The Russian Revolution (Part-1)

Tsar Nicholas II in the White Hall of the Winter palace. St Petersburg, 1900

In one of the least industralised of European states this situation was reversed Socialists took over the government in Russia through the October Revolution of 1917. The fall of monarchy in February 1917 and the events of October are normally called Russian Revolution.

The Russian Empire in 1914

In 1914, Tsar Nicholas II ruled Russia and its empire. Besides the territory around Moscow, the Russian empire included current-day Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, parts of Poland, Ukraine and Belarus. It stretched to the Pacific and comprised today’s central Asian states as well as Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The majority religion was Russian orthodox church – but the empire also included Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and Buddhists.

Europe in 1914.

Economy and Society

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the vast majority of Russia people were agriculturists. Above 85 percent of Russian population earned their living from agriculture. This proportion was higher than in most European countries. For instance, France and Germany the proportion was between 40 percent and 50 percent. In the empire, cultivators produced for the market as well as for their own needs and Russia was a major exporter of grain.

Unemployed peasants in pre-war St Petersburg.

Industry was found in pockets. Prominent industrial areas were St Petersburg and Moscow. Craftsmen undertook much of the production, but large factories existed alongside crafts workshops. Many factories were set up in the 1890, when Russia railway network was extended, and foreign investment in industry increased. Coal production doubled and iron and steel output quadrupled. By the 1900, in some areas factory workers and craftsmen were almost equal in number.

Most industry was the private property of industrialists. Government supervised large factories to ensure minimum wages and limited hours work. But factory inspectors could not prevent rules being broken. In crafts units and small workshops, the working days was sometimes 15 hours, compared with 10 to 12 hours in factories, accommodation varied from rooms to dormitories.

Workers sleeping in bunkers in a dormitory in pre revolutionary Russia.

Workers were a divided social group. Some had strong links with the villages from which they came. Others had settled in cities permanently. Workers were divided by skill. A metalworker of St. Petersburg recalled,’ Metalworkers considered themselves aristocrats among other workers. Their occupations demanded more training and skill…’. Women made up 31 percent of the factory labour force by 1914, but they paid less than men (between half and three-quarters of a men wage). Divisions among workers showed themselves in dress and manners too. Some workers formed associations to help members in times of unemployment or financial hardship but such associations were few.

Despite divisions, workers did unite to strike work (stop work) when they disagreed with employers about dismissals or work conditions. These strikes took place frequently in the textile industry during 1896-1897, and in the metal industry during 1902.

The countryside, peasants cultivated most of the land. But the nobility, the crown and the Orthodox Church owned large properties. Like workers, peasants too were divided, they were also deeply religious. But except in a few cases, they had no respect for the nobility. Nobles got their power and position through their services to the Tsar, not through local popularity. This was unlike France where, during the French Revolution in Brittany, peasants respected nobles and fought for them. Frequently, they refused to pay rent and even murdered landlords. In 1902, this occurred on a large scale in south Russia. And in 1905, such incidents took place all over Russia.

Russian peasants were different form other European peasants in another way. They pooled their land together periodically and their commune (mir) divided it according to the needs of individual families.

Socialism in Russia

All political parties were illegal in Russia before 1914. The Russian Social Democratic Workers Party was founded in 1898 by socialists who respected Marx’s ideas. However, because of government policing, it had to operate as an illegal organization. It set up a newspaper, mobilized workers and organized strikes.

Some Russian socialists felt that the Russian peasant custom of dividing land periodically made them natural socialists. So, peasants, not workers, would be the main force of the revolution, and Russia could become socialist more quickly than other countries. Socialists were active in the countryside through the late nineteenth century. They formed the Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1900. This party struggled for peasant’s rights and demanded that land belonging to nobles be transferred to peasants. Social Democrats disagreed with Socialist Revolutionaries about peasants. Lenin Felt that peasants were not one united group. Some were poor and others rich, some worked as laborers while others were capitalists who employed workers. Given this ‘differentiation’ within them, they could not all be part of a socialist movement.

The party was divided over the strategy of organization. Vladimir Lenin (who led the Bolshevik group) thought that in a repressive society like Tsarist Russia the party should be disciplined and should control the number and quality of its members. Others (Mensheviks) thought that the party should be open to all (as in Germany).

A Turbulent Time: The 1905 Revolution

Russia was an autocracy. Unlike other European rulers, even at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Tsar was not subject to parliament. Liberals in Russia campaigned to end this state of affairs. Together with the Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries, they worked with peasants and workers during the revolution of 1905 to demand a constitution. They were supported in the empire by nationalists (in Poland for instance) and in Muslim dominated areas by jadidists who wanted modernized Islam to lead their societies.

The year 1904 was a particularly bad one for Russian workers. Prices of essential goods rose so quickly that real wages declined by 20 percent. The membership of workers associations rose dramatically. When four members of the Assembly of Russian Workers, which had been formed in 1904, were dismissed at the Putilov Iron Works, there was a call for industrial action. Over the next few days over 10,000 workers in St Petersburg went on strike demanding a reduction in the working day to eight hours, an increase in wages and improvement in working conditions.

When the procession of workers led by Father Gapon reached the Winter Palace it was attacked by the police and the Cossacks. Over 100 workers were killed and about 300 wounded. The incident, known as Bloody Sunday, started a series of events that become known as the 1905 Revolution. Strikes took place all over the country and universities closed down when student bodies staged walkouts, complaining about the lack of civil liberties. Lawyers, doctors, engineers and other middle-class workers established the Union of Unions and demanded a constituent assembly.

During the 1905 Revolution, the Tsar allowed the creation of an elected consultative Parliament or Duma. For a brief while during the revolution, there existed a large number of trade unions and factory committees made up of factory workers. After 1905, most committees and unions worked unofficially, since they were declared illegal. Severe restrictions were placed on political activity. The Tsar dismissed the first Duma within 75 days and the re-elected second Duma within three months. He did not want any questioning of his authority or any reduction in his power. He changed the voting laws and packed the third Duma with conservative politicians. Liberals and revolutionaries were kept out.

The First World War and the Russian Empire

In 1914, war broke out between two European alliances – Germany, Austria and Turkey (The Central powers) and France, Britain and Russia (later Italy and Romania). Each country had a global empire and the war was fought outside Europe as well as in Europe. This was the First World War.

In Russia, the war was initially popular and people rallied around Tsar Nicholas II. As the war continued, though, the Tsar refused to consult the main parties in the Duma. Support wore thin. Anti-German sentiments ran high, as can be seen in the renaming of St. Petersburg – a German name – as Petrograd. The Tsarina Alexandra’s German origins and poor advisers, especially a monk called Rasputin, made the autocracy unpopular.

The First World War on the ‘eastern front’ differed from that on the ‘western front’. In the west, armies fought from trenches stretched along eastern France. In the east, armies moved a good deal and fought battles leaving large casualties. Defeats were shocking and demoralizing. Russia armies lost badly in Germany and Austria between 1914 and 1916. There were over 7 million casualties by 1917. As they retreated, the Russian army destroyed crops and buildings to prevent the enemy from being able to live off the land. The destruction of crops and buildings led to over 3 million refugees in Russia. The situation discredited the government and the Tsar. Soldiers did not wish to fight such a war.

Russian soldiers during the First World War.

The war also has a severe impact on industry. Russia own industries were few in number and the country was cut off from other suppliers of industrial goods by German control of the Baltic Sea. Industrial equipment disintegrated more rapidly in Russia than elsewhere in Europe. By 1916, railway lines began to break down. Able-bodied men were called up to the war. As a result, there were labour shortages and small workshops producing essentials were shut down. Large supplies of grain were sent to feed the army. For the people in the cities, bread and flour became scare. By the winter of 1916, riots at bread shops were commen.