1 - Rex WADE
1 - Rex WADE
1 - Rex WADE
The autocracy
The Russian Revolution was, first, a political revolution that overthrew
the monarchy of Nicholas II and made the construction of a new gov-
ernmental system a central problem of the revolution. At the beginning
of the twentieth century Russia was the last major power of Europe in
which the monarch was an autocrat, his power unlimited by laws or insti-
tutions. Since at least the early nineteenth century the Russian tsars had
fought the increasing demands for political change. Then, in 1894, the
strong-willed Alexander III died unexpectedly, leaving an ill-prepared
Nicholas II as Emperor and Tsar of all the Russias.
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2 The Russian Revolution, 1917
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The coming of the revolution 3
a Extremely diverse rural systems existed in Russia: the landless agrarian laborers of the
Baltic regions, the relatively prosperous emigrants of West Siberia and German farmers
of the Volga, the nomadic herding cultures of Central Asia, the Cossack communities,
and others. Discussion in this work centers on the Russian and Ukrainian peasantry,
who made up a majority of the rural population, upon whom both government and
revolutionaries focused their attention, and who drove the peasant revolt of 1917.
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4 The Russian Revolution, 1917
which power and industry were increasingly linked. In the 1880s the gov-
ernment took steps to spur industrial development, augmenting efforts
of private entrepreneurs through tariffs, fiscal policies and direct invest-
ment. Russia enjoyed phenomenal growth. During the 1890s Russian
industrial growth rates averaged 7–8 percent annually, and for the period
1885–1914 industrial production increased by an average of 5.72 per-
cent annually, exceeding the American, British, and German rates for
those years. Percentage growth rates, however, told only part of the
story. While Russian iron smelting grew rapidly in percentage terms,
total output was still far below those same three countries. Moreover,
labor productivity grew only slowly and per capita income fell in the sec-
ond half of the nineteenth century compared with West European coun-
tries.3 Russia underwent an industrial revolution in the last three decades
of imperial Russia, but the economic picture could be seen in either
optimistic or pessimistic light, depending on how and against what one
measured.
Industrialization brought with it enormous strains on the society. Tar-
iffs, higher prices and higher taxes held down the standard of living of
an already poor population who had to wait for any future benefits it
might bring them. Sergei Witte, minister of finance from 1892 to 1903
and chief architect of the system, acknowledged the stresses in a secret
memorandum to Nicholas in 1899: while Russia was developing “an
industry of enormous size” to which the entire economy’s future was
tied, “Its services cost the country too dearly, and these excessive costs
have a destructive influence over the welfare of the population, partic-
ularly in agriculture.”4 Moreover, with industrialization came a social
transformation with enormous political implications. The old hierarchy
of legally defined estates (sosloviia) – noble, clergy, merchant, peasant,
and other – lost much of its meaning and was being replaced by a newer
social structure based on profession and economic function in the new
industrial age. This emerging class structure created identities and aspi-
rations that played a major role in the coming of the revolution and in its
outcome.
A key part of the new social structure was the industrial workforce.
This critically important class did not even exist as a classification under
the old estate system, which grouped them according to the estate from
which they had come, usually as peasants or one of the categories that
included urban lower classes such as artisans or day laborers. Despite
such outdated classifications the industrial workers were a very identifi-
able new class and several important features made them a potent revo-
lutionary force. One was the wretched condition in which they worked
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The coming of the revolution 5
and lived. The social tensions inherent in adjusting to the new urban
and factory conditions were great enough, but the terrible circumstances
under which the working class labored and lived made them even worse.
The factories offered long hours (twelve or more), low pay, unsafe con-
ditions, a harsh and degrading system of industrial discipline, and a
total absence of employment security or care if ill or injured. Housing
was overcrowded, unsanitary, and lacked privacy. Many workers lived
in barracks, some employing the “ever warm bed” system by which two
workers shared the same bunk, moving between it and their twelve- to
thirteen-hour shifts. Families often shared single rooms with other fami-
lies or single workers. The conditions of industry not only left them poor,
but also robbed them of personal dignity. Alcoholism was rampant, as
was disease. Their social-economic plight was reflected even in the dif-
ferences between the middle- and upper-class districts of the city center
with their paved streets, electric lights, and water system, and the outly-
ing workers’ districts where dirt (or mud) streets, kerosene lamps, and
filth and disease prevailed.
Efforts by workers and their champions from among the educated
classes to organize to improve their lives generally met repression by the
government. Indeed, government industrialization policies depended on
the economic advantages of cheap labor, of which there seemed an inex-
haustible supply. It reflected also the mentality of a ruling class accus-
tomed to thinking of poverty and hard labor as the natural condition of
peasants (as most workers were or had recently been). The government
failed to create an arena for labor organizing where workers could try to
redress their grievances through legal means. This contributed to politi-
cal radicalization. Because the regime mostly denied workers the right to
organize and pursue economic interests legally, they were forced to resort
to illegal actions and linkage with the revolutionary parties. The emerg-
ing working class was not merely a deeply aggrieved, growing segment of
the population, but one that increasingly saw a connection between the
political system and their own wretched condition.
An important feature of this new industrial working class was its con-
centration in a relatively small number of industrial centers, including
St. Petersburg and Moscow. This enhanced workers’ ability to have an
impact politically if they were organized. Within the cities the factories
provided a potent focus for organization and mobilization. This was rein-
forced by the fact that Russian factories tended to be much larger than
their Western counterparts. The industrial system brought them together
not only in the larger factory but also in smaller workshops and foundries
within it, giving them an inherent organizational structure. The factories
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6 The Russian Revolution, 1917
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The coming of the revolution 7
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8 The Russian Revolution, 1917
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The coming of the revolution 9
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10 The Russian Revolution, 1917
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The coming of the revolution 11
Soon after the socialist parties took form, new issues emerged that
divided them in the years before 1917 and influenced behavior during
the revolution. Two were especially significant for the history of the rev-
olution. One set of issues involved the debate over whether to abandon
underground revolutionary activity in favor of legal work and the closely
related question of relations with the liberal parties and the middle classes
they were assumed to represent. This became especially important with
the legalization of political parties after the Revolution of 1905 and was
a major source of division among Mensheviks and between Mensheviks
and Bolsheviks. The SRs were also torn by these issues, which produced
several small splinter parties as well as divisions within the SR Party.
Lenin turned the Bolshevik Party resolutely against cooperation with lib-
erals and toward the idea of moving swiftly through revolutionary stages
to a “proletarian” revolution, while some Mensheviks and SRs accepted
the importance of legal political work and even cooperation with liberals
in the early stage of the revolutionary transformation. This dispute helped
shape the image of the Mensheviks as the more moderate wing of social
democracy and the Bolsheviks as the more radical and uncompromising.
It also had important implications for the question of cooperation with
liberals and of “coalition” governments in 1917.
The second major controversy to divide socialists was the appropriate
response toward national defense in World War I. Most European social-
ists, but only a minority of Russian socialists, supported their countries’
war efforts and were dubbed “Defensists.” Russian Defensists stressed
solidarity with the Western democracies and defense against German
domination. Other socialists, including most Russian socialists, refused
to support their national war efforts, repudiated the war as an imperialist
venture and called for socialist unity to find a way to end it; they came to
be called Internationalists. The Defensist versus Internationalist contro-
versy split all the Russian revolutionary parties. Although often obscured
by the continued use of party labels, this Defensist–Internationalist align-
ment was fundamental. It often was more important than party affilia-
tions and carried into and became central to the politics of 1917.
Alongside the emergence of the revolutionary socialist parties, a lib-
eral and reformist political movement developed in the early twentieth
century. Drawing upon the ideas of West European liberalism and the
emergence of a larger urban professional and middle class, liberalism
belatedly took hold in Russia. It emphasized constitutionalism, parlia-
mentary government, rule of law, and civil rights, within either a con-
stitutional monarchy or a republic. It also stressed the importance of
major social and economic reform programs, but rejected both socialism
and the radical intelligentsia’s traditional call for sweeping revolution.
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12 The Russian Revolution, 1917
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The coming of the revolution 13
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14 The Russian Revolution, 1917
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The coming of the revolution 15
radical left wing (most socialist parties officially boycotted the elections).
New elections for the second Duma did indeed alter its composition, but
not in the way the government had hoped. The socialist parties entered
the elections in force and made impressive gains at the expense of the lib-
erals, while conservatives did not gain; the second Duma was politically
well to the left of the first. When it opened on March 6, 1907, bitter con-
flict quickly proved that there were no grounds for fruitful work between
the radicalized Duma and the ever more resistant and ultraconservative
government.
The government now took drastic steps under the energetic leadership
of the newly appointed minister-president, Peter Stolypin. In June he had
Nicholas again dissolve the Duma and call new elections. The govern-
ment then took advantage of a provision in the Fundamental Laws under
which the government could pass laws while the Duma was not in ses-
sion, but which then required approval by the Duma at its next session.
Using this, Stolypin changed the electoral system to effectively disenfran-
chise most of the population through a complex system of indirect and
unequal voting that gave large landowners and wealthy individuals vastly
disproportionate strength. One percent of the population now elected
a majority of the Duma. By this maneuver Stolypin produced a third
Duma with a conservative majority which then sanctioned the changes
and worked with the government. The Duma retained some author-
ity, but the predominance of power clearly rested with Nicholas and his
ministers.
The strike at the Duma had profound consequences for revolution in
Russia. First, the prospects for meeting the political, social, and eco-
nomic aspirations of Russian society peacefully and through measured
change waned, while the likelihood of a new revolution increased dramat-
ically. Second, these actions underscored the extent to which Nicholas
still saw himself as an autocrat rather than as a constitutional monarch,
thus keeping alive a broad popular belief in the necessity of revolution.
Third, the unrepresentative nature of the transformed Duma meant that,
although the Duma leaders could play a significant role in the February
Revolution, the Duma would be unsuitable as the country’s government
after the February Revolution, thus launching Russia on a more radical
and uncertain political path than it might have had the Duma remained
more representative.
While Nicholas’ government successfully manipulated the Duma to
avoid the immediate political threat to its authority, it was unsuccess-
ful in reducing economic and social problems. The government did,
to its credit, make an imaginative effort to deal with peasant discon-
tent. Stolypin undertook to break up the traditional peasant communal
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16 The Russian Revolution, 1917
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The coming of the revolution 17
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18 The Russian Revolution, 1917
c During this early patriotic surge the capital’s name was changed from the Germanic
sounding St. Petersburg to the Russian Petrograd, which remained its name for 1914–24
and will be used for the rest of this book.
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The coming of the revolution 19
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20 The Russian Revolution, 1917
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The coming of the revolution 21
d By the end of 1916 the idea of a pervasive pro-German treason at the highest levels had
permeated all strata of society as an explanation for defeats and government mismanage-
ment. Rumors circulated of “German officers” (many Russian noble families and officers
had German names, mostly dating from the eighteenth-century annexation of the Baltic
region) deliberately sending Russian peasant soldiers to their deaths. Empress Alexandra
was of German birth, and several court and government officials had German names,
which gave rise to rumors of pro-German sentiment, even betrayal, at the highest level.
By 1916 even some aristocrats referred to Alexandra as “the German woman.” These
charges were untrue. Belief in a German hand behind Russia’s political and military
problems continued to affect politics through the year 1917, long after the overthrow of
the Romanovs, but with different groups now identified as the “German agents.”
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22 The Russian Revolution, 1917
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The coming of the revolution 23
the government drafted fifteen million men and diverted resources, pro-
duction, and transport to war needs. This deprived the population of
necessary manufactured goods and stimulated inflation. The railroad sys-
tem, already suffering from rolling stock shortages in 1914, was in near
collapse by late 1916 and unable to move adequate amounts of industrial
or civilian goods. By late 1916 the population suffered from a shortage
of goods of “prime necessity” while food shortages and rationing in the
major cities and even in parts of the countryside added to the problems.
A police agent wrote that “Resentment is felt worse in large families,
where children are starving in the most literal sense of the word.”24
The shortages of food and other goods produced riots as early as 1915,
riots which sometimes took on political dimensions when crowds abused
and threw rocks at police, who were the visible daily representation of the
tsarist government. Soldiers’ wives, the soldatki, had a special sense of
entitlement because their husbands were at the front, and were particu-
larly active in food disorders across Russia. In July 1916 rioting soldiers’
wives in the Don Cossack territory tore down the tsar’s portrait and tram-
pled it while pillaging a local merchant’s shop. More ominously for the
regime, Cossacks restrained an official in the Don territory who threat-
ened Cossack wives during food riots in August 1916 – asserting that
he had no right to threaten women whose husbands were at the front.25
These Cossack attitudes foreshadowed soldier behavior in February 1917
toward demonstrators.e Women predominated in these goods riots, and
the February Revolution would begin in no small part out of a women
workers’ protest demanding bread, while the food supply and other eco-
nomic dislocations continued to be a serious source of popular discontent
throughout the revolution.
Life in the cities, especially Petrograd, became ever harder. Millions
of refugees from the western regions flooded in. They, plus the influx of
new workers for expanding industry and of soldiers into the garrisons,
overtaxed housing and municipal services, which worsened the wretched
prewar conditions for the lower classes. By winter 1916–17 a serious fuel
shortage confronted the populace. A report of February 1917 stated that
in Petrograd apartments the temperature rarely rose above 52–59 degrees
Fahrenheit (9–12°Celsius), while in many public and work places it was
even lower, about 44–50 degrees Fahrenheit (6–8°Celsius).26 Police in
e Cossacks were a special military caste who received certain legal and economic privileges
in return for military obligations, mostly as cavalry. Because of their privileges, military
spirit and traditional contempt for peasants and townsmen, they had come to be regarded
as reliable supporters of the monarchy and were often used to suppress demonstrations.
Hence their actions here and in February 1917 had special significance, which the
population immediately recognized.
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24 The Russian Revolution, 1917
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The coming of the revolution 25
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26 The Russian Revolution, 1917
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The coming of the revolution 27
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