Research question: An investigation into how Lenin achieved the October revolution so soon after the February revolution
Section A- Plan of investigation
This investigation
will focus on the period between February and October 1917 and evaluate how Lenin was able to create a revolution
so soon after the February revolution, resulting in the Bolsheviks seizing
power in Russia. Evidence will be acquired through journals, novels, speeches,
and newspapers. One must not only consider the practical mechanisms by which
the Bolsheviks took power from the Provisional Government, but also the
political mood in Petrograd, and in the rest of Russia, which allowed them to
take over so easily, with little popular support. Lenin’s radicalism and
character, the failures of the provisional government, and the Bolshevik
party’s manipulation strategies will be attributed as the main reasons for the
October revolution.
Section B- Summary of Evidence
End of war and failure of Provisional government
- The offensive in June 1917 failed, this was a fatal
blow to the authority of the provisional government[1]
- A ‘power
vacuum’ formed between the Socialists and Liberals[2] as
they tried to ‘patch together another government… context of the July uprising’[3]
- The working-class Russians lost faith in the provisional
government to end the war in a way which would support their best interest[4]
- Russia’s soldiers were ill-disciplined and not
interested in fighting the war any longer[5]
- The army was sceptical of fighting for the provisional
government, in fear that they may still have expansionist aims[6]
so, looked for a radical change along with the Russian people who looked for
more extreme policies.[7]
-
Soldiers and
sailors were particularly disaffected and formed a natural military force for
the Bolsheviks[8]
Manipulation
-
The Bolsheviks
manipulated their way in to high status positions within the middle class[9]
- Lenin knew that the Bolsheviks policies would not
appeal to the average Russian, and resorted to popularism[10]
- Lenin was inconsistent- his policy changed from
nationalisation of the land, to allowing the peasantry to divide it amongst
themselves[11]
- Lenin saw national struggles as ‘something to exploit’
and ‘had no intention of respecting…self-determination once in power’[12]
- When it stood in the way of the revolution, Lenin had
a cavalier attitude to his own slogans[13]
Lenin’s character and motives
-
October
revolution was perceived as an organised and well-managed popular uprising
- Lenin ordered Bolsheviks to go on a propaganda fuelled
campaign, handing out ‘Pravda’
newspaper to all factory workers who had sparked the March revolution (1500000
copies distributed to the factory workers per week)[14]
-
Lenin’s urgency
and determination for revolution was highlighted in his letters to central
committee member, the
basic thought expressed in them is: objection, and resentment against a
passive, Menshevik attitude to revolution[15]
Section C- Evaluation of Sources
Lessons of October- Trotsky:
"Lessons
of October" was first published in October 1924, when Trotsky was in a
power-struggle with Kamenev, Zinoviev and Stalin; all of them were keen to
display their ideological credentials by writing wordy volumes of political
theory.[16] It
purports to discuss the success of the October Revolution of 1917.
Nonetheless,
Trotsky misses no opportunity to portray Kamenev and Zinoviev as prevaricators,
opponents of the saintly Lenin and, by strong implication, traitors to
Bolshevism.[17] He also has the confidence to criticise Lenin;
but he is uncompromising in his support for Lenin's insistence on the armed
uprising (of which Trotsky was chief architect).[18]To
Trotsky the rightness of the Bolshevik Revolution is beyond question.[19]
Trotsky is
writing seven years after the Revolution, and took part personally in many of
the events. He is reliable on the opinions and motivations of the key players,
providing many interesting quotes; but he has little time for events outside
the debating chamber, the ones he does describe inevitably serve to prove some
point he is making. To Trotsky, the period between the two Revolutions was an
endless round of conferences, which represented "stages in the evolution
of divergent views"; whether or not the proletariat was ready for armed
insurrection was debated and decided by Lenin.
Few could
admire Trotsky for this arrogant, self-congratulatory, unworldly piece. He sees the success of October as a
fulfilment of Marx's prophecies, when it was clearly something much more
prosaic.
A People’s Tragedy- Orlando Figes:
Orlando Figes
sees the revolution as a tragedy, unlike Trotsky. He covers the years up until
1924, the year that Trotsky wrote his essay, ‘Lessons of October. Whereas
Trotsky was writing about the period between the two revolutions, Figes says
that ‘previous histories of the revolution have been too narrowly focused on
the events of 1917’.[20]
Figes writes
with the benefit of hindsight. He knows that Russian Communism was doomed to
failure, and unlike Trotsky, he has no vested interest in declaring the
revolution a success, creating a more fair-minded account.[21]
Trotsky is not
interested in people, except his fellow politicians, as individuals. Figes
writes about the revolution through they eyes of specific persons, ordinary as
well as famous.
If one wanted a
detailed discussion of the ideological differences between Lenin and his
opponents, one might favour Trotsky over Figes.
At times, Figes
gives much irrelevant detail, which can distract from the necessary points that
he does make. However, this works in his favour as it saves the book from being
dry and dull.
Section D- Analysis
The hardest part of the October Revolution was the decision on 10th
October, by the Bolshevik Central Committee for it to take place. Although Soviet propaganda, such as Eisenstein's film
‘October’, romanticised the action, the Red Guards met little resistance. Even after Zinoviev and Kamenev made the
resolution public, the Provisional Government took no action. Trotsky himself
plays it down.[22]
The months between February and October
were turbulent in many Russian cities:
unemployment and prices rose, peasants rioted; workers, soldiers and
sailors went on strike. The Provisional Government was unelected, and neither
strong nor popular.
On 3 April, the Germans “turned upon
Russia the most grisly of all weapons".[23]
Lenin returned from exile. In his April Theses he had written: ‘our task is ...
to present a… systematic, and persistent explanation of the errors of their
tactics’.[24] From
September he argued unwaveringly for an immediate armed rising. The revolution
of 1905 had been, in his words, a ‘dress rehearsal’[25]:
he saw that socialism could be achieved without a bourgeois revolution. But the
October Manifesto had succeeded in splitting the opposition. And in 1917, the
Soviets were no less divided.
June 1917, Congress of Soviets: Irakli
Tsereteli asserted that no single party could take power and maintain order.
From the back of the hall, Lenin shouted, "There is such a party: the
Bolshevik Party !"[26]
At this time the Bolsheviks were firmly
in the minority in the Congress, Kerensky's response to Lenin was withering.[27]
In the July Days, while Lenin was
uncharacteristically hesitant, various local Bolsheviks rabble-roused. Gorky
was disgusted by the ‘philistinism’ of the crowd.[28]
Afterwards, many Bolsheviks were imprisoned: it was a low point for them.
But when Kornilov marched his army
towards Petrograd, Kerensky turned to the Bolsheviks[29],
the only faction with significant influence in the army and among railway
workers. Lenin was willing, but he made it clear that they were not uniting
with the Provisonal Government, but exposing its weakness: they would save it,
in order to overthrow it later .[30]
By the end of the
Kornilov farce, the Government was weaker still: Kerensky stood alone, an indecisive
dictator, and commander of an army which would not obey him.
The Bolsheviks emerged with credit, and their popularity
increased: in local elections in Petrograd in June, their share of the vote had
been 12%;[31]
in September, it was 51%.[32] In the Soviets, the effect was not so obvious:
Bolsheviks were still usually a minority in the assembly, but increasingly a
majority in the executive. [33] The reason for this surge
in influence was that the Bolsheviks were seen as ‘the only ... party which
stood uncompromisingly for Soviet power’.[34]
Trotsky ascribes the success of the 'almost “legal” armed
insurrection'[35]
to the ‘dual power’ which the Soviets wielded alongside the Provisional
Government, and which the Bolsheviks exploited to extremes when they achieved a
majority in the Petrograd Soviet.[36] It was never
constitutional. The Soviets had ‘power without authority’.[37]
Section E- Conclusion
The provisional
government was seen as a continuation of the old government. They were
unelected and not a democracy at all. The people desired change and the
Bolsheviks, appealed to popular emotion with slogans and manipulations. They
had nerve, and cheek, which allowed them to assert themselves into society and
entice Russians. Up until the Kornilov affair, the Bolsheviks were making
little progress in claiming leadership. It was this event that marked the turning
point for the Bolsheviks; as the Provisional government became weaker, the
Bolsheviks grew stronger. Although the Bolsheviks appealed to the sympathy’s
and emotion of the popular majority, with their promises of ‘Peace, Bread, and
Land’, they were insincere and never intended to give any rule to the people or
bring autocracy to Russia. It was the conditions that Russians inhabited due to
the Provisional government, and the manipulative nature of the Bolsheviks that
allowed Lenin to achieve revolution in October 1917.
Section F- List of Sources
Figes, Orlando. A
People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924. London: Jonathan Cape,
1996. Print Fitzpatrick, Shiela. The
Russian Revolution
Service, Robert, and
Robert Service. A History of Modern Russia: From Tsarism to the Twenty-first
Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2009. Print.
Trotsky, Leon, and
Max Eastman. The History of the Russian Revolution. New York, NY: Anchor
Foundation, 1980. Print.
Service, Robert. Society
and Politics in the Russian Revolution. New York: St. Martin's, 1992.
Print.
Ulam, Adam B. Lenin
and the Bolsheviks: The Intellectual and Political History of the Triumph of
Communism in Russia. London: Secker & Warburg, 1966. Print.
Service, Rober. Lenin:
A Political Life. Vol. 1. N.p.: MacMillan, 1991. Print.
Pipes, Richard. The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and
Nationalism, 1917-1923. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1964. Print.
Trotsky, Leon, and John G. Wright. Lessons of October. New York:
Pioneer, 1937. Print.
Pipes, Richard. The Russian Revolution. New York: Knopf, 1990.
Print.
Trotsky, Leon. The Challenge of the Left Opposition. New York:
Pathfinder, 1975. Print.
American Peace
Society. Advocate of Peace through
Justice: Volume 87
Lawson, David C.
"Journals of the American Peace Society: Advocate of Peace
(1837-1932)." World Affairs 141.2, Celebrating 150 Years of the
American Peace Society (1978): 183-95. JSTOR. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.
.
Lenin, Vladimir Ilʹich.
The April Theses. Moscow: Progress, 1970. Print.
Sakwa,
Richard. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, 1917-1991. London:
Routledge, 1999. Print.
Lenin. ‘To the Central Committee of the RSDLP:
Volume 25. Lenin, Vladimir Ilʹich.
Report on Peace, Delivered at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of
Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, October 26 (November 8), 1917, Home and
Foreign Policy of the Republic, Report of the All-Russian Central Executive
Committee and the Council of People's Commissars to the Ninth All-Russian
Congress of Soviets, December 23, 1921. Moscow: Foreign Languages Pub.
House, 1963. Print.
Anweiler, Oskar. Los
Soviets En Rusia: 1906-1921. N.p.: Zero, 1975. Print.
Pitcher, Harvey J. Witnesses
of the Russian Revolution. London: John Murray, 1994. Print.
Churchill, Winston S. The World
Crisis, 1911-1918. Vol. 5. N.p.: Free, 1931. Print.
[1] orlandofiges.info- Section 5- The Summer Collapse
[2] The Russian Revolution, Sheila Fitzpatrick, p.40
[3] orlandofiges.info- Section 5- The Summer Collapse
[4] Russia: Experiment with a People, Robert Service, p.50
[5] A History of Modern Russia from Nicholas II to Vladimir Putin,
Robert Service, p.53
[6] ibid.
[7] Barron’s Regents Exams and
Answer: Global history, Phillip Lefton, Michal J. Romano, Mary Martin, p.307, “The majority of the Russian people were not
Communists, but were displeased with the government”
[8] A History of the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky, V1, Chapter 13:
The Army and the War
[9] Robert Service. Society and
Politics in the Russian Revolution 1992, p.147
[10] A. Ulam. Lenin and the Bolsheviks, p. 353-4
[11] Robert Service. Lenin: A Political Life, Volume 2, p337
[12] The formation of the Soviet Union, Richard Pipes, p.49, 51, 53
[13] ‘All power to the Soviets’ ibid.
[14] Пайпс
Ричард,
The
Russian Revolution, Страница 156
[15] ‘Delay
is criminal. To wait for the Congress of Soviets would be a childish game of
formalities… and a betrayal of the revolution’
CW, Vol.26, Letter to the Central Committee, the Moscow and Petrograd
Committees and the Bolshevik Members of the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets
(October 1, 1917), p.141]
[16] A People’s Tragedy, Orlando Figes, p.795
[17] Lessons of October, Trotsky- Chapter 5-The July Days; the Kornilov Episode; the Democratic Conference and
the Pre-Parliament
[18] Lessons of October, Trotsky- Chapter 7, ‘it
is quite clear that to prepare the insurrection and to carry it out under cover
of preparing for the Second Soviet Congress and under the slogan of defending
it, was of inestimable advantage to us’
[19] ‘Russia cast off the filthy garments
of bourgeois domination’ Lessons of October, Trotsky-
Chapter 5
[20] A people’s tragedy, Orlando Figes: preface xviii
[21] Times literary supplement
[22] ‘our bloodless
victory in Petrograd – and we could have gained it even two weeks earlier ...’ Trotsky’s Lessons of October, Chapter 7
[23] Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, Volume 5
[24] April Theses: Thesis 4
[25] Orlando Figes, A people’s Tragedy, page 210
[26] Sakwa, The Rise
and Fall of the Soviet Union 1917-1991, doc 2.4, pg. 39, quoting Pravda
[27] ‘Recognition of the fact that in most of the Soviets of
Workers' Deputies our Party is ... so far a small minority’ Lenin, April Theses, Thesis 4
[28] ‘Nobody knew the aims of the uprising or its leaders’ Orlando Figes, A people’s Tragedy, page 429
[29] ibid, page 451
[30] Lenin, Collected Works, "To the Central Committee of
the RSDLP", vol. 25, pp. 285-6
[31] Anweiler, Los Soviets en Rusia, 1905-1921, p. 188
[32] ibid.
[33] Trotsky’s Lessons of October, chapter 7"... the
outcome of the insurrection of October 25 was at least three-quarters settled
... the moment that we opposed the transfer of the Petrograd garrison; created
the Revolutionary Military Committee (October 16); appointed our own commissars
in all army divisions and institutions; and thereby completely isolated not
only the general staff of the Petrograd zone, but also the government”
[34] Orlando Figes, ‘A people’s Tragedy, page 460
[35] ibid.
[36] ‘This was, so to speak, part of the constitution under
the regime ...’ ibid.
[37] Prince Lvov, quoted by H.Pitcher, Witnesses of the
Russian Revolution, Ch. 6
