Communism – the Failed Experiment, Part II |

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Communism – The Failed Experiment, Part II |

January 17, 2011 | Author Pater Tenebrarum

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An Empire In Disarray – Russia Prior To The Bolshevik Revolution

Just as the Marxian theory and ideology must be understood as a product of its time – it was conceived in a time of upheaval that marked the beginning of the end of the monarchies of old Europe, and made use of the statist philosophy of one of these monarchies to establish its scientif ic credentials – so must the actual Bolshevik revolution be seen in the context of its time and place.

In hindsight, it almost strikes one as a deplorable 'accident of history', but if Lenin's Bolshevik party had not taken power on November 7 1917, it may well have happened at a later point in time. We will never know f or certain, but it is quite clear that the preconditions that were in place at the time of the revolution were well suited f or its success, even though the Bolsheviks' grip on power was tenuous in the f irst f ew years f ollowing the coup.

In order to understand how the Bolsheviks were able to take power, one must look at developments both within and without Russia that ultimately combined to create the ideal environment f or the communist putsch. In the six decades preceding the revolution, the Russian empire became ever more unstable. Being the Czar of Russia meant that one was in one of the world's highest risk occupations – f ollowed closely by the post of Russian minister of the interior, which was at least equally risky. Ironically, the seeds of revolution were initially sown by the enactment of long overdue political ref orms – and a mistake by the czar's censors.

The Reformist Czar

In 1861, Czar Alexander II f inally ends the serf dom of Russian peasants. This emancipation has long been planned by the counts Michail Speransky, Nikolai Mordvinov and Pavel Kiselyov under Alexander I and Nikolai I's reigns, but is initially shelved in the 1830's due to the resistance of the land-owning nobility. Only Kiselyov lives to f inally see it implemented. What impels Alexander II to take this step is Russia's less than satisf actory perf ormance in the Crimean war. The war brings the backwardness of what is then the last f eudal system in Europe into sharp relief and Alexander hopes that the emancipation of the serf s will lead to the f ormation of a f unctioning market economy and more rapid economic development.

As it turns out, the legislation is deeply f lawed. A compromise is struck that is designed to allow the nobility to retain its lavish and costly lif estyle. A complicated compensation scheme is established and the f ormer serf s on private lands f ail to gain enough land to escape their poverty; moreover, they have to repay the state f or the compensation it has paid to landowners. In addition, communal land ownership is established among small peasants, as a result of which small f armers can not dispose of their own small parcels of land, keeping them tied to the land. They can not produce enough to be able to af f ord repayment of the loans received by the government. The nobles in turn have been paid in the f orm of bonds that soon lose much of their value. The lack of education of the rural population proves an additional obstacle to successf ul economic development. In the end, the ref orm f ails to decisively mitigate the social and economic problems of the rural population.

In 1872, the f irst f oreign translation of Marx' work 'Das Kapital' appears – in Russia of all places. The czar's censors allow it to be published, as they regard it as a 'strictly scientif ic work'. They don't recognize its potential to f oment resistance to the established power structures and f urther destabilize the political situation. Two years later the f irst socialist 'narodniky' – a movement of idealistic young people inspired by socialistic ideas – swarm f rom the cities to the rural areas to help educate the peasantry, which however does not understand their socialistic doctrines and has little use f or them. Lenin will later publish a paper critical of the narodniky f or their 'misguided romanticism'.

One of the f ounders of the short-lived Northern Russian Laborers Association (f ounded in 1878), the carpenter Stepan Khalturin, in 1880 becomes employed at the court of Alexander II. One year earlier, the NRLA has been disbanded by the authorities, upon which Khalturin joins the Narodnaya Volya ('The People's Will'), an underground socialist terror organization. He plants a bomb below the dining room at the Winter Palace, and the czar and his f amily only escape because their guest f or the evening happens to be late. Khalturin thereupon f lees to Moscow and later Odessa.

Another assassination attempt on czar Alexander II by Narodnaya Volya f ollows in 1881, and this time it is successf ul. The czar sits in a bullet-proof carriage he has been given by Napoleon III and survives the bomb thrown by the f irst assassin, but there are altogether three assassins armed with bombs in the crowd and as the czar leaves his carriage, the second attempt succeeds.

Ironically, Khalturin is executed under orders of czar Alexander III only one year later, af ter his involvement in the assassination of a police general, without being identif ied. He gives his captors a f ake name and they hang him not knowing that he is the man behind the 1880 assassination attempt on Alexander II.

Altogether f our assassination attempts were made on Alexander II during his reign, the f irst one in 1866 by the revolutionary Dimitry Karakozov of the Ishutin Society (so named af ter its f ounder Nikolai Ishutin, Karakozov's cousin) and the second one in 1879 by Alexander Soloviev, a f ormer student. The czar's was f ortunate as Soloviev proved very inept at handling a gun, missing in spite of getting of f f ive shots.

Ref ormist Czar Alexander II in 1870, the prime of his lif e. He emancipated the serf s, but his land ref orm f ailed to alleviate the economic misery of the peasants. He survived three attempts on his lif e, but the f orth one in 1881 succeeds.

(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Lenin would incidentally later prove a big f an of Khalturin, hanging his photograph next to that of Karl Marx in his of f ice. In 1887, a f atef ul assassination plot on Alexander II's successor czar Alexander III is f oiled. One of the f ive conspirators executed f or it is Lenin's then 21 year old elder brother Alexander Ulyanov. It seems highly likely that Lenin regarded his brother as a role model. Alexander III, a reactionary anti-semitic autocrat, surprisingly manages to die in his bed in 1894, and reportedly asks his son and successor czar Nikolai II to swear that he will retain the Russian monarchy's absolutism.

Early socialist revolutionary Stepan Khalturin in the late 1870's, about whom Soviet director Alexander Ivanovsky made a propaganda movie in 1925.

(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The Russo-Japanese War and the Revolution of 1905

Throughout 1903, Russia and Japan are negotiating over the status of Korea and Manchuria. Russia has leased Port Arthur, Talienwan and the surrounding waters f rom China to gain a warm water Pacif ic port, as Vladivostok can not be used during the winter. Meanwhile, Russian troops sent to Manchuria during the Boxer rebellion to ostensibly protect railway construction there, are kept hanging around. Japan wants to preserve its inf luence over Korea, regarding it as a vital security buf f er zone. Initially it seems that the two sides should be able to negotiate a settlement, as their positions are not very f ar apart – Russia is to retain its Manchurian presence, while Korea is to essentially become a Japanese protectorate – there are only dif f erences over details. However, Czar Nikolai II (whose of f icial title is 'Emperor and Autocrat over all the Russians') believes that by delaying the negotiations and driving Japan to declare war, he may be able to create an upsurge of Russian patriotism and nationalism in an ef f ort to suppress the increasingly evident revolutionary tendencies. Nikolai reportedly at f irst does not even expect Japan to attack – and in the event of such an attack, he is convinced that Russia will prevail. Both notions prove to be grave miscalculations. For one thing, Nikolai underestimates the logistical dif f iculties of waging war in the Russian f ar East, especially as the Trans-Siberian railway has yet to be f inished. Secondly, in a twist that f oreshadows the dif f iculties Russia will f ace in World War I, the Russian people turn out to be not exactly supportive of war. On the contrary, the war – and the f act that Russia is losing it - provokes an uprising.

Nikolai is suddenly f aced with a rising tide of demands f or the establishment of a constitutional monarchy. In 1901, the Socialist Revolutionary Party is established as the f ormal successor of the Narodniky movement, uniting a number of smaller parties and movements that have sprung up during the industrialization of Russia, with the so-called 'Neo-Narodniky' updating the movement's principles by incorporating Marxist concepts in the party's program. Despite its f or modern ears somewhat radical sounding name, the party is essentially a democratic socialist party. Three years earlier, in 1898, the less radically named Russian Social-Democratic Workers Party has been f ounded, alas, this is the party that will later split into the Bolshevik and Menshevik f actions and is f rom the beginning a revolutionary Marxist movement opposed to the democratic socialism represented by the Narodniky. This party is banned f rom the day of its f ounding, and all nine delegates present at its f irst congress are immediately arrested by the Okhrana, the Czarist secret police. In late 1904, during the war with Japan, a revolution begins with a number of strikes that soon mushroom. A huge demonstration of workers (an estimated 300,000 people), led by a certain Father Gapon (murdered by his comrades in 1906 under suspicion of working f or the Okhrana), who presides over a police-approved worker's organization, marches on the Winter Palace on January 22 1905 to deliver a petition to the czar (the petition demands better conditions f or workers, an end to the war with Japan and universal suf f rage). The soldiers guarding the palace open f ire on the demonstrators, resulting in hundreds of deaths (the exact number is disputed, ranging f rom the of f icially admitted 96 dead to the 4,000 claimed by the demonstrators, but several hundred up to 1,000 seem likely). This event becomes known as 'Bloody Sunday'.

Shortly thereaf ter Nikolai's uncle, the Grand Duke Sergei Alekandrovich is assassinated, and the czar f inally takes steps in early February of 1905 to pacif y some of the demands f or more representation, dismissing the minister of the interior Pyotr Svyatopolk-Mirskii (both of whose predecessors, Spyagin and von Plehve have been assassinated by socialist revolutionaries, thus our contention that this too was a high risk post in the Russian empire at the time), loosening censorship laws and acceding to the f ormation of the Duma (the Russian parliament), which however is at f irst only intended to f unction as an advisory body.

When it becomes known how little ground the czar has given in negotiations, even more unrest breaks out. There are peasant uprisings, strikes of workers and mutinies of soldiers all over the empire. Armed suppression of uprisings in places as f ar apart as Poland, Lithuania, Finland, the Muslim South and a mutiny of navy personnel in the Black Sea (the f amous Potemkin mutiny) bring about many more deaths.

In St. Petersburg, the f irst Worker's Soviet (the term 'soviet' can be loosely translated as 'board' or 'advisory board') is f ounded, led by none other than Lev Bronstein, alias Leon Trotsky, and organizes strikes in hundreds of f actories. The Russian empire f inds itself in a deep crisis.

At that point, the f ormer Russian director of railway af f airs in the ministry of f inance, and f reshly invested count Sergei Witte, who has been Russia's negotiator with Japan f ollowing the Russo- Japanese war and who is widely admired f or having successf ully navigated these negotiations in Russia's f avor (in essence, in spite of losing the war, Russia makes almost no concessions to gain the peace), is appointed chairman of the Council of Minsters. He presents the czar with the 'October manif esto', which demands much more f ar-reaching concessions (f reedom of religion, speech, association and assembly, f ormation of political parties, universal male suf f rage and a more powerf ul State Duma). The czar accedes to these demands af ter mulling them over f or three days, upon realizing that political concessions are necessary if he wants to bring the unrest under control. Nonetheless, uprisings and strikes continue throughout the empire until December of 1905, but the remaining outbreaks of resistance are brutally suppressed by military means.

The Duma is constituted as a legislative and advisory body with oversight powers, but Nikolai stops well short of instituting a f ull constitutional monarchy. Just as he has promised to his f ather, he is not willing to give up his f unction as 'emperor and autocrat' – in f act, in 1906 the so-called 'Fundamental Law' inter alia bestows upon him the new title of 'Supreme Autocrat' (presumably so as to dispel all doubts about who is who in the zoo), giving him f ull control over f oreign policy, the executive, the church and the armed f orces.

The Duma becomes the lower house of parliament, with the State Council the upper house (half of the State Council's members are appointed by the czar, the other half elected f rom various regions and sections of societies all of which have a f ixed number of seats they may elect). Legislation has to be approved by both chambers and the czar, who retains the 'f inal word'.

The Imperial Duma goes through f our iterations, the f irst two of which the czar dissolves. The f irst election is boycotted by the Socialist parties, but they abandon the boycott and gain seats in the second Duma. Under prime minister Piotr Stolypin, the second Duma is dissolved af ter he accuses the socialist parties of planning an armed revolution and demands the expulsion of their deputies – a demand which the Duma ref uses to bow to. The third Duma then sees a change in electoral law with the votes of landowners and nobility getting more weight over the votes of peasantry and workers. It is widely known as the 'Duma of Lords and Lackeys', but lasts a f ull term. The f ourth Duma at f irst dissolves itself with the advent of World War I, but unhappy with Nikolai's conduct of the war, demands reinstatement in 1915, which the czar grants. The so-called 'Progressivist Bloc' of several parties is f ormed, a staunchly pro- war f action.

Stolypin's house is f irebombed in 1906 and he is assassinated in 1911 in the Kiev opera house, proving that the post of prime minister is also f raught with considerable risk.

Sergei Witte, who is f orced to resign f rom his post of chairman of the Council of Ministers when the implementation of the October Manif esto f ails to immediately end the unrest, continues to work as a member of the State Council. On the eve of World War I, he warns that Russia must stay out of the conf lict and predicts a great calamity if it doesn't. His warnings remain unheeded and he dies shortly thereaf ter on 13 March 1915.

Witte and Stolypin are nowadays widely credited as the architects of Russia's economic revival both prior (in the 1890's) and f ollowing the 1905 revolution. Witte was a specialist f or industrial development and Stolypin replaced the f ailed land ref orms begun under Alexander II with a f ar more workable solution, f inally alleviating some of the poverty of the rural masses.

The unlucky last Czar of the Russian Empire, Nikolai II, the 'Supreme Autocrat'. Today he is considered a 'passion-bearer' by the Orthodox church, a kind of lower level saint/martyr.

(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Count Sergei Witte, director of the Russian railway administration in the 1890's, later successf ul negotiator at the peace conf erence in Portsmouth with Japan and appointed chairman of the Council of Ministers in 1905, when he presents the 'October Manif esto' to the czar. He played an important part in the early ef f orts at industrialization of Russia.

(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Imperial Russia's third prime minister, Pyotr Stolypin. He Imperial Russia's third prime minister, Pyotr Stolypin. He quells unrest and opposition with an iron f ist, but also succeeds in promoting agrarian ref orm by consolidating plots and arranging f or banking f acilities f or peasants. In 1911, he is assassinated during an opera perf ormance in Kiev at age 49.

(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

A picture of the f irst Worker's Soviet in St. Petersburg in the autumn of 1905. Lev Davidovich Bronstein, better known under his alias Leo Trotsky, is f orth f rom the lef t in the middle row. He is arrested and put on trial in 1906.

(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Trotsky in 1905, awaiting trial f or instigating strikes in St. Petersburg.

(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The End of Nikolai II's Reign

Russia's entrance into World War I did indeed bring the country to grief , just as Witte predicted. Unf ortunately f or Russia, the German generals on the Eastern Front prove more adept than their colleagues engaging in trench warf are in France. Russia loses a number of decisive battles, and soon war-weariness spreads among both soldiers and private citizens. In the spring of 1917, another revolution rocks the nation, this time involving the mutiny of soldiers on a f ar grander scale than in 1905. In early March it becomes clear that Nikolai no longer possesses any authority. A harsh winter and f ood shortages brought on by the war (many peasants have been draf ted as soldiers) produce chaotic conditions in Petrograd (the renamed St. Petersburg), with vast crowds of demonstrators and looters roaming the streets. roaming the streets.

Nikolai, who is at the f ront, is inf ormed that things are unruly, but essentially under control and orders that the demonstrators be harshly dealt with. The badly equipped Petrograd garrison, consisting mainly of untrained peasants and wounded of f icers returned f rom the f ront, initially f ires at the crowds, managing to disperse them af ter an estimated 200 people have been killed. Then however one regiment af ter another mutinies and the situation can no longer be controlled. Members of the Duma f orm a provisional government, but likewise f ail to restore order. It is decided that Nikolai has to abdicate – f aced with the risk of civil war, the czar gives in and his rule ends. Since his son Alexei is stricken with hemophilia, he decides to abdicate in f avor of his brother Grand Duke Michail, who in turn ref uses to accede to the throne prior to the election of a constitutional assembly and a ref erendum over the f uture of the monarchy – evidently the job of Russian czar has become quite a hot potato at that point.

The provisional government under Kerensky then rules until the advent of the Bolshevik revolution in November of 1917 (it is known as the 'October revolution' due to the use of the Julian instead of the Gregorian calendar in Russia at the time – in the modern calendar, 7 November 1917 is the correct date of the communist putsch). The Kerensky government's biggest mistake is that it wants to continue the war. The Russian people are war-weary, and the Bolsheviks are the only major political f action to demand an immediate end to Russia's participation in World War I. This central demand brings them not only widespread support in Russia, but also f inancial and logistical help f rom the government of German emperor Wilhelm. Lenin's revolution is in large part made possible by the Germans, who want to be able to withdraw their troops f rom the Eastern f ront to deploy them in the war theater in France. The German attempt to help along the victory of the Bolsheviks eventually succeeds beyond the Germans' wildest imaginations. They probably don't f ully realize what they are helping to spawn.

Next: Lenin returns to Russia, and the Bolshevik revolution begins.