The February Revolution in Petrograd

  • Petrograd city is divided among its people. On the right bank of the River Neva workers quarters and factories were located and on the left bank located fashionable areas such as the Winter Palace and official buildings.
  • Food shortages deeply affected the workers’ quarters. On the right bank, a factory was shut down on February 22. Women also led the way to strikes and it is called International Women’s Day.
  •  The government imposed a curfew as the fashionable quarters and official buildings were surrounded by workers. Duma was suspended on 25th February.
  • The streets thronged with demonstrators raising slogans about bread, wages, better hours and democracy. The government called out the cavalry but they refused to fire on the demonstrators.
  •  Soldiers and striking workers gathered to form a ‘soviet’ or ‘council’ in the same building as the Duma met and it is termed as the Petrograd Soviet.
  •  Soviet leaders and Duma leaders formed a Provisional Government to run the country. Russia’s future would be decided by a constituent assembly, elected on the basis of universal adult suffrage.
  •  Petrograd had led the February Revolution that brought down the monarchy in February 1917.

After February

  • Under the Provisional Government, army officials, landowners and industrialists were influential. Liberals and socialists worked towards an elected government.
  •  Restrictions on public meetings and associations were removed. In April 1917, the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia from his exile. Lenin demanded three things termed as ‘April Theses’.
  •  He wanted war to end, land to be transferred to the peasants and banks to be nationalised. He also emphasised on renaming the Bolshevik Party to the Communist Party.
  • Workers movement spread throughout the summer. Factory committees formed and trade unions grew in numbers. When the Provisional Government saw its power reduced and Bolshevik influence grew, they decided to take stern measures against the spreading discontent. In the countryside, peasants and their Socialist Revolutionary leaders pressed for a redistribution of land.
  • Encouraged by the Socialist Revolutionaries, peasants seized land between July and September 1917.

The Revolution of October 1917

  • The conflict between the Provisional Government and the Bolsheviks grew. On 16 October 1917, Lenin persuaded the Petrograd Soviet and the Bolshevik Party to agree to a socialist seizure of power.
  •  To organise the seizure, a Military Revolutionary Committee was appointed by the Soviet under Leon Trotskii. The Military Revolutionary Committee ordered its supporters to seize government offices and arrest ministers.
  •  By nightfall, the city was under the committee’s control and the ministers had surrendered. At a meeting of the All Russian Congress of Soviets in Petrograd, the majority approved the Bolshevik action.

What Changed after October?

  • Industry and banks were nationalised in November 1917 which meant that the government took over ownership and management.
  •  Land was declared as social property and peasants were allowed to seize the land of the nobility.
  • The Bolshevik Party was renamed the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik). Elections were conducted in November 1917, to the Constituent Assembly, but they failed in majority. In January 1918, the Assembly rejected Bolshevik measures and Lenin dismissed the Assembly. Despite opposition, in March 1918, the Bolsheviks made peace with Germany at Brest Litovsk.
  •  The Bolsheviks participated in the elections to the All Russian Congress of Soviets, which became the Parliament of the country. Russia became a one-party state. After October 1917, this led to experiments in the arts and architecture.
  • But many became disillusioned because of the censorship the Party encouraged.

The Civil War

  • The Russian Army broke up and their leaders moved to south Russia and organised troops to fight the Bolsheviks (the ‘reds’).
  • During 1918 and 1919, the Russian Empire was controlled by the ‘greens’ (Socialist Revolutionaries) and ‘whites’ (pro-Tsarists) backed by French, American, British and Japanese troops
  • These troops and the Bolsheviks fought a civil war. By January 1920, the Bolsheviks controlled most of the former Russian empire.
  • In the name of defending socialism, Bolshevik colonists brutally massacred local nationalists. 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

  • During the civil war, industries and banks kept nationalised. Peasants were permitted to cultivate the land. Centralised planning process was introduced.
  • Officials worked on how the economy will work and set targets for a five-year period. During the first two ‘Plans’ the government fixed all prices to promote industrial growth (1927-1932 and 1933-1938).
  • Centralised planning led to economic growth. But, rapid construction led to poor working conditions. Schooling system developed, and arrangements were made for factory workers and peasants to enter universities.
  •  For women workers, crèches were established in factories for the children. Cheap public health care was provided. Model living quarters were set up for workers.

Stalinism and Collectivisation

  • The period of the early Planned Economy led to disaster of the collectivisation of agriculture.
  • By 1927- 1928, the towns in Soviet Russia faced an acute problem of grain supplies. Stalin introduced firm emergency measures. In 1928, party members toured the grain-producing areas, supervising enforced grain collections, and raiding ‘kulaks’ – the name for well to-do peasants.
  •  After 1917, land had been given over to peasants. From 1929, the Party forced all peasants to cultivate in collective farms (kolkhoz). Peasants worked on the land, and the kolkhoz profit was shared. Between 1929 and 1931, the number of cattle fell by one-third.
  •  The government of Stalin allowed some independent cultivation, but treated such cultivators unsympathetically. In spite of collectivisation, production did not increase immediately and due to bad harvests of 1930-1933 over 4 million people died.
  •  Throughout the country, accusations were made, and by 1939, over 2 million were in prisons or labour camps.

The Global Influence of the Russian Revolution and the USSR

  • In many countries, communist parties were formed, like the Communist Party of Great Britain. Non-Russians from outside the USSR participated in the Conference of the Peoples of the East (1920).
  • The Bolshevik-founded Comintern (an international union of pro-Bolshevik socialist parties). Before the outbreak of the Second World War, the USSR had given socialism a global face and world stature.
  •  The USSR became a great power and its industries and agriculture had developed and the poor were being fed. By the end of the twentieth century, the international reputation of the USSR as a socialist country had declined.