1917 is the year of upheavals and revolutions in Russia, and its finale came on the night of October 25, when all power passed to the Soviets. What are the causes, course, results of the Great October Socialist Revolution - these and other questions of history are at the center of our attention today.
Causes
Many historians argue that the events that took place in October 1917 were inevitable and at the same time unexpected. Why? Inevitable, because by this time in Russian Empire a certain situation arose that predetermined the further course of history. This was due to a number of reasons:
- Results of the February Revolution : she was greeted with unprecedented enthusiasm and enthusiasm, which soon turned into the opposite - bitter disappointment. Indeed, the performance of the revolutionary-minded "lower classes" - soldiers, workers and peasants, led to a serious shift - the overthrow of the monarchy. But this is where the achievements of the revolution ended. The expected reforms "hung in the air": the longer the Provisional Government put off consideration of pressing problems, the faster discontent in society grew;
- Overthrow of the monarchy : March 2 (15), 1917 Russian Emperor Nicholas II signed the abdication. However, the question of the form of government in Russia - a monarchy or a republic, remained open. The provisional government decided to consider it during the next convocation of the Constituent Assembly. Such uncertainty could lead to only one thing - anarchy, which happened.
- The mediocre policy of the Provisional Government : the slogans under which the February Revolution took place, its aspirations and achievements were actually buried by the actions of the Provisional Government: Russia's participation in the First World War continued; a majority vote in the government blocked the land reform and the reduction of the working day to 8 hours; the autocracy was not annulled;
- Russia's participation in the First World War: any war is an extremely costly undertaking. It literally "sucks" all the juices out of the country: people, production, money - everything goes to its maintenance. The First World War was no exception, and Russia's participation in it undermined the country's economy. After the February Revolution, the Provisional Government did not retreat from its obligations to the allies. But discipline in the army was already undermined, and general desertion began in the army.
- Anarchy: already in the name of the government of that period - the Provisional Government, the spirit of the times can be traced - order and stability were destroyed, and they were replaced by anarchy - anarchy, lawlessness, confusion, spontaneity. This manifested itself in all spheres of the country's life: an autonomous government was formed in Siberia, which was not subordinate to the capital; Finland and Poland declared independence; in the villages, the peasants were engaged in unauthorized redistribution of land, burned the landowners' estates; the government was mainly engaged in the struggle with the Soviets for power; the disintegration of the army and many other events;
- The rapid growth of the influence of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies : During the February Revolution, the Bolshevik Party was not among the most popular. But over time, this organization becomes the main political player. Their populist slogans for an immediate end to the war and for reforms found great support among the embittered workers, peasants, soldiers and police. Not the last was the role of Lenin as the founder and leader of the Bolshevik Party, which carried out the October Revolution of 1917.
Rice. 1. Mass strikes in 1917
Stages of the uprising
Before speaking briefly about the revolution of 1917 in Russia, it is necessary to answer the question of the suddenness of the uprising itself. The fact is that the actually established dual power in the country - the Provisional Government and the Bolsheviks, should have ended in some kind of explosion and in the future with the victory of one of the parties. Therefore, the Soviets began preparations for the seizure of power in August, and the government at that time was preparing and taking measures to prevent it. But the events that happened on the night of October 25, 1917 came as a complete surprise to the latter. The consequences of the establishment of Soviet power also became unpredictable.
As early as October 16, 1917, the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party made a fateful decision - to prepare for an armed uprising.
On October 18, the Petrograd garrison refused to submit to the Provisional Government, and already on October 21, representatives of the garrison declared their submission to the Petrograd Soviet, as the only representative of the legitimate authority in the country. Starting on October 24, the key points of Petrograd - bridges, railway stations, telegraphs, banks, power plants and printing houses - were captured by the Military Revolutionary Committee. On the morning of October 25, the Provisional Government held only one object - the Winter Palace. Despite this, at 10 o'clock in the morning of the same day, an appeal was issued, which announced that henceforth the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies was the only body of state power in Russia.
In the evening at 9 o'clock, a blank shot from the Aurora cruiser signaled the beginning of the assault on the Winter Palace, and on the night of October 26, members of the Provisional Government were arrested.
Rice. 2. The streets of Petrograd on the eve of the uprising
Results
As you know, history does not like the subjunctive mood. It is impossible to say what would have happened if this or that event had not happened and vice versa. Everything that happens happens due to not a single reason, but a multitude that at one moment intersected at one point and showed the world an event with all its positive and negative aspects: a civil war, a huge number of deaths, millions who left the country forever, terror, the construction of an industrial power , the elimination of illiteracy, free education, medical care, building the world's first socialist state, and much more. But, but talking about the main meaning October revolution 1917, one thing should be said - it was a profound revolution in the ideology, economy and structure of the state as a whole, which influenced not only the course of the history of Russia, but of the whole world.
By the evening of February 27, almost the entire composition of the Petrograd garrison - about 160 thousand people - went over to the side of the rebels. The commander of the Petrograd Military District, General Khabalov, is forced to inform Nicholas II: “I ask you to report to His Imperial Majesty that I could not fulfill the order to restore order in the capital. Most of the units, one after the other, betrayed their duty, refusing to fight against the rebels.
The idea of a “cartel expedition”, which provided for the removal of hotel military units and sending them to rebellious Petrograd. All this threatened to spill over into civil war with unpredictable consequences.
Acting in the spirit of revolutionary traditions, the rebels released from prisons not only political prisoners, but also criminals. At first, they easily overcame the resistance of the Kresty guards, and then they took the Peter and Paul Fortress.
The unruly and motley revolutionary masses, not disdaining murders and robberies, plunged the city into chaos.
On February 27, at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the soldiers occupied the Tauride Palace. The State Duma found itself in a dual position: on the one hand, according to the decree of the emperor, it should have dissolved itself, but on the other hand, the pressure of the rebels and the virtual anarchy forced them to take some action. A compromise solution was a meeting under the guise of a "private meeting".
As a result, it was decided to form a body of power - the Provisional Committee.
Later, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government, P. N. Milyukov, recalled:
"Intervention State Duma gave the street and military movement a center, gave it a banner and a slogan, and thus turned the uprising into a revolution that ended with the overthrow of the old regime and dynasty.
The revolutionary movement grew more and more. The soldiers capture the Arsenal, the main post office, telegraph, bridges and train stations. Petrograd was completely in the hands of the rebels. A real tragedy broke out in Kronstadt, which was swept by a wave of lynching, resulting in the murder of more than a hundred officers of the Baltic Fleet.
On March 1, the chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General Alekseev, in a letter implores the emperor "for the sake of saving Russia and the dynasty, put at the head of the government a person whom Russia would trust."
Nicholas declares that by giving rights to others, he deprives himself of the power granted to them by God. The opportunity for a peaceful transformation of the country into a constitutional monarchy had already been lost.
After the abdication of Nicholas II on March 2, a dual power actually developed in the state. Official power was in the hands of the Provisional Government, but the real power belonged to the Petrograd Soviet, which controlled the troops, railways, mail and telegraph.
Colonel Mordvinov, who was on the royal train at the time of his abdication, recalled Nikolai's plans to move to Livadia. “Your Majesty, leave as soon as possible abroad. Under the current conditions, even in the Crimea there is no life,” Mordvinov tried to convince the king. "No way. I would not want to leave Russia, I love her too much, ”Nikolai objected.
Leon Trotsky noted that the February uprising was spontaneous:
“No one planned in advance the ways of a coup, no one from above called for an uprising. The indignation that had accumulated over the years broke out to a large extent unexpectedly for the masses themselves.
However, Milyukov, in his memoirs, insists that the coup was planned shortly after the start of the war and before "the army was supposed to go on the offensive, the results of which would radically stop all hints of discontent and would cause an explosion of patriotism and jubilation in the country." “History will curse the leaders of the so-called proletarians, but it will also curse us who caused the storm,” wrote the former minister.
The British historian Richard Pipes calls the actions of the tsarist government during the February uprising "fatal weakness of will", noting that "the Bolsheviks in such circumstances did not stop before executions."
Although the February Revolution is called "bloodless", it nevertheless claimed the lives of thousands of soldiers and civilians. In Petrograd alone, more than 300 people died and 1,200 were injured.
The February revolution began an irreversible process of the collapse of the empire and the decentralization of power, accompanied by the activity of separatist movements.
Independence was demanded by Poland and Finland, they started talking about independence in Siberia, and the Central Rada formed in Kyiv proclaimed "autonomous Ukraine".
The events of February 1917 allowed the Bolsheviks to come out of hiding. Thanks to the amnesty announced by the Provisional Government, dozens of revolutionaries returned from exile and political exile, who were already hatching plans for a new coup d'état.
The October Revolution of 1917 took place on October 25 according to the old or November 7 according to the new style. The initiator, ideologist and protagonist of the revolution was the Bolshevik Party (Russian Social Democratic Bolshevik Party), led by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (party pseudonym Lenin) and Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Trotsky). As a result, power has changed in Russia. Instead of a bourgeois country, a proletarian government headed.Goals of the October Revolution of 1917
- Building a more just society than capitalist
- Ending the exploitation of man by man
- Equality of people in rights and duties
The main motto of the socialist revolution of 1917 is "To each according to his needs, from each according to his work"
- Fight against wars
- world socialist revolution
Revolution slogans
- "Power to the Soviets"
- "Peace to the nations"
- "Land - to the peasants"
- "Factories - to workers"
Objective causes of the October Revolution of 1917
- Economic difficulties experienced by Russia due to participation in the First World War
- Huge human losses from the same
- Unsuccessfully developing affairs on the fronts
- The mediocre leadership of the country, first by the tsarist, then by the bourgeois (Provisional) government
- The unresolved peasant question (the issue of allocating land to the peasants)
- Difficult living conditions for workers
- Almost complete illiteracy of the people
- Unfair national politics
Subjective causes of the October Revolution of 1917
- The presence in Russia of a small, but well-organized, disciplined group - the Bolshevik Party
- The supremacy in it is great historical person— V. I. Lenin
- The absence in the camp of her opponents of a person of the same magnitude
- The ideological throwing of the intelligentsia: from Orthodoxy and nationalism to anarchism and support for terrorism
- The activities of German intelligence and diplomacy, which had the goal of weakening Russia, as one of Germany's opponents in the war
- Passivity of the population
Interesting: the causes of the Russian revolution according to the writer Nikolai Starikov
Methods for building a new society
- Nationalization and transfer to state ownership of the means of production and land
- Eradication of private property
- Physical elimination of political opposition
- Concentration of power in the hands of one party
- Atheism instead of religion
- Marxism-Leninism instead of Orthodoxy
Trotsky led the direct seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.
“By the night of the 24th, the members of the Revolutionary Committee dispersed to the districts. I was left alone. Later came Kamenev. He was opposed to the uprising. But he came to spend this decisive night with me, and we remained together in a small corner room on the third floor, which looked like a captain's bridge on the decisive night of the revolution. In the adjoining large and deserted room was phone booth. They called continuously, about the important and the trifles. The bells emphasized the wary silence even more sharply... Detachments of workers, sailors, and soldiers are awake in the districts. Young proletarians have rifles and machine-gun belts over their shoulders. Street pickets are basking around fires. Two dozen telephones concentrate the spiritual life of the capital, which squeezes its head from one era to another on an autumn night.
In the room on the third floor, news converges from all districts, suburbs and approaches to the capital. As if everything is foreseen, leaders are in place, connections are secured, nothing seems to be forgotten. Let's mentally check again. This night decides.
... I give the order to the commissars to set up reliable military barriers on the roads to Petrograd and send agitators to meet the units called by the government ... "If you don’t keep words, use weapons. You are responsible for this with your head.” I repeat this phrase several times…. The outer guard of Smolny was strengthened by a new machine-gun team. Communication with all parts of the garrison remains uninterrupted. Duty companies are awake in all regiments. Commissioners are in place. Armed detachments move from the districts through the streets, ring the bells at the gates or open them without ringing, and occupy one office after another.
... In the morning I pounce on the bourgeois and compromising press. Not a word about the uprising that had begun.
The government still met in the Winter Palace, but it had already become only a shadow of itself. It no longer existed politically. During October 25, the Winter Palace was gradually cordoned off by our troops from all sides. At one o'clock in the afternoon I reported to the Petrograd Soviet on the state of affairs. Here is how the newspaper report portrays this report:
“On behalf of the Military Revolutionary Committee, I announce that the Provisional Government no longer exists. (Applause.) Individual ministers have been arrested. ("Bravo!") Others will be arrested in the coming days or hours. (Applause.) The revolutionary garrison, at the disposal of the Military Revolutionary Committee, dissolved the meeting of the Pre-Parliament. (Loud applause.) We stayed awake here at night and watched over the telephone wire how detachments of revolutionary soldiers and the workers' guards silently carried out their work. The layman slept peacefully and did not know that at this time one power was being replaced by another. Stations, post office, telegraph, Petrograd Telegraph Agency, State Bank are busy. (Loud applause.) The Winter Palace has not yet been taken, but its fate will be decided in the next few minutes. (Applause.)"
This naked report can give the wrong impression of the mood of the meeting. That's what my memory tells me. When I reported on the change of power that had taken place during the night, there was a tense silence for several seconds. Then applause came, but not stormy, but thoughtful ... “Can we overcome it?” – many people asked themselves mentally. Hence a moment of anxious reflection. Let's do it, everyone replied. New dangers loomed in the distant future. And now there was a feeling great victory, and this feeling sang in the blood. It found its way out in a stormy meeting arranged for Lenin, who first appeared at this meeting after an absence of almost four months.(Trotsky "My Life").
Results of the October Revolution of 1917
- In Russia, the elite has completely changed. The one that ruled the state for 1000 years, set the tone in politics, economics, public life, was an example to follow and an object of envy and hatred, gave way to others who really “was nothing” before
- The Russian Empire fell, but its place was taken by the Soviet Empire, which for several decades became one of the two countries (together with the United States) that led the world community
- The tsar was replaced by Stalin, who acquired much more powers than any Russian emperor.
- The ideology of Orthodoxy was replaced by communist
- Russia (more precisely Soviet Union) within a few years turned from an agricultural into a powerful industrial power
- Literacy has become universal
- The Soviet Union achieved the withdrawal of education and medical care from the system of commodity-money relations
- There was no unemployment in the USSR
- In recent decades, the leadership of the USSR has achieved almost complete equality of the population in income and opportunities.
- In the Soviet Union there was no division of people into poor and rich
- In the numerous wars waged by Russia during the years of Soviet power, as a result of terror, from various economic experiments, tens of millions of people died, the fates of probably the same number of people were broken, distorted, millions left the country, becoming emigrants
- The country's gene pool has changed catastrophically
- The lack of incentives to work, the absolute centralization of the economy, huge military spending led Russia (USSR) to a significant technological, technical lag behind the developed countries of the world.
- In Russia (USSR), in practice, democratic freedoms - speech, conscience, demonstrations, rallies, and the press - were completely absent (although they were declared in the Constitution).
- The proletariat of Russia lived materially much worse than the workers of Europe and America.
Revolution of 1917 in Russia
The history of the October Socialist Revolution is one of those topics that have attracted and continue to attract the most attention of foreign and Russian historiography, because it was precisely as a result of the victory of the October Revolution that the situation of all classes and sections of the population, their parties, radically changed. The Bolsheviks became the ruling party, leading the work to create a new state and social system.
On October 26, a decree on peace and land was adopted. Following the decree on peace, on land, the Soviet government adopted laws: on the introduction of workers' control over the production and distribution of products, on an 8-hour working day, and the "Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia." The Declaration proclaimed that from now on in Russia there are no dominant nations and oppressed nations, all peoples receive equal rights to free development, to self-determination up to secession and the formation of an independent state.
The October Revolution marked the beginning of profound, all-encompassing social change throughout the world. The landlords' land was transferred free of charge into the hands of the working peasantry, and factories, plants, mines, railways into the hands of the workers, making them public property.
Causes of the October Revolution
On August 1, 1914, the First World War began in Russia, which lasted until November 11, 1918, the cause of which was the struggle for spheres of influence in conditions when a single European market and legal mechanism had not been created.
Russia was on the defensive in this war. And although the patriotism and heroism of the soldiers and officers was great, there was neither a single will, nor serious plans for waging war, nor a sufficient supply of ammunition, uniforms and food. This instilled uncertainty in the army. She lost her soldiers and suffered defeats. The Minister of War was put on trial, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief was removed from his post. Nicholas II himself became commander-in-chief. But the situation has not improved. Despite continuous economic growth (the production of coal and oil, the production of shells, guns and other types of weapons grew, huge reserves were accumulated in case of a prolonged war), the situation developed in such a way that during the war years Russia found itself without an authoritative government, without an authoritative prime minister. minister, and without an authoritative Headquarters. The officer corps grew educated people, i.e. intelligentsia, which was subject to oppositional moods, and everyday participation in the war, which lacked the most necessary, gave food for doubts.
The growing centralization of economic management, carried out against the backdrop of a growing shortage of raw materials, fuel, transport, skilled labor, accompanied by a scale of speculation and abuse, led to the fact that the role of state regulation increased along with the growth of negative factors in the economy (History of the domestic state and law. Ch. 1: Textbook / Under the editorship of O. I. Chistyakov. - M .: BEK Publishing House, 1998)
Queues appeared in the cities, standing in which was a psychological breakdown for hundreds of thousands of workers and workers.
The predominance of military production over civilian production and the rise in food prices led to a steady increase in prices for all consumer goods. At the same time, wages did not keep pace with rising prices. Discontent grew both in the rear and at the front. And it turned primarily against the monarch and his government.
Considering that from November 1916 to March 1917 three prime ministers, two ministers of internal affairs and two ministers of agriculture were replaced, then the expression of the convinced monarchist V. Shulgin about the situation that developed at that time in Russia is really true: “autocracy without autocrat” .
Among a number of prominent politicians, in semi-legal organizations and circles, a conspiracy was ripening, and plans were discussed to remove Nicholas II from power. It was supposed to seize the tsar's train between Mogilev and Petrograd and force the monarch to abdicate.
The October Revolution was a major step towards the transformation of a feudal state into a bourgeois one. October created a fundamentally new, Soviet state. The October Revolution was caused by a number of objective and subjective reasons. First of all, the class contradictions that aggravated in 1917 should be attributed to the objective ones:
The contradictions inherent in bourgeois society are the antagonism between labor and capital. The Russian bourgeoisie, young and inexperienced, failed to see the danger of coming class friction and did not take sufficient measures in time to reduce the intensity of the class struggle as much as possible.
Conflicts in the countryside, which developed even more acutely. The peasants, who for centuries dreamed of taking away the land from the landowners and driving them away themselves, were not satisfied with either the reform of 1861 or the Stolypin reform. They frankly longed to get all the land and get rid of old exploiters. In addition, from the very beginning of the 20th century, a new contradiction escalated in the countryside, connected with the differentiation of the peasantry itself. This stratification intensified after the Stolypin reform, which tried to create new class owners in the village due to the redistribution of peasant lands associated with the destruction of the community. Now, in addition to the landowner, the broad peasant masses also had a new enemy - the kulak, even more hated, since he came from his environment.
National conflicts. The national movement, which was not very strong in the period 1905-1907, escalated after February and gradually increased towards the autumn of 1917.
World War. The first chauvinistic frenzy that gripped certain sections of society at the beginning of the war soon dissipated, and by 1917 the overwhelming mass of the population, suffering from the many-sided hardships of the war, longed for the speediest conclusion of peace. First of all, this concerned, of course, the soldiers. The village is also tired of endless sacrifices. Only the upper class of the bourgeoisie, which made huge amounts of money on military supplies, stood up for the continuation of the war to a victorious end. But the war also had other consequences. First of all, it armed the vast masses of workers and peasants, taught them how to handle weapons and helped overcome the natural barrier that forbids a person to kill other people.
The weakness of the Provisional Government and the entire state apparatus created by it. If immediately after February, the Provisional Government had some kind of authority, then the further, the more it lost it, being unable to solve the pressing problems of society, primarily questions about peace, bread, and land. Simultaneously with the decline in the authority of the Provisional Government, the influence and importance of the Soviets grew, promising to give the people everything they craved.
Along with the objective, important were subjective factors:
Widespread popularity in the society of socialist ideas. Thus, by the beginning of the century, Marxism had become a kind of fashion among the Russian intelligentsia. He found a response in wider popular circles. Even in the Orthodox Church at the beginning of the 20th century, a movement of Christian socialism, albeit a small one, emerged.
The existence in Russia of a party ready to lead the masses to revolution - the Bolshevik Party. This party is not the largest in number (the Socialist-Revolutionaries had more), however, it was the most organized and purposeful.
The fact that the Bolsheviks had a strong leader, authoritative both in the party itself and among the people, who managed to become a real leader in a few months after February - V.I. Lenin.
As a result, the October armed uprising won victory in Petrograd with greater ease than the February Revolution, and almost without bloodshed, precisely as a result of a combination of all the factors mentioned above. Its result was the emergence of the Soviet state.
The legal side of the October Revolution of 1917
In the autumn of 1917, the political crisis intensified in the country. At the same time, the Bolsheviks active work in preparation for the uprising. It started and went according to plan.
During the uprising in Petrograd, by October 25, 1917, all key points in the city were occupied by detachments of the Petrograd garrison and the Red Guard. By the evening of that day, the Second All-Russian Congress Councils of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, which proclaimed itself the highest authority in Russia. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee, formed by the First Congress of Soviets in the summer of 1917, was re-elected.
The Second Congress of Soviets elected a new All-Russian Central Executive Committee and formed the Council of People's Commissars, which became the government of Russia. ( The World History: Textbook for universities / Ed. G.B. Polyak, A.N. Markova. - M .: Culture and sport, UNITI, 1997) The Congress was of a constituent nature: it created the governing government bodies and adopted the first acts that had constitutional, fundamental significance. The Decree on Peace proclaimed the principles of long-term foreign policy Russia - peaceful coexistence and "proletarian internationalism", the right of nations to self-determination.
The Decree on Land was based on peasant mandates formulated by the soviets as early as August 1917. A variety of forms of land use were proclaimed (household, farm, communal, artel), confiscation of landowners' lands and estates, which were transferred to the disposal of volost land committees and county councils of peasant deputies. The right to private ownership of land was abolished. The use of hired labor and the lease of land were prohibited. Later, these provisions were enshrined in the Decree “On the Socialization of the Land” in January 1918. The Second Congress of Soviets also adopted two appeals: “To the Citizens of Russia” and “To the Workers, Soldiers and Peasants”, which spoke of the transfer of power to the Military Revolutionary Committee , the Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, and locally - local councils.