Russian revolution. A very short introduction

by S. A Smith

  The widespread expectation was that the Bolshevik seizure of power would lead to the establishment of a government representing all the parties in the Soviet CEC, pending the convening of a Constituent Assembly. On 26 October 1917, however, Lenin formed a Council of People's Commissars, known as Sovnarkom, all 15 members of which were Bolsheviks. Talks to form a coalition got underway, but were scuttled by the intransigence of hard-liners on all sides. Five Bolsheviks promptly resigned from Sovnarkom on the grounds that 'we consider a purely Bolshevik government has no choice but to maintain itself by political terror.' On 10 December, however, the Left SRs, who had now finally split from the main party, agreed to accept seven posts in the government on condition that Sovnarkom became accountable to the CEC. It was they who helped craft the law on land redistribution and engineered the fusion of the All-Russian Soviet of Peasant Deputies, whose SR-dominated executive had backed military resistance to the Bolsheviks, with the CEC.

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  Prior to October the Bolsheviks had made much political capital out of the decision by the Provisional Government to postpone elections to the Constituent Assembly from September to November, since the Constituent Assembly symbolized the people's power at the heart of the revolution. Having seized power, however, it was by no means clear that the Bolsheviks would get a majority in the Assembly. Lenin believed that soviet power, being based on direct election by the toilers, was superior to parliamentary democracy, since parliaments merely served to camouflage control of the state machine by the capitalist class. The Bolsheviks nevertheless decided that the elections should go ahead. According to the latest research, 4S.4 million valid votes were cast, of which the SRs gained 19.1 million, the Bolsheviks 10.9 million, the Kadets 2.2 million, and the Mensheviks 1.5 million. The non-Russian socialist parties - mostly sympathetic to the SRs - received over 7 million, including two-thirds of votes in Ukraine. The SRs were thus the clear £ winners, their vote concentrated in the countryside. The Bolsheviks g received the majority of worker votes, together with 42% of the e 5.5 million soldiers' votes, but it was clear that they could not hope to jg have a majority in the Assembly. This vote, incidentally, represented the 1 peak of popular support for the party. Hereafter they lost support as soldiers returned to their villages and as worker disaffection grew.

  The Constituent Assembly opened in dispiriting circumstances on 5 January, shortly after pro-assembly demonstrators had been gunned down by Red Guards. The Bolsheviks insisted that the delegates accept soviet power as a fait accompli, but the delegates chose to discuss the agenda proposed by the SRs, making Chernov the chair of the Assembly. After a single session, Bolshevik soldiers shut the Assembly down. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that a deal could have been struck. Some 85% of the delegates were socialists - the 200 SR delegates had spent a total of 1,000 years in prison and hard labour -and on the crucial issues of peace and land, the SRs had shifted closer to the Bolshevik position. But the delegates were not prepared to give way on what was for the Bolsheviks the crucial issue: the abandonment of

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  parliamentary democracy in favour of a 'dictatorship of the proletariat', based on the Soviets. By closing the Constituent Assembly the Bolsheviks signalled that they were ready to wage war in defence of their regime not only against the exploiting classes, but against the socialist camp. The dissolution doomed the chances of democracy in Russia for 70 years; for that the Bolsheviks bear the largest share of the blame. Yet the prospects for a democratic socialist regime had by this stage become extremely slender. It is true that some 70% of the peasants voted in the Assembly elections-including more women than men - but they did so less out of enthusiasm for democratic politics than out of a desire to seethe Assembly legalize their title to the land. Once it became clear that they had no reason to fear on that score, they acquiesced in the Assembly's dissolution, testifying to the thinness of a culture of democracy and law.

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  Soviet power was established with surprising ease - a reflection of the £.

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  popularity of the idea of devolving power to the toilers. Bolshevikg.

  support was strongest in towns and regions with a relatively|"

  homogeneous working class, such as in the Central Industrial Region or^

  the mining settlements of the Urals. In less industrial cities, such as£>

  Moscow and those along the Volga, the Bolsheviks often relied on theg-

  local garrison to declare soviet power; and in the capitals of the^

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  predominantly agrarian provinces and in smaller towns the Bolsheviks |-

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  had difficulty ousting the SRs and Mensheviks from positions of control in the Soviets. In Siberia the revolution was carried along the Trans-Siberian railway and soviet power was declared everywhere by the beginning of 1918: support for the Bolsheviks was strong, in spite of the fact that workers and poor peasants, normally their strongest supporters, were few. In the countryside, peasant reactions were initially mixed. In the middle-Volga province of Saratov in November, 19 townships were favourable to soviet power, two were wavering, eight were unfriendly, and eight downright hostile. By February, however, 86% of townships had created Soviets as an alternative to the zemstvos that were generally under SR control. In the central black-earth belt,

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  progress was somewhat slower, with 83% of townships creating Soviets between January and March. These local Soviets believed they had complete control of their localities and ignored decrees of the centre with impunity. С I. Petrovsky, Commissar of Internal Affairs, complained: They prefer their local interests to state interests, continuing to confiscate fuel, timber, designated for railways and factories.'

  As early as spring 1918 there was a backlash against the Bolsheviks in many Soviets in provincial towns. This was sometimes due, as in Kaluga or Briansk, to the demobilization of the local garrison and sometimes, as in Tver' or laroslavl', to the rapid growth of unemployment and the deterioration of the food supply. The arbitrary way in which the Bolsheviks dealt with opposition from Soviets - manipulating their structure or closing down the more recalcitrant ones - added to their unpopularity. Yet the revival in the fortunes of the Mensheviks and the £ SRs should not be exaggerated. New elections to the Moscow Soviet g from 28 March to 10 April, although marred by malpractice, gave them e only a quarter of the vote. And even where their record was more jg impressive, the division between the two parties meant they were 1 seldom able to mount an effective challenge to the Bolsheviks.

  Sometimes, moreover, the challenge came from the left, as in Samara where SR Maximalists declared a commune and ejected Red Guards. On 15 June, discarding the pretence that the Soviets were multi-party bodies, the Bolsheviks expelled Mensheviks and SRs from the CEC. This proved to be a decisive step in the subordination of the CEC to Sovnarkom. On 29 May a party circular spelt out the logic of the situation: 'Our party stands at the head of soviet power. Decrees and measures of soviet power emanate from our party.'

  Civil war

  The years between 1918 and 1922 witnessed a level of strife and anarchy unparalleled since the Time of Troubles' of 1605-13, when struggles between pretenders to the throne brought Russia to a state of chaos.

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  The civil war brutalized social life to an unimaginable degree, yet as an epic struggle between the new and old worlds it inspired idealism and heroism among the dedicated minorities who supported the Red and White causes. The young Bolshevik, V. Poliansky, recalled:

  We all lived in an atmosphere of revolutionary romanticism, tired, exhausted, but joyful, festive, our hair uncut, unwashed, unshaven, but bright and dear in heart and mind.

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  Yet the reality was that Russia succumbed to an economic and social cataclysm. The population on Soviet territory fell by 12.7 million between 1917 and early 1922, only partly due to civil war as such. The losses of Soviet armed forces ranged from 1,150,000 to 1,250,000; and -when the losses
of Whites, partisans and nationalist forces are included, * war-related losses rise to between 2.5 million and 3.3 million. Far more ^ perished as a result of disease - between 1917 and 1920 over 2 million £.

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  died of typhus, typhoid fever, smallpox, and dysentery - causing Lenin g.

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  to warn that, 'either the louse will defeat socialism or socialism will|"

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  defeat the louse.' Finally, and most hideously, between 1921 and 1922 as ^ many as 6 million died of starvation and disease in a famine that devastated the Volga region and Ukraine. Not without reason did the novelist Boris Pasternak conclude: 'In our days even the air smells of death.' Meanwhile the brutalization that had begun with the First World |

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  War continued apace. Large quantities of weapons were now in the hands of ordinary people and civil authority was too weak to stanch the flow of violence. After his forces swept the Reds from the northern Caucasus in January 1919, General P. N. Wrangel recollected:

  On the outskirts of one of the Cossack settlements we met five young Cossacks with rifles ... 'Where are you going, lads?' 'We're going to beat up some Bolsheviks. There are a lot of them hiding in the reeds. Yesterday I killed seven.' This was said by a boy about 12 years old. During the whole of the intestinal conflict I never felt as sharply as I did at that moment the utter horror of fratricidal war.

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  The civil war was dominated by the conflict between the Bolsheviks and the conservative nationalist officers who formed the various White armies, notably the Volunteer Army of General A. I. Denikin, the Siberian forces of Admiral A. V. Kolchak, and the Northwestern Army of General N. N. ludenich. Yet the civil war was more than a straight struggle between Reds and Whites. Initially, the so-called 'democratic counterrevolution', led by the SRs, posed at least as great a threat to Bolshevik rule. More crucially, the struggle between Reds and Whites was played out in a context in which the Russian empire was disintegrating, and nationalist movements in Ukraine in 1918, in Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland in 1919, and in Poland, Azerbaijan, and Armenia in 1920, made things more complicated for Reds and Whites alike. Furthermore, the civil war had international ramifications, initially in relation to the outcome of the First World War, later in relation to the carving out of post-war spheres of influence. The Allies intervened on the side of the Whites and this was an important, if not ultimately decisive factor in the conflict. Finally, the conflict between Reds and Whites became embroiled with powerful partisan movements, notably the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine led by the anarchist N. Makhno, guerrilla actions by deserters, and innumerable peasant uprisings.

  It is sensible to seethe civil war building up gradually, beginning as early as the Kornilov movement and significantly escalating after the Bolshevik seizure of power. Soviet forces invaded independent Ukraine in December 1917 and by February had succeeded in forcing the nascent Volunteer Army, which struggled to establish a base among the Cossacks of the Don and Kuban regions, to retreat. In these early skirmishes, the Red Guards, Latvian riflemen, and other soviet forces proved to be an eager but ill-disciplined force; so it fell to Trotsky, as Commissar of War, to build a conventional army. In this he faced bitter resistance from those who believed that the only defence force appropriate to a socialist society was a citizens' militia. When only 360,000 men volunteered for the new Red Army, Trotsky on 29 May

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  1918 reinstated conscription. Vigorous measures were taken to enforce discipline among the largely peasant conscripts, including summary execution and the decimation of units. His most contentious decision was to put former tsarist officers - 'military specialists' - in operational command subject to the oversight of political-military commissars. To deter them from treason or desertion - few having m uch sym pat hy with the Red cause-their families were held hostage for their good behaviour. Trotsky proved to be an inspirational figure as he toured the front in his famous headquarters train; but he was not infallible as a military commander and his authoritarian methods alienated many. This led to the formation of a Military Opposition, of which Stalin was a supporter, that opposed the ruthless centralization of the Red Army at the Eighth Party Congress in March 1919.

  An undreamed-of opportunity for the'democratic counter-revolution' presented itself in May 1918 when the Czech Legion, a body of 38,000 men recruited by the tsarist government from Austro-Hungarian prisoners-of-war, revolted against the Bolsheviks. From this time on, one may speak of full-scale civil war, since armies now fought along clearly defined fronts. Within a few months, the Legion seized control of a vast area east of the Volga and helped the SRs to set up governments committed to overthrowing the Bolsheviks, restoring the Constituent Assembly, and resuming war with Germany. The revolt threw the Bolsheviks into panic. Secret orders were given by Lenin to execute the imperial family in Ekaterinburg lest they be liberated by the insurgents. In fact the SRs proved unabletotranslatethe electoral support they had received in the Constituent Assembly into solid political support and, crucially, into forging a reliable army. Where they remained respectful of democracy and law they were ineffective; where they sought to be firm, they slid into habits not very different from those of the Reds and Whites. Having gone to considerable lengths to secure the cooperation of conservative military men, they ended up in hock to them, compromising what were for the peasants the most important gains of the revolution: land and the devolution of power to the localities. The

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  8. Trotsky reviewing the Red troops during the civil war, 1917

  fate of SR attempts to create a 'third way' between the dictatorships of right and left was sealed on 18 November 1918 when Cossack officers arrested the SR members of the Omsk Directory and proclaimed Admiral Kolchak 'Supreme Ruler'.

  Henceforward the civil war resolved into a conflict between Reds and

  Whites. The Whites stood for 'Russia, One and Indivisible', the

  restoration of state-mindedness, law and order, and the values of

  Orthodox Christianity. They strove to redeem the profaned honour of

  Russia's armed forces and presented themselves as being 'above class'

  and 'above party'. In fact, they were not a class movement in any strict

  sense, since they were slow to develop programmes that could have

  assisted landowners and industrialists to regain their property and

  power. So far as the political regime for which they were struggling

  was concerned, there was little unanimity concerning the shape it^

  should take. Some such as General Wrangel of the Volunteer Army£.

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  were committed monarchists; but most favoured some type of militaryg.

  dictatorship, possibly paving the way for a new Constituent Assembly.|"

  In an effort to keep political differences at bay, the Whites advanced^

  the principle of 'non-predetermination', i.e. the postponement of all£>

  policy-making until the war was over. What kept them united in theg-

  meantime was little more than detestation of the Bolsheviks and^

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  outrage at the 'German-Jewish' conspiracy inflicted on the Russian|-

  people.

  After a gruelling conflict, it was clear by spring 1920 that it was only a matter of time before the Reds triumphed. Historians differ in their assessment as to why the Reds won: some emphasize the weakness of the Whites; others insist that the Reds had positive advantages, but differ as to whether these were exclusively military in nature or political as well as military. If one compares the armies of the Reds and Whites, it becomes clear that the Reds had certain military advantages. Their army was larger: by autumn 1920 it had grown to over 5 million -although there were never more than half-a-million troops in the front

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  9. Baron Wrangel leaves Russia

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  line - compared with
a combined total of 2 million White troops by spring 1920. Moreover, although the quality of both armies was evenly matched - both, for example, suffered from massive levels of desertion - the Reds had the edge so far as leadership was concerned. The Volunteer Army was formed around a core of 4,000 experienced officers; but this ceased to be an advantage once the Reds compelled 'military specialists'to enlist; and over time, the Reds proved able to nurture officers of talent such as V. K. Bliukher and M. Ы. Tukhachevsky. In addition, the Whites were riven by personal animosity, principally between Denikin and Kolchak and Denikin and Wrangel; the conflict between Trotsky and Stalin proved less damaging since the Bolsheviks had a binding ideology and a recognized leader. Finally, the Bolsheviks were dearly superior in the organizational sphere. The Red Army had a unified centre of command in the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, and was supported by such institutions as the Defence

  Council, which fused the civilian and defence sectors, the Cheka, and an underground party network in White-occupied areas.

  Perhaps the greatest advantage enjoyed by the Reds was strategic: their possession of a centrally located and compact territory. This meant that they could send forces from one front to another without great difficulty since railways radiated outwards from Moscow. By contrast, the Whites were strung out along the periphery of European Russia. The Don base of the Volunteer Army was nearly 1,000 kilometres from Moscow; Kolchak's base in Omsk was almost 3,000 kilometres from Petrograd. Any advance into the heartland of soviet power created a problem of long supply lines and communication difficulties. Moreover, the possession by the Reds of the core territory, where the majority of the population and resources were concentrated, gave them control of key industrial centres as well the stocks of the tsarist army. The Whites, by contrast, had control of only secondary centres of the defence industry in the Donbas and Urals, although they were better supplied with coal. As against that, they had an abundance of food, especially in Siberia and the Kuban region, so soldiers in the White armies were generally better fed than their Red counterparts, whose ration norm of 410 grams of bread per day was lower than in the tsarist army.