BREAD, PEACE, AND LANDThe Russian Revolution

Of all the Great Powers in 1914, Russia was the least able to fight a prolonged war

Although the country was rich in natural resources, industrialization remained far behind other major nations in Europe

Russia’s political institutions were even weaker than its economy

Tsar Nicholas II was supreme, and all cabinet members served at his pleasure

The legislative body, the Duma, was packed with his cronies

Nicholas’ wife, Alexandra, was German by birth, and throughout the conflict people suspected her of favoring the Central Powers

In 1914, Russia was hardly prepared for war

Just nine years earlier Russia had been defeated in a war with tiny Japan

The Revolution of 1905, when revolts and uprisings had forced the Tsar to concede civil rights and a parliament to the Russian people, had also shaken the empire

Russia's hopes were dashed early in the Great War

At Tannenberg and the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes, in 1914, Russia lost two entire armies (over 250,000 men)

Adding to losses on the front, a strange religious sectarian, Grigory Rasputin, had gained great influence over the royal family

Through hypnosis, he was able to control the hemophilia of the Tsar’s son

Alexandra was convinced that Rasputin enjoyed some divine power

Actually, he disguised his real character, for he much preferred vodka to prayer

Rasputin made both political and military decisions that did great harm to the prestige of the monarchy

To be rid of him, in December 1916 a group of officers succeeded in shooting Rasputin and threw his body, not quite lifeless, into a river

Despite many obstacles, the Russian army fought well in the first months of the war

Then serious shortages of munitions developed

Many of its junior officers died because tradition demanded that they lead the troops in an attack

In June 1917 General Alexander Brusilov launched an offensive on the eastern front

The Russian general staff planned that it should force the Austro-Hungarian army out of the war

However, the Habsburg armies did not disintegrate

Discouraged at their failure, many Russian soldiers decided that they had enough of the war, and they went back to their villages

As Russia’s military capacity disintegrated, the capital, with its new name Petrograd, filled with rumors of treason and corruption

There was nothing in the stores and nothing in the shops to buy; there was no work for the workers in the factories

In March 1917 a riot broke out when people demanded food, and army units, called in to suppress the rioters, joined them

Russian generals sent a message to the tsar: to restore confidence he must abdicate

Reluctantly Nicholas complied

In Petrograd the capital’s military and civil servants, doctors, lawyers, and professionals set up a Provisional Government

Unfortunately, those who set policy for the Provisional Government believed the war could still be won

They refused to recognize that the situation was hopeless

From the very moment of its creation, the Provisional Government had to share power with councils, soviets, that sprung up in Petrograd

The leaders of the soviets were inspired by Marxist doctrine

They recognized the possibility that the sorry state of the nation opened a window of opportunity for putting that doctrine into practice

The soviets formed a government with its own officials, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies

But not all was peace and harmony within the Soviet

The majority were members of the Social Revolutionaries, but other smaller groups existed

Their size did nothing to keep them quiet

The Bolsheviks were one faction of the Social Democrats

Mensheviks made up the other wing of the party

Ironically bolshevik means the majority and menshevik, the minority, but in actual numbers the Bolsheviks were the smaller of the two

When the war started, most Bolshevik leaders were in jail or in exile

They drifted back to Russia as soon as the Provisional Government came to power

The most prominent of the Bolshevik leaders were Nikolai Lenin and Leon Trotsky

Both Lenin and Trotsky planned to bring about a socialist revolution now

While others wrangled and debated endlessly what should be done, the Bolsheviks urged immediate action

That action contained three elements: peace at once, bread for everyone, and land to the peasants

For millions of Russians, the Bolshevik program seemed to offer a solution to the chaos and military that beset their country

After one more failed offensive ordered by the Provisional Government, the Bolsheviks were ready to act

On November 7, 1917, the Red Guards, the military arm of the Bolsheviks, burst through the gates of Petrograd’s Winter Palace, scattering the Provisional Government’s officials to the wind

Said Lenin, “I feel dizzy” With the government now in his hands, Lenin

had to deliver on the promises He contacted the Germans with a promise

that Russia was ready to talk peace

The two sides met at the border town of Brest-Litovsk

The Bolsheviks negotiator was Trotsky

When the Germans presented their demands, they stunned Trotsky by demanding that Finland, the Baltic states, Belarus, Poland, Ukraine, and Bessarabia become independent

In agreeing to these terms, Bolshevik Russia would have to start its existence with the loss of a third of its population and farmland, a fourth of its railroads, four-fifths of its iron ore, and 90% of its coal production

Trotsky believed that these terms were so harsh that he refused to sign a treaty with the comment that “There will be neither war nor peace”

He returned to report to the Bolshevik leadership

After months of debate, for Lenin was convinced that Russia had to have peace no matter the price, the Bolshevik government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

Russia’s travail was not over The Bolsheviks were only a small

minority among the population as a whole

Other parties resented Lenin’s high-handed operations and began to resist

Generals and their armies, once loyal to the tsar, were unlikely prospects for recruitment to the Bolshevik cause

Liberal democrats, members of the Social Revolutionary Party, Orthodox churchmen, and a host of others openly urged the overthrow of the Bolshevik regime

Russia plunged into civil war

The contest was between the Bolshevik government and its Red Army, organized by Trotsky, and the Whites, the opposition

Outside Russia, the Allied governments viewed events with great apprehension

First, Russia had withdrawn from the war, easing the pressures on Germany because it no longer was required to fight a two-front war

Second, the prospect of a nation as large as Russia in the hands of revolutionaries appeared truly frightening

On the excuse that military supplies might be diverted to the Germans, troops of Britain, France, the United States, and Japan took up positions in Russian port cities

Foreign intervention in the civil war gave Lenin the excuse he needed to brand his enemies as traitors to Russia

Allied intervention, meant to strengthen the whites, ended up a burden

Both Red and White armies fought with appalling ferocity

Anyone thought to be on the side of the enemy was arrested, imprisoned, and frequently shot

The tsar and his family suffered that fate

Nicholas, Alexandra, and their children were placed under house arrest and then executed, on the suspicion that they might try to escape

The new state of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics now appeared

It was the work of Nikolai Lenin and his Bolshevik Party

In 1921 the party took the name Communist

Soon this state became the most totalitarian nation in all Europe

By 1921 the Communists routed their enemies on the battlefield

The White forces, never able to work together, collapsed before the communist Red Army

Because Lenin knew well that there was still a great deal of opposition to Communist rule, he gave the secret police, the Cheka, a free hand to search out dissenters

The result was mass executions, imprisonment of tens of thousands, and the flight of millions

Such was the fate of all whom the Communists defined as counterrevolutionaries

Similar to the Fascists in Italy, the party made policy, and the government simply carried out its decisions

In the Soviet Union, however, the terror and efficiency of the Communists far surpassed the Fascists at their worst

The Russian Orthodox church lost all its property, and its patriarch was jailed

Its bishops were executed or sent to Arctic labor camps, and its priest were denied citizenship

Political leaders of prewar Russia suffered the same fate

All Soviet life came under the management of the state

Workers and farmers were enlisted into communist-led organizations

Ironically, Soviet legislation forbade strikes, although according to Marxist theory, the factory worker was the supreme model of the new Soviet man and woman

Lenin dominated the executive committee of the party, as head of the Politburo

As long as Lenin was alive, no one dared challenge him

In 1923, however, Lenin suffered a stroke, allowing the more ambitious members of the Politburo to jockey for the succession

After his death, a year later, it seemed probable that Leon Trotsky would be next in line

But even though Trotsky made speeches and wrote articles for the newspapers, a rival, Josef Stalin, slowly but surely gained support

Stalin’s attention focused on the local level, placing his partisans in key positions throughout the nation

When a showdown took place, the victor was Stalin

Trotsky went into exile, and in 1940 one of Stalin’s agents murdered him

Lenin had shown that he could be flexible when he saw the post-civil-war economy in shatters

In what was known as the New Economic Policy, Lenin allowed farmers to sell their produce on the market and permitted small private entrepreneurs to run their own businesses

By 1927, the Soviet Union had fully recovered from its wars

But Stalin was different

Stalin, on the other hand, felt compelled to follow Marxist prescriptions for a socialist society

In 1928 he launched the first Five Year Plan, in which he intended to industrialize the manufacturing sector of the country completely and to collectivize its agriculture

The price paid for Stalin’s orthodoxy was unbelievably severe

Landowning peasants, the kulaks, preferred death to giving over their livestock and grain

The army obliged them Millions were killed; even more were

deported to labor camps Resistance was especially strong in

Ukraine, so that the peasants here suffered disproportionately

One estimate is that, overall, some 14,000,000 died or were exiled to labor camps in Siberia

By destroying the productive kulaks, famine ravaged the land

The impassive Stalin, immune to human suffering, made no concessions

As long as he controlled the army and secret police, he felt omnipotent

In the 1930s an increasingly paranoid Stalin launched what became known as the Great Purge in which anyone suspected of dissent was either shot or sent to a labor camp

The true numbers may never be known, but some historians estimate that ten million people were sent to the string of labor camps, later called the Gulag Archipelago by the writer Solzhenitsyn

Millions died in the brutal conditions – including one quarter of the communist Party itself