Anti Bolshevik Forces Within Russia example essay topic

The Revolution of 1905: The First Russian Revolution We are, however, slightly ahead of our story. The short period of 1900-1906 provides an essential piece of the puzzle to make the picture of the Russian Revolution complete. Russia's Asian policy under Nicholas II took a decidedly expansionist and aggressive tone, culminating in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. A primarily naval conflict on Russia's Far Eastern frontier, this war brought back the awful memories of the Crimean defeat when Japan's newly modernized army and navy routed the out-dated, ill-equipped Russian forces. Peace negotiations, organized by United States President Theodore Roosevelt in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, allowed Russia to save face on paper; however, no one could argue with the historical fact that this marked the first time a European power lost any conflict with an Asian power. For the Russian government, it was an utter humiliation; for the Russian radicals, it was an opportunity.

Even moderates radicalized their opposition to the central government by this time. The liberal constitutionalists, later called Kadets, organized their own illegal publication, called Liberation, to voice their complaints and grievances. Dissatisfaction with the inept central government -- highlighted by its defeat at the hands of Asian Japan (there certainly was a racist element here) -- was high atop any such list. In mid-1904, a popular Russian Orthodox priest, Georgi Gapon, organized thousands of St. Petersburg workers into his Assembly of Russian Factory Workers, an association originally financed and approved by the government to minimize the influence of radicals among the workers and bolster the credibility of the autocracy by providing an outlet for worker grievances. However, despite the government's intention, this union took a decidedly Marxist and militant bent. When, in December 1904, numerous workers at the large Putilov factory in St. Petersburg were fired for no apparent reason, the Assembly, who counted these sacked workers as members, leaped into action.

The result was a citywide general strike in January 1905. On January 9, 1905 the striking workers organized a mass march on the Winter Palace of the Tsar with representatives holding a petition for 'our father' Tsar Nicholas II. The petition called for higher wages, an eight-hour workday, a constitution, free elections of a legislative assembly, and universal manhood suffrage. Nicholas, however, would have none of this. Confused, inept, or simply self- consciously attached to his autocratic power, the Tsar ordered military units of his elite guard to fire upon the advancing petitions who carried Orthodox crosses, marched with women and children, and held no weapons.

Nicholas's troops fired into the peacefully marching crowd, killing over one hundred and wounding nearly five times as many; the day became known as Bloody Sunday. The massacre dramatically turned public opinion against the Tsar and his government, and primed the country for revolutionary action. Urban workers formed strike committees -- some by industry, others by factory of employment -- and in September 1905, coordinated a nationwide general strike, originating with the Moscow printers but forming solid allies all along the Moscow-St. Petersburg railroad. Industrial production and output came to a grinding halt. The strike led to the formation of the St. Petersburg soviet (Russian for 'council') in October, with other cities and town following the model. The disruption of industry mirrored countryside unrest as disgruntled peasants began seizing and destroying gentry property across the country.

Faced with these circumstances -- not to mention the imminent return of army troops with little love for a government that sent them off to utter defeat in battle with Japan -- Tsar Nicholas II conceded. On October 17, Nicholas issued his October Manifesto containing a (vague) promise to create an elected legislative body (elected quite unequally, though based on universal manhood suffrage), to grant civil and religious liberties, and to legalize the organization of unions and political parties. Though this concession fell far short of the demands of most of the Russian left, it did serve to placate some of the regime's more moderate critics, who had grown wary of the unrest and radicalism unleashed by the lower class workers and peasants. These moderates organized into a political party called the Union of 17 October and its members, the October ists, promised to cooperate with the government as long as it adhered to the pledges of the October Manifesto. In 1906, the government called for elections to the lower house of the newly established bicameral legislature, the Duma, granted broader freedoms of expression, and permitted the formation of unions and other political organizations. An upper house of the legislature was also created, constituted half by members appointed by Nicholas II and half by members elected by the conservative elites in an undemocratic fashion.

Russia and the Capitalist War World War I#, known after the fact as the Great War or the War to End All War, began with the 1914 assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary while he was on a visit to the capital of Bosnia- Herzegovina The war pitted the Triple Entente of France, Russia, and Great Britain against the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. Total War would require the mobilization of all men, resources, monies, and equipment and increased control from the center; in Russia, the autocracy. Faced with the onslaught of the more modern German war machine, numerous weaknesses plagued the Russian state. Railroads, the fundamental instrument of modern warfare because they could transport troops and supplies quickly to and from the frontlines, were relatively scarce in Russia.

In fact, railroad lines were one-tenth as dense in Western Russia as in Germany throughout the war. Russian divisions also had only about one-half the artillery as the German divisions and an even smaller fraction of heavy artillery. The tsar's military was top heavy in cavalry, an antiquated military arm basically useless in the trench warfare of World War I. Medical treatment was poor and rarely given to peasant soldiers and even officers in the lower ranks -- namely, sergeants, non- commission officers, et cet era. In addition, incompetence and corruption was rampant in the upper ranks since seniority was the only consideration affecting promotions It is worth noting that Russia fared quite well in battles against Austria- Hungary and the Ottoman Empire; however, against Germany, every one of these weaknesses came out and caused, more often than not, disastrous Russian defeats The German war plan hinged on the expectation that Russia would be slow to mobilize, an expectation that proved correct.

Kaiser Wilhelm II decided to first concentrate all power on France, throw the French out of the war in one month, and then turn east to the barely mobilized Russian Empire. Against this attack, Russia could barely muster a strategy. Pushed back deeper into their own territory, the Russian command decided to use a scorched earth policy to deny the advancing Germans the spoils of victory. Throwing men at the front unarmed, Russia experienced a devastating supply shortage as early as 1915.

A lack of rifles, shells, bullets, and a disappearance of the few machine guns available lowered troop morale and contributed to human losses upward of seven million by the end of the war. By 1915, Poland, Lithuania, and much of Western Russia had fallen to the Germans. In response, Tsar Nicholas II took direct control of the troops at the front partly out of duty and partly out of a recognition that all these defeats were hurting his position as tsar. With her husband away, Tsarina Alexandra, in charge of government affairs in his stead, increasingly came to rely on the advice of a mystical Orthodox pilgrim by the name of Rasputin. Believing Rasputin was the only one who could heal her ailing child and heir to the throne, Alexandra supposedly confided in Rasputin for many affairs of state. By November 1, 1916, the sense of corruption, ineptitude, and collapse in elite circles of the government pervaded the entire political spectrum, resulting in Kadet leader Pavel Miliukov's famous speech decrying the autocracy.

He accused Alexandra of treason, uttering the famous phrase of this era, 'Is this stupidity, or is it treason. ' He also called Nicholas inept and effectively undeserving of office. With the moderate Kadets no longer in support of the government, Tsar Nicholas II was isolated without any support among the people The February Revolution of 1917 It is a common misconception that Vladimir I. Lenin orchestrated the entire scheme of the Russian Revolution. In actuality, however, Lenin was not even in Russia during one of the revolution's most important moments, the so-called February Revolution.

He was hundreds of miles away, in exile in Switzerland. The February Revolution began with street demonstrations in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) in protest of food and energy shortages. The government's recourse to total war in World War I resulted in its inability to direct necessary bread and heat to even the increasingly restless capital, not to mention Moscow, the Ural cities, and the distant towns of the countryside. On February 23, a group of women seized the opportunity of International Women's Day to stage bread riots throughout the capital, breaking into bakeries, taking bread, and leaving only the amount of money they thought the stores deserved. These riots and accompanying demonstrations coincided with Bolshevik and Menshevik calls for the resumption of a general strike on the model of 1905 and the previous few months of 1916. Crowds numbering in the tens of thousands marched throughout Petrograd, bringing production to a halt and endangering the safety of the Winter Palace of the Tsarina.

By February 25, a general strike paralyzed the city; police efforts to disperse the enormous crowds came to nothing. On February 26, the police and accompanying military guard opened fire on the demonstrators, killing more than two dozen; by the next day, however, the troops switched to the side of demonstrators and the police quietly vanished from the city all together. Over the next two days, the demonstrators seized arsenals and burnt the central headquarters of the Tsarist police, culminating in the arrest and imprisonment of Tsar Nicholas II's ministers of government on February 28. With his government all but disintegrated, Nicholas tried to regain power by dissolving the Duma and reasserting his throne.

Unfortunately, total war and the general strike in Petrograd had paralyzed all railroad transport to the capital, thus stranding the tsar in a remote provincial town. There, at the urging of his generals and allied Duma politicians, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated his throne on March 3, 1917, ending over three centuries of uninterrupted Romanov rule in the Russian Empire. The old regime was gone. What, then, was to come in its place? Two contenders for power had emerged in Petrograd nearly two months earlier.

First, the Duma: though the tsar had dissolved it at the end of February, the representatives disregarded his rule by fiat and convened to create a Provisional Duma Committee that tried to restore order, establish a government, and make contact with necessary city services. It intended to rule until a formal government could be established. Second, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies: a conglomeration of intellectuals, trade-union leaders, and communist activists, this group made no formal claim to rule at this point. Recalling their defeat at the hands of the moderates in 1905, the Soviet held loyal to Marxist doctrine of the two-stage revolution -- the first (temporary and fleeting) by the bourgeoisie, the second (formal, violent, and lasting) by the proletariat. The year 1917, therefore, introduced rule in Russia by the Provisional Government, chosen largely from the deputies of the Duma. The Provisional Government, March-September 1917 With Tsar Nicholas II gone, a phenomenon of dual power emerged in Russia by March 1917.

Nominally shared between the Duma and the Petrograd Soviet, power over Russia was a tennis match with no end in sight. The Provisional Government (PG), constituted by Duma deputies despite Nicholas's dissolution decree in February and led by its only socialist minister, Alexander Kerensky (he was, specifically, a member of the Socialist Revolutionaries, or Peasant-Lovers), was then forced to lead Russia through a time of devastating war abroad and amazing social upheaval at home. It would seem easy to understand why, then, history has judged the Provisional Government so harshly; however, historians must understand the context of historical events -- any government in that same position was probably doomed to failure. The government, with October ist, Kadet, and other moderate ministers, never had a socialist bent despite Kerensky's leadership. On March 8, 1917, Kerensky announced its Provisional Government Programme of democratic principles and political goals, envisioning a liberal democratic government on the Western model with proper guarantees for civil and political rights. In addition, it pledged to end bureaucratic control of daily life and promised to convene a democratically elected Constituent Assembly to determine the legitimate form of the new Russian state.

Fatefully, though, it also pledged to vigorously prosecute the war toward a Russian victory. The Petrograd Soviet balked at this final platform and at the liberal bourgeois perspective of the entire Provisional Government. In response, the Soviet encroached on PG power by, most notably, issuing Order Number 1, which established Soviet control over army units and created soldier committees to check the power of the regular hierarchy. Order Number 1 democratized the army at a time of great military risk. Meanwhile, the Petrograd Soviet itself experienced political change. Originally constituted by mostly Mensheviks, i.e. moderates and trade-union leaders, by April, the Bolsheviks alone held three seats on the small executive committee, radicalizing the movement in general.

The Bolsheviks received a boost toward taking control on April 3 1917. That day, in what has been called 'the most dramatic political coup in recorded history', the German government transported Vladimir I. Lenin in the infamous 'sealed train' from exile in Switzerland, across imperial Germany, and into Petrograd in the hope that Lenin would create enough unrest and revolution to remove Russia from the war against Germany. When Lenin returned, the Bolsheviks shifted into high gear. In June, the Menshevik Petrograd Soviet called the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets in an effort to take some control over the revolution.

They were met with intensified efforts from the radical left as soldiers and workers marched against the Soviet and PG carrying Bolshevik banners: 'Down With Capitalist Ministers', 'Peace', 'Down With the Bourgeoisie'. The crisis culminated in the so-called July Days, when soldiers and workers, with the aid of Bolshevik operatives, staged insurrections throughout the country. Troops loyal to the PG eventually suppressed the revolt by the end of the month, but the event underscored the sense of constant violence, the recognition of insurmountable problems, and the lack of confidence in the government's ability to handle those problems. In the countryside, angry peasants had taken the opportunity of June, July, and August to seize gentry land, redistribute it to fellow peasants, attack landlords, and form roving bands of militants in a random and violent search for anyone that vaguely resembled a landowner. General strikes through Petrograd and Moscow paralyzed industrial production, something that hurt the already weak and doomed war effort.

Under the catastrophic cloud of the possibility of German occupation of Petrograd, Kerensky assumed personal control of the PG and quickly became the dictator and illegitimate ruler he probably never intended to be. By September, anti-Bolshevik propaganda and police forces created some order in Petrograd; however, Kerensky's credibility was waning fast. The Communist Revolutionaries Before we get to the specifics of what happened in October 1917, we must understand who the actors were, what they wanted, and why they wanted it. We have discussed the goals of men like Alexander Kerensky as the head of the Provisional Government. To review, as a moderate socialist, Kerensky wanted democracy introduced into Russia through local rule, a constituent assembly, and social reform. The war, however, had to be continued.

By the time October 1917 arrived, Kerensky was, on the political spectrum, toward the right of most other actors. On the opposite side of the spectrum lay the Bolsheviks, a growing group of intellectuals, workers, soldiers, and radicals under the leadership of Vladimir I. Lenin and Leon Trotsky. Trotsky, a Russian of Jewish origin, represented the far left position that after violent revolution in Russia, a series of revolutions throughout Europe would be ignited, eventually linking up with the workers in Russia. As a traditional Marxist internationalist, Trotsky found considerable support among Bolsheviks, especially for his remarkable organizational and conspiratorial skill.

Lenin was no less leftist than Trotsky, but whereas Trotsky focused on the conspiracy and the international workers' movement, Lenin provided the broad picture for Russian workers. Lenin's Bolshevik program called for the following: 1. Opposition to the war. 2.

Total opposition to the Provisional Government. 3. The slogan: 'All Power to the Soviets', meaning autonomy and rule by the city soviets alone. 4.

Abolishing the hierarchical army. 5. Seizure of all land from the landowners and distribution of that land among the peasants. 6. Nationalization of all industry. This can basically be summed up into Lenin's larger slogan: 'Peace, Land, and Bread.

' Peace: unlike other parties, Lenin wanted to end the war no matter the land that was lost and gained considerable soldier support with this platform; Land: Lenin called for an end to the old provincial governments and the turning over of all land to the peasants immediately, thus disagreeing with most other parties who wanted a gradual transfer; Bread: for months, Lenin noted, Petrograd itself had been without enough food and Lenin promised to restore bounty, especially to the city dwellers. The Lenin platform was quite effective because, as it seems evident, it encompassed the desires of most segments of society. The peasants, not surprisingly, wanted land and by assuming the Socialist Revolutionaries's call for land to the peasants, the Bolsheviks attempted to minimize their power among the agrarian populations. In reality, Lenin's plan was for nationalizing the land, rather than giving it directly to the private peasants. The worker wanted bread, heat, and, or supervision, over factories. The Bolsheviks went a step further by calling for the nationalization of all industry.

Finally, the soldier, of course, wanted peace, and Lenin was the only one who aimed for that goal. It would be foolish to suggest that no conservative forces existed in Russia at this time; however, the revolutionary mood not only overshadowed moderates and rightist forces, but probably pushed them into the distinct minority among the population as a whole. The October Revolution of 1917 Throughout the summer, peasants seized land and attacked landowners throughout the country. Workers formed factory committees and assumed the right of, or monitoring, over factory practices and marched in demonstrations and strikes when change was slow to come.

Those strikes intensified to unprecedented levels by September: 700,000 railroad workers struck early in the month, paralyzing all transport; in early October, 300,000 textile factory workers struck, halting much of the production throughout the city; in mid October, a general strike of workers, including everyone from pharmacists to oil workers, effectively destroyed the Provisional Government as a true government in charge. To stabilize the situation in a desperate bid to hold onto power, Alexander Kerensky tried to form another coalition government with moderate and leftist forces. On September 25, the members of the parties assembled set up a new coalition despite opposition from the Bolsheviks. The leftists marched out of the coalition assembly and retreated again into the underground, debating their next move.

Vladimir I. Lenin called on the Bolsheviks to seize the moment for violent revolution before the Germans invaded or struck a deal with Kerensky, ending the war for Russia. Some calmer heads rejected this view and proposed a patient plan that would have waited for the PG to collapse on its own. With the support of Leon Trotsky and the young Josef Stalin, Lenin's position prevailed and plans were made, probably by Trotsky, for a revolution. Fortuitously for the Bolsheviks, the Petrograd Soviet made its own revolutionary move by establishing the Military Revolutionary Committee. Ostensibly created to protect Petrog ard from the invading Germans, this Bolshevik-dominated body, working under the cover of Soviet legitimacy, became the Bolshevik command center during the October Revolution.

Kerensky, seeing his own power vanish before his eyes, called for police assistance to end the general strikes and restore order. Lenin, manipulating this relatively common occurrence and publicizing it as Kerensky's 'counter- revolution', ordered Bolshevik action. On October 24, 1917, Bolshevik forces and their allies began seizing essential centers of power throughout Petrograd -- communications centers, government buildings, transportation command centers, arsenals, at cet era. By the next morning, the Bolsheviks informed the still- assembled congress of soviets that they had taken power in the name of the Russian worker and peasant and had established a temporary Workers' and Peasants' Government.

The Mensheviks stormed out of the meeting alongside the Socialist Revolutionaries; Kerensky fled Petrograd and Russia all together. The Bolsheviks were in control. Forging the Ship of State: The Bolsheviks in Power True to their democratic promises, the Bolsheviks held free elections to a Constituent Assembly in November 1917. Occurring two weeks after the Bolshevik seizure of power, these election had already been organized by the Provisional Government.

The results are striking and important: Russian Socialist Revolutionaries -- the pro-peasant Intellectuals 44%Bolshevik Social Democrats -- Bolsheviks in power 27%Ukrainian Social Revolutionaries 9%Kadets 5%Mensheviks 4%It should be unsurprising that the Socialist Revolutionaries came out in front because their constituents, the Russian peasantry, accounted for eighty percent of the Russian population. Given this fact, that the Bolsheviks were able to muster nearly thirty percent of the voting population suggests some legitimacy and considerable support for the Bolsheviks. While in power, the Bolsheviks moved forward with a decidedly Marxist agenda. Lenin's land decree gave communes control of land distribution in the countryside. Workers were given over factories.

Non- Bolshevik newspapers were all shut down by the summer of 1918. All Russian industries were nationalized under the Bolshevik government. Lenin also established the Supreme Council on National Economy, a committee given complete control over trade unions, thus showing a move toward a centrally- planned economy. Karl Marx's call for a dictatorship of the proletariat at the outset of any socialist regime in order to solve problems of social change from capitalism to socialism, was realized with considerable strength after Lenin sent troops to the Constituent Assembly in January 1918 to intimidate representatives. By the end of the month, Lenin had dissolved the assembly all together. Following that, Lenin established his secret police, known as the CHEKA.

Set up to fight looting, crime and to monitor those groups who opposed the Bolsheviks, this organization became infamous in the next few years as it directed a terror campaign against all opposition. CHEKA, however, paled in comparison to Lenin's establishment of concentration and work camps for 'unreliable elements' of society. Anyone deemed possibly dangerous to the revolution -- priests, shopkeepers, non-socialists -- were sent to these camps. On foreign affairs, Lenin signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that ended Russia's war with Germany, and its involvement in World War I at the cost of much land to the west. Lenin was unconcerned with this capitalist war and was much more interested in keeping Russia at peace so he could continue socialist construction.

However, foreign affairs and domestic turmoil would preoccupy Lenin for the next few years The Russian Civil War and the end of the Russian Revolution The Civil War of 1918-1921 defied specific summary. There were no pitched battles, no front lines, no clear-cut alliances, no clear lines to be drawn on maps, no specific troops movements that could be easily illustrated. Suffice it to say that by early Spring 1918, the Western powers still fighting World War I wanted Russia back in the war and wanted an end to Communism in general. Therefore, France, Britain, the United States, and Japan supported a conglomeration of all the anti-Bolshevik forces within Russia, known collectively as the Whites in their battle against the Bolsheviks, or Reds. The civil war was more characterized by roving bands of irregular troops from the countryside, armed to the teeth with Western equipment, than any regular battle situation. In an effort to squash opposition, squeeze every bit of energy out of the country's resources and advantages, and win the civil war no matter the consequences, the Bolshevik government went on a total war footing, known as War Communism.

Under the banner of War Communism, Lenin allowed the CHEKA to conduct a Red Terror against any opposition force, whether military or civilian. CHEKA oversaw mass murders in the cities and enormous peasant deaths, all aimed to intimidate White forces in the countryside -- without question, it worked. In addition, Lenin quickly nationalized all industry so he could control all revenue and production elements, outlawed private trade so the government could gain all benefit from commerce, and ordered the forced seizure of grain from all peasants to feed his constituents and deny food to the opposition. Though this probably led to a devastating famine in 1922, Lenin took any means to reach his goal of victory. By early 1921, Lenin had galvanized his supporters, defeated the Whites, and secured the success of his seizure of power in October 1917.

No longer was there a question of Communist rule in Russia, by now renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Lenin and his Bolshevik party, by virtue of their victory in the civil war, were entrenched in the seat of power. The Russian Revolution was over.