Socialism in Europe and
the Russian Revolution
The Russiona Revolution
The Age of Social Change
The French Revolution opened up the
possibility of creating a dramatic change in
the way in which society was structured.
In many parts of the world including Europe
and Asia, new ideas about individual rights
and who controlled social power began to be
discussed. In India, Raja Rammohan Roy
and Derozio talked of the significance of the
French Revolution, and many others debated
the ideas of post-revolutionary Europe. The
developments in the colonies, in turn,
reshaped these ideas of societal change.
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Not everyone in Europe, however, wanted a
complete transformation of society. Some
were conservatives, others were liberals or
radicals.
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Liberals, Radicals and Conservatives
Liberals
Tolerated all religions
Opposed the uncontrolled power of dynastic
rulers.
Safeguard the rights of individuals against the
gov.
Wanted elected parliamentary gov.
Well trained and independent Judiciary
Only men with property should vote.
No women should vote
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Radicals
Basis of the govt. should be majority of countrys
population
Supported women suffragette
Opposed privileges
Not against the existence of private property but
disliked the concentration of property in few
hands
Conservatives
accepted that some change was inevitable
past had to be respected and change had to be
brought about through a slow process
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Industrial Society and Social
Change
It was a time of profound social and economic
changes. It was a time when new cities came up
and new industrialised regions developed,
railways expanded and the Industrial Revolution
occurred.
Industrialisation brought men, women and
children to factories. Work hours were often long
and wages were poor.
Unemployment was common, particularly during
times of low demand for industrial goods.
Housing and sanitation were problems since
towns were growing rapidly.
Liberals and radicals searched for solutions to
these issues.
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Many of these liberals and radicals
themselves were industrialists and wanted
respect of labour and
freedom of
individuals over privileges.
Some nationalists, liberals and radicals
wanted revolutions to put an end to the kind
of governments established in Europe in
1815. In France, Italy, Germany and Russia,
they became revolutionaries and worked to
overthrow existing monarchs.
Nationalists talked of revolutions that would
create nations where all citizens would
have equal rights.
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The Coming of Socialism to
Europe
By the mid - nineteenth century in Europe,
socialism was a well-known body of ideas.
Socialists were against private property,
and saw it as the root of all social ills of the
time.
They believed that if society as a whole
rather than single individuals controlled
property, more attention would be paid to
collective social interests.
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What would be the basis of socialist
society? In the answer of this question,
Socialists had different visions of the future.
The first view was the idea of cooperatives.
Robert Owen (1771-1858), a leading English
manufacturer, sought to build a cooperative
community called New Harmony in Indiana
(USA).
The second view was that cooperatives
could not be built on a wide scale only
through individual initiative: they demanded
that governments encourage cooperatives.
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In France, for instance, Louis Blanc (18131882) wanted the government to encourage
cooperatives
and
replace
capitalist
enterprises. These cooperatives were to be
associations of people who produced goods
together and divided the profits according
to the work done by members.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels
(1820-1895) added other ideas to this body
of arguments.
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Marx argued that industrial society was
capitalist. Capitalists owned the capital
invested in factories, and the profit of
capitalists was produced by workers. The
conditions of workers could not improve as long
as this profit was accumulated by private
capitalists. Workers had to overthrow capitalism
and the rule of private property.
Marx believed that to free themselves from
capitalist exploitation, workers had to construct
a radically socialist society where all property
was socially controlled. This would be a
communist society. He was convinced that
workers would triumph in their conflict with
capitalists. A communist society was the
natural society of the future.
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Support for Socialism
By the 1870s, socialist ideas spread through
Europe. To coordinate their efforts, socialists
formed an international body . namely, the
Second International.
Workers in England and Germany began
forming associations to fight for better living
and working conditions. They set up funds
to help members in times of distress and
demanded a reduction of working hours and
the right to vote.
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In Germany, these associations worked
closely with the Social Democratic Party
(SPD) and helped it win parliamentary seats.
By 1905, socialists and trade unionists
formed a Labour Party in Britain and a
Socialist Party in France.
However,
till
1914,
socialists
never
succeeded in forming a government in
Europe.
Represented
by
strong
figures
in
parliamentary politics, their ideas did shape
legislation, but governments continued to
be run by conservatives, liberals and
radicals
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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 todays Central
Asian states, as well as Georgia, Armenia and
Azerbaijan.
The majority religion was Russian Orthodox
Christianity, which had grown out of the Greek
Orthodox Church . but the empire also
included Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and
Buddhists.
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15
Russia : Economy and
Society
The conditions of economy and society gave
rise to the Russian Revolution. At the
beginning of the twentieth century, about
85 per cent of the Russian Empires
population
earned
their
living
from
agriculture. This proportion was higher than
in most European countries. For instance, in
France and Germany the proportion was
between 40 per cent and 50 per cent. In the
empire, cultivators produced for the market
as well as for their own needs and Russia
was a major exporter of grain.
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Industry was found in pockets. Prominent
industrial areas were St Petersburg and
Moscow. Craftsmen undertook much of the
production, but large factories existed
alongside craft workshops.
Many factories were set up in the 1890s,
when
Russias
railway
network
was
extended, and foreign investment in
industry increased. Coal production doubled
and iron and steel output quadrupled. By
the 1900s, in some areas factory workers
and craftsmen were almost equal in
number.
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Most industry was the private property of
industrialists. Government supervised large
factories to ensure minimum wages and
limited hours of work. But factory inspectors
could not prevent rules being broken.
In craft units and small workshops, the working
day was sometimes 15 hours, compared with
10 or 12 hours in factories. Accommodation
varied from rooms to dormitories.
Workers were a divided social group. Workers
were divided by skill as well. E.g the
metalworkers considered themselves superior
to other workers.
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Women made up 31 per cent of the factory
labour force by 1914, but they were paid less
than men (between half and three-quarters
of a man.s 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
condition. These strikes took place frequently
in the textile industry during 1896-1897, and
in the metal industry during 1902.
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In 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.
In Russia, peasants wanted the land of the
nobles to be given to 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.
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Russian peasants were different from 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.
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Socialism in Russia
All political parties were illegal in Russia
before
1914.
The
Russian
Social
Democratic Workers Party (Bolsheviks)
was founded in 1898 by socialists who
respected Marxs ideas. However, because
of government policing, it had to operate as
an illegal organisation. It set up a newspaper,
mobilised workers and organised strikes.
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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.
They formed the Socialist Revolutionary
Party in 1900. This party struggled for
peasants rights and demanded that
land
belonging
to
nobles
be
transferred to peasants.
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Social Democrats disagreed with Socialist
Revolutionaries about peasants. Lenin felt that
peasants were not one united group. Given this,
differentiation within them, they could not all be
part of a socialist movement.
The party was divided over the strategy of
organisation. 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).
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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 Muslimdominated areas by jadidists who wanted
modernised Islam to lead their societies.
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The year 1904 was a particularly bad one
for Russian workers. Prices of essential
goods rose so quickly that real wages
declined by 20 per cent. 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 110,000
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.
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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
became 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.
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Reaction of Tsar to the 1905 revolution
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.
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The First World War and the
Russian Empire
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.
AntiGerman sentiments ran high, St
Petersburg, a German name, was renamed
as Petrograd. The Tsarina Alexandras
German
origins
and
poor
advisers,
especially a monk called Rasputin, made
the autocracy unpopular.
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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 demoralising.
Russias armies lost badly in Germany and
Austria between 1914 and 1916. There were
over 7 million casualties by 1917.
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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.
The Imperial Russian army came to be
known as the Russian steam roller. It was
the largest armed force in the world. When
this army shifted its loyalty and began
supporting the revolutionaries, Tsarist power
collapsed.
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The war also had a severe impact on
industry. Russias 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.
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Large supplies of grain were sent to feed
the army. For the people in the cities, bread
and flour became scarce. By the winter of
1916, riots at bread shops were common.
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The February Revolution in
Petrograd
In the winter of 1917, conditions in the capital,
Petrograd, were grim. The layout of the city
seemed to emphasise the divisions among its
people. The workers quarters and factories were
located on the right bank of the River Neva. On
the left bank were the fashionable areas, the
Winter Palace, and official buildings, including the
palace where the Duma met.
In February 1917, food shortages were deeply felt
in the workers. quarters. The winter was very
cold . there had been exceptional frost and heavy
snow. Parliamentarians wishing to preserve
elected government, were opposed to the Tsars
desire to dissolve the Duma.
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On 22 February, a lockout took place at a
factory on the right bank. The next day,
workers in fifty factories called a strike in
sympathy.
In many factories, women led the way to
strikes. This came to be called the
International Womens Day.
Demonstrating workers crossed from the
factory quarters to the centre of the capital ,
the Nevskii Prospekt. At this stage, no
political party was actively organising the
movement. As the fashionable quarters and
official buildings were surrounded by
workers, the government imposed a curfew.
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Demonstrators dispersed by the evening,
but they came back on the 24th and 25th.
The government called out the cavalry and
police to keep an eye on them.
On Sunday, 25 February, the government
suspended the Duma. Politicians spoke out
against the measure.
Demonstrators returned in force to the
streets of the left bank on the 26th. On the
27th, the Police Headquarters were
ransacked. The streets thronged with
people raising slogans about bread, wages,
better hours and democracy.
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The cavalry refused to fire on the
demonstrators.
An officer was shot at the barracks of a
regiment and three other regiments
mutinied, voting to join the striking workers.
By that evening, soldiers and striking
workers had gathered to form a soviet or
council in the same building as the Duma
met. This was the Petrograd Soviet.
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The very next day, a delegation went to see
the Tsar. Military commanders advised him
to abdicate. He followed their advice and
abdicated on 2 March.
Soviet leaders and Duma leaders formed a
Provisional Government to run the country.
Petrograd had led the February Revolution
that brought down the monarchy in
February 1917.
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After February Revolution
Army officials, landowners and industrialists
were
influential
in
the
Provisional
Government. But the liberals as well as
socialists among them worked towards an
elected government.
Restrictions
on public meetings and
associations were removed. Soviets, like the
Petrograd Soviet, were set up everywhere,
though no common system of election was
followed.
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In April 1917, the Bolshevik leader Vladimir
Lenin returned to Russia from his exile.
He declared that the war be brought to a
close, land be transferred to the peasants,
and banks be nationalised. These three
demands were Lenins April Theses.
He also argued that the Bolshevik Party
rename itself the Communist Party to
indicate its new radical aims
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Through
the
summer
the
workers.
movement spread. In industrial areas,
factory committees were formed which
began questioning the way industrialists ran
their factories. Trade unions grew in
number. Soldiers committees were formed
in the army.
As the Provisional Government saw its
power reduce and Bolshevik influence grow,
it decided to take stern measures against
the spreading discontent. It resisted
attempts by workers to run factories and
began arresting leaders.
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Popular demonstrations staged by the
Bolsheviks in July 1917 were sternly
repressed. Many Bolshevik leaders had to
go into hiding or flee.
Meanwhile in the countryside, peasants and
their Socialist Revolutionary leaders pressed
for
a
redistribution
of
land.
Land
committees were formed to handle this.
Encouraged by the Socialist Revolutionaries,
peasants seized land between July and
September 1917.
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The Revolution of October 1917
As the conflict between the Provisional
Government and the Bolsheviks grew. In
September, he began discussions for an
uprising against the government.
On 16 October 1917, Lenin persuaded the
Petrograd Soviet and the Bolshevik Party to
agree to a socialist seizure of power. A
Military Revolutionary Committee was
appointed by the Soviet under Leon
Trotskii to organise the seizure. The date of
the event was kept a secret.
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The uprising began on 24 October. Sensing
trouble, Prime Minister Kerenskii had left the
city to summon troops. At dawn, military
men loyal to the government seized the
buildings of two Bolshevik newspapers. Progovernment troops were sent to take over
telephone and telegraph offices and protect
the Winter Palace.
In
a
swift
response,
the
Military
Revolutionary
Committee
ordered
its
supporters to seize government offices and
arrest ministers.
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Late in the day, the ship Aurora shelled the
Winter Palace. Other vessels sailed down
the Neva and took over various military
points. By nightfall, the city was under the
committees control and the ministers had
surrendered.
At a meeting of the All Russian Congress of
Soviets in Petrograd, the majority approved
the Bolshevik action.
Uprisings took place in other cities. There
was heavy fighting, especially in Moscow,
but by December, the Bolsheviks controlled
the Moscow-Petrograd area.
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What Changed after
October?
The Bolsheviks were totally opposed
to
private property. Most industry and banks
were nationalised in November 1917.
Land was declared social property and
peasants were allowed to seize the land of
the nobility. In cities, Bolsheviks enforced
the partition of large houses according to
family requirements.
They banned the use of the old titles of
aristocracy.
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To assert the change, new uniforms were
designed for the army and officials,
following a clothing competition organised
in 1918 . when the Soviet hat (budeonovka)
was chosen.
The Bolshevik
Party was renamed the
Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik).
In
November
1917,
the
Bolsheviks
conducted the elections to the Constituent
Assembly, but they failed to gain majority
support.
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In January 1918, the Assembly rejected
Bolshevik measures and Lenin dismissed the
Assembly. He thought the All Russian
Congress of Soviets was more democratic
than an assembly elected in uncertain
conditions.
In March 1918, despite opposition by their
political allies, the Bolsheviks made peace
with Germany at Brest Litovsk.
In the years that followed, the Bolsheviks
became the only party to participate in the
elections to the All Russian Congress of
Soviets, which became the Parliament of the
country. Russia became a one-party state.
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Trade unions were kept under party control.
The secret police (called the Cheka first,
and later OGPU and NKVD) punished those
who criticised the Bolsheviks.
Many young writers and artists rallied to the
Party because it stood for socialism and for
change.
After October 1917, this led to experiments
in the arts and architecture. But many
became disillusioned because of the
censorship the Party encouraged.
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The Civil War
When
the
Bolsheviks
ordered
land
redistribution, the Russian army began to
break up. Soldiers, mostly peasants, wished
to go home for the redistribution and
deserted.
Non-Bolshevik
socialists,
liberals
and
supporters of autocracy condemned the
Bolshevik uprising. Their leaders moved to
south Russia and organised troops to fight
the Bolsheviks (the reds).
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During 1918 and 1919, the .greens.
(Socialist Revolutionaries) and .whites. (proTsarists) controlled most of the Russian
empire. They were backed by French,
American, British and Japanese troops , all
those forces who were worried at the
growth of socialism in Russia.
Supporters
of private property among
whites took harsh steps with peasants who
had seized land. Such actions led to the loss
of popular support for the non-Bolsheviks.
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By January 1920, the Bolsheviks controlled
most of the former Russian empire. They
succeeded due to cooperation with nonRussian nationalities and Muslim jadidists.
Cooperation did not work where Russian
colonists themselves turned Bolshevik. In
Khiva, in Central Asia, Bolshevik colonists
brutally massacred local nationalists in the
name of defending socialism.
Partly to remedy this, most non-Russian
nationalities were given political autonomy
in the Soviet Union (USSR) - the state the
Bolsheviks created from the Russian empire
in December 1922.
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But since this was combined with unpopular
policies that the Bolsheviks forced the local
government to follow , like the harsh
discouragement of nomadism attempts
to win over different nationalities were
only partly successful.
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Making a Socialist Society
A process of centralised planning was
introduced. Officials assessed how the
economy could work and set targets for a
five-year period.
On this basis they made the two Five Year
Plans(1927-1932
and
1933-1938).
Centralised planning led to economic
growth. Industrial production increased
(between 1929 and 1933 by 100 per cent in
the case of oil, coal and steel). New factory
cities came into being.
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However, rapid construction led to poor
working conditions.
An extended schooling system developed,
and arrangements were made for factory
workers and peasants to enter universities.
Crches were established in factories for the
children of women workers. Cheap public
health care was provided. Model living
quarters were set up for workers.
The effect of all this was uneven, though,
since government resources were limited.
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Stalinism and
Collectivisation
The period of the early
Planned Economy
was linked to the disasters of the
collectivisation of agriculture. By 1927- 1928,
the towns in Soviet Russia were facing an
acute problem of grain supplies. The
government fixed prices at which grain must
be sold, but the peasants refused to sell their
grain to government buyers at these prices.
Stalin, who headed the party after the death
of Lenin, introduced firm emergency
measures. Speculation had to be stopped
and supplies confiscated.
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In 1928, Party members toured the grainproducing areas, supervising enforced grain
collections, and raiding kulaks, the name for
well to- do peasants. As shortages
continued, the decision was taken to
collectivise farms.
From 1929, the Party forced all peasants to
cultivate in collective farms (kolkhoz).
Enraged peasants resisted the authorities
and destroyed their livestock. Between
1929 and 1931, the number of cattle fell by
one-third.
Those
who
resisted
collectivisation were severely punished.
Many were deported and exiled.
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Stalins government allowed some independent
cultivation,
but
treated
such
cultivators
unsympathetically.
In spite of collectivisation, production did not
increase immediately. In fact, the bad harvests of
1930-1933 led to one of most devastating
famines in Soviet history when over 4 million
died.
Many within the Party criticised the confusion in
industrial production under the Planned Economy
and the consequences of collectivisation. Stalin
and his sympathisers charged these critics with
conspiracy against socialism. Accusations were
made throughout the country, and by 1939, over
2 million were in prisons or labour camps.
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The Global Influence of the
Russian Revolution and the USSR
Existing socialist parties in Europe did not
wholly approve of the way the Bolsheviks
took power, and kept it. However, the
possibility of a workers state fired peoples
imagination across the world. In many
countries, communist parties were formed,
like the Communist Party of Great Britain.
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Many non-Russians from outside the USSR
participated in the Conference of the Peoples
of the East (1920) and the Bolshevik-founded
Comintern (an international union of proBolshevik socialist parties).
Some
received education in the USSRs
Communist University of the Workers of the
East. By the time of the outbreak of the Second
World War, the USSR had given socialism a
global face and world stature.
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Yet by the 1950s it was acknowledged
within the country that the style of
government in the USSR was not in keeping
with the ideals of the Russian Revolution.
It had denied the essential freedoms to its
citizens and carried out its developmental
projects through repressive policies.
By the end of the twentieth century, the
international reputation of the USSR as a
socialist country had declined though it was
recognised that socialist ideals still enjoyed
respect among its people.
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