Topic 18 Discussion 91 Backgrounds

 

1.     Introduction

a.      Russian Revolution can be compared to the French Revolution

                                                  i.      Both had deep lying and distant causes

                                                ii.      Both made their repercussions felt in other countries for many years

                                              iii.      Both were movements of liberation

1.     Feudalism and Despotism

2.     Capitalism and Imperialism

                                             iv.      Neither was a strictly national movement dealing with only domestic troubles

                                               v.      Both addressed their message to the world

                                             vi.      Both showed the same pattern of revolutionary politics

1.     Unity of opinion as long as the problem was to overthrow the old regime

2.     Followed by disunity and conflict over the new regime

3.     Then one set of revolutionaries eliminated the others

4.     A small organized and determined minority (Jacobins and Bolsheviks) suppressed all opposition

5.     In the end the most intensely revolutionary leaders were suppressed or liquidated

b.     Russian Revolution can be contrasted with the French Revolution

                                                  i.      By the 1900s Russia was behind the west by the 1790s France was leading the west

                                                ii.      The main strength of the Russian Revolution was the workers and peasants while the main strength of the French Revolution was the middle class

                                              iii.      Leaders of the Russian Revolution were professional revolutionaries while the leaders of the French Revolution were people form many walks of life

                                             iv.      Russian Revolution wiped out its opposition while the French Revolution was followed by a reaction led by the émigrés

                                               v.      By the 1990s the ideas of the Russian Revolution were in ruins while the ideas of the French Revolution were widely accepted

1.     Representative constitutional government

2.     Equal civil rights

3.     National sovereignty

4.     Legal safeguards for persons and property

c.     Repercussions of the revolution in Russia

                                                  i.      Russia was behind the west but leading the east

                                                ii.      By denouncing imperialism it became the intermediary between the west and the colonial world

                                              iii.      Became a new way to move toward modernism without being capitalistic or European

d.     The professional revolutionaries did not cause the revolution in Russia they captured it

2.     Russia after 1881:  Reaction and Progress

a.      Alexander II moved toward some reform

                                                  i.      Freed the serfs in 1861

                                                ii.      Created zemstovos

1.     Elected bodies that managed local needs

a.      Roads, schools, hospitals

b.     1881 Alexander II was assassinated by the People’s Will

c.     Alexander III tried to stamp out revolutionism

                                                  i.      Revolutionaries were exiled

                                                ii.      People’s Will was crushed

                                              iii.      Jews were subjected to pogroms

                                             iv.      Russification

1.     Poles, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Armenians, Germans in the east, Muslims in the south central regions

2.     Assimilation into Russian culture was attempted

                                               v.      Efforts to detach Russia from the alien and doomed west were made

d.     Russia began to contribute to western culture

                                                  i.      Tolstoy

                                                ii.      Dostoevski

                                              iii.      Tchaikovsky

                                             iv.      Korsakov

                                               v.      Science and chemistry

                                             vi.      Physics, higher mathematics, and chess (abstruse)

e.      Russia began to industrialize during the 1880s

                                                  i.      European capital began to enter Russia

1.     $4 bil Europe

2.     $4 bil U.S. (?)

                                                ii.      Exports and imports increased

1.     Russia/USSR continued to lag behind in industrial development

2.     USSR tried not to depend on outside markets

                                              iii.      Russia proletariat was highly concentrated into large factories (500+)

1.     Was easier for workers to mobilized politically

                                             iv.      Russian business class was weaker than in the west

1.     Foreign ownership of Russia’s largest industries

2.     Large percentage of the economy was owned by the Tsarist government

a.      Largest state operated economic system in the world

3.     Government was deeply in dept to the West

f.       The “Cadets”

                                                  i.      Constitutional Democratic Party (1905)

1.     Liberal, progressive, constitutionalists

2.     Less concerned with the troubles of the working class

3.     More concerned with the need for a nationally elected parliament

                                                ii.      The Peasants

1.     Lived on village communes

2.     Large burden

a.      Redemption money

b.     High taxes to pay foreign loans

c.     Export of cereals kept food from the peasant mouths

3.     Bore a considerable share of the costs of industrialization

                                              iii.      Peasant demands

1.     Land hunger

a.      Mirs expanded and competed with the kulaks

2.     Kulaks controlled large tracts of land and hired other peasants to labor for them

3.     Disparity made the kulaks a target of the peasants

3.     The Emergence of Revolutionary Parties

a.      Peasants were never satisfied with the distribution of land after the ban on serfdom

                                                  i.      Peasants resented the two class system of gentry and peasant

b.     Intelligentsia

                                                  i.      Moved toward a catastrophic overthrow of the tsardom

                                                ii.      Interminable refinement of doctrine

1.     Could Russia skip capitalism and go directly to a socialistic society

c.     Populism

                                                  i.      Favored the peasants on the mir

                                                ii.      Saw the mir as a viable form of communism

                                              iii.      Moved toward equalizing the shares of all peasants in the mir

                                             iv.      Became the foundation of the Social Revolutionary party

d.     Marxism

                                                  i.      Plekhanov and Axelrod founded the Russian Social Democratic party

                                                ii.      Quiet peasants and agitated working class turned populists to Marxism

                                              iii.      Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin

e.      Lenin

                                                  i.      Upper-middle-class origin

                                                ii.      Older brother was executed by the Tsar (assassination plot against Alexander III)

                                              iii.      Exiled to Siberia for three years

1.     At liberty to discuss and compose his thought

                                             iv.      Traveled to western Europe

                                               v.      Focused on one purpose:  Revolution

f.       The Social Democratic Labor party

                                                  i.      Founded by Marxists

                                                ii.      More inclined to an international movement

                                              iii.      More oriented toward Europe

                                             iv.      Leaned toward the urban proletariat as a support base

                                               v.      Ridiculed the mir and abhorred the Social Revolutionaries

4.     Split in the Social Democrats:  Bolsheviks and Mensheviks

a.      1903 Russian Marxists met

b.     Split in two

                                                  i.      Lenin was the leader of the Bolsheviks

                                                ii.      Majority was indirectly achieved

1.     Jewish bund seceded

2.     Used surprise votes

3.     Mensheviks often were the majority

                                              iii.      Lenin clung to the term Bolshevik because of the favorable connotations

c.     Bolshevism/Leninism

                                                  i.      Party should be a small revolutionary elite

                                                ii.      Strong authority at the top

1.     Central committee would determine policy

                                              iii.      Purges would keep the party pure

                                             iv.      Uncompromising dictatorship of the proletariat

                                               v.      Mensheviks came to resemble the western Marxists

                                             vi.      Lenin came to represent dialectical materialism and irreconcilable class struggle

d.     Lenin added to Marxism

                                                  i.      Defined the role of imperialism

1.     product of monopoly capitalism

2.     Final state of capitalism

3.     Develops at different states in different countries

4.     Competition for imperial holdings causes wars

5.     Wars stand as opportunities for the proletariat

e.      Lenin as an activist

                                                  i.      Supreme agitator

                                                ii.      A field commander in the class war

                                              iii.      No difficulty with a dictatorial leadership model

1.     Saw it as part of the larger scheme

2.     State would eventually wither

f.       The party

                                                  i.      Intellectuals provide leadership and understanding for workers

                                                ii.      Workers could not see for themselves and needed the intellectuals