The rise of Mikhail Gorbachev to General Secretary of the Soviet Union ushered in a time of general reform in Soviet Russia.  This reform was not out of want, but rather out of necessity.  The volatility of the international oil and natural gas markets, along with the ups and downs of the ever-struggling agricultural sector, put the very existence of the Soviet Union in jeopardy (Freeze 454-55).  Gorbachev’s attempts at reform forged closer relationships between east and west and opened the U.S.S.R. to certain aspects of western culture.  One of the most important western influences on the culture and people of the Soviet Union at this time was western music.  This mid 1980’s were the first time in which western acts were allowed to tour in the U.S.S.R. and even in Soviet Russia itself.  Western music encouraged and nurtured the new sense of freedom and individuality that was growing at the time.  It also served as a means of protest against the failed Soviet regime.

Though the influence of western music on Soviet Society was perhaps at its zenith during the Gorbachev era, this does not mean that western music was previously unavailable or unpopular in Soviet Russia.  From the 1950’s onward there had been some form of a counterculture movement in the Soviet Union based around western Music.  Soviet society was not immune to “Beatlemania” in the mid 1960’s, which laid the foundation for future social unrest.  As Mikhail Safonov states, “when a person had educated himself in the culture of the Beatles, he found he could no longer live in lies and hypocrisy” (Safonov).  Western rock music continued to garner an underground following throughout the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s.  Russian musicians eventually began playing rock music themselves, “Rock ‘n’ roll entered the Soviet Union stage as an English phenomenon. The early rockers sang American or English songs, often not understanding what they were singing about” (Wells).

Though rock music continued to have an underground following in Russia, the Soviet government made continued efforts to eliminate it, due to its perceived subversive effects.  A “blacklist” of banned (or “not recommended”) musical groups, formally titled as “The approximate list of foreign musical groups and artists whose repertoires contain ideologically harmful compositions”, was regularly updated and disseminated by the Komsomol, the Communist Party’s Youth Wing (The Scotsman).  A copy of the list circa 1985 and its english translation can be seen below.

Despite the previous efforts to contain and control the effect of western music in the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of detente, glasnost, and perestroika made western culture more accessible and desirable to the soviet population.  Even before Gorbachev the musical barriers between east and west were being broken.  In 1984 the metal band “Iron Maiden” became one of the first western bands to tour the Soviet bloc.  Though the band did not play in Russia proper, they did play five shows in Poland and a handful of others in Hungary and Yugoslavia.  The bands experience was captured as a documentary titled “Iron Maiden: Behind the Iron Curtain” (allmusic.com).  Two years later the american artist Billy Joel went on tour in Soviet Russia.  Playing shows throughout the Soviet state, including shows in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Leningrad, Joel’s tour was immensely popular with the Russian youth, many of whom now saw that there was nothing to fear from western culture.  The live album “Концерт“, the first live rock album ever recorded in Russia, captures one of the Leningrad shows on tape, along with the cheers and appreciation of the Russian people.

Russians themselves also began to make rock and pop music.  The Gorbachev reforms brought much of the musical underground into the light of day.  As James von Geldern says, “[n]ow the Moscow City Council and the Komsomol sponsored concerts, and rockers were even invited to play at the Victory Day celebration, the most traditional Soviet holiday” (von Geldern).  Russian bands such as “Aquarium” found themselves embraced by the community that had previously persecuted them.  

The sudden change in policy in regards to western music foreshadowed further reforms and the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union.  Day by day, the Soviet populace became more entranced by western products and culture, and the notions of individuality and freedom that were inspired by western music helped to shape the Russian state after the fall of communism.

Works Cited

Adams, Brett. “Iron Maiden: Behind the Iron Curtain.” allmusic.com. 2014. http://www.allmusic.com/album/behind-the-iron-curtain-mw0000934838 (accessed December 5, 2014).

Freeze, Gregory L. Russia: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Safonov, Mikhail. “The Beatles: ‘You Say You Want a Revolution’.” History Today, 2003.

The Scotsman. “They were banned in the USSR.” The Scotsman News. June 24, 2006. http://www.scotsman.com/what-s-on/music/they-were-banned-in-the-ussr-1-1412970# (accessed December 5, 2014).

von Geldern, James. “1985: The Leningrad Rock Scene.” Seventeen Moments in Soviet History. 2014. http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1985tusovka&Year=1985 (accessed December 6, 2014).

Wells, Katie. “Rock Goes Russian.” 20th Century Russia. November 17, 2014. http://blogs.lt.vt.edu/kwells/2014/11/17/rock-goes-russian/ (accessed December 6, 2014).

Yurchak, Alexi. Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More. Princeton University Press, 2005.

Ever since the First Congress of Soviet Writers convened in 1934 and conformed to the censorship laid down by the Party Central Committee, Soviet artists mostly conformed to the style of socialist realism that was required by law (von Geldern).  Over the years, this mandated artistic style had become outmoded and boring.  Artists of the time still attempted to create meaningful work, however, “Socialist realism… demanded close adherence to party doctrine, and has often been criticized as detrimental to the creation of true, unfettered art – or as being little more than a means to censor artistic expression” (Wikipedia.org).  

Following the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, a number of Soviet artists finally began to break out of the socialist realist cage.  The battle for Stalin’s successor followed by the early days of Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization plan proved to be a time of relative artistic tolerance throughout the Soviet Union.  Lax enforcement of censorship laws allowed artists to begin experimenting with new styles, the most popular of which being abstractionism (wikipedia.org).  By 1960 the art scene in the USSR began to change in ways that the Soviet leadership could not control.  As James von Geldern writes, “Whether it was young poets exercising their freedom on Maiakovskii Square, or artists abandoning realist form for incomprehensible abstractions, Khrushchev was like many of his compatriots confused and more than a little bit worried by the trend” (von Geldern).

Despite this period of increased tolerance, Nikita Khrushchev was no champion of artistic freedom, nor did he have any intentions to loosen the censorship laws already in place (Freeze 429).  Khrushchev’s opinion of the modern arts can be characterized by his attendance of the “Thirty Years of Moscow Art” exhibition in 1961.  The Russian Premier denounced the non-conformist works on display, “[here] Khrushchev gave vent to his crudest reactions, egged on by his comrades. When he reached the works of the abstract artist Ernst Neizvestnyi, he uttered the phrase ‘dog shit'” (von Geldern).  Khrushchev was also very suspicious of writers, and often met with them to assure their loyalty and operation within the party lines (Freeze 429).

The rise of the non-conformist art movement in the Soviet Union following Stalin’s death is symbolic of Soviet society at the time.  The death of Stalin also marked the end of widespread unity within the party and the state.  The factionalization of the Soviet Party, along with societal hardships such as periodic famines and food shortages, created a populace that felt insecure and indefinite.  This insecurity can be seen in the abstract work of the time.  In the following decades the non-conformist art movement continued to grow in the USSR, nearly unhindered, until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Works Cited

Freeze, Gregory L. Russia: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

von Geldern, James. “1934: Writers’ Congress.” Seventeen Moments in Soviet History. 2014. http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1934writers&Year=1934 (accessed November 8, 2014).

—. “1961: Khrushchev on the Arts.” Seventeen Moments in Soviet History. 2014. http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php?page=subject&SubjectID=1961khrushcharts&Year=1961&navi=byYear (accessed November 8, 2014).

Wikipedia.org. “Socialist Realism.” Wikipedia.org. n.d. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_realism#Characteristics (accessed November 8, 2014).

—. “Soviet Nonconformist Art.” wikipedia.org. n.d. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Nonconformist_Art#1962_.E2.80.93_mid-1970s (accessed November 8, 2014).

The death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 proved to be a pivotal time for the Soviet Union.  The loss of a leader who had wielded so much executive and coercive power over the previous three decades, and whose “cult of personality” had made him a hero and a legend in the eyes of the common man, sent shock waves throughout the Soviet state.  The internal battle of succession that followed gave rise to a changing of the guard in Soviet politics.  The Stalinist philosophy of government quickly fell out of favor, while new policies and reforms attempted to rectify the injustices and inefficiencies of the past.  The starting point for these reforms is marked by the convening of the Twentieth Party Congress of 1956.

Even before Stalin’s death, the major power-brokers within the party began vying for the future control of the USSR.  To the surprise of many, the few heirs apparent to the Soviet regime (such as Georgii Malenkov, Lavrentii Beria, and Viacheslav Molotov) were largely purged from the government.  The eventual heir to Stalin’s throne proved to be Nikita Khrushchev, a politician with a history of guile and charisma and one who was truly concerned about the average Russian.  Khrushchev intended to grow the Soviet economy and to streamline the bureaucracy.  In order to do so however, he would have to do things that were contrary to Stalinism.

The Twentieth Party Congress was assembled in 1956.  From the outset, Khrushchev intended for the congress to differ from those in the Stalin era.  He also used the occasion to solidify his position of power.  As Gregory Freeze states, “[i]t sought to revitalize the party by including many new faces, not only among the 1,349 voting delegates, but also in the leadership: roughly half of the oblast and regional secretaries, even the Central Committee were new… one-third of the members…came from Khrushchev’s Moscow and Ukrainian ‘tail’ or entourage” (Freeze 416).  In a secret address to the congress, Khrushchev railed against the Stalin years.  He pointed out the many shortcomings of Stalinism such as the growth of the bureaucracy.  He also criticized the previous regime for the purges, executions, and the system of forced labor that had arisen under Stalin.

In his secret address to the congress, Khrushchev laid out his grievances against Stalin and in doing so also laid out his visions of reform.  One of the first issues to be addressed was that of the penal system.  In the years following the Second World War the number of POW’s, political prisoners, and other dissidents incarcerated in the Soviet Union swelled.  By the time of Stalin’s death there were over 2.4 million individuals within the Russian system of jails and forced labor camps (Freeze 416).  The new regime took measures reevaluate the punishments of many prisoners and by 1961 hundreds of thousands of prisoners had either been released or, in the case of execution, posthumously vindicated.

Stalin’s governance was also labelled as being ruled by a political elite and being out of touch with the majority of Soviet society.  This excuse was used to rationalize past hardships such as recurrent famine and income inequality.  Khrushchev’s remedy called for both the cultivation of new farmlands and the “democratization” of the industrial economy.  It was hoped that creating arable land in places such as southern Siberia would give the USSR the ability to feed itself.  Volunteers flocked to these new areas.  As Khrushchev said in a 1956 speech,

“It is you, comrades, first of all, our motherland’s young generation, who need it. The Party and the government believe that the time has come to direct great efforts to the quickest possible assimilation of the inexhaustible riches of Siberia, the Far East, Kazakhstan and the regions of the North, and other regions that are far from Moscow but that are equally near to the heart of every Soviet man. (Stormy applause.) These lands are rich in literally everything! And their natural features are rich and interesting. I believe, comrades, that the time will soon come when people will say, “He who has not been in Siberia has not seen the world.”

Nikita Khrushchev’s secrect address to the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 marked the formal beginning of de-Stalinization in the USSR.  Though support for reform was far from unanimous within the party, many of the reforms were carried out and improved the USSR’s situation, at least in the short term.  In the decade under Khrushchev the Soviet Union made great strides towards economic growth and cultural unity, none of which would be possible without the movement away from Stalinism that was enacted at the congress in 1956.

Works Cited

Freeze, Gregory L. Russia: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Khrushchev, Nikita. “BE PERSISTENT AND STEADFAST IN THE STRUGGLE TO DEVELOP THE RICHES OF OUR MOTHERLAND.” The Current Digest of the Russian Press, No. 23, Vol.8, July 18, 1956: 8-10.

Siegelbaum, Lewis. Seventeen Moments in Soviet History. n.d. http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php (accessed October 25, 2014).

The great purges of 1936 through 1938 mark one of the darkest times in Soviet history.  What originated as simple rumors of counter-revolutionary factions in government turned into a society-wide purge of whoever was labelled as a dissident.  Reminiscent of the “reign of terror” during the French Revolution, this period was one of mistrust, greed, and unprecedented violence.

The beginning of the purges are marked with the 1934 assassination of Sergei Kirov, a party boss from Lenningrad.  The blame for the assassination was then placed on a “Trotskyite-Zinovievite terrorist center” (Siegelbaum).  Whether or not any such group or plot existed, the fear of counter-revolution and government subversion that spread through the state was all too real.  Lev Kamenev, Grigorii Zinoviev (both opposition leaders in the government), and fourteen others were convicted of organizing the Kirov assassination.  Stalin, who was displeased with previous efforts to root out subversion, appointed Nikolai Ezhov as the head of the NKVD, the Soviet police, in 1936 (Siegelbaum).  Ezhov was ruthless in his search for political subversion.  He widened the scope of the purge to include almost anybody who spoke out against the stalinist regime.  In 1937 most of the Red Army general staff either disappeared or were executed, which hampered the army’s goal of modernization (Freeze 365).

The purges did not end there however, as Lewis Siegelbaum says, “the same fate befell provincial party secretaries, party and state personnel among the national minorities, industrial managers, and other officials.”  The general public then became involved, which created a veritable witch hunt throughout Soviet society.  The most liable to be turned in were remnants of the old guard, such as military officers, and those who were seen as taking advantage of others, such as the party elite and high-ranking economic officials (Freeze 369).  Siegelbaum goes on to say, “The process fed upon itself, as the accused under severe physical and psychological pressure from their interrogators, named names and confessed to outlandish crimes. Millions of others became involved in the frenzied search for ‘enemies of the people’.”  These “enemies” were for those who were better-off than most, one of the biggest examples being the former Kulaks.  By the end of the purges in 1938, over one million political-prisoners were interned in labor camps and nearly as many were documented to have been executed (Freeze 368-369).

To this day there remains little consensus as to the true motives of the purges.  The common story is that Stalin himself initiated the purges by orchestrating the Kirov assassination in order to rid himself of a political rival and the opposition leaders at the same time.  Others claim that the evidence shows that Stalin had no involvement in the assassination, and that the impetus for the purges came not from the government at the top, but rather the proletarian bottom .  Others still, point to Stalin being threatened by a burgeoning bureaucracy, made up of old-guard bureaucrats and party eiltes, that was quickly gaining power (Freeze 366-367).

The fall of the Soviet Union has led to new insight into the soviet past, however the topic of the great purges remains in question.  As Freeze writes, “[the purges] seem to have been so arbitrary in victimization, so elusive in motivation as to defy explanation.  Access to long-closed archives of the NKVD, while clarifying some issues, has not yet yielded a satisfactory explanation… even what hitherto were assumed to be incontrovertible, basic facts are now in question” (Freeze 364).  What is undeniable, however is that following the great purges Stalin was undoubtedly the supreme leader (or dictator) of the Soviet Union.  With the persecution of opposition leaders, party elites, and anti-communist members of society, Stalin assumed near-total control over the government and gained much adoration and support from the proletariat.

Works Cited

Freeze, Gregory L. Russia: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Siegelbaum, Lewis. Seventeen Moments in Soviet History. n.d. http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php (accessed October 11, 2014).

Wikipedia.org. NKVD. n.d. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD (accessed October 11, 2014).

A huge power-vacuum was created following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in March 1917.  After the fall of the Romanov Dynasty, who had ruled the Russian empire for over 300 years, it was unclear who would come to the forefront of Russian politics and how the Empire would be governed.  Numerous factions within Russian society sought to fill the power-vacuum created by the fall of the Romanovs.  What was at stake was not only control of the state, but also control of the economic and societal future of Russia.  Eventually the Bolshevik faction, led by Vladimir Lenin, gained enough power and influence to control the government.  This control was not initially absolute however, and the Bolsheviks had to defend their right to rule at multiple times between 1917 and 1924, when the Bolsheviks emerged as the dominant agent in Russian politics and culture.

Russia was in a state of civil-war following the fall of the autocracy and the October Revolution, with anti-Bolshevik factions including land-owners, republicans, conservatives, liberals, and middle-class citizens uniting to resist the “red” Bolshevik regime (Figes).  This ragtag force of resistance became known as the “white” army.  Although the Whites were led by a number of former military commanders such as General Mikhail Alekseev and General Lavr Korilov, the movement was always at a disadvantage compared to the Red Army (Freeze 296).  The  empowered Bolsheviks controlled the most-central provinces, the very heart of Russia.  This simplified the logistics of supplying and communicating with the army.  Meanwhile, the White forces were spread throughout the Russian hinterland, poorly supplied and in a near-constant state of disarray.  The high-point for the White Army was the capture of Orel, a town only 300 kilometers from Moscow (Freeze 297-298).  The civil-war ended in 1920 as the Red Army pushed into White-controlled lands, recapturing the lost territory and forcing the remaining White combatants out of Russia (Freeze 298).

The most immediate concern of the Bolsheviks following the October Revolution was not only gaining greater control of the government, but also growing their base of power and influence among the people themselves.  It is fair to say that the Bolsheviks won the battle of public relations.  Bolshevik popularity continued to rise throughout the revolution, growing from 23,600 members in 1917 to over 750,000 members in 1921 (Freeze 294).  This growth had as much to do with the mistakes of other parties as it did with successful Bolshevik tactics.  The Kornilov affair created a fear of counter-revolution among the Russian public.  After recently emerging from the yoke of autocracy, no one in Russia was willing to surrender the societal gains which the counter-revolutionaries were said to oppose.  The debacle made public the instability of the post-Imperial government, and disintegrated support for the provisional government run by Alexander Kerensky (Freeze 288).

Bolshevik popularity continued to grow after the October Revolution, and it was in this time that the Bolsheviks began to consolidate their power and transition from revolutionaries to legitimate rulers.  An important cornerstone in the legitimization of Bolshevik authority was ideology.  The idea of class warfare was always emphasized, with socialism always being the positive antithesis to the exploitative capitalist system (Freeze 298-299).  An example of such ideology is pictured at the top of the page, with the top of the poster dramatizing the capitalist past, the middle representing the present-time, and the bottom depicting the quite Utopian-looking socialist future.

Bolshevik popularity began to wane in 1921.  The public grew weary of a government that had failed to keep its promises of new economic order, equality, and prosperity.  In response, the Tenth Party Congress endorsed the New Economic Policy (NEP).  The policy sought to appease those who were suffering from the civil-war, stabilize the economy by attempting to regularize supply and production, and generate capital for further industrialization and modernization.  In general, the NEP meant to lay the foundation for a future socialist economic system.

The Eleventh Party Congress of 1922 would prove to be Lenin’s last.  The Congress focused of further consolidating and enhancing their authority.  Lenin also initiated a cleansing of the Russian bureaucracy, in which many of the bureaucrats left over from the autocracy were forced out of the government and replaced by loyal party officials (Freeze 310).

By the time of Lenin’s death in 1924 the socialist government had firmly entrenched itself as the source of power in the Russian state.  Though the Party was by no means unified on every issue, the threat of war had passed and the soviet government had instituted the reforms which they had promised seven years earlier.

Works Cited

Figes, Orlando. A People’s Tragedy – History of the Russian Revolution. Penguin Books, 1996.

Freeze, Gregory L. Russia: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Siegelbaum, Lewis. Seventeen Moments in Soviet History. n.d. http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php (accessed September 20, 2014).

It is undeniable that there were many contributing factors to the Russian revolutions of February and October 1917.  Social unrest and political impotence certainly were the downfall of the Romanov dynasty and the Russian autocracy, however the catalyst for the Revolutions of 1917 was most-definitely the First World War.

In order to understand the revolutions of 1917, one must look back to the revolution of 1905.  Nation-wide strikes, the upheaval and destruction of gentry property, and the organization of the peasantry threatened the very sovreignty of the Tsar.  Though the ‘October Manifesto’ produced by the tsarist government following the 1905 uprising effectively ended the revolution, it did not go far enough to please the more radical wings of the revolutionary movement.  Many of these more radical factions would not be satisfied until the Tsar abdicated, something that Nicholas II was not ready to do.  These factions did not go away however, and grew larger over time.

One of the major facets of the October Manifesto was the creation of an elected lower house, called the Duma.  Though the house was a body representing the people, the Tsar reserved the right to dissolve the Duma at any point.  The Tsar could also enact laws in the time between the dissolution and election of a new Duma.  This under-representation of the common people, the status quo for much of Russian politics even today, continued to foster resentment within the ranks of Russian society.

The mass-dissatisfaction with the monarchy and the government in general was exacerbated by the onset of the First World War in 1914.  The Manifesto had failed to provide social stability, and in this sense especially, the nation was not prepared for the war that was to come.  As Gregory Freeze puts it, “[i]t was a sign of weakness, then, not strength, that the Russian regime that went to war in the summer of 1914 had successfully resisted becoming a functioning constitutional monarchy” (267).

Though the Russian state was not truly prepared for war of this magnitude, it would not have appeared so to someone on the ground at the time.  The Russian army was massive, over 1.4 million strong at the outset of the war (marxists.org), and was still largely mobilized following the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913.  This meant that the army mobilized reletively quickly.  Once the war was on, “Russia mobilized rapidly and intensively for a war everyone hoped would be brief, but which proved protracted and exhausting. The armed forces conscripted nearly seven million men in 1914 alone. More than eighteen million would serve during the course of the war” (1917 – Did the War Cause a Revolution?).  This illusion would not last for long, however.

The first major blow to Russia was the Battle of Tannenberg in late August 1914.  Despite early gains while pushing into East Prussian territory and forcing the German army into retreat, the German forces, commanded by General Erich von Ludendorff, eventually pushed forward and broke through the Russian line, effectively splitting the Russian Army in half.  After dividing the Russian forces, “The German Army turned West and attacked the flank of the Russian Second Army. Within four days of fighting, bogged down in lakes and swamps, the Russian Second Army was defeated… A week later, General Hindenburg led the Eighth German Army, bolstered by reinforcements, to drive the Russian First Army completely out of Prussia” (marxists.org).  The Germans pursued the retreating Russian army, attacking wherever they could, and in the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes the remaining Russians took heavy casualties.  By September 13th what remained of the Russian army had retreated to safety behind Russian borders.  The excursion into Prussia resulted in no territorial gain, costing the Russians nearly 300,000 men killed, wounded or captured (wikipedia).

The Russians fared much better in Austria-Hungary, capturing the region of Galicia by early September.  The Germans quickly sent reinforcements to aid their allies and began an offensive in mid-April of 1915.  The Russian forces were ill equipped to defend against the German offensive, “Problems of supply and logistics, especially where munitions were concerned, plagued the Russian army. Chronic shortages of firearms meant that soldiers often relied on the guns of their dead comrades. Ineptitude began at the very top of the Russian general staff” (Digital History Reader).  The German forces forced the Russians into retreat, “In the course of the ‘Great Retreat’ of 1915, Austro-German forces pushed the Russians out of eastern Poland at a cost of nearly one million Russian casualties and another million prisoners” (Digital History Reader).

These losses were crushing to Russia in the army and at home.  Tsar Nicholas II had foolishly taken personal control of the armed forces, which made him liable to criticism following the early military fiascoes.  No one in Russian society was satisfied, “[f]or the propertied classes, the autocracy’s ineptitude in prosecuting the war fueled widespread disaffection and concern for the country’s future in the postwar world. In the lower levels of society, in the army, in cities, and in the countryside, tolerance of long-term deprivation, rationing, and a subsistence existence was running out” (Digital History Reader).

Mass protest on the Russian home front hurt the war effort, and  following the February Revolution of 1917 and the abdication of Nicholas II in early March the Petrograd Soviet issued “Order no. 1”, which restructured the army into a more representative and equal fashion.  This order inspired dissension in the ranks.  As Lewis Siegelbaum writes, “The first few weeks of the revolution witnessed the desertion of between 100,000 and 150,000 soldiers, most of whom were peasants anxious to return to their villages to participate in what they expected would be a division of the land. There was also a substantial tide of arrests of officers, particularly senior commanders, and their replacement by more popular individuals.”  Before long the army was in shambles and defeat seemed more and more probable as time progressed.

The Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 toppled what remained of the previous regime and the Bolshevik government then sought to validate itself by promising fulfilling its promises of bringing bread and peace to Russia.  By the end of 1917 the soviet government sought an immediate end to hostilities and signed the treaty of Brest Litovsk, an armistice which took effect in march of 1918 and formally took Russia out of the war.

Were it not for the military woes of the Russian army, the autocracy may have been able to control the populace and retain its power.  The massive cost of war, both in resources and in soldiers, hampered the growth and productivity of the Russian homeland and put much of the lower-half of society in dire straits and a state of desperation.  A situation which nurtures radical and revolutionary ideas, ideas that manifested themselves both in February and October of 1917.

Works Cited

Digital History Reader. 1917 – Did the War Cause a Revolution? n.d. http://www.dhr.history.vt.edu/modules/eu/mod03_1917/context.html (accessed September 13, 2014). Freeze, Gregory L. Russia: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Marxists.org. WW1 – Russia. n.d. https://www.marxists.org/glossary/events/w/ww1/russia.htm (accessed September 13, 2014). Siegelbaum, Lewis. Seventeen Moments in Soviet History. n.d. http://soviethistory.macalester.edu/index.php (accessed September 14, 2014). Wikipedia.org. First Battle of the Masurian Lakes. n.d. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_the_Masurian_Lakes (accessed September 14, 2014). —. The Battle of Tannenberg. n.d. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tannenberg (accessed September 13, 2014).  

Following the publication of, “The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848, the Marxist ideology took root nearly every European state to some extent.  One of the consequences of this dispersion and diffusion of Marxism into European political thought was that the theory differed from region to region and from state to state.  Russia in this case was no different, and in fact, and Gregory Freeze puts it, “[a]mong European Marxists, nowhere was the issue of the succession of revolutionary ‘phases’ more hotly debated than in Russia” (Freeze 246).

The argument among Russian socialists at the time was over the proper succession of economic systems according to the Marxist ideology.  Some Russian socialists believed that Russia was not ready to emerge as a socialist state.  These revolutionaries believed that a capitalist system, industrialization, and a growing middle-class were necessary (albeit unwanted) steps towards class struggle and the emergence of a socialist economic system predicted by Marx.  As Freeze states, “[c]apitalism was evil, of course, but a necessary evil, which carried the seeds of a socialist future in its womb” (Freeze 247).  Though their side of the argument was closer to that of Marx’s ideas, these “legal Marxists” or “Mensheviks” did not appeal to the masses and always remained a minority in the revolutionary movement.

The Marxist movement that appealed most to the Russian masses, the land-hungry peasantry and the disenfranchised industrial workforce, was that of the Bolsheviks.  These socialists were much more radical than the orthodox Mensheviks.  They rejected the need for a capitalist phase in Russia’s economic development and argued for a n economic transition straight into socialism.  As mentioned by Freeze, “the Bolsheviks shared the populists’ thoroughgoing impatience with intermediary, liberal-type solutions” (Freeze 247)

.

The best-known of the Bolsheviks was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Vladimir Lenin.  Lenin and his Marxist peers embraced the use of radical tactics such as terrorism, workers strikes, and secret political organizations.  It was In Lenin’s 1902 work, “What is to be Done?”, that Lenin speaks at length as to how such organizations would be structured according to him, and how his structure would differ from the secret labor unions that already existed throughout Russia.  As he describes,

“The political struggle of Social-Democracy is far more extensive and complex than the economic struggle of the workers against the employers and the government. Similarly (indeed for that reason), the organisation of the revolutionary Social-Democratic Party must inevitably be of a kind different from the organisation of the workers designed for this struggle.”

One of the differences that Lenin speaks of is the need for the social-democratic political organization to have a tight-knit group of members, all of which are devoted to the socialist cause.  As he states, “the organisation of the revolutionaries must consist first and foremost of people who make revolutionary activity their profession”.  Secondly, the political organization should not be separated by class or by trade in the way that trade unions are.  The socialist organization should should be effectively “classless”.  His third major point as to the party’s organization is that it must be as conspiratorial as possible.  In sum, Lenin states,

“If we begin with the solid foundation of a strong organisation of revolutionaries, we can ensure the stability of the movement as a whole and carry out the aims both of Social-Democracy and of trade unions proper. If, however, we begin with a broad workers’ organisation, which is supposedly most “accessible” to the masses (but which is actually most accessible to the gendarmes and makes revolutionaries most accessible to the police), we shall achieve neither the one aim nor the other”

Throughout his rhetoric of political organization and action, Lenin laid the groundwork for revolutionaries throughout Russia.  His message of secrecy and resistance to the state resonated through the country and bolstered the ranks of the radical Bolshevik party, which would soon come to overthrow the Romanov autocracy and usher in the beginning of the Soviet period.

Works Cited

Freeze, Gregory L. Russia: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Lenin, Vladimir. The Primitiveness of the Economists and the Organization of the Revolutionaries. n.d. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/iv.htm (accessed September 7, 2014).

—. The Spontaneity of the Masses and the Consciousness of the Social-Democrats. n.d. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/ii.htm (accessed September 7, 2014).

the picture above offers a glimpse into the lives of Russian peasants towards the end of the 19th century. The picture makes it clear that although the Russian serfs were emancipated in 1861, they remained second-class citizens for decades after. Most lived in poverty, obligated to pay special taxes and crippled by debt incurred for the land which they thought was theirs by right.

Following the end of the Crimean War in 1856, in which Russia was defeated by a coalition lead by Great Britain, France, and the Ottoman Empire, it became apparent to many Russians that the feudal system that had defined their society for nearly 800 years could not keep pace with the industrialized powers of western Europe (Freeze 201). These nations had begun to phase out the system of serfdom centuries before, and by the 19th century western Europe had changed from an agrarian society to an industrial one (Keen 236-237). In order to modernize Russia, the serfs would have to be unbound from the land. This ultimately led to the emancipation of the serfs by Tsar Alexander II.

Though the Tsar and many others within the Russian government sought major reform, they encountered fierce resistance from the nobility, who owned both the land and the serfs that worked it. Many nobles feared, quite rightly, that emancipation would equate to the nobility losing land, and in turn, income. Their opposition led to a more moderate reform of serfdom (Freeze 205).

When Alexander II signed the emancipation into law neither the nobility nor the peasantry were pleased with the outcome. Although they were free, the peasantry were still bound to their local communities. These communities were subject to special taxes and obligations, along with the debt of the massive loans necessary to purchase a portion of the land from the nobility (Freeze 206-207).

These obligations kept the peasant class at the bottom of the economic spectrum for decades to come. Much of the peasantry remained on the land, while facing debt and famine alone the way. Decades of poverty similar to what is depicted in the pictures above, along with the inequality of the lower class, contributed to unrest among the Russian peasantry throughout the remainder of the 19th century (Freeze 208).

Works Cited

Freeze, Gregory L. Russia: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Keen, Maurice. The Penguin History of Medieval Europe. London: Penguin Books, 1968.

Image 1: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/prok/01900/01969v.jpg

Image 2: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3b10000/3b17000/3b17200/3b17283r.jpg