A Concise History of the Russian Revolution

A Concise History of the Russian Revolution by Richard Pipes, Vintage, 2011.

Ulyanov

Nikolai Lenin was born Vladimir Ilich Ulianov in April 1870 in Simbirsk. His older brother Alexander was executed in 1887 for plotting to assassinate Tsar Nicholas II. Lenin attended the University of Kazan. He was not initially interested in politics, but the politically-minded students drew him in because his brother had been political. Lenin was expelled from the university for participating in a protest rally. Pipes asserts that Lenin was motivated primarily by hatred, starting with his resentment for this expulsion.

Bolsheviks

The full name of the Social-Democrats was the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. It emerged during 1890s and was opposed to the terrorism of the anarchists. In 1912 it split into Mensheviks (minority) and Bolsheviks (majority). The Mensheviks were lead by Julius Martov. The Mensheviks concentrated on organizing workers and supported themselves with membership dues. Lenin was the founder and leader of the Bolshevik faction in the Social Democratic Party. The Bolsheviks used bank robberies to finance themselves. The Bolsheviks eventually became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Vanguard

In 1893, Lenin moved to St. Petersburg (Petrograd), where he was disappointed in its workers because of their lack of interest in politics. The Tsar’s government exiled Lenin to Siberia for three years (1897 − 1900) for political activity. After being released, he left Russia, and spent many years in exile in western Europe. In 1902 Lenin published a book called, What Is to Be Done? In this book, Lenin described the need for a class of professional revolutionaries who acted on the behalf of the workers.  Lenin said that the factory workers were too busy working to have time to plot a revolution. Lenin also had contempt for the workers. He thought that they were too stupid to know their own interests. so the task of revolution would fall to a vanguard of full-time revolutionary intellectuals.

Petrograd Soviet

In early 1917, the Mensheviks helped organize the Central Worker’s Group, which would become the Petrograd Soviet on February 28, 1917. Its members included both factory workers and soldiers. The Petrograd Soviet was more radical than the Duma.

Duma

Only 169 people were killed in the February 1917 revolution that replaced the Tsar with with the Duma. The February 1917 revolution was a genuine revolution. Its Provisional Government had the support of the people. By contrast, the so-called October 1917 Revolution (described below) was not a genuine revolution, but rather a coup d’état by the Bolsheviks.

German Intervention

Parvus was the pseudonym of the socialist revolutionary Alexander Helphand. After he got into trouble for his involvement in the 1905 Revolution, Parvus escaped to Germany. Parvus persuaded the German government to back Lenin and the Bolsheviks, because they would withdraw Russia from World War I and make a peace treaty with the Germans, independent of the Western Allies (Britain and France). The German diplomat Richard von Kühlmann also pushed Germany to support the Bolsheviks. In addition to giving the Bolsheviks financial support, the German government also put Lenin on a train to St. Petersburg in April 1917.

Expansion of Petrograd Soviet

In March 1917, the Petrograd Soviet expanded to included all of Russia, and renamed itself the All-Russian Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Its executive committee, the Ispolkom, renamed itself the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (CEC).  The CEC expanded to 72 members, including 23 Mensheviks, 22 Socialist-Revolutionaries, and 12 Bolsheviks. The CEC had no representatives from peasant organizations. The peasants had their own organization, called the Peasant Union.

Capture of the Winter Palace

On October 25, shortly before the Winter Palace was actually taken, and before the Second Congress of Soviets opened, Lenin, on the behalf of Milrevkom, issued a declaration that the Provisional Government had been deposed. Few soldiers defending the Winter Palace had the stomach to fight the Bolshevik soldiers, so the Bolshevik soldiers encountered little resistance when they entered the Winter Palace. Kerensky fled the Winter Palace disguised as a Serbian officer. The Bolsheviks arrested the cabinet of the Provisional Government at 2 a.m. on October 26, and put them in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Lenin's Machinations to Gain Power

Lenin knew that the Bolsheviks would be a small minority in the Second Congress of Soviets, whose meeting was scheduled for October 1917. This was because the vast majority of the Russian people were peasants, who did not support the Bolsheviks, a party representing (or rather pretending to represent) urban factory workers. So Lenin called for a Northern Regional Congress, and stacked its attendees in favor of the Bolsheviks and their allies, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. Lenin’s Northern Regional Congress became the Second Congress of Soviets.

Constituent Assembly

Elections were held for an All Russian Constituent Assembly during November 1917. The Socialist-Revolutionaries received 40 percent of the vote. The Bolsheviks received 24 percent of the vote. The Mensheviks received few votes, except in Georgia. The Constitutional-Democrats (Kadets) received 5 percent of the vote. The Kadets were outlawed by Lenin in late 1917. Yakov Mikhaylovich Sverdlov, Chairman of the Central Executive Committee, dissolved the Constituent Assembly during its first meeting in January, 1918. In its place the Bolsheviks convened the Third Congress of Soviets.

Famine

There was a famine in Russia and Ukraine during 1920-1921. Drought was exacerbated by a lack of stored grain from the previous harvest, due to earlier Bolshevik grain requisitions. There were epidemics of typhus, typhoid fever, cholera, and smallpox. Moscow denied the existence of the famine until July 1921. Before July 1921, the Bolsheviks prohibited peasants from leaving their villages and traveling by train in search of food. Herbert Hoover repurposed the American Relief Administration, which had helped post-WWI Europe, to help the Russian and Ukrainian peasants. In return for American help, Hoover demanded that the Bolsheviks release all American citizens held in Soviet prisons. Five million peasants died, but millions more would have died without help from the West.

Tambov Peasant Rebellion

The Tambov Rebellion was the largest of the peasant uprisings against the Bolsheviks. The Tambov Rebellion started mid-1920. It was a rebellion against government grain requisitions from the peasants. After grain requisitions, there remained only 25 kilograms of grain per year per person. Alexander Antonov was the leader of uprising, which numbered some 20-50 thousand partisans. General Mikhail Tukhachevskii and Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko (no relation to Alexander Antonov) suppressed the rebellion with brutality. The Bolsheviks executed any person who, when asked, refused to give their name. The Bolsheviks took the families of partisans hostage to force their fighters to surrender. The Bolshevik sent captured partisans to forced labor camps. The Bolsheviks deported the families and confiscated their farms. The Bolsheviks used poison gas to kill the partisans hiding in the forests.

Kronstadt Rebellion

Kronstadt was a naval fortress on Kotlin Island, twenty miles west of Petrograd. It was an Anarchist stronghold. There was a mutiny by sailors and workers in February 1921 in response to a reduction in the food ration. Mutineers wanted the right to buy food directly from the peasants. The rebellion was put down on March 17-18 by an assault of 50 thousand troops of the Red Army and the Cheka, lead by Leon Trotsky and Mikhail Tukhachevskii. The surviving mutineers who failed to escape to Finland were sent to forced labor camps.

New Economic Program

There was widespread rebellion against government restrictions on the freedom of the peasants to sell their harvest on the open market, rather than only to the government. Therefore, Lenin had to backtrack. In March 1921, Lenin introduced the New Economic Program (NEP), which suspended food requisitions. The NEP ended the Tambov Rebellion. Stalin ended the NEP in 1928-1929, and the freedom to sell grain was again under government restriction.

Russian Orthodox Church

In 1918, Patriarch Tikhon spoke out against the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks responded by looting many churches and killing many priests. The Bolsheviks required that the Orthodox Church hand in all objects of value to raise money to help the peasants during the famine of 1921. The Bolsheviks vilified the Russian Orthodox Church for hoarding their treasures and not doing more to help the starving peasants. There were trials against priests in April 1922 in Moscow and in June 1922 in Petrograd. The Bolsheviks killed 28 bishops and 1,215 Priests.