A Beginner's Guide to the Russian Revolution: Part Two

In the second part of A Beginner's Guide to the Russian Revolution, we will examine how World War I helped spur the radical contingent of Russia into action. As you recall, in the first part I covered how the autocratic and repressive nature of Russia helped to formulate a strong, extremist radical base amidst a country that was politically and economically backward compared to the rest of Europe. And so begins part two of A Beginner's Guide to the Russian Revolution.

World War I was one of the most destructive events of world history, and it was largely a war that didn't need to happen. A tangled web of alliances, desires on the behalf of young nations to compete with others by building empires, and potent nationalist feelings helped to set the groundwork for the conflict. After an assassin's bullet claimed the life of an obscure Austrian Archduke, the gears had been set in motion for the first true global conflict. Russia got involved due to its alliance obligations with France as well as its desire to gain a foothold in the Balkans. The Balkans were a politically volatile area north of Greece, which had access to the Black Sea. Russia wanted access to warm-water ports on this Sea so that it could assert its presence on the oceans both militarily and economically.

Russian Czar Nicholas II promised to aid the French as it became clear that the German Kaiser meant to move his army southward through Belgium in order to take Paris. Thus, the Czar made the mistake of deploying his armies before they were adequately equipped or prepared for the conflict. Although his attack on the east of Prussia helped to secure the French enough time to fortify their position on the Western Front, the redeployed German army soon inflicted staggering losses on the Russian forces as Tannenberg in modern-day Poland. Unlike nations of the West, Russia did not have a strong industrial base and thus was unable to supply its troops with up-to-date equipment on the Eastern Front. A lack of railroads prevented a movement of supplies to the starving armies. By 1917, a year before the war ended, the Russian army was in dire straits. Nearly a quarter of the czar's soldiers were without adequate arms or food.

The czar also made a rash choice when he decided to personally be present on the Eastern Front and lead his troops into battle. Although Nicholas had proved himself an inept political leader, it was nothing compared to the way his wife Alexandra handled national affairs in his absence. Alexandra was largely in the pocket of an eccentric monk named Grigori Rasputin, an alleged faith healer who had offered medical success to her ailing hemophiliac son. She appointed and dismissed advisors based solely on his desires and her own personal wishes. Incompetent officials found themselves in positions of immense power. Finally, Rasputin was murdered by angry government officials, but it was too late. Russia had already fallen into a domestic catastrophe. As food and fuel shortages ravaged the countryside in the bitterly cold winter of 1918, widespread riots broke out. As his own troops began to desert and Russia seemed on the verge of collapse, Nicholas abdicated the throne in March of 1917.

What followed this power vacuum was a provisional government constructed of members of the largely ineffective legislative body, the Duma. This provisional government attempted to bring order to the country by holding elections for a constitutional assembly, which in turn would form a permanent government for the suffering Russia. However, since the provisional government represented the interests of the middle class, many radical elements in Russia were wholly opposed to its direction. These protests came particularly from two camps. The first was called the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, composed of urban workers, social revolutionaries, and a group of radical socialists called the Mensheviks. The Mensheviks advocated socialist programs such as distribution of land among the poor peasants and ownership of industry by the workers, not the factory owners. The Mensheviks were a very powerful force, but they differed in an important way from the other important protesting group. The Bolsheviks were a small, radical group who advocated a shift to socialism through violent means. The leader of the Bolsheviks, Vladamir Ilyich Lenin, believed that a small group of professional revolutionaries would bring about a socialist revolution which would then spread outward from Russia into the entire world.

Lenin was a strong proponent of what is called Marxist Communism. Karl Marx was a German Social thinker, who in the 1860s wrote the famous Communist Manifesto. In this work, he outlined his belief that the workers of the world (collectively called the proletariat) would violently overcome their oppressors (the bourgeoisie) and usher in a new age of socialism. However, Marx believed that this violent revolution would happen spontaneously when a certain point of capitalism had been reached. Lenin on the other hand, believed that the workers were incapable of directing the revolution themselves and needed the aid of a small group of radical intellectuals. Although the Mensheviks had strength in numbers, Lenin had a few advantages of his own. After being exiled for radical activity in Russia in the late 1800s, Lenin traveled abroad to Great Britain and Germany. The Germans, who were fighting a two-front war at the time, wanted to knock Russia out of the conflict entirely. The German leadership viewed political firebrands like Lenin as a means to create enough discord in Russia to remove it from World War I. Thus, in 1917 Lenin was furnished with a protected train out of Germany into Russia and even funding in order to continue his revolutionary activity. Germany in effect, allowed the Russian Revolution to take place.

In the third and final part of A Beginner's Guide to the Russian Revolution, we will explore how Lenin and the Bolsheviks triumphed over the provisional government. Also, we will see how a violent civil war between opposing political forces threatened to destroy not only Lenin's fragile communist government, but also all of Russian stability.