In this post we will go over the history of it and the reasons behind the revolution
The Views of the Bolsheviks
Bolshevik translates to “One of the majority”. They were members of a social democratic political party lead by Vladimir Lenin. The Bolsheviks as a group were founded in 1903. They named themselves enemies of the Mensheviks which translates to “The Minority”. This was not equivalent to the right-wing nationalist statement today, the Bolsheviks considered all members of the working class part of the majority. The Minority refers to the ruling class that dictate society, the Capitalist class. [2]
The Bolsheviks were a Marxist organization. Marxism is an analysis between the powerful and the subjected. The end goal was for the working class to free themselves and then rule over their own society. When you are working you are dictating the future of society, when you work in accordance with the views of the ruling class you are giving up on the future you envision This is a problem, the rich do not want freedom for their workers, they want as much resources out of them as possible.
The Bolsheviks were also highly organized and with the goal of revolution in mind. This is because, as it has been proven time and time again, the capitalist class will fight to keep control of the means of production. This means that revolution is essentially the only option to fight back, while many members of the social democrats and other political parties viewed it otherwise. This alienated this groups, and further action only increased this. [2]
The Revolution of 1905
Before the revolution Russia was a Feudalist country. Political theory stated that a communism would arise out of capitalism for a variety of reasons. One of these was that the means of production must be industrialized before a communist country could sustain itself. This did not stop the revolutionaries from trying, and succeeding.
The first major step towards revolution happened in 1861. Unlike many of the other steps, this was committed by Russia and its nobility. Serfdom was abolished. Without this they may not have gotten the freedom to organize a revolution. With this major change they started industrializing, and with the increased level of technology this happened faster than capitalist countries before them. This became a major point where many changes occurred to their social structure and economy. [3]
There was a major population boom between 1890 and 1910. A major portion of their food supply went to feeding their military through a series of wars. That combined with harsh growing seasons caused massive starvation. The workers started to organize near the end of the nineteenth century. This was met with resistance. First the government tried to create legal unions, to trick the workers into only fighting for economic gains. This failed and a peaceful protest started in 1905 at St. Petersburg headed by the priest Georgy Gapon. This protest was met with violence. Over a hundred were killed and hundreds more were injured. This was known as the Bloody Sunday massacre. This caused more protests and started the revolution of 1905, which ultimately failed. [4]
The February Revolution
A second revolution was tried in February 1917, March 8th in today’s calendar. The people needed food. Russia was not industrialized and thus lost outright to germany in ww1. This time the police did not fight the protesters, instead many joined them. The king tried to give his throne away and failed. With this the monarchy fell and the people created a Duma, which is a legislative body. The body had an alliance with the workers’ parties, but there were problems. The Duma decided to stay in the war, angering the workers. This weakened the power of the Duma.
Vladimir lenin returned to the country in April and the Bolshevik Party started gaining power over the summer. They aided and attempted to harness riots in July in a nearly successful attempt to overthrow the government. They succeeded in October.
[5] [6]
The October Revolution
Lenin was back in exile and he communicated with the other leaders of the revolution by using letters. The Bolshevik party was in a strong phase of recruitment, in September their membership increased by over one third. Lenin decided that the revolution needed to happen before their popularity fell. After a few weeks the Military Revolutionary Committee was born (MRC). The job of the MRC was to protect against military coup or counter-revolution. As their power increased the Duma decided they had to fight, and sent all possible troops to arrest the leaders of the MRC and cut all lines of communication, including their printing presses and telephone wires.
The Duma tried to gain support for their government. They got so little support that the revolutionaries decided it was time to attack. The Bolshevik Red Guards were the soldiers in this revolution. On the first day of the revolution, November 6th in our calendar, they moved to strategic positions around Petrograd. They stormed the winter palace and either chased off or arrested the members of the provisional government.
With this the Bolsheviks took over the council. The moderates became angry with their revolutionary tendencies and accused them of taking power illegally. The moderates walked out and the Bolsheviks took power. Lenin became the leader of the council and the revolution ended in victory, with nearly no bloodshed. [7]
This revolution produced a country that would set new benchmarks for democracy and production. They industrialized faster than any other country in history. Tens of millions die of poverty under capitalism every year, the USSR was the first large-scale example of the solution to this problem.