Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
• Politics in pre-revolutionary Russia
• The 1917 revolution
MARCH REVOLUTION
• Tsar abdicates resulting in Dual Power – Provisional Government and
Petrograd Soviet
• March Revolution – “the Russian Revolution…sprang not so
much from the will of the people as from the mere
decomposition and collapse of the tsar’s government”
(Richard Charques, 1958)
• Early March – continually increasing number of strikers, refusal of
tsar to form new government, mutinies begin to occur.
• 13 March –Soviet of Workers and Soldiers is formed
• 15 March – Tsar Nicholas II abdicates. End of 300 year Romanov
Dynasty. From the Duma comes a new Provisional Government.
LENIN AND THE NOVEMBER REVOLUTION
• End of all cooperation with the PG in April 1917 – April Theses
• Solid propagandist – “All power to the Soviets” appealed to workers
and soldiers. “Land, peace and bread” tapped into the main
concerns of the Russian people: desire to acquire land (this
disagreed with Marxist principles but it was necessary to gain Bolsh
support)
• Time was right to seize power otherwise “History will never forgive
us”.
• Lenin accepted Trotsky’s argument that the seizure of power be
delayed until the meeting of the Second Congress of All Russian
Soviets on 8 Nov – would be presented as taking in the name of the
Soviets not just the Bolsh.
• Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC) set up with Trotsky as its
head
• Red Guard units and soldiers directed to take control of city, enter
Winter Palace and arrest PG members
• Ultimatum to Kerensky to surrender
• Soviet took power
• Election in 1917 – Bolsh won – dismissed Constituent Assembly
• After the mostly bloodless coup, he immediately called for peace
with Germany, land for the peasants and the creation of Council of
People’s Commissars (SOVNARKOM).
BACKGROUND
• Family background and education
AND
• Development of political ideals
• Born Davydovich Bronstein on 26 October 1879 in the Ukraine
• Grew up seeing suffering of peasants – helped him in future
connecting with peasantry
• No particular political views during school
• Post-graduation – heavily involved in underground movements
• Attracted to Marxism in 1896 – arrested in 1898 – part of an
underground group which organised strikes and protests
• After split of Russian Socialist Democratic Party (for a short time he
was a Mensh until he split) – wavering between Bolshevism and
Menshevism
• 1906 sentences to life imprisonment in Siberia – wrote about need
for permanent revolution
• During WWI began to accept ideas of Bolshevism and supported
them
• Joined Social Democratic Party in London where he met Lenin –
Lenin had heard of his oratorical and writing skills
• Started writing for SD’s newspaper, the Iskra, meaning ‘Spark’
• Lectured students on Marxism, historical materialism and
Volkogonov described that “intellectual recognition was…
immeasurably more important”
• Temporarily followed Martov’s Mensheviks after RSDLP split
• Second exile developed idea of ‘permanent revolution’ – socialist
revolution wouldn’t be successful until it was carried out globally,
shaping Lenin’s internationalisation of communism
o Working class revolution would only come after a Bourgeois
capitalist revolution
o Revolution in Russia only one part of a world revolution
o International dimension of revolution – Marxist doctrine
• Joined Bolsh Party in 1917
RISE TO PROMINENCE
• Emerging political role 1905-1917
Trotsky’s Weaknesses
• Arrogant
• Impatient
• Distrusted – fear of Trotsky dictatorship
• Questions over loyalty to Bolsh after switching from Mensheviks –
Stalin was an original Bolshevik
• Extremist views
• Illness clouded his judgements