February Revolution of 1917
In this paper we are going to talk about different viewpoints concerning the
famous February revolution of 1917 in Russia. This was a vitally important historical
even in this country, which actually changed the whole state structure and was
of enormous influence upon the further historical development of Russia. As
so many years passed, there are many opinions concerning this revolution and
some of them are contradictory. We would present some of them in order to make
the picture of the revolution of the 1917 and the workers’ strikes in
St. Peterburgh given in detail.
In the book “History Guide” by Boca Raton and Davie Florence, we
would find a kind of emotional and detail presentation of the events in Russia
in 1917. Instead of dry historical facts the section about this revolution starts
with the description of the terribly cold weather in Petrograd in February 1917.
The streets of the city were covered with ice and there were problems with food
lines. Besides there was not enough wood for heating the flats of middle class
families, so the temperature inside was a little warmer than that of freezing.
About 170.000 troops were in the streets of the city, plus support from secret
police. From the report of the police agents on February 14th, came the first
information about the fact that army officers mixed with crowds of people, who
were demonstrating against the existing government, this happened on Nevskiy
Prospect.
International women’s day was celebrated on the 23rd of February and this
gave another push for women to come outside into the streets with claims like:
“Down with hunger! Bread for workers!” “They pelted the windows
of the engineering shops to bring the men out. Nikolai Sukhanov, the crotchety
radical civil servant who was to become the Revolution’s diarist and victim,
thought the disorders unremarkable” . He saw such things before, but this
time he paid attention to the odd attitude of the authorities. The crowd started
to feel power and people turned the trams upside down and wanted to sack the
large bakery. The police was called “Pharaons” among people, and
these Pharaons were doing actually nothing about it. Some skilled workers also
joined the striking people. As the movement was growing the need to cover faces
disappeared, so people from the crowd didn’t cover their faces with coats
any more. Cossacks have always been a “great symbol of Russian ferocity”
and people tried to ask them not to shoot, calling them their brothers, as a
result the Cossacks turned away.
The tsarina didn’t take the events seriously at the beginning, in her
letter to Nicky she wrote: “If the weather was cold…they probably
would have stayed at home.” She thought that the young socialist Alexander
Kerensky would be hanged, as during the last gathering of Duma he said that
they should do to the tsar the same as Brutus did to Caesar.
The observer of those events in the streets was writing: “Quite a few
people had simply missed the boat! As luck would have it, the weather stayed
warm on Friday. Demonstrators were out again in force. It seemed that all of
the city’s 2.5 million residents were in the streets. Something was odd
in the behaviour of the Cossacks. The crowds had begun to cheer their customary
tormentors. A Cossack unit was ordered to charge. The horsemen rode delicately
in single file through the crowd. “Some of them smiled and one actually
winked” .
The 25th of February was the first day when killing started. Most of the factories,
if not all of them were closed. The demonstrators had to step back when the
police opened fire on some mob who was beating a police office. On Nevsky cavalry
shot down about 9 people. But the demonstrators soon began to attack again,
they were also trying to rescue those who were caught by the police, the police
officers had nothing to struggle for except for their lives and they didn’t
want to lose them, besides they had no leaders. They could also understand the
desires of the demonstrators like “They want bread, peace with the Germans
and freedom for the Yids,” .
On Sunday it became suddenly calm, and the tsar got the telegram telling that
it was quiet in the city, but this certainly could not last for long. At one
o’clock one could be able to see the same crowds of people running from
Nevskiy to Mioka canal. The troops were shooting into the crowd, there were
the students from Red Cross to provide help for the wounded people. This was
the real start of the revolt.
2. In the book “The Russian Revolution of February 1917: The Question
of Organization and Spontaneity”, by Dr. James D. White the readers are
made familiar with the point of view of W. H. Chamberlain. He was one of the
first to write a book about this Russian revolution and the book was published
in 1935. He said that “the collapse of the tsarist regime in February
1917 was ‘one of the most leaderless, spontaneous, anonymous revolutions
of all time.’ . Most historians agreed with his opinion about spontaneity.
If to turn to the origins of the February revolution, we would need to observe
two groups of people: the liberals and the underground revolutionary parties.
These groups played really important role for the revolutionary events and for
the results of the revolution. The Provisional Government was established by
liberals and revolutionary groups originated the Petrograd Soviet. And before
the Bolshevik government was formed in October 1917 – these two “branches”
were to gain power.
It seems necessary to return back to the First World War in order to understand
the background of the February revolution. Under the war the necessary conditions
were created for changing the power of the tsar in Russia. By the beginning
of the year 1917 the country was in rather difficult situation: “It had
suffered enormous casualties; much of its territory was occupied by the armies
of Germany and Austro-Hungary; millions of refugees had fled their homes; the
economy was seriously disrupted and shortages of foodstuffs were becoming increasingly
serious. Discontent, especially among the working population in the towns, was
growing. This popular dissatisfaction was expressed in strikes and demonstrations,
often led by members of the two main socialist parties, the Social Democrats
and the Socialist Revolutionaries” . But till 1917 there were no revolts
and everything was still. Both socialist parties were actually divided into
two groups of people supporting the war and its opponents. The same happened
in the Bolshevists and Mensheviks parties. There were pro- and anti-war fractions
in these parties and actually the result in Petrograd was the consequences of
the fact that anti-war sentiment among Bolsheviks in Petrograd predominated.
According to Chamberlain we are not aware of the names of the leaders of the
February revolution. In fact this is not true as there are some materials like
for example published memories and personal backgrounds of the people who took
part in this revolution and were telling about their deeds in 1917 in Petrograd.
At least we could name several friends who played an important role during the
revolution - Vasily Kayurov, Ivan Chugurin, and Dmitry Pavlov. They were good
workers at some factories in Petrograd, but at the same time became famous revolutionists.
This was not actually the first revolution event they took part in, when they
were in Novgorod they met Maxim Gorky and took part in the revolution of 1905
in Nizhniy Novgorod. Although after the first revolution experience they were
separated from each other they were still involved a lot in revolutionary movement
in Russia. They met again during the war and united into a group as a part of
Vyborg District Committee of the Bolshevik Party. They were considered to be
among the most experienced revolutionaries in Russia at those times. They had
a number of conflicts with other Bolshevik leaders – for example Alexander
Schlyapnikov was writing a lot about that in his memoirs. But as the year 1917
came there was no time for discussions – all Bolsheviks had to unite their
resources in order to start the workers’ movement in Petrograd against
the tsar and his government.
3. Some chapters of the book by Philip E. Mosley “Russian Revolutions
and Civil Wars” were also devoted to the events of 1917. Actually the
author unites the results of the two revolutions of 1917 – in February
and in October and states that they both led to “the establishment of
the Soviet state that became known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR)” (3).
In this book the following causes of the February revolution are mentioned:
- the backward economic condition in the country
- the influence of the First World War.
Production in industrial and agricultural spheres declined, the productivity
of the factories was rather low, and there were little organization for food
supply and transportation system. During February there were a lot of armed
encounters in Petrograd between workers and police, Cossacks showed little enthusiasm
in supporting police and police officers had to save their lives instead of
struggling with striking people. Soon the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’
Deputies was selected at some factories. So the imperial government was quickly
changed for this Soviet and the Duma was transformed into Provisional Government.
On the 28th of February the new power gave the order to arrest the ministers
of the former tsar and the first official newspaper called Izvestia (the News)
started to be published. The Provisional government placed commissars instead
of ministers. The other changes undertaken by the new government were: to disband
the start power; to abolish all kinds of limitations on freedom of opinion,
press and association, and all kinds of discriminations against national and
religious masses. But the real concentration of power was in the hands of Soviet,
the minister of war, Aleksandr Guchkov said: “The government, alas, has
no real power; the troops, the railroads, the post, and telegraph are in the
hands of the Soviet. The simple fact is that the Provisional Government exists
only so long as the Soviet permits it.”
4. In the article “The February revolution” by Mark Polatovsky we
are able to find a short concise description of the events. Here the February
revolution is also considered to be a part of great Russian revolution of the
year 1917, which actually resulted in abdication of the tsar Nicholas the second.
The regime of the tsar and in particular the involvement of the Russia in the
First World War was the main reasons of the revolts. These revolts started in
Petrograd at the beginning of February and on the 18th of February the biggest
plant of Petrograd - Putilov Plant also started the strike. Then a lot of armed
encounters and meetings followed. By the 2d of March the tsar lost his power
completely and the ruling power was given to The Provisional Government. The
next important historical event was the October Revolution of the same year.
5. Another article on this topic was written by Professor Nick R. Black and
was called “Revolts in Russia in 1917”, it names the same reasons
of revolution, but the author pays attention to the fact that the new government
was changed four times, as none of them was able to cope with main problems
the country had to face. Among them were “peasant land seizures, nationalist
independence movements in non-Russian areas, and the collapse of army morale
at the front.” .
6. Really interesting in this correlation seems the book “Workers Against
Lenin” by Jonathan Aves. It was published in the year 1996 and presents
a new look upon the revolutionary events in Russia in 1917. “For decades
Trotskyists have been arguing that the Russian working class had been decimated
during the Civil War period and was incapable of collective decision making
and organization, so necessitating Bolshevik Party dictatorship over them”
.This book provides enough of contradictory arguments to the topic. Aves managed
to present a number of labor protests during the years 1920-1922. Most of the
Trotskyists stated that working class did not exist, the author wants to prove
that workers under Lenin were actually able of collective action and organization.
But in their struggle they simply followed Lenin: “As discontent amongst
workers became more and more difficult to ignore, Lenin . . . began to argue
that . . . workers had become ‘declassed.’ (6). The most well-known
fact of their struggle was certainly the revolt in Petrograd and the following
Kronstad revolt. For these mass protests the Bolsheviks found the best solving
in combination of concessions like for example economic growth, free elections
and freedom of speech and organization and in repressions. The name for that
was “yolynka” – meaning “go slow” and not a strike
movement as they didn’t want to show the real size and nature of the movement.
Aves states that this was not an isolated event, on the contrary he says that
strike action was “remained endemic in the first nine months of 1920 as
well” .He names such number as about 85.642 people taking part in Petrograd
strikes with about 109.100 workers at a time. So according to this book - workers
were far not the isolated and atomized class, they were quite able to organize
themselves and take important decisions. The Bolsheviks managed to put all independent
working class activity and with the help of this the ground for revolution was
ready. At the same time the Bolsheviks managed to raise the dictatorship of
the party in practical and ideological spheres. This was the right way to retaining
power over workers. “As one Soviet historian put it in his account of
the “yolynka,” “taking the account of the mood of the workers,
the demand for free elections to the soviets meant the implementation in practice
of the infamous slogan of soviets without communists.”
The author tries to analyze the historical events from some other, maybe even
deeper point of view, adding to bare historical facts some conclusions and his
own interpretation of as he says “myths” of the Bolsheviks and Russian
revolution in 1917.
7. The book by Gerhanrd Rempel “The Russian Revolution” touches
the matter of workers’ strikes in detail. In December 1916 39 of Petrograd
factories were suffering because of lack of fuel and 11 factories suffered from
power cuts. Such conditions certainly could be considered normal life conditions
and no wonder that the coming year 1917 was the year of great mass revolts and
strikes. Certainly the economical suppression influenced the moods of the people
and as Trotsky wrote “it was molecular process of revolution”. The
author of the book states that there is no use to look only on the surface of
the problem, as in this case we would have to agree with the opinion that the
main reason of the revolution was scarcity of bread. This certainly makes little
sense if to “go” further in historical development of the country
when it becomes clear that during the years, following the revolution and state
restructuring the problem with bread was far worse, but there was no another
revolution after that. One of the biggest strikes was the one on the 9th of
January; it happened in Vyborg and Nevsky districts. For industrial production
it was really a tragedy as about 145.000 workers took part in it, this was the
so –called “dry-run” for revolution. Another term was also
used in this connection – “progressive approximation”, it
meant that the mood of the masses was reaching the boiling point. The workers
of the huge Putilov factory took part in strike in order to get higher wages,
this strike took place on 18th of February. The strike committee was set by
about 30.000 workers, they went out to the streets and were asking for support
from other workers. Putilov management made a big mistake when they decided
to lock-out, this made the workers even angrier. The workers received support
from women and young people. On the 24th of February the mass strike consisted
of already 200.000 workers – this was more than a half of the whole working
class in the city. This was already the beginning of the revolution, meetings
and demonstrations were conducted. Later on, 30 – 35 leaders of the movement
met in the office of Petrograd Union Workers’ Co-operative, at the same
evening half of them were arrested, but nevertheless they managed to set the
Provisional Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet. It claimed its goals
as: to organize the forces of people and to struggle for popular government.
So the days from 25 till 27 for Petrograd were the days of hard strike situation.
After these days most of the city was in the hands of the strikers – bridges,
arsenals, railway stations and so on. One of the most surprising facts concerning
this revolution is that it actually was the revolution of one city – Petrograd.
One of the reasons for that was probably the vivid weight of working class over
the peasants. This revolution is also considered to be a rather peaceful one,
as there was not armed preparation for struggling for the old power. Lenin explained
the situation by the facts that the workers were not well organized and they
could not consciously lead the revolution to the end in February. The objective
of the revolution is considered to be bourgeois – democratic, though it
was actually made only by working class. But on the other hand the bourgeoisie
played a counter-revolutionary role, “which was only thwarted because
the liberal politicians, like the autocracy itself, lacked the material means
to put it into effect” .
So, this important and sophisticated historical event - the Revolution of February
1917 in Russia – is hard to judge from only one side. There are a lot
of opinions concerning the organization of the workers for the revolution and
the goals and the role of Bolsheviks. Concerning the organization of the revolution
it is probably more logically to support the idea – that it was a mass
revolt, which gradually turned into a real revolution, but as it didn’t
have the necessary organization and plan as it was not an immediate success
and had to be “repeated” in October of the same year. On the other
hand that fact that within one year the whole governmental system of such a
country was changed proves that this process was inevitable in the historical
development and that the old tsar ruling system was not any more able to sustain
power.
Sources:
1. “History Guide”, Boca Raton and Davie Florence, NY, 1992 pp.
12-85
2. “The Russian Revolution of February 1917: The Question of Organization
and Spontaneity”, Dr. James D. White, 1994 pp. 2-10
3. “Russian Revolutions and Civil Wars” , Philip E. Mosley, Canada,
1998 pp. 1-47
4. “The February revolution”, Mark Polatovsky, History in articles,
7;1991, pp. 6-12
5. “Revolts in Russia in 1917”, Professor Nick R. Black, History
in articles, 7;1991, pp. 16-18
6. “Workers Against Lenin”, Jonathan Aves, NY, 2002, pp.1-32
7. “The Russian Revolution”, Gerhanrd Rempel, CU, 1999, pp. 13-52
