RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

1. RUSSIAN REVOLUTION FROM THE SEEDS TO THE OUTBREAK

2. Deep background… • Russia had been reactionary against liberal ideas throughout the 19th century • Nicholas I (1825-55) gained power despite the Decembrist Conspiracy and proceeded to quash reform efforts—helped crush 1848 revolutions in Europe

3. Alexander II (1855-81) • acceded to the throne in the middle of the Crimean War and initially passed a number of reforms before becoming more conservative • Towards the end of his reign he once again made reforms—local government, judicial, educational—and most importantly, freeing the serfs with the 1861 Emancipation Act • Continued Russia’s territorial expansion • Assassinated in 1881

4. Alexander III (1881-94) • Domestic policies were reactionary • Responded to his father’s assassination with a repressive regime that rolled back many of the reforms

5. Nicholas II (1894-1917) Generally incompetent Tried to model himself after his authoritarian father Encouraged in this by his wife

6. Tutored by Pobyedonostzev, lay leader of the Orthodox church • Deeply conservative

7. Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 was disastrous and unpopular—resulted in the Revolution of 1905 • Uprising was put down forcibly in the famous Bloody Sunday • Troops shot into a crowd of 200,000 men, women and children in front of the Winter Palace

8. Results of Bloody Sunday • Political strikes break out • Social Democrats & other opposition groups re-emerge to encourage the movements • A variety of groups vied for power • All demanded more democratic representation in the government • NII finally granted a Duma and constitution • Divided the opposition: Constitutional Democrats feared the more radical elements in the opposition movements

9. Change that wasn’t… • Nicholas quickly curtailed all of the reforms he had just implemented • Opposition responded with renewed agitation: were met with police terror • Gov’t engineered pogroms—anti-Semitic violence—as a way of channeling popular discontent away from the gov’t

10. Piotr Stolypin • PM 1906-1911 • Tried to create a class of landowning peasants: kulaks • Did not touch the large estates of the nobility • Ignored the poorest of the peasants • This would cause division which would contribute to the tsar’s downfall

11. Economic Factors • Russia mainly agricultural and underdeveloped • Industry growing rapidly in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Baku, largely financed by foreign capital • Social Democrats (who would split into the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in 1912) began to find support amongst these new industrial workers

12. Impact of WWI • Russia had encouraged Pan-Slavism which contributed to the outbreak of war • War had not gone well—Nicholas’ intervention in the war in August 1915 had made things even worse for the Russian command structure • Inflation grew, food shortages were rampant, and morale plummeted amongst the troops • Duma was suspended in Sept 1915, removing even the veneer of democracy

13. Through 1916… • Nicholas increasingly autocratic in his desperation • Alexandra encouraged his autocratic ways • Allowed Rasputin to hold sway over the family: seeming ability to cure the hemophilia of the Crown Prince • Rasputin is murdered (third attempt!) Dec. 18, 1916 by Felix Yusopov, a young noble married to the tsar’s niece Irena • Nicholas continued to make poor decisions regarding the war • People regard his days as numbered

14. Alexandra aka “The German Woman” • Deeply loved her husband, but incredibly out of touch with the Russian people and the reality of their political situation • Recommended harsh autocracy • Letters to Nicholas recommended cracking down: the Russian people loving “to feel the whip” and “It’s in their nature—tender love and then the iron hand to punish and guide them.”

15. February 1917… • 170,000 troops stationed in Petrograd (St. Petersburg)—but mostly raw and untrained • Signs of sympathy with the protesters • Long food lines, hoarding common, wood for heat hard to come by—buildings in which the middle class lived kept just above freezing • Heavy snowfalls prevented grain trains from reaching the city

16. Thursday February 23, 1917 • International Woman’s Day • Female textile plant workers strike; slogans inc. “Down with hunger! Bread for the workers!” • Working class men join them in the streets • Police did nothing to intervene • Agitators cease trying to hide their identities • Tsarina writes to NII to dismiss the importance of the strike: “ If the weather was cold, they would probably have stayed at home.”

17. Friday February 24… • Demonstrators out in force again • Cossack unit ordered to charge the crowd instead rides slowly through it

18. Saturday February 25 • All factories closed with workers in the streets demonstrating • Police and cavalry units fire into the crowds • Crowds do not disperse and gradually rescue those taken by the police and drive the police away in fear of their lives • Still relatively disorganized and leaderless

19. Sunday February 26 • Crowds use the frozen river to avoid police stationed on the bridges • Troops fire on crowds and situation begins to devolve • Alexandra visits grave of Rasputin • Comments reveal how out of touch she was: “It seems to me that it will all be all right. The sun shines so clearly and I felt such peace and quiet at His dear grave. He died in order to save us.”

20. Other insights… • Okhrana agent: “If the troops turn against the government, then nothing can save the country.” • Duma President Rodzyanko sends telegraph to tsar and high commanders: “Situation serious. Anarchy in the capital. Government paralyzed. Transport of food and fuel in full disorder. Popular discontent growing. Disorderly firing in the streets. Some military units fire on one another, essential immediately to order persons having the confidence of the country to form a new government. Delay impossible. Any delay deadly. I pray to God that in this hour the blame does not fall on the crown.”

21. Monday February 27 • Volynsky guardsmen vow to join with the people—mutiny and kill their captain • Led break-in at the main arsenal—weapons distributed to the crowd • Units which were to enact the security plan had all mutinied • 2400 prisoners freed from Kresty prison • Police lynched

22. Alexander Kerensky • Legal aid lawyer—advised on workers rights • Founded a socialist newspaper • Made his reputation by getting arrested and imprisoned during the 1905 revolution • Now a Duma deputy • Okhrana nickname: “Speedy” • Heads to Tauride Palace • Two provisional committees set up • Kerensky joins one madeof Duma members who will become the Provisional Government, • Other: first Petrograd Soviet to meet since 1905

23. Tuesday February 28 • Mutineers have the run of the city • Nicholas leaves front for Petrograd to join Alexandra at the Alexander Palace

24. Wednesday March 1 • Nicholas flees! Thursday March 2 Alexander signs the Act of Abdication at Pskov Station

25. Vladimir Illich Lenin • In Zurich in exile at time of revolution • Did not expect the revolution at this time, but wanted to take advantage of the upheaval • Opposed the war • Germany helped him get back as his presence was sure to undermine the Russian war effort

26. Lenin Musings… • “The tsarist monarchy has been smashed but not finally destroyed.” • “The Soviet of Worker’s Deputies is an organization of the workers, the embryo of a workers’ government, the representative of the interests of the entire mass of the poor section of the population, I.e., of nine-tenths of the population, which is striving for peace, bread, and freedom. The conflict of these three forces determines the situation that has now arisen, a situation that is transitional from the first stage of the revolution to the second.”

27. Winston Churchill: “It was with a sense of awe that they turned upon Russia the most grisly of all weapons. They transported Lenin in a sealed truck like a plague bacillus into Russia.” • Lenin arrived at Finland Station in Petrograd on April 3 and gave a speech right on the platform—”The people need peace. The people need bread and land. And they give you war, hunger, no food, and the land remains with the landowners.”

28. Leon Trotsky • Sentenced to life in Siberia for role in 1905 • Escaped across the taiga in a reindeer sled—went to Paris, then Spain, then NY • Headed back to Russia in May 1917

29. The Provisional Government Crumbles • Kerensky becomes War Minister in May • Powerful and affecting speaker, but not enough to help him now • Summer offensive disastrous—desertions in the 1000’s • The July Days—Bolsheviks forced into a premature uprising and provisional government seeks to discredit them • July 21—Prince Lvov resigns and Kerensky forms a new government • Inflation reaches 1000%

30. Kerensky revelled in the trappings of power • His CiC, Gen. Lavr Kornilov attempted a rightist coup in September which failed • Coup put the Bolsheviks back in a better light—officers lose credibility with the enlisted men and discipline shatters • Nationalist movements emerge throughout Russia • Kerensky headed a gov’t with no direction—all talk, no action on developing a parliament

31. Trotsky gets released from prison—a doer, not just a talker • The stage is set for revolution!