Russian Revolution

According to Sheila Fitzpatrick, the Russian Revolution period lasted from 1917 to 1932.

Conditions Before the Revolutions
In the 1800s, Russia was considered a great power of Europe, but the country was not as advanced as Western Europe. It had begun the process of modernizing, but started much later and was behind the other countries.

Just like today, Russia was mostly rural and had only a few big cities. It operated on the Feudal system, meaning serfs farmed the land of lords, who ruled them and protected them. Serfs had no political or social power.

In 1861, the Russian government ended feudalism in a move called emancipation. The government paid the feudal lords money, and in return, the feudal lords freed their serfs. However, traditional life continued much like it had before. Each family got a strip of land to farm, distributed by the village council (called the "mir"). Before this emancipation, the peasants devoted some of their time to also farming their master's land. After emancipation, they had to pay "redemption payments" to the government, to repay the money given to the feudal lords when the serfs were freed. Therefore, their lives had to continue in this way to be able to afford those payments as well as taxes. This was a purposeful move, since the government did not want all the peasants to move to the cities and create a significant "landless proletariat" with political power. However, many people (especially young men) temporarily left their villages to work other jobs.

Russia as a whole was becoming increasingly wealthy because of industrialization, investment from other counties, modernization of banking, and local entrepreneurship. This may seem like it was great for Russia, but the rapid change actually contributed to Russia's instability. In addition, 80% of the population was made up of peasants, and they did not experience this increase in wealth. They were stuck farming their village land or moving to the city and working jobs in factories, construction, or mining.

Often, the peasants performed strikes. Since it was difficult to make small changes to wages and conditions, protests would often become large, especially because the government would often send troops to contain it. Russian peasants actually have a long history of being violent and anarchistic, so this was not very surprising for leaders. For example, peasants staged the Pugachev Revolt in the 1770s.

Russia's last Tsar, Nicholas II, was fighting a losing battle against liberal influences. He suspected that they were working towards a constitutional monarchy. Many people, however, wanted different forms of government and felt that Nicholas II was doing a poor job modernizing the country.

One group, called the Intelligentsia, were an educated and elite group that formed in the late 1800s. They felt alienated from the rest of the population but wanted to work toward the best interests of the peasants. They were very critical of the government and how it operated, and they led many revolts. They idealized and romanticized the peasants, and felt that capitalism was destroying their way of life. They wanted to "save" the peasants, who often did not want to be saved. Between 1873 and 1874, many intelligentsia went from cities to villages to either educate the peasants or learn their "wisdom" for themselves. The peasants were suspicious, and the secret police imprisoned much of the intelligentsia. In the late 1870s, the intelligentsia committed a series of acts of revolutionary terrorism to avenge their arrested fellows. Over time, the word Intelligentsia came to mean someone with less extreme, more liberal views that were still sympathetic to the idea of revolution.

Another group that was active during this period was the Populists. (This was a name given by later Marxists to distinguish themselves from them.) They felt that industrialization and capitalism were bad for both the West and for Russia. They thought the system should be socialist.

In 1881, a populist group called the People's Will assassinated Emperor Alexander II. This ended up having the opposite effect to the one the populists wanted. Repression got worse, leaders continued to ignore the law, and the country basically turned into a modern police state. There were also anti-semitic pogroms in Ukraine. Rumor had it that the nobles committed the assassination because they were mad about the emancipation of the serfs.

In the 1880s, a new group called the Marxists formed. Instead of terrorism, they used intellectual debate. They argued that industrialization and capitalism were inevitable, and this was the only path towards socialism. They believed that only the proletariat could bring about the revolution. To some, the industrialization of the 1890s proved that the Marxists were right.

Marxism in Russia, China, India, and other places around the world did not have the same meaning it did in Western Europe. They supported revolution, but they also supported modernization. They also felt that the heart of the revolution was in the urban working classes, rather than the intelligentsia. This working class lacked status, education, and money, so these Marxists did study groups in the cities. The working class was willing to listen because they were materially improving their lives with education as well as learning about Marxist theory.

In 1898, the Marxists illegally made a party called the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. At this time, they became more political as a workers' movement, and led strikes as well as the 1905 Revolution. Within the party, legal Marxists like Petr Struve lost interest in the socialist revolution and preferred capitalism. Others felt that the party should work for economic gains (like good wages and working conditions) rather than political ones.

In 1903, the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party split up into two groups: Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Their main issue was Vladimir Lenin, viewed by some as too aggressive. The Bolsheviks supported Lenin. The Mensheviks, who ended up caring less about revolution, included Plekhanov, Martov, and Trotsky.

A key issue to Lenin was party organization. In a nation with a police state, it was important to him to have full-time professional revolutionaries on his team. He wanted the party to be centralized, strictly disciplined, and to all agree on policies. He didn't like diversity or spontaneity. He had an Authoritarian point of view and believed that the workers should lead the revolution.

Just before 1905, a Liberation movement made of liberals began supporting a bourgeois revolution by the professional class.

1905 Revolution
After this, Tsar Nicholas II established a national elected parliament called the Duma and legalized political parties and trade unions. However, none of this mattered because his secret police were still very active.

Between 1910 and 1914, the Mensheviks lost the support of workers to the Bolsheviks, who were more militant.