SOCIALISM IN EUROPE AND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

The event that occurred in Russia in October 1917 shook the whole world. The reason was
Russia - one of the vastest empire in the world became red. It was the biggest upheaval of
modern times. While the French Revolution established the democratic principle based on
equality, liberty and rule of law, the Russian Revolution transferred the power in the hands of the
proletariats. Inspired by Marxist ideology and led by Lenin, the Russian Revolution influenced
each and every walks of lives in the world. It was a huge setback of the western model of capitalist
system. It gave the birth of debate (as well as clash) of supremacy between the western model of
governance and economy and that of the soviet model in next 70 years.

IDEOLOGIES PREVALENT IN THE 20TH CENTURY

1. Liberals:
wanted a nation to tolerate all religions.
opposed the uncontrolled power of dynastic rulers.
supported for a representative, elected parliamentary government
advocated men of property mainly should have the vote.

2. Radicals:
wanted a nation in which government was based on the majority of a countrys population.
supported womens suffragette movements.
opposed the privileges of great landowners and wealthy factory owners.

3. Conservatives:
Earlier, they opposed to the idea of change.
By the 19th century, they accepted that some change was inevitable but through a slow process.
believed that the past had to be respected

4. Socialists:
Socialists were against private property, and saw it as the root of all social ills of the time.
public ownership of means of production and distribution
supported the idea of cooperatives.
Robert Owen sought to build a cooperative community called New Harmony in Indiana (USA).
In France, Louis Blanc wanted the government to encourage cooperatives

5. Communists:
Karl Marx is regarded as founder of scientific socialism (communism) wrote DAS CAPITAL.
He and his friend Friedrich Engels prepared COMMUNIST MENIFESTO.
believed that workers had to overthrow capitalism and the rule of private property.
Marx believed that to free themselves from capitalist exploitation, workers had to construct a
radically socialist society where all property was socially controlled. This would be a communist
society.
Rule of proletariate.

6. Nationalists:
believed in revolutions that would create .nations. where all citizens would have equal rights -
MAZZINI (Italian revolutionary).
RISE AND GROWTH OF SOCIALISM IN EUROPE

1. Paris Commune(1871):
popular uprising in Paris between March and May 1871 when the town council (commune) of
Paris was taken over by a peoples government consisting of workers, ordinary people,
professionals, political activists and others.
Ultimately crushed by government troops but it was celebrated by Socialists the world over as a
prelude to a socialist revolution.
legacies:
A. the workers red flag adopted by the communards ( revolutionaries) in Paris;
B. Marseillaise became a symbol of the Commune and of the struggle for liberty.

2. Socialists formed an international body The Second International in Paris in 1889.

In Germany, workers associations worked closely with the Social Democratic Party (SPD)
By 1905, Labour Party in Britain and a Socialist Party in France were formed.
The Russian Social Democratic Workers Party was founded in 1898
Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1900 (Mensheviks andBolshevik group)

Russian Economy and Society

The vast majority of Russias people were agriculturists(85%).
Industry was found in pockets _ St Petersburg and Moscow.
Most industry was the private property of industrialists. ]
Women made up 31 per cent of the factory labour force by 1914,
peasants weredeeply religious but had no respect for the nobility
They pooled their land together periodically and their commune (mir) divided it according to the
needs of individual families.

THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE IN 1914

In 1914, Tsar Nicholas II( Romanov dynasty) ruled Russia and its empire. Besides the territory
around Moscow, the Russian empire included current-day Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia,
parts of Poland, Ukraine and Belarus. It stretched to the Pacific and comprised todays Central
Asian states, as well as Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The majority religion was Russian Orthodox Christianity . which had grown out of the Greek
Orthodox Church but the empire also included Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and Buddhists.

THE 1905 REVOLUTION

Russia was an autocracy, the Tsar was not subject to parliament
Four members of the Assembly of Russian Workers( formed in 1904) were dismissed at the
Putilov Iron Works. 110,000 workers in St Petersburg went on strike demanding a reduction in
the working day to eight hours, an increase in wages and improvement in working conditions.
When the procession of workers led by Father Gapon reached the Winter Palace it was attacked
by the police and the Cossacks. Over 100 workers were killed and about 300 wounded.
The incident, known as Bloody Sunday, started a series of events that became known as the
1905 Revolution.
It is called the dress rehearsal of the October Revolution.
During the 1905 Revolution, the Tsar allowed the creation of Duma. He dismissed the first Duma
within 75 days and the second Duma within three months and packed the third Duma with
conservative politicians. Liberals and revolutionaries were kept out.
The First World War and the Russian Empire
Central powers: Germany, Austria and Turkey
Allied powers: France, Britain and Russia (later Italy and Romania).
Tsars wife Tsarina Alexandras German origins and poor advisers, especially a monk called
Rasputin, made the autocracy unpopular.
Russia was defeated on the eastern front. Russias armies lost badly in Germany and Austria
between 1914 and 1916. There were over 7 million casualties by 1917.
The destruction of crops and buildings led to over 3 million refugees in Russia.

THE FEBRUARY REVOLUTION

In the winter of 1917, conditions in the capital, Petrograd, were grim.
The workers quarters and factories were located on the right bank of the River Neva, the Winter
Palace, and official buildings, the Duma were on the left bank.
Followed by a lockout at a factory on 22 February, workers in fifty factories called a strike next
day.
In many factories, women led the way to strikes. This came to be called the International
Womens Day. Demonstrating workers crossed from the factory quarters to the centre of the
capital the Nevskii Prospekt.
On 25 February, the Duma was suspended. On the 27th, the Police Headquarters were
ransacked. By that evening, soldiers and striking workers had gathered to form a soviet(
Petrograd Soviet).
The Tsar abdicated on 2 March.
Soviet leaders and Duma leaders formed a Provisional Government under Prime Minister
Kerenskii. Petrograd had led the February Revolution that brought down the monarchy in
February 1917.
Army officials, landowners and industrialists were influential in the Provisional Government.
In April 1917, the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia from his exile.

Lenins April Theses:

A. War to be brought to a close,
B. Land be transferred to the peasants
C. Banks be nationalised.

THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION

On 16 October 1917, Lenin persuaded the Petrograd Soviet and the Bolshevik Party to agree to
a socialist seizure of power.
The uprising began on 24 October. In a swift response, the Military Revolutionary
Committee(under Leon Trotskii) seized government offices and arrested ministers.
Late in the day, the ship Aurora shelled the Winter Palace. By nightfall, the city was under the
committees control and the ministers had surrendered.
At a meeting of the All Russian Congress of Soviets in Petrograd, the majority approved the
Bolshevik action.
By December, the Bolsheviks controlled the Moscow-Petrograd area.

Effects:
Most industry and banks were nationalised .
Land was declared social property.
 Banned the use of the old titles of aristocracy.
Withdrew from the FWW(treaty with Germany at Brest Litovsk in March 1918).
Russia became a communist nation.
New uniforms were designed for the army and officials, like, the Soviet hat (budeonovka).
The Bolshevik Party was renamed the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik).
The secret police (called the Cheka first and later OGPU and NKVD) punished those who
criticised the Bolsheviks.

The Civil War(1918-20)

Between the reds (the Bolsheviks) and the greens (Socialist Revolutionaries) , whites (pro-
Tsarists). Non- Bolsheviks were backed by French, American, British and Japanese troops.
By January 1920, the Bolsheviks controlled most of the former Russian empire. They succeeded
due to cooperation with non-Russian nationalities and Muslim jadidists( Muslim reformers).
Most non-Russian nationalities were given political autonomy in the Soviet Union (USSR) the
state the Bolsheviks created from the Russian empire in December 1922.

Making a Socialist Society

A process of centralised planning was introduced, started the Five Year Plans (1927-1932 and
1933-1938).
Centralised planning led to economic growth. Industrial production increased (between 1929 and
1933 by 100 per cent in the case of oil, coal and steel). New factory cities came into being.
From 1929, kulaks ( well to-do peasants) were forcedto cultivate in collective farms (kolkhoz).

IMPORTANT DATES
1771-1858: Robert Owen Gave the idea of cooperative community and found new Harmony in
Indiana in the USA

1813-1882: Louis Blanc French Socialist leader

1815: Vienna Congress Beginning of the conservative regime in Europe

1818-1883: Karl Marx founder of communism

1820-1895: Freedrich Engels He and Karl Marx prepared famous communist Manifesto.

1864: First International found in Geneva.

1871: Paris Commune

1889: Second International formed in Paris (July 14)

1894 1917: Tsar Nicholas II ruled over the Russian Empire.

1898: Russian social democratic workers party formed

1900: Socialist Revolutionary Party formed. Later it split in the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.

1904: Assembly of Russian Workers formed.

1905:
 Russo-Japanese War (defeat of Russia)
Revolution of 1905, Bloody Sunday (9th January)
Duma (Russian Parliament) created
Labour Party in Britain and socialist party in France formed.

1914 18: First World War

1917:
February Revolution (27th February)
Abdication of the Tsar Nicolas II and Formation of the provisional government under
Kerenski
Lenin returned to Russia from exile (April)
Womens demonstration, International womens Day (8 March-according to Julian
calendar 23 February) started
October Revolution (24th October) Bolshevik uprisings
Russia became a communist nation

1918:
Treaty of Brest Litovsk (March) with Germany and Russia withdrew from the First World
War
May Day Demonstration in Moscow.

1918-20: Civil War in Russia

1919: Formation of Comintern

1922: The USSR formed (30 December)

1927-32: First Fiver Year Plan

1932-37: Second Fiver Year Plan

1929: Beginning of collectivisation

1917-24: Vladimir Lenin ruled over Soviet Russia (later USSR)

1924-53: Joseph Stalin ruled over Soviet Union

1991: The USSR disintegrated (26 December)

Russian Calender: It is called the Julian calendar and was replaced by the Gregorian calendar on 1st
February 1918. The Gregorian dates are 13 days ahead of the Julian calendar. That is why, we
face some confusion about dates of the Russian Revolutions.

Revolution Julian Calendar Gregorian calendar

1. 1905 Revolution 9 January 1905 22 January 1905

2. February Revolution 27 February 1917 12 March 1917

3. October Revolution 24 October 1917 7 November 1917