1. Modern Revolutions in Comparative Perspective
Jan Plamper

2. Week 11: The Russian Revolution I
Introduction
Russian history, circa
February Revolution
The Bolsheviks

3. (1) Introduction
Russian history – the basics: sparsely populated vast empire with enormous ethnic , religious and linguistic diversity

6. (1) Introduction
Kirghiz nomads, 1911, from Prokudin-Gorskii Collection at Library of Congress

7. (1) Introduction
Daghestani couple, , from Prokudin-Gorskii Collection at Library of Congress

8. (1) Introduction
Jewish grain merchants in shtetl Słomniki in Pale of Settlement, photo taken between 1918 and 1933  ↓Marc Chagall, Wedding, 1911

9. (1) Introduction
Vast majority of population until 1930s: peasants. Problem for Marxists, acc. to whom socialist revolution was to be driven by proletariat (= industrial laborers).

10. (1) Introduction
Peasants = serfs (= slaves) until 1861 (Emancipation). Peasants were not individual, profit-seeking farmers, but organised in communes. Communal tilling of land, communal decision-making. Photograph of commune meeting 

11. (1) Introduction
Russian history – the basics: society rigidly organised in estates (e.g. nobility, clergy, peasantry). Estate = legal/social category, akin to Indian caste. Movement between estates = difficult

12. (1) Introduction
Russian history – the basics: absolutist monarchy, ruled by tsars. Tsar = also official Head of Russian Orthodox Church

13. (2) Russian history, circa 1700-1917
: Peter I (‘the Great’). Russia’s westernisation starts; eventually Russia becomes European great power : St Petersburg, ‘window to Europe’, founded

14. (2) Russian history, circa 1700-1917
: reign of Catherine II (‘the Great’). Part of nobility influenced by Enlightenment ideas. Two institutions seem anachronistic: (a) serfdom (b) absolute monarchy

15. (2) Russian history, circa 1700-1917
hopes of parts of nobility for emancipation of serfs and constitutional monarchy high when Russia defeats Napoleon in War of But tsar Alexander I turns conservative  parting of ways between parts of nobility and monarchy, beginning of intelligentsia.

16. (2) Russian history, circa 1700-1917
Meaning of word ‘intelligentsia’ until Stalin: not a fixed social category, but always implies resistance to state (Only under Stalin in 1930s does technical intelligentsia, i.e. engineers, who are loyal to state, come into being.)

17. (2) Russian history, circa 1700-1917
General pattern until Russian revolutions of 1917: intelligentsia and tsarist state out of sync. All reforms by state come too late and are too little. Intelligentsia demands tend to always be more radical than what state is willing to grant.

18. (2) Russian history, circa 1700-1917
1825: Decembrist revolt: intelligentsia noblemen, who had been organising in secret societies, rebel against new tsar, Nicholas I, in December  revolt suppressed 1975 monument at execution site of Decembrists 

19. (2) Russian history, circa 1700-1917
Russian defeat in Crimean War ( ), backwardness becomes palpable. Need to reform felt even among elites. Tsar Alexander II (ruled ) starts period of ‘Great Reforms’, the greatest of which is emancipation of serfs in 1861.

20. (2) Russian history, circa 1700-1917
1890s onwards: industrialisation; formation of industrial labour force; further radicalisation of intelligentsia, both intellectually (Marxism) and practically (terror: tsar Alexander II assassinated in 1881, Alexander III in 1894) Nicholas II rules

21. (2) Russian history, circa 1700-1917
1904-5: Russo-Japanese War  Russia is defeated  Revolution 1905
strikes and worker protests, ‘Bloody Sunday’ in January 1905: tsarist troops shoot at protesters (led by priest, carrying icons and tsar portraits) who were on their way to Winter Palace with demands for tsar, many killed
wave of more strikes and demonstrations

22. Railway workers overturn train at main railway depot in Tiflis, Georgia, 1905

23. (2) Russian history, circa 1700-1917
Reaction of monarchy:
tsar issues October manifesto, a document that created a bicameral parliament (Council of Ministers and Duma) with multi-party system and seemed to pave way for constitutional monarchy
four dumas until 1917; franchise continually smaller (June 1907, Prime Minister Peter Stolypin’s ‘coup’  electoral law changed, peasant et al. franchise diminished)

24. (2) Russian history, circa 1700-1917
Causes for failure of Russian constitutionalism:
tsar retained veto power, i.e. continued to act like absolutist monarch
further radicalisation of intelligentsia et al.
problems too entrenched (social question, nationality question etc.)
 too late, too little

25. (2) Russian history, circa 1700-1917
And yet Russian revolutions of 1917 were not inevitable. Important catalyst: WW1 ( ). After brief phase of patriotic enthusiasm, WW1 exacerbated all existing problems.

26. (2) Russian history, circa 1700-1917
What is more,
Nicholas II took personal command of army in Sep  held responsible for problems
rumours about tsaritsa being German spy + under influence of Rasputin (mystic priest)
etc.  
Erosion of monarchy’s legitimacy, soldiers refuse to follow officer orders and desert; on home front: strikes, demonstrations

27. (3) February Revolution
Immediate cause: harsh winter in Petrograd (= St Petersburg). Feb.-March 1917: bread crisis, women demonstrate  workers support with strikes  troops ordered to shoot  troops fraternise March 1917: tsar abdicates  304 years of Romanov dynasty’s rule over, legitimacy had eroded, ‘implosion’, not ‘explosion’, anti-climax

28. (3) February Revolution

29. (3) February Revolution
Locus of power after tsar’s abdication?
dual power:
provisional government
(b) soviets

30. (4) The Bolsheviks
Until 1905 Revolution and Duma, there were only underground parties. Largest: Socialist Revolutionaries (SR’s), founded in Ideas: agrarian socialism, emphasis on traditional peasant commune as proto-socialist form of organisation.

31. (4) The Bolsheviks
After 1905 Revolution: many political parties, including
Kadets (Constitutional Democrats): liberals, pro universal suffrage and republic (until 1906, thereafter pro constitutional monarchy)
Octobrists: conservative-liberal, pro constitutional monarchy

32. (4) The Bolsheviks
Bolsheviks (from bol’shinstvo = majority) on extreme Marxist left fringe. They emerged from a split in Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in Other faction: Mensheviks (from men’shinstvo = minority). Bolsheviks and Mensheviks had fewer than 10,000 members in In Feb most leaders in hiding or exile.

33. (4) The Bolsheviks
After February Revolution, Bolsheviks increasingly influential in soviets. But: Bolsheviks = orthodox Marxists, who now waited until ‘objective’ class struggle brought about socialist revolution  gradualism. They did not see preconditions for socialist revolution in predominantly agrarian Russia.

34. (4) The Bolsheviks
April 1917, enter: Vladimir Lenin ( ) Photograph from 1920 

35. (4) The Bolsheviks
Lenin returns from exile in April 1917 and issues ‘April Theses’, a reversal of gradualist approach:
do not support provisional gov’t
do not support ‘imperialist’ WW1
Feb. Rev. = first, bourgeois stage of revolution, let us move on to second, socialist stage
Bolsheviks = vanguard of proletariat, can leader proletariat to socialist revolution