A review of the following questions may help to identify some of the problems which frequently arise when this period history is discussed:
• Who forced the Tsar to abdicate? Where were the Communist leaders at the time? In what way was the Russian revolution of March, 1917, identical with the Russian revolution of 1905? How did Lenin get back into Russia? Why did the German officers want to help him?
• When the national elections were held on November 25, 1917, what percentage of the people voted against Lenin’s regime?
• What was Lenin’s motive in taking Russia out of World War I? Why the treaty he signed with the Germans was called “a great catastrophe for Russia”?
• What happened when Lenin applied the theories of Marx to the Russian economy? Why did Lenin order the execution of the Tsar and his family?
• What were the circumstances which forced Lenin to abandon many of Marx’s favorite theories?
• Why did Lenin write from his deathbed that he hoped Joseph Stalin would never be allowed to seize power? What was the purpose of Stalin’s first Five-Year Plan?
• Why did the Communist Party in Russia try to depose Stalin in December 1932? What saved Stalin?
• Why did Stalin execute nearly all the leaders of the Communist Party? By 1938, what did Stalin say he was ready to do?
The Russian Revolution of March 1917
It was March 8, 1917, when the swelling spirit of revolution in Russia burst its banks and sent a flood of political indignation streaming after the Tsar and his regime. There was comparatively little violence. The feeling of revolt was so universal that as soon as the signal was given, a quarter of a million demonstrators appeared in the streets of the capital. When the masses of demonstrators had taken over the capital, the revolution automatically swept across the Empire.
This revolution was of vast significance to the entire world. It will be recalled that the spring of 1917 was a highly critical stage of World War I. The United States was just getting into the fight, and France, Britain and Italy were almost exhausted. Because the Western Front was barely holding together against the onslaught of Germany and her Central Powers, the collapse of the Eastern Front with its war machine of several million Russians could have meant unequivocal disaster for the Allies.
The Russian revolution also held great significance for Germany. The Kaiser knew that if Russia withdrew from the war the large German forces in the East could be transferred to the West. This would have given him a vastly superior force capable of smashing all resistance.
But the people behind the Russian revolution never intended to allow the Eastern Front to collapse. Their revolt against the Tsar was to save Russia, not destroy her. As soon as the Provisional Government had been set up, it announced an all-out program to create a democratic, constitutional form of government and to press for vigorous continuation of the war. This restored hope to the western Allies. The United States, England, France and Italy immediately recognized the new regime and the hearts of free people everywhere went out to the new star of freedom which seemed to be rising over the jubilant people of Russia.
As for the Tsar, it was difficult for him to realize just what had happened. At the beginning of the revolution, Nicholas II categorically refused to admit that his government had disintegrated. When the demonstrations first began he dissolved the Duma (the people’s assembly) and ordered the troops to disperse the crowds. Within a week, however, his own ministers were urging him to abdicate since his cause was hopeless.
Not until his generals also urged abdication did he finally capitulate. He and his family were then placed under house arrest at the imperial palace outside of Petrograd. Although the people had suffered greatly under his rule, it was not the intention of the Provisional Government to kill the Tsar but to send him and his family to England as soon as war conditions would permit.
With the Tsar taken care of, the Provisional Government then launched into the double task of initiating widespread domestic reforms and, at the same time, reassembling Russia’s military strength. At the front the troops began responding by exhibiting a new fighting spirit, and within a month remarkable progress was made in providing domestic reforms on the home front. For the first time in their history, the Russian people had the prospect of a liberal democratic regime to govern them. Prince Lvov, who had joined the people’s revolt, confidently declared: “We should consider ourselves the happiest of men, for our generation finds itself in the happiest period of Russian History.”
The Destruction of Russia’s Plans for a Democracy
The most significant thing about the abdication of the Tsar and the setting up of the people’s Provisional Government in Russia is the simple historical fact that the Bolsheviks, or Communists, had practically nothing to do with it! This revolution had been initiated by the same kind of people as those who started the revolt against the Tsar in 1905. They represented Russia’s best people—the liberal aristocrats, the intellectuals, the businessmen, the millions of peasants and the millions of workers. But the Bolshevik leaders were nowhere in sight. Lenin was in exile in Switzerland, Trotsky was in exile in New York and Joseph Stalin was in prison in Siberia. Unfortunately for their future propaganda, the Bolsheviks would never be able to take credit for the revolution Of March, 1917, which brought about the overthrow of the Tsar.
It was the generosity of the Provisional Government which permitted the Bolshevik leaders to return. All political prisoners were released from Siberia and all political exiles abroad were invited to come home. When the British heard that Lenin was being allowed to return, they warned their Russian ally that this was a serious mistake. As a matter of fact, the only way Lenin was able to get back into Russia was through the assistance of German agents. The reason for this German cooperation is readily apparent.
The Germans had become alarmed at the prospect of a comeback among the Russian people, and they were looking about for some opportunity to create a spirit of confusion and disunity within Russia’s Provisional Government. A brief conversation with Lenin in Switzerland convinced them that he was the man to accomplish it. They, therefore, transported Lenin and his wife and a number of Russian exiles across Germany into Sweden. It was simple for Lenin to proceed immediately to the Russian capital.
When Lenin arrived in Petrograd (the new name for St. Petersburg, later changed to Leningrad), he was welcomed by the crowds of people as a sympathetic colleague of the revolution. A military escort helped him to the roof of an armored car where the vast throng waited expectantly for his commendation of their success. But when Lenin’s lip-clipped words began to stream forth, they were far from commendatory. His inflammatory declamation literally amounted to a new declaration of war!
He bitterly denounced the efforts of the Provisional Government to set up a republic. He demanded a Communist dictatorship of the proletariat and called for a struggle to take over the landed estates and immediately subject the Russian people to the economic discipline of full socialism. He denounced all further efforts to continue the war and said an immediate peace with Germany should be negotiated. (He was later accused of trying to take Russia out of the war to repay his obligation to the Germans.)