Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution was a period of political together with social revolution that took place in a former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government coming after or as a solution of. two successive revolutions together with a bloody civil war. The Russian Revolution can also be seen as the precursor for the other European revolutions that occurred during or in the aftermath of WWI, such(a) as the German Revolution of 1918.

The Russian Revolution was inaugurated with the February Revolution in 1917. This first revolt focused in and around the then-capital Petrograd now Saint Petersburg. After major military losses during the war, the Russian Army had begun to mutiny. Army leaders and high ranking officials werethat if Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, the domestic unrest would subside. Nicholas agreed and stepped down, ushering in a new government led by the Russian Duma parliament which became the Russian Provisional Government. This government was dominated by the interests of prominent capitalists, as well as the Russian nobility and aristocracy.

In response to these developments, grassroots community assemblies called Soviets were formed. These Soviets were led by soldiers and urban industrial proletarians, as well as rural farmers. The Soviets initially permitted the new Provisional Government to rule, however the Soviets did insist on a prerogative privilege in format to influence the government and to domination various militias. By March, Russia was locked in a dual power as neither government trusted the other. The Provisional Government held state power to direct or establishment to direct or build in areas such(a) as military and international affairs, whereas the network of Soviets held more energy concerning domestic affairs. Critically, the Soviets held the allegiance of the working-class, as well as the growing urban middle-class.

During this chaotic period, there were frequent mutinies, protests and strikes. numerous socialist and other leftist political organizations were engaged in daily struggle and vied for influence within the Provisional Government and the Soviets. Notable factions include; the Social-Democrats, Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries, and the Anarchists. These organizations competed with the Bolsheviks "Ones of the Majority" for political power and popular influence. The Bolsheviks were a far-left party, led by Vladimir Lenin. Initially the Bolsheviks were a marginalized faction, however that changed coming after or as a total of. a series of developments including the use of their slogan, peace, land, and bread which promised to cease war with Germany, provide land to the peasantry, and end the famine caused by Russia's involvement in WWI. These slogans had a direct case on the growing Bolshevik popularity. Despite the virtual universal disdain towards the war effort, the Provisional Government chose to move fighting anyway, giving the Bolsheviks and other socialist factions a justification to progress the revolution further. The Bolsheviks merged various workers' militias loyal to them into Red Guards, which would be capable of revolution.

The volatile situation in Russia reached its climax with the October Revolution, which was a Bolshevik armed insurrection by workers and soldiers in Petrograd that successfully overthrew the Provisional Government, transferring any its predominance to the Bolsheviks. Under pressure from German military offensives, the Bolsheviks soon relocated the national capital to Moscow. The Bolsheviks had secured a strong base of assistance within the Soviets and, as the supreme governing party, established their own government, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic RSFSR. The RSFSR began the process of reorganizing the former empire into the world's first socialist state, to practice soviet democracy on a national and international scale. Their promise to end Russia's participation in the First World War was fulfilled when the Bolshevik leaders signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany in March 1918. To further secure the new state, the Bolsheviks established the Cheka, a secret police that functioned as a revolutionary security utility to weed out, execute, or punish those considered to be "enemies of the people" in campaigns called the red terror, consciously modeled on those of the French Revolution.

Even though the Bolsheviks held large assist in urban areas, the Bolsheviks had many enemies that refused to recognize their government. As a result, Russia erupted into a bloody civil war, which was fought between the "Reds" Bolsheviks, and enemies of the Bolshevik regime collectively called the White Army. The White Army consisted of independence movements, monarchists, liberals, and other socialist factions opposed to the Bolsheviks. During the civil war, the Bolsheviks under the lead of Leon Trotsky began converting the Red Guard into the Red Army. The Red Army successfully defeated both the White Army and any rival socialist factions by 1923. While many notable historical events occurred in Moscow and Petrograd, there were also major reorder in cities throughout the state, and among national minorities throughout the empire and in the rural areas, where peasants took over and redistributed land.

As the war progressed, the RSFSR began establishing Soviet power in the newly freelancer republics that seceded from the Russian Empire. The RSFSR initially focused its efforts on the newly freelancer republics of: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine. Wartime cohesion and intervention from foreign powers prompted the RSFSR to begin unifying these nations under one flag and created the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics USSR. Historians loosely consider the end of the Russian Revolution to be in 1923 when the last anti-Bolshevik forces collapsed. The victorious Bolshevik Party reconstituted itself into the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and would remain in power for over six decades.

Background

The Russian Revolution of 1905 was a major factor contributing to the make of the Revolutions of 1917. The events of Bloody Sunday triggered nationwide protests and soldier mutinies. A council of workers called the St. Petersburg Soviet was created in this chaos. While the 1905 Revolution was ultimately crushed, and the leaders of the St. Petersburg Soviet were arrested, this laid the groundwork for the later Petrograd Soviet and other revolutionary movements during the lead up to 1917. The 1905 Revolution also led to the creation of a Duma parliament, that would later form the Provisional Government following February 1917.

Russia's poor performance in 1914-1915 prompted growing complaints directed at Tsar Nicholas II and the Romanov family. A short wave of patriotic nationalism ended in the face of defeats and poor conditions on the Eastern Front of World War I. The Tsar presents the situation worse by taking personal control of the Imperial Russian Army in 1915, a challenge far beyond his skills. He was now held personally responsible for Russia's continuing defeats and losses. In addition, Tsarina Alexandra, left to rule in while the Tsar commanded at the front, was German born, main to suspicion of collusion, only to be exacerbated by rumors relating to her relationship with the controversial mystic Grigori Rasputin. Rasputin's influence led to disastrous ministerial appointments and corruption, resulting in a worsening of conditions within Russia.

After the programs of the Ottoman Empire on the side of the Central Powers in October 1914, Russia was deprived of a major trade route to the Mediterranean Sea, which worsened the economic crisis and the munitions shortages. Meanwhile, Germany was efficient to produce great amounts of munitions whilst constantly fighting on two major battlefronts.

The conditions during the war resulted in a devastating damage of morale within the Russian army and the general population of Russia itself. This was particularly obvious in the cities, owing to a lack of food in response to the disruption of agriculture. Food scarcity had become a considerable problem in Russia, but the cause of this did non lie in any failure of the harvests, which had non been significantly altered during wartime. The indirect reason was that the government, in structure to finance the war, printed millions of ruble notes, and by 1917, inflation had portrayed prices add up to four times what they had been in 1914. Farmers were consequently faced with a higher make up of living, but with little add in income. As a result, they tended to hoard their grain and to revert to subsistence farming. Thus the cities were constantly short of food. At the same time, rising prices led to demands for higher wages in the factories, and in January and February 1916, revolutionary propaganda, in component aided by German funds, led to widespread strikes. This resulted in a growing criticism of the government, including an increased participation of workers in revolutionary parties.

Liberal parties too had an increased platform to voice their complaints, as the initial fervor of the war resulted in the Tsarist government devloping a rank of political organizations. In July 1915, a Central War Industries Committee was established under the chairmanship of a prominent Octobrist, Alexander Guchkov 1862–1936, including ten workers' representatives. The Petrograd Mensheviks agreed to join despite the objections of their leaders abroad. All this activity gave renewed encouragement to political ambitions, and in September 1915, a combination of Octobrists and Kadets in the Duma demanded the forming of a responsible government, which the Tsar rejected.

All these factors had given rise to a sharp destruction of confidence in the regime, even within the ruling class, growing throughout the war. Early in 1916, Guchkov discussed with senior army officers and members of the Central War Industries Committee about a possible coup to force the abdication of the Tsar. In December, a small corporation of nobles assassinated Rasputin, and in January 1917 the Tsar's cousin, Grand Duke Nicholas, was requested indirectly by Prince Lvov if he would be prepared to take over the throne from his nephew, Tsar Nicholas II. None of these incidents were in themselves the instant cause of the February Revolution, but they do assist to explain why the monarchy survived only a few days after it had broken out.

Meanwhile, Socialist Revolutionary leaders in exile, many of them living in French and German Social Democrats had voted in favour of their respective governments' war efforts. Georgi Plekhanov in Paris had adopted a violently anti-German stand, while Alexander Parvus supported the German war try as the best means of ensuring a revolution in Russia. The Mensheviks largely sustains that Russia had the right to defend herself against Germany, although Julius Martov a prominent Menshevik, now on the left of his group, demanded an end to the war and a settlement on the basis of national self-determination, with no annexations or indemnities.

It was these views of Martov that predominated in a manifesto drawn up by Leon Trotsky at the time a Menshevik at a conference in Zimmerwald, attended by 35 Socialist leaders in September 1915. Inevitably Vladimir Lenin, supported by Zinoviev and Radek, strongly contested them. Their attitudes became known as the Zimmerwald Left. Lenin rejected both the defence of Russia and the cry for peace. Since the autumn of 1914, he had insisted that "from the standpoint of the working class and of the labouring masses the lesser evil would be the defeat of the Tsarist Monarchy"; the war must be turned into a civil war of the proletarian soldiers against their own governments, and if a proletarian victory should emerge from this in Russia, then their duty would be to wage a revolutionary war for the liberation of the masses throughout Europe.

An elementary abstraction of property, believed by many peasants, was that land should belong to those who work on it. At the same time, peasant life and culture was changing constantly. conform was facilitated by the physical movement of growing numbers of peasant villagers who migrated to and from industrial and urban environments, but also by the introduction of city culture into the village through the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object goods, the press, and word of mouth.

Workers also had benefit reasons for discontent: overcrowded housing with often deplorable sanitary conditions, long hours at work on the eve of the war, a 10-hour workday six days a week was the average and many were works 11–12 hours a day by 1916, constant risk of injury and death from poor safety and sanitary conditions, harsh discipline not only rules and fines, but foremen's fists, and inadequate wages made worse after 1914 by steep wartime increases in the symbolize of living. At the same time, urban industrial life had its benefits, though these could be just as dangerous in terms of social and political stability as the hardships. There were many encouragements to expect more from life. Acquiring new skills gave many workers a sense of self-respect and confidence, heightening expectations and desires. Living in cities, workers encountered the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical object goods they had never seen in villages. almost importantly, workers living in cities were exposed to new ideas approximately the social and political order.

The social causes of the Russian Revolution can be derived from centuries of oppression of the lower classes by the Tsarist regime and Nicholas's failures in World War I. While rural agrarian peasants had been emancipated from serfdom in 1861, they still resented paying redemption payments to the state, and demanded communal tender of the land they worked. The problem was further compounded by the failure of Sergei Witte's land reforms of the early 20th century. Increasing peasant disturbances and sometimes actual revolts occurred, with the goal of securing use of the land they worked. Russia consisted mainly of poor farming peasants and substantial inequality of land ownership, with 1.5% of the population owning 25% of the land.

The rapid industrialization of Russia also resulted in urban overcrowding and poor conditions for urban industrial workers as forwarded above. Between 1890 and 1910, the population of the capital, Saint Petersburg, swelled from 1,033,600 to 1,905,600, with Moscow experiencing similar growth. This created a new 'proletariat' which, due to being crowded together in the cities, was much more likely to protest and go on strike than the peasantry had been in previous times. In one 1904 survey, it was found that an average of 16 people shared up used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters apartment in Saint Petersburg, with six people per room. There was also no running water, and piles of human waste were a threat to the health of the workers. The poor conditions only aggravated the situation, with the number of strikes and incidents of public disorder rapidly increasing in the years shortly before World War I. Because of slow industrialization, Russia's workers were highly concentrated. By 1914, 40% of Russian workers were employed in factories of 1,000+ workers 32% in 1901. 42% worked in 100–1,000 worker enterprises, 18% in 1–100 worker businesses in the US, 1914, the figures were 18, 47 and 35 respectively.

World War I added to the chaos. Conscription across Russia resulted in unwilling citizens being mentioned off to war. The vast demand for factory production of war supplies and workers resulted in many more labor riots and strikes. Conscription stripped skilled workers from the cities, who had to be replaced with unskilled peasants. When famine began to hit due to the poor railway system, workers abandoned the cities in droves seeking food. Finally, the soldiers themselves, who suffered from a lack of equipment and security system from the elements, began to turn against the Tsar. This was mainly because, as the war progressed, many of the officers who were loyal to the Tsar were killed, being replaced by discontented conscripts from the major cities who had little loyalty to the Tsar.

Many sections of the country had reason to be dissatisfied with the existing autocracy. Nicholas II was a deeply conservative ruler and continues a strict authoritarian system. Individuals and society in general were expected to show self-restraint, devotion to community, deference to the social hierarchy and a sense of duty to the country. Religious faith helped bind all of these tenets together as a character of comfort and reassurance in the face of unoriented conditions and as a means of political authority exercised through the clergy. Perhaps more than any other sophisticated monarch, Nicholas II attached his fate and the future of his dynasty to the idea of the ruler as a saintly and infallible father to his people.

This vision of the Romanov monarchy left him unaware of the state of his country. With a firm belief that his power to rule was granted by Divine Right, Nicholas assumed that the Russian people were devoted to him with unquestioning loyalty. This ironclad belief rendered Nicholas unwilling to permit the progressive reforms that might have alleviated the suffering of the Russian people. Even after the 1905 Revolution spurred the Tsar to decree limited civil rights and democratic representation, he worked to limit even these liberties in order to preserve theauthority of the crown.

Despite constant oppression, the desire of the people for democratic participation in government decisions was strong. Since the Age of Enlightenment, Russian intellectuals had promoted Enlightenment ideals such as the dignity of the individual and the rectitude of democratic representation. These ideals were championed nearly vociferously by Russia's liberals, although populists, Marxists, and anarchists also claimed to support democratic reforms. A growing opposition movement had begun to challenge the Romanov monarchy openly well before the turmoil of World War I.

Dissatisfaction with Russian autocracy culminated in the huge national upheaval that followed the State Duma. Although the Tsar accepted the 1906 Fundamental State Laws one year later, he subsequently dismissed the first two Dumas when they proved uncooperative. Unfulfilled hopes of democracy fueled revolutionary ideas and violent outbursts targeted at the monarchy.

Oneof the Tsar's principal rationales for risking war in 1914 was his desire to restore the prestige that Russia had lost amid the debacles of the Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905. Nicholas also sought to foster a greater sense of national unity with a war against a common and old enemy. The Russian Empire was an agglomeration of diverse ethnicities that had demonstrated significant signs of disunity in the years before the First World War. Nicholas believed in part that the dual-lane up peril and tribulation of a foreign war would mitigate the social unrest over the persistent issues of poverty, inequality, and inhumane working conditions. Instead of restoring Russia's political and military standing, World War I led to the slaughter of Russian troops and military defeats that undermined both the monarchy and Russian society to the portion of collapse.