A history of Russia

by Riazanovsky

  Concluding Remarks

  The development of Russian culture in the years preceding 1917 suggests certain significant parallels to the political, economic, and social condition of the country. Most striking was the disparity between the few and the many. In the early twentieth century, Russia possessed a rich variety of poetic schools and the best ballet in the world, but the majority of the people remained illiterate. It was even difficult to communicate across the chasm. One is reminded of Chekhov's story. "The Malefactor," where a

  peasant brought to court for stealing a bolt from the railroad tracks to weight his fishing tackle fails to see his guilt, explains that enough bolts are left for the train, and in describing his activities constantly refers to "we," meaning the peasants of his village, the people. Again, it can be argued that on the eve of the revolutions Russia exhibited progress and vigorous activity in intellectual as well as in other matters, straining against the confines of the established order. But, contrary to the Soviet view, this intellectual development did not lead ineluctably to Bolshevism. More than that, the cultural climate of the "silver age" indicated that the Russian educated public was finally moving away from the simple materialistic, utilitarian, and activist beliefs professed by Lenin and his devoted followers. It would appear that the Bolsheviks had to succeed soon or not at all. How they did succeed will be told in the next chapter.

  XXXIV

  THE REVOLUTIONS OF 1917

  The collapse of the Romanov autocracy in March 1917 was one of the most leaderless, spontaneous, anonymous revolutions of all time. While almost every thoughtful observer in Russia in the winter of 1916-17 foresaw the likelihood of the crash of the existing regime no one, even among the revolutionary leaders, realized that the strikes and bread riots which broke out in Petrograd on March 8 would culminate in the mutiny of the garrison and the overthrow of the government four days later.

  CHAMBERLIN

  The enemies of Bolshevism were numerous, but they were also weak, poorly organized, divided, and apathetic. The strategy of Lenin was calculated to emphasize their divisions, neutralize their opposition, and capitalize on their apathy. In 1902 in What Is To Be Done? Lenin had written, "Give us an organization of revolutionaries, and we shall overturn the whole of Russia!" On November 7, 1917, the wish was fulfilled and the deed accomplished.

  FAINSOD

  As has been indicated in preceding chapters, the constitutional period of Russian imperial history has continued to evoke much controversy, to cite only the contributions by Haimson and other American scholars. Optimistic students of the development of Russia from the Revolution of 1905 to the First World War and the revolutions of 1917 have emphasized that Russia had finally left autocracy behind and was evolving toward liberalism and political freedom. The change in 1907 in the electoral law indicated that the Duma could no longer be abolished. Moreover, the reformed Russian legislature proceeded to play an important part in the affairs of the country and to gain ever-increasing prestige and acceptance at home, among both government officials and the people, as well as abroad. As an Englishman observed, "the atmosphere and instincts of parliamentary life" grew in the empire of the Romanovs. Besides, continue the optimists, Russian society at the time was much more progressive and democratic than the constitutional framework alone would indicate, and was becoming increasingly so every year. Modern education spread rapidly at different levels and was remarkably humanitarian and liberal - as were Russian teachers as a group - not at all likely to serve as a buttress for antiquated ideas or obsolete institutions. Russian universities enjoyed virtually full freedom and a rich creative life. Elsewhere, too, an energetic discussion went on. Even the periodical press, in spite of various restrictions, gave some representa-

  tion to every point of view, including the Bolshevik. Government prohibitions and penalties could frequently be neutralized by such simple means as a change in the name of a publication or, if necessary, by sending the nominal editor to jail, while important political writers continued their work. To be sure, grave problems remained, in particular, economic backwardness and the poverty of the masses. But, through industrialization on the one hand and Stolypin's land reform on the other, they were on the way to being solved. Above all, Russia needed time and peace.

  Pessimistic critics have drawn a different picture of the period. Many of them refused even to call it "constitutional," preferring such terms as Scheinkonstitutionalismus - that is, sham constitutionalism - because, both according to the Fundamental Laws and in fact, the executive branch of the government and the ministers in particular were not responsible to the Duma. In any case, the critics asserted, whatever the precise character of the original arrangements, they were destroyed by the arbitrary electoral change of 1907, and by Nicholas II's entire authoritarian and reactionary policy. On the whole, the government refused to honor even its own niggardly concessions to the public. Nonentities, like Goremykin and Sukhomlinov, and the fantastic Rasputin himself, were logical end products of the bankruptcy of the regime. Other aspects of the life of the country, ranging from political terrorism, both of the Left and of the Right, to Russification and interminable "special regulations" to safeguard order, emphasized further the distance that Russia had to travel before it could be considered progressive, liberal, and law-abiding. Social and economic problems were still more threatening, according to the pessimists. Fundamental inequality and widespread destitution could not be remedied by a few large-scale "hothouse" industries and by a redivision of the peasants' inadequate land. Workers in particular, including those concentrated in St. Petersburg and in Moscow, were becoming more radical and apparently more willing to follow the Bolsheviks. Moreover, the government never wanted real reform, because it remained devoted to the interests of the landlords and, secondly, of the great capitalists. Russia was headed for catastrophe.

  The optimists, thus, believe that imperial Russia was ruined by the First World War. The pessimists maintain that the war provided merely the last mighty push to bring the whole rotten structure tumbling down. Certainly it added an enormous burden to the load borne by the Russian people. Human losses were staggering. To cite Golovin's figures, in the course of the war the Russian army mobilized 15,500,000 men and suffered greater casualties than did the armed forces of any other country involved in the titanic struggle: 1,650,000 killed, 3,850,000 wounded, and 2,410,000 taken prisoner. The destruction of property and other civilian losses and displacement escaped count. The Russian army tried to evacuate the popu-

  lation as it retreated, adding to the confusion and suffering. It became obvious during the frightful ordeal that the imperial government had again failed in its tasks, as in the Crimean War and the Russo-Japanese War, but on a much larger scale. As mentioned earlier, the Russian minister of war and many other high officials and generals failed miserably in the test of war, Russian weapons turned out to be inferior to the enemies', Russian ammunition in short supply. Transportation was generally bogged down and on numerous occasions it broke down altogether. In addition to the army, the urban population suffered as a result of this, because it experienced serious difficulties obtaining food and fuel. Inflation ran rampant. Worst of all, the government refused to learn any lessons: instead of liberalizing state policies and relying more on the public, which was eager to help, Nicholas II in an anachronistic gesture handed over supreme power to the reactionary empress, and through her to Rasputin, when he assumed command at the front

  The February Revolution and the Provisional Government

  The imperial regime died with hardly a whimper. Popular revolution, which came suddenly, was totally unprepared. In the course of the momentous days of March 8 to 11, 1917 (February 23 to 26, Old Style) riots and demonstrations in the capital - renamed "Petrograd" instead of the German "St. Petersburg" during the war - occasioned by a shortage of bread and coal assumed a more serious character. On March 10 reserve battalions sent to suppress the mutineers fraternized with them instead, and there were no other tr
oops in the city. Resolute action, such as promptly bringing in loyal forces from elsewhere, might have saved the imperial government. Instead, with Nicholas II away at the front, authority simply collapsed and many officials went into hiding. Seemingly with one mind, the population of Petrograd turned to the Duma for leadership.

  On March 11 members of the Duma sidestepped an imperial dissolution decree, and the next day they created a Provisional Government, composed of a score of prominent Duma leaders and public figures. Prince George Lvov, formerly chairman of the Union of Zemstva and Towns, assumed the positions of chairman of the Council of Ministers, that is, prime minister, and of minister of the interior. His more important colleagues included the Cadet leader Miliukov as minister of foreign affairs, the Octobrist leader Guchkov as minister of war and of the navy, and Alexander Kerensky, the only socialist in the cabinet - associated with the Socialist Revolutionary party - as minister of justice. The new government closely reflected the composition and views of the Progressive Bloc in the Duma, with the Cadets obtaining the greatest single representation.

  Nicholas II bowed to the inevitable and on the fifteenth of March abdicated for himself and his only son, Alexis, in favor of his brother, Michael, who in turn abdicated the next day in favor of the decision of the constituent assembly, or in effect in favor of the Provisional Government pending that decision. Nicholas II, on his side, had appointed Lvov prime minister before renouncing the throne. Thus ended the rule of the Romanovs in Russia.

  The Provisional Government was quickly recognized, and hailed, by the United States and other Western democracies. But, in spite of its rapid and general acceptance in Russia and abroad, the new government had to deal from the very beginning with a serious rival: the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, which was modeled on the 1905 Soviet. The new Soviet was formed on the twelfth of March, established itself in the Duma building, and proceeded to assert its authority. True, dominated by moderate socialists until the autumn of 1917, it did not try to wrest power from the "bourgeoisie," for it considered Russia unprepared for a socialist revolution, but it made its weight strongly felt nevertheless. In fact, the Provisional Government had been set up by the Duma in consultation with the Soviet and had to take its unofficial partner into account in all its policies and activities. Moreover, the Soviet acted authoritatively on its own, sometimes in direct contradiction to the efforts of the ministers. Notably, as early as March 14 it issued the famous, or notorious, Order No. 1 to the troops which proclaimed that military units should be run by elected committees, with officers entitled to command only during tactical operations, and which played a role in the demoralization and eventual collapse of the Russian army. Following the Petrograd lead, Soviets began to be formed all over Russia. The first All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which met in the capital on the sixteenth of June, contained representatives from more than 350 local units. The delegates included 285 Socialist Revolutionaries, 245 Mensheviks, and 105 Bolsheviks, as well as some deputies from minor socialist parties. The Congress elected an executive committee which became the supreme Soviet body. Soviets stood much closer to the restless masses than did Lvov and his associates, and thus enjoyed a large and immediate following.

  The Provisional Government lasted approximately eight months: from March 12 until November 7, 1917. Its record combined remarkable liberalism with an inability to solve pressing, crucial problems. The new regime promoted democracy and liberty in Russia. All citizens achieved equality before the law. Full freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, unions, and strikes became a reality. Town and country administration was revamped to make it more democratic, with zemstvo institutions finally introduced at the level of the volost, that is, the township or canton. In addition to equal rights, ethnic minorities received autonomy, while Poland was de-

  clared independent. Labor legislation included the introduction of an eight-hour day for some categories of workers.

  However, although the Provisional Government demonstrated what liberalism might have done for Russia, it failed to overcome the quite extraordinary difficulties that beset the country, and those who ruled it, in 1917. The new government continued the war in spite of the fact that defeatism spread among the people and that the army became daily less able to fight on. While convinced that all available land should belong to the peasants, it made no definitive land settlement, leaving that to the constituent assembly and thus itself failing to satisfy the peasantry. It proved unable to check inflation, restore transportation, or increase industrial production. In fact, Russian economy continued to run rapidly downhill.

  A large part of this failure stemmed from the limited authority and power of the new regime. As already mentioned, it had at all times to contend with the Soviet. It had little in the way of an effective administrative apparatus, the tsarist police in particular having largely gone into hiding. While the high command of the army supported the government, enlisted men remained an uncertain quantity; the Petrograd garrison itself was devoted to the Soviet. What is more, the Provisional Government had to promise the Soviet not to remove or disarm that garrison. Kerensky's derisive appellation, "persuader-in-chief," was in part a reflection of his unenviable position.

  The government also made mistakes. It refused to recognize the catastrophic condition of the country and misjudged the mood of the people. Thus, as mentioned, it continued the war, believing that the Russians, like the French at the time of the great French Revolution, would fight better than ever because they were finally free men. In internal affairs, a moderate and liberal position, generally difficult to maintain in times of upheaval, proved quixotic in a country of desperately poor and largely illiterate peasants who wanted the gentry land above all else. The government's temporary, "provisional," nature constituted a special weakness. Its members were deeply conscious of the fact that they had acquired their high authority by chance, that the Duma itself had been elected by the extremely restricted suffrage of 1907, and that the future of Russia must be settled by a fully democratic constituent assembly. Such basic decisions as those involved in the land settlement and in the future status of the national minorities had, therefore, to be left to that assembly. In the suggestive, if controversial, words of a political scientist: "This lack of a representative and responsible parliament helped greatly to distinguish the course of the Russian Revolution from its English, French and American predecessors." Yet, if a constituent assembly meant so much to the members of the Provisional Government, they made perhaps their worst mistake in not calling it together soon enough. While some of the best

  Russian jurists tried to draw a perfect electoral law, time slipped by. When a constituent assembly finally did meet, it was much too late, for the Bolsheviks had already gained control of Russia.

  The Bolshevik victory in 1917 cannot be separated from the person and activity of Lenin. He arrived, together with some of his associates, at the Finland Station in Petrograd on the sixteenth of April, the Germans having let them through from Switzerland in hopes that they would disorganize the Russian war effort. In contrast to the attitude of satisfaction with the course of the revolution and co-operation with the Provisional Government prevalent even in the Soviet, Lenin assumed an extreme and intransigent position in his "April Theses" and other pronouncements. He declared that the bourgeois revolution had already been accomplished in Russia and that history was moving inexorably to the next stage, the socialist stage, which had to begin with the seizure of power by the proletariat and poor peasants. As immediate goals Lenin proclaimed peace, seizure of gentry land by the peasants, control of factories by committees of workers, and "all power to the Soviets." "War to the palaces, peace to the huts!" shouted Bolshevik placards. "Expropriate the expropriators!"

  Although Lenin found himself at first an isolated figure unable to win a majority even in his own party, events moved his way. The crushing burden of the war and increasing economic dislocation made the position of the Provisional Government constan
tly more precarious. In the middle of May, Miliukov and Guchkov were forced to resign because of popular agitation and pressure, and the cabinet was reorganized under Lvov to include five socialists rather than one, with Kerensky taking the ministries of war and the navy. The government declared itself committed to a strictly defensive war and to a peace "without annexations and indemnities." Yet, to drive the enemy out, Kerensky and General Alexis Brusilov started a major offensive on the southwestern front late in June. Initially successful, it soon collapsed because of confusion and lack of discipline. Entire units simply refused to fight. The Germans and Austrians in turn broke through the Russian lines, and the Provisional Government had to face another disaster. The problem of national minorities became ever more pressing as ethnic and national movements mushroomed in the disorganized former empire of the Romanovs. The government continued its increasingly hazardous policy of postponing political decisions until the meeting of a constituent assembly. Nevertheless, four Cadet ministers resigned in July because they believed that too broad a recognition had been accorded to the Ukrainian movement. Serious tensions and crises in the cabinet were also demonstrated by the resignation of the minister of trade and industry, who opposed the efforts of the new Social Democratic minister of labor to have workers participate in the management of industry, and the clash between Lvov and Victor Chernov, the Socialist