Russian Revolutions

The Russian Revolution was caused by several major factors:

1. The partial industrialization of Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which created an urban working class in places like St. Petersburg and Moscow that could organize against its exploitation through unions and workers councils (known as 'the soviets'). This enabled the workers to work together much more effectively against their bosses then the scattered, isolated, and thus largely de-politicized peasantry. The cities were also connected via trade and communication to the outside world, where intellectuals and workers alike had access to revolutionary ideas from western Europe such as Marxism.

2. The desperate poverty and gross inequality that marked Russian society created a deep well of discontent. The czar and the aristocracy, as well as Russia's capitalist class, lived in opulent luxury in palaces such as the Hermitage while most Russians lived in medieval conditions. In the countryside, most farmers still used wooden plow. Hundreds of thousands died from epidemics on a regular basis. 1/3 of all Russian babies died before their first birthday.

3. The entry of Russia into World War I brought all the class tensions of Russian society to a boiling point, especially when Russia's badly equipped and led army suffered a series of disastrous defeats. Food riots broke out in Russia's major cities and the countryside. The army and navy began to mutiny against a government they had no desire to fight and die for.

4. The czar of Russia, Nicholas II, was a weak and indecisive leader. He went back and forth between making concessions to his people and then opting for repressive measures. Therefore, he both allowed breathing space for a revolutionary movement to develop while creating fresh grievances that strengthened the political forces against him. Most importantly though, he was attempting to reform a corrupt, repressive, outdated system that could not be reformed at all.

5. Although many different groups were opposed to the czar, the Russian revolution was successful because the group that ended up leading it, the Bolsheviks, were dedicated, well-organized, and well-led.

Note: What is commonly called the "Russian Revolution" refers to the events which occurred in 1917 (there was also a smaller and less successful revolution in 1905).

Causes of the Industrial Revolution

All across England, the recent turn of the century has gone largely unnoticed. The vast majority of the country's population lives in the countryside, completely isolated or in small communities like Bedlington. The principal trades are growing grain or raising sheep for wool, both of which require a lot of manual labour. Farming tools are common, but machines are not; animals are raised, but not used extensively for cultivating the land. Life in the countryside depends on nature in many ways: good weather in the summer means a good crop, just as a long winter can mean hunger and discomfort. People rise with the sun and go to bed when it gets dark.

At the dawn of the eighteenth century, farming was the primary livelihood in England, with at least 75% of the population making its living off the land. This meant that many English families had very little to do during the winter months except sit around and make careful use of the food and other supplies that they stored up during the rest of the year. If the harvest had been smaller than usual or if any other unexpected losses had come about, the winter could be a very long, cold, and hungry one. The cottage industry was developed to take advantage of the farmers' free time and use it to produce quality textiles for a reasonable price.

To begin the process, a cloth merchant from the city needed enough money to travel into the countryside and purchase a load of wool from a sheep farm. He would then distribute the raw materials among several farming households to be made into cloth . The preparation of the wool was a task in which the whole family took part. Women and girls first washed the wool to remove the dirt and natural oils and then dyed it as desired. They also carded the wool, which meant combing it between two pads of nails until the fibres were all pointed in the same direction. Next, the wool was spun into thread using a spinning wheel and wound onto a bobbin . The actual weaving of the thread into cloth was done using a loom operated by hand and foot; it was physically demanding work, and was therefore the man's job. The task of transforming raw wool into cloth could be done entirely by one household, or split between two or more . The merchant would return at regular intervals over the season to pick up the finished cloth, which he then brought back to the city to sell or export, and to drop of a new load of wool to be processed.

The cottage industry proved to be profitable for the urban merchants, since they could sell the finished cloth for far more than they paid the famers to make it. The cottage industry helped to prepare the country for the Industrial Revolution by boosting the English economy through the increase of trade that occured as the country became well-known overseas for its high-quality and low-cost exports. Previously, tradesmen had done all the manufacturing themselves, so the idea of subcontracting was new and appealing. The cottage industry was also a good source of auxiliary funds for the rural people. However, many farming families came to depend on the enterprise; thus, when industrialization and the Agricultural Revolution reduced the need for farm workers, many were forced to leave their homes and move to the city.

Although serfdom in England had disappeared by the end of the seventeenth century, most farms were established on "common land" which local farmers typically leased from a wealthy proprietor who owned large areas of land in a district. There were, however, rules which prevented a landlord from expelling a tenant without a reasonable cause, and so farms could be passed down through a peasant family for generations. Traditionally, the land was divided into long narrow strips which grew smaller as the land was split into more parts for each succeeding generation. When new methods of agriculture began to be developed, it became clear that they would be more efficient with larger plots of land. Enclosure is defined as "the process of inclosing land formerly subject to common rights" . This meant that the land that peasants had been cultivating on their own was returned to the control of the landowners and redistributed. Scavenging on someone else's land became illegal, and small farmers often lost access to wood and water . Although the process was not standardized until the General Enclosure Act of 1801 , many private acts had been passed since the 1750's and enclosure had been common for well over a century before. The urbanization of the English population was largely fueled by dispossessed peasants who moved to the city in the hopes of finding new work .

Why was Britain the first country to industrialize? This change, which occurred between 1750 and 1830, happened because conditions were perfect in Britain for the Industrial Revolution. Having used wood for heat instead of coal, Britain was left with large deposits of coal remaining to fuel the new ideas. Any raw supplies Britain itself did not have could be provided by its many colonies. These colonies also provided captive markets for the abundance of new goods provided by the industrial revolution . The product was cotton. Cotton was a simple, cheap, and easily made product that everyone could use. So, between 1796 and 1830 cotton production tripled . The new production was easily transported, because there remained an old commercial fleet .

The Product and Market were the simple requirements, and many countries had them. What set Britain apart from the others, however, were three unique social elements: education, "modern" work attitudes, and a "modern" government. Great Britain had a larger educated workforce to run the machines and create manuals. The Enlightenment not only meant a larger educated population but also more modern views on work. The population in Great Britain was ready to move out of the country and to the city to work. Britain also had the large middle class and flexible mercantile class necessary. English society, unlike many others, was not opposed to "new money," and as such was eager to accept the new wealthy and their new ideas . Lastly, Britain's government, a long-time constitutional monarchy, was just right for the situation. The government was flexible enough to support the new system and to a certain degree accepted Adam Smith's capitalistic "invisible hand." The Dutch were the forerunners financially, but with the establishment of the Bank of England in 1694, their supremacy was challenged . The government and the bank provided incredible backing to new ideas, which soon turned into new wealth .

Many of these elements were achieved because of the insularity of England. This meant that the industrial development was rarely interrupted by war . This combination of necessary elements led to the early mechanization of Britain. Between 1838 and 1850 Britain's rail lines went from 540 to 6621 track kilometers; rail lines were considered the best way to monitor a country's industrialization . The elements needed or preferred for the Industrial Revolution can be summarized as follows:

• modern work attitudes
• education
• a product
• transportation for the product
• large market
• "modern" government
• money

There were actually three revolutions in Russia between 1905 and 1918. They started as protests against the repressive government of the Tsar (Emperor) and ultimately led to the formation of the Soviet Union, the world's first "communist" country.

The first was the 1905 Revolution. Russia had just lost a major war with Japan, even though Japan was considered the young underdog in that war. Additionally, Russia was a backwards country that was struggling to modernize, and it wasn't going smoothly. Protests became more frequent- and then one protest turned bloody when soldiers shot at a crowd of protestors that got too close to one of the Tsar's palaces. Protests and violence became more prevalent until the Tsar finally had to relent and allow changes to the government, like the formation of a legislature and a constitution. However, although the Tsar technically did follow through on his promises, the legislature proved to be weak and ineffective, and the new constitution was also considered insufficient by some groups. So nothing really changed.

In February 1917, the so-called February Revolution began. World War I was raging across Europe. While Russia was still suffering from a lot of the same problems they had in 1905, they were now also doing poorly in the war. The Russian Army kept losing major battles to the Germans, and the war also caused widespread shortages of food, fuel, and other resources. The Tsar decided to go to the front and command the army personally- but he was not a good commander and only made things worse. Additionally, his unpopular wife tried to run the government in his absence- but she did poorly at that too (it didn't help that she was originally from Germany, and a lot of Russians thought she was a German spy). Protests and strikes began again, and got larger. Eventually the Tsar ordered soldiers to shoot the protesters- but the soldiers joined the protests instead. With his government in chaos, the Tsar was forced to abdicate (quit) his position. A republic was set up in St. Petersburg, which was renamed Petrograd; the new government is commonly called the Provisional Government. At the same time, Communists and Socialists formed the Petrograd Soviet ("soviet" means "council") as a rival government; this led to the "dual power", where the Soviet and the Provisional governments struggled against each other to control all of Russia.

The third and final one was the October Revolution, sometimes called Red October, in early November 1917*. It was a very complicated affair, so this is just a short-ish summary: the Provisional Government had difficulty fixing the problems left by the Tsar, and, worse still, insisted on continuing fighting in World War I despite the war's widespread unpopularity with the Russian people. Bolshevik radicals led strikes against Provisional while also spreading their own influence in the Soviet. Over the summer, mass strikes and protests further weakened the Provisional. Then, in September, the Provisional made a critical mistake- in brief, a high-ranking military commander named Kornilov tried to eliminate the Soviet, against the advice of the Provisional's leader, Alexander Kerensky. Kerensky claimed that Kornilov was trying to overthrow the government and make himself dictator- so Kerensky asked the Bolsheviks to make an army and stop Kornilov. The Bolsheviks did, and were able to defeat Kornilov- but in so doing, also made themselves very popular and powerful, while Kerensky had alienated his own military, so that it no longer trusted him. Shortly thereafter, in the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks largely bloodlessly overthrew the Provisional Government and took control of the country. However, various groups arose to fight against the Bolsheviks, and some parts of the country tried to break away- starting the Russian Civil War, which would last about five years and end with victory for the Bolsheviks.

* At that time, Russia used an older style of calendar that most of the rest of the world stopped using in the 1700s. So while it was early November in the rest of the world, for Russia it was still the end of October.

Lenin and the Bolsheviks were experienced revolutionaries, but had no experience in running the government of a huge nation. Some of the main problems were:

1. How to organize Russia's industries. This meant that the problem of combining machinery, men, and raw materials needed to be figured out if the revolution was to succeed;

2. What these industries should focus on. Problems such as consumer good manufacturing versus heavy industrial activity;

3. Distribution methods to feed and cloth the population was a problem;

4. Were labor unions necessary, or should they be abolished was a extremely serious problem to be solved;

5. How to control the millions upon millions of peasants, and how to transport their crops to the cities; and

6. How should the former revolutionary Bolshevik Party now be organized. The Bolsheviks had been organized to create a revolution, not to operate a vast nation.

There were other problems as well, and the "other problem" was that Marxism did not have the answers to these specific Russian problems. This would have been averted in a highly developed industrial nation led by workers. The leaders were however, not workers but rather they were Marxist revolutionaries with a bloody background.

Additionally there soon would be the problem of the civil war in Russia.

The Russian revolution is typically seen as being carried out by the Bolshevik party, though it was, in essence, a movement brought about by the Russian workers and merely sparked and aided by the Bolsheviks.

The man typically seen as the leader of the Bolsheviks is known as Vladimir Lenin, but his next-in-command Leon Trotsky was the leader of the Petrograd Soviet (socialist union of workers in the capital city of Petrograd) at the time of the revolution.

The common aims of Lenin, Trotsky, and the whole of the Bolshevik party was to overthrow the opressive Tsar (Basically a king), take from the rich, give to the poor, and (in the distant future) have a world without nations, hate, greed, opression, classes, or property.

Stalin stole power from Trotsky after Lenin died of a stroke and un-did most of the progress that Lenin made towards the Communist goal.