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At the beginning of the 20th century, Russia was ruled by Tsar Nicholas II of the Romanov dynasty, who exercised absolute power supported by the Orthodox Church that he himself headed. The army, the bureaucracy and the police were in charge of suppressing any opposition focus.

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Economic geography of the Russian Empire

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Economic geography of the Russian Empire

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Economic development was concentrated on the borders with Poland in Saint Petersburg and in Ukraine. At the beginning of the 20th century, in these regions the production of coal, iron, steel and later oil, expanded. The pattern of development was very similar to the England of the Industrial Revolution, in the sense that due to increasing proletarianization the first Russian labor movements emerged with specific social and political demands.

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The lack of democratic representation and the disinterest of the Russian elites made political opposition to Tsarism grow in the late 19th century. Until that moment, anarchism was the most important political movement since some followers of this ideology had managed to assassinate Tsar Alexander II in 1881.

In this climate, the first political parties were organized whose main objective was to implement a parliamentary system in the country. The opposition parties were three:
1. The Constitutional-Democratic Party (1905) or Party of the Kadets
2. The Socialist Revolutionary Party (1901) aimed to implement a peasant revolution in Russia and organize a federal state that took into account the different nationalities in the Empire. Its main spokesmen were Tchernov and Kerensky.

3. The Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (1898) whose origins go back to Marxist groups organized by Giorgio Plekhanov. In 1903 it was divided into two factions: Mensheviks (reformists or moderators) and Bolsheviks (revolutionaries or radicals).

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In 1905 the bad government of Nicholas II plunged Russia into a first great crisis. In that year, the great territorial empire was defeated by Japan, the new Asian industrial power whose objective was the control of Manchuria and the eastern ports of Russia, in the Russo-Japanese war.

The malaise by the cold and the hunger provoked a series of protests and strikes against the tsarist regime in the capital Saint Petersburg. On January 9, 1905, in front of the Winter Palace, there was a peaceful workers' demonstration that was severely crushed, an event that only exacerbated the differences between the Russian elites and the common people.

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The popular classes spontaneously organized themselves into the first soviets or workers' councils and spread their demonstrations and strikes throughout the empire; An important episode was the uprising of the sailors of the Battleship Potemkin in June 1905.

To break popular resistance, the Tsar implemented a series of reforms, such as the restructuring of the Duma (Russian parliament) -which until then had been merely a consultative body elected by universal male suffrage-, the declaration of amnesty, the freedom of press, meeting and association, as well as the introduction of modernizing policies in the field to implement the free market in agriculture; the latter only caused the greatest concentration of wealth in the hands of the nobility and the Church.

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The reformist policy of 1905 made up only the structural problems of the country, which were more evident in the years that followed: the opposition of the political parties grew and the Soviets became important cells of political indoctrination in these years. At that time Lenin prophesied that the First World War would accelerate the fall of Tsarism and that the transformation of Russian society would occur in the hands of the new workers' organizations.

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In 1914, Tsar Nicholas II appealed to the patriotic sentiment of the Russians to participate in the Great War by supporting the Serbs against the central empires of Germany and Austria-Hungary, in order to obtain substantial benefits and territorial annexations; He was particularly interested in Poland, its port of Danzig, and control over the Black Sea and access to the Mediterranean Sea.

The decision to participate in the world war against the second most powerful capitalist country in the world, had nationalist bases and more than anything economic. In collaboration with the Russian state, the big monopolies wanted to expand the market by expanding the country's borders, since their national markets were backward by agriculture and the poverty of the people.

Structural weaknesses, the decline in industrial production and the large number of casualties (approximately 8 million Russians) in the military campaigns of 1914, 1915 and 1916 led to demoralization and new revolts against the regime, as happened in 1905 after defeat in the Russo-Japanese war.

In 1917, the Russian government had to abandon the war due to heavy losses and popular pressure. From then on, the two stages of the Russian Revolution took place, eventually leading to the creation of a new regime in 1922.

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"Peace, land and bread and all the power for the Soviets"
Lenin
The participation of Russia in the Great War aggravated the economic situation of the nation and caused, in January 1917, the first riots and looting of bakeries; Between February 23 and 25, the workers demonstrated in the capital Petrograd and made an official Proclamation demanding the end of tsarism. The government repressed the people on February 26, but this time the situation was uncontrollable, the same main army victim of the war fraternized with the strikers, which finally forced the Tsar to abdicate on March 2.

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A provisional government headed by Alexander Kerensky was hastily formed, consisting mainly of members of the Constitutional Democratic Party or the Cadets, the old imperial apparatus, moderate or Menshevik Social Democrats, and the Socialists.

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Actions and problems of the provisional government

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Actions and problems of the provisional government

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The tsar was imprisoned, it was decided to continue the war with Germany and the imperial structure was dissolved, in addition, the independence rights of Finland and Poland were recognized and the state police were abolished, among others.

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Political confrontation between the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet

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Political confrontation between the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet

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The provisional government had to face the same problems of the monarchy and did not have the strategies and resources necessary to reverse the problems of a country at war and in social, political and economic crisis. The elites in the regions near and far from the capital did not recognize the new government and conspired against Kerensky, whose power was soon limited against the Petrograd Soviet, which was much more revolutionary and in which workers, peasants and soldiers they found representation. Likewise, two powers were formed: on the one hand, that of the Soviets (workers and peasants) and on the other, the provisional government (intellectuals and bourgeois). According to the prime minister, Prince Georgi L'vov, "the Soviet had power without authority, while the provisional government had authority without power."

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The Bolsheviks took on the task of making the Russian peasants, workers and military aware of participating in politics through the Soviets. In August 1917 the provisional government had to face an attempted coup by General Kornilov, which failed due to the presence of the pro-Bolshevik military.

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"History will not forgive us if we do not take power now"

Lenin, 1917
After many strikes, revolts and confrontations, the repression of the provisional government against the Bolshevik leaders (Lenin went underground again) and an acute economic crisis, the "October Revolution" finally broke out, on the 25th of the same month. in Petrograd. The characteristics of this stage were very different from the February Revolution, with less blood and chaos.

This revolution was an action of the masses, organized through the Petrograd Soviet, which expressed its aspirations to transform society and its needs. This Soviet, led by the Bolsheviks, was elected by its own members, so it had much greater representation and legitimacy than the provisional government.

On October 25, the Bolshevik troops under the command of Leon Trotsky took the Winter Palace and arrested the members of the provisional government.

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1. A regime constituted by Bolsheviks was formed, called the Council of People's Commissars.
2. The decree on peace was proclaimed that invited the belligerent nations of the Great War to establish an immediate peace without annexations or indemnities.
3.With the decree on the land, the expropriation of large estates (a total of 150 million hectares) was established in favor of the peasants.
4.The decree on the industrial enterprises was proclaimed by which the workers of the Soviets obtained control over the factories.
5.The decree on the nationalities was established in which the self-determination of these parts of the Russian peoples was recognized. The objective of the decree was, according to the Bolsheviks, to facilitate the expansion of the revolution by recognizing in principle the linguistic, cultural and religious particularities of the peoples that formerly formed part of the empire.

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Basis of the political success of the Bolsheviks

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Basis of the political success of the Bolsheviks

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An alliance between the middle class, peasants, workers and military of Petrograd and some other cities, managed to take control over the government of a country of 160 million inhabitants. The lasting success of the Revolution would depend on the ability of this group to "export" revolutionary ideals to the peripheries of the industrial centers of Western Russia and even internationally. To consolidate power, a repressive police, the Cheka and the Red Army, organized by Trotsky, were formed and, in addition, they sought to end the war with Germany.

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Peace with the European powers and Russia's exit from the World War I.

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Peace with the European powers and Russia's exit from the World War I.

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To consolidate the power of the Soviets and stabilize Russia, Lenin sought to establish peace with Germany at any cost.

In 1918 the German government gave the revolutionary government an ultimatum in Brest-Litovsk by which they threatened Russia with invasion if it did not give up much of Ukraine, since it had the largest amount of Russian coal and grain.

Lenin chose to accept the ultimatum, while Bakunin and the Social Democrats (in favor of the war), as well as Trotsky (he hoped for the triumph of a German proletarian revolution), thought that another way was necessary.

On March 3, 1918, Leon Trotsky, People's Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, signed the Peace of Brest-Litovsk with which Russia handed over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; it recognized the independence of Poland, Finland, Ukraine and ceded Bessarabia to Romania and Armenia to Turkey.

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The Bolsheviks had to face their opponents and the officers of the newly disintegrated army for peace with Germany, 7 million soldiers demobilized without receiving any support. The Russian crisis from then on was very hard, because at the end of 1917 the population had bread rations of 300 grams, while in Petrograd it was reduced to 150 on January 27, 1918 and less than 50 on February 28, 1918. same year. Consequently, during the first six months of 1918, a million people migrated from the city in the hope of finding food elsewhere.

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An alliance of foreign armies formed by Poland, France, England, Czechoslovakia, Japan, Canada, the United States and opponents of the regime (Mensheviks, Tsarists, military), was organized in the summer of 1918 to confront the Bolsheviks.
Western powers participated in order, firstly, to prevent a revolutionary expansion throughout Europe and secondly, by the refusal of the Bolsheviks to recognize their foreign debt, as well as the payment of indemnities for the expropriated and nationalized industries.

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Whites:  Tsarists,  Anti-communists, Mensheviks. They were supported by foreign armies.
Reds: Bolsheviks and Soviets

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The army of counterrevolutionary "whites" faced the revolutionary reds with extreme violence and terror, which led to the Revolution becoming a bloodshed between both sides. Finally, the Red Army assassinated the former Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family on July 16, 1918. The Bolshevik regime endured and, despite the terrible conditions, did not lose the support of its bases, managing to prevail in a civil war that lasted from 1918 to 1920.

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Based on the ideas of Karl Marx and the Second Workers' International, Lenin and Trotsky thought that the success of the Russian proletarian Revolution depended on the expansion of the same process worldwide. As ideologues and pragmatic politicians, they were planning a strategy to support workers' struggles in Western countries.

The hope of a world revolution grew between the years 1916-1920, due to: the massive workers' strikes in the German steel sector, the mutiny of the French and English armies against their own leaders, the uprisings of the Italian workers in Turin and the Irish republican rebellion in Dublin in 1916.

Lenin considered the situation in Germany of special interest, a country that could ensure the triumph of socialism. In that nation the defeat was eminent, so, in the city of Hamburg, the navy called for the formation of councils of workers and soldiers, in addition to organizing a revolution that ended the German empire to form the Weimar Republic ruled by the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

The German bourgeoisie wanted to avoid any Russian revolutionary scenario so it decided to agree to peace and an armistice, also divided the labor movement led by the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) through paramilitary groups or Frankish bodies made up of ex-combatants.

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First stage. During Lenin's government, the Revolution was consolidated, a new constitution was implemented in 1918 and a new economic system known as the NEP.

Second stage. The old empire is reformed and the USSR is formed, formally, between 1923-1924.

Third stage. After Lenin's death, Stalinism prevailed from 1924 to 1953.