Download The Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution
Unlikely revolution?
Marx’s theory of revolution
• Revolution as the product of class struggle
• State is the instrument of the ruling class
• Revolution to occur at the highest phases of
capitalism
– Polarization between owners of property –
bourgeoisie and a proletariat (underclass),
increasingly conscious of its exploitation
– Proletariat seizes power, violently or otherwise, uses
its control of the state to establish socialism and
create eventual conditions for communism
Lenin’s modification
• Revolution in a backward country can
serve as a catalyst for revolution
elsewhere
• Analogy: Chain breaks at its weakest link
• Revolution does not depend on inevitable
class consciousness
• Instead, can be brought about by a small
conspiratorial organization – a vanguard
party
The situation in Russia
• Capitalism at its incipient rather than
advanced stages
– Country more agrarian than industrial
– Peasantry barely removed from feudalism
– Industrial working class only in certain cities
such as Petrograd (St. Petersburg)
Bases for revolution in Russia
• Tsarist regime thoroughly autocratic
• Minimal concessions made – then
reversed – to allow participation of newer
classes or groups
• Russia exhausted by participation in war
• Prosecution of war increasingly erratic
Events
• February 1917 Revolution
– Tsar overthrown, Provisional Government
established
– Provisional government tries to continue war
– Troops rebel, power shifts to Soviets
(councils) in different cities
– Bolsheviks gain ascendancy over other
groups
• Bolsheviks seize power in October 1917
Problems confronting the new
regime
• Establishing control
• What to do about the war
• How to proceed with the revolution
Solutions
• Sue for peace
– Accept Brest-Litovsk Treaty, including ceding substantial territory
to Germany
• Fight civil war against
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–
–
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Other socialist parties
White Russian forces – rump of nobility
Neighbouring countries (over borders)
Allied armies
• Suspend Constituent Assembly, elected in 1918
• Implement ‘war communism’ – seize food, material
needed for war effort
• Consolidate power circa 1920
The revolutionary project
• What to do when revolution elsewhere
fails to materialize as expected?
• Options:
– Continue to promote world revolution?
– Try to build socialism in one country?
Lenin’s interim solution:
• New Economic Policy (NEP) -- a
temporary reversion to capitalism (one
step backward, two steps forward) in order
to get the economy going again (1921-28)
• Ultimate direction: determined by Lenin’s
impairment (1922) and death, 1924, and
Stalin’s succession to power
Stalin’s succession
• Stalin
– A lesser figure in Bolshevik hierarchy
– However, as general secretary of the Communist
Party, well placed
– Uses control of the administrative apparatus to
advance supporters
• 1925: Moves against left --Trotsky, Kamenev,
Zinoviev in defense of NEP
• 1927/28: Moves against Bukharin and
moderates to promote socialism in one country
Socialism in one country
• Use of party and state apparatus, including
terror, in order to industrialize USSR, lay the
conditions for socialism and communism
– Via series of five year plans
• Justification
– Bourgeoisie in Russia had failed to industrialize the
country and establish the conditions for socialism
– Therefore the party and state would do it instead
Consequences
• Agriculture collectivized, opponents
liquidated
• Russia industrialized
• Decline in individual consumption
• Stalin uses purges (1930s) in order to
consolidate power
• USSR substantially isolated from other
countries