The Russian Revolution of 1917 is said to be one of the biggest events of the twentieth century by
historians and the origin of The Soviet Union (USSR). Some say it was a historical statement against
tyranny and others say that it was a complete shambles. It was a time where capitalism was tested in
the West by socialism, which flourished in The Soviet Union through the hands of people like Lenin
and Stalin. By the late nineties, The Soviet Union or The USSR was the biggest powerhouse and
nation behind The United States of America.
This book by Edward Hallett Carr entitled The Russian Revolution from Lenin to Stalin (1917-1929)
was published in 1979 and reveals the weight and importance of The Russian Revolution. In this
synopsis, instead of recapitulating the 19 chapters of the book one by one, the whole content will be
summarised chronologically.
While in the eighteen hundreds the rest of Europe modernised and pursued liberty, Russia had fallen
behind. The Tsar had all the power (autocracy) and never really had ideas or intentions to catch up
with the rest. Therefore, the Russian population was losing their patience. But, even though they
created some changes and industrialised Russia to some extent by around 1890, people still were
unsatisfied (proletarians worked in very poor conditions, peasants were still poor and liberals
demanded change). Not only that, they had also suffered a humiliating defeat against Japan leading to
the revolution of 1905. It was initiated with what is known as the “Bloody Sunday” and sparked
uncoordinated revolutions through the whole country which the Tsar Nicholas II managed to bring it
to a halt.
However, The Revolution in the February of 1917, which was motivated for the same reasons with
the addition of WWI going catastrophically bad for Russia, brought the end of the Tsar after the
abdication of Nicholas the II. It wasn’t a bourgeois revolution, but a revolution led by workers and
poor peasants and the fall of the Tsar brought a new desire to the majority of the population: they
wanted to take responsibility in their own way and emancipation from tyranny with an utopian goal.
There was no room for Western principles and they wanted nothing to do with a centralised authority.
In addition, many towns and districts all over the country declared themselves as Soviets. This was
the beginning of the rise of communism and The Soviet Union.
During this time with no autocracy, Russia found itself in a dual power dilemma between the
provisional government and the Soviets. After having observed the situation, Lenin criticised the
situation in his April Theses and he created the Bolsheviks with the goal to seize power. The poor
were hungry, the peasants wanted land and they wanted to drop out of WWI since they were weak
and didn’t have compatible resources compared to the West. That is why the Bolsheviks promised to
deliver peace, land and bread making them popular among the Russian population and attractive for
other politicians, such as Leon Trotsky, who had joined them from the Mensheviks. However,
Alexander Kerensky, the Prime Minister of the provisional Government, decided to remain in the
war. But, it backfired and they suffered many losses which damaged their economy leading to even
more hunger. As a consequence, another revolution occurred in Petrograd (St. Petersburg), the July
1917 revolution. People demanded for the Bolsheviks, in spite of this, Kerensky responded by
arresting their leaders and sending Lenin to Finland, not to mention General Kornilov’s attempt to
seize authority. Nonetheless, the popularity and power of the Bolsheviks increased
after they
defended the revolution. The aftermath was a take over of the city of Petrograd by the Bolsheviks and
the obtaining of complete power of Russia after a successful strike against the provisional
Government in the Winter Palace. Lenin was in charge. Yet, he had rigged the elections since the
Bolsheviks didn’t come up top and founded “Cheka” for “combating counter-revolution and
sabotage”.
The Bolsheviks promised peace, but they were still in the war against the Germans. So their first step
was to solve the situation by trying to negotiate a peace deal in Brest-Litovsk. The negotiations were
tricky for Russia since the Germans were doing well in the war. Trotsky devised the “No peace, no
war” formula which made the situation a lot worse in Russia. The result was a civil war between the
Red Army (the Bolsheviks) and the White Army (the anti-Bolsheviks who were supported by the
capitalist world or Allies who got rid of the Germans in Russia with the goal of changing the
Government). The war caused an economic collapse, hunger and famines which drove the
Government to take sharp policies in 1918 known as “war communism”, where food was their
priority. It also impacted the organisation of labour, as Lenin said, “He who does not work, neither
shall he eat '' and industry was nationalised. War communism was abandoned in 1921 and it left the
economy to the point of breakdown making Lenin’s Utopian image less tangible.
Afterwards, the New Economic Policy (NEP) was approved by Lenin to the tenth party congress in
March 1921 when on the eve of the congress the Kronstadt Rebellion occurred. The NEP helped the
peasants by offering benefits and created some economic stability, that one before the war. It brought
back some elements of capitalism and also assisted in centralised power in the formation of the
Soviet State. What is more, the permanent constitutional structure of the USSR was forming and the
lines to have as reference in relations with foreign nations were determined. It was a period where the
constitutional arrangements of the Soviet Regime had started to settle. The constitution affirmed the
separation from state and church, freedom of speech, assembly for workers, CHEKA was known as
OGPU and many more regulations. In order for it to take place and to polish relationships with the
outside world, they had to form a single unit. In December of 1922, the congress of the four republics
(the RSFSR, Ukrainian, Belorussian and Transcaucasian republics) agreed to the formation of a
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Afterwards, in the first congress of Soviets of the
USSR, the constitution was drafted and in July of 1923 it was approved while in 1924 it was ratified.
However, the NEP suffered a blow in what is known as the Scissors Crisis. The prices between
industrial and agricultural goods had a huge imbalance, where farmers would sell their grain for low
amounts and, in contrast, industry products were too costly for agriculture. Under NEP conditions,
agriculture started not selling their products and the growing economic crisis brought fear of another
famine. The year 1924 was a year of recovery, the Scissors Crisis was solved by measures, such as
price controls, which contravened the ideas of NEP.
During this period, Lenin had been overwhelmed with many illnesses, particularly, strokes. In May
1922 he had suffered a stroke incapacitating him for weeks. In December, he had a more severe
stroke paralysing his right side. Yet, he continued working until March of 2023 where a third stroke
deprived him of speech; he would never work again. After his first stroke, he was mystified by how
Stalin was handling things. Stalin had slowly gained power and authority of his office and was a
leading figure at the party. Lenin was not a fan of what was happening and became sceptical of
Stalin. Furthermore, “comradely relations” between the two had been broken off after Stalin insulted
Lenin’s wife Krupskaya. With Lenin’s third stroke and his future not looking good, his place as
leader was doubtful. Therefore, the three most pronounced leaders, Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev,
tried to stop Trotsky’s role of getting stronger since he looked the favourite to succeed Lenin. Trotsky
was bombarded with “incorrect” and “unjust” criticism. Stalin on the other hand, continued to
gradually gain power to a position of authority after Lenin died in 1924. Not only that, he considered
Lenin as his “teacher” and identified himself as his most faithful disciple, while Kamenev and
Zinoviev lacked Stalin’s modesty and failed to reach his level. During Stalin’s ascent, the year 1925
was a period of optimism where the economy was rising and there was abundance of crops. After the
congress of a mighty delegation including the likes of Molotov, Bukharin, Tomsky, Rykov,
Voroshilov, Kirov and Kalinin, together with workers, many mass meetings of party members were
made in Leningrad (former Petrograd). The result, Stalin’s victory.
On the eve of the introduction of NEP, a decision was established with the goal of planning changes
for the country known as “State General Planning Commission (Gosplan)”. Planning was primarily
focused on industry with uncertain implications for agriculture. Despite this, three years after its
establishment in 1924, not a “single economic plan” was made. In 1923, the Scissors Crisis exposed
the inadequacies of NEP and caused the first steps of planning. By the end of 1923 price controls
were established and in 1924 the metal industry was revived. It wasn’t until the next year that real
advance was accomplished. The fourteenth congress of 1925 was a turning point and the projects of
industrialisation were mentioned. The question wasn’t whether to industrialise, but how. The margin
of industrial technology of the countries of the West and the USSR broadened, so the Gosplan shifted
their attention to what they called the five-year plan. The cause of the plan was the aim of developing
Soviet industry to catch up with the West and to be in equal conditions; an industry compatible with
the West had to be accomplished. It could be done by modernising and mechanising the operations of
production that the USSR lacked. All of this demonstrated that planning and industrialisation was
incompatible with NEP and the market economy. The Soviet Union feared falling behind, so radical
steps to promote rapid industrial growth of the five-year plan were taken into practise. It was an
ambitious aim and rather unrealistic. It was a success and the economy drastically grew and
unemployment disappeared. The USSR was all of a sudden capable of matching the Western world.
But, it caused much despair, millions of human loses, famines and it was a chaotic period for the
people.
In 1928 something quite controversial occurred in agriculture. The Government took control over
many lands from peasants working in agriculture and formed collective farms where peasants worked
to produce food for the state in order to feed the industrialising nation. Stalin used terror and violence
to force the workers to work and it was a change that initially caused a famine. The Soviet Union
used the Collectivization of the Peasant to apply to agriculture principles of industrialization and
modernization. In addition, the tractor was a key for collectivization and Machine Tractor Stations
(MTS) were established. The peasantry gave up their lands, animals and machines to the state and
joined collective farms known as the Kolkhozy. During this process, the Kulaks were specially
targeted. They farmed the largest and best lands, they had the best equipment and animals and
produced the largest surplus of grain; they were the strongest opposition to the Soviet policies. The
Kulaks were condemned as an “undefeated enemy” and Stalin attacked and demanded the
“Dekulakization” or “the liquidation of the Kulaks as a class”. Consequently, the Kulaks were
removed or crushed. Nonetheless, during this period of collectivization and the implication of the
Kolkhozy, the Government hadn’t really got a firm grip on the countryside. The peasants saw this as
an invasion to reapply slavery they suffered before the revolution. What looked like a good idea and
a promising operation ended being a tragedy in the Soviet history with many peasents killed and the
genocide of the Kulaks.
The defeat and the removal of the opposition at the party congress of December 1927 facilitated
Stalin’s journey towards power. But, some people got suspicious of Stalin’s patterns of dictatorship.
Oppositions and other prominent leaders were always under Stalin's control, expelled, humiliated or
even assassinated (Like Trotsky in 1940 in New Mexico). In the early days of Stalin’s regime,
Trotsky was expelled to Turkey in 1929. Many of these signals made Bukharin realise that Stalin was
“a Genghis Khan”, who “will wait for us to start a discussion and then cut our throats”. He was right
since Stalin eventually wanted to crush and humiliate Bukharin. Tomsky and Rykov were also
debilitated and warned of future consequences. Stalin became an isolated figure who seemed to not
have any feelings for his men and was cruel and vindictive to those who obstructed his will. He had
an obsession to match or overtake the capitalist countries and he was ready to do anything to
accomplish it, even if it was at the cost of human lives. As Stalin said “We have lagged 50 or 100
years behind the advanced countries. We must close this gap in 10 years. We shall do it, or they will
crush us”. His full revelation of his dictatorship still was to come: the tragedies of collectivization,
concentration camps (gulags) and the millions of killing. Since Stalin’s death there has been plentiful
mixed feelings and conflicting emotions of glorification and shame.