The Russian Revolution Extras V

The Russian Revolution: The Global Influence of the Russian Revolution and the USSR

Existing socialist parties in Europe did not wholly approve of the way the Bolsheviks took power- and kept it. However, the possibility of a workers’ state fired people’s imagination across the world. In many countries, communist parties were formed-like the Communist Party of Great Britain. The Bolsheviks encouraged colonial peoples to follow their experiment. Many non-Russians from outside the USSR participated in the Conference of the Peoples of the East (1920) and the Bolshevik-founded Comintern (an international union of pro-Bolshevik socialist parties). Some received education in the USSR’s Communist University of the Workers of the East. By the time of the outbreak of the Second World War, the USSR had given socialism a global face and world stature.

Yet by the 1950s it was acknowledged within the country that the style of government in the USSR was not in keeping with the ideals of the Russian Revolution. In the world socialist movement too it was recognised that all was not well in the Soviet Union. A backward country had become a great power. Its industries and agriculture had developed and the poor were being fed. But it had denied the essential freedoms to its citizens and carried out its developmental projects through repressive policies. By the end of the twentieth century, the international reputation of the USSR as a socialist country had declined though it was recognised that socialist ideals still enjoyed respect among its people. But in each country the ideas of socialism were rethought in a variety of different ways.

USSR and India:

Writing about the Russian Revolution in India

Among those the Russian Revolution inspired were many Indians. Several attended the Communist University. By the mid-1920s the Communist Party was formed in India. Its members kept in touch with the Soviet Communist Party. Important Indian political and cultural figures took an interest in the Soviet experiment and visited Russia, among them Jawaharlal Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore, who wrote about Soviet Socialism. In India, writings gave impressions of Soviet Russia. In Hindi, R.S. Avasthi wrote in 1920-21 Russian Revolution, Lenin, His Life and His Thoughts, and later The Red Revolution . S.D. Vidyalankar wrote The Rebirth of Russia and The Soviet State of Russia. There was much that was written in Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu.

An Indian arrives in Soviet Russia in 1920

‘For the first time in our lives, we were seeing Europeans mixing freely with Asians. On seeing the Russians mingling freely with the rest of the people of the country we were convinced that we had come to a land of real equality.

We saw freedom in its true light. In spite of their poverty, imposed by the counter-revolutionaries and the imperialists, the people were more jovial and satisfied than ever before. The revolution had instilled confidence and fearlessness in them. The real brotherhood of mankind would be seen here among these people of fifty different nationalities. No barriers of caste or religion hindered them from mixing freely with one another. Every soul was transformed into an orator. One could see a worker, a peasant or a soldier haranguing like a professional lecturer.’

Shaukat Usmani, Historic Trips of a Revolutionary.

Rabindranath Tagore wrote from Russia in 1930

‘Moscow appears much less clean than the other European capitals. None of those hurrying along the streets look smart. The whole place belongs to the workers… Here the masses have not in the least been

put in the shade by the gentlemen…those who lived in the background for ages have come forward in the open today… I thought of the peasants and workers in my own country. It all seemed like the work of the Genii in the Arabian Nights. [here] only a decade ago they were as illiterate, helpless and hungry as our own masses… Who could be more astonished than an unfortunate Indian like myself to see how they had removed the mountain of ignorance and helplessness in these few years.’

The Indo–Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation was a treaty signed between India and the Soviet Union in August 1971 that specified mutual strategic cooperation. The treaty was a significant deviation from India's previous position of non-alignment in the Cold War and in the prelude to the Bangladesh war, it was a key development in a situation of increasing Sino-American ties and American pressure. The treaty was later adopted to the Indo-Bangladesh Treaty of Friendship and cooperation in 1972.

The Treaty

The Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Co-operation, 9 August 1971

Desirous of expanding and consolidating the existing relations of sincere friendship between them,

The Russian Revolution : Extras IV

The Russian Revolution: Stalinism and Collectivisation

Stalinism and Collectivisation:

The period of the early Planned Economy was linked to the disasters of the collectivisation of agriculture. By 1927- 1928, the towns in Soviet Russia were facing an acute problem of grain supplies. The government fixed prices at which grain must be sold, but the peasants refused to sell their grain to government buyers at these prices.

Stalin, who headed the party after the death of Lenin, introduced firm emergency measures. He believed that rich peasants and traders in the countryside were holding stocks in the hope of higher prices. Speculation had to be stopped and supplies confiscated. In 1928, Party members toured the grain-producing areas, supervising enforced grain collections, and raiding ‘kulaks’ - the name for well to- do peasants. As shortages continued, the decision was taken to collectivise farms. It was argued that grain shortages were partly due to the small size of holdings. After 1917, land had been given over to peasants. These small-sized peasant farms could not be modernised. To develop modern farms, and run them along industrial lines with machinery, it was necessary to ‘eliminate kulaks’, take away land from peasants, and establish state-controlled large farms.

What followed was Stalin’s collectivisation programme. From 1929, the Party forced all peasants to cultivate in collective farms (kolkhoz). The bulk of land and implements were transferred to the ownership of collective farms. Peasants worked on the land, and the kolkhoz profit was shared. Enraged peasants resisted the authorities and destroyed their livestock. Between 1929 and 1931, the number of cattle fell by one-third. Those who resisted collectivisation were severely punished. Many were deported (Forcibly removed from one’s own country) and exiled (Forced to live away from one.s own country). As they resisted collectivisation, peasants argued that they were not rich and they were not against socialism. They merely did not want to work in collective farms for a variety of reasons. Stalin’s government allowed some independent cultivation, but treated such cultivators unsympathetically.

In spite of collectivisation, production did not increase immediately. In fact, the bad harvests of 1930-1933 led to one of most devastating famines in Soviet history when over 4 million died.

Many within the Party criticised the confusion in industrial production under the Planned Economy and the consequences of collectivisation. Stalin and his sympathisers charged these critics with conspiracy against socialism. Accusations were made throughout the country, and by 1939, over 2 million were in prisons or labour camps. Most were innocent of the crimes, but no one spoke for them. A large number were forced to make false confessions under torture and were executed . several among them were talented professionals.

Official view of the opposition to collectivisation and the government response

‘From the second half of February of this year, in various regions of the Ukraine …..mass insurrections of the peasantry have taken place, caused by distortions of the Party’s line by a section of the lower ranks of the Party and the Soviet apparatus in the course of the introduction of collectivisation and preparatory work for the spring harvest.

Within a short time, large scale activities from the above-mentioned regions carried over into neighbouring areas- and the most aggressive insurrections have taken place near the border.

The greater part of the peasant insurrections have been linked with outright demands for the return of collectivised stocks of grain, livestock and tools…

Between 1st February and 15th March, 25,000 have been arrested…. 656 have been executed, 3673 have been imprisoned in labour camps and 5580 exiled….’

Report of K.M. Karlson, President of the State Police Administration of the Ukraine

to the Central Committee of the Communist Party, on 19 March 1930.

From: V. Sokolov (ed), Obshchestvo I Vlast, v 1930-ye gody

This is a letter written by a peasant who did not want to join the collective farm.

To the newspaper Krestianskaia  Gazeta (Peasant Newspaper)

‘.. I am a natural working peasant born in 1879… there are 6 members in my family, my wife was born in 1881, my son is 16, two daughters 19, all three go to school, my sister is 71. From 1932, heavy taxes have been levied on me that I have found impossible. From 1935, local authorities have increased the taxes on me… and I was unable to handle them and all my property was registered:

my horse, cow, calf, sheep with lambs, all my implements, furniture and my reserve of wood for repair of buildings and they sold the lot for the taxes. In 1936, they sold two of my buildings… the kolkhoz bought them. In 1937, of two huts I had, one was sold and one was confiscated ..’

Afanasii Dedorovich Frebenev, an independent cultivator.

From: V. Sokolov (ed), Obshchestvo I Vlast, v 1930-ye gody.

The Russian Revolution: Extras III

The Russian Revolution: Making a Socialist Society

Making a Socialist Society:

During the civil war, the Bolsheviks kept industries and banks nationalised. They permitted peasants to cultivate the land that had been socialised. Bolsheviks used confiscated land to demonstrate what collective work could be.

A process of centralised planning was introduced. Officials assessed how the economy could work and set targets for a five-year period. On this basis they made the Five Year Plans. The government fixed all prices to promote industrial growth during the first two ‘Plans’(1927-1932 and 1933-1938).

In 1928 the New Economic Policy was replaced with a Five Year Plan. Stalin argued that 'either we do it, or we are crushed,' as Soviet industry lagged well behind the Western European states in terms of productivity and qality. The Five Year Plans created targets for all sectors of Industry. These were set and monitored by central government with a view to improving the industrial capacity of the Soviet Union. The Industrial targets involved heavy investment in mining and the extraction of raw materials from Russia's vast interior. It required massive movement of workers to sites designated as being primae areas for production of specific items and it meant an end to profit based prodction in factories and on farms. Farming also changed as part of this policy. From 1928 onwards farming was collectivised. This involved closing small holdings and combining them into massive, mechanised farms that were state controled. These should be more efficient, would lead to better education, training and use of technology and were intended to increase productivity and efficiency. Ideologicaly they were also more in line with socialism as the benefits of the new system would be felt by all.

Centralised planning led to economic growth. Industrial production increased (between 1929 and 1933 by 100 per cent in the case of oil, coal and steel). New factory cities came into being. However, rapid construction led to poor working conditions. In the city of Magnitogorsk, the construction of a steel plant was achieved in three years. Workers lived hard lives and the result was 550 stoppages of work in the first year alone. In living quarters, ‘in the wintertime, at 40 degrees below, people had to climb down from the fourth floor and dash across the street in order to go to the toilet’.

An extended schooling system developed, and arrangements were made for factory workers and peasants to enter universities. Crèches were established in factories for the children of women workers. Cheap public health care was provided. Model living quarters were set up for workers. The effect of all this was uneven, though, since government resources were limited.

Socialist Cultivation in a Village in the Ukraine

'A commune was set up using two [confiscated] farms as a base. The commune consisted of thirteen families with a total of seventy persons..... The farm tools taken from the.... farms were turned over to the commune.....The members ate in a communal dining hall and income was divided in accordance with the principles of "cooperative communism". The entire proceeds of the members' labor, as well as all dwellings and facilities belonging to the commune were shared by the commune members'.

Fedor Belov, The History of a Soviet Collective Farm (1955).

Dreams and Realities of a Soviet Childhood in 1933

Dear grandfather Kalinin…..

My family is large, there are four children. We don.t have a father- he died, fighting for the worker’s cause, and my mother…. is ailing…. I want to study very much, but I cannot go to school. I had some old boots, but they are completely torn and no one can mend them. My mother is sick, we have no money and no bread, but I want to study very much. …..there stands before us the task of studying, studying and studying. That is what Vladimir Ilich Lenin said. But I have to stop going to school. We have no relatives and there is no one to help us, so I have to go to work in a factory, to prevent the family from starving. Dear grandfather, I am 13, I study well and have no bad reports. I am in Class 5…..

Letter of 1933 from a 13-year-old worker to Kalinin, Soviet President

From: V. Sokolov (ed), Obshchestvo I Vlast, v 1930-ye gody (Moscow, 1997).
Reference:

http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/gcse/russia/a1_developmentofcommunistrule.htm#.Vh0V9eynJUE

The Russian Revolution: The Civil War

The Civil War:
When the Bolsheviks ordered land redistribution, the Russian army began to break up. Soldiers, mostly peasants, wished to go home for the redistribution and deserted. Non-Bolshevik socialists, liberals and supporters of autocracy condemned the Bolshevik uprising. Their leaders moved to south Russia and organised troops to fight the Bolsheviks (the ‘reds’). During 1918 and 1919, the .greens. (Socialist Revolutionaries) and .whites. (pro-Tsarists) controlled most of the Russian empire. They were backed by French, American, British and Japanese troops . all those forces who were worried at the growth of socialism in Russia. As these troops and the Bolsheviks fought a civil war, looting, banditry and famine became common.

Supporters of private property among .whites. took harsh steps with peasants who had seized land. Such actions led to the loss of popular support for the non-Bolsheviks. By January 1920, the Bolsheviks controlled most of the former Russian empire. They succeeded due to cooperation with non-Russian nationalities and Muslim jadidists. Cooperation did not work where Russian colonists themselves turned Bolshevik. In Khiva, in Central Asia, Bolshevik colonists brutally massacred local nationalists in the name of defending socialism. In this situation, many were confused about what the Bolshevik government represented. Partly to remedy this, most non-Russian nationalities were given political autonomy in the Soviet Union (USSR) . the state the Bolsheviks created from the Russian empire in December 1922. But since this was combined with unpopular policies that the Bolsheviks forced the local government to follow - like the harsh discouragement of nomadism (Lifestyle of those who do not live in one place but move from area to area to earn their living)- attempts to win over different nationalities were only partly successful.

Central Asia of the October Revolution: Two Views

M.N.Roy was an Indian revolutionary, a founder of the Mexican Communist Party and prominent Comintern leader in India, China and Europe. He was in Central Asia at the time of the civil war in the 1920s. He wrote:

‘The chieftain was a benevolent old man; his attendant…… a youth who….. spoke Russian….. He had heard of the Revolution, which had overthrown the Tsar and driven away the Generals who conquered the homeland of the Kirgiz. So, the Revolution meant that the Kirgiz were masters of their home again. “Long Live the Revolution” shouted the Kirgiz youth who seemed to be a born Bolshevik. The whole tribe joined’.

M.N.Roy, Memoirs (1964).

‘The Kirghiz welcomed the first revolution (ie February Revolution) with joy and the second revolution with consternation and terror….. [This] first revolution freed them from the oppression of the Tsarist regime and strengthened their hope that… autonomy would be realised. The second revolution (October Revolution) was accompanied by violence, pillage, taxes and the establishment of dictatorial power ….. Once a small group of Tsarist bureaucrats oppressed the Kirghiz. Now the same group of people….. perpetuate the same regime ....’

Kazakh  leader  in  1919,  quoted in Alexander Bennigsen and Chantal Quelquejay, Les Mouvements Nationaux chez les Musulmans de Russie, (1960).

Biological Modeling

Modeling Biological Membranes with Circuit Boards and Measuring Electrical Signals in Axons: Student Laboratory Exercises

http://www.jove.com/video/2325/modeling-biological-membranes-with-circuit-boards-measuring

Neural Circuit Recording from an Intact Cockroach Nervous System

http://www.jove.com/video/50584/neural-circuit-recording-from-an-intact-cockroach-nervous-system

Recordings of Neural Circuit Activation in Freely Behaving Animals

The Russian Revolution : Extras II

The Russian Revolution : The Revolution of October 1917

The Revolution of October 1917:

As the conflict between the Provisional Government and the Bolsheviks grew, Lenin feared the Provisional Government would set up a dictatorship. In September, he began discussions for an uprising against the government. Bolshevik supporters in the army, soviets and factories were brought together.

On 16 October 1917, Lenin persuaded the Petrograd Soviet and the Bolshevik Party to agree to a socialist seizure of power. A Military Revolutionary Committee was appointed by the Soviet under Leon Trotskii to organise the seizure. The date of the event was kept a secret. The uprising began on 24 October. Sensing trouble, Prime Minister Kerenskii had left the city to summon troops. At dawn, military men loyal to the government seized the buildings of two Bolshevik newspapers. Pro-government troops were sent to take over telephone and telegraph offices and protect the Winter Palace. In a swift response, the Military Revolutionary Committee ordered its supporters to seize government offices and arrest ministers. Late in the day, the ship Aurora shelled the Winter Palace. Other vessels sailed down the Neva and took over various military points. By nightfall, the city was under the committee.s control and the ministers had surrendered. At a meeting of the All Russian Congress of Soviets in Petrograd, the majority approved the Bolshevik action. Uprisings took place in other cities. There was heavy fighting . especially in Moscow . but by December, the Bolsheviks controlled the Moscow-Petrograd area.

What Changed after October?

The Bolsheviks were totally opposed to private property. Most industry and banks were nationalised in November 1917. This meant that the government took over ownership and management. Land was declared social property and peasants were allowed to seize the land of the nobility. In cities, Bolsheviks enforced the partition of large houses according to family requirements. They banned the use of the old titles of aristocracy. To assert the change, new uniforms were designed for the army and officials, following a clothing competition organised in 1918 . when the Soviet hat (budeonovka) was chosen.

The Bolshevik Party was renamed the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik). In November 1917, the Bolsheviks conducted the elections to the Constituent Assembly, but they failed to gain majority support. In January 1918, the Assembly rejected Bolshevik measures and Lenin dismissed the Assembly. He thought the All Russian Congress of Soviets was more democratic than an assembly elected in uncertain conditions. In March 1918, despite opposition by their political allies, the Bolsheviks made peace with Germany at Brest Litovsk. In the years that followed, the Bolsheviks became the only party to participate in the elections to the All Russian Congress of Soviets, which became the Parliament of the country. Russia became a one-party state. Trade unions were kept under party control. The secret police (called the Cheka first, and later OGPU and NKVD) punished those who criticised the Bolsheviks. Many young writers and artists rallied to the Party because it stood for socialism and for change. After October 1917,

this led to experiments in the arts and architecture. But many became disillusioned because of the censorship the Party encouraged.

The October Revolution and the Russian Countryside: Two Views

News of the revolutionary uprising of October 25, 1917, reached the village the following day and was greeted with enthusiasm; to the peasants it meant free land and an end to the war. ...The day the news arrived, the landowner.s manor house was looted, his stock farms were .requisitioned. and his vast orchard was cut down and sold to the peasants for wood; all his far buildings were torn down and left in ruins while the land was distributed among the peasants who were prepared to live the new Soviet life..

From: Fedor Belov, The History of a Soviet Collective Farm

A member of a landowning family wrote to a relative about what happened at the estate:

.The .coup. happened quite painlessly, quietly and peacefully. .The first days were unbearable.. Mikhail Mikhailovich [the estate owner] was calm...The girls also.I must say the chairman behaves correctly and even politely. We were left two cows and two horses. The servants tell them all the time not to bother us. .Let them live. We vouch for their safety and property. We want them treated as humanely as possible...

.There are rumours that several villages are trying to evict the committees and return the estate to Mikhail Mikhailovich. I don.t know if this will happen, or if it.s good for us. But we rejoice that there is a conscience in our people....

From: Serge Schmemann, Echoes of a Native Land. Two Centuries of a Russian Village (1997).

The Russian Revolution : After February

After February:
Army officials, landowners and industrialists were influential in the Provisional Government. But the liberals as well as socialists among them worked towards an elected government. Restrictions on public meetings and associations were removed. ‘Soviet’, like the Petrograd Soviet, were set up everywhere, though no common system of election was followed.

In April 1917, the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia from his exile. He and the Bolsheviks had opposed the war since 1914. Now he felt it was time for soviets to take over power. He declared that the war be brought to a close, land be transferred to the peasants, and banks be nationalised. These three demands were Lenin’s ‘April Theses’. He also argued that the Bolshevik Party rename itself the Communist Party to indicate its new radical aims. Most others in the Bolshevik Party were initially surprised by the April Theses. They thought that the time was not yet ripe for a socialist revolution and the Provisional Government needed to be supported. But the developments of the subsequent months changed their attitude. Through the summer the workers’ movement spread. In industrial areas, factory committees were formed which began questioning the way industrialists ran their factories. Trade unions grew in number. Soldiers’ committees were formed in the army. In June, about 500 Soviets sent representatives to an All Russian Congress of Soviets. As the Provisional Government saw its power reduce and Bolshevik influence grow, it decided to take stern measures against the spreading discontent. It resisted attempts by workers to run factories and began arresting leaders. Popular demonstrations staged by the Bolsheviks in July 1917 were sternly repressed. Many Bolshevik leaders had to go into hiding or flee. Meanwhile in the countryside, peasants and their Socialist Revolutionary leaders pressed for a redistribution of land. Land committees were formed to handle this. Encouraged by the Socialist Revolutionaries, peasants seized land between July and September 1917.

Date of the Russian Revolution

Russia followed the Julian calendar until 1 February 1918. The country then changed to the Gregorian calendar, which is followed everywhere today. The Gregorian dates are 13 days ahead of the Julian dates. So by our calendar, the ‘February Revolution’ took place on 12th March and the .October. Revolution took place on 7th November.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution

[a.k.a. The April Theses]

Published: April 7, 1917 in Pravda No. 26.   Signed: N. Lenin. Published according to the newspaper text.
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1964, Moscow, Volume 24, pp. 19-26.
Translated: IsaacsBernard
Transcription: Zodiac
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2005), marx.org (1997), marxists.org (1999). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.

This article contains Lenin’s famous April Theses read by him at two meetings of the All-Russia Conference of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, on April 4, 1917.

[Introduction]

The Russian Revolution : The February Revolution in Petrograd

The February Revolution in Petrograd

In the winter of 1917, conditions in the capital, Petrograd, were grim. The layout of the city seemed to emphasise the divisions among its people. The workers’ quarters and factories were located on the right bank of the River Neva. On the left bank were the fashionable areas, the Winter Palace, and official buildings, including the palace where the Duma met. In February 1917, food shortages were deeply felt in the workers. quarters. The winter was very cold . there had been exceptional frost and heavy snow. Parliamentarians wishing to preserve elected government, were opposed to the Tsar’s desire to dissolve the Duma.

On 22 February, a lockout took place at a factory on the right bank. The next day, workers in fifty factories called a strike in sympathy. In many factories, women led the way to strikes.This came to be called the International Women’s Day. Demonstrating workers crossed from the factory quarters to the centre of the capital - the Nevskii Prospekt. At this stage, no political party was actively organising the movement. As the fashionable quarters and official buildings were surrounded by workers, the government imposed a curfew. Demonstrators dispersed by the evening, but they came back on the 24th and 25th. The government called out the cavalry and police to keep an eye on them.

On Sunday, 25 February, the government suspended the Duma. Politicians spoke out against the measure. Demonstrators returned in force to the streets of the left bank on the 26th. On the 27th, the Police Headquarters were ransacked. The streets thronged with people raising slogans about bread, wages, better hours and democracy. The government tried to control the situation and called out the cavalry once again. However, the cavalry refused to fire on the demonstrators. An officer was shot at the barracks of a regiment and three other regiments mutinied, voting to join the striking workers. By that evening, soldiers and striking workers had gathered to form a ‘soviet’ or ‘council’ in the same building as the Duma met. This was the Petrograd Soviet. The very next day, a delegation went to see the Tsar. Military commanders advised him to abdicate. He followed their advice and abdicated on 2 March. Soviet leaders and Duma leaders formed a Provisional Government to run the country. Russia.s future would be decided by a constituent assembly, elected on the basis of universal adult suffrage. Petrograd had led the February Revolution that brought down the monarchy in February 1917.

The Russian Revolution :The First World War and the Russian Empire

The First World War and the Russian Empire

In 1914, war broke out between two European alliances . Germany, Austria and Turkey (the Central powers) and France, Britain and Russia (later Italy and Romania). Each country had a global empire and the war was fought outside Europe as well as in Europe. This was the First World War. In Russia, the war was initially popular and people rallied around Tsar Nicholas II. As the war continued, though, the Tsar refused to consult the main parties in the Duma. Support wore thin. Anti-German sentiments ran high, as can be seen in the renaming of St Petersburg -a German name -as Petrograd. The Tsarina Alexandra.s German origins and poor advisers, especially a monk called Rasputin, made the autocracy unpopular.

The First World War on the ‘eastern front’ differed from that on the ‘western front’. In the west, armies fought from trenches stretched along eastern France. In the east, armies moved a good deal and fought battles leaving large casualties. Defeats were shocking and demoralizing. Russia’s armies lost badly in Germany and Austria between 1914 and 1916. There were over 7 million casualties by 1917. As they retreated, the Russian army destroyed crops and buildings to prevent the enemy from being able to live off the land. The destruction of crops and buildings led to over 3 million refugees in Russia. The situation discredited the government and the Tsar. Soldiers did not wish to fight such a war. The war also had a severe impact on industry. Russia’s own industries were few in number and the country was cut off from other suppliers of industrial goods by German control of the Baltic Sea. Industrial equipment disintegrated more rapidly in Russia than elsewhere in Europe. By 1916, railway lines began to break down. Able-bodied men were called up to the war. As a result, there were labour shortages and small workshops producing essentials were shut down. Large supplies of grain were sent to feed the army. For the people in the cities, bread and flour became scarce. By the winter of 1916, riots at bread shops were common.

The Russian Revolution Extars

April Theses:

The April Theses were a series of directives issued by the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin upon his return to Petrograd (Saint Petersburg), Russia from his exile in Austria via Germany and Finland. The Theses were mostly aimed at fellow Bolsheviks in Russia and returning to Russia from exile. He called for soviets (workers' councils) to take power (as seen in the slogan "all power to the soviets"), denounced liberals and social democrats in the Provisional Government, called for Bolsheviks not to cooperate with the government, and called for new communist policies. The April Theses influenced the July Days and October Revolution in the next months and are identified with Leninism. The April Theses were published in the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda and read by Lenin at two meetings of the All-Russia Conference of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, on 16 April 1917 (4 April according to the old Russian Calendar).

Pravda:

Pravda was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was one of the most influential papers in the country. A successor Russian political newspaper is today run by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, however it is greatly smaller in scope and remains obscure. The newspaper began publication in 1912 in the Russian Empire and emerged as a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union after the October Revolution. The newspaper was an organ of the Central Committee of the CPSU between 1912 and 1991.

After the dissolution of the USSR, Pravda was sold off by Russian President Boris Yeltsin. As was the fate of many of the Soviet-era enterprises Pravda suffered a downturn and was sold to a Greek business family. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation acquired the newspaper in 1997 and established it as its principal mouthpiece. Pravda is still functioning from the same headquarters on Pravda Street in Moscow where it was published in the Soviet days. During its heyday Pravda was selling millions of copies per day compared to the current print run of just one hundred thousand copies.

During the Cold War, Pravda was well known in the West for its pronouncements as the official voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. (Similarly Izvestia was the official voice of the Soviet government.)

Pravda was closed down for a brief period on July 30, 1996. Some of Pravda‍ '​s journalists established their own English language online newspaper known as Pravda Online. Pravda is witnessing hard times and the number of its staff members and print run has been significantly reduced. During the Soviet era it was a daily newspaper but today it publishes three times a week.

Pravda still operates from the same headquarters at Pravda Street from where journalists used to prepare Pravda everyday during the Soviet era. It operates under the leadership of journalist Boris Komotsky. A function was organized by the CPRF on 5 July 2012 to celebrate the 100 years of Pravda.

The Russian Revolution: 1905

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A Turbulent Time: The 1905 Revolution

Russia was an autocracy. Unlike other European rulers, even at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Tsar was not subject to parliament. The Revolution of 1905 was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire, some of which was directed at the government. It led to Constitutional Reform including the establishment of the State Duma of the Russian Empire, the multi-party system, and the Russian Constitution of 1906.

According to the author Sidney Harcave, who wrote The Russian Revolution of 1905, there were four problems in Russian society at the time that contributed to the revolution: the agrarian problem, the nationality problem, the labour problem, and the educated class problem (http://thoughtcrackers.blogspot.in/2015/10/russian-revolution-economy-and-society.html). Taken individually, these issues may not have affected the course of Russian history, but combined, the problems created the conditions for a potential revolution. 

At the start of the 20th century, Russian progressives formed the Union of Zemstvo Constitutionalists (1903) and the Union of Liberation (1904) which called for a constitutional monarchy. Russian socialists formed two major groups: the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, following the Russian populist tradition, and the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Liberals in Russia campaigned to end this state of affairs. Together with the Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries; they worked with peasants and workers during the revolution of 1905 to demand a constitution. They were supported in the empire by nationalists (in Poland for instance) and in Muslim-dominated areas by jadidists (Muslims within the Russian empire) who wanted Islam to lead their societies. The year 1904 was a particularly bad one for Russian workers. Prices of essential goods rose so quickly that real wages (Reflects the quantities of goods which the wages will actually buy) declined by 20 %. The membership of workers’ associations rose dramatically. When four members of the Assembly of Russian Workers, which had been formed in 1904, were dismissed at the Putilov Iron Works, there was a call for industrial action. Over the next few days over 110,000 workers in St Petersburg went on strike demanding a reduction in the working day to eight hours, an increase in wages and improvement in working conditions. In 1904, massive strike waves broke out in Odessa in the spring, Kiev in July, and Baku in December. This all set the stage for the strikes in St. Petersburg in December 1904 to January 1905 seen as the first step in the 1905 revolution.

Start of the revolution:

In December 1904, a strike occurred at the Putilov plant (a railway and artillery supplier) in St. Petersburg. Sympathy strikes in other parts of the city raised the number of strikers to 150,000 workers in 382 factories. By 21 January [O.S. 8 January] 1905, the city had no electricity and newspaper distribution was halted. All public areas were declared closed.

 In the pre-dawn winter darkness of the morning of Sunday, 22 January [O.S. 9 January] 1905, Controversial Orthodox priest Georgy Gapon, who headed a police-sponsored workers' association, led striking workers and their families began to gather at six points in the industrial outskirts of St Petersburg to the Winter Palace to deliver a petition to the Tsar. Holding religious icons and singing hymns and patriotic songs (particularly "God Save the Tsar!"), a crowd of "more than 3,000" proceeded without police interference towards the Winter Palace, the Tsar's official residence. The crowd, whose mood was quiet, did not know that the Tsar was not in residence. Insofar as there was firm planning, the intention was for the various columns of marchers to converge in front of the palace at about 2pm. Estimates of the total numbers involved range wildly from police figures of 3,000 to organizers' claims of 50,000. Initially it was intended that women, children and elderly workers should lead, to emphasize the united nature of the demonstration. On reflection however, younger men moved to the front to make up the leading ranks. The troops guarding the Winter Palace were ordered to tell the demonstrators not to pass a certain point, according to Sergei Witte, and at some point, troops opened fire on the demonstrators, resulting in between 200 (according to Witte) to 1000 deaths.

The incident, known as Bloody Sunday, started a series of events that became known as the 1905 Revolution. Strikes took place all over the country and universities closed down when student bodies staged walkouts, complaining about the lack of civil liberties. Lawyers, doctors, engineers and other middle-class workers established the Union of Unions and demanded a constituent assembly.

Half of European Russia's industrial workers went on strike in 1905, and 93.2% in Poland. There were also strikes in Finland and the Baltic coast. In Riga, 80 protesters were killed on 26 January [O.S 13 January] 1905, and in Warsaw a few days later over 100 strikers were shot on the streets. By February, there were strikes in the Caucasus, and by April, in the Urals and beyond. In March, all higher academic institutions were forcibly closed for the remainder of the year, adding radical students to the striking workers. A strike by railway workers on 21 October [O.S. 8 October] 1905 quickly developed into a general strike in Saint Petersburg and Moscow.

With the unsuccessful and bloody Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) there was unrest in army reserve units. In 1905, there were naval mutinies at Sevastopol, Vladivostok, and Kronstadt, peaking in June with the mutiny aboard the battleship Potemkin. The mutinies were disorganised and quickly crushed. Despite these mutinies, the armed forces were largely apolitical and remained mostly loyal, if dissatisfied — and were widely used by the government to control the 1905 unrest.

Nationalist groups had been angered by the Russification undertaken since Alexander II. The Poles, Finns, and the Baltic provinces all sought autonomy, and also freedom to use their national languages and promote their own culture. Muslim groups were also active — the First Congress of the Muslim Union took place in August 1905. Certain groups took the opportunity to settle differences with each other rather than the government. Some nationalists undertook anti-Jewish pogroms, possibly with government aid, and in total over 3,000 Jews were killed.

The number of prisoners throughout the Russian Empire, which had peaked at 116,376 in 1893, fell by over a third to a record low of 75,009 in January 1905, chiefly because of several mass amnesties granted by the Tsar after October manifesto.

On 12 January the Tsar appointed Dmitri Feodorovich Trepov as governor in St Petersburg and dismissed the Minister of the Interior, Pyotr Sviatopolk-Mirskii, on 18 February [O.S. 5 February] 1905. He appointed a government commission "to enquire without delay into the causes of discontent among the workers in the city of St Petersburg and its suburbs" in view of the strike movement. It was also meant to have included workers’ delegates elected according to a two-stage system. Elections of the workers delegates were, however, blocked by the socialists who wanted to divert the workers from the elections to the armed struggle. On 5 March [O.S. 20 February] 1905, the Commission was dissolved without having started work.

Following the assassination of his uncle, the Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich, on 17 February [O.S. 4 February] 1905, the Tsar agreed to give new concessions. On 18 February [O.S. 5 February] 1905, he published the Bulygin Rescript, which promised the formation of a consultative assembly, religious tolerance, freedom of speech (in the form of language rights for the Polish minority) and a reduction in the peasants' redemption payments.

On 6 June [O.S. 24 May] 1905, Tsar had received a Zemstvo deputation. Tsar confirmed his promise to convene an assembly of people’s representatives.

The October Manifesto , written by Sergei Witte and Alexis Obolenskii, was presented to the Tsar on 14 October  [O.S. 1 October]. It closely followed the demands of the Zemstvo Congress in September, granting basic civil rights, allowing the formation of political parties, extending the franchise towards universal suffrage, and establishing the Duma as the central legislative body. The Tsar waited and argued for three days, but finally signed the manifesto on 30 October [O.S.17 October] 1905, citing his desire to avoid a massacre and his realisation that there was insufficient military force available to pursue alternate options. He regretted signing the document, saying that he felt "sick with shame at this betrayal of the dynasty ... the betrayal was complete".

When the manifesto was proclaimed, there were spontaneous demonstrations of support in all the major cities. The strikes in Saint Petersburg and elsewhere officially ended or quickly collapsed. A political amnesty was also offered. The concessions came hand-in-hand with renewed, and brutal, action against the unrest. There was also a backlash from the conservative elements of society, with right-wing attacks on strikers, left-wingers, and Jews.
(October Manifesto: http://thoughtcrackers.blogspot.in/2015/10/the-russian-revolution-1905-revolution.html)

Results of 1905 Revolution:

During the 1905 Revolution, the Tsar allowed the creation of an elected consultative Parliament or Duma. For a brief while during the revolution, there existed a large number of trade unions and factory committees made up of factory workers. After 1905, most committees and unions worked unofficially, since they were declared illegal. Severe restrictions were placed on political activity.

October Manifesto:

The October Manifesto served as a precursor to the Constitution of 1906. It was reluctantly put into place by Tsar Nicholas II who was convinced by Sergei Witte that it was necessary. Not only was it necessary, but it is what finally stopped the 1905 Revolution and kept Nicholas II in power for 12 more years. The opposition against the Tsar government was far too strong to not have a manifesto written to attempt to quell uprising. Witte was a strong proponent of a constitutional monarchy, an elected parliament, and enumerated rights and freedoms within the constitution. 

Creation of Duma and Stolypin:

The First Duma was created to be the lower house, with the upper house being the Council of State which was appointed. The composition of the First Duma was 48.1% peasants and 36.7% nobles. Peasants had more representation than the nobility, and were able to use that to their advantage to show discontent and be problematic towards authority. Both houses were needed to meet and agree on laws before they could go to the Tsar, and the Tsar had absolute veto power.

The Duma's framework and power as controlled by the government issued Fundamental Law (Constitution of 1906), which retained most of the important functions of government to the Tsar. 

The Duma proved to be an ineffective institution with the Tsar still always having an upper hand in control and power, and it could be dissolved and recalled by the Tsar at any time, both of which were often executed. Tsar dismissed the first Duma within 75 days and the re-elected second Duma within three months.

In 1907, another manifesto was written by the tsar to revise election law in the Duma, allowing for extreme manipulation by the tsar to determine who was in the Duma. While the election framework of the Duma is one that allowed for gerrymandering, the Duma was used as a platform for those elected to have an opinion and have some ground in Russia’s bureaucracy that the autocratic Tsar had to deal with. 

The Third and Fourth Dumas also had very little to say for themselves, and the Duma existed until 1917 with the end of the Russian empire. Tsar did not want any questioning of his authority or any reduction in his power. He changed the voting laws and packed the third Duma with conservative politicians. Liberals and revolutionaries were kept out.

Party	First Duma	Second Duma	Third Duma	Fourth Duma
Russian Social Democratic Party	18 (Mensheviks)	47 (Mensheviks)	19 (Bolsheviks)	15 (Bolsheviks)
Socialist-Revolutionary Party	–	37	–	–
Labour group	136	104	13	10
Progressist Party	27	28	28	41
Constitutional Democratic Party(Kadets)	179	92	52	57
Non-Russian National Groups	121	–	26	21
Centre Party	–	–	–	33
Octobrist Party	17	42	154	95
Nationalists	60	93	26	22
Rightists	8	10	147	154
TOTAL	566	453	465	448

Russian Constitution of 1906:

The Russian Constitution of 1906 was published on the eve of the convocation of the First Duma. The new Fundamental Law was enacted to institute promises of the October Manifesto as well as add new reforms. The Tsar was confirmed as absolute leader, with complete control of the executive, foreign policy, church, and the armed forces. The structure of the Duma was changed, becoming a lower chamber below the Council of Ministers, and was half-elected, half-appointed by the Tsar. Legislation had to be approved by the Duma, the Council, and the Tsar to become law. The introduction of the constitution states (and thus emphasizes) this:

• The Russian State is one and indivisible.
• The Grand Duchy of Finland, while comprising as inseparable part of the Russian State, is governed in its internal affairs by special decrees based on special legislation.
• The Russian language is the common language of the state, and its use is compulsory in the army, in the navy and in all state and public institutions. The use of local (regional) languages and dialects in state and public institutions are determined by special legislation.

Through the Constitution’s introduction, it makes no mention of any of the provisions of the October Manifesto. While it did enact the provisions laid out previously, its sole purpose seems again to be to propaganda for the monarchy and to simply not fall back on prior promises. The Constitution lasted until the fall of the empire in 1917, and the provisions coupled with the autocratic rule of the Tsar even under the new constitutional monarchy were never enough for Russians and Lenin.

Rise of terrorism: