# The Russian Revolution (Foster)/Chapter 1

I.
HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION.
The Russian revolution is one of the very greatest events in all human history. What has happened is that the oppressed masses of Russian workers and peasants have risen against their masters, overthrown them, and destroyed the whole political and industrial structure of the old regime. They have taken control of the land, the industries, and the state, and are operating them in their own interest, paying no tribute to exploiters of any sort. The world has never seen such a profound social upheaval.
To make the kindly, docile, peaceful Russian toilers desperate and to drive them into such a sweeping revolution could only be accomplished by the bitterest hardship and oppression. And this the old ruling class was foolish enough to inflict upon them in boundless measure. The story of pre-revolutionary Russia is one of the darkest in civilization's annals. Liberty was dead and brutal autocracy reigned supreme. Politically and industrially, the workers and peasants were destitute of right and justice. They were mercilessly abused and robbed at the whims of their heartless masters. But the day of reckoning finally came: with a mighty effort the downtrodden slaves turned against their tormentors and finished with them.
Never has human history been made so rapidly as during the tremendous Russian revolutionary drama. Great event has followed great event with bewildering speed. In this brief chapter all I can do is to give the barest indication of their general course. For this purpose it will be convenient to consider the revolution under three of its great historical phases—political, industrial, and military, in the order named:
The first great attempt of the Russian workers to get rid of their masters came in 1905. It is true that long before that time many heroic militants had fought the oppressor with pistol and bomb, and thousands of them died or were exiled in consequence. But the masses never became really aroused until the days of the Russian-Japanese war. The war was going badly for the Czar, and the workers, taking advantage of the ​situation, began to organize industrially and politically. But the terrified Government met them with fire and sword. In the famous Bloody Sunday demonstration of January, 1905, hundreds of workers, led by the police spy Father Gapon, were killed in cold blood. This outrage stirred the people as never before. Trade unions multiplied themselves everywhere, and the first Soviet of workers and peasants was organized in October of that year. But the Czar defeated the spreading rebellion by a double policy of conciliation and terrorism. He conceded the Duma to the people, and at the same time shot down the workers en masse. The uprising was drowned in blood: 15,000 workers were executed and 100,000 more exiled. Bitterness sank deep into the hearts of the revolutionary proletariat.
After 1905 there ensued a long period of black reaction, the crowning infamy of which was the forcing of Russia into the world war. The Russian worker and peasant soldiers, practically unarmed, half-starved, and often betrayed by their own officers, were thrown against the splendidly equipped German and Austrian armies and slaughtered by millions—Russia lost more men in the war than all the other powers, allied and enemy, combined. And while the soldiers at the front were being murdered and driven desperate; the people at home, abused and terrorized, were coerced into a like revolutionary frame of mind.
Finally human endurance could stand it no longer and the break came. On February 22, 1917 (old style), the workers in the big Putilof factories in Petrograd demonstrated in protest against the food shortage. The employers retaliated by a lockout. This roused the workers and they declared a strike in other plants. During the next few days the trouble rapidly developed, and food riots and mass strikes spread all over the city. The Government was incapable of handling the situation. Finally the troops joined hands with the people and, together, they smashed the weak resistance of the police and other defenders of the Czar's regime. Shortly after, the terrified Czar, overtaken by his outraged people at last, abdicated, and thus political autocracy came to an end in Russia. This was the "February" revolution; it was virtually bloodless.
Immediately upon the Czar’s fall there developed a bitter strugge between the various political groups ​over what kind of a society the new Russia should be. Each tried to warp the revolution according to its political interests and conceptions. The Cadets (Constitutional Democrats), a typical capitalist party, wanted a bourgeois democracy. The Mensheviki, moderate, right-wing Socialists, advocated political and industrial reforms for the workers and a share for them in a bourgeois democracy. The Social Revolutionists, a peasants' party, stood for land reform and petty bourgeois Socialism in general. The Bolsheviki, who were Communists, demanded a complete proletarian revolution. The first three parties proposed, in varying degrees, social reform, the collaboration of classes, and the preservation of the democratic state. The last, the Bolsheviki, differing fundamentally from the others, declared for the immediate abolition of capitalism and the democratic state, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the delegation of all power to the Soviets. In practice, however much the first three quarrelled among themselves over details of their programs, they were always united against their arch enemy, the Bolsheviki.
In the political turmoil that followed the February revolution each of the important groups had a taste of power and an opportunity to test out its program. The first were the Cadets. Being the only recognized opposition party under the Czar's regime, they alone had any appreciable organization when the crash came. So, under the leadership of Milyukov, they took command of the political power and set up the Provisional Government. Then, true to their capitalistic interests, they prepared to continue Russia in the world war and to launch her forth in an imperialistic drive to capture Constantinople. But they little recked of the strength and character of the revolution. The people, massed in the Soviets and stirred by the Bolsheviki, demonstrated against them and forced Milyukov and several other ministers to resign. The Bolsheviki demanded the realization of the great slogan of the revolution, "Peace, Bread, and Liberty." The next to come to the political helm was a coalition Government of bourgeois and Socialists. But it fared no better than its predecessor, and had to make way for a new Coalition Gov​ernment with the Social Revolutionist, Alexander Kerensky, at its head.
Kerensky, a typical right-wing Socialist reformer, played the capitalistic game of his predecessors and disregarded the revolutionary mood of the people. They demanded peace, and he organized a great military offensive against the Central Powers; they demanded bread, and he arrested the peasants who attempted to confiscate the nobles' land, and he helped the employers to defeat the city workers' trade unions; they demanded liberty, and he tried to crush the Soviets, persecuted the Bolsheviki, and kept the capitalists in his coalition Government. But the revolution finally overcame him. His military offensive, built out of wind, went to smash, and the Germans poured into the country. The people, enraged by his all-round betrayal of the revolution, stormed against him and his Government; and he, sensing the inevitable collapse, fled from Petrograd on October 24, 1917. The next day the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, controlled by the Bolsheviki, took over the government of the country, with little resistance save in Moscow and one or two other places. This was the "October" revolution. And thus was all power delegated to the Soviets and the present dictatorship of the proletariat inaugurated.
The Bolsheviki, later known as the Communists, are a party of action, and immediately they achieved power they set about satisfying the people. The people demanded peace, and the Bolsheviki at once opened the peace negotiations that ended in the Brest-Litovsk treaty a few months later; the people demanded bread; and the Bolsheviki nationalized the land the very day they took hold of the Government and they nationalized the industries shortly afterward; the people demanded liberty, and the Bolsheviki destroyed every semblance of bourgeois government and gave all power to the proletarian Soviets. It was this speedy and fundamental action of the Bolsheviki that laid the basis of ​their future wonderful power. By meeting the great issues of the revolution squarely, they won the hearts of the masses of workers, peasants, and soldiers, and detroyed the foundations of all other important political parties. They had little difficulty later on in consolidating their power by completely capturing the trade unions, the peasants' organizations, the army, etc. When the Constituent Assembly, the cherished hope of the bourgeoisie, met in January, 1918, all the Bolsheviki had to do was to withdraw from it and the whole business collapsed. One lone sailor dispersed the remaining delegates and closed the hall. Thus perished the last remnant of the capitalist government. The Soviets stood supreme.
While these stirring events were happening in the political field the class war reigned also in the realm of industry. The February revolution merely did away with the political autocracy of Czardom. It did not end private property in the industries. On the contrary, the employers thought it was the beginning of a new era of prosperity for them, one in which they could soar to fresh heights of capitalistic exploitation, unhampered by the feudalistic hindrances of Czarism. But they soon saw their mistake: they found themselves confronted by a militant industrial proletariat determined to win economic emancipation.
Before the February revolution the workers had few trade unions (see chapter on Trade Unions for more complete history), but immediately thereafter they began to organize them rapidly. Especially speedy was the development of the shop committees. It was a very simple operation for all the workers in a given plant to meet and pick out their shop committee, which then took up the cudgels for them with the company. Such shop committees took shape in nearly every industrial concern in Russia in the first few weeks of the revolution. The trade unions, being a more elaborate form of organization, grew somewhat slower.
Immediately the workers achieved some degree of organization they went into an offensive against the employers. They demanded the right to organize, the eight-hour day, increases in wages, the right of control over the hiring and discharging of workers, the right of the shop committees to examine the books and general ​business affairs of the companies, and various other important measures. The employers, with a strong organization dating from before the revolution, met this attack with desperate resistance. They were an untamed lot, accustomed under Czarism to treat their workers like dogs, and they were resolved not to lose any of their prerogatives. As the Spring and Summer of 1917 wore on the fight grew hotter and hotter. Great strikes raged in all the industrial centers. At first the workers, having a fair field, got the best of it; but about July, the Kerensky Government coming more and more to the assistance of the employers, the tide of battle turned gradually in the latter's favor and they entered into a huge campaign of lockouts and sabotage, calculated to bring the industries to a standstill and to starve the workers into submission.
Driven to extremes by these and other attacks, the workers, through their Soviets, upset the Kerensky Government (the October revolution) and seized political control themselves. Then, patterning after their erstwhile masters, they used the state power in their own behalf. This gave them definite ascendency over the employers. Lossovsky thus describes the situation:
"The October revolution made the workers the ruling class and the employers the subject class. It reversed the relations between employers and employees, and put the trade unions in the face of new tasks. Immediately after the October Revolution the strikes ceased. Thenceforth, the worker develops his grievances, presents them to the trade union and if it sanctions them they are put into force by the power of the state. In case an employer refuses, the worker has at his service the prison and all the other methods of persuasion prepared by the bourgeoisie. For the first time in the history of humanity the state takes part in strikes for the benefit of the worker, arrests the employer for refusing to grant the demands of the toilers establishes by decree wage scales fixed by the unions, an confiscates the factories of the recalcitrant employers."
Although the workers nationalized the land and turned it over to the peasants the very day they overthrew the Kerensky Government, they intended to proceed only gradually with the nationalization of the complicated industries. To begin with they did nothing more than to install a strong "workers' control." This meant that the employers should still own the plants and also manage them—subject to a stringent super​vision by the workers. It was hoped that by this arrangement the actual producers should acquire the technical skill of management indispensible for them when the industries should be taken over by the state later on.
But the employers upset this program. They were careful to see to it that the workers learned none of the precious industrial knowledge from them. They redoubled their efforts to sabotage the industries and to paralyze the economic life of the nation. In this course they were seconded by the intellectuals, office workers, and other "white-collar" elements generally. This forced the workers into still more drastic action. First, the militant shop committees began to drive away the employers and to take charge of their plants. Then, the Government took a hand in the work of confiscation. To begin with it nationalized the banks and other credit institutions, as the heart of capitalism. After that the big basic industries followed in rapid succession, until, finally; about 90 per cent of the modernized industrial mechanism had become the property of the workers' state. The rule of the capitalists was broken in Russian industry.
Driven out of political and industrial control, the capitalists and other reactionaries promptly appealed to armed force. Immediately after the October revolution a series of bitter civil wars began which lasted over three years. The first counter-revolutionary attempt was by Kerensky just after his downfall, but the Red Guard had little trouble in breaking it up. Then began a whole group of uprisings, mostly in the border countries of Siberia, Ukraine, etc., and led by Alexeyev, Kornilov, Krassnov, Doutov and others. These lasted through the Fall and Winter of 1917. Most of them were furthered by the deposed Mensheviki and Social Revolutionists At one time 50 per cent of the trade union leaders were under arms. The factory workers, the famous Red Guard, rallied and beat them all down.
In the Spring of 1918 the counter-revolutionary forces returned to the struggle with renewed vigor, this time supported by international capitalism. The German troops captured the Ukraine, the English invaded the North, Krassnov and Doutov raged in the Cossack ​countries. The Checho-Slovaks overran large sections of Siberia and the Volga Valley, Kolchak's White Guards occupied enormous stretches of the East. It was indeed a critical period for the Soviet Republic. Its territory was reduced to only one-tenth of pre-war Russia, and even this small area was seething with counter-revolutionary uprisings. The Workers' Government lost control of the great oil, coal, cotton and grain districts. But one thing it retained, even more precious than all these, that was the loyalty and confidence of the Russian people. This is was that saved it.
In the crisis of 1918 the Red Army was organized. It was vastly superior in methods and organization to the old Red Guard. Little by little, and in the face of unheard of difficulties, it was built up. As soon as it began to take shape the military situation improved. Everywhere the workers' foes were checked, and, in several instances, routed. Kolchak in Siberia, Krasnov in the South, Petlura and Skoropadsky in the Ukraine—all were defeated before the year was out. Throughout 1919 the war raged on many fronts, at times going very badly for the Soviets and threatening to overwhelm them. But by heroic efforts, by the Communists and other workers recklessly sacrificing themselves, the situation was saved, and the armies of Kolchak, Denekin, Yudenitch and others were either demolished or driven out of action before the Winter set in. The British and American troops were held in check. The year 1920 was marked by bitter struggles against Poland in the North and West, and Wrangel in the South. The Soviet troops emerged victorious; peace was established with Poland, and Wrangel was smashed completely.
Thus ended, ingloriously, all of international capitalism's military efforts against Soviet Russa. Before the militant proletarian soldiers, the whole capitalist world had to retreat. Today the great Russian country, three times as large as the United States, is entirely free from armed opposition to the workers' republic. The Soviet Government stands firm, the undisputed victor over all its powerful and treacherous enemies. It has gloriously won the right to peaceful development.
* ↑ The world has the notion that Kerensky was overthrown because he soft-heartedly tolerated the Bolsheviki and permitted them to organize against him. Nothing is farther from the truth. He hated them deeply and persecuted them as much as he dared. At one time, in June and July, he had thousands of them in jail, among others Leon Trotzsky. He also demanded that Lenin, Zinoviev, and other radical leaders, then in hiding, give themselves up to "justice."
* ↑ "Les Syndicats en Russie Sovietiste," P. 22.