Cambridge University Press 0521841550 - The Russian Revolution, 1917 - Second Edition Rex A. Wade Frontmatter More information
The Russian Revolution, 1917
Rex A. Wade presents here a new account of one of the pivotal events of modern history, combining his own long study of the revolution with the best of contemporary scholarship. Within an overall narrative that provides a clear description of the 1917 revolution, he introduces several new approaches on its political history and the complexity of the October Revolution. Wade clears away many of the myths and misconceptions that have clouded studies of the period. He also gives due space to the social history of the revolution and incorporates people and places too often left out of the story, including women, national minority peoples, peasantry and front soldiers, enabling a richer and more complete history to emerge. Now appearing in a second edition, this highly readable book has been thoroughly revised and expanded. It will prove invaluable reading to anyone interested in Russian history. r e x a. w a d e is Professor of Russian History at George Mason University. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Russian history.
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NEW APPROACHES TO EUROPEAN HISTORY
Series editors w i l l i a m b e i k Emory University t. c. w. b l a n n i n g Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
New Approaches to European History is an important textbook series, which provides concise but authoritative surveys of major themes and problems in European history since the Renaissance. Written at a level and length accessible to advanced school students and undergraduates, each book in the series addresses topics or themes that students of European history encounter daily: the series embraces both some of the more ``traditional'' subjects of study, and those cultural and social issues to which increasing numbers of school and college courses are devoted. A particular effort is made to consider the wider international implications of the subject under scrutiny. To aid the student reader scholarly apparatus and annotation is light, but each work has full supplementary bibliographies and notes for further reading: where appropriate chronologies, maps, diagrams and other illustrative material are also provided. For a list of titles published in the series, please see end of book.
Second Edition R E X A. WA D E

George Mason University

cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521841559 # Cambridge University Press 2005 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2005 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Wade, Rex A. The Russian Revolution, 1917 / Rex Wade. p. cm. (New approaches to European history) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN (hb) ISBN (pb) 1. Soviet Union History Revolution, 19171921. I. Title: Russian Revolution. II. Title. III. Series. DK265.W947.084'1 dcISBN-13 ISBN-10 ISBN-13 ISBN-10 978-0-521-84155-9 hardback 0-521-84155-0 hardback 978-0-521-60242-6 paperback 0-521-60242-4 hardback

Contents

List of plates List of maps Preface Preface to the second edition Chronology 11 The coming of the revolution The February Revolution Political realignment and the new political system The aspirations of Russian society The peasants and the purposes of revolution The nationalities: identity and opportunity The summer of discontents ``All Power to the Soviets'' The Bolsheviks take power The Constituent Assembly and the purposes of power Conclusions
page vi viii ix xiv xv 323 339
Notes Further reading Index

Plates

Street barricade during the February Revolution. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. page 38 Crowd burning the Romanov royal insignia. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. 41 A voluntary militia. The Hoover Institution. 41 ``The Provisional Government at Work.'' Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. 54 Prince G. E. Lvov. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. 62 Alexander Kerensky. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. 63 A meeting of the Soldiers' Section of the Petrograd Soviet. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. 65 Irakli Tsereteli. 12, 14 i 15 avgusta v Moskve; Risunki Iu. K. Artsybusheva na zasedaniiakh Gosudarstvennago soveshchaniia (1917) (Moscow, 1917). 68 Vladimir Lenin. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. 69 Workers' demonstration headed by armed Red Guards. Proletarskaia revoliutsiia v obrazakh i kartinakh (Leningrad, 1926). 95 Soldiers parading with the slogan, ``Nicholas the Bloody into the Peter-Paul Fortress.'' Courtesy of Jonathan Sanders. 106 Meeting at the front. National Archives and Records Administration. 109 Part of a demonstration for women's rights. Courtesy of Jonathan Sanders. 118 Soldiers' wives' demonstration. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. 123 Estonian soldiers demanding the formation of separate Estonian military units. Eesti Vabadussoda, 19181920 (Tallinn, 1937). 161

List of plates

16 Kerensky addressing troops at the front. Courtesy of Columbia University Library Bakhmeteff Archive. 17 A bullet hole in a Petrograd tobacco store window after shooting during the July Days. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. 18 General Kornilov being carried aloft from the train station on his arrival for the Moscow State Conference. General A. I. Denikin, Ocherki Russkoi smuty (Paris, 1921). 19 A food line. Courtesy of Jonathan Sanders. 20 A Red Guard detachment on guard duty at the Smolny Institute. Proletarskaia revoliutsiia v obrazakh i kartinakh (Leningrad, 1926). 21 Damage to the Kremlin from the ghting during the October Revolution in Moscow. National Archives and Records Administration. 22 Reading campaign posters for the Constituent Assembly elections. Courtesy of Jonathan Sanders.
Petrograd, 1917 European Russia, 1917 European Russia: major nationalities Russia, 1917: military fronts against Germany and Austria-Hungary

page 147 178

Preface
The Russian Revolution remains without doubt one of the most important events of modern history. It has been central to the shaping of twentieth-century world history and its legacy continues to be inuential to the present. The collapse of the Soviet Union has made it easier to put the Russian Revolution into better historical perspective. Moreover, writing about it no longer involves an implied judgment on an existing government and system, as it often did during the era of the Soviet Union's existence. At the same time, however, the renewed struggle over democracy and political forms, class and social-economic issues, the autonomy or independence of the non-Russian peoples, Russia's greatpower status and other issues that have wracked the region since 1991 reafrm the importance of the Russian Revolution of 1917, when these very issues were rst fought out. The outcome was then, as it is now, important to the world as well as to Russia and its neighbors. Despite its importance and the tremendous amount written about the revolution, reliable general histories, especially relatively brief ones, have been rare. This book attempts to provide such a history in a new account of the Russian Revolution that also reects recent scholarship. It brings together both my own long study of the revolution and the fruit of the many recent specialized studies. While writing, I found myself rethinking our narrative and interpretation of several major features of the revolution. The result, I hope, is a book accessible and interesting to general readers while also introducing new perspectives that my colleagues in the eld of Russian studies will nd stimulating. Within an overall narrative that seeks to provide a clear account of the revolution, several new approaches and interpretations are introduced. For one, this book recasts the political history of the revolution. It emphasizes the importance of the political realignments that accompanied the revolution and the signicance of the new political blocs that were, in many ways, more important during the revolution than traditional party labels. This allows proper focus on the role of the Revolutionary Defensist, ``moderate socialist'' bloc in the leadership of the

revolution during the early months. It similarly allows proper recognition of the importance of the radical left bloc not just Bolsheviks during the period of the October Revolution. This study also stresses the importance of the slogan ``All Power to the Soviets'' and the idea of ``Soviet power'' in paving the way for the October Revolution. It emphasizes the complexity of the October Revolution and the degree to which it was part of a genuinely popular struggle for ``All Power to the Soviets'' and only later a ``Bolshevik revolution.'' This allows the clearing away of many myths and misconceptions that have long clouded that important upheaval. It was neither a simple manipulation by cynical Bolsheviks of ignorant masses nor the carefully planned and executed seizure of power under Lenin's omniscient direction that the traditional myth of October has so often portrayed. At the same time the book gives due space to the social history of the revolution, stressing the importance of popular activism and of social and economic issues in shaping the course and outcome of the revolution. The aspirations of various segments of the population and the many organizations they created to advance their interests are central to the story. Historians in recent years have debated the social versus the political history of the revolution this work suggests that the two are inseparable. No understanding of the revolution is complete without a consideration of popular aspirations and activism and how they interacted with political parties and leadership. This history also incorporates people and places all too often left out of the story of the revolution. It moves beyond the capital, Petrograd, and without ignoring the centrality of events there it treats the revolution in the provinces as important and integral parts of the revolution. In particular it includes the national minorities and the importance of the revolution to them and of them to the revolution. It gives attention to the peasantry, to front soldiers, to women and to events in provincial Russia, groups and places that are often given cursory treatment or omitted from histories of the revolution. The result, I believe, is a richer as well as more complete history. Finally, there is the issue of where to end a book on the revolution; books on ``the Russian Revolution'' have been published encompassing very different time periods. Each of these has some validity, depending on the story one wishes to tell. The October Revolution has traditionally been a popular date, but it overstates the importance of that event by itself. Most people at the time did not see October as such a sharp break. It also misses the importance of political events in Petrograd and elsewhere during the next two months in transforming the revolution for ``Soviet power'' into the Bolshevik regime that followed and in paving

the road to civil war. Another popular date has been 1921, and this has good logic. However, it does not adequately distinguish between revolution and civil war, which seems to me an important distinction. Other dates up to 1930 have also been used to dene the revolution. I suggest that early January 1918, and specically the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly on January 6, is a good point to take as the end of the revolution. A number of trends come together at the 1917/18 year transition and are given a punctuation by the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly to most clearly mark the end of the revolution, turning the struggle over Russia's future into a civil war which would be decided by armies rather than politics. Revolution strictly dened ends and civil war begins. This book is directed at the general reader as well as the specialist and that has determined many stylistic features. It assumes that readers do not know Russian. I have therefore sought to use the English counterparts of Russian terms where possible. Thus, for example, city duma is rendered city council, which is what they were in effect. Similarly, after much internal debate and conicting external advice, I have used the English version of rst names of major gures and persons well known to readers in that form Nicholas and Alexandra, Alexander Kerensky, Leon Trotsky and even Paul Miliukov rather than strict transliteration of the Russian spelling (Nikolai, Aleksandr, Lev, Pavel), but the Russian form for people less well known and for names less common in English. In many instances I have used the Russian convention of two initials instead of a rst name. Similarly, cities and places are given in the manner most familiar to contemporary readers. Thus they are usually given in their Russian variant rather than in the various nationality language forms (Kharkov rather than Kharkiv). I use the name familiar today rather than the ofcial Russian names of 1917 for some cities (Tallinn rather than Revel, Helsinki instead of Helsingfors). While producing some inconsistencies in usage, I think that this commonsense approach to names and terms will make it easier for the reader unfamiliar with Russian and already confronted by numerous new names. Those who read Russian will not nd any difculty with understanding these and, where desired, transposing them to the Russian original. Family names and Russian words are in the standard Library of Congress transliteration with the common slight modications such as omission of the soft sign (Lvov rather than L'vov) and the ending ``sky'' rather than ``skii'' (Kerensky rather than Kerenskii). Strict transliteration is used for notes and the further reading section, and for some titles in the text (such as the newspapers Den ' and Rech ').

The same considerations dictated certain other features. Where possible I have drawn illustrative quotations from English-language sources, including secondary works, rather than the Russian originals on the assumption that this provides some guidance as to where interested readers can expect to nd more information on that subject. The work is lightly footnoted, primarily for direct quotations, to acknowledge specic borrowing of data or to guide readers to especially important works on a topic. In contrast to the limited footnoting, the further reading list is extensive and intended to give readers a wide-ranging reference to the literature available in English. I have included most of the secondary literature and documentary collections. The memoir literature, especially of foreign observers, is less thoroughly represented; for those and other works readers should consult Murray Frame, The Russian Revolution, 19051921: A Bibliographic Guide to Works in English. Both the informational footnotes and the further reading section are limited to English-language works, for the reasons already given. Those interested in the voluminous Russian-language literature (and skilled in the problems of its use, especially for Soviet-era publications) can nd extensive guidance in the bibliographies of the specialized studies given in the further reading. A word should be said about the use of ``Russia'' and ``Russian.'' The population of the Russian Empire in 1917 (and Russians today) used two different words to distinguish between ``Russian'' (russkii) meaning that language, nationality and culture, and ``Russian'' (rossiiskii) when referring to the state or territory. English and most other languages do not make that distinction. This can create confusion for those unfamiliar with the dual meaning of ``Russian.'' In this book, as in almost all writing on the history of Russia, the term ``Russian'' is used in both meanings and sometimes fuses them. Thus references to the aspirations of ``Russian society'' or that ``Russians felt'' something, unless otherwise indicated, usually means the population as a whole, but especially the ethnically Russian or the Orthodox Slavic (Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians). Such usages are impossible to avoid in writing about the history of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, but have also become more problematic since the breakup of that state and the rise of newly assertive nationalisms in its former territories. This double meaning of ``Russian,'' coupled with my greater attention to nationality and provincial issues, has led me to use ``All-Russia'' rather than the more traditional ``All-Russian'' in the names of congresses and assemblies such as the ``All-Russia Congress of Soviets.'' ``All-Russia'' provides a clearer reference to something pertaining to the state (rossiiskii) and all the peoples of the state, in contrast to Russians (russkii) as a specic

nationality or linguistic group. It makes more comprehensible the demands of some groups, Ukrainians or Estonians for example, for autonomy and self-determination, but within the authority of an ``AllRussia'' Constituent Assembly. All dates are in the Russian calendar of that time, which was thirteen days behind the Western and modern Russian calendar. Thus the February Revolution and the October Revolution (Russian calendar in use in 1917) are called the ``March Revolution'' and the ``November Revolution'' (Western calendar) in some books. My narrative and interpretations have taken form over many years of reading, listening, conversing and teaching. I owe intellectual debts to many more people than can be named and in more ways than I could possibly recall. I have had the good fortune to participate in academic conferences with most of the leading scholars in the eld; their presentations, comments and conversations (and publications) have certainly, and in more ways than I could ever identify, inuenced my knowledge of and thinking about the revolution. If I have inadvertently borrowed, unconsciously and without acknowledgment, too directly from any of those I have interacted with, I do apologize and hope they accept it as testimony to their own scholarship and persuasiveness. Several colleagues have read all or parts of the manuscript, and to them I owe an enormous debt of gratitude: Olavi Arens, Barbara Engel, Daniel Graf, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Michael Hickey, Semion Lyandres, Michael Melancon, Daniel Orlovsky, Scott Seregny, Philip Skaggs and Ronald Suny. My thanks to Jonathan Sanders for advice and help on photos. Mollie Fletcher-Klocek ably prepared the maps. Kathleen Ward helped with keyboarding the further reading section and technical aspects of nishing off the typescript. Nathan Hamilton helped track down materials and also read the manuscript. In addition I owe thanks to some of my undergraduate and MA students at George Mason University, who read and critiqued early versions of the manuscript from a student perspective. My wife, Beryl, has been a rock of support throughout, amiably tolerating a frequently distracted writer-husband. This book is lovingly dedicated to her.
Preface to the second edition
I have been gratied by the positive responses to the original edition, not only from formal reviews but also from the more informal responses of academic colleagues (many of whom have found it useful in their classes), students, and general readers. At the same time, however, my own continued reading and reection on the revolution, combined with new research and the suggestions of readers, has convinced me that there are sufcient changes that would improve the book and thus its usefulness to readers to justify a new edition. Some changes are minor stylistic improvements, others clarify or extend a passage, some allow me to strengthen an argument made in the rst edition or to insert new material altogether. I also have incorporated recent scholarly publications into the ``Further Reading.'' What is new? I have strengthened the discussion of political developments on the eve of the October Revolution and have augmented the sections on the role of the Constituent Assembly, cross-party political co-operation, peasants, nationalities, and religion and the church. Without going all the way with some of the claims of the ``linguistic turn'' and cultural anthropology, I have expanded signicantly the treatment of the role of language, symbols, and festivals, which so obviously were an important part of the revolution and which give the reader a better sense of the texture of life during these stirring days. Smaller modications have been made in some other places. Finally, in response to some colleagues' suggestions, I have drawn some of the conclusions more explicitly, both in the nal chapter and within earlier chapters. These changes do not alter the basic contours and themes of the book, but hopefully will make it better and more useful to readers seeking to understand the Russian Revolution. Rex A.Wade

Chronology

Feb. 922 Feb. 23 Feb. 2425 Feb. 26 Feb. 27 Mar. 1 Mar. 2 Mar. 14 Mar. 20 Mar. 2122 Mar. 20 Apr. 3 Apr. 4 Apr. 1821 May 25 June 35 June 10 June 18 June 18
Rising tide of strikes in Petrograd. Women's Day demonstrations. Demonstrations in Petrograd grow in size daily; troops show reluctance to act against demonstrators; political parties become more involved. Demonstrations continue; government barricades streets and orders troops to re on demonstrators. Garrison mutiny; Petrograd Soviet formed; Temporary Committee of the State Duma formed and announces assumption of authority. Order No. 1. Provisional Government formed; abdication of Nicholas II; spread of revolution to other cities. Soviet ``Appeal to the People of the World'' for a ``peace without annexations or indemnities.'' Tsereteli arrives in Petrograd from Siberian exile. Tsereteli and Revolutionary Defensists establish leadership of Petrograd Soviet. Provisional Government abolishes all discriminations based on nationality or religion. Lenin arrives in Petrograd from Switzerland. Lenin issues ``April Theses.'' April Crisis. Government crisis and reorganization to include Soviet leaders in the government: ``coalition government.'' First All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. Ukrainian Central Rada issues First Universal. Russian military offensive begins. Soviet-sponsored demonstration in Petrograd turns

July 1 July 2 July 35

July 5 July 5 July 8 July 17 July 18 July 20 July 2123 Aug. 1215 Aug. 21 Aug. 2731 Aug. 31 Sep. 1 Sep. 5 Sep. 9 Sep. 1422 Sep. 25 Sep. 25 Oct. 7
into massive antiwar and antigovernment demonstration. Provisional Government delegation and Central Rada reach agreement on limited self-government for Ukraine. Kadet ministers resign over Ukrainian issue new government crisis begins. July Days: street demonstrations demand that the Soviet take power; Soviet leaders refuse; Bolsheviks belatedly assume leadership; Lenin and others forced to ee. German counteroffensive and collapse of Russian offensive. Second Universal of Ukrainian Central Rada; Finnish parliament votes to assume governing authority in Finland. Kerensky becomes minister-president. Tsereteli, as acting minister of the interior, orders measures against land seizures by peasants. General Kornilov appointed supreme commander of army. Provisional Government extends right to vote to women. New government crisis, leading to second coalition government. Moscow State Conference. New German offensive takes key city of Riga. Kornilov Affair. Bolshevik resolution passes in Petrograd Soviet for rst time. ``Directory,'' a ve-man government headed by Kerensky, established. Bolshevik resolution passes in Moscow Soviet. Petrograd Soviet conrms Bolshevik resolution and the old Revolutionary Defensist leadership resigns. Democratic Conference to nd a new base of support for Provisional Government; debates forming an allsocialist government but fails to reach agreement. Trotsky elected chairman of Petrograd Soviet as Bolshevik-led radical bloc takes control. Third coalition government formed under Kerensky. ``Preparliament'' opens; Bolsheviks walk out.

Oct. 1016 Oct. 1113 Oct. 22 Oct. 2123 Oct. 24 Oct. 2425 Oct. 25 Oct. 26 Oct. 26 Oct. 27 Oct. 2730 Oct. 29 Oct. 26Nov. 2 Nov. 2 Nov. 7 Nov. 10 Nov. 12 Nov. 19 Nov. 20 Nov. 28 Dec. 2 Dec. 7 Dec. 1112 Mid-Dec. Dec. 12
Bolshevik leadership debates seizing power. Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region. ``Day of the Petrograd Soviet'' with rallies for Soviet power. Military Revolutionary Committee challenges military authorities over control of garrison. Kerensky moves to close Bolshevik newspapers, sparking the October Revolution. Struggle for control of key points in Petrograd between pro-Soviet and pro-government forces; the former prevail. Provisional Government declared deposed; Kerensky ees to front seeking troops; Second Congress of Soviets opens in evening. Provisional Government members arrested early morning. Second session of Second Congress of Soviets passes decrees on land, on peace and on formation of a new government Council of People's Commissars. Decree establishing censorship of press. KerenskyKrasnov attack; it and armed Petrograd opponents defeated. Vikzhel appeals for broad socialist government and forces negotiations. First wave of spread of Soviet power across country, culminating in victory in Moscow on Nov. 2. Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia. Third Universal proclaims Rada the government of Ukraine. Abolition of ranks and titles. Elections to Constituent Assembly begin. Formal armistice negotiations with Germany and Austria-Hungary, but informal armistices already begun between troops. Bolsheviks take over army general staff headquarters. Arrest of Kadet Party leaders ordered. Formal armistice with Germany and AustriaHungary. Cheka established. Lenin's theses against the Constituent Assembly. Further spread of Soviet power in south and at front. Left SRs join the government.
Dec. 16, 18 Jan. 4 Jan. 5 Jan. 6
Decrees on divorce, marriage, civil registration. Soviet government ofcially accepts Finnish independence. Constituent Assembly opens. Constituent Assembly closed by force.

Cambridge University Press 0521841550 - The Russian Revolution, 1917 - Second Edition Rex A. Wade Excerpt More information
The coming of the revolution
The Russian Revolution suddenly broke out in February 1917. It was not unexpected. Russians had long discussed revolution and by late 1916 a sense existed across the entire political and social spectrum that some kind of upheaval could happen at any time. The crisis in Russia was obvious even abroad. ``In December, 1916 and still more markedly in January, 1917, there were signs that something important and signicant was going on. [in Russia that] required exploration, and the rapidly growing rumors of coming political changes called for more accurate knowledge and fuller interpretation.''1 Thus wrote Nicholas Murray Butler of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the United States of the decision to send the Norwegian, Christian Lange, on a fact-nding mission to Russia at the beginning of 1917. Still, when the new year dawned no one inside or outside Russia expected that within two months not only would the old regime be overthrown, but that this would set in swift motion the most radical revolution the world had yet seen. This fast-moving and far-reaching revolution grew out of a complex web of long- and short-term causes which also helped shape its direction and outcome. The latter in turn profoundly affected the global history of the century to follow. The autocracy The Russian Revolution was, rst, a political revolution that overthrew the monarchy of Nicholas II and made the construction of a new governmental system a central problem of the revolution. At the beginning of the twentieth century Russia was the last major power of Europe in which the monarch was an autocrat, his power unlimited by laws or institutions. Since at least the early nineteenth century the Russian tsars had fought the increasing demands for political change. Then, in 1894, the strong-willed Alexander III died unexpectedly, leaving an ill-prepared Nicholas II as Emperor and Tsar of all the Russias. Nicholas came to the throne at a time when a rapidly changing world
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demanded vigorous and imaginative leadership to steer Russia through turbulent times. Nicholas and those he chose to administer his government were unable to provide that. Part of the problem was the very structure of government. The ministers and other high ofcials were each appointed individually by Nicholas and each reported directly and individually to him. A ``government'' in the sense of a group of people organized into a unied body of policy makers and executors did not exist. Therefore the emperor had to provide coherence and overall direction. This even more capable men such as his father and grandfather found difcult. For Nicholas, mild-mannered, of limited ability, disliking governance and drawn more to the trivia of administration than to major policy issues, it was impossible. Yet Nicholas clung stubbornly to his autocratic rights, supported vigorously in this by his wife, Alexandra. Alexandra constantly exhorted him to ``Never forget that you are and must remain authocratic [sic] emperor,'' to ``show more power and decision,'' and shortly before the revolution, to ``Be Peter the Great, John [Ivan] the Terrible, Emperor Paul crush them all under you.''2 All her exhortations, however, could not make Nicholas a decisive, much less effective, ruler. They could only reinforce his resistance to needed reforms. Government drifted, problems remained unsolved, and Russia suffered two unsuccessful wars and two revolutions during Nicholas' two decades of rule. A personally kind man and loving husband and father, he became known to his subjects as ``Nicholas the Bloody.'' Not only was Nicholas' government poorly run, but it gave little in the way of civil or other rights to the population, who were subjects, not citizens. The government closely controlled the right to form organizations for any purpose, even the most innocuous. Censorship meant an almost complete absence of open political discourse, forcing it into illegal, often revolutionary channels. Alexander II, as part of the Great Reforms of the 1860s, had allowed the formation of zemstvos, nobledominated local elected councils. These exercised limited rights of selfgovernment at the local level, including working to improve roads, primary education, health and medical care, agricultural practices and other local affairs. However, the monarchs resolutely refused to share supreme political power with popular institutions and after 1881 restricted the zemstvos' authority. Shortly after coming to the throne in 1894 Nicholas dismissed hopes for creation of a national zemstvo, a national elected assembly, as ``senseless dreams.'' Rather than create a more modern political system in which the populace became citizens instead of subjects, with at least a modest stake in political life and the future of the state, Nicholas clung to an outmoded autocratic view of God-given ruler and loyal subjects.

Nowhere was the outdated vision of Nicholas' government more apparent than in its treatment of the many non-Russian peoples of the empire. The Russian Empire was a vast multiethnic state in which nationalist sentiments stirred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These initially focused on demands for cultural and civil rights and nationality-territorial autonomy. The government responded with repression and ``Russication,'' a variety of policies limiting use of local languages, forcing use of Russian, discriminating on religious grounds, imposing changes in local administrative structures and in other ways attempting to ``Russify'' non-Russian populations. These measures temporarily hindered development of nationality-based movements while increasing resentments. When the means of repression were removed in 1917, nationalism burst forth as a signicant part of the revolution. The economy and social classes The Russian Revolution was also, and profoundly, a social revolution. One reason Russia so needed good leadership was that both the economic and social systems were in transition and placing tremendous stresses on the population. Shaken by defeat in the Crimean War of 185456, Alexander II launched Russia on a cautious path of reform and modernization known as the Great Reforms. The centerpiece of the reforms was the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. Emancipation gave the peasants their personal freedom and a share of the land, which amounted to about half overall. The peasants, however, were dissatised with the emancipation settlement, believing that by right all the land should be theirs. Their claim on the rest of the land remained a source of rural discontent and drove peasant revolution in 1905 and 1917.a In an effort to sustain stable relationships in the countryside and to prevent the peasants from losing control over their newly acquired land, the emancipation of 1861 vested peasant land ownership, in most cases, in the peasant commune rather than in individual families. The reforms preserved the peasant village as a largely self-contained economic and administrative unit. The key decision-making body was the village assembly, composed of heads of households. The assembly elected the village elder and other ofcials, who dealt with the government and

Extremely diverse rural systems existed in Russia: the landless agrarian laborers of the Baltic regions, the relatively prosperous emigrants of West Siberia and German farmers of the Volga, the nomadic herding cultures of Central Asia, the Cossack communities and others. Discussion in this work centers on the Russian and Ukrainian peasantry, who made up a majority of the rural population, upon whom both government and revolutionaries focused their attention, and who drove the peasant revolt of 1917.
outside world. Within the village the assembly settled disputes and dealt with all matters affecting the village as a whole. This included joint responsibility for taxes and, in the Russian heartland, the periodic redistribution of land among the village families. These traditional practices provided a certain equality and security among villagers, but also worked against initiative and improvements in agricultural productivity. They also perpetuated a tradition of collective action that then carried over into the later industrial work force and the soldiers of the revolutionary era. Emancipation did not bring the expected prosperity for either the peasants or the state. Rapid population growth the population more than doubled between 1860 and 1914 in the absence of increased productivity created new hardships. The condition of the rural peasantry varied, but overall little if any per capita economic gain was made. Moreover, the peasantry, over 80 percent of the population at the turn of the century, lived always at the edge of disaster. Families could be pushed over by illness, bad luck or local conditions, while great disasters periodically swept large regions: the famine of 189192 alone claimed 400,000 lives. Peasant poverty, the persistence of disparities in land, wealth and privileges between peasants and landowning nobles, and the peasant lust for the land still held by private landowners fueled peasant violence in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. By the 1880s many Russian leaders came to realize that Russia could not remain so overwhelmingly agrarian. Industrialization of the country was essential if Russia were to sustain great-power status in a world in which power and industry were increasingly linked. In the 1880s the government took steps to spur industrial development, augmenting efforts of private entrepreneurs through tariffs, scal policies and direct investment. Russia enjoyed phenomenal growth. During the 1890s Russian industrial growth rates averaged 78 percent annually, and for the period 18851914 industrial production increased by an average of 5.72 percent annually, exceeding the American, British and German rates for those years. Percentage growth rates, however, told only part of the story. While Russian iron smelting grew rapidly in percentage terms, total output was still far below those same three countries. Moreover, labor productivity grew only slowly and per capita income fell in the second half of the nineteenth century compared with West European countries.3 Russia underwent an industrial revolution in the last three decades of imperial Russia, but the economic picture could be seen in either optimistic or pessimistic light, depending on how and against what one measured. Industrialization brought with it enormous strains on the society.

Tariffs, higher prices and higher taxes held down the standard of living of an already poor population who had to wait for any future benets it might bring them. Sergei Witte, minister of nance from 1892 to 1903 and chief architect of the system, acknowledged the stresses in a secret memorandum to Nicholas in 1899: while Russia was developing ``an industry of enormous size'' to which the entire economy's future was tied, ``Its services cost the country too dearly, and these excessive costs have a destructive inuence over the welfare of the population, particularly in agriculture.''4 Moreover, with industrialization came a social transformation with enormous political implications. The old hierarchy of legally dened estates (sosloviia) noble, clergy, merchant, peasant and other lost much of its meaning and was being replaced by a newer social structure based on profession and economic function in the new industrial age. This emerging class structure created identities and aspirations that played a major role in the coming of the revolution and in its outcome. A key part of the new social structure was the industrial work force. This critically important class did not even exist as a classication under the old estate system, which grouped them according to the estate from which they had come, usually as peasants or one of the categories that included urban lower classes such as artisans or day laborers. Despite such outdated classications the industrial workers were a very identiable new class and several important features made them a potent revolutionary force. One was the wretched condition in which they worked and lived. The social tensions inherent in adjusting to the new urban and factory conditions were great enough, but the terrible circumstances under which the working class labored and lived made them even worse. The factories offered long hours (twelve or more), low pay, unsafe conditions, a harsh and degrading system of industrial discipline and a total absence of employment security or care if ill or injured. Housing was overcrowded, unsanitary and lacked privacy. Many workers lived in barracks, some employing the ``ever warm bed'' system by which two workers shared the same bunk, moving between it and their twelve- to thirteen-hour shifts. Families often shared single rooms with other families or single workers. The conditions of industry not only left them poor, but also robbed them of personal dignity. Alcoholism was rampant, as was disease: cholera epidemics swept through St. Petersburg every few years. Their social-economic plight was reected even in the differences between the middle- and upperclass districts of the city center with their paved streets, electric lights and water system, and the outlying workers' districts where dirt (or mud) streets, kerosene lamps, and lth and disease prevailed.

Efforts by workers and their champions from among the educated classes to organize to improve their lives generally met repression by the government. Indeed, government industrialization policies depended on the economic advantages of cheap labor, of which there seemed an inexhaustible supply. It reected also the mentality of a ruling class accustomed to thinking of poverty and hard labor as the natural condition of peasants (as most workers were or had recently been). The government failed to create an arena for labor organizing where workers could try to redress their grievances through legal means. This contributed to political radicalization. Because the regime mostly denied workers the right to organize and pursue economic interests legally, they were forced to resort to illegal actions and linkage with the revolutionary parties. The emerging working class was not merely a deeply aggrieved, growing segment of the population, but one that increasingly saw a connection between the political system and their own wretched condition. An important feature of this new industrial working class was its concentration in a relatively small number of industrial centers, including St. Petersburg and Moscow. This enhanced workers' ability to have an impact politically if they were organized. Within the cities the factories provided a potent focus for organization and mobilization. This was reinforced by the fact that Russian factories tended to be much larger than their Western counterparts. The industrial system brought them together not only in the larger factory, but also in smaller workshops and foundries within it, giving them an inherent organizational structure. The factories thus functioned as natural organizing centers and as bases for revolutionary activity before and during 1917. Factory identity was strong and workers often characterized themselves and recognized others by factory: Putilovtsy (workers of the Putilov factory), Obukhovtsy (Obukhov factory workers), etc. Many of the new industrial workers retained close ties to the peasantry, a connection reinforced by the steady ow of recruits from the villages. Some workers returned annually to participate in the harvest and general village life, while others worked in the city only a short time before returning permanently to the village, where their wives and children had often remained. Organized brotherhoods (zemliachestva) based on rural regions of origin played an important role in the lives of many urban workers. These ties helped keep alive among urban workers the peasant values of egalitarianism and collective action, as well as a shared hostility to the ``masters,'' whether landowners or industrialists. This helped create the broad lower-class versus upper-classes mentality that played so important a role in 1917.

While peasant attitudes and ties continued to be important, equally or even more signicant was the emergence of a specically working-class identity and values. By the early twentieth century a layer of permanent, more highly skilled, better-educated workers emerged. They led the way in attaining literacy, forming study circles, organizing strikes and demonstrations, and even turning to politics by linking up with the revolutionary parties and by reading their political tracts. The revolutionaries explained the political world and its importance to them. These parties, through their reading circles and discussion groups, opened for some workers a window into a different, better world. Moreover, they explained how to achieve it. Marxism in particular gave an explanation of why factories had emerged, why they had become workers, why their condition was what it was, and told them why and how it must change. A working-class identity developed, not merely as a result of social-economic circumstances, central as those were, but also because of the efforts of revolutionary parties to cultivate a workingclass identity among them. This reinforced the lessons of their labor experience, where the state aided employers in suppressing strikes, blocking unions, and enforcing workplace subservience, leading some workers to draw the conclusion that economic improvement required political change. Out of these experiences came the worker-activists who provided leadership for their fellow workers and a linkage between the revolutionary parties and the mass of workers. A cadre of politically oriented worker-activists emerged, their class and political identities hardened by the police and employer persecution that followed activism. They played a central role in the revolution. The industrial revolution also combined with social and economic forces at work since mid-century to produce a diverse and growing middle class middle classes might be a better term different from the traditional legally dened merchant and urban dweller categories. An important part of these new middle classes grew out of the professions, which blossomed in Russia in the second half of the century: teachers, doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, agronomists and others. Industrialization added a new and diverse middle class of engineers, bookkeepers, technicians, managers and small entrepreneurs. To these could be added the growing number of white-collar employees. These middleclass elements came from diverse social origins and not only suffered from a relatively weak sense of common identity and goals, but also lacked political movements devoted to developing a middle-class identity. Indeed, the primary political party spokesman for the interests of these groups after 1905, the liberal Constitutional Democrats, always insisted that the party stood ``above classes.'' An identity was growing,

however, encouraged especially in the twentieth century by the growth of professional associations as well as of social, cultural, leisure and sporting clubs that served the new middle classes more than 600 were listed in Moscow in 1912.5 These provided forums for exploring their common interests and discussing broader social and political issues. The education and the social-economic signicance of this growing middle class gave it importance and provided the social basis for the emergence of a liberal movement demanding political rights and constitutionalism. Another way to look at the changing society is through the concept of ``educated society,'' which roughly corresponds to what the Russians called obshchestvo. ``Educated society'' encompassed both the new middle classes and large portions of the old nobility and even part of the government bureaucracy. It cut across the traditional legal castes and to some extent even the new economic classes, and its ``sense of identity rested on a keen perception that the Russian `nation' differed from the Russian `state' '' and reected the ``presence of educated Russians determined to work for the common good, for `progress.' ''6 They led the way in demanding a voice in public affairs for themselves as spokesmen for society at large, and asserted that the old imperial regime could no longer properly manage the affairs of state, at least not as well as they could. The bungled handling of the famine of 189192 was especially important in energizing them and in conrming their view that the old regime was bankrupt, and later the Revolution of 1905 and handling of the war effort after 1914 reinforced that belief. Increasingly the spokesmen of the new educated class were referred to as ``public men,'' a reection of a new self-image. Their view of themselves as new leaders of society against a corrupt regime was hampered, however, by the fact that for the lower classes the notion of ``educated society'' largely overlapped with that of ``privileged Russia.'' Educated Russians of the upper, middle and professional classes were, to the peasants and workers of the lower classes, ``them.'' This helped set the stage for the sharp social antagonisms of 1917 between ``educated'' or ``privileged'' society and ``the masses'' of workers, peasants, soldiers and even some of the urban lower middle class. An important subset of educated society, and one reason for the middle class's poor sense of identity, was the ``intelligentsia.'' This primarily intellectual element had evolved out of small circles of nobles in the middle of the nineteenth century discussing public issues to become the most politically involved part of educated society. The intelligentsia was generally characterized by opposition to the existing order in Russia and a strong desire to change it. Out of its radical wing

emerged the revolutionary parties, and from the more moderate wing came the political reformers and liberal parties. One of the fundamental beliefs of the nineteenth-century intelligentsia was hostility to ``the bourgeoisie,'' an idea growing out of both noble contempt and West European socialist thought. This mentality persisted, despite the fact that by the early twentieth century the intelligentsia came from all legal classes and were in fact primarily middle class in social-economic terms; mostly they were professionals and white-collar employees of all types. Nonetheless, the ongoing negative image of ``bourgeoisie'' hampered development of a clear and positive middle-class identity and political movement. Indeed, the term was used as a pejorative in 1917 by both the industrial workers and radical intelligentsia leaders of the socialist parties. In addition to these social class developments, many other changes were sweeping through Russia of the early twentieth century, consciously or unconsciously challenging the old order and preparing grounds for revolution. A rapid expansion of education by the early twentieth century led to both increased basic literacy and a rapid growth in the number of graduates from university and higher technical institutes. Education, at all levels, opened access to a wide range of information and ideas that directly or indirectly challenged traditional beliefs and social structures, introducing a powerful force for instability in the Russian Empire. Rapid urbanization uprooted people of all classes from established patterns and relationships and created new ones. People saw their world increasingly dened by the jobs they held and by new kinds of social, economic, professional, cultural and other organizations to which they belonged. For the educated elites, major new directions in arts and literature not only conrmed a cultural owering but spoke to the sense of rapidly changing times. The emergence of a feminist movement, a proliferation of art galleries and museums, impressive new shopping arcades and other features of a changing urban society reinforced that sense. Russia on the eve of war and revolution was a rapidly changing society, with all the attendant dislocations and anxieties. Little wonder that some writers described it as a rapidly modernizing country of immense potential, while others saw a society hurtling toward disaster. The revolutionary movement The conjuncture of the development of the intelligentsia, the monarchy's refusal to share political power, and the social and economic problems of Russia produced organized revolutionary movements of

exceptional persistence and inuence. The most important early revolutionary movement, Populism (Narodnichestvo), grew out of the conditions of the middle of the nineteenth century and called for the overthrow of the autocracy and a social revolution that would distribute the land among the peasants. The Populists' problem was how to nd a way to mobilize and organize the scattered peasant masses to make a revolution. This led some revolutionaries, organized as ``The People's Will,'' to turn to terrorism. In 1881 they assassinated Alexander II. The result, however, was that the revolutionary movement was temporarily crushed and the governments of Alexander III and then Nicholas II turned toward ever more reactionary policies and away from even the moderate reforms of Alexander II. The revolutionary intelligentsia in turn was forced to rethink revolutionary theory and practice. From this emerged the main revolutionary parties of twentieth-century Russia, the ones that played the key roles in 1917: the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) and the Social Democrats (SDs), the latter soon dividing into two major parties, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. The SR Party organized in 1901 as a party stressing a broad class struggle of all toilers (peasants and urban workers) against exploiters (landowners, factory owners, bureaucrats and middle-class elements). This helped them develop a following among urban industrial workers as well as among peasants. They gave special attention to the peasantry, however, with a demand for socialization of the land and its equal distribution among those who worked it. This guaranteed the SRs the support of the overwhelming mass of the population, the peasants (and thus of the soldiers in 1917). Beyond that they called for a variety of social, economic and political reforms, including the abolition of monarchy and its replacement by a democratic republic. Indeed, their program was often summarized in the slogan ``Land and Liberty,'' a slogan that gured prominently on banners in 1917. Two major problems, however, made it difcult for the SRs to use their peasant support in a revolutionary situation such as 1917: the difculty of effectively mobilizing widely dispersed peasants for political action, and the party's own loose organizational structure and disagreements on specics of the general program. Indeed, in 1917 the party split into right, center and left wings. The rethinking of revolutionary tactics after 1881 led some Russian radicals to Marxism and the Social Democratic movement. Looking at the beginning of industrialization in Russia, G. V. Plekhanov worked out a theory explaining that Russia was becoming capitalist and thus was ripe for the beginning of a socialist movement that focused on the new industrial working class rather than the peasants. Vladimir Lenin carried