The Communist Revolution, October 1917 (Edexcel A Level History): Revision Note

Summary

• This note will examine why there was a revolution in Russia

• Russia was weakened by long-term problems and the pressures of the First World War

• The Provisional Government failed to make decisions on key issues, such as food, land, and war

• Lenin and the Bolsheviks offered simple promises to the people, such as “Peace, Land, Bread”

• Lenin wanted an immediate revolution, despite this going against Marxist principles and the opinion of Party members

• In October 1917, the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin and Trotsky, seized Petrograd and overthrew the Provisional Government

• Historians debate whether the Communist Revolution was a genuine revolution or a coup

  • Soviet accounts stress the mass support of the people

  • However, Western historians often see it as a carefully timed power grab by the Bolsheviks

Why was there a revolution in Russia?

Long-term causes

Geographical reasons

• The Russian Empire was large

  • It was nearly 5,000 kilometres wide

  • It spanned Europe and Asia

  • Standards of living varied significantly across the empire

  • There were around 200 nationalities living in the Russian Empire, with widely different religions and customs

Political reasons

• The political system in Russia had experienced very little change for centuries

  • The Tsar was an autocratic monarch

    • He did not have to listen to his advisers

    • He believed he was chosen by God to rule

  • The Duma created in 1905 had minimal authority after being deliberately weakened

    • The tsar could ignore the Duma's advice

    • It was down to the tsar when the Duma ended

    • Voting laws meant that the Duma only contained people loyal to the tsar

  • The tsar held all of the power, whilst peasants and workers had little to no power

Social and economic reasons

• Historians describe Russia in 1917 as a backward country

  • Most Russians lived in villages or mirs

    • Around 87% of Russia’s population lived in the countryside

  • Peasant farmers worked in agriculture using traditional tools and methods

    • Land passed down through generations by inheritance

    • Land was split up so small that modern techniques or equipment could not be used to farm efficiently

• Peasants remained dissatisfied

  • The 1861 Emancipation Edict had given peasants their legal freedom

  • However, many peasants:

    • Did not have enough food or money to survive

    • Were illiterate

    • Faced redemption payments and limited access to land

• Life for industrial workers was no better. They:

  • Lived in overcrowded housing

  • Worked long hours for low wages

  • Had limited workers' rights

  • Faced unsafe living and working conditions

Short-term causes

Tsar Nicholas II

• Nicholas became tsar in 1894

• Nicholas had many beliefs of what a tsar should be

  • However, Nicholas was a weak ruler who could not live up to previous tsars

• Nicholas damaged his authority by taking command of the army in 1915. This caused:

  • Nicholas to be personally responsible for the success or weakness of the army

  • His wife, Tsarina Alexandra, and her religious healer, Rasputin to take control of the government

    • Rasputin was a controversial figure hated by the public

    • Alexandra and Rasputin were not effective in government

The First World War

• By 1917:

  • Millions of Russian soldiers had been killed or wounded

  • Thousands of Russian soldiers, who were mostly untrained peasants, had deserted the army

  • Inflation was spiralling and taxes on products like vodka were unpopular

  • Food shortages were severe in towns and the countryside

The weakness of the Provisional Government

• Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate in February/March 1917

• Officials from the Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional Government ruled together in a system called dual power

• However, the Provisional Government was unpopular because:

  • It delayed making quick political decisions, insisting on an election

    • The people became impatient, wanting resolutions to issues such as land and food

  • It refused to end Russia's involvement in the First World War

The Bolsheviks

• The Bolsheviks were an extremist political party who had been suppressed during Tsarism and the Provisional Government

• Its leader, Vladimir Lenin, believed October 1917 was the perfect time for a revolution in Russia

  • However, many leading Bolsheviks, including Zinoviev and Kamenev, opposed a violent uprising

    • They preferred to wait for elections

  • Lenin ignored their concerns

    • He tasked Leon Trotsky to plan the revolution

How did the Bolsheviks seize power?

Lenin and the April Theses

• In April, Lenin returned to Russia

  • Germany funded his journey

    • They believed that Lenin's presence in Russia would force Russia to surrender in the First World War

  • Lenin travelled on the 'sealed train'

    • This means that Lenin travelled through countries without passport checks

• When Lenin returned to Petrograd, he made a speech called the 'April Theses'

Trotsky and the Petrograd Soviet

• In September 1917, Trotsky became chairman of the Petrograd Soviet

  • This showed an increase in support for the Bolsheviks

• In October, Trotsky organised the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC)

  • This brought the Red Guards, soldiers, and sailors from Kronstadt under Bolshevik control

Events of the Bolshevik seizure of power

• On 24–25 October 1917, Bolshevik forces took control of strategic locations in Petrograd, including:

  • Railway stations

  • Telegraph offices

  • Bridges

• The Winter Palace, the official base of the Provisional Government, was stormed on the night of 25 October

  • Defended only by a small group of cadets and the Women’s Battalion, it fell with minimal resistance

• Prime Minister Kerensky fled Petrograd

• The Bolsheviks announced that power had been transferred to the soviets

Lenin's ideology

Marxism

• Karl Marx was a German philosopher

• He and Friedrich Engels developed the theory of communism through:

  • The Communist Manifesto (1848)

    • The political and social viewpoint of communism

  • Das Kapital (1867)

    • The economic viewpoint of communism

• Marxism believed that all countries moved through five ‘stages of history’

How was Lenin influenced by Marxism?

• Lenin believed that:

  • The First World War was the perfect opportunity to overthrow capitalism in Russia

  • Revolution in Russia would trigger a global communist revolution

    • This is despite Marx believing that true communism took hundreds of years to achieve

• Lenin's beliefs are called Marxist-Leninist

Should the Bolshevik takeover be called a 'revolution' or a coup?

• Historians have debated whether the Communist Revolution should be classed as a revolution

  • Revolutions require mass support

  • Coups are armed seizures of power by a small group of people, usually without popular support

Soviet perspective

• Under the USSR, Soviet historians portrayed the events of October 1917 as a genuine mass revolution, representing the will of workers, peasants, and soldiers

  • Their opinion was based on Soviet propaganda films, such as Sergei Eisenstein's October (1928)

  • Censorship meant that they had to express the opinions of the Soviet government

Key Soviet historians

“In his guidance of the uprising, Lenin’s genius as a leader of the masses, a wise and fearless strategist, who clearly saw what direction the revolution would take, was strikingly revealed.” - G.D. Obichkin, V. I. Lenin: A Short Biography (1968)

"Lenin chose a suitable time for it when the forces of the enemy were demoralised and the ranks of the insurgents were inspired by confidence in victory. That explains why this insurrection, in which huge masses of people participated, triumphed in a single day and involved virtually no bloodshed." - B.N. Ponomarev, A Short History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1970)

Western perspective

• Western historians argue that the Bolshevik Revolution was a coup, lacking real popular support

• Many historians also highlight the opportunistic nature of the Bolsheviks to exploit the weakness of the Provisional Government

Key Western historians

"It was almost a bloodless coup, enabling Lenin to set up a new soviet government with himself in charge.  The coup had been successful because Lenin had judged to perfection the moment of maximum hostility towards the Kerensky government, and the Bolsheviks, who knew exactly what they wanted, were well disciplined and organised, whereas all other political groups were in disarray." - Norman Lowe, Mastering Modern World History (1982)

"October was a classic coup d'état, the capture of governmental authority by a small band...with a show of mass participation, but with hardly any mass involvement.” - Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution (1990)

"The Great October Socialist Revolution, as it came to be called in Soviet mythology, was in reality such a small-scale event, being in effect no more than a military coup, that it passed unnoticed by the vast majority of the inhabitants of Petrograd.  Theatres, restaurants and tram cars functioned much as normal while the Bolsheviks came to power." - Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy (1996)