Related to, if distanced from, the modernist rejection of traditional Russian aesthetics was a concurrent rebellion against the traditional assumptions of the left and liberal intelligentsia. Because it originated within the intelligentsia itself, that rebellion sometimes took the form of severe self-criticism. In 1909 a group of prominent intellectuals—among them Struve, Sergei Bulgakov, and other veteran leftists who now harboured painful second thoughts—published Vekhi (Signposts), a symposium that repudiated their past commitment to Marxism and atheism, their lack of national spirit, and their former narrowly political aesthetics; the collection unleashed a stormy backlash, not only from the far left, but also from the likes of Miliukov.
The affinity between the modernists and their civic-minded cultural rivals may have been greater than either side cared to admit. They not only had similar backgrounds, they shared the typically Russian notion that art and literature must perform a specially high moral mission for the nation. Though their solutions differed, they assumed that the writer was duty-bound and able to resolve the apparent antagonism between life and art. And, notwithstanding their programmatic differences, they all tended to view the existing order, and especially the governing bureaucracy, with some contempt. By no means did Russia’s Bloks and Maiakovskiis serve as props of the old regime. In sum, neither the splits in the ranks of the cultural intelligentsia nor the defensive postures adopted by liberal and radical people of letters in the face of the modernist challenge were necessarily good news for the government.
In the last analysis, the optimist–pessimist debate, though perhaps unavoidable, is a thought-experiment, a kind of metaphysical sparring match inseparable from counter-factual speculation about Russia’s likely fate in the absence of world war. It must be pointed out, however, that a serious ambiguity, even confusion, is often found in how the optimists pose the question. Is proof for their position to be found in the trajectory of economic, social, and political progress that was followed from 1907 to 1914? If so, the evidence, on balance, is rather thin. Their case is strongest in the economic realm (especially if one concentrates on heavy industry and ignores the explosive issue of dependency on foreign investment) and in the visible signs of a vibrant, modern urban culture—advertisement, commercial press, cinemas. But the optimists have greater difficulty when they try to build their case on the government’s capacity to ensure social peace and on the political stability brought about by the coup d’état of 3 June 1907. Here the point is not simply that urban social stability lasted only until 1912 or that the rift between privileged society and court (thanks to the influence of Rasputin and the empress) was growing wider. For even if we granted the government’s capacity, prior to the war, for maintaining a precarious social peace (for upholding order, if not law), this would not serve as evidence that problems were being solved or progress was being made. Indeed, it was precisely the government’s ability to maintain order through coercion, while restricting progress and upholding autocratic rule, that allowed so many social and political sores to fester, thereby promoting maximalist visions of social and political change.
It was a sign of weakness, then, not strength, that the Russian regime that went to war in the summer of 1914 had successfully resisted becoming a functioning constitutional monarchy. Nicholas II may have succeeded in achieving his goal of January 1895, not only to retain but even to invigorate the symbols and rituals of monarchy that adorned his English cousin; he also retained, while wielding it ineptly, much of the power of personal rule. Despite a promising beginning in 1906, the symbolic and the substantive spheres of authority were never fully separated in Russia, neither in real life nor in the fantasy-life of a monarch who in June 1914, contemplating yet another coup, came close to abrogating the legislative powers of the Duma, just as the nation was poised to join in a momentous struggle for its very survival.
9. Russia in War and Revolution 1914–1921
DANIEL T. ORLOVSKY
The thunder of artillery shells signalled the onset of uninterrupted war, revolution, and civil war. These years brought massive destruction; not only a dynasty, but vast numbers of people, resources, and territories vanished in the conflagration. Amidst these ruins, the Bolsheviks—inspired as much by old social hatreds as new revolutionary visions—attempted to build a new proletarian order.
THE years separating the outbreak of war in 1914 and the announcement of the ‘New Economic Policy’ in 1921 form a critical watershed in modern Russian history. The revolutions of 1917, while not an unbridgeable caesura, fundamentally transformed the polity and social order. This era also had a profound impact on the ‘bourgeois’ West, which in the coming decades had to contend with the spectre of a socialist Prometheus in the East.
The First World War
In a memorandum of February 1914 P. N. Durnovo, a former Minister of Internal Affairs, implored the emperor to avoid war with Germany. The Kaiserreich, he argued, was a natural ally, joined by imperial ties of blood and by conservative principles and institutions; it was the alliance with democratic Britain and France that was unnatural. Moreover, the strains of war might topple the fragile order reconstructed from the shambles of 1905. But Durnovo was more prescient than persuasive: within months the government found itself helplessly sucked into the whirlpool of war.
Above all, it feared another diplomatic defeat in the Balkans, not simply out of sympathy for Balkan nationalism, but because of the volatile domestic situation. After decades of high-stakes gambling, in 1908 Russia had suffered a humiliating defeat when Austria annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina and then reneged on a promised quid pro quo. Russia seemed to be losing its long quest to dominate the Ottoman Empire and Black Sea. Russian policy was also driven by its desire to recover great-power status, by its fear of Germany’s growing economic and military might, and by its strategic and diplomatic commitments to France and Britain. And, like the other powers, Russia was unduly deferential towards strategic planning and the general staffs, the ideology of the offensive, and the illusion that war could be localized and won quickly. None imagined the trench warfare, the carnage, the destruction of élites and empires, or the profound domestic upheavals that the ‘Great War’ would bring.
Declaration of war in Russia evoked a moment of ‘patriotic union’, symbolically captured on film that showed Nicholas bowing before several hundred thousand loyal subjects who had massed to sing ‘God Save the Tsar’. Unity proved ephemeral: military defeats and domestic strains rekindled the smouldering social and political conflict. Although Russia did not fare badly against Austria and Turkey, by early 1915 German divisions had dealt a string of shattering defeats. Russia’s stock of ammunition and weapons was perilously low; neither domestic production nor imports could satisfy the gargantuan demand of this first modern war. As morale plummeted, the army replaced a decimated officer corps with young officers from lower social ranks—non-aristocrats who had minimal training and little authority over peasant soldiers. By early 1915 one high official declared that Russia could only pray to her patron saints and rely upon her vast spaces and the spring mud to slow the relentless German advance. Failing the divine intercession of saints and mud, Russia needed ‘total war’—a complete mobilization of resources, human and material.
War, however, proved particularly difficult for Russia, one reason being that the ‘crisis was at the top’—a mutual alienation that divided state and ‘Society’ (professional and economic élites), which had rejected state tutelage and demanded a role in running the country. The war gave centrist parties a splendid opportunity to demonstrate their patriotism and, simultaneously, to exploit the alliance with democratic France and Britain and the wartime crisis in order to extort concessions from the state. Such ambitions reinforced Nicholas’s tendency to distrust ‘Society’, to select weak ministers, to heed his wife’s inept advice, and to reassert the inviolability of autocratic power. Within a few months the ‘patriotic union’ had dissipated; the rancour of prewar politics and recrimination resum
ed in full force.
To mollify the opposition, however, in mid-1915 Nicholas agreed to replace the most odious ministers with men enjoying the confidence of ‘Society’. These gestures, together with new military débâcles, only redoubled the Duma’s determination to extract political concessions: in August 1915 centrist Duma parties formed the ‘Progressive Bloc’ to press long-standing demands—above all, for a government ‘responsible’ to the Duma. Confronted by a hostile majority in the Duma, appalled by his ministers’ readiness to compromise, Nicholas prorogued the Duma and assumed personal command of the army, relinquishing power to chosen viziers, his unstable wife, and an unsavoury entourage that included the dissolute ‘Grishka’ Rasputin. Military defeat, political incompetence, personal stubbornness, and an adamant refusal to share political power or even consider the question negotiable—all this gradually dispelled the mystique of the Romanov dynasty and even fuelled suspicions that Nicholas and Alexandra were themselves traitors.
Nicholas did, however, accord ‘Society’ a greater practical role in the war by establishing new institutions outside the Duma. Most important were ‘the Union of Zemstvos’ and ‘Union of Municipalities’ (with a joint co-ordinating body called ‘Zemgor’), but these too were rooted in bastions of liberalism—the zemstvo and municipal Duma. Their charge was to organize refugee relief, food supply, and even industrial production and distribution. Another important institution was the War Industries Committee; established on the initiative of Moscow industrialists, its network of local committees mobilized medium and small-scale industry to produce military equipment and ammunition.
The war economy inexorably increased bureaucratic intervention in the economy, if in partnership with the private sector. This co-operation included special councils (on defence, food supply, fuel, and transport), with a mixed membership and a monopoly over vital materials like sugar, leather, and metals. This process (which emulated the policy of other belligerents) enhanced the power of the responsible branches of the bureaucracy and set them against the more traditional ministries still closely tied to the court and nobility. As the lines between ‘public’ and ‘private’ blurred, three competing centres of economic and political power emerged: the state bureaucracy, private industry and capital, and public organizations (with a mixed composition, strong ethos of public service, and moral opposition to vested political and economic interests).
Although the military record improved in 1916 (partly because of the contribution of public organizations), the war also had profound repercussions for the lower social orders. Mobilization of manpower, industries, and transportation inevitably caused disruptions in the production and distribution of food, with dire consequences at the front and at home. Increasingly, the state lost the capacity to requisition food, fuel, and manpower, reflecting the decline in its moral authority or sheer capacity to coerce. Those close to the front suffered most: Russia’s scorched-earth policy denied Germany the spoils of victory, but also unleashed a tidal wave of refugees that overwhelmed the administration and economy of interior provinces. Still more dangerous were the labour and agrarian questions, raised but not resolved by the Revolution of 1905; as inflation and food shortages ravaged the home front, disaffection also spread rapidly among the soldiers and sailors. Unrest also simmered among the lower-middle class and white-collar ‘labourers’, of unpredictable political behaviour, but deeply affected by the privations of war. A state at war also found it increasingly difficult to cow, let alone control, its national minorities; even ‘backward minorities’ grew rebellious—the largest insurrection of 1916, claiming thousands of lives, erupted in Turkestan in response to a new conscription drive. And, as inflation and food shortages reached critical levels at home, disaffection also spread rapidly among the soldiers. By the autumn of 1916 discontent was so intense that the police were issuing dire warnings that the regime’s very existence was in jeopardy And the government itself, paralysed by ‘ministerial leapfrog’ and the tsar’s absence from the capital (to direct the war effort from military headquarters), was steadily losing control of the situation.
The February Revolution
Few contemporaries imagined that, after three centuries of rule, the Romanov dynasty could vanish in several days. Even fewer could have predicted that, within months, a moderate regime of liberals and socialists would disintegrate and in October surrender power to Bolsheviks marching under the banner of ‘All Power to the Soviets’.
The February Revolution began with street demonstrations in Petrograd to protest against food shortages, a direct consequence of wartime privation and the regime’s inability to provision even the volatile capital. For months police officials had issued dire warnings and taken preventive measures (arresting, for example, worker representatives to the Central War Industries Committee). On 23 February (8 March NS) a crowd of women seized the occasion of International Women’s Day to demonstrate against the high bread prices and food shortages.
Their march coincided with calls by the revolutionary underground (from Bolsheviks and others) to resume the demonstrations of December and January. The next day crowds of strikers and demonstrators took to the streets, some reaching the centre of Petrograd. When the regular police failed to disperse the crowds, local authorities called out the troops, but again without effect. The next day Petrograd was virtually paralysed by a general strike. Desperate to regain control, on 26 February the authorities resorted to firearms: the Volhynian regiment opened fire, killing several dozen demonstrators. This volley proved suicidal: the next day the same Volhynian unit (joined by several guards regiments) took sides with the crowds. The insurgents then seized arsenals, emptied the gaols, and burnt the central headquarters of the hated political police. By 28 February the tsarist ministers were under arrest; the police itself had discreetly vanished.
As the government in Petrograd disintegrated, Nicholas desperately struggled to retain power. He formally dissolved the State Duma, attempted to return to the capital, but soon found himself stranded in a provincial town. There, at the urging of his own generals and Duma politicians, he agreed to abdicate for the sake of domestic tranquillity and the war effort. Ironically, his final act as emperor was characteristically illegal: in contravention of the 1797 Law of Succession, Nicholas abdicated not only for himself but also for his son. His abdication, compounded by the dissolution of the Duma, raised the question of legitimacy that would bedevil the Provisional Government throughout its brief existence. The designated heir, Nicholas’s brother Michael, declined the throne until a constituent assembly had defined the nature of the Russian state. Michael probably had no inkling that his decision would bring the monarchy to an end and dramatically accelerate the revolutionary process.
Still earlier, two contenders for power had already emerged in Petrograd. One was the State Duma, which the tsar had dissolved on 27 February and hence had no legal right to rule. None the less, the Duma deputies convened in Tauride Palace and created a ‘Provisional Duma Committee’ that included members from conservative, liberal, and even socialist parties. In essence, the Duma represented ‘propertied society’ (tsenzovoe obshchestvo), which received a preponderant share of power in the Duma under the 1907 electoral law. The Duma Committee took steps to claim power, restore order, and establish contact with the leading public organizations. They also dispatched ‘commissars’ to take command of key ministries, including the Ministry of Communications that controlled the all-important railways. Implicitly acknowledging a lack of legitimacy, the Duma members called its committee ‘provisional’ as would the ‘Provisional Government’. Until conditions permitted a constituent assembly to convene, however, it claimed the right to rule.
The Duma deputies, however, were not the only claimants to power: a mélange of intellectuals, party operatives, and trade-union leaders simultaneously convened in another wing of the same Tauride Palace. Drawing on the experience of 1905, they re-established the famous ‘soviet’ and summoned workers and soldiers to send el
ected representatives. The result was the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies, led by an Executive Committee composed mostly of moderate socialist intellectuals. Curiously, the soviet leaders made no claim to rule: scarred by the failure of 1905, they intended to observe the ‘iron laws’ of a two-stage revolution, whereby a ‘bourgeois’ revolution would beget a ‘bourgeois’ government to rule for a discrete interval before a second, socialist revolution. Because the tsarist police left revolutionary parties in disarray (with ranking members in prison or in exile), the soviet leaders also felt unqualified to seize the reins of power and deemed the ‘bourgeoisie’ better suited for this historic task. Some were also overawed by the myth of counter-revolution, which seemed less likely if Russia were ruled by a bourgeois government.
The year 1917 was a complex story of ‘dual power’, the Provisional Government representing ‘Society’, the soviet representing workers, peasants, and soldiers. With the approval of the soviet, the Duma Committee established a ‘Provisional’ Government, its cabinet drawn largely from liberal Duma circles. Thus the ‘bourgeois’ government required by socialist theory had finally emerged. It vowed to hold free elections for a Constituent Assembly and, in the interim, was to exercise the plenitude of executive, legislative, and even judicial power of the ancien régime. From the outset the Provisional Government had an uncertain status: the Duma committee had simply usurped power, and the soviet agreed to give its support ‘only in so far as’ the government followed the ‘democratic’ script for the Revolution.
Russia A History Page 31