ får rrr. revolutionary lead_ viding ers ro rerurn ro the fam'iar a public forum for political d.ebate and a trainin! ground dreariness ãt emigre nre. r¡e ¿mìgã forpoliticians. were never more prickly The political reforms of r9o5_7 bred parliãnientary and contentious than in the years b;-.;; politicians just r9o5 and r9r7; indeed, as the legal reforms of the r-g6os had bred l"wye..; rhe Russians, conrinual pã..y biJ..i"; and became one of the scandals both groups had an inherent tendency to develop values-and of European iocial Democracy, I-enin was one and aspirations that the autocracy could not abide. of the very worst offenders. One thing that the Among the bad news of the p..*", r9o5 Revolution did not changewas the police y."r, was that the regime was regime that emb-arkin€ on a major programme had come to maturity in the rggos. Due procàss of of agrarian reform. The peasant law was still suspended revolrs of r9o5-7 had persuaded (as in rhe case of the field courts mardal the Ëorr.rrr_.rra to abandon its earlier premise that dealing with the rebellious peasanrry tn for the-mir was the o.r,"f"r".raee of rural ryo6_7) much of the Its hopes stability. population much of the time. course now lay in rhe creation of a of there were undersrandable .råe .j"., of small independent reâsons for this: fa-rmers-a wager on sober the fact that in r9og, a comparatively quiet year, th. ;;;g,, as Nicholas,s chief r,8oo Minister,letr Stolypin, ""¿ peasÃts offcials were killed and z,og3 were wounded in potiticalti described it. were now encouraged motivated aftacks2' indicates to consolidate their holdings how tumultuous the .ociety ÀmairreO, and separate from the mir, and. land. and how much commissions were established the regime remained on ttre defensive. But it meant in *re pro"inc.s to facilitate the pro_ that in many respects cess. The assumption was that the political reforms were only a facade. Trade th. poo. _oJO ,.ll up and go to the unions, for example, towns, while the more had been made legal in principle, but indi_ hordings;.;.ó;,f.:::i::i"J:i..ru:Un:ff#if:i vidual unions were frequently closed down by the police. political French parties were legal, and even ú. peasanr farmer. By r jr5, the revolutionary socialist parties could .."v: t*.r, a quarrer and a contest the half of all Russia,s peasant Duma elections and win a few seats_yet the members f"r*.r, he-lA-t}reir lan¿ in some form of of revolutionary individual renr¡re, although, given socialist parties were no less liable to arrest than in the f.g"i*¿ p."ctical complexity the past, and rhe party of the process, only about a_tenth leaders (most of whom rerurned to Russia had completed the process and during the r9o5 enclosed their land.21 The .progressive, Revolution) were forced back into emigration to Stolypin ,.for_i *.r. in avoid Marxist rerms, since imprisonment and exile. they laid ,rtà u"rir r.ì laprtalist development lü'ith hindsight, in agriculture. But, in contrast it might seem that the Marxist revolurionaries, to the development of urban cap_ with r9o5 under italism, their short- and- their behs and r9r7 akeady looming on the hori_ medium-.""g.-i-olrcarions for Russian zon, should revoludon were highly depressing. have been congratulating themselves on the workers, nLsiajs't aaitional peasantry spectacular revolutionary was prone to revolt. If the Stollpin debut and looking confidently towards reforms worked C", f."i", f". the future. But one, feared that they might), in fact their mood was quìte different. Neither the Russian proletariat would have lost Bolsheviks nor Mensheviks an important revolutionary ally. had got more than a toehold in the workers' revolution In 19o6, the Russian economy of r9o5: the workers had not so much rejected was bolstered by an enormous as ouçaced b.": (*g and a quarter them, and this was a very sobering thought, particularly billio¡r francs) *il.i, Wi.,. negotiated for Lenin. Revolution with an internadonal banking had come, but the ..!irrr. had fought back and both narive and and survived- !Øithin foreign-owned industry expanded"o.rro.Jí_r- the inteiligentsia, trrerJwas much talk about rapidly in the prewar years. This abandoning the revolutionary meant, of course, that the dream and the old illusions of social industriaiworking class perfectibility. From But labour unresr dropped "tro-."p"oJ.ã. the revolutionary standpoint, it was no gain to down sharpÇ-fo. ,o*. years after the savage crushing of the workers, ..Toirraiorr"rv movement in 38 The Seting The Setting 39 the winter of 19o5-6, picking up again only around r9ro. I-arge- defeats and losses (a total of five million casualties for r9r4_r7), prewar and the scale strikes became increasingly cofirmon in the immediate German Army penetrated deep into the wesrern a.*iil¡á, years, general of the culminating in the Petrograd strike of the summer Empire, causing a chaotic o,rtfloo, of refugees irrto of r9r4, which was sufficiently serious for some observers to doubt Russia.23 Defeats bred suspicion of ûeason in high places,".rrt and "l that Russia could risk mobilizing war. The workers' one of its army for the main targers was Nicholas's wife, EmpÃss Ale*an¿ra, demands were poliúcal as well as economic; and their grievances was a yh9 German princess by birth. Scandal surrounded Alexarr_ against the regime included its responsibility for foreign domination dra's relationship with Rasputin, a shady but charismatic character of many sectors of Russian industry as well as its use of coercion whom she trusted as a true man of God who could control her against the workers themselves. In Russia, the Mensheviks were son's haemophilia. When Nicholas assumed the responsibilities of conscious of losing support as the workers became more violent commander-in-chief of the Russian Army, which iook hir" and belligerent, and the Bolsheviks were conscious gaining it. from the of capital for long periods, Alexandra and Rasputin begai"*ay But noticeably raise the to exercise this did not spirits of the Bolshevik leaders a disastrous influence over ministerial appointrneãts. in emigration: because of poor communications wittr Russia, they Relations between the government and úre Fou¡th ó,,*" detrio- were probably not fully aware of and their own position the rated drastically: it, in the mood in the Duma and among the educated émigré Russian and socialist community in Europe was increasingly public as a whole was caprured in the phrase with which the weak and isolated.22 Cadet Pavel Milyukov punctuated '$?hen ,p...h on the goverrrment,s war broke out in Europe in August r9r4, with Russia shortcomings-.Is " this stupidity or is it treason?, I-ate in 1916, allied with France against Rasputin and England Germany and Austria- was murdered by some young nobles close to *r" .á*t Hungarg the political émigrés became almost completely cut off and a right-wing Duma deputy, whose motives were to save tr¡e from Russia, as well as experiencing the normal problems of alien honour ofRussia and the autocracy. residents in wartime. In the European socialist movement as a The pressures of the First IØorld IØar_and no doubt, the per_ whole, large numbers of former internationalists became patriots sonalities of Nicholas an{ his wife, and the family tragedy of Àeir overnight when war was declared. The Russians were less inclined young son's haemophilia2a-threw the anachronistic traits of the than others to outright patriotism, but most took the 'defensist' Russian autocracy into sharp relief, and made Nicholas seem less position of supporting Russia's war effort as long as it was in defence like an upholder of the autocratic tradition than an unwitting satirist of Russian territory. Lenin, however, belonged to the smaller group of it' The 'ministeriar reapfrog' of incompetent favourires in úre of 'defeatists' who repudiated their country's cause entirely: it was the illiterate fab_rnet, peasanr faith_healer ia the intrigues of an imperialist war, as far as I-enin \¡/as concerned, and the best the high nobility "o*a, leading to Rasputin's murder, and even tie epic prospect was a Russian defeat which might provoke war and story of civil Rasputin's stubborn resisrance to dearh by poison, bdlËts, revolution. This was a very conüoversial stand, even in the social- and drowning-all ttrese seemed to belong to an earlier age, to b. ist movement, and the Bolsheviks found themselves a bizarre very much and irrelevant accompaniment to the t*.rr¡.*rl".ot ry realities cold-shouldered. In Russia, all known Bolsheviks-including Duma of troop-trains, úerich warfare, and mass mobilization. deputies-were arrested for the duration of ttre war. Russia not only had an educated public to perceive this, but also As in r9o4, Russia's declaration of war produced a public surge possessed institutions like the Duma, ttre poritical parties, rhe zem- of patriotic enfhusiasm, much jingoistic flag-waving, a temporary stvos, and the industrialists'r7ar Industries committee which were moratorium on internal strife, and earnest attempts by respectable potential agents of transition from the old regime to the modern society and non-governmental organizations to assist the govern- world. ment's war effort. But once again, the mood quickly turned sou¡. The autocracy's situation was precarious on the eve of ttre First \7hile the Russian Army's performance and morale now look less !7orld War. The society was deeply divided and the political and dismal than they once did to scholars, the Army suffered cnrshing bureaucratic strudure was fragile and overstrained. The regime 40 The Sening was so vulnerable ro any kind of jolt or setback ttrat it is hard to imagine 2 l9l7: The that it could have survived long, even without the SØar, Revolutions of February although clearly change might in other circumstances have come and less October violendy and with less radical consequences ttran was the case in rgr7. The First \Øorld \üØar both exposed. and increased trre vulnera- bility of Russia's old regime. The public applauded victories, but IN February r9r7 the autocracy would not tolerate defeats. Vhen defeats occurred, the society collapsed in the face of pop_ ular demonstrarions and the did not rally behind its government (a relativery normar *iti¿t"-"i of erite suppãit ro, trr. reactior¡ regime. In the euphoria especially if rhe enemy becomes an invader of revolurion, political ,.1;l;; of the homeland, aná easy. Russia,s-future seemed the reaction of Russian form of government would, society in rgrz and again in r94r_z), but democradc' of course, be instead The- exact meaninf of turned sharply against it, denouncing its incompetence and ûrat ambiguous i..ü *r. narure of Russia's new constitution backwardness in rones of contempt and moral would t. ¿."i¿.Jiv "r¿a con_ superioriry. This sug_ sriruent Assembly, to gests that the regime's legitimacy had become be elected by the Russian p.opË as exrremely shaþ, and as circumstances soon that its survival was very permifted. In the meantime, closely related to visible o., lar *r. .lit. and popu_ failing ""hi.rr.*.rri, revolurions_liberal politicians, th. p.op.rt.ã-".rJ thar, sheer luck. The old regime had been lucþ 19o4_6-, oäLrriorr"l in crasses' and the officer an earlier occasion when war defeats had corps in tr¡e first caregory; sociarist plunged it rrrtå ,.rroirrdo.r, : cians, politi- because got the urban working crass, and rank-and.-file it out of the war relatively quicHylnd honourably, aná soldiers and sa'ors in the second-would coexist, was able to obtain a very large posrwar loan from Europe, lhich as they had done in the grorious days was of national reygtutigr¡av solidarity rhen ar peace. It was not so lucþ in r9r4_t7. The war lasted in r9o5. I" i"r;;;;;;ì rerms, the new provisional Government too long, draining not only Russia but the whole of íourd represenr the erite revolu- Europe. More tion, while the peuograd than a year before the A¡mistice newly revived Soviet woulj in Europe, Russia,s old regime was ' revolution ,p."t ø, th. dead. of trre people. Their rerÃon.rrip *oJãï tary rarher than competitive, .dual and pàwer, lt}le terÅ-appnea"-oö1.*.rr- ro the coexisrence of the provisional Governme; Soviet) would be a source of strength, not of weakness. R.rrri".,""J,h: liU.r"lr, after all' had traditionalty tended ro see the socialists whose special interest in social reform was comparable to and"r;ilr, compatible with the liberals' own special interest in poritical democratization. Most Russian sociarists, similarly, were prepared to see the liberars as allies, since they accepred the ¡vtarxist view that th. ùou.g.ois liberar revolution had first place on trre agenda and the socialists were bound ro. supporr it in the struggle Yet within eight-monrhs "gãi.rrt ",rao"r".y.-" the hopeJ and expectation. of lay in ruins. .Dual F.b.rr"ry i power'pro;.ä;; iilusion, masking very something like a power vacuum. The popular revolution gressively t".a"*. p.o_ more radical, wh'e tne eûte revolution an moved rowards I anxious conservative stance in defence .f pr.;r;*o i and order. The provisional l"* Government barery survived Generar i Kornilov's atrempted coup from the right before succumbing in October to the Bolsheviks, i successful coup from the left, I 42 rgr7: The Reztolutions of February and Ocmber t9r7: The popularly Revolutions of Februarg and Ocøber associated with the slogan of 'Ail power ro the sovi- 43 ets'. successful prot to take Russia The long-awaited Constituent Assembly met but accom_ out of the war. Historians, of course, plished rend to be sceptical of conspiracy nothing, being unceremoniously dispersed by the Bolshe_ rh;rie;. n"i ,rr. enabred such theories viks in January r9r8. On the peripheries of Russia, oftcers of to flourish *"y i"rr. influenced""ì*1.îî* .w.estern the scholarly approaches ro the problem."lto old Tsarist Army were mustering their forces to fight the úrril q,rit. recendy, mosr Bolsheviks, some historical explanations of the Bolsherrit under the monarchist banner that had seemed n rrof.rtion emphasized its banished forever illegitimacy in one way or rhe orher, tn r9r7. The Revolution had not brought lib_ if r..ti.rg to absolve the Rus_ sian people of any responsibility ". eral democracy to Russia. Instead, it had brought anarchy and for ¡r. .rr..rt and its consequences. rn the classic w'estern civil war. interpretatio* .; alt. Borshevik victory subsequenr evolution and The headlong passage from democratic February to of Soviet po_;r;-,; deus ex Red October the Bolsheviks, møchina was astonished victors and vanquished alike. For secrer we3pan of party árganization Russian liberals, the I-enin's pamphlet and discipline. shock was rraumaric. The revolution-their revolution tØhy Is.Ib Br'D;*;ilJå by right, out the prerequisites p. 32),setdng as the history of western Europe demonstrated for the successful àÇnization"uorr., and even riltrt- conspiratorial of an illegal, thinking Marxists agreed-had party, was usually cited finally occurred, only to be snatcired as th"e basic texq and it was argued that the ideas of from rheir grasp by sinister and incomprehensible forces. Menshe- Wat Is To n, Oonri-^o¡¡lded the Bolshevik Parry in irs formative years viks and other non-Bolshevik Marxists were similarly outraged: and conrinued to determine trre behaviour even Bolshevik time was nor yet ripe for proletarian socialist after the final .*.rg.ìå'tom revolution, it *", February underground in inexcusable that a Marxisr party "rrà r9r7. The open, democ.".ii pluralist should break rhe rules and seize post-February politics of the power. The months in Russia "rã Allies, Russia,s partners in the war in Europe, were *.r. ,t.r, ,ibverted, .J;;;; in the Botsheviks, unla,*û¡l aghast at the debacle and refused to recognize the new government, ,.ir";;;;;; by a conspiratoria'y organized coup in October. which was preparing to pull Russia out of the war-unilaterally. The Bolshåvit o"airior, of centralized organization and strict party The diplomats barely even knew tJre names of Russia's new discipline led the new Soviet rul.rl, towards repressive regime but suspected the worst and prayed for a speedy autrroritarianism and i"i¿ resrrrrection oi Stalin's *r. foundations for the democratic hopes they had welcomed L F.b*".y. .Western later totalitarian dictatorship newspaper readers Yet there have always been problems learned with horror of Russia,s descent from in applying rhis general con_ cept of the origins of civilization into the barbarous depths of atheistic Communism- Soviet totalitarianis*î'.n. specific situation unfolding historical The scars left by the October Revolution between February and OctoUer were deep, and made place, ryr7.Inthe first more painful and the old underground Bolshevit visible to the outside world by the emigration of n"rty'*", swamped by an large numbers influx of new members, of educated Russians during and immediately after outstripping all otírer political parties recruitrnenr, especiallv in the Civil'S7ar that followed the Bolshevik victory. To the in the factori-e, émigrés, the middle of r9r7, "rrJà.-"._.¿ fãr..r."gî the Bolshevik Revolution was not so much a tragedy ii had becom; ;;" mass pafiy, in the Greek little resemblance bearing sense as an unexpected, undeserved, and ro the-disciplin.d .ñ.;;;;nization"; essentially unfair disaster. revolutionaries of tull_time To the ìØestern and especially the American public, described n lyhat t, m n)'-oone? it seemed that place, rn the second the Russian people neither the party as a whole had been cheated of the liberar democracy for nor its leadership were united on which the most basic policy qrrestions it had so long and nobly struggled. Conspiracy theãries in ryr7. ir, õ.toU.., for example, explaining rhe disagreements within the party Bolshevik victory gained widespread credence: rhe Ì."áJr-hip ãr, tt. desirability of most popular insurrection were so acute that of these was that of international Jewish conspiracy, the issue ivas publicly debated by Bolsheviks in the daily since Trotsþ, Zinoviev, and a number of other Borshevik Ë"¿.., press. were It may well be that rhe.Bolsheviks, Jewish; but another theory, revived in Solzhenits5m,s Lenin greatesr strength in in Zurich, pictured was nor strict party organization ryr7 the Bolsheviks as pawns of the Germans in a and discipline existed at this time) lwhiä;*ä; but rather the p"rayt io.r.e of intransigent t9r7: The 44 Reaolutions of February and October radicalism on tfie t9r7: The Reoolutions exrreme left of the political specûum. of February and socialist while other Ouober and liberal groups jostled io, poriaiå., provisional that Russia's political in the problems could be ,""-r,J,.1.1"^""* Governmenr and petrograd Soviet, ûrË solsheviks refused to be co-opted and denounced the politics ;::'i"ö.?:ïïi.î:åï".å*';li*Jr11"å'ö*ffi ,'"""'.:Tiï \ü7hile of coalition and compromise. other formerly radicai politicians Assemblv sotution, model? The constituent ."i.a ro, resraint and lik.,il. ;;.;; power', responsible, statesman_like leadership, of political .o"r.or,r.-1,ìi" ä"i' required a degree tfr. Sotr¡.viks stayed out on the süeers with the irresponsible'"trã mise. rne ":'.::Ï:_:"r .i ..äi,"_ .dual u.ttig...nt revorutionary ;;;;J.i #jilî:î:î ;.å :.*,ì,, crowd. As the power, sÍl¡crure were dictatorship * and compromise ¿i.i"Ãg."r.A, discrediting the and civil war.;;-;;*"'-cd' ;;.:tt"sus coalition parties represenred p¡ovisiãnal alternadves nevertheless, thar rhese in the Government and *..å fik.ly ,. b. Petrograd Soviet leadership, g"hi""iks porarizedsociety*r,i.ú¡,"a*,,ãiäää.i.i:T::ï.*:iîï, only tt. were in a posi_ tion to benefit. Among tnl sociäfst o-aJ.J only the Bolsheviks had overcome Marxisi^ scruples, .",rg¡a the mood of the crowd, The Februarg and declared their willingn.r. Reoolution and ,dual power, to ,.ir". p;; in the name of the proletarian revolution. In the last week of February, bread shortaq The 'dual power'relationship provisionar of the Government and j.#:äi"ïäïJjt¡:i,:þi:alH"î,';:.j:iî,;ïi Petrograd Soviet was usuaily ff i:,",:, seen in t.rms as an alriance berween the bourgeoisie and "ra* the súeers of petroerad a ..owd the or.L;";;;. Its survival depended that the aurhorities ?.oT*, on tà on continued cooperadon Fourth Duma,',oUãi, could not disperse. between these classes and the politicians n"iî:.r.^iïr".,oes The claiming ro represenr them; but i, *", ;L;;y tre summe 1 .' lîï::ff : r of r9r7 :T'..* i;.J ää'# lr'å*;r: that the shaþ consensus, of rn session for the äiåiTi February ir"å'U..r, seriously under_ du mined. As urban society became u,3ffiäïî*ïi#*f i""r."Çy polarized between a f law-and-order right and the.cadet party it;.å:i:iËîrË,îby tiberars a revolu,t;;õË;the middle ground of and tr,. nrogr..l;;;;il::**ated or democraric coalition srarted to crumblel The Emperor,s olo *. fact remain rn ,"J;o crowds of workers, :tt:i":' Minisrers held one i soldiers, and sailors came on to the peuograd and then took to m.i, indecisive meeting that sûeets demanding t..rs,-tiï;;ä."i?:,, ttre Soviet take power in the name oith. repudiate.the *orking class and 'ren capitalist ministers' or *r. provisional ä'J,',î:Ttr*:."qi,"r.Níd;ì;ìî;åi:Ïi":1ffiîrçtrt ment. Govern- In Augusr, tt,e month of General Kor*lou,. leading industrialist urged the "b";;;;";;; åîiï,"î:ff liberals ao U. Áo.. decisive in defence ii1",i:i.#ruîiu.åï"iJ,flî#*ïä:å of their class interests: ,h. p.";;;; äff"äl:iJ,ï,T.ä:.iå*g, and,.oop, ro,i 'we ought to say that the present ' ' ' revolution is a bourgeois revolution, that the bourgeois order which .*rr" a" pl...i, .i-. is inevitable, and :ii,?",ä*,ï:ïäî*'h:*.i.*i.ïi+":rå.d?:lîî:ary crowd had taken since it is inevitabre' one musr draw ", over all .di*;;;ri."; the *."pl.i.li rogical conclusion and, as far a^lt artilery suppries insist that those who rule and as he k";;" the.whore,::;i:"^::".ns, tåe,r"..,ti.rt i.rî'í;;;:"" manner remained city; ver bourgeois manner.2 and act in a at his ¿ispo.T working. ^ -sal' and *t" r'j"räå;'JJ:i;:lt:i:,i:::; The 'dual power, The was conceived as an interim arrangement _ Army Hieh Co ing the pend_ summoning of a l' either to s end Constitu.", À;;;;iy. But its disintegra_ :o ,'h;î'ätri#t":"ïrî,'JH" in tion under atrack from ,T:1 T" " left and ,igt t Áî r-*_* polarization of Russian politics raised "rrã ,Tå:::1,i:'.i;:i#ï1'rp.r;.;;;;-'i.åi;::i:,:ï: djsrurbñ, *.1"."s abour the future weil as rhe present in mid-r9r7. as * ;r; ür"; ;;;ìï reasonabre to "h ", ;ä ä. _i::å hope and the *:î,äT Duma who respectfirllv;,îö,r$il rrgg.ri.¿*äî,,rt. ffi '":f Emperor should 46 rgrT: The Reoolutions of February and October r9r7: Ihe Revolutions of February and October 47 abdicate. After some discussion, Nicholas mildly agreed. Bur, hav- industrialists as Ministers of Finance and ing initially accepted ¿¡s s,ggestion that he should abdicate in tade and Industry, and the socialist lawyer Aleksandr Kerensþ favour of his son, he thought further about Tsarevich Aleksei's as Minister ofJustice. The Provisional Government had no electoral delicate health and decided instead to abdicate on his own behalf m"nd-ate, deriving its auttrority from the¡row defunct Duma, and that of Aleksei in favour of his the consent of the Army brother, Grand Duke Michael. High Command, and informal Always a family man, he spent the remainder of ttre journey thinking with public organiza_ tions like the Zemstvo l-eague "gr..rrr.rr*ah. with remarkable calm and political Wa. fn¿rrst ies Commirtee. innocence about his furure as a The old Tsarist bureaucracy "rrã provided its execudve machinery but, private citizen: as rhe result of the earlier dissolution of the Duma, it had porting legislative ,"; He said he would go abroad for the duration of hostilities [in the war body. Given its fragility and lack of f**"f"; i.gi;_ macy, the new government's against Germany] and then retu¡n to Russia, settle in the Crimea and assumptionof power seemed remark- ably easy. The Altied powers devote himself completely to ttre education of his son. Some of his advisors recognled it imLediatery. Monarchist doubted whether he would be allowed to do this, but Nicholas replied sendment seemed to have that disappeared overnight in Russia: in the nowhere were parents denied the right to care for their children.3 entire Tenth Army, only two officers refused to swear allegiance to the Provisionar Governmenr. As a liberar politician (After reaching the capital, Nicholas was senr to join his family later recailed, outside Petrograd, and thereafter remained quietly under house Individuals and organizations expressed their loyalty to the new power. The arrest while the Provisional Government and the Allies tried to stavka [Army Headquarters] as a whole, ronowJ uy the entire command_ decide what to do with him. No solution was reached. I-ater, ing staff, recognized the provisional cÁ"..o-"*. The Tsarist Ministers the whole family was senr to Siberia and then and some of the assistant to the lJrals, still Ministers *... i*pri.o.red, but all the other under house arrest officials remained at their posts. but in increasingly difficult cftcumstances which Ministries, ofûces, banks, in fact the entire political mechanism of Russia Nicholas bore with fortitude. In July r9r8, after the outbreak of o.u., *o.É.rg. In that respecr, rÌre Bebruary] coup d'état passed off so "."r.d the Civil \üar, Nicholas and his family were executed on orders of ,,'oo*rty afr"i .*n then one felt a vague presentiment that this was the Bolshevik Urals Soviet.a From the time of his abdication not the end, thaisuch a crisis could not pass to his so peacefully.5 off death, Nicholas did indeed behave as a private citizen, playing no active political role whatsoever.) Indeed, from the very beginning there In the days following Nicholas's abdication, rhe politicians were reasons to doubt of the effectiveness of rhe transfer Petrograd were a state oi po-... The most important in of high excirement and frenetic activity. reason was that the provisional Government had a competitor: the Their original intention had been ro ger rid of Nicholas rather February Revolution had produced not one but two serf-constituted than the monarchy. But Nicholas's abdication on behalf of his son authorides aspiring to a national role. The second p.t had removed the possibility of a regency during Aleksei's minority; was the ogr"J Soviet, formed on the paftern of the r9o5 petersburg and Grand Duke Michael, being a prudent man, declined the ñ; ;; workers, soldiers, and socialist politicians. invitation to succeed his brother. De facto, therefore, Russia was Tie Soviet wà afe"ayi' session in the Täuride parace when the formation provisionar no longer a monarchy. It was decided ttrat the country's future of the Government was announced on z form of government would determined March. be in due course by a The dual power relationship provisionar of the Government and Constituent Assembly, and that in the meantime a self-appointed the Petrograd Soviet emerged spontaneously, and the government 'Provisional Government'would take over úre responsibilities of the accepted it largely because it had no choice. i' th. mosi former imperial Council of Ministers. Prince Georgii Lvov, head of practical immediate terms, a dozen Ministers with no force the Zemstvo I-eague and a moderate liberal, became head of the at their disposal could scarcely have cleared the palace (the new government. His cabinet included Pavel Milyukov, historian initial meeting ptace of both the governmenr and and the Soviet) of Ãe scrufr throng of Cadet Party theoretician, as Foreign Minister, two prominent workers, soldiers, and sailors who werá tramping in and out to 48 rgrT: The Revolutions of February and Ocmber r9t7: The Reztolutions of February and make speeches, eat, sleep, argue, and write proclamations; October 49 and soldiers' commiftees, the mood of the crowd, intermittently bursting into the Soviet reduction of officers, discþIinary and, most importantlg powers, Chamber with a captive policeman or former Tsarist Minister to ,."ogni;o;oiäi sorri.r,, authority policy questions involving on all leave at the deputies' feet, must have discouraged ttre attempt. In ernmentarorderto*._ar.r'""r;ñ;;:ä::.'jï,Li:hîîrr:J;.h". ";Ji;;; broader terms, as War Minister Guchkov explained to the Army,s counter-signature Commander-in-Chief early of ttre Soviet. wrr¡le in March, ó¡a.r No. r did nor acru_ J.J;;,ì' offi The Provisional Government does not possess any real power; and its ;Ïläi:::'"f;.ï,'9* "r "."u'* "..;- ; ;";, di¡ectives are carried out only to t}le extent thar it is permitted by the Soviet .uo*ry"",,,,""J.;:.:ï;:i.ä.1"t?:înää";."i"ï#:t of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, which enjoys all the essential elements had been arresred killed 9r Uv ,fr. ;"il of Kronstadt of real power, since tlle troops, the railroads, the post and telegraph are all Baldc Freet during tt. r.ui and the provisional rãry;;;'ö;;.. No. r therefo¡e in its hands. one can say flatly that ttre Government exists onlv strong overtones ofclass had war, and ,or¿ivi"il.¿ ro so long as it is permitted by the Soviet.6 about the prospecrs ør-"l"rrlooi.äoi. offer reassurance ,, the unwo¡kabte form of dual.n9wer, or.r"*ed most In the fi¡st mondrs, the Provisional Government consisted mainly å;; ;; situation enlisted men in *" in which the of liberals, while ttre Soviet's Executive Committee was dominated ro."., ,.**irld only the the Petrograd Soviet,:r"r..g authority of by socialist intellectuals, mainly Mensheviks and SRs by party while the .fñ;;r-;;;ps recognized authorityãf ¿,e provisional only ¿.re affiliation. Kerensþ, a Provisional Government Government. member but also The Executive Commir.. a socialist, who had been active in setting up both institutions, of tn.-Áåviet aid its besr from rhe radical oosition to reúeat served as liaison between rhem. The socialists of the Soviet intended t *.. r. But in Sukhanov .omment"d orr "pÊñ;ö.å.. April to act as watchdogs over the Provisional Government, protecting trreìlsolatiî";;; rhe masses, produced by the Execudve Committee,s the interests of the working class until such time as the bourgeois de f".;Ji;". with the provisional Government. rr was, or.orrr*, revolution had run its course. This deference to the bourgeoisie oJ;; ;;;ä, a[iance. T]rere recurrent conflicts between were was partly the result of rhe socialists, good Marxist education and the Soviet E"..rtir. Committee the Provisional Govr and pardy a product of caurion and uncertainty. As Nikolai Sukhanov, orpeasant,"*"';;::HT."å jlïT;,iiîlå1..*?::îr];i one of the Soviet's Menshevik leaders, noted, there was likely to about Russia's be trouble participado".- rh;;;;;;:;i ahead, and better ttrat the liberals take tl'e responsibility Governmenr *"r. The provisionar and, remained- n *ry .orn-Jläî if necessary, tÌre blame: *. war efforq and Foreign Minister Milyukov,s Nor. oils ued interesr Ài¡i even implied a contin_ The Soviet democracy had to entrust the power ro the propertied elements, in extenåing R;;rt"" the ;åå;i;;'.. constantinopre and its class enemy, without whose participation it could not now master the Suaits (as agreed.T_,ir. government S..;.;-t:;;;s stgrrea by the Tsarist technique of administration in the desperate conditions of disintegration, and the Allies), p;;ii" ourcf,y and renewed nor deal with the forces of rsarism and the bourgeoisie, united against it. srreer demonsrrarions,fo^-.1 fgfore " a Ër*:-*. Soviet Executive But the condition of this transfer had to assure the democracy of a complete Committee took the .defensisr,T* victory over the ;.rto;;;;uring continuation class enemy in tåe near future.7 the war as long as Russian ,...i,.r, of rng *å-;;., attack bur oppos_ annexationist war aims and But the workers, soldiers, and sailors who made up the Soviet's *r. S."r.t f..aties. But on floor of rtre Soviet_and i" rh. ,;;;;,ãîi".ron.s, the rank and fi.le were not so cautious. On r March, before the formal the garrisons-the and especia'v establishment attitude ro rhe of the Provisional Government or tlle emergence of *l-,ì"ãä to be simpler and 'responsible stop fightin8, pdl ."i leadership' in ttre Soviet, the notorious Order No. r was ili...d."rd.: .f ,î.-*ar, bring the troops issued in the name of the Petrograd Soviet. Order No. r was a The relationship drat developed revolutionary document and an assertion of the Soviet's between the petograd power. It Executive Committee Soviet called for democratization and the p-"iri.;;iõ;;; of the Army by the creation of elected and summer .r,;;t;, inrense, il;äåî,'"T,irff i.tfr 3 50 rgr7: The Reztolutions of February and October t9t7: The Reoolutions of February Executive Committee guarded and Ocøber 5r its separate identity jealously, but also argued ultimately rhe two institutions that a Russian defeat wourd were too closely bound to be-indiÊ revolurion' be in ûre interests of the ferent The Bolshevik readers to each other's fate, or to dissociate themselves in the event *i.-i"a been exiled in including Stalin and Molotov, Siberia, of disaster. The link was strengthened in May, when the p¡ovisionar we;;;u rhe first ro the capitats. But those rerurn ro Government ceased to be a riberal preserve and became - .,,ui;l;rî,i'u,rroo. found a coalition more diffcuk ro it much of liberals and socialists, drawing return, for thJsimple,."roo in representatives of the major war. To reruftr that Europe was at socialist parties (Mensheviks and SRs) whose influence Baltic was ;;;*;", and required *", p..- cooperadon, while"",*: rhe Allied dominant in ttre Soviet Executive committee. The land routes ,"" enemy territory. sociarists were errheless, I_enin "iros Nev_ not eager to enter the government, but and orher memb;-;;. émigré concluded trrat it was thei¡ neutral Swi¿erland community in duty to strengttren a were very anxious to return; totering regime at a time of national crisis. tions and, after negotia_ They conducted by intermediaries, continued to regard the Soviet as their more natural sphere the German government offered of political them the chance to cross C_.r**y action, especially when it became clear that the new Uy,."i.a o"ir. It was clearly in Germany,s inrerest ro let Russian socialist Ministers of Agriculture and I-abour would be unabre ,.rãliär*ies opposed to war return to Russia, ro rhe implement their policies because of liberal but the revolutionari., ,fr.rrrålrr., opposition. Neverthe- weigfi the desirabilirv ùî less, a symbolic choice had been of returnlng a;;r;ä. risk made: in associating themselves themselves potiticaliy.. of compromising more closely with the provisional Governmenr, ¿responsible' a smau the mainly Botshevik ú,h;;;.h contingent of socialists were separating themselves (and, émjerés, á*iã.J-i. ï"i. by extension, the Soviet towards the *. risk, and ser off Execudve Commitee) .irresponsible' end of March- (A much iarger group from the popular revolution. olutionaries of Russian rev_ Popular hostility p¡ovisional in Switzerrana, L"r"ái"g;li;" to the 'bourgeois' Government decided alr the Mensheviks, mounted that it was more prudent in the late spring, as war weariness increased and the to wait_a sh¡ewd move, since they avoided all the controversy economic situation in the towns deteriorated.s During trre street and accusations that r-enin,s provoked. This group followed trip demonstrations that occurred inJuly (theJuly Days), demonstrators in ,..á"il."led uain, by similar anangement with the Germans, " carried banners calling for 'AI power to ttre soviets,, a month later.¡ which in effect Before l_enin,s rerurn petrograd meant the removal of power from the p¡ovisional to .".tf in April, the Government. Siberian exiles had former Paradoxically-though rogically in terms already u.Ãri," ,.t"iïd the of its commitment ro trre nization and publish Bolshevik orga_ Government-the Executive committee pet¡ograd a newspaper. At this point of the Soviet like.other sociatist the Bolsheviks. rejected the slogan groups, ,h;;; of 'Ar power to the soviets'; and in fact the coalition ,;;, ; drifting into the loose demonstration around trre petrograd was directed as much against the existing Soviet s;.;:Ë"; àe Menshevik and SR leaders of the Soviet had leadership as against the Government itself. .Take power, nãt fo.gott.r, ;;; troublemaker yor, ,o., could be, and Lenin of a bitch, when it's given you!, awaited his arrjval"with shouted one demonstrator, shaking to be justified. ft rurned out his fist at a socialist politician.e on a April, r.t.r, r.oio"ooi.ir."ri.n. But this was an appeal (or perhaps ã Finland i-.oi.o off the train at the threat?) to which .dual Station in'petrograd, t. ,.rpoiã.ïcurtly those who had pledged themselves to po*.r, welcoming to rhe Soviet,s could not respond. comminee, addressed r.* the ìãå*s to the crowd in rather harsh voice that always" departed u*a.jä his opponenrs, and abruptly for_a private .AãUr"aiorr-and The Bolsheoiks his Borshevik partv conference with coileagu.r. cr;;;ly;;- n"o not secrarian habim. He losr his old At the time of the February Revolurion, virtually showed no signs tf rn.ì all leading Bol_ h p.': ."rly mo,,thr, sheviks were in emigration abroad or in exile .r."].å""iöffi;i in remore regiãns of as brorhers in the Russian Empire, arrested honou¡ of rhe revolu;;;;;;;rr."1,,ä:ili:å':i#:: en masse after trre outbreak of war Lenin's because the Bolsheviks appraisat of t,,e.politic"i.t#;;:'known not only opposed Russia's participation but to history as the April Theses, was beliiere"., ;;*o;;;ising, and distinctly 52 rgr7: The Reaolutions of February and Ocøber t9t7: The Reztolutions of February petrograd and Ouober 53 disconcerting to the Bolsheviks who had tentatively submerging their ord.sectarian accepted the Soviet line of socialist unity disagreements. rn June, at the and critical support f; Nationar congress First the new government. Scarcely pausing of Soviets, rËk ;;;Ëd rhetoricatv to acknowledge the achieve_ any political party " whether ments of February, was prepared to take on the r-enin was already looking forwarã to the second power responsibilities of alone, assuming úrat the answer .There stage of revolution, the overth¡ow of ttre bourgeoisie by prole_ was negadve. is the such a party!' r-enin interjected. tariat. No support should be given to the provisional But ,. *." of trre delegares, Governlent, sounded more ir I-enin stated. Socialist .naive like bravado than a seriou, ilusions of unity and trre confidencei challenge, It was a serious however, because úle Bolsheviks"h"'.rrg.. of the masses in the new regime must be desuoyed. The present were gaining popular support and the coalition socialists Soviet leadership, having succumbed to bourgeois influence, losing it. was The Bolsheviks were still useless (in one speech, I_enin borrowed Rosa Luxemburg,s in *ir.ri;-; the June Congress of char_ Soviets' and they had yct " acterization of German Social Democracy ,a-stinking to win a ma;å, city erection. But and called it growing strength their corpse'). was already evident át tfr. gr".._roots level_in tfie workers, factory commiftees, Nevertheless, I-enin predicted that in the committees of soldiers the soviets-under revitalized sailors in the and revolutionary leadership-wourd armed forces, and in local district be the key institutions in transfer- towns. party soviets in the big ring power Bolshevik membership was from the bourgeoisie to the proietariat. 'Ail power to also increasing spectac_ the ularly, althoueh rhe Bolsheviks soviets!', one of the slogans of l_enin,s April Theses, ;;; any formal decision was in effect a to launch a mass recruitment ";. call for class war. 'Peace, land, drive, anã r.*.A almost and bread,, anofher of Lenin,s April by the influx. surprised slogans, had similar revolutionary .peace,, The party,s.-.*b..r'hip;;;;r, shaþ implications. in I_enin,s exaggerated and perhaps usåge, meant not only as they are, give rorn. ,.rrr. ãrits ¿imensio.rrirarãäo withdrawal from the imperialist war but Bolshevik also recognition Party members ar rhe time of the that such withdrawa|is impossibre...without the (though February Revolution this figure is particularly rrrrp.",, petrograd overth¡ow of capital'. 'r-and' meant confiscation of the landown_ J.. tt party organization could actually identify " ers' estates and their redistribution by the peasants themserves- ã.ly z,ooo members in February, and the Moscow "Uo,r. something very close to spontaneous peasant land organization 6oo); more than roo,ooo seizures. No members by the end of Ap.il; wonder that a critic accused r-enin of 'prant[ing] the i., O.iãu., rgrT a total of banner of civir 35o,ooo members, including "rr¿ war in the midst of revolutionary democracv,.lo 60,o0o in petrograd and rounding province the sur_ The Bolsheviks, respectful and 7o,ooo in Moscow adjacent as they were of Lenin,s vision and Industrial Central leadership,- Region.ll "rrJan. were shocked by his Aprit rheses: some were inclined to think that he had lost touch with the realities of Russian life guriry his years in emigration. But in the following monrhs, under The popular reaolution I-enin's exhortations and reproaches, rhe Bolsheviks did move into Seven million men were under a more intransigent position, isorating themselves arms ar the beginning of r9t7, from the sociarist with two million in the coalition. ÉIowever, without a Bolshevik majority petrograd reserve. fn. forces had suffered in the tremendous losses, "r*.à Soviet, I-enin's slogan power and war weariness was evident of 'Alr to the soviets!' did not p.oìra. desertion i, th. il;;"r-*g the rate and the_ soldiers, ,.rporrri Bolsheviks with a practical guide to action. ft remained op.r, r*.rs to German frater_ question nization at the front. To rhe soldieri whether rænin's strategy was that of a master poritician"r, .h;F;;"".y Revolution was or an implicit promise that the simpþ that of a cranþ extremist-a left-wing counrerpart ,". *orrld ,oon.rrd, and they waited of the old impatiently for the provisional socialist Plekhanov, whose unreserved patriotism cou.r.,-.ìiìà a.iri.u. trris-if on the war issue on its own initiative, not had taken him out of the then underpressure from the petrograd mainstream oiRussian socialist politics. In the earþ Soviet. The need for socialist spring of r9r7, the Army, with its unity seemed self-evident to most of the structure new democratic politicians associated of elected commiftees, its ol¿ problems with the soviet, who prided themserves on .f i""ã;;;;; supplies, and its resdess and uncertain *oã¿,-'.^,", at best a doubt- 54 rgr7: The Reoolutions of February and October t9r7: The Revolutions fully effective of February and October fighring force. At the front, morale had not rotally 55 disintegrated. skilled male workershad been But the situation in the garrisons around the country, exempred from military conscripdon, where retained a comparadv^ely large reserve troops were stationed, was much uglier. propoaio'of ir, p..ro". male work_ taditionally, ing class in the factories. Despite Russia's soldiers and sailors of r9r7 have been trr. poti". .ound-up of Bolsheviks categorized .proletarians,, at the beginning of the war, as regardless of their occupation out of and theìubsequenr arresr or military uniform. drafting of large numbers In fact most of the enlisted men were peasants, although of other poriticar troublemakers in the workers were disproportionately factories, Petrograd,s major metall*gi""i represented in the BalticFteet aãd defence plants were the armies employing a surprisingly large ""a of the Nortlern and western Fronts, since their recruit- .r,r*t , of workers who belonged ment area to the Bolshevik and-other revolutionary was relatively industrialized. It can be argued in Marxist parties, and even Bolshe_ terms that vik professional revolutionaries the men in the armed forces were proletarian by virtue who n"å iorrr. to the capital from of.their cur¡ent and other parts of the occupation, but the more important thing is that YY"h. Empire after the ourbreak of war. tìis is evidently Other revolutionary worke¡s how they regarded themselves. As $Øildmari,s study ..*rrr.d to tfr.i. factories after the indicates,l2 February Revolution, increasing front-line soldiers in the spring of r9r7_even wtren the potential for further prepared rürrest. f.lì¡""ì to cooperate with officers who accepted the Revolution and The February Revolution úre new norms of behaviour_saw the officers and the provi_ had given birth to a formidable array sional Government of workers' organizations in all as belonging to one class, that of ttre .masters,, Russia,s industrial centres, b";..-p; and identified cially in Petrograd and Moscow. \ü'orkers, their own interesrs as trrose oi the workers and thé *.ri.r, were created not Petrograd only at the city level, like petrograd Soviet. By May, as the Commander_in_Chief reported the Soviet, but also at the with alarm, lower level of rhe urban disuict, 'class antagonism'between officers and men had made w¡reËtne leadership usually came from the workers themserves deep inroads on the Army,s spirit of pauiotic solidarity. rarrrer than the socialist intetigentsia The Petrograd and the mood was often more workers had already demonstrated a ievolutionary radical. New trade unions were established; and at spirit in February, although they had not the plant level, workers began ro set then ueen sumlreJi commiftees up factory militant or psychologically prepared (which were not part of the trade_union to resist the creation of a sûucture, and 'bourgeois' Provisional sometimes coexisted witå local trade-union Government. In the fi¡st months after the branches) to dear with February Revolution, management. The factory commiftees, the main grievances expressed by workers in closest to the grass roots, Petrograd tended to be the most radical and elsewhere were economic, focusing on bread_and_ of all wárkers, organizations. In the butter issues like the factory commiftees of petrograd, gotsheviks eight-hour day (which trre provisional Govern- tt e had assumed a ment. rejected on dorninant position by the enJo ly'ray the grounds of the wartime emergency), wages, f r9r7.--- "nrri",í... The factory committees, overtime, and protection against unemployme.r..rr ;;; originat n was to be the workers, no guarantee that this situation y"r"lgoq over rhe plant,s capitalist managemenr.""tio" would. continue, given the tradition .workers, The rerm used of political militancy for this function was conrrol, in the Russian working class. It was üue thar õ"lorn¡; kontrol), which the war had changed implied supervision rather than the composition of thã working class, greatly control ir, à" **"g.rial sense. But increasing in practice the factory commiftees the percentage of women as well as somewhat increasing often went further and started the total number t-o take over managerial fi¡nctions. of workers; and it was usually believed that women Sometimes t'is was related to workers were less disputes over conrrol of hiring and revolutionary than men. yet it was women work_ firing, o, _", the product of ers the kind of class hostility whose strike on fnternadonal W.omen's Day had precipitated t¡rai le¿ *o.kà i, ,o*. plants ro put the February unpopular foremen and managers Revolution; and those who had husbands at r¡e front into wheerbarrows ã,r-p- were particularly likely them in the river. In other instances, "rr¿ to object strongly to continuation of the war. the facÀry commiftees took Petrograd, as a cenrre over to save the workers from unemployment, of the munitions industry in which manv when the owner or manager abandoned the plant or threatlned to close it because it 56 rgr7: 'fhe Reoolutions of February and Ocmber r9t7: The Revolutions of February and October 57 was losing money. As such events became more coÍtmon, the defi- in a quite different way. It seems to have been assumed nition of 'workers' control'moved closer to somettring like workers' out peasant througtr_ Russia that this new revolution me¿rnt_or self-management. made to mean-rhat should be the nobles, old illegitimate title This change took place as the workers' political mood was was revoked. to the land I_and should belong to thoJe who tilled ir, p."r*i, becoming more militant, and as the Bolsheviks were gaining influ- wrote in their numerous petitions to the provisional Government ence in the factory commitrees. Militancy meanr hostility to the in the spring.la !øhat thai seems to t*. å."rr, to trre bourgeoisie and assertion of the workers' primacy in the revolu- conc¡ere peasants in rerms was that_ they should ger just as rhe land whicir ,h.ñ; tion: the revised meaning of 'workers' control' was that tilled as serfs for the nobles, *ruãf, fr"¿ been retained by the workers should be masters in their own plants, so the¡e was an noble landowners in the Fmancipatio.r-r.aA.*".r..".ra emerging sense in (Much of rhis the working class ttrat 'soviet power' meant that land was currently leased from tfr. f".rao*rr.rs by peasants; in other the workers should be sole masters in the district, the city, and cases, the landowners cultivated it, using ttre locat pear""a, frir.ä perhaps tåe country as a whole. As political theory, this was closer labour.) ", to anarchism or anarcho-slmdicalism than to Bolshevism, and the If the peasants st'l herd assumptions about the Bolshevik leaders did not in fact share the view that direct workers' land that went back more than harf a cenrury to the time democracy through the factory of serfdom, it is scarcely committees and the soviets was a surpr1in-g that the agrarian reforms carried out by Stolypin in the plausible or desirable alternative to their own concept of a party- years before the First world sØar had made littre impact on peasant led 'proletarian dictatorship'. Never*reless, the Bolsheviks were consciousness. Still, the evident vitality of th. p."r"r, t mir r9r7 realists, and the political reality in Petrograd in the summer of r9r7 came as a shock in ro many peopre. The MarxisÀ ¡rad was that their party had strong support in the factory committees since been the r88os that tlte mir had essentially ãirirrt.gr"t "-;ñ;; and did not want to lose it. Accordingly, the Bolsheviks were in surviving a internally, only because the state found it a useful favour of 'workers' control', without defining too closely what they paper, instrument. On the effect of Stolypin,s reforms had meanr by it. been to dissolve t,,e mir in a high proportion of the village, of E;;o;"n Russia. yet for all Rising working-class militancy alarmed the employers: a num- this, the mir was clearly a basic fã..., i" p."iant thinking about ber of plants were closed down, and one prominent industrialist land in r9r7. the In their peritionr, .ir. p."årris astJuly Days were a vindicarion of r-enin's intransi- gent stand since April, for trrey indicated strong popular sentiment In mid-June, Kerensþ, now the Provisional Government's Minister against the Provisional Government and the dual power, impatience of W'ar, encouraged the Russian Army to morürt a major ofensive with the coalition socialists, and eagerness on ttre part of the Kro- on the Galician Front. It was the first serious undertaking military nstadt sailors and others for violent confrontation and probably since the February Revolution, as the Germans had been content insurrecdon. But in another sense, the July Days were a disaster for to watch the disintegration of the Russian forces without engaging the Bolsheviks. clearþ Lenin and the Bolshevik centrar committee themselves further in fhe east, and the Russian High Command, had been caught offbalance. They had talked insurrection, in a gen_ fearing disaster, had earlier resisted pressure Allied to take the eral way, but not planned it. The Kronstadt Bolsheviks, ..rporrãirrg iniúative. The Russians' Galician offensive, conducted in and to June the sailors' revolurionary mood, had taken an initiative whictr, early failed with an estimated 2oo,ooo casualties. was a July, It in effect, ttre Bolshevik Central Committee had disowned. The disaster in every sense. Morale in the armed forces disintegrated whole affair damaged Bolshevik morale and I_enin,s credibility as further, and the Germans began a successful counter-attack dtat a revolutionary leader. continued throughout the summer and autumn. Russian deser- The damage was all rhe greater because the Bolsheviks, despite tions, already rising as peasant soldiers responded to news of the the leaders'hesitant and uncertain response, were blamed for the land seizures, grew to epidemic proportions. The Provisional Gov- July Days by the Provisional Government and the moderate social_ ernment's credit was undermined, and tension between govern- ists provisional of the Soviet. The Government decid.ed to crack ment and military leaders increased. At the beginning of Jul¡ a down, withdrawing the 'parriamenta¡y immunity' that politicians governmental crisis was precipitated by the withdrawal of all the parties of all had enioyed since the February Revolution. Several Cadet (liberal) ministers and the resignation of the head prominent of rhe Bolsheviks were arrested, along with totsþ, who had Provisional Government, Prince Lvov. taken a position close to r-enin's on the extreme left since his return In the midst of t}lis crisis, Petrograd erupted once again with ttre to Russia in May and was ro become an official Bolshevik parry mass demonstrations, street violence, and popular disorder of member 3-5 in August. orders were issued for the arrest of l-enin and known as the Days.15 The crowd, which July July contemporary one of his closest associares in the Bolshevik leaderships, Grigorii witnesses put as high as half a million, included large organized Zinoviev. During the July Days, moreover, the provisional Govlrn_ contingents of K¡onstadt sailors, soldiers, and workers from the ment had intimated ttrat it had evidence to support the rumou¡s 6o r9t7: The Revolutions of February and October t9t7: The Revolutinns of February and Ocøber 6t that I-enin was a German agent, and the Bolsheviks were battered He may, in fact, have berieved thar Kerensþ wourd wercome by a wave of patriotic denunciations in the press that temporarily an Army intervention to create a strong goverriment and deal eroded their popularity in the armed forces and the factories. The with left-wing troublemakers, since Xerensty, partially apprised Bolshevik Central Committee (and no doubt I-enin himself) feared Kornilov's of intenrions, dealt with him in a peculiarly d.ùã,l, *"y. for I-enin's life. He went inro hiding, and earþ in August, disguised Mis.nde¡standings between the two principal actors confused the as a workman, crossed the border and took refuge in Finland. situation, and the Germans' ,rnexpected ."p*. of Riga on the If the Bolsheviks were in trouble, however, this was also true of eve of Kornilov's move added to the mood of panic, ãuspicior¡ the Provisional Government, heâded from early July by Kerensþ. and despair that was spreading among Russia,s ci.itian and The liberal-socialist coalition was in consrant turmoil, wittr the núli;; leaders. rn the rast week ofAugust, baffied but determine4 socialists pushed to the left by their Soviet constituency and the General Kornilov dispatched üoops from the front to petrograd, liberals moving to the right under pressure from the industrialists, oste.rsiUÇ to quell disorders in the capital and save the Repubtic. landowners, and military commanders, who were all increasingly The attempted coup failed largely because of m. unreliability alarmed by the collapse of authority and the popular disorders. of the troops and the energetic actions of the petrograd workl Kerensþ, despite an exalted sense of his mission to save Russia, was ers. Railwa¡rmen diverted and obstructed the troop_*ains; printers essentially a go-between and negotiator of political compromises, stopped publication of newspapers supporting Koroilo.r,, .rro.,r.; not greatly trusted or respecred, and lacking a political base in any metalworkers rushed out to meet the oncoming üoops and explain of the major parties. As he sadly complained, 'I struggle with the that Petograd was calm and their officers had diceive¿ tirem. Bolsheviks of the left and the Bolshevil¡s of the right, but people Under this pressure, the troops, morale disintegrated, ,fr. demand that I lean on one or the other. . . .I want to take a middle peüograd ãrrp was aborred outside without any serious road, but nobody will help me.'16 militáry engagel ment, and General Krymov, the commanding officer r;ã., It seemed increasingly likely that the Provisional Government Kornilov's orders, provisional "",irrg surrendered to the Government and would fall one way or rhe other, but the question was, which? The then commited suicide. Kornilov himself was ar¡ested at Army threat from the left was a popular uprising in Petrograd and/or Head_quarters, offering no resistance and taking full responsibility. Bolshevik coup. Such a challenge had failed in July, but German In Petrograd, politicians _ ofthe centre and right rushed ao ..áÊ activity on the norrh-western fronts was heightening tension in the ûrm provisional their loyalty to the Government, which armed forces surrounding Petrograd in a most ominous way, and Kerensþ continued to head. But Kerensþ,s standing had the influx of deserters been further dam_ who were aggrieved, armed, and unemployed aged by his handling of the Kornilov presumably increased affair, and the govemment the danger of street violence in the city itself. weakened' The Executive committee of the petrograJsoviet also The other threat to the Provisional Governmenr was ttre possibility emerged with little credit, since the resistance to Kornilov had been of a coup from the right to establish a law-and-order dictatorship. organized largery at the locar union and factory level; and this con- By the surilner, this course was being discussed in high military tributed to an upsurge of support for ttre Bolsheviks which almost circles and had support from some of the industrialists. There were immediately enabled rhem ro displace the Soviet,s old Menshevik_ signs that even ttre Cadets, who would obviously have to oppose SR leadership. The Army High command was hit hardest of all, such a move before the fact and in public statements, might accept since the arrest of the commander-in-chief and failu¡e of trre coup a fait accompli with considerable relief. left it demoralized and confused; relations between officers and men In August, the coup from the right was finally attempted by deteriorated sharply; and, as if this were not enough, the German General I-aw Kornilov, whom Kerensþ had recently appointed adv¿nce petrograd was continuing, with the apparent objective. In Commander-in-Chief with a mandate to restore order and disci- mid-September, General Alekseev, kornilov,s successor, abruptly pline in the Russian Army. Kornilov was evidently not morivated resigned as Commander-in-Chief, prefacing his statement *i*, by personal ambition but by his sense of the national interest. emodonal tribute to Kornilov's high motives. Arekseev felt he could"" 6z r9r7: The Revolutions of February and Ocnber t9r7: The Revolutions of February and October 63 no longer take responsibility for an army in which discipline had In September, I-enin w¡ore from his hiding place in Finland collapsed and'our officers are martyrs'. urging the Bolshevik party to prepâre for an armed insurrection. The revolutionary moment had come, he said, and must be seized Practically speaking, in this hour of terrible danger, f can state with horror before it was too late. Delay would be fatal. The Bolsheviks that we have no army (at these words the General's voice trembled and he musr act before the meeting of the Second Congress shed a few tears), while the Germans are prepared, at any moment, to strike of Soviets, pre_empting any decision that the Congress the last and most powerfrrl blow against us.17 might make. I-enin's advocacy of immediate armed uprising was passionate, The left gained most from the Kornilov affair, since it gave sub- but not entirely convincing to his colleagues in the leadership. rù7hy stance to the previously abstract notion of a counter-revolutionary should the Bolsheviks take a desperate gamble, when the tide was threat from ttre right, demonstrated working-class strength, and so clearly running their way? Moreover, I_enin himself did not at the same time convinced many workers that only their armed return and take charge: surely he would have done this if he were vigilance could save the revolution from its enemies. The Bolshe- really serious? No doubt the accusations against him in rhe summer viks, with many of their leaders still gaoled or in hiding, played had left him overwrought. possibly he had been brooding about his no special role in the actual resistance to Kornilov. But the new and the Central Committee,s hesitation during the July Days, swing of popular opinion towards them, already discernible earþ in convincing himself that a rare chance to seize power had been lost. August, greatly accelerated after Kornilov's aborted coup; and ful a In any case, I-enin was temperamental, like all great leaders. This practical sense they were to reap future benefit from the creation mood might pass. of workers' militia units or 'Red Guards' which began in response I-enin's behaviour at this time was certainly contradictory. On to the Kornilov threat. The Bolsheviks' strength was that they were the one hand, he insisted on a Bolshevik insurrection. On the the only party uncompromised by association wittr the bourgeoisie other, he remained for some weeks in Finland., despite the fact and the February regime, and the patty mosr firmly identified with that the Provisional Government had released the left politicians ideas of workers'power and armed uprising. imprisoned in July, the Bolsheviks now controlled the Sãviet, and the time of acute danger to I-enin had surely passed. When he did return to Petrograd, probably at the end of the The October Rez;olution first week of October, he stayed in hiding, isolated even from the Bolsheviks, From April to August, the Bolsheviks' slogan'All power to the sovi- and communicated with his central committee through a series of ets' was essentially provocative-a taunt directed at the moderates angry, exhortatory letters. who controlled the Petrograd Soviet and did nor wanr ro take all On ro October, the Bolshevik Central Committee agreed that power. But the situation changed after the Kornilov affair, when an uprising was desirable in principle. But clearly many of the the moderates lost control. The Bolsheviks gained a majoriry in Bolsheviks were inclined to use their position in the Sovier to the Petrograd Soviet on 3r August and a majority in the Moscow achieve a quasi-legal, non-violent üansfer of power. According to Soviet on 5 September. If the second national Congress of Soviets, the later recollections of a member of the petrograd gohhevik scheduled to meet in October, followed tåe same political trend Committee, as the capitals, what were rhe implications? Did the Bolsheviks Hardly any of us thought of the beginning wânt a quasi-legal transfer of power to the soviets, based on a as an armed seizure of all the institutions of governmeni at a specific hour . . decision by the Congress that the Provisional Government had no . we thought of the uprising as the simple seizure of power by the petrograd soviet. The fu¡ther mandate to rule? Or was their old slogan really a call for Soviet would cease complying with the orders of the provisional Government, declare insurrection, or an affirmation that the Bolsheviks (unlike the rest) itself to be the power, and remove anyone who tried to prevent it from had the courage to take power? doing this. rs t9t7: The Revolutions of February and October 64 t9r7: The Reaolutions of February and October 65 Trotsþ, recently released from prison and admitted to Bolshevik were scarcely heard in the autumn and winter of t9t7, after the fall Party membership, was now the leader of the Bolshevik majority in of Riga.) Had Kerensþ tried to disarm rrre workers as the Germans the Petrograd Soviet. He had also been one of the Soviet's leaders approached, he would probably have been lynched as a ûaitor and in r9o5. Although he did not openly disagree with lænin (and later capitulationist. claimed ttrat ttreir views had been identical), it seems probable that Tfre insurrection began on z4 October, the eve of ttre meet_ he too had doubts about insurrection, and thought that the Soviet ing of the Second congress of Soviets, when the forces of trre could and should handle the problem of dislodging the Provisional soviet's Military-Revorutionary committee began to occupy key Government.l9 govenìmental institutions, taking over tåe telegraph offices trr. Strong objections a Bolshevik-led insurrection came from railway -ity,s to starions, setring up roadblocks on the bridges"ra and Zinoviev and I-ev palace, two of I-enin's old Bolshevik comrades, Grigorii surrounding the \Øinter where the provisionar Goveinment Kamenev. They thought it irresponsible for the Bolsheviks to seize was in session, power by a coup, and unrealistic to think that they could hold power They encountered almost no violent resistance. Ttre streets alone. 'When Zinoviev and Kamenev published these arguments remained calm, and citizens continued to go about their everyday under thei¡ own names in a non-Bolshevik daily newspaper (Maxim business. On the night of z4-5 October, I_enin came out of hiãing Gorþ's NooaSta zhizn')r I-enin's anger and frustration rose to new and joined his comrades at rhe Smolny Institute, a former schooi heights. This was understandable, since it was not only an act of for young ladies which wâs now the headquarters of the Sovieq he defiance but also a public arìnouncement that the Bolsheviks were too was calm, having apparently recovered from his bout of nervous secredy planning an insurrection. anxiety, and he resumed his old position of leadership as a matrer It may seem remarkable, in these circumstances, that the Bol- of course. sheviks' October coup actually came off. But in fact the advance Bythe afternoon of the z5th, fhe coup was all but accomplished_ publicity probably helped I-enin's cause rather ttran hindered it. excepr, provokingly, for the taking of ttre \Tinter palace, which was put Bolsheviks position where have been provisional It the in a it would still under siege with the Governmenr members inside. difficult not ro act, unless they had been arrested beforehand, or The Palace fell late in the evening, in a ratrrer confused assault received strong indications that the workers, soldiers, and sailors against a dwindling body of defenders. rt was a less heroic occasion the Petrograd area would repudiate any revolutionary âction. of than later Soviet accounts suggest: the battleship Aurora, moored But Kerensþ did not take decisive cor¡ntermeasures against the opposite rhe Palace in the River Neva, did not fi¡e a single live shot, Bolsheviks, and their control of the Petrograd Soviet's Military- and the occupying forces let Kerensþ slip out a side entrance and Revolutionary Committee made it comparatively easy to organize successfully flee the ciry by car. k was also slightly unsatisfactory a coup. The Military-Revolutionary Committee's basic purpose in terms of political drama, since the congress of Soviets-having was to organize the workers' resistance to counter-revolution à delayed its first session for some hours, on Bolshevik insistence- la Kornilov, and Kerensþ was clearly not in a position to inter- finally began proceedings before the palace fell, thus frustrating the fere with that. The war situation was also an important factor: Bolsheviks'wish to make a dramatic opening announcement. stilr, the Germans were advancing, and Petrograd was threatened. The the basic fact remained: the February regime had been ov.rthro*n, workers had already rejected a Provisional Government order to and power had passed to the victors of October. evacuate ttre major industrial plants from ttre city: they did not -W]'o Of course, this did leave one question unanswered. were the trust the Government's intentions towards the revolution, and for victors of october? In urging the Bolsheviks towards insurrection that matter they did not trust its will to fight the Germans. (Para- before the congress of Soviets, r-enin had evidentry wanted this titre doxically, given the workers' approval of the Bolshevik 'peace' slo- go to to the Bolsheviks. But rhe Borsheviks had in fact organized gan both they and the Bolsheviks reacted belligerently when the the uprising through the Military-Revolurionary committee of trre German th¡eat was immediate and actual: the old peace slogans Petrograd Sovieq and, by accident or design, the Committee had 66 rgr7: The Reztolutions of February and October r9r7: The Reaolutions of February and Ocøber 67 procrastinated until the eve of the meeting of the national Congress even want to use the soviets as camouflage, of Soviets. (Trotsþ later described this as a brilliant srraregy- but would apparently have preferred to stage an unambiguo,r, Bolrh.rrit presumably his own, since it was clearly not I-enin's-of using the provinces, k ah: certainly, the immediat.,.rrrtt of "orli] soviets to legitimate a Bolshevik seizure of power.2o) As the news the Octob., n.,rolrti* was that the soviets took power; and went out to the provinces, tJre most coûtmon version was ttrat the the local soviets *..;;;; alwlys dominated by Bolsheviks. soviets had taken power. Although the Bolsheviks, atritude to the soviets after october is open to- The question was not wholly clarified ar rhe Congress of Soviets different i"r..p..i"ai."l, it is perhaps fair to say that tfrey t aa no which opened in Petrograd on z5 October. turned a objection in principle As ir out, to the soviets exercising power clear at a local level, as n"ä afr. majority of the Congress delegates had come with a mandate soviets were reriably Bolshevik. But this requiremenr was difficult"r- to support transfer of all power to the soviets. But this was not ro square with democratic erections contested by other an exclusively Bolshevik group (3oo of the 67o delegates were parties. poli,i.i Bolsheviks, which gave the party a dominant position but not a Certainly I_enin was quite firm on majority), and such a mandate did not necessarily imply approval the issue of coalition in the new central government, the council people,s of the Bolsheviks' pre-emptive action. That action was violently of commissars.l November r9r7 when the Bolshevik criticized at the fi¡st session by a large group of Mensheviks and c..rr."t committee discussed the possibility of moving from an ail-BolJevik SRs, who then quit the Congress in protest. It was questioned goveürment ro a broader socialist coalidon, I_enin was in a more conciliatory manner by a Menshevik group headed by adamantty against it, even though severar Bolsheviks resigned from Martov, I-enin's old friend; but these the government in protest. Trotsþ consigned critics, in I-ater a few .left SRs, (members a memorable phrase, to 'the dust-heap of history'. of ,fiirrr., group of the SR Party that had accepted the Ocrober " At the Congress, the Bolsheviks called for the transfer of power .o,rlf *... admitted to the Council of people's Commissars, t,rt tt.y to workers', soldiers', and peasants' soviets throughout the country. iá.. politicians without a strong party base. They were dropped from As far as central power was concerned, the logical implication was the govemment in mid_ r9r8, when the left SRs staged ãn uprising surely that the place of the old Provisional Governmenr would be in protest peace üeary recenrly signed with Germany. "g"i.rrt-th. taken by the standing Central Executive Committee of the soviets, The Bolsheãrc *J. no further effort to form a coalition golr..rr_.rra elected by the Congress and including representatives from a num- with other parties. Had the Bolsheviks a popular political mandate ro rule alone, or did ber of parties. But this'was not so. To the surprise of many they believe that they had onl? In the elections ror the constiruent delegates, it was announced that central governmentâl functions Assembly (held as scheduled before the octouer coup, in would be assumed by a new Council of People's Commissars, ber r9r7), Novem_ the Borsheviks won 25 pû cent-of the popurar whose all-Bolshevik membership was read out to rhe Congress on This vote. put them second to the SRs, who won z6 October by a spokesman for the Bolshevik Parry. The head of the 40 per cent of the vote (left SRs, who supported the Bolsheviks new government was I-enin, and Trotsþ was People's Commissar on rhe issue of the coup' were not differentiated the (Minister) of Foreign Affairs. in voting rists). The Borsheviks had expected to do better, and Some historians have suggested that the Bolsheviks' is perhaps explicable if one one-party examines the vore in more -this rule emerged as detail.22 The Êolsheviks iook f.t ogr"ã the result of historical accident rather than and Moscow, and probably intention2l-that won in urban Russia as a whole. In the is, ttrat the Bolsheviks did not mean ro rake armed forces, whose five million votes were counted separately, power for themselves alone. But if ttre intention in question is Bolsheviks the had an absolure majority in the I-enin's, the argument seems dubious; and I-enin overrode ûre Armies of the Northern and rTestem Fronts and the Baltic objections leading Freet-úre consdtuencies they of other members of the parry. In Septem- knew best, and where trrey were best known. on trre southern fronts ber and October, I-enin seems clearly to have wanted the Bol- and in the Black Sea Freet, ttrey lost to the sRs and ukrainian sheviks to take power, not ttre multi-party soviets. He did not parties. The SRs' overall victory was the result of *irroirrg dr; 68 rgr7: The Rez¡olutions of February and Ocmber peasant vote in the villages. But there was a certain ambiguity in 3 The Civit this. The peasants were probably single-issue voters, and the SR \Mar and Bolshevik programmes on rhe land were virtually identical. The SRs, however, were much better known to the peasantry, ttreir 'where traditional constituency. the peasants knew the Bolshevik prograrnme (usually as a result of proximity to towns, garrisons, or railways, where the Bolsheviks had done more campaigrring), their T¡rs October seizure of power was votes were split between the Bolsheviks and the SRs. nor the end of the Bolshevik Revolution but the beginning. The Bolsheviis In democratic electoral politics, nevertheless, a loss is a loss. The had taken control in Petrograd and, after a week of Bolsheviks did not take that view of the elections to the constituent street_fighalrrg, in Moscow. But the soviets that had sprung up in most prãrrio"i"t Assembly: rhey did not abdicate because they had failed to win centres still had to follow the capitals' lead in orr.r*rro*i.rg (and, when the Assembly met and proved hostile, they unceremoni_ at. Uorr.g.oisie (often, at local level, this meant ousting a .Commi"nee public ously dispersed it). However, in rerms of the mandate to rule, they of Safety, set up by the solid citizenry of th. ao*rr¡; if could and did argue that it was not the population as a whole that io."l soviet was roo weak to power, supporr was unlikely".ra, to " they claimed ro represenr. They had taken power in the name of 1ak¡ be forthcoming fr"; ,lr; capitals'l Bolsheviks in trre provin..r, the working class. The conclusion to be d¡awn from the elections * ãu at rhe centre, had to work out their atdtude to local soviets ", to the Second congress of Soviets and the constituent Assembly which succesrt Uy their authority but happened to be dominated "rr.a.J was that, as of Octobe¡ to November r9r7 they were drawing more by Mensheviks and SRs. Rural Russia, moreover, working-class votes than any other party. had largely thrown off the yoke of authority imposed from the rowns. But what if at some later time the workers should withdraw r¡rã o"Jy-g and non_Russian areas of the old Empire were in various their support? The Bolsheviks, claim to represenr the will of the conditions of .o;;le* turmoil' rf the Bolsheviks had taken power proletariat was based on faith as well as observation: it was quite with the intention of qg:.Ti"g the country in any convenåonal possible, in I-enin's terms, that at some time in the future the sense, some long and work- diffcult struggles against ers' proletarian consciousness might prove anàrchic, a...rr,r"føirrg, and separatist inferior to that of the tendencies lay Bolshevik Party, without ahead. necessarily removing the parry,s rnandate In fact, to rule. Probably Russia,s futu¡e form of government remained the Bolsheviks did not expect this to happen. But question. an open many of their opponents Judging by the october coup in petrograd, of t9r7 did, and they assumed that l_enin,s viks the Bolshe_ party had reservations about their o*tt would not give up power even if it lost working_class support. ilog* of 'AIl power to the soviers'. On the other hand, the Engels had warned that a socialisr party taking power premarurely slogan í.._.A to fit the mood of the provinces in rhe winter might find itself isolated and forced into repressi re åict"torship. of r9"r7_rg_but this, perhaps, is only another way of sayl.ng_ clearly the Bolshevik leaders, and l-enin in particular, *r"t governmenral authority were willing collapsed. "Át "t to take t}lat risk. laf .telgorarily It remained ,o-L. ,..r, just what the Bolsheviks meanr by their other slogan oii¿i.t"torrt ip of the pro_ letariat'. If, as I-enin had strongly-r"gg.;; in his recent writ_ ings, it meanr crushing the counier_.ãîolrrriorr"ry efforts of rhe old possessing crasses, the new o.t"to.rrrif iourd have ro estab_ lish coercive organs comparable in function to the Tsarist secret police; if it meant a dictatorship of the Bolshevik party, as many of r-enint political opponenrs suspected, the continued existence of other political parties raised åajor proul.*r. yer could new regime a'ow the itself to âcr as represìively as the old Tsarist 7o The Ciail Vl'ar The Civil lyar 7r autocracy, and could it retain popular supPort ifit did? A dictator- national minorities, and support for national languages proletariat, moreover' appeared to imply broad powers and cultures ship of the and the formadon of na¡onal elites.2 and independence for all proletarian institutions, including trade There were limits to national self_determination, however, unions and factory committees. \7hat happened if the trade unions became clea¡ with rlsard as to the io.o.poì"tion of territories of and factory committees had diferent concepts of ttre workers' the former Russian Empire in the ,r.ríiolri., republic. Ir was interests? If 'workers' control' in the factories meant worker selÊ as natural for the Bolsheviks petrograd in to hope for a revolu_ management, was this compatible with the centralized planning of tionary victory of soviet pgw:r i" t;;;iÞ" as to hope for it in economic development that the Bolsheviks saw as a basic socialist Hungary-though the Azerbaijanis, fo#., subjects of Imperial objective? Petersburg, were not v_ery likely io", its position this. It was also Russia's revolutionary regime had also to consider natural for the Bolsheviks to ,,rpport "ppr..i"ae .bourgeois, *årt.rr, soviers in Ukraine in the wider world. The Bolsheviks considered themselves to be and oppose the Uk¡airiian rr"tiorr"tirtr, regard.less of the part of an international proletarian revolutionâry movement, and fact-that the soviets (reflecting *r..ari.-.o*position of uk¡aine,s hoped that their success in Russia would spark similar revolutions working class) tended ro bq dominated by Russians, ttroughout Europe; they did not originally think of the new Soviet Poles who .foreigners' Jews, and were not orrty to th'e nationalists Republic as a nation state which would have to have conventional to the but also Ukrainian peasantry. The Bolsheviks, dilemma_most diplomatic relations with other states. When Trotsþ was appointed matically illustrated dra_ -h:1g. Red A.rmy marctred into poland Commissar of Foreign Affairs, he ex¡rected to issue a few revolu- r9zo and rhe in workers of Warsaw resisteå the .Russian invasion,_ tionary proclamations and ttren 'close up shop'; as Soviet represen- was.that policies of proletarian internationalism in practice tative in the Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations with Germany earþ in a disconcerting had similarity to the policies of old_style r9r8, he attempted (unsuccessfully) to subvert the whole diplomatic imperialism.3 Russian process by speaking past Germany's official representatives to the But the Borsheviks' behaviour and policies after the october German people, particularþ the German soldiers on the Eastern Revolution were nor formed i" u"*,iÃllnd the factor of civil Front. Recognition of the need for conventional diplomâcy \¡/as war is almost always crucial " in explaining th.*. 1-h" Civil lùZar delayed by the Bolshevik leaders' deep belief in the early years ttrat broke out in the middle of r9rg, o"lv i.-ïonûrs after rhe formal Russia's Revolution could not survive long without the support of conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk " peace b.*.;; Russia and Germany workers' revolutions in ttre more advanced capitalist countries of and Russia's definitive withdrawal to_ tt. Brrropean war. It was Europe. Only as the fact of revolutionary Russia's isolation gradu- on many lolebt fronrs,_against a variety oiWtir. (that is, ally became clear did they begin to reassess ttreir position vis-à-vis Bolshevik) Armies, wh¡* and_ lrad ,¡. ,"ppo.. of a number of foreign the outside world, and by that time the habit of combining revolu- powers including Russia,s former Allies in the European war. The tionary appeals with more conventional state-to-state contacts was Bolsheviks saw it as a class war, in ¡orr, io-iarc and internadonar firmly entrenched. terms: Russian proletariat against Russian bourgeoisie; interna_ The territorial boundaries of the new Soviet Republic and policy tional revolution (as exemplified by the Soviet Republic) against towards non-Russian nationalities constituted another major prob- international capitalism. Red f"g.kh;k) victory in rgzo was lem. Although for Marxists nationalism was a form of false con- therefore a proletarian ]he triumph, but the uittá.rr.r, of the sciousness, Lenin had cautiously endorsed a principle of national had indicated snrrggle the strength and determin"aià, of the proletariat,s self-determination before the war. The pragmatic sense ttrat nation- class.enemies' Arthough the interven,i."irt powers had alism had to be accommodated if it were not to become a threat withdrawn, the Bolsheviks did not u.tierre m"i""pi,"list this withdrawal remained. The policy adopted in t923, when the form of the future permanent. They was expected that at a more opportune moment Soviet Union was decided, was to disarm nationalism by 'granting forces of international the capitalism worrl¿ .enirit, and forms of nationhood': separate national republics, protection of seek to crush the the international workers, revolution i,, ,olr.".. ", 72 The Cioil lYar The Civil lVar 73 The Civil Var undoubtedly had arì enormous impact on the was almost bound to be authoritarian, and those who Bolsheviks and the young Soviet Republic. It polarized the sociery served as its execut¿rnts were extremely likely to develop intervention cre- the habits U"rri"g leaving lasting resenünents and scars; and foreigrr and bullying ttrat l_enin often criticizea "f which had n tne y."r, igif ated a permanent Soviet fear of 'capitalist encirclement' In rhe second place, rhe Bolshevik party "t.. rü(/ar o*.¿ ir, success j" í;r:; elements of paranoia and xenophobia. The Civil devastated to the support of Russia,s workers, soldiers, and sailors; and such the economy, bringing industry almost to a standstill and empry- people were much less inclined than the oldBotshevit intere.toars ing ttre towns. This had politicat as well as economic and social to worry about crushing-opposition or imposing rh.i, implications, since it meant at least a temporary disintegration and force rathèr than by tactfi.rl persuasion. ""dr;ltf;; dispersal of the industrial proletariat-the class in whose name the Finallg in considering .war ttre link between the civil and Bolsheviks had taken power. itarian aurhor_ rule, it must be remembered ttrat rhe¡e It was in the context of civil war that the Bolsheviks had their relationship *", *ã_*"v between the Bolsheviks and the political environment" first experience of ruling, and this undoubtedly shaped the party's of r9r8-zo' The civil war was nor an unforeåeable act of God for subsequent development in many important respects.4 Over half a which the Bolsheviks - were in no way responsible. On the million Communists served in the Red Army at some time during the Bolsheviks had associated themselve, _itf, con_frontation"orro". the Civil \ûar (and, of ttris group, roughly half joined the Red Army and violence in the months between February"r*.¿ joining and October r9r7; before the Bolshevik Party). Of all members of the Bolshevik and, as the Bolshevik leaders_ knew perfectly well before rhe evenr, Party in 1927, per cent had joined in the years r9r7-zo, while their October 33 coup was seen by many as an outright provocation only r per cent had joined before r9r7.5 Thus the underground civil war. The to Civil War certainly gave rhe new regime a baptism life of the prerevolutionary party-the formative experience of the and thereby influenced 9t lT, its iutore dwelopment. But it was 'old guard' of Bolshevik leaders-was known to most party mem- the kind of baptism the Bolsheviks had risked, and may even have bers in the rgzos only tÏrough hearsay. For ttre cohort that had sought.T joined the parry during the Civil War, the party was a fighting brotherhood in the most literal sense. The Communists who had The Ciail War, served in the Red Army brought military jargon into ttre language the Red Army, and the Cheþa of party politics, and made the army tunic and boots-worn even In the immediate aftermarh of the Bolsheviks, October coup, Cadet by those who had stayed in civilian posts or been too young to newspapers issued a call to arms for the salvation of tir. ..uo_ fight-almost a uniform for party members in ttre rgzos and early lution, General K¡asnov,s Joyalist troops unsuccessfully engaged r93os. pro-Bolshevik forces and Red Guards in the battle of pulkovo In the judgement of one historian, the Civil War experience Heights outside petrograd, and rhere *", t."rry nghting in 'militarized the revolutionary political culture of the Bolshevik In this preliminary Moscow. round, the Bolsheviks were the victors. But movement', leaving a heritage that included 'readiness to resort to almost certainly t}rey were going to have ro fight again. In the coercion, rule by administrative fiat (administriroaanie), centralized large Russian armies on the ,o,rtlr.ro fronts of the war against administration [and] suûrmary justice'.6 This view of the origins of Germany and Ausuia-Hungar5 the Solsie,.lks we¡e much less Soviet (and Stalinist) authoritarianism is in many ways more satis- popular than in trre north-west. Germany remained at war witrr factory than the traditional W'estern interpretation, which stressed and, despite the l".rt" advantages to thá Germans of peace on the party's prerevolutionary heritage and Lænin's advocacy of cen- the Eastern Front, Russia,s new regime could no more co'nt on tralized party organization and strict discipline. Nevertheless, other German benevolence than it coulJ on ,y-p"*ry from the allied factors reinforcing the party's authoritarian tendencies must also powers. As the commander of German forces on the Eastern Front be taken into account. In the first place, a minority dictatorship wrote in his diary early in February r9rg, on the eve of a renewed 74 The Civil War The Ciaíl lyar German ofensive after the breakdown of peace negotiarions at 75 offered in January. (But the Brest-Litovsk, Bolsheviks were lucþ: Germany the European sub_ war' I'ost its No other iü:itJrlît ""¿ way out is possible, ottrerwise these brutes [the Bolsheviks] will "t " "s"tt ".d.; wipe up the Ukrainians, The peace the Finns and the Balæ, and then quietly get of Brest_Litovsk provided only together a new revolutionary military a brief respite from army and turn the whole of Euråpe intà- a tlueat. Officers of the pig-sry. old Rrrr¡"., Army were gattrering . . The whole of Russia is no more rhan a vasr heap of mággots_a forces in rhe sourh, in rhe Cossack-;;r;o squalid, swarming mass.8 of the Don and the Kuban, while Admiral Kolchak *", government .*"iìini"g an anti_Bolshevik During in Siberia- The British the peace negotiations ar Bresr in January, Trotsþ had had landed úoops at Russia,s two nofthern ports, Arkhangelsk refused rhe rerms offered by the Germans and attemfted ,o"a.gy *¿ ¡vf"rrn"rrsþ ostensibly the Germans but in fact to figtrt of 'No war, no peace,, meaning that ttre Russians would" neithãr *¡tirì¡.1;;;r" of supporting opposition to the new "lsã local continue the war nor sigrr a peace on r¡nacceptable Soviet regime. terms. This was By a strange pure bravado, since tåe Russian Army fluke of **, ,li.r. were even at the front was melting away, passing through non_Russian troops while the German Army, despite Russian te*itory_¡¡. Bolshevik appeals to workin!_ ing about ör*r, I-egion, number_ class brotherhood, 3orooo men, which was not. The Germans cailed rrotsþ,s bluffa¡id ** rtão-*'ro get to the sØestern Front before the Eur, advanced, occupying large areas of Ukraine. theircraim.;;r;ilïä;i;i:;oú;îääi:1îii,îffîîi Lenin regarded it as imperative that a peace should be conclud.ed. against their old Austrian This was very rational, given the srate of Russia,s masters. urr"¡lã ro cross fighting forces and *. Russian rrre battlelines the likelihood that ttre Bolsheviks wourd side, the C".;;.-;;;;"å"rurg soon be fiehrinJa civil war; ,onrney*T ea$ an improbable and, in addition, the Bolsheviks on the Trans_siberian Railway, had repeatedly ,t"t.d before thé Vladivostok planning to reach october Revolution and rerurn .1p1rroP. by that Russia should withd¡aw immediately from rhi;ä. Bolsheviks had sanc_ tioned the trip, but this did ,roì tl'e European imperialist war. lrowever, it wourd be rather misread- pr.,r.rra-iol""l ,orri.r, from reacdng .peace with hostility to the arrival ing to see the Bolsheviks as a party, in any meaningfirl .f .;;;;;;iJã, foreigners sense railway starions atonø,the..wly. "._.a at by October. The Petrograd workers who had been readl, r" &r"ilTisl the Czechs had to fight ûrst clash with a eoñh.rrit_¿tmirr"t.á their forthe Bolsheviks against Kerensþ in October had also Uå.r, ,;;.'. * rhe Urals town ,.äy Cheþbinsk. Other Czech of to fight for Petrograd against the Germans. This *itr rrrpp*i.å n rrr* SRs bellþ..,r. *ooå when thev rose in Samara was strongly reflected in the Bolshevik party uD aøainst.h. B.rtl-;iJìo^ìrt"ul¡t in the eariy months of votga Republic. .irrJcze.h, a short-lived r9r8, and was subsequently to be a great asset to the .;;;-;;;;;. .. tess fighting new regime way out of Russia, their in ûghting rhe civil war. At ttre and_it was only after iany time of the Brest negotiati-ons, were alt monts that they I-enin had the greatest evacuared from Vl{rv.o¡.i difficulty in persuading even trre Bolshevik The back to Europe. Central Commitee of civil w'ar proper-Bolshevik ""d.h;;ed.i.ãJåg"-st the need to sign a peace with Germany. Bolshevik .rüfhites'_began Russian anti_ The Party's'left Communis¡s'-¿ in the ,rr*ro.. group which included the yoÇ the oi r9rS. At ttrat time, Nikolai Bolsheviks moved ttr-eir capital Bukharin, later ro earn a place in history as Stalin,s last ,;;";;.* since petrograd major had escaped the threat of captur. opponent in the leadership-advocated a revolutionary war Uy ,t.^C.._ans only ro come of guerrilla resisrance to the German invaders; and trre left SRs, j.rjg.army.,nde,C;.;";y,,ae.,icñ¡ìrìö who ä::..i"åi were currently in alliance with the Bolsheviks, took a similar r,¡,.,.-är"¿.äîä:å1'rd;;i.ii",.,ii,i:îff position. I-enin finally forced ttre decision through the Borshevik and even much ï,îî'Lilf;:l Central Committee by threatening of the,Urals *d t;g;.;;n, to resign, but it was a hard_ sheviks intermirentlv where local Bol_ fought battle. The terms which the Germans dominated **;;;,il urban imposed after their SØhite Armies soviets), and successful offensive were threaiened *r^. Sorri.i-Ë.p,rtli. considerabry harsher than those they had north-wesr, t * rhe easr, rhe and the sourh. Of ttre p;;;;;, AltiJ Britain and France 76 The Cioil lVar The Ciail lyar 77 were extremely hostile to the new regime in Russia and supported or'S'hites on a given front rarely exceeded the $7hites, though their direct military involvement was on a fairly roo,ooo), while the rest were in supply, t¡¿rnsport, or administ¡ative small scale. Both the USA and sent troops to Siberia-the work. To a considerable Japan exrenr, the Red Arml ha{ to Japanese hoping for territorial gains, the Americans in a muddled fill the gap Ieft by the breakdown of civilian administration: i1 was effort to restrain the Japanese, police the tans-Siberian Railway, .lt; ,å;-.r, and best-functioning bureaucracy the Soviet regime and perhaps support Kolchak's Siberian government if it measured o";;;å; the early years, with fi¡st claim on all availabt. up to American democratic standards. Ãror.r...r.- Although many Bolsheviks had Although the Bolsheviks' situation seemed desperate indeed in an ideological preference for militia-type units like-ttre Red Guards, r9r9, when ttre territory firmly under their control was roughly that t¡r.êa ar*y was organized from úre first on regular tirr.r, of Muscovite Russia in r}le sixteenth century their opponents also _itt ir.'rolAl"rs subject to mil_ itary discipline and the officers"r*y had formidable problems. In the first place, tJre White Armies not elected. Because oper- of the shortage of trained "ppoi.i.oãd ated largely independently of each other, without central direction insisted "úrird;;;i;;liåî"r, rotsþ and r_enin on using offcers from the old fr"¡1a or coordination. In the second place, the $Thites' control over their policy Arm¡ although this was much criticized in the gof.fr.,.ik p"rty, territorial bases was even more tenuous than the Bolsheviks'. Where and the Military opposition faction tried to g., r, they set up regional governments, the administrative machinery had t *. successive party congresses. By the end the ".ì..J'".\W.ar, to be created almost from scratch, and the results were extremely 1f Civil rhe Red Army h"d-;;;; 5o,ooo former Tsarist officers, most of unsatisfactory. Russia's transport and communications systems, great áa* and ttre majority of its senior military commanders"o.rr"ripted; historically highly centralized on Moscow and Petersburg, did not group. came from this To ensr¡re that the old officers facilitate \White operations around the periphery. The \ü7hite forces ,..rr"irr.¿ loyal, tåey were paired with political commissars, were harassed not only by the Reds but also the so-called .Green ,r..r"if- ðo*unists, who had to countersign all orders Armies'-peasant and and shared n,,l ,.rpo.rribility Cossack bands that gave allegiance to neittrer military commanders. with the side but were most acrive in the oudying areas in which the'SThites In addition to its military forces, were based. The White Armies, well the Soviet regime quickly supplied with officers from the ated a security force_the al_n"rri"r, cre_ old Tsarist Army, had difficulty keeping up the numbers of recruits ¡ã"orAh*v Commission for Struggle against Counter_Revolutior, and conscripts for them to command. ìli.."r., and Specula_ tion, known as the Cheka. When ,fri, The Bolsheviks' fighting force was the Red Army, organized l)ecember irrrãition was founded in r9r7 its immediate task was under the direction of Trotsþ, who became Commissar for $Øar to ol the outbreak blaiw looting, and raiding "orrt in the spring of r9r8. The Red Army had to be built up from :f liã"* stores ttrat folowed the october seizure of power. "r the beginning, since the disintegrarion of the Russian B;,;;;;;^assumed the broader old Army functions. of a security gone police, dealing *iaf, *ai_..gime had too far to be halted (the Bolsheviks announced its total and keeping conspiracies watch on qo"pj whose loyalty demobilization shortly after taking power). The nucleus of the Red bourgeois *, ,rrrp."r, including 'class enemies', offciars of Army, formed at the beginning of r9r8, consisted of Red Guards the old regime and p¡ovisional Government, and membe.rs_of from the factories and pro-Bolshevik the parties. units from the old Army and the outbreak of the Civil ";;ril;;;ofitical After Fleet. This was expanded by voluntary recruimrent SØar, ,ir.'Ci.f." L.""*. an organ and, from the terror, dispensing summary justice of summer of r9r8, selective conscription. Workers and Communists incl"aing executions, making mass arrests, and taking hostages were the first to be drafted, and throughour rÌre Civil \Øar provided at randoä in areas that had come under White conrrol¡1 were a high proportion of the combat rroops. But by the end of the Civil ,rrrp."r.ã of leaning towa¡ds the VØhites. Accordino to Bolshevik fic"r;;-;r, W'ar, the Red Army was a massive institution with an enlistrnent of -first rwenry provinces European Russia ii rgrS and the of over five million, mainly peasanr conscripts. Only about a tenth half of r9r9, ar leasr were shot without t i"l Uv of these were fighting üoops (the forces deployed by either Reds ljj:,.o.ïr""s tfr.-Cheka, á¿ Sz,Àãä 78 The Ctuil War The Civil lyar 79 The Bolsheviks' Red terror had its equivalent in the I7hite ter- h{ acdve support from the urban ror practised by the anti-Bolshevik forces in ttre areas under thei¡ I.9: working class, with the Bolshevik party providinU o.u*J"aø.ral control, and the same kind of atrocities were attributed to each nucleus. The \üThites had acdve support from the "r,ot¿ mia¿te side by the other. Flowever, the Bolsheviks were forthright about of the classes, with part Tsarist offcer corps serving as "iã,rpp.. their own use of terror (which implies not only summary justice the main organizing agent. But it was surely the peasantry, constituting also punishment, guilt, whose the great majority of but random unrelated to individual the population, rhat tipped tn.l"Uoc.. purpose is ttre intimidation of a speciûc group or the population Both the Red Army and the SThite Armies conscripted peas_ as a whole); and they took pride in being tough-minded about ants in the territories they controrte4 anã both had a substantial violence, avoiding the mealy mouthed hlpocrisy of the bourgeoisie desertion rate. As the Civil W* p.ogr.r..d, however, and admitting that the rule of any class, including the proletariat, difficulties the \7hites, with the peasant conscripts became involves coercion of other classes. Lenin and Trotsþ expressed than markedly grearer the Reds,. The peasants resented the contempt for socialists who could not understand the necessity of Bolsheviks, policy of grain requisitioning (see berow, pp. sz-¡), ï,rt the whites were no terror. 'If we are not ready to shoot a saboteur and \lhite Guardist, different in this respect. The peasant, *Já'fr"O no grear enthusiasm what sort of revolution is that?' Lenin admonished his colleagues in for serving in anyone,s army, as the experience of the Russian Army the new government.lo n had amply ryr7 demonstated. Ilowever, the mass \?hen the Bolsheviks looked for historical parallels for the activi- peasanrs desertions of in ryt7 had been closely related ties of the Cheka, they normally referred to the revolutionary terror to the land ,.i"*o tä redistribution by the villages. ffri, pro"o.ts of 1794 in France. They did not see any parallel the Tsarist hrgely completed to by the end of rgrg (which gready police, ..¿"".JAe peasanrs, objection secret though Western historians have often drawn one. Ttre to rirmy service), and the Bolsheviks had approved it. \ù7hites, Cheka, in fact, operated much more openly and violently than the on The tåe other hand, did nor approve of old police: its style had more in common with the'class vengeance' UrrJåi"o..s and supported the former landowners, claims. Tlr", of Baltic sailors dealing with their officers in t9r7, on the one hand, ;; ;; crucial issue of land, the Bolsheviks were rhe lesser evil.ll or Stolypin's armed pacifrcation of the countryside in 19o6-7, on the other. The parallel with ttre Tsarist secret police became more lL/ar appropriate after the Civil \lar, when the Cheka was replaced by the Communism GPU (Chief Political Administration)-a move associated with ttre The Bolsheviks took ove¡ a war economy in abandonment of terror and the extension of legality-and secu- a state of near collapse, the and their firsr and overwhelming proUf.;** rity organs became more routine, bureaucratic, and discreet in their to keep it running.12 yas úre pragmatic conrexr of the economic poricies methods of operation. In this longer perspective, there clearly were ]fús of the civil !'ar that were larer labelled .lü(/ar Communirå,. strong elements of continuity (though apparently not continuity of Srr, there was also an ideological contexr. In the loog personnel) between the Tsarist and Soviet secret police; and the r.r*, tt. Bolsheviks aimed to abolish private prope¡ty and trre fr.. clearer they became, the more evasive *"rL.t *d distribute products and hypocritical were Soviet according to need, and in the short a..*, *r.y might be e¡pected discussions of the security function. to choose policies that wourd bring these iâeats The Red Army and the Cheka both made importanr contribu- The ctoser to fi¡rfilment. balance between pragmatism and ideolory tions to the Bolshevik victory in W'ar. However, in SØa¡ Commu_ the Civil it would nism has long been a sub¡ect of d.t;;J"-irä prout.¡¡ being that be inadequate to explain that victory simply in terms of military policies like nationalization and state ¿ist ¡u.rtro' can plausibly strength and terror, especially as no one has yet found a way of e4plained be either as a pragmatic response to measuring the balance of force between Reds and \ühites. Active the exigencies of war or as an ideorogical imperative of communism. support and passive accept¿rnce by the society must It is a debate in which also be taken scholars on both sides can quote the pronouncements of Lenin and into account, and indeed tfiese factors were probably crucial. The other leading Bolsheviks, since the Stlrfr..rit, tt emselves were nor 8o The Civil War The Cioil War gr sure of the answer. From a Bolshevik perspective of r9zt, when W'ar Some plants were abandoned by their owners and managers; others Communism was jettisoned in favour of the New Economic Policg were narionalized on the petition of rheir workers, *t o-rr"i the pragmatic interpretation was clearly preferable: once W'ar Com- out t¡e driveì old management, or even on the petition of rn"rr;;.;; munism had failed, the less said about its ideological underpinnings who wanted protection against unruly *ort.rr. In the s'mmer the better. But from an earlier Bolshevik perspective-for example, of r9r8, the government issued a d.cree nationalizing all large_ that of Bukharin and Preobrazhensþ in their classic ABC of Com- scale industry, and by-the autumn of r9r9 it was estimated that munism (rgrg)-the opposite was true. While \üØar Communism over 8o per cent of such enterprises hadlfact U.en n"tiorrallzJ. policies were in force, it was natural for Bolsheviks to give them This far exceeded the organizaãonal capacities of the new Supreme an ideological justification-to asserr that the party, armed with the Economic council: in practice, if the workers themserves could not scientific ideology of Marxism, was in full control of events rather plants going by organizing \:.0.-ú. trr. ,,rfpry of raw marerials and than simply struggling to keep up. disuibution of finished proárr"tr, tl. pt".rt'åften ¡.ust closed down. The question lying behind the debate is how quickly the Bolshe- Yet, having gone so golst far, the erriks i.it i*p.ll.¿ to go further. viks thought they could move towards communism; and the answer In November r92o, the governm.r.a ,r"aiorr"fized even small_scale depends on whether we are talking about r9r8 or rg2o. The Bol- industry, at least paper. on In practice, of course, the Bolsheviks sheviks' first steps were cautious, and so were their pronouncements were hard put to name or identifz their new acquisitions, about the future. Flowever, from the outbreak of the Civil W'ar in direct let alone them. But in theory tlre it ole ,pt... of production mid-r9r8 the Bolsheviks' earlier caurion began to disappear. To now in the was hands of Soviet power, arrd erren ardsarworkrt cope wittr a desperate situation, they turned to more radical policies windmills op. were part of a centrally directed economy. "oa and, in the process, tried to extend the sphere of cenualized gov- A similar sequence led the gãlshevits - towards an almosr com_ ernment control much further and faster than they had originally plete prohibirion on free uade and a virtually moneyless economy intended. In r9zo, as the Bolsheviks headed towards victory in the by the end of the civil $Øar- From ,rr.i-pt ãå..ssors they inherited Civil Var and disaster in the economy, a mood of euphoria and des- rationing in the towns (introduced in rõrOj anA a srare monopoly peration took hold. ¡üØith the old world disappearing in the flames of on grain which in theory required thé pá"r"ot, to deliver their Revolution and Civil W'ar, it seemed ro mâny Bolsheviks rhat a new whole surplus (introduced in the spring it ,grZ by the provisional world was about to arise, phoenix-like, from the ashes. This hope, Government). But the towns were still short of bread and other perhaps, owed more to anarchist ideology than to Marxism, but foodstuffs because the peasants were unwining to sen when trrere it was nevertheless expressed in Marxist terms: with the triumph of were almosr no manufacrured goods on tfie market to buy. St o.Jf proletarian revolution, the transition to communism was imminent, after the October Revolution, tfre Solslrerriks-tried to increase grain possibly only weeks or months away. deliveries by offering the peasants *".r,rf".*..d goods instead This sequence is clearly illustrated in one of the key areas of money in of exchange. They also nationalized wholãsale o"¿. economic policy, nationalization. As good Marxists, the Bolsheviks after rhe outbreak of the Civil S'ar, prohibireA free retail trade"rrã, in nationalized banking and credit very quickly after the October most basic foodstuffs and manufactured products and tied to con_ Revolution. But they did not imrnediately embark upon whole- vert the consumer cooperatives into a staìe distribution network.14 sale nationalization of industry: ttre fi¡st nationalization decrees These were emergency measures to cope with the food crisis in concerned only individual large concerns like the Putilov \üüorks and P.. lo*y rhe pro?]:*: of Army ,"OOr, But obviously that were already closely involved with the state through defence Bolsheviks could-and the did_justify ,fr.- i" iá.otogical rerms. production and government contracts. As the food crisis in the towns worsened, barter became a basic A variety of circumstances, however, were to extend the scope form of exchange, and money lost its value. By r9zo, wages and of nationalization far beyond the Bolsheviks' original short-term salaries were being paid partly in kind (foo¿anA goods), and rhere intentions. I-ocal soviets expropriated plants on their own authority. was even an aftempt to construd a budget on a commod.ity rather 8z The Ciztil War The Ciz.¡il War 83 than a money basis. IJrban services, in so far as they still functioned manufactured goods instead of money in payment: the state still in the decaying cities, no longer had to be paid for by the individual had too few goods ro offer, and the peasants remained unwilling user. Some Bolsheviks hailed this as an ideological triumph-the to deliver their produce. Given the urgent necessity of feeding the 'withering away of money' that indicated how close the society had towns and the Red Army, the state had little choice but to take already come to communism. To less optimistic observers, however, the peasants' produce by persuasion, cunning, threats, or force. it looked like runaway inflation. The Bolsheviks adopted a policy of grain requisitioning, sending Unfortunately for the Bolsheviks, ideology and practical impera- workers' and soldiers' brigades-usually armed, and if possible tives did not always converge so neatly. The divergences (together provided witå some goods for barter-to ger rhe hoarded grain out with some Bolshevik uncertainties about what their ideology actu- of the peasants'barns.l5 obviously tJris produced strained relations ally meant in concrete terms) were particularþ evident in policies between the Soviet regime and the peasanrry. But the rùThites did affecting the working class. In regard to wages, for example, the the same thing, as had occupying armies throughout the ages. The Bolsheviks had egalitarian instincts rather than a strictly egali- Bolsheviks' need to live off the land probably surprised themselves tarian policy in practice. In the interests of maximizing produc- more than it surprised the peasants. tion, tley tried to retain piecework in industry, though the work- But there were other aspecrs of Bolshevik policy that evidently ers regarded this basis of pa]'rnent as essentially inegalitarian and did surprise and alarm the peasantry. In the fi¡st place, they tried to unfair. Shortages and rationing probably tended to reduce urban facilitate grain procurements by splitting the village into opposing inequalities during the Civil \Øar period, but this could scarcely groups. Believing that the growth of rural capitalism had already be counted as a Bolshevik achievement. In fact, the rationing sys- produced significant class differentiation among the peasants, the tem under 'War Communism favoured certain categories of the Bolsheviks expected to receive instinctive support from the poor population, including Red Army personnel, skilled workers in key and landless peasants and instinctive opposition from the richer industries, Communist administrators, and some groups of the ones. They therefore began to organize village Committees of the intelligentsia. Poor, and encouraged them to cooperate with Soviet authorities Factory organization was anodler touchy question. Were the in exuacting grain from the barns of richer peasants. The attempt factories to be run by the workers themselves (as the Bolsheviks' proved a dismal failure, partly because of the normal village sol- r917 endorsement of 'workers' control' seemed to suggest), or by idarity against outsiders and partly because many formerly land.- managers appointed by the state, following the directions of central less and poor peas¿ats had improved their position as a result planning and coordinating agencies? The Bolsheviks favoured the of the land seizures and redistributions of r9r7_rg. Vorse still, it second, but the effective outcome during \7ar Communism was demonstrated to the peasants tJ'at the Bolsheviks, understanding a compromise, with considerable variation from place to place. of revolution in the countryside was quite different from thei¡ Some factories continued to be run by elected workers' committees. own. Others were rr.rn by an appointed director, often a Communist but For the Bolsheviks, still thinking in rerms of the old Marxist sometimes the former manager, chief engineerr or even owner of debate with the Populists, the mir was a decaying institution, cor- the plant. In yet other cases, a worker or group of workers from rupted by the Tsarist state and undermined by emergent rural cap- the factory committee or local trade union was appointed to man- italism, lacking any porential for socialist development. Moreover, age the plant, and this transitional arrangement-halfivay between the Bolsheviks believed, the 'first revolution' in the countryside- workers' control and appointed management-was often the most land seizures and egalitarian redistribution-was already being fol- successful. lowed by a 'second revolution', a class war of poor peasants against In dealing with the peâsanûy, the Bolsheviks' flrst problem was rich peasants, which was destroying ttre unity of the village com- the practical one of getting food. State procurements of grain were munity and must ultimately break the authority of the mir.16 For not improved either by outlawing private grain trading or by offering tlre peasants, on the other hand, ttre mir was perceived as a true 84 The Cittil lVar The Ciail W'ar 85 abused and exploited by the state, peasant institution, historically Visions of the new world which had finally thrown off state auttrority and accomplished a peasant revolution. There was a wildly impractical and utopian streak in a great deal of Though the Bolsheviks had let the peasants have their way in Bolshevik ttrinking during the civil'war.le No doubt all successful t9r7-r8, their long-term plans for the countryside were quite as revolutions have ttris characteristic: the revolutionaries must always disruptive as Stolypin's hadbeen. They disapproved of almost every be d¡iven by enthusiasm and irrational hope, since they wojd aspect of the traditional ru¡al order, from the mir and the strip otherwise make the common-sense judgement that ttre risks and system of dividing the land to the patriarchal family (The ABC of costs of revolution outweigh the possible benefits. The Bolsheviks Communßm even looked forward to the time when peasant families thought they were immune from utopianism because ttreir social- would give up tJle 'barbaric' and wasteful custom of eating supper ism was scientific. But, whether or not they were right about ttre at home, and join their neighbours at a communal village dining inherently scientific nature of Marxism, even science needs human rooml7). They were meddlers in village affairs, like Stolypin; and interpreters, who make subjective judgements and have their own although they could not in principle share his enttrusiasm for a emotional biases. The Bolsheviks were revolutionary enrhusiasts, small-farming petty bourgeoisie, they still had enough ingrained not laboratory assistants. dislike of peasant backwardness to continue ttre Stolypin policy It was a subjective judgement that Russia was ready for prole_ of consolidating ttre households' scattered strips into solid blocks tarian revolution in rgrz even though the Bolsheviks cited ¡vtarxist suitable for modern small farming.ls social-science theory to support it. It was a maüer of faith rather But the Bolsheviks' real interest was large-scale agriculture, and than scienrific prediction that world revolution was imminent (in only ttre political imperative of winning over the peasanûy had led Marxist terms, after all, the Bolsheviks might have made a mis_ them to condone the breaking up of large estates that took place take and taken power too soon). The belief, underlying the later in r9r7-r8. On some of the remaining state lands, they set up economic policies of \üüar Communism, that Russia was on the state farms (scukhozy)-tn effect, the socialist equivalent of large- brink of the definitive transition to communism had scarcely any scale capitalist agriculture, with appointed managers supervising justiûcation in Marxist tÌreory. The Bolsheviks, perceptio" ãf *r. the work of agricultural labourers who wo¡ked for wages. The Bol- real world had become almost comically distorted. in many respecrs sheviks also believed that collective fatms (kolkhoey) were preferable by t9zo. They sent the Red Army to advance on Wa¡saw b."",r.., to in political terms to traditional or individual small-holding peasant many Bolsheviks, it seemed obvious ttrat ttre poles would recognize farming; and some collective farms were established in the Civil the troops as proletarian brothers rather trran Russian Ãor.. W'ar period, usually by demobilized soldiers or workers fleeing At home, they confused rampant inflation and currenry"ggt devalua_ hunger in the towns. The collective farms did not divide their land tion with the withering away of money under communism. When into strips, tike the traditional peas¿¡nt village, but worked the land wa¡ and famine produced bands of homeless children during the lü7ar, and marketed produce collectively. Often, the earþ collective farm- civil some Bolsheviks saw even ttris as a blessing in disguise, ers had an ideology similar to that of t}re founders of utopian agri- since the state could give the children a true collectivist upbringing cultural communities in the United States and elsewhere, pooling (in_ orphanages) and they would nor be exposed to úre Èoorgeois almost all their resources and possessions; and, like the utopians, influence of rhe old family. they rarely made a success of farming or even survived long as The same spirit was noticeable in the Bolsheviks, early approach harmonious communities. The peasants regarded both state and to the tasks of government and administration. The utopian texrs collective farms with suspicion. They were too few and weak to here were Man< and Engels's dictum that under communism the constitute a serious challenge to traditional peasânt farming. But state would wither away, and the passages in I_enin,s Smæ and their very existence reminded ttre peasants that the Bolsheviks had Reuohttion (r9r7) where he suggested that administration would süange ideas and were not to be trusted too far. ultimately cease to be the business of full-time professionals and 86 The Ctuil War The Civil War 87 would become a rotating duty of the whole citizenry. In prac- Avant-garde artists like poet trre vladimir Mayakovsþ and the ttre- tice, however, I-enin always kept a ha¡d-headed realism about atre director Vsevolod Meyerhold saw revolutionary art and revolu_ government: he was not among ttrose Bolsheviks who, seeing tionarypolitics as part of trre same p.ot.rt the old, b;;;g;;; the old administrative machinery collapsing in the years rgrT-zo, world. They "g"irrrt were among the first memberl of the irrt.tiig.rrtj; ìã concluded ttrat the state was already withering away as Russia accept rhe october Revolution and offer their services tJ trr. o.* approached communism. government, producing l"ü.1 p.opaganaa posters in Cubist and But the Bolshevik authors of The ABC of Communism (r9r9), Futurist styre, painting revolutionart Jot""r on the wats of former Bukharin and Preobraztrensþ, got much more carried away. They palaces, staging mass reenactments of revolutionary victories had the kind of vision of a depersonalized, scientifically regulated streets, in the bringing acrobatics as well as politically r.l.rr*, world that the contemporary Russian writer Evgenii Zamyatin sat- into the *.;;;; conventional theatre, a.rigrrirrg non_representational irized in We (wrinen in rgzo) and George Orwell later described monuments ""a to revolutionary-heroes of the past. ff tf,. in Nineteen Eighty-four. This world was the antithesis of any actual artists had had their way, "v"nt_gard. traditional bourgeois a¡t would have been Russia, past, present, or future; and in the chaos of the Civil War liquidated even more quickly than the bãurgeois political parties. that must have made it particularly appealing. In explaining how The Bolshevik leaders, however, *... ,oa quite convinced it would be possible to run a centrally planned economy after tlle artistic Futurism that and Bolshevism were inseparabre natural withering away of the state, Bukharin and Preobrazhensþ wrote: and took allies, a more cautious position on tfie classics. The ethos of revolutioniry The main direction will be entrusted to various kinds of book-keeping riberation *"r--o.. whoreheartedry accepted by the offices or statistical bureaux. There, from day to day, account will be kept Bolsheviks (or at least by-.o.r..r.red. the Botshevik irr.ll;;: tuals) where women of production and all its needs; there also it will be decided whither workers and the family *.r. The Bolshe_ viks supported the must be sent, whence they must be taken, and how much work there is emancipation of *o*.rr, as most members of to be done. And inasmuch as, the Russian radical from childhood onwards, all will have been intelligentsia rraa ¿one since rhe rg6os. Like accustomed to social labour, and since all will understand that this work Friedrich Engels, who had written that in the modern family the is necessary and that life goes easier when ever¡hing is done according husband is the 'bourgeois, and the wife the to a pre-ananged plan and when the social order is like a well-ordered women frotetarian,, rhey saw as an exploited group. By the end of the ,Oø"r, machine, all will work in accordance with the indications of the statistical Civil f"*, had been enacted that made divorce easily bureaux. There will be no need for special ministers of State, for police or attainable, removed the formal stigma from iilegitimacy, permitteã prisons, for laws and decrees-nothing of the sort. Just as in an orches- and mandated equal rights and equal pay "bortlorr, tra all the performers watch ttre conductor's baton and act accordingly, for women. While only the so here all will consult the statistical reports and will direct tleir work most radical Bolshevik thinkers talked about destroying the famil¡ accordingly.2o there was a general ass,rmption thar women and child¡en were potential victims of oppression within the f""Ub; This may have sinister overtones to us, thanks to Orwell's N¿ze- and that the family tended to inculcateiìurgeois values. The Bol_ teen Eighty-four, but in contemporary rerms it was bold, revolu- shevik Party established special women,s d.f"rt rr.rrt, (zhenodely) tionary thinking that was as excitingly modern (and remote from to organize and educate women, protect thlir interestr, fr.-fp mundane reality) as Futurist art. The Civil \Var was a time when them to play an independent young "rra role. Communists had their intellectual and cultural experimentation flourished, and an icon- own separate organizations_the Komsomol for adolesceor, oclastic attitude to the pasr was de rigueur among young radi- young adults, the young pioneers (established a few years later) "rrãfor cal intellectuals. Machines-including the'well-ordered machine' the ten to fourteen age group-which encouraged their members to of future society-fascinated artists and intellectuals. Sentiment, watch out for bourgeois tendencies at home school, and try spirituality, human drama, and undue interest in individual psy- to re-educate parenrs and "ìr¿ ", teachers who looked back nostalgi."ily tå chology lwere out of fashion, often denounced as 'petry-bourgeois'. the old days, disliked the Bolsheviks and the revolution, or clung 88 The Cioil lVar The Civil War 8g face to 'religious superstitions'. If one slogan reported during the Civil þis] always bore a mark of deepest astonishment when he brought us 'W'ar, money from 'Down with the capitalist tyranny of parents!', was a bit on the bank. It still seemed to him that the Revolution and the organization of the new power ttre exuberant side for the older Bolsheviks, ttre spirit of youthful were a sort of magical pla¡ and that in a magical play it is impossible ro receive real money.2r rebellion was generally prized and respected in ttre party in the early yeals. Sexual liberation, however, was a young-Communist cause that During the civil war, most of the Bolsheviks' organizational rather embarrassed the Bolshevik leadership. Because of the party's talents went into the Red Army, the Food Commissariat, and the position on abortion and divorce, it was widely assumed rhat ttre cheka. capable organizers from trre local party committees and Bolsheviks advocated'free love', meaning promiscuous sex. I-enin soviets were continually being mobilized for the Red Army or senr certainly did noc his generation was against the philistine moraliry on trouble-shooting missions elsewhere. The old centraL govern- of the bourgeoisie, but emphasized comradely relations between ment ministries (now People,s Commissariats) were run by a small ttre sexes and thought promiscuþ showed a frivolous nature. Even group of Bolsheviks, mainly intellectuals, and staffed largely by Aleksandra Kollontai, the Bolshevik leader who wrote most about offcials who had earlier worked for the Tsarist and provisional Gov- sexual questions and was somettring of a feminist, was a believer ernmenrs. Authority at rhe cenrre was confusingty divided between in love rattrer than the 'glass of water' theory of sex that was often the government (Council of people,s Commissars), the soviets, attributed to her. cenual Executive commiftee, and rhe Bolshevik party's central But the glass of water approach was popular among young Com- commiftee, with its Secretariat and bureaux for organizational and munists, especially the men who had learnt thei¡ ideology in the political affairs, the Orgburo and the politburo. Red Army and regarded casual sex almost as a Communist rite The Bolsheviks described their rule as a 'dicratorship of the of-passage. Their anitude reflected a general wartime and postwar proletariat', a concept which in operational terms had much in relaxation of morals even more marked in Russia than in other common with a dictatorship of trre Bolshevik party. It was clear European countries. The older Communists had to put up with from the first ttrat this left little room for other political parties: it-they assumed ttrat sex was a private matter and, after all, ttrey those that were not outlawed for supporting the whites or (in the were revolutionaries and not bourgeois philistines-as they had to case of the left SRs) staging a revolt were harassed and intimidated put up wittr Cubists, advocates of Esperanto, and the nudists who, by arresrs during the civil war and forced into selÊliquidarion in âs an act of ideological affirmation, occasionally leapt naked on to the early r9zos. But it was much less clear what the dictatorship crowded Moscow trams. But they felt that such ttrings detracted meânt in terms of the form of government. The Bolsheviks dià from the high seriousness of the revolution. not initially think of trreir own pany organization as a potential instrument of government. They seem to have assumed that the party organization would remain separate from government The Bolsheoiks in power and free of administrative functions, iust as it would have done if the Having taken power, the Bolsheviks had to learn to govern. Hardly Bolsheviks had become the governing party in a muld_party politi_ any of them had administrative experience: by previous occupa- cal system. tion, most were professional revolutionaries, or workers, or free- The Bolsheviks also described their rule as .soviet power,. Bur lance journalists (I-enin listed his own profession as 'man of letters' this was never a very accurate description, in the first place because the October fliæramrf). They despised bureaucracies and knew very litde about Revolution was essentially a party coup) not a soviet how they worked. They knew nothing about budgets. As Anatolii one, and in ttre second place because the new cent¡al government (chosen Lunacharsþ, head of the People's Commissariat of Enlightenment, by the Bolshevik Central Committee) had nothing to do wrote of his first finance officer: with the soviets. The new goveürment took over contror of the