Revolutionary and Soviet Russia before World War II
Causes of the Russian Revolution:
Long -term causes included:
unwillingness of the Autocracy to grant political reforms--all political opposition is therefore revolutionary
growing political radicalism among the students and the intelligentsia, who feel duty to create a more just society
serf emancipation in the 1860s that rendered the peasant majority as "second class subjects" of the Tsar and created continuing social tensions
growing class tensions as the urban proletariat grew during the industrialization of the late 1800s
weakness of the middle class, which fails to provide any stable social base for liberal reforms
rise of radical socialist political parties dedicated to overthrowing both Tsarism and (eventually) capitalism: Major (illegal) political parties were the Liberals [Kadets and Octoberists]; Socialist Populists [the SRs]; Marxists [Bolsheviks and Mensheviks...the two marxist groups split over issues of tactics]
Failure of the 1905 Revolution to achieve real lasting political reforms: in 1905 the Tsar declared that he would recognize civil rights of all subjects and promised a create an elected parliament (duma), but by 1907 the duma electoral laws had been changed to weaken any opposition
Short-term causes included:
Great economic and social strains of the war on Russian society
Failure of Tsarist government to prosecute the war effort effecively
Behavior of Tsar Nicholas II and his entourage, which undermined any shred of popular legitimacy left to the monarchy
The February Revolution: Main Turning Points
Jan-Feb 1917 strike wave
Workers'/women's demonstrations in late February [mid-March] in the capital city of Petrograd [St. Petersburg] lead to a spontaneous mass rebellion, which within one week leads to the collapse of Tsarist government.
Creation of Provisional government and Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies. Provisional government claims power, but Soviet controls popular support. Soviet agrees to support the government under condition that the government grant equal rights to all, refuse to agree to any imperialistic war aims, quickly hold a Constituent Assembly, and institute an extensive land reform. The government did grant equal rights, but failed to complete other reforms.
April government crisis when liberals promise to keep "imperialist" war agreements with France and England; this leads to the removal of many Liberals from the government; members of the Mensheviks and SRs from the Soviet then join the government. But Lenin's party, the Bolsheviks, refuse to join. Lenin rejects any cooperation with the "bourgeoisie" and calls for "all power to the Soviets." That means that Lenin can blame the Mensheviks and SRs for any problems faced by the government. At the same time, there is an increase in labor unrest and strikes.
June military offensive led by government member Kerensky proves to be a great failure. As living conditions get worse, workers demand pay raises and a growing number of unions declare strikes. Soldiers' committees begin refusing to execute officers' orders. Peasant committees begin demanding the re-distribution of land of private landowners The Mensheviks and SRs urge workers, soldiers, and peasants to maintain order.
July crisis when rank-and-file Bolshevik workers and soldiers try to seize power in the capital city of Petrograd; the uprising failed and the government began arresting Bolshevik leaders. But since the economy kept spiraling down and the government seemed unwilling to make reforms, the lower ranks of society [including soldiers] became increasingly willing to support the far-left position of the Bolsheviks.
Late August the failed military coup of Commander of the Russian Military, Kornilov, further weakness the Liberals, the Mensheviks, and the SRs. Although Kerensky goes on to form yet another version of the Provisional government, it is clear that the Bolsheviks and other militant leftists are becoming stronger.
September and October, the Bolsheviks, the left SRs, and the Anarchists win majorities in elections to local Soviets across the country.
Late October [early November], Lenin's party uses the Petrograd Soviet to seize power and announces creation of a [temporary] Soviet government at the 2nd all-Russian congress of soviets. Lenin's government is basically a Bolshevik one-party regime.
The First Months of Soviet Rule:
Lenin's government is viewed as an "outlaw regime" not only by its opponents in Russia (including the other socialist parties--the SRs and Mensheviks), but also by of the other governments of Europe and North America.
Lenin's initial program: made up of measures delayed by the Provisional government: a decree giving peasants control over the land, a decree calling for immediate peace talks to end WWI, a decree giving workers more control over the factories, and nationalization of a few key industries (such as banking and transportation). Lenin's initial program was not designed to build socialism in Russia right away: he believed that the Russian revolution would trigger a socialist revolution in the rest of Europe, and that Socialist Europe would then help backward Russia to develop its own socialist economy.
December 1917, Lenin shuts down the opposition newspapers and begins ordering the arrests of opposition leaders. First Finland, then several other national minority regions of the former Russian empire declare independence. Also, the Bolshevik government signs a cease-fire agreement with Germany and begins negotiations towards a peace treaty.
January 1918, the Constituent Assembly, Russia's first democratically elected legislative gathering, meets for just one day. Since the Bolsheviks did not have a majority (the SRs had the majority), Lenin ordered pro-Bolshevik soldiers to shut down the Assembly.
March 1918, Lenin's government signs a peace treaty with Germany (the Brest-Litovsk peace) that gives the Germans control over a large portion of Russia's territory. This move is opposed by many members of Lenin's own party (now called the Communist Party), as well as by the SRs.
Spring 1918, as the economy collapses even more, Lenin's government nationalizes all private property, so that the state is the only owner of factories, stores, etc.
The 1918-1920 Civil War:
Between 1918 and 1918, the Communist regime's enemies include the other socialist parties in Russia (now all outlawed), the "White Armies" (which include former tsarist officers, monarchists, and some liberals), and invading armies from 13 different countries (including the USA). The Communist government builds its own army, the Red Army, made up of workers and peasants and led by Communist party organizers.
The Red Army manages to defeat the Whites in years of very brutal, bloody fighting (some 3 million people are killed): this was in part because a) the Reds were better organized and controlled strategically important territory in the country's center; the Whites and foreign interventionists never coordinated their activities; the policies of the Whites alienated peasants, who may have disliked the Communists but hated the Whites even more.
The economy completed collapsed during the Civil War: money became worthless and most factories shut down. People fled the cities to the villages hoping to find food. The Communist regime used force to collect food from the peasants, and described its emergency policies as "War Communism"
During the Civil War the Communist regime became increasingly dictatorial and militaristic. Not only was it a one-party dictatorship, but in this "workers' and peasants' state" anyone who opposed the Communists was accused of being a "class enemy." Lenin's government freely used force against all opposition, including force against workers or peasants who protested.
By the end of 1920, the Reds had managed to win the Civil War and hold on to power, but the country was in ruins. The peasantry was now in rebellion against the communists (the so-called "Green" army of peasant rebels began fighting the Reds as soon as the Whites had been defeated). The working class had shrunken to half its size in 1917, and tens of thousands of workers were now striking and protesting against the Communist government. And in early 1921, soldiers and sailors began to mutiny. At the Kronshtadt naval base, once pro-Bolshevik sailors seized control of the city and called for "Soviet power without the Communists" in March 1921. Lenin had been waiting for the European Socialist revolution, but it simply did not happen.
And so in spring 1921, Lenin began a policy of "strategic retreat," the New Economic Policy.
NEP, 1921-1928:
Lenin's NEP policies restored elements of private property and capitalism in order to rebuild Russia's economy. Peasants could now sell their grain surplus at privately-run markets, and individuals cold own small stores, businesses, and factories. But the government still completely controlled entire sectors of the economy, such as weapons production, coal and metal production, transportation, and banking. A state-planned sector of the economy therefore existed side-by-side with the capitalist sector of the economy.
Although NEP "liberalized" the economy, there was no political liberalization: the Communists remained the only legal political party, and the regime crushed any and all political opposition with extreme force. Moreover, the Communist Party would no longer tolerate dissent within its own ranks.
Soviet Russia remained an "out-law" state in the 1920s, and the only European country to enter into direct relation with it was the new democratic government of Germany (with the 1922 Rapollo Treaty). In that same year, Soviet Russia and several of the smaller states of the former Russian Empire in the south and the east (also under Communist control) signed treaties to create a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (the USSR). Although the Soviet Union was supposedly a federation of equal states, it was clear from the start that Russia dominated the union.
The first years of NEP were years of terrible famine in Soviet Russia, but by 1923-1924 the economy was beginning to recover. However, agriculture recovered much more quickly than did industry, and the capitalist sector was growing faster than the state-owned socialist sector. Moreover, NEP was very unpopular with rank-and-file Communist Party members, who saw its as a step backwards.
In January 1924 Lenin died after having suffered a series of debilitating strokes.
Even before Lenin's death, a great struggle for power had begun within the Communist Party leadership. At one level, the struggle was about personalities and the desire for personal power. But more importantly, it was a struggle over what policies the party and state should follow.
The leading figures in this struggle were Leon Trotsky (often considered a co-leader with Lenin in 1917-1918), Lev Kamenev and Gregory Zinoviev (old allies of Lenin's), Nicholas Bukharin (a popular young party leader), and Joseph Stalin (the head of the party's bureaucratic machinery).
Between 1923 and 1928, various factions involving these leaders formed, fought over policy, then dissolved:
1923-25: Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Stalin vs Trotsky [the "left opposition"]. Trotsky argued that the country was not industrializing fast enough and that the peasants had to be taxed more heavily; he also criticized the bureaucracy as corrupt. Stalin, et al, accused Trotsky of opposing Leninism. Trotsky is issolated as a result.
1925-1926: Kamenev and Zinoviev vs Stalin and Bukharin. Kamenev and Zinoviev begin repeating Trotsky's basic criticisms. Stalin et al accuse them of breaking with Leninism.
1926-1927: Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Trotsky [the "united oppositon"] vs Stalin and Bukharin. The opposition again warns that the "pro-peasant" economic policies of Stalin and Bukharin are leading to disaster and that the state machine is becoming corrupt. Stalin not only defeats them, but has them and their supporters stripped of their positions in the party and state.
1928-1929: Stalin vs Bukharin [the "right opposition]. During a grain shortage in 1928, Stalin adopts many of the policies proposed by Trotsky five years earlier; when Bukharin protests, Stalin claims that Bukharin opposes Leninism. Bukharin and his supporters were defeated in 1929, and Stalin launched a new policy that ended NEP and nationalized all property in the USSR.
Stalinism Before World War Two
The Stalin program is based upon rapid, forced collectivization of all agriculture (peasants are driven off of their farms onto giant "collective" and state farms; those who resist are accused of being class enemies [kulaks] and arrested, killed, or deported). It is also based upon extremely rapid industrialization and state ownership of all factories, plants, stores, etc.
Both agriculture and industry are run according to massive "5 year plans" that set targets for the entire economy. But the plans are not based upon the resources (labor, fuel, machines, etc) that are available; instead, the plans set targets based upon "needs." The result is that the targets generally are unreachable. But the government still claims that it is meeting all targets.
If any factory manager or collective farm manager does not meet his or her target, or if anything in the system fails, blame is cast upon "class enemies," "wreckers," "spies," etc. The Stalin regime never accepts the idea that its own planning could be to blame: instead, they must hunt out the internal enemies who "must be to blame." Class enemies (etc) are arrested, sent to labor camps, deported to Siberia or Central Asia, or shot.
The result was a system in which corruption and abuse of power was rampant, in which managers regularly cheated or falsified production statistics, in which quantity of goods was more important than quality, and in which denunciations could be used revenge or for career advancement.
The Stalin regime set as its goal creating a "new Soviet man and women" who would think, feel, and behave according to Communist ideology and doctrine. To achieve this, the Soviet party-state outlawed all opposition and carefully cut Soviet citizens off from "pernicious" foreign influences, it carried out a constant mass campaign against religion and used the schools, youth organizations, clubs, etc., to indoctrinate people with Communist ideology.
Amazingly, in 1930-1941, the USSR did industrialize. In one decade it more or less caught up with the capitalist industrial powers. Moreover, the Stalin regime managed to increase literacy rates and improve health care for most of the population. We need to understand that the idea of building socialism in the USSR really was popular, and that millions of people considered Stalin a great hero. But the costs of the USSR's rapid progress were enormous--between the forced collectivization of the countryside and the chaos of rapid industrialization, the entire society was in almost constant crisis.
In addition, the regime's almost reflexive habit of hunting for enemies became more and more deadly with each year. After the murder of an important party official (Kirov) in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) in 1934, the Stalin regime initiated a campaign of terror. The first victims were Stalin's old opponents, Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Bukharin, who with their supporters were tried as "spies" and "enemies of the people." At the same time, the Stalin regime's efforts to combat corruption turned into a series of mass purges of party members. The purges and the terror came together in 1937-1938: in those years, the secret police executed tens of thousands of innocent people who had been denounced as "enemies." The terror destroyed much of the leadership of the universities and the scientific community, the army, and the government. There are no exact figures on the number of people killed in Stalin's terror. Some estimates are as low as a million, some as high as ten million. (The best numbers I've seen set the figure at closer to 3 million.)
Still, in the 1930s many leftists outside the Soviet Union refused to believe that the Stalin regime was murdering tens of thousands of its own people. Instead, they looked to Stalin as the only world leader and the USSR as the only country that seemed to be doing anything to oppose Hitler's Nazi regime (which had come to power in Germany in 1933) and to fight against fascism....