(1) October Revolution: Russia and the Great War

For the next several days into November, I'm going to highlight a number of articles on the Russian Revolution of 1917.

There are already a variety of general pieces recalling the event on its 100th anniversary. I'm trying to highlight some useful left perspectives on that history. The leadership of the Bolshevik Party in Russia, later renamed the Communist Party, generally understood their revolutionary project in Marxist terms. That was certainly true of their main leader Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), whose birth name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. And understanding the basic outlines of the Russian Revolution includes having some grasp of their viewpoint and some awareness of the context of the revolution in the First World War, the then-unprecedented carnage that put an end to the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian imperial houses.

The then-unprecedented carnage of the First World War is represented here in a contemporary Hungarian antiwar poster

One thing that articles describing the Bolsheviks' political viewpoint reminds me that some of the most commonly used words used in doing so have a jargon-y ring to many people today. Like the French-derived words "bourgeoisie" and "proletariat." "Capitalists" and "working class" are functionally similar terms. A term familiar in 2017 like "the One Percent" might better capture the sense of what "bourgeoisie" meant to socialists in 1917. But that's more a polemical than a sociological signifier. And anyone who has followed some of the flood of commentary the last 10 months on the "white working class" voter in the United States will have some sense that it, too, is generally missing any clear and commonly understood meaning. It's often used to mean something like "factory workers." Pollsters use "people without a four-year college education" as a stand-in for a more substantial sociological meaning. Understanding "working class" to include anyone eligible to be a union member would be a better functional understanding, albeit more of a formalist than a sociological one.

Alexander Kerensky

For all the decades of discussions, analysis and polemics over the Russian Revolution and infinite nuances of Communist theory and strategy, it's may be difficult to remember that the "land, peace and bread" were the most immediate popular issues leading up to the October Revolution. This is, land reform for the peasants, an end to Russian participation in the world war, and food. Basic demands for a largely rural people exhausted and deprived by years of a devastating war.

As it turned out, the United States and Britain intervened militarily to try to bring Russia back into the war and oppose the new Soviet government. But the main opposition came from the White armies from Russia and other parts of the Russian Empire, and a bloody civil war ensued. How much that affected the future development of the Soviet government is still a central topic of discussion.

By the time the Soviet Union faced the massive invasion in 1941 by Germany and its allies, the USSR had become a major military power. Despite its massive losses of blood and treasure in the Second World War, it ended the war in a greatly enhanced political and military position in the world. Relations with the Soviet Union became a key political challenge for most of the world, and especially for the US, its NATO allies, China, Vietnam, North Korea and, of course, Cuba.

Vladimir Lenin underground-August 1917

The general approach of the Western capitalist powers toward the USSR can be usefully understood as a counter-revolutionary one, aimed at containing Soviet influence across the board. But that obviously wasn't an unbroken policy of complete hostility. In the Second World War, the USSR was an essential ally to the US and Britain and was considered part of the Free World in that coalition, which was also called the United Nations before the current world organization was established. Even during the Cold War, there were periods of greater and lesser tension. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a low point. The SALT 1 Treaty and Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik were more hopeful moments, though neoconservatives are prone to remember any concession to the USSR by the West as evil "appeasement." It was even common in the late 1970s to talk about an end to the Cold War, although now that period has been folded into the conventional dating of that protracted political-military standoff. A major part of the commentary this year on the October Revolution deals with explaining its long reverberations in world politics.

One caution in reading about this period in Russia. In 1917, Russia was using the Julian or Old Style calendar that was 13 days behind the Gregorian (New Style) calendar we use now and which Russia adopted soon after. So, the anniversary of the "October Revolution" would have been October 24-25 in the Old Style but falls on November 6-7 New Style. The switch to the New Style calendar took place at the start of February 1918 (New Style). The Eastern Orthodox Church continues to use some form of the Julian calendar in scheduling liturgical feast days.

This is a timeline for the Russian Revolution:

• Feb 1917 (Old Style): The February Revolution
• Mar 1917 (Old Style): The Czar abdicates, Aleksandr Kerensky's Provisional Government takes power ("Provisional Government" is used for the form of government headed by Kerensky until the Bolsheviks took power. Kerenksy had four different Cabinets during that time, representing different political coalitions, and so histories will also refer to the Kenernsky's first, second, third and fourth "governments.")
• Mar-Oct 1917 (Old Style): Period of "dual power" between the Kerensky government and the soviets (workers' councils)
• July 1917 (Old Style): Popular uprising against the Kerensky regime; the Bolsheviks do not take this as a opportune juncture to try to seize of power at that moment
; franchise extended to women
• Aug 1917 (Old Style): Restorationist "Kornilov revolt," named for its leader, Gen. Lavr Georgiyevich Kornilov.
• Sept 1917: Bolsheviks attain majority in the Petrograd Soviet
• Oct 24-25 (New Style Nov 6-7): The Bolsheviks take power based on their support among the soviets
• Dec 7, 1917 (Old Style): Founding of the revolution's secret police, the Cheka, the predecessor of what became the KGB, headed by Feliks Dzerzhinsky
• Nov 1917 (Old Style): Constituent Assembly elections in which the Socialist Revolutionary Party, with strong support among the peasants, outpolls the Bolsheviks
• Jan 1918 (Old Style): Constituent Assembly meets once and the Boshevik government abolishes it
• Feb 1918: Red Army founded by Foreign Commissar Leon Trotsky, who switched to the post of People’s Commissar for War in March
• Mar 1918: Treaties of Brest-Litovsk concluded, removing several large areas from Russian control: The Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Finland, Poland, and Ukraine.
• Mar 1918: The ruling party renamed to "Communist Party"
• Feb 1920: Russian control re-established in Ukraine
• 1918: Civil war begins; the Soviet government conflict at the end of May with the Czechoslovak Legion being evacuated from Russia is one useful historical guidepost for its beginning
• 1918-1921: The period of "war communism" in economic policy
• Mar 1919: Establishment of the Communist International (Third International) to be a worldwide organization of Communist parties
• Nov 1920: End of the civil war, conventionally dated by the Soviet defeat of White forces in Crimea under the command of Gen. Pyotr Wrangel
• Mar 1921: Kronstadt revolt lead by anarchists against the Communist government
• Mar 1921: Adoption of the New Economic Policy (NEP)
• 1922: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) proclaimed
• Jan 1924: Lenin's death, followed by a years-long secession struggle with Josef Stalin and Trotsky as the two main protagonists