Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution

1. The Age of Social Change

• Liberals, Radicals, and Conservatives: Following the French Revolution, new political ideas emerged. Liberals sought secular nations with elected parliaments, though they restricted voting to propertied men. Radicals advocated for universal suffrage and opposed the concentration of wealth. Conservatives preferred slow, gradual change that respected historical traditions.
• Industrial Society: The Industrial Revolution led to rapid urban expansion. It brought men, women, and children into factories, resulting in long working hours, low wages, widespread unemployment, and severe housing and sanitation issues.
• The Coming of Socialism: Socialists opposed private property, viewing it as the root of societal problems. Thinkers like Robert Owen and Louis Blanc promoted cooperative communities. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels argued that capitalism inherently exploited workers, proposing instead a radically socialist, communist society where all property was socially controlled.

• Economy and Society: Ruled by autocratic Tsar Nicholas II, the empire was deeply agricultural, with 85% of the population earning a living from farming. Industry was concentrated in specific pockets like St. Petersburg and Moscow.
• Social Divisions: Factory workers were divided by skill level and gender, yet they occasionally united to strike. Peasants were deeply religious but harbored intense animosity toward the nobility, often demanding noble land. Uniquely, Russian peasants routinely pooled their land into communes (mirs) for periodic redistribution.
• Rise of Socialism: Operating illegally under strict policing, the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party formed in 1898. The movement eventually split over organizational strategy into the disciplined Bolsheviks (led by Vladimir Lenin) and the more open Mensheviks.

• Bloody Sunday: Economic hardships in 1904 led to massive strikes. When a peaceful workers' procession led by Father Gapon approached the Winter Palace, it was violently attacked by the Tsar's police, an event known as Bloody Sunday.
• The Duma: The resulting 1905 Revolution forced the Tsar to create an elected consultative Parliament, the Duma. However, he quickly dismissed the first two Dumas to eliminate checks on his power and packed the third with conservatives.
• Impact of the First World War: The war devastated Russia. By 1917, over 7 million casualties were recorded. The destruction of crops, breakdown of railways, and diversion of goods to the army resulted in acute bread and flour shortages in the cities, destroying the Tsar's popularity.

• The Uprising: In February 1917, severe food shortages and freezing temperatures triggered widespread strikes, notably led by female workers. When the government suspended the Duma, demonstrations intensified.
• Fall of the Monarchy: Cavalry and soldiers refused to fire on the crowds, instead joining the workers to form the Petrograd Soviet. Advised by military commanders, the Tsar abdicated on March 2, and a Provisional Government was established.
• Lenin's April Theses: Returning from exile, Vladimir Lenin declared three demands: end the war, transfer land to the peasants, and nationalize the banks.

• Seizure of Power: Fearing the Provisional Government would set up a dictatorship, the Bolsheviks planned an uprising. On October 24, the Military Revolutionary Committee (led by Leon Trotskii) successfully seized government offices and the Winter Palace.
• Initial Bolshevik Reforms: The new regime abolished private property, nationalized industries and banks, and allowed peasants to seize noble lands. Russia became a one-party state under the renamed Russian Communist Party.
• The Civil War: The Bolshevik seizure of power triggered a bitter civil war between the Bolsheviks (Reds), Socialist Revolutionaries (Greens), and pro-Tsarists (Whites). Despite foreign intervention backing the Whites, the Reds consolidated control by 1920.

• Planned Economy: The introduction of Five-Year Plans drove rapid industrial growth. While this resulted in the quick construction of factories, it also caused miserable working and living conditions for laborers.
• Collectivisation under Stalin: To solve acute grain shortages, Joseph Stalin initiated forced collectivisation, taking land from peasants to create state-controlled collective farms (kolkhoz) and violently eliminating well-to-do peasants known as kulaks.
• Disaster and Purges: Peasant resistance, combined with bad harvests, resulted in a devastating famine between 1930 and 1933 that killed over 4 million people. Critics of the system were accused of conspiracy, leading to widespread purges, executions, and imprisonment in labor camps.

• International Reach: The USSR's formation fired the imagination of people globally, leading to the creation of communist parties in many nations. The Bolsheviks founded the Comintern to encourage international socialism and anti-colonial movements.
• Shifting Reputations: While the USSR successfully transformed a backward country into an industrial superpower that fed its poor, the international community increasingly recognized that this was achieved through deeply repressive policies that stripped citizens of essential freedoms.

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