“The February Revolution came more from above than from below.”
Discuss.
Introduction
-Trotsky: “Who led the revolution?” (handful of Bolsheviks guided it)
-Trotsky: “He was more awful than all the tyrants of ancient and modern history.”
-Revolution: 18 Feb – 4 March 1917
-Unrest on the streets, Duma refuses to disband, Increasing desertions of troops at the
front, Army officers advise Nicholas to stand down, Formation of the Petrograd
Soviet, Nicholas II abdicates, Provisional Government established
-27 Feb: Petrograd Soviet formed.
-2 Mar, Nicholas abdicated and for son Alexei, brother Grand Duke Michael refused.
-3 March, Prov Govt (new govt) officially informed world of Russia’s revolution.
-Service: Workers and Soldiers
-Volkogonov: War and weaknesses of regime
-Hasegawa: Conflict between society and state
-Pipes: Army generals and Duma
-Kenez: The Bolshevik-led proletariat
Spontaneity of Feb Rev?
-Rodzyanko 14 Feb 1917: warns Tsar “very serious outbreaks of unrest” imminent.
-Lynch: Okhrana Jan 1917, reported marked increase in peasant + worker hostility.
-Widespread rumours of public disturbances in Petrograd since beginning of 1917.
-Lynch: remarkable Feb Rev largely Petrograd affair, rest of Russia just accepted it.
-Pipes: genuine revs are not scheduled, so there must be some spontaneity in Feb Rev
Russia (Tsarism)’s Failure in World War One + Tsar Nicholas
-Historical View One: WW1 was main cause of Tsar’s downfall, without war rev.
might not have occurred. Russia starting to make changes required, agriculture and
industry making progress, political progress seemed Tsar would make concessions.
-Historical View Two: Regime unable to adapt to changing conditions and would
have fallen even without WW1, though WW1 did act as a catalyst for rev. Industrial
progress, but not reached strike-prone W/C, agricultural reforms unsuccessful,
alienated landing-wanting peasantry, little political progress, Tsar autocrat.
Effect of World War One on the People + February Revolution
Tsarism + Nationalist minorities
Revolutionary groups + 1905 Rev. + Dumas + February Revolution
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Russia (Tsarism)’s Failure in World War One
-Lenin: war is “The midwife of revolution”.
Effects of War on Tsarist Regime – Historical Debate
-View One: without WW1 regime might have survived, Russia starting to modernise.
-View Two (McKean, Volkogonov): would fall even without WW1, WW1 = catalyst
How weak was Russia Militarily and Economically?
-Russia’s economy and administration = too weak to equip soldiers at Front properly,
1/3 of troops = no rifles, terrible losses: 1914-1916, 1/2 of 15 million army casualties.
-Eastwood: WW1 revealed the inefficiency, weakness and corruption Tsarist regime.
-Pipes: 1917 Russia had weak economy, could not take strains of war.
-Lynch: Tsarism destroyed by length of war, survived shorter Japanese war in 1905.
-Stone: Russian economy might have been weak, but army was strong enough to
keep going.
-Mawdsley: army not near collapse in 1917, mutinies in all countries.
-Lynch: 1916, Russia = more shells than Ger., Russia’s war weakness exaggerated.
-Volkogonov (Post Glasnost Russian School): Tsarist regime and war caused rev.
-BUT: Russian in war not hopeless, material + human resources but, bad leadership.
-Lynch: army’s “crippling weakness” lack of equipment, not lack of spending, but
due to poor administration, poor resource distribution, due to weak central leadership.
-Soldiers barefoot, boot shortage, hospitals in excellent condition but disorganised,
groups not work together, (one region had leather, one nails, one soles).
Tsar as Army Leader – Lost Support of Army
-1915 Nicholas made himself army C-in-C, directly responsible for Russia in war,
blamed for many defeats: low morale, so Tsar lost army support.
-Tsar was with the army, 800km away from Petrograd – isolated.
-In Feb, Tsar ordered extremely loyal Cossacks to fire on demonstrators, they refused.
-Kenez: soldiers’ refusal to obey = more important than workers’ demonstration, as
once the chains of command were broken, the imperial regime collapsed.
-Lynch: 1916, all sections of society believed Tsar inept political + military leader.
Nicholas’s Personality – unsuited to being Tsar – Weak Tsar
-Nicholas was a family man whose interests lay in socialising and hunting – unwilling
to get involved in politics – indecisive, weak, lacked organisational skills.
-Nicholas said by one minister to be “unfit to run a village post office.”
-Lynch: not as unintelligent as claimed, but limited imagination: not grasp situation.
-Mosley: Tsar’s family disowned him due to the trust he placed in Rasputin.
-Lynch: 1917, real enthusiasm for Tsar of 1914 had gone, even for dedicated tsarists.
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Effect of World War One on the People
Terrible Situation in Countryside
-Less agricultural output, farm horses requisitioned, cut in chemical fertilisers supply.
-Inflation made trading unprofitable, peasants began hoarding grain instead of trading.
-Army largely = peasants, their families were suffering under Tsarism = more likely
to mutiny, peasants moving actively against Tsar = soldiers in Petrograd garrison.
-Hard winter 1916 – 1917, so bad harvests meant starvation for the peasants.
-Service: some peasants did well financially from war, did not make up for lost sons.
Terrible Situation in Towns
-Terrible living conditions as everything went into war effort: widespread hunger,
lack of fuel, unemployment, inflation (cost of living rose by 300%).
-Much unemployment as rural migrants and refugees fleeing German occupation.
-More and more notes put into circulation, money worthless = inflation, esp. in 1916.
-Army given food and transport priority: food distribution to civilian areas unreliable,
hunger bordering on famine for much Russia during war, shortages esp. bad in towns.
-Lynch: poor transport, not food production decline by peasants: main privation cause
Political Effects of War
-Unpopular German Tsarina Alexandra, reserved, shy, Monk Rasputin’s (murdered
by aristocrats, Dec 1916) influence over Tsarina, more unpopular, decreased standard
of rule, ministers changed frequently – able ones dismissed in favour of friends.
-Tsar blamed for leaving Tsarina and Rasputin in charge, so W/C more against him.
-Lynch: Rasputin scandals = minor affairs, would not have brought down a dynasty.
War = Opposition and Problems with Tsarist Regime
-Hasegawa: first Russia united against common war enemy, so gave Tsarism chance
to redeem its self, but did so badly in war, society was torn apart as everyone suffered.
-Lynch: war intensified all problems from which Tsarism had traditionally suffered.
Riots by Workers lead to Revolution = Below
-Strike = 18 Feb, Putilov steel works employees, largest, most politically active
Petrograd factory + workers angered at (untrue) rumours of further bread supply cuts.
-23 Feb (International Woman’s Day) = thousands women on streets food, end to war
-25 Feb, Petrograd paralysed by city-wide strike, modern estimates 1,500-2,000
people killed/wounded in disturbances, Much confusion, little direction from top.
-27 Feb, first meeting of “Petrograd Soviet of Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Workers’
Deputies” (mainly Mensheviks) in same building as Prov Committee, Tauride Palace.
-Service and Williams (Later Western): workers + soldiers only ones to act, behind
scenes Duma, bourgeois, generals pleased, but Tsar persuaded to abdicate by Duma.
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Tsarism
-1913: Tsar led celebrations of 300 years of Romanov rule.
Tsarist Political Institutions
-Outdated autocracy, support by conservative Church + oppressive army, bureaucracy
Tsarism’s Resistance to Modernisation / Reform
-Service: education and urbanisation in 1800s: people began to see Tsarism as
“humiliating peculiarity that Russia should quickly remove.”
-Lynch: “Tsardom showed a fatal resistance to change” as modernisation attempted.
Modernisation in the Countryside - Stolypin
-For Russia to be great power needed to modernise from backward agriculture and
economy depended on conservative peasantry, inadequate communications.
-1917 over 80% of Russians = peasants, poorly educated, poverty, but rich landlords.
-Huge population growth end 19th C = overcrowding, land competition, want land.
-Chief Minister Stolypin (1906-1911): land reforms = production growth, record
harvests 1913: worked with Duma, showed that co-operation possible with Tsarism.
-Western historians: reforms made some peasants rich but as these peasants also
bought land of poorer, less efficient peasants = alienated, poor, hostile and landless.
-Corin and Fiehn: 1907 = 1000 cases of peasant disturbances; 1915 = only 96 cases.
Modernisation in the Towns - Witte
-More strikes after 1905 as lack of economic and political progress, govt used force.
-Industrialisation = businessmen prosperous, workers = no benefit, conditions bad.
-W/C fairly small, became politically active, more education, wanted social reform.
-Witte (Finance Minister 1892-1903): industrialisation, great industrial expansion.
-1917 = 2/3 of factories had over 1000 workers, much easier to organise strike action.
-Lynch: “enlightened ministers” Stolypin and Witte attempted to reform, but govt
conservative, did not trust them, so threw away last chance of survival.
-Service: rumours Okhrana + Tsar aided SR Bogreov in assassinating Stolypin (1911)
Russification + Uprisings from Nationalist Minorities
-Russification (imposing Russian lang + culture) resented, more rigorous late 1800s
-Nicholas II strongly supported Russification and took an active role in it.
-Seton-Watson: Russification persecuted and lost Tsarism the support of nationalist
minorities who had previously been loyal to the regime.
-Russia’s population 170 million, ½ non-Russians: Poles, Finns, Ukrainians.
-19th century = more and more uprisings from nationalist minorities for autonomy.
-Service: education increased nat. consciousness, monarchy seen as oppressive.
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Opposition + the Duma
-There had been opposition to Tsarism for hundreds of years
Ohkrana – Secret Police
-Service: “The Ohkrana was very efficient at its tasks”, revolutionary leaders
suppressed in 1907 + exiled, patchy contact with followers, secured more time for
dynasty, also strengthened revs’ determination to avoid dilution of their ideas.
Bloody Sunday + 1905 Revolution = Tsar’s Refusal of Constituency
-Nicholas was taught importance of absolute autocracy, believed appointed by God.
-Eg. Bloody Sunday, troops fired on peaceful demonstrators marching to Winter
Palace to beg “unaware” Tsar to fix conditions: nation-wide disorder for a year.
-Lynch: hundreds killed, and Tsar’s image as the “Little Father” gravely damaged.
-Floyd and Ferro: a loyal people lost faith in their monarchy on Bloody Sunday.
Formation of Duma: controlled mostly by Tsar
-Before 1905 Revolution and Tsar’s October Manifesto, no parliament in Russia.
-Liberals supported 1905, satisfied in short term by October Manifesto (Duma) after
the 1905 revolution (Tsar largely lost control of country for about a year).
-1st + 2nd Dumas (mostly Kadets (Liberals) + SRs) suspended by Tsar as too radical.
-3rd + 4th Dumas, ministers responsible to Tsar, had little power, not represent poor.
-Service: constitution = hostility aimed at high classes not Tsar, maybe save dynasty.
-Tensions, nearly over-threw Tsar 1905, not alleviated, political opposition remained.
Progressive Bloc, formed during WW1
-August 1914, Duma supported Tsar: voted for own suspension until end of war.
-BUT within a year as Russia failing in war, demanded own recall, back in Aug 1915.
-WW1, Progressive Bloc, = 236 of the 422 Duma members, tried to get Tsar to make
concessions in authority, but refused, it became focal point of political resistance.
Duma and Political Pressure on Tsar = Above
-Tsar told Duma to dissolve, all except 12 members did, they became “Prov Govt.
-Remaining ministers in Tsar’s cabinet, facing opposition, escaped from capital.
-Rodzyanko (loyal to Tsar before) advised Tsar to abdicate if monarchy to be saved.
-28 Feb, troops stopped Tsar train, army high command + Duma advised abdication.
-Pipes: Tsar gave in not to the people but to generals and politicians.
-Feb was not a “workers” revolution, “myth” Tsar got rid of by workers and peasants.
-Tsar could have quelled the mutiny, Duma persuaded abdication, to save war army.
-The principal causes of Tsarism’s downfall were political, not economic or social.
-Lynch: strikes in Petrograd did not in self cause rev, defection of Tsar’s previous
supporters and Tsar’s failure to resist = fall of Tsarism, it “collapsed from within”.
-Trotsky: Russia was unwilling to fight for the Tsarist regime.
-Lynch: speed of fall of Tsarism remarkable, Tsar gave up fight before abdicating.
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