Humanities Homework Help

The Russian Revolution is another event that emerged out of World War I. There had been a previous attempt at revolution in Russia in 1905 as well as numerous attempts at revolution and/or attempts to end the Czar’s regime in the 19th century. In 1917, it was WWI that provided the necessary conditions for revolution. As you know from your studies of the “Great War,” Russia exited the War in 1917 after having lost millions of soldiers and civilians. The situation on the Home Front in Russia had become nothing short of chaotic. Russian soldiers deserted the Russian military en masse, peasants revolted in the countryside, and workers in the war plants rebelled. Scarcity of food meant potential famine and starvation. The economy was crumbling. Russia was collapsing.

There really was no question that there would be a revolution. The Romanov Dynasty led by Czar Nicholas Alexander Romanov could no longer control the country. The only question was what kind of revolution. After quickly undergoing a succession of provisional governments that year, the Bolshevik Party led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who was ably assisted by fellow professional revolutionaries Leon Trotsky and Josef Stalin, among others, took control and established a dictatorship in order to protect the revolution and to control the chaotic situation (it’s time to get out your notes from the French Revolution).

The Bolsheviks were seen by Russian workers as the party of the future. As the “proletariat” in a once backward country that was now on the fast track toward industrialization, the industrial workers were the revolution’s potential stars. They were the ones who stood most to benefit from the elimination of the Czar’s regime and the establishment of democratic socialism under the guidance of what Marx/Engels had called the dictatorship of the proletariat. The rule of workers, facilitated by the Bolshevik Party.

But that was not to be. In conditions that were perhaps even more chaotic than those produced in “wartime,” the Bolshevik Party changed its name to the Communist Party. The Communist Party in turn established a one-party rule that rapidly evolved into rule by a small group within the party called the Politburo. The Politburo included Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, and a few others. In very short order, the Politburo came under the control of one man–Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The dictatorship of the proletariat, which in reality never existed, was simply the dictatorship of the Communist Party. The trade unions (Soviets) became lapdogs of the Communist Party, and if they didn’t, they were violently put down (see the Kronstadt Rebellion).

One could say that postwar conditions in Russia dictated a dictatorship to keep things under control. The Revolution was in danger from the beginning. Russia was now enmeshed in a civil war fought between the Red Armies led by Leon Trotsky and the counterrevolutionary White Armies, which were aided and abetted by England, France, Japan, and the United States. None of the “Western,” capitalist powers wished to see a vast portion of the Eurasian continent turn communist and remove itself from the world capitalist system. Around this time, Russia, now the Soviet Union, experienced a famine that killed about 5 million people and the country was still riddled with peasant uprisings in the countryside. Pogroms bent on eliminated Jews from the country were also occurring.

There are other similarities to the French revolutionary situation, which you studied several weeks ago. The Czar and his family were executed and the Orthodox Church was abolished. The Soviet Union was never able to untangle itself from the authoritarian rule; Lenin’s death in 1924 led to the enduring dictatorship of Josef Stalin after a brief power struggle between Stalin and Trotsky. Stalin eventually gave up Lenin’s more liberal economic policies for a tightly planned economy that facilitated the astounding and terrifying industrialization of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s. And it was Stalin who ultimately instituted The Terror, (which we also saw in France), when, in a series of show trials in the 1930s, he eliminated his enemies. In 1940, Stalin dispatched an assassin to Mexico to eliminate Leon Trotsky, his longstanding enemy.

There is much more to this Revolution and I hope you will glean that from the reading this week (pp. 426-446, in Perry), the slides, and the primary document, which is a brief excerpt from Lenin’s “What Is To Be Done.” For some, the Russian Revolution represented a giant step in the realm of progress. According to Lenin, the Revolution was “guiding humanity to a higher order.” Many historians have concluded that the Allied victory over Fascism in World War II would have been highly unlikely without the contributions and sacrifices the Soviet Union made in the War. The question then becomes, at what cost?

Part One:

The Russian Revolution took place under less than favorable conditions, to say the least. What were the conditions under which the revolution took place? How was the Bolshevik party able to take control of the government? In what ways was or was not the outcome inevitable in terms of the type of government that ultimately took control of the country? Must be 250 words or more.

Part Two:

In this excerpt from Vladimir Lenin’s “What is to Be Done?,” Lenin argues that in order for a revolution to succeed, it must have a strictly organized party of dedicated, professional revolutionaries to lead and guide it. What are his reasons for making his argument? In what ways does his thinking play out in the 1917 Russian Revolution? Must be 250 words or more.

References:

Western Civilization A Brief History, vol. II Since 1600. Eleventh Edition

https://socialism.com/fs-article/the-russian-revol…

https://alphahistory.com/russianrevolution/lenin-w…