RUSSIAN REVOLUTION: CAUSES, CHARACTERISTICS, DEVELOPMENT AND CONSEQUENCES - HISTORY - 2025

The Russian Revolution was an armed uprising that took place, with various scenarios, between February and October 1917 according to the Julian calendar, then used in Russia. For the rest of the countries, with the Gregorian calendar, the months of the revolution were March and November.

The situation in Russia before the Revolution was very precarious. The tsarist government still retained almost absolutist features. The situation in the rural world was practically feudal, although in theory this type of social organization had been abolished. Hunger was common among the population, except for members of the privileged classes.

Meeting of the Petrograd Soviet 1917

The First World War, which started in 1914, made the situation even worse. Russia saw how its army could not contain the enemy. Given this, in February 1917, the first phase of the Revolution broke out. The result was the overthrow of the Tsar and the creation of two powers in the country: Parliament and the Bolshevik Soviets. The second phase, in October, ended with these seconds taking power.

In this way, a few years later, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was born. Until the end of the 20th century, it would be the counterpoint at all levels of the capitalist countries, led by the United States.

Background

Although the feudal system had been abolished in 1861, outside of the big cities little had changed in Russia in the early 20th century.

Unlike most of the European continent, no industrialization process had taken place and the economic situation was dramatic for all who did not belong to the nobility.

Economic aspects

Experts point out that at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, in Russia the majority of the population was engaged in agriculture and livestock. However, paradoxically, production was insufficient to cover needs.

The main causes were the use of outdated techniques and the great corruption in the administration. Furthermore, the property structure was based on large estates in the hands of the Crown, the nobles, and the Church.

All this, together with the lack of industrialization, caused the population, with the exception of the privileged, to live in poverty, with serious episodes of famines.

Social and political aspects

Politically, Tsarist Russia was characterized by a lack of freedoms and rights. The Tsar accumulated in his hands all the power as the visible head of an absolutist and theocratic regime. The Church, the aristocracy and the army completed the bodies with authority in the country.

The Duma, the Russian parliament at that time, barely had any powers and its power was subordinated to that of the Tsar.

On the other hand, in Russia the middle class and the bourgeoisie had hardly appeared, although an intellectual elite was beginning to be created. This would have great importance during the Revolution.

Revolution of 1905

The best known antecedent to the 1917 Revolution took place 12 years earlier, in 1905. The setting was the country's capital, Saint Petersburg. There, at the beginning of the year, a demonstration ended up being violently repressed in a day that was called "Bloody Sunday."

As of that date, protests followed one another, without the government being able to calm the situation. At the end of the year, Tsar Nicholas II had to agree to implement various reforms after being forced to sign the October Manifesto.

Through this document, he promised to create a parliament with legislative powers and with members that were not only from the nobility. In addition, it guaranteed civil rights such as the strike and greater freedom of the press.

However, Nicholas II did not fulfill his promise. When the army returned from Asia, where it had been fighting Japan, the repression was brutal. The Duma, which was convened on several occasions, did not have the promised powers and could not oppose the decisions of the monarch.

Despite all this, the 1905 Revolution brought about the political awareness of the population. For the first time, the power of the Tsar had been challenged.

Opposition to the Tsar

Many opposition leaders, especially the Socialists, went into exile. The most prominent was the Bolshevik Lenin, who advocated a socialist revolution in the country.

By 1905, the Russian left had become the most important opposition to the tsarist regime. Within it there were several factions, notably the Mensheviks, who were betting on a bourgeois revolution, and the Bolsheviks, supporters of a socialist revolution.

First World War

Russia entered the First World War in August 1914. Nicholas II approved entry into the conflict and all existing parties, except the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, supported his decision.

Like the rest of the contenders, Russia thought the war would be short. The country was positioned next to France and Great Britain, facing Austria-Hungary and Germany, mainly.

However, the conflict dragged on. Russia, as it happened in its war with Japan, began to show signs of weakness, with some important defeats.

In addition, the war effort affected the national economy. The town suffered even more hardships and the tension was enormous between the soldiers themselves. By the end of 1916, the morale of the troops was very low and the war front was approaching the capital.

Early 1917

In early 1917, the town began to protest. On January 9 (February 22 on the Gregorian calendar) a large demonstration was called in the capital. According to estimates, 150,000 workers seconded the strike called.

This was not the only manifestation of discontent at the time. The winter had been very cold and the food shortage increased even more. All over Russia food and basic necessities were lacking, there were even queues to buy bread.

Causes

The outbreak of the Russian Revolution was due to various causes, although there were differences between the first phase, in February, and the second, in October. While the first was a reaction to the political, social and economic situation in the country, the second was caused by the intention of the Soviets to establish socialism.

Political causes

Despite the reforms promised by the Tsar after the 1905 Revolution, the country's political system was based on authoritarianism.

The Tsar accumulated all the springs of power, without being accountable to anyone. Only the aristocracy, the clergy and the Army had good living conditions. The rest survived without public liberties or rights of any kind.

Social causes

This caused Russian society to be totally unequal. In it, there were two perfectly delimited social classes, with the monarch at the top of power.

Behind him were the nobility, whose privileges ranged from land ownership to political influence.

At the base of that pyramid was the rest of the population, both professionals and workers and peasants. The working conditions were inhumane, with excessive hours of work and pitiful wages.

Economic causes

As noted, Russia was a country with an almost entirely agricultural economy. The lands, and therefore the wealth, were concentrated in the hands of the nobility, while the rest lived in poverty.

Furthermore, the situation was aggravated by the lack of modernization of agricultural techniques. The industry, on the other hand, had not been driven by the government.

Little by little, this caused the opposition to the regime to grow and strengthen, although it had to remain in hiding. Many of its leaders, like Lenin or Plekhanov, had to go into exile.

characteristics

Attacking the Tsar's army during the early days of the March Revolution

The Russian Revolution was one of the most important milestones of the 20th century. Its protagonists were the workers, with the help of members of the army jaded by the bad conditions in which they had to fight during the First World War. It was a matter, as had happened in France a little over a century earlier, to overthrow an absolutist regime.

First phase

The first part of the Revolution, in February 1917 (March according to the Western calendar) was more like bourgeois revolutions than a proletarian one.

It was the bourgeoisie, along with army officers and intellectuals who led it, although the workers' movements and parties were of great importance.

At first, this first phase was not intended to install a socialist government, but one controlled by the bourgeoisie. However, the growing leadership of the workers laid the foundations for the subsequent October uprising.

With the Tsar removed from power and with a provisional government, the situation did not improve, something that the Bolsheviks took advantage of to carry out their movement.

Second stage

During the intervening months there were two different powers in Russia. On the one hand, the provisional government, on the other, the Soviets.

The latter grew stronger, taking advantage of the government's lack of results. The Bolsheviks launched the new rebellion in October (November in the West) and, through a popular insurrection, deposed President Kerensky. On this occasion, the intention was not to create a bourgeois state, but a socialist and revolutionary one.

Marxist theory

Although Karl Marx had written his work thinking of industrialized societies, such as Germany, the Russian socialists thought that they could adapt Marxism to a country as backward in that sense as Russia was.

Marxist theory expressed that the means of production should not be in private hands, denounced surplus value and advocated social equality. For the thinker, the engine of history was the class struggle.

Soviets

The Soviets, with a meaning similar to "assembly" in Russian, were the basis of the Revolution. In them the workers and the rest of the workers met, together with the leaders of the movement to try to defend popular interests.

During the turbulent months between the two phases of the Revolution, soviets of soldiers, peasants or workers appeared.

Development

As noted, the Russian Revolution consisted of two different phases. The first, in February 1917, overthrew the Tsar and attempted to establish a liberal republic.

The second took place in October of that same year. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the provisional government.

International Women's Day

The winter had been very harsh, leading to poor harvests and famines. Added to this was fatigue from the years of war and the search for more public freedoms. Thus, in February 1917, the workers began to carry out some spontaneous strikes in the factories of the capital, Petrograd (Saint Petersburg).

On the 23rd of that month, March 8 according to the Gregorian calendar and, therefore, International Women's Day, a large demonstration took place in the capital. It was precisely the women who took to the streets that day, asking for bread and freedom. The workers came to support them and decided to prolong the work stoppages in the factories.

February 27

During the following days, the strikes were generalized throughout the city. The tension increased and the first demands appeared calling for an end to the regime of the tsars.

The demonstrations began to be violently repressed. The protesters, to defend themselves, stole weapons from the police.

The Tsar, after three days of demonstrations, ordered the military garrison in the capital to mobilize to end the protests. At first, the soldiers obeyed and several workers were killed. However, soon the troops themselves began to join the protesters. The monarch's response was to dissolve the Duma.

On February 27 there was the definitive union of the soldiers with those who were protesting. Given this, the officers tried to flee, although almost none of them succeeded.

Together, soldiers and protesters marched towards the Taurida Palace, seat of the Duma. This implied the defense of that institution against the decision of the Tsar to dissolve it.

Given the situation that was being experienced, the Duma parliamentarians refused to cease their functions. On the same day the 27th, they created the Provisional Committee of the Duma, in which members of various ideological currents participated, from liberal bourgeois to Mensheviks.

The Bolsheviks

The protesters released many political prisoners, who joined in the march towards Taurida. Likewise, the Petrograd Soviet was founded, called the Soviet of Workers and Soldiers, a name that reflected the union of both groups in the pursuit of the same goal.

The Bolsheviks, for their part, issued a communiqué encouraging revolution. In addition, they called for Russia to get out of the First World War.

By the night of that 27th, the tsarist government was in an untenable situation. In practice, it no longer held any power or ability to end the insurrection.

The end of the February revolution

Days later, on March 15, Nicholas II presented his abdication. His brother refused to occupy the throne, thereby certifying the end of tsarism. Eventually the entire royal family was arrested and handed over to the army.

Duality of powers

The weeks after the Tsar's abdication were quite confusing, although the population's growth was growing ever larger.

One of the causes that caused instability was the duality of powers that existed in the country. On the one hand, there was the provisional government, installed in Moscow. On the other, the St. Petersburg Soviet was getting stronger.

Thus, while Kerensky, a strong man of the provisional government, advocated for the convocation of a Constituent Assembly and for continuing in the war, the followers of Trostsky, who would later join the Bolshevik party, demanded revolutionary measures and that Russia abandon the Great War.

The April Days

Participation in the First World War became one of the most important reasons for division. The population, in general lines, was in favor of leaving the conflict, but the provisional government promised its allies to continue fighting.

The demonstrations for this cause, for and against continuing in the war, caused several deaths. After this, the moderate socialists, supporters of the abandonment of the conflict, entered the government.

On the other hand, Lenin, who had returned to the country from his exile, published his April Theses. In this work he defended that the soviets had to take power, as well as the end of the war. In addition, he refused to support the provisional government and demanded the expropriation of farmland and its subsequent distribution among the peasants.

At first these ideas were not in the majority, not even among the Bolsheviks. However, the economic collapse made Lenin's position gain ground. In early June, the Bolsheviks gained control of the Petrograd Soviet.

The July Days

The provisional government launched an operation in the framework of the First World War, the so-called Kerensky Offensive, in early July. The result was a failure and the soldiers began to refuse to go to the front line. The president's popularity took a big drop.

One of the reactions was carried out by the workers, who demonstrated to ask the leaders of the city Soviet to take power. The Bolsheviks, unprepared at the time, claimed that this was not the time to take that step.

Despite this declaration, the government began a great campaign of repression against the Bolsheviks. Trotsky was imprisoned and Lenin had to go into exile in Finland. Similarly, the workers were disarmed and, many of them, locked up in jails.

On the war front, meanwhile, the situation was getting worse. As of July 8, due to the wave of desertions, an order was given to shoot at the soldiers who tried to flee.

Finally, the supporters of Tsarism began to react, with the outbreak of pogroms on the coast. In the government, Kerensky, a social-revolutionary, replaced Lvov in the presidency, although he soon began to lose his popularity among the popular masses.

Kornilov's Strike

Kerensky appointed General Lavr Kornilov as commander-in-chief of the Army. This, reputed to be very tough, had been the one who implemented the orders to shoot the deserters, being in favor of Russia continuing in the First World War.

The atmosphere in the factories was one of fear for a possible counterrevolution, something that also happened in the Army. Faced with this, the Bolshevik unions called a strike that had a huge following.

At the same time, a military organization, the Union of Army and Navy Officers, publicly called for a military dictatorship to be established.

It was in this context that Kornilov, in August 1917, led an armed uprising with the aim of ending the Soviets and the workers' organizations.

The provisional government then demonstrated that it was not capable of facing this attack and it had to be the Bolsheviks who were in charge of defending the capital. With the participation of numerous workers, the Kornilov attempt was defeated. This strengthened the Bolsheviks and further weakened Kerensky.

Growth of the Bolsheviks

From that moment, and despite the efforts of Kerensky, the Bolsheviks did not stop strengthening and gaining presence. By the end of August, they fully controlled the Petrograd Soviet. Leon Trotsky was named its president on September 30.

Prior to that appointment, on August 31, the Petrograd Soviet, along with 126 others from other parts of the country, had voted a resolution in favor of establishing a Soviet state. The slogan that began to be used was "all power to the Soviets."

October revolution

The moment awaited by the Bolsheviks to seize power came in October 1917. Lenin and Trotsky considered that the situation was adequate, with a totally isolated provisional government and the workers eager to take the step.

Although they encountered some internal reluctance, they set a date for the insurrection: October 24 (November 6 according to the Julian calendar).

That day, at night, the uprising began. In reality, the revolutionaries encountered little opposition. The Bolshevik Red Guard took, without resistance, the central bank, the telephone exchange, the bridges and the stations. These points secured, they proceeded to assault the Winter Palace.

After that day, it only remained to measure popular support. In the 2nd Congress of Soviets of Workers 'and Peasants' Deputies, convened for the 25th, Trotsky announced the dissolution of the provisional government.

The majority response was supportive. However, some Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries left the Congress and created, the next day, a Committee for the Salvation of the Fatherland and the Revolution.

On the 26th, apparently without concern for the opposition movement, the Soviets founded the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), made up only of Bolsheviks.

The new government

Once in power, the Bolsheviks began to legislate. They promulgated, in just a few weeks, 33 new laws, including many that were already among the promises of the old provisional government.

First of all, Lenin issued a proposal to all participants in World War I to start peace talks.

Subsequently, the long-awaited Decree on the Land was promulgated, which eliminated large estates. Through this law, the peasant soviets were free to restructure the ownership of these lands as they wished, either to socialize the land or to distribute it among the farm workers.

Other measures approved during those first weeks were the abolition of the death penalty, workers' control over the means of production, the sovereignty and right of self-determination of all the peoples of Russia, and the abolition of political and religious privileges.

Consequences

The Russian Revolution had, on the one hand, local consequences such as the end of the tsarist regime and the change of the government system.

However, more important were the global consequences, since it meant the appearance of a great power, the protagonist of a historical stage in which the world was divided into two large blocks: the communist and the capitalist.

End of the regime of the Tsars

The first consequence of the Russian Revolution was the end of the government of the tsars and its replacement, in a first phase, by a republic.

The authoritarian, almost absolutist character of the Russia of the tsars had left this country without the influence of the modernizing currents that had reached the rest of the continent since the bourgeois revolutions.

The Tsar accumulated all the political power and the aristocracy enjoyed economic privileges against an impoverished population.

Civil war

Despite the easy victory of the October revolutionaries, Russia still suffered several years of instability.

The Bolsheviks, in power, did not control all regions of the country, and their opponents, from Tsarists to Mensheviks, soon prepared a counterrevolution. In addition, several foreign countries, fearful of revolutionary contagion, supported the opponents.

In this way, a civil war began that lasted until 1923, when the Bolsheviks managed to defeat all their rivals, consolidating the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Exit from World War I

The First World War and its consequences for Russia was one of the causes of the Revolution. For this reason, it is not surprising that the Bolsheviks tried to solve this problem as soon as they took power.

Lenin promulgated the Decree of Peace in which he explained his intentions to remove Russia from the conflict. Furthermore, he knew that until the soldiers who were fighting in it returned it was going to be impossible to face their internal opponents.

Finally, Russia signed peace with Germany on March 3, 1918, despite the fact that the conditions of the treaty, called the Peace of Brest-Litovsk, harmed their country: Russia lost Poland, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Georgia and Ukraine.

Soviet economy

The new government launched a new economic system based on socialist ideas. Its basic principles were the improvement of the materials and working conditions of the proletariat, the common good and ensuring social equality in terms of the rights and duties of the people.

The lands, for example, were distributed among the peasants and the factories were placed in the hands of the workers.

Although it took them a few years, and very repressive policies, the economic growth of the USSR was enormous, until it became a great power. It was Stalin who implemented the five-year plans to achieve this growth

Capitalism versus communism

Although the civil war and, later, World War II, delayed the confrontation, after 1945 the world was divided into two irreconcilable blocs.

On the one hand, led by the USSR, was the communist bloc. This comprised Eastern Europe plus other countries with socialist regimes.

The second bloc was the capitalist one, led by the United States. This included Western Europe, most of Latin America, and Oceania.

Although both great powers never came to clash militarily, they did so indirectly. During the period called Cold War, in almost all the conflicts of the world the fight between them was hidden.

Liberation from customs and emancipation of women

Socially, the Revolution meant a great change in customs. The Bolsheviks, for example, changed the laws on divorce, marriage, and abortion.

During the 1920s, especially after the end of the civil war, what has been described by experts as a sexual revolution took place, many times more advanced than the leaders wanted.

Regarding the role of women, the Bolsheviks promoted policies to favor their status in society. Thus, from the end of 1917, the law established that the female working day was 8 hours. Likewise, they began to be able to negotiate wages and received help to care for their children during working hours.

According to the Soviet regime, women should be able to work outside the home, since, as they themselves declared, "chained to the home, women could not be equal to men."

Main characters

Although the Russian Revolution has been classified as a mass revolution, there were a number of leaders without whom it would not have been possible. The most important were Lenin, Trotsky, Kerensky and, on the other side, the last Tsar, Nicholas II.

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) came to the world on April 22, 1879 in Simbirsk (Russia). A lawyer by profession, he came into contact with Marxist circles in St. Petersburg in the mid-1890s. His political activities cost him exile to Siberia.

Later, in 1905, he had to leave the country, going into exile in Switzerland and Finland, although without losing contact with socialist activists inside Russia.

Lenin returned to Russia in 1917, after the start of the Revolution. He soon became the leader of the Bolshevik faction and led his own to take the Winter Palace in October of that same year.

Once in power, Lenin was appointed President of the People's Commissars. In 1918, he made peace with Germany to bring the country out of the First World War.

The following year, he founded the Communist International and, together with Leon Trotsky, the Red Army. He managed to defeat the counterrevolutionaries during the civil war.

Starting in 1921, Lenin applied the so-called New Economic Policy, which allowed private property in some sectors, especially in agriculture.

On January 21, 1924, Vladimir Lenin died in Gorky, the victim of a cerebral infarction.

Aleksandr Kérensky

Aleksandr Kerensky was born in Simbirsk on May 4, 1881. The future politician studied law at the University of Saint Petersburg, graduating in 1904. In the capital, he began his political career, joining the then underground Revolutionary Socialist Party.

Years later, once the Duma was created, Kerensky became one of its most influential members. Thus, he was one of the leaders of the progressive bloc, made up of Socialists, Mensheviks and Liberals.

When the revolution broke out in 1917, Kerensky was the vice president of the Petrograd Soviet, so he had an important role in the overthrow of the tsar and in the creation of the provisional government.

In this government, he was, first, minister of justice and, later, minister of war. Later, in July of that same year, he became Prime Minister.

However, Lenin's Bolsheviks did not support the government, largely because of its refusal to pull Russia out of the war. In October, a new revolutionary outbreak brought down the provisional government.

Kerensky had to go into exile, settling in New York at the end of World War II. The politician died in that American city on July 11, 1970.

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky was born on November 7, 1879, in the Ukrainian city of Yanovka. When the 1905 Revolution broke out, he became one of the leaders of the Menshevik faction. Despite the triumph of this rebellion, Trotsky was arrested and sent to Siberia, although he managed to escape and go into exile abroad.

As early as 1917, Trotsky returned to Russia and became involved in the revolutionary activities that ended up overthrowing the Tsar. During that time, he approached positions with Lenin until he ended up entering the Bolshevik ranks.

Being Lenin's second, Trotsky had an important role in the October uprising.

Once in power, he was appointed People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later one of the founders of the Red Army. From that position, he was one of the fundamental figures in the Russian civil war.

Lenin's death in 1924 unleashed an internal struggle for power. It pitted Trotsky against Stalin and ended with the triumph of the latter.

Thus, Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party and had to go into exile in Mexico. There, Ramón Mercader, carrying out Stalin's orders, assassinated the Russian leader.

Nicolas II

The last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, was born in St. Petersburg in 1868. A member of the Romanov dynasty, he came to the throne after succeeding his father, Alexander III, in 1894.

Nicholas II continued with the same authoritarian policies of his father, although historians have always considered that he did not have much aptitude for the position. His critics accused him of reigning following the directives of the tsarina, Alejandra Fiodorovna, and, through her, of her adviser Rasputin.

The Tsar had very ambitious projects in foreign policy, but he failed in all of them, they accelerated the arrival of the Revolution. On the one hand, Russia was defeated in the war it fought with Japan for control of the Far East and, on the other, its interference in the Balkans was one of the triggers of the First World War.

Russia's involvement in this conflict caused a large increase in opposition to its policies. The continual defeats of the army further undermined the position of the tsar.

The Revolution of 1917 forced Nicholas II to abdicate. Although he still had some supporters, the arrival of the Bolsheviks in October sealed the fate of the monarch. A few months later, he was assassinated along with his family and some servants.

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