By China Miéville
Published by Verso 2017
Reviewed by Steve Halpern
One of the problems in studying the Russian Revolution is coming to grips with the reality workers and farmers faced in Czarist Russia in 1917. Clearly, beginning to understand any period of history is challenging because the environment of the past is completely different from our experience.
However, there has been so much misinformation about the Russian Revolution, getting the basic facts about what happened can be difficult. In order to begin to see the reality of the past, I believe the reader needs to understand that there are fundamental problems in the world today.
Leon Trotsky was a leader of the Russian Revolution, and he wrote a three-volume history of what happened. Since Trotsky was both a leader and a participant in the revolution, his analysis is invaluable. Trotsky didn’t just report on the facts He gave a perspective demonstrating why the masses of workers had an iron will to do whatever was necessary to bring about profound change.
In China Miéville’s history of the Revolution, he uncovered information that has been gathered over the years. These facts introduce us to a bit more of the background to the events of what happened. While I believe that Trotsky’s history of the Revolution is essential reading, Miéville’s history gives important information allowing the reader to get a more rounded feel for why the Revolution erupted.
So, in order to begin to see why this history is important, we need to look at the environment the workers and farmers of Czarist Russia faced in 1917.
The background to the Russian Revolution
Czarist Russia had the largest land mass of any nation in the world at that time. That entire empire consisted of many nations with different languages. The many nations that weren’t Russian endured the most brutal repression. This entire region was ruled by a feudal monarch known as the Czar.
The Czar had absolute power that included the right to establish or abolish the Russian parliament known as the Duma. Recently there have been mass demonstrations protesting murders by the police of George Floyd and others. In Czarist Russia, the police had absolute power. This meant they had the power to murder, rape, or assault at will. In fact, the Czar supported the group known as the Black Hundreds who carried out pogroms where they murdered thousands of Jews.
The vast majority of people who lived in Czarist Russia were peasants. This majority worked for the owners of estates in slave-like conditions. The owners of those estates had the right to beat peasants with the Russian stick known as the knout. They also had the right to murder peasants in a system where they had absolute authority. However, in 1917 this highly repressive environment began to change.
The Czar also supported the secret police known as the Okhrana. Okhrana agents routinely attended political meetings. These agents arranged for the arrest of many political activists for merely attending political meetings and saying things critical to the Czar.
Starting in 1914, Russia went to war against Germany. Because the allied powers had massive investments in Russia, the Czar supported the war against Germany in WWI. About two-million soldiers died fighting for the Czar in the war. Millions of soldiers experienced the filth of rat-infested fox holes as well as poisonous gas used by the German military. Those soldiers lacked sufficient supplies of food, clothing, and ammunition.
Because Russia was a relatively underdeveloped nation, this massive war effort caused extreme shortages to the population and there was widespread famine. Infants died because there was no food for their mothers, so the mothers had no breast milk. Because of the millions of soldiers who died in the war, thousands of orphans roamed the streets. While all this was happening, Czar Nicholas demanded that the soldiers continue fighting in a war that they could not win.
Faced with this reality, in February of 1917 Russian workers went on strike in most of the factories in the capital Petrograd. Other Russian cities also experienced strike waves. This strike wasn’t just about ideological disagreements with the Czar or demands for wage increases. The workers who went on strike demanded fundamental change and they wanted this immediately.
The first obstacle of these workers were the mounted soldiers known as the Cossacks. In 1905, the Cossacks murdered thousands of people for merely participating in a demonstration in Petrograd. However, in 1917 most Cossacks were tired of the war and didn’t see striking workers as their enemy. At first, most Cossacks refused to attack the demonstrators. Then they opened fire and murdered police officers who were attacking the strikers.
Once the strikers understood that they were victorious in the initial skirmishes, they arrested the Czar and took control of all the city services. The workers organized themselves in councils or Soviets that had been active for many years.
In the initial stages of the Revolution, there was support for giving power to the parliament or Duma. The attitude was that the Duma had been elected and the individuals who held office would support the demands of the people. However, the workers also maintained the Soviets who controlled most of the military, transportation, as well as manufacturing. The Soviets won the support from the peasantry that represented the vast majority of the nation.
Alexander Kerensky and the Provisional Government
One of the strong parts of parts of Miéville’s book was his description of the evolution of Alexander Kerensky who was the President of both the Duma and the Soviets. Kerensky was an eloquent speaker. The problem was that his political perspective was the exact opposite of what the workers and farmers were demanding.
Kerensky promoted a perspective that continued to support capitalist property relations. Initially the government abolished the police who became brutal enemies of the majority of the population. There were also minimum reforms.
However, Kerensky refused to take the extreme measures of giving food to the people, distributing land to the peasants, and ending the war. In fact, he advocated for a new Russian military offensive that proved to be a disaster.
So, as the crisis in Russia continued, Kerensky made an alliance with General Lavr Kornilov. Kornilov’s idea was to mobilize the more conservative wing of the armed forces to invade Petrograd, defeat the revolutionary forces, and declare martial law. Kerensky began to understand that if this happened, Kornilov would eventually arrest and execute him. So, he alerted the city to the invasion.
At that time the Bolshevik Party headed by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was gaining support within the industrial districts and the military. Their demands were Peace, Bread, and Land. So, at this time the Bolsheviks were primarily responsible for defeating Kornilov’s invasion.
When Kornilov’s troops travelled by rail to Petrograd, the rail workers destroyed the tracks and left the soldiers stranded. Then the Bolsheviks organized to talk to the soldiers. They spoke about how the revolution was demanding an end to the war, land for the peasants, as well as bread for the people. Using this approach Kornilov’s invasion was defeated without firing a shot and Kornilov was placed under house arrest.
Lenin returns to Russia
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin spent years outside Russia working to organize the Bolsheviks to oppose the repressive policies of his homeland. When the February Revolution erupted Lenin was living in Switzerland. He and other revolutionaries managed to organize to return to Petrograd.
At that time the Bolsheviks were in support of the Provisional Government. Lenin began to understand that the Provisional Government would not make any of the profound changes the people were demanding. So, he called for “All Power to the Soviets” and “Peace, Bread, and Land.”
Since these were new demands, Lenin felt that the most effective way to advance was to patiently explain what the issues were, and how the Provisional Government was adamantly opposed to the demands of the people.
As Kerensky and the government ministers organized to continue the war, they put out an arrest warrant for Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and other leading Bolsheviks. In the United States, Eugene Debs was one of the socialists who served time in prison for opposing U.S. participation in the First World War. Trotsky served a short time in prison, while Lenin went into hiding. While the government worked to isolate the Bolsheviks, their perspective was gaining support.
There was an uprising in July of the workers, but Lenin felt that the workers and peasants were not prepared to take power. General Kornilov attempted to take advantage of the relative lull in activity by preparing for his invasion of Petrograd.
When Lenin saw how the Bolsheviks were the primary organization that organized workers to defend the city, he began to call for a revolution to take power from the Provisional Government.
At that time most of the Bolsheviks were working to establish a compromise with the government. The government finally agreed to the concept of peace, bread, and land, but the people didn’t trust the members of government to carry out these reforms.
So, Lenin took a chance and put on a disguise so he would not be arrested. He joined with the Bolsheviks and argued for the seizure of power. Once the Bolsheviks organized, there was little resistance to ousting the government. The masses in the cities became enraged at the decisions by the government ministers who refused to grant the demands of the people.
Why a Revolution?
Today many pro-capitalist authors argue that the October Revolution was undemocratic. They say that since the Provisional Government ministers were elected, the October Revolution was an undemocratic coup organized by the Bolsheviks. In my opinion, that argument ignores the facts of much of human history.
We might consider that revolutionary movements usually have few resources. The ruling powers have the police, the army, the news media, the government, and the courts. Revolutionary movements, in essence, have the idea that things must change. Masses of people support that idea, and this is the basis for all revolutions.
Clearly, I support the right to vote. That right came about with the end of feudalism and the beginnings of capitalism. However, voting only reinforces the political economic system that people are living with.
Thomas Jefferson identified why a revolution was necessary to establish the United States in the Declaration of Independence. He argued that people will endure injustices for long periods of time. But when there is a “long train of abuses” that results in “despotism” the people not only have a right, but a “duty” to throw off the old power and establish new guards for their “security.”
Leon Trotsky made a similar observation in his three volume History of the Russian Revolution. Trotsky argued that the Russian Revolution didn’t happen only because there was a crisis in Russia in 1917. He argued that the hostility of the Russian masses to the ruling powers in Czarist Russia had been building for many years. The events of 1917 reached a point of despotism that became intolerable for most Russian workers, farmers, and soldiers.
Any study of the Russian Revolution needs to come to grips with the fact that Joseph Stalin organized a betrayal of the goals of the revolution. He also created a campaign leading to the execution of most of the leaders of the Revolution. Today Vladimir Putin is openly hostile to the political orientation of Lenin. His criminal invasion of Ukraine is clear evidence of that.
China Miéville gives an analogy that summarizes his thinking on the Revolution. He argued that Lenin’s political perspective was the only rational way for the nation to move out of the crisis of 1917. Yet, he also argues how that road inevitably led to the betrayal by Stalin. He argues that today we need to study the Russian Revolution because it is relevant to all movements that demand profound change.
Well, I take a different approach. For me, the Russian Revolution teaches us how the working class has the potential to take power.
We might ask another question. Would the Russian Revolution have been possible without the contributions of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels? Clearly Lenin based his theoretical orientation on his writings of Marx and Engels. Any rational reading of the Russian Revolution has to conclude that Lenin played a pivotal role in the Bolsheviks coming to power.
So, for me the example of the Russian Revolution continues to be with us. It demonstrated that it is indeed possible for a revolutionary workers government to come to power and maintain that power. Today we see how, in spite of all its difficulties, the Cuban revolutionary government continues that legacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment