HISTORY OF USSR ASSIGNMENT

by RITIK KAPOOR,2K18/HS/85

Q. Discuss the role of workers, peasants, soldiers and women in the

fall of Tsarism in February 1917?
The February revolution in Russia opened nine months of titanic class struggle
which culminated in the coming to power of the working class, led by the
Bolshevik Party headed by Lenin and Trotsky.

Revolution broke out first in Russia because the war placed the greatest burdens on
what was industrially the most backward nation in Europe. In Lenin’s words,
“capitalism broke at its weakest link.”

The February Revolution began on the 23rd (dates are on the old Russian calendar;
add 13 days for the modern calendar) with a strike by women textile workers in
Petrograd. On International Women’s Day, 90,000 were on strike, including many
soldiers’ wives. They marched to the Duma (a truncated parliament) demanding
bread, which as Trotsky commented was like demanding milk from a he-goat. On
the following day half of the industrial workers of Petrograd joined the strike.

As the strikes grew, the slogans rapidly changed to directly political challenges to
the regime: “Down with the aristocracy! Down with the war!”

Yet none of the workers’ organizations initially called for the strikes. Indeed, the
most brilliant Bolshevik organization, the committee in the industrial Vyborg area,
feeling the tension, but not believing the time was right for an insurrection which
they saw could develop from the strikes, initially opposed the call for strikes on
February 23. Thus one of the most oppressed and least organized layers, perhaps
not as burdened by consideration of where their strike could lead, but burning
with desire to take action, opened the floodgates of revolution.

The police tried to break up the crowds, aided by Cossacks (cavalry), some
mounted police, and occasionally by infantry. The crowds fought the police, but
tried to neutralize the Cossacks and win over the soldiers in action.On the 25th,
cadet officers fired on demonstrating workers, killing 16. On the 27th there were
further demonstrations and troops were called out to suppress them.

After clashed with the workers, the troops began to mutiny. In some places the
workers had succeeded in uniting with the soldiers, penetrating the barracks and
receiving rifles. Admiralty, workers and soldiers arrested policemen, flung open
prisons, and freed the opponents of the government.

Various views has been expressed of the collapse of the Romanov dynasty. W.H.
Chamberlain describes it as ‘one of the most leaderless, spontaneous revolutions of
all time’. Different scholars made relevant observations in this context, focusing on
different aspects that led to the fall of Romanov dynasty, and most of them contain
substantial amount of truth. E.H. Carr emphasized on the exasperations generated
among people by the ‘privations of the war and by manifest inequality in the
distribution of the burdens’. Theda Skocpal, in her work States and Social
Revolution, observes that no regime meets its demise until administrative and
military power… breaks down. Aleen Wildman poimts out the ‘unintended
consequence’ of the government’s orders to suppress the demonstrations by force,
which caused an almost full scale mutiny of the Petrograd garrison on 27th
February. He writes ‘the chief bulwark of an old order, its only major challenge
against revolutionary challenge, had played a crucial role in influencing the
outcome of the February Revolution’.

Thus it can be said that the Romanov dynasty was overthrown because of absolute
chaos prevailed in Russia where the tsars, under the pretext of being God’s
representative, monopolized and misappropriated power. The blunders made by the
tsars in various spheres caused irrevocable damage to the nation. The tsars failed to
harness the revolutionary energy of the various nationalities to their advantage.
The unsatisfactory constitutional developments aggravated tension amongst the
educated and the liberal elements of society. The gullible peasants’ faith in the tsar
had been replaced by a conviction that the prosperity of the nobility had been
procured at their cost. Consequently, they could be appeased only by the
implementation of radical changes. The workers had become aware of their dignity
as human beings and they believed that they deserved a better deal. They became
more militant, and this change in attitude was to some extent the contribution of
the various political parties that were functioning in Russia. They already
diminished faith in the tsarist rule was further eroded by the outbreak of World
War I, and the army, which was one of the pillars of support of the tsars, proved
unwilling to shoot down the mutineers. The opposition to the chaotic rule of the
tsars had reached its apogee in February 1917.

ROLE OF WOMEN
The immediate cause of the Russian Revolution of 1917 was the devastating
impact of the First World War on Tsarist Russia. It began on February 23rd, (or
March 8th according to the Western European calendar), on International
Women’s Day. Hundreds of women workers in the Vyborg district of Petrograd
walked out of the textile mills, going from one factory to another demanding that
the workers – men and women – should join the strike. Here and there, they forced
their way into the factories, and insisted that all the workers follow them out of the
gates. The police attacked them. They fought back. Throwing sticks, throwing
bricks. They felt they had nothing to lose. Working twelve and sometimes up to
sixteen hours a day in the dirt and noise of the mills, heavily exploited and harshly
treated, desperate for bread and other basic necessities, their lives had become
intolerable

In his remarkable History of the Russian Revolution, published in 1930, Léon

Trotsky wrote : “A great role is played by women workers in relationship between
workers and soldiers. They go up to the cordons more boldly than men, take hold
of the rifles, beseech, almost command: ‘Put down your bayonets – join us!’ The
soldiers are excited, ashamed, exchange anxious glances, waver; someone makes
up his mind first, and the bayonets rise guiltily above the shoulders of the
advancing crowd.” This role was indeed of vital importance. Through their
understanding of what was necessary for the success of the struggle, through their
audacity and their inspiring courage, the women of Petrograd had provoked a
massive movement. Even on that first day, some 100,000 workers joined the strike.
The numbers grew day by day, and within just five days, the Tsar was forced to
abdicate.

The 1914 war, which drained massive numbers of males from both town and
country, had a major impact on the condition of women. In 1914, Russia’s standing
army was close to 6 million soldiers. By the time of the revolution, the number of
men mobilised had reached 12 million. About 2 million of them were slaughtered
in the bloodbath. Another 4.5 million were wounded. This increased the burden on
women, at home and at work,. It also increased the numbers of women moving into
towns and cities to work in industry. Statistics indicate that just over a quarter of
the urban workforce was made up of women in 1914, but that they amounted to
almost half (45%) of the workforce in 1917. Significantly, whereas the female
contingent among metalworkers had only been 3% before the war, it had risen to
18% by the time of the revolution.

The increased social and economic weight of working class women led to greater
political awareness and militancy. Working in factories had an effect on women
that was similar to that of military service for the poor peasantry. Instead of
suffering in isolation, just as it had organised the peasants into regiments, the war
brought women together under common conditions of factory discipline and
exploitation.

The engagement of women in combat roles continued on both sides during the
Russian civil wars. However, while up to 80,000 women are estimated to have
served with the Red Forces, the majority served in support roles as doctors, nurses,
telephonists and clerks. Nevertheless, some women did fight for the Red Army in
combat roles and even held command positions. One such example is Rozaliia
Samoilovna Zemliachka, a senior military commissar on the Southern Front and
Northern Front who was nicknamed ‘Bloody Rosa’ by the British opposition.

As well as participating in combat, a small but significant number of Bolshevik

women were appointed as political workers, whose task was to instruct Red Army
soldiers on politics. While women also fought in the White Armies, their numbers
were considerably smaller and the Whites did not actively recruit women for
combat roles.

As would be expected in a culturally backward country such as Tsarist Russia,

contemptuous and oppressive attitudes on the part of male workers were
widespread. Even among the militants of revolutionary organisations, the political
intelligence and capabilities of women workers were not always recognised.

Over the tumultuous months which seperated February from October, the
Bolsheviks won the support of a large majorty of the workers and soldiers in
Petrograd, Moscow, and elsewhere. The soldiers – and the entire people – wanted
an immediate end to the senseless slaughter of the imperialist war. After the
victory of the soviet uprising led by the Bolsheviks in October, the new
revolutionary government set about laying the foundations for a new social order.

ROLE OF PEASANTS
The term peasant usually refers to people who lived and worked in rural areas, but,
in Russia, it also described a legal category — soslovie — which even appeared on
an individual’s passport. Russian peasants could live in urban areas, make their
living as workers or traders, and serve in the military.

In the early twentieth century modernity arrived in rural Russia, coexisting with
and transforming the traditional elements of peasant life, defined by patriarchy,
religious orthodoxy, and communality.

Patriarchal power structures ensured that older men dominated both family and
community. The Russian Orthodox faith played an important role in social,
cultural, and spiritual life for many residents. Communal systems of land
management endured in many areas, facilitating the collective use of resources and
reinforcing patriarchal social structures. All these features lent rural Russia a
degree of parochialism, and politics emphasized local interests over national
concerns.

Finally, the 1914 mobilization heralded a significant change among village men

who took up arms — some with patriotic fervor and others with great reluctance —
and moved across the great empire. These connections to the world outside their
own villages meant that, by 1917, peasants no longer lived in isolated pre-
modernity. They related to the state and the nation in multiple ways. Rising literacy
rates allowed the peasantry to engage with national and regional political agendas
while experiences in urban centers inspired young people to challenge male elders’
patriarchal dominance.

What we know of the shape and intensity of rural revolutions comes largely from
the so-called disturbance reports compiled primarily from private landholders’
complaints. These reports tell us that the parts of Russia with the most fertile soil
witnessed the most disturbances. They also indicate that areas with high
concentrations of serfdom also saw more unrest, more violent attacks on individual
landowners, and more forcible seizure of estates.

Although violent assault and forced redistribution often exemplify the peasant
revolution, they were not at all typical. In fact, by 1917, only a small proportion of
arable land still belonged to the elite. In some regions, like Viatka, noble landlords
and land hunger were mostly absent.

The February revolutionn launched a steady unfurling of peasant aspirations and

actions, but how rural revolutionaries struggled for equality depended on their
locales’ land use and ownership patterns. Most of these actions did not involve
violence or forcible seizures. Instead, rural communities tested and transgressed
the laws of private ownership while trying to protect themselves from potential
repression.

We have only fragmentary evidence about the individuals and groups that led
peasant revolutions. Committees, soviets, and unions assumed leadership in many
villages, issuing orders about land use and management. These organizations
offered an institutional basis for peasants’ actions.

The February Revolution transformed the status and power of ordinary soldiers,
who became the movement’s armed protectors. Deserters, soldiers on leave, and
men stationed in rear garrisons all played lively roles in village politics. They were
the closest any outsider, if we would categorize them as such, got to leading the
peasant revolts.

Because soldiers were exposed to, trained in, and equipped for violence, rural
revolutionary activity was more likely to turn violent when soldiers participated.
Sometimes the whole community participated in these assaults. For example, a
crowd of soldiers accompanied by village women and their children forced Natalia
Neratova off her land in May 1917.

ROLE OF SOLDIERS
The outcome of the Russian revolution owed as much of its success to the soldiers
and sailors of the military as it did to the urban proletariat. In 1917, Europe was in
its third year of war, and Russia had suffered heavy losses, with  about 5,700,000
casualties by the end of 1916. Years of war weariness had drained the military of
its morale, along with its willingness to defend the Czar. There was a desire among
both the public and the soldiers to change conditions on the front and to bring an
end to the war. Soldiers provided an impetus to the revolution, and were willing to
fight for and defend it, as they viewed it as an “implicit promise that the war would
soon end.” Part of the reason for the soldiers’ support for the revolution, was how
they were perceived in society.

Rather than being seen as a separate or hostile class, soldiers and sailors were
thought of as part of the working class, and would identify their own interests with
it, rather than that of their officers, who they saw as inextricably linked with the
ruling class. “Traditionally, Russia’s soldiers and sailors of 1917 have been
categorized as ‘proletarians’, regardless of their occupation out of uniform…It
can be argued in Marxist terms that the men in the armed forces were proletarian
by virtue of their current occupation, but the more important thing is that this is
evidently how they regarded themselves. Importantly, they also “…saw the officers
and the Provisional Government as belonging to one class, that of the ‘masters’,
and identified their own interests with those of the workers and the Petrograd
Soviet.”  This would prove to be a decisive factor in the February revolution, as it
was the experience of being ordered to fire on peaceful demonstrators that would
initially radicalize many of the soldiers. Furthermore, a major concern of the
Czar’s Generals, and a decisive element in their decision to advise the Czar to
abdicate, was fear that the use of the military to further suppress the revolution
would only lead to further radicalization of the army

The response to the massacre was for the soldiers to mutiny. Afterwards, soldiers
returned to the barracks, and questioned what had gone on. Recognizing their own
interests as bound up with the revolutionary masses, rather than their officers, the
mutinies spread.

In order to represent their political interests, soldiers formed their own

organizations.  The most basic and most important of these were soldiers’
committees. These would act as their primary political policy body, used from
interpreting events, to passing resolutions, to carrying out educational activities.
They acted as channels of information, and were used to communicate between the
soldiers and the soviets, and even became agents through which soldiers
challenged the authority of their officers. Sailors would have similar organizations
with their ship, base, and fleet committees.

Mutinous troops not only provided a psychological and morale boost, but also
much needed organization and tactics. “The mutiny of the Petrograd garrison
turned the disorders of the previous four days into a full-scale revolution.”

While the military alone is no substitute for the revolutionary position of

the proletariat, its is apparent that for a revolution to be successful, either passivity
and an unwillingness to defend the Old Order, or a class conscious and pro-
revolutionary army, is needed. The experience of the Russian Revolution shows
that under proper historical conditions, soldiers are capable of becoming class
conscious, and fighting in the interests of their own class, rather than that of their
nation, or their Officers.

ROLE OF WORKERS
Russia at the opening of World War I was a society in the midst of a massive
transformation. The Russian Empire encompassed over 150 million people, with
70 percent living in the countryside. Within this aging empire, modern capitalist
enterprises had taken root, funded by foreign capital and nurtured by state
ownership and intervention. The introduction of imported technology and capital
allowed the development of concentrated centers of production within a society
still characterized by medieval relations. Leon Trotsky called this process
“combined and uneven development,” as Russia skipped many of the intermediary
steps between feudalism and advanced capitalism, and fused the most backward
and most forward elements of society together in one uneasy whole.11

The working class as social force was born in the 1890s. Though a small minority
—just over 3 million in 1917—it was heavily concentrated in large cities and
mining enterprises. In Petrograd, the heart of the workers’ movement, the number
of factory workers grew from 73,200 in 1890 to 242,600 by 1914. The coming of
World War I compounded this growth: Petrograd crammed another 150,000
workers into the city center by 1917. Metal works were the largest employer,
accounting for 60 percent of factory workers. The Putilov Works in Petrograd
employed 30,000, making it the world’s largest factory.

On International Working Women’s Day, February 23, 1917, women workers in

the capital launched a strike wave that would spell the end of tsarism in Russia.
The strike movement escalated in the following days, driving the police from the
streets and winning whole units of the army over to mutiny in support. Soviets of
workers’ and soldiers’ deputies were created across Petrograd and then Russia,
embracing factories, army, and navy units; and eventually electing peasant,
student, and neighborhood delegates.

The conflict between one political organ based on bourgeois power and a second
based in working-class self-organization was obvious. The precarious alliance
between these two bodies—the Duma and the Soviet—was held together by the
dominance of the moderate socialists in the Executive Committee of the All-
Russian Soviet, which subordinated itself to the Provisional Government.

The February revolution was the product of a mounting strike wave. The years of
reaction gave way to a resurgence of class struggle in 1912. The outbreak of World
War I two years later brought this revival to a temporary halt—only to give it
renewed vigour as the result of poverty and extreme exploitation produced by the
war. Between August and December 1914, there were twenty-five strikes
involving fewer than 20,000 workers in Petrograd; rising to 170 strikes involving
173,833 workers in 1915; and then up to 401 strikes and 513,737 workers in
1916. Then, with the exploision of the revolution in 1917, the number of strikes
skyrocketed. By the time of the collapse of tsarism, factory inspectors had recorded
strikes, the majority of them political, in “1,330 enterprises involving 676,000
workers . . . a larger number than for all of 1916.”

It was during this surge of working-class struggle in February that factory

committees sprang up across Russia. As historian Gennady Shkliarevsky notes,
“The organization of factory committees began when the February strikes that led
to the overthrow of the monarchy were still in progress. In many instances factory
committees were organized even before local soviets came into existence.” The
movement spread dramatically; by June 1917 three-quarters of Russian workers,
according to one estimate, were involved in the movement.

Within a month of the February Revolution, 80 percent of Petrograd’s almost

400,000 factory workers were represented by a shop committee. The depiction
above should make clear that far from being “spontaneous,” the factory
committees were highly organized through durable and accountable leadership
structures.

This reality is well illustrated by the course of the factory committees in the state
sector, which was almost entirely war production. The dynamic in these industries
were distinctly different from the private sector. With the fall of the tsar, many
state enterprises were abandoned by their managers, tied as they were to the old
regime. The tsar’s abdication in February left the factories in the hands of “the
people.” In this vacuum, workers interpreted this to mean that the factory
committees should control all of factory operations. However, as the political
situation stabilized, the state reasserted its control, and workers voluntarily
returned the reins. One factor that weighed on the consideration of taking full
control of production was, as Mandel points out, that “given conditions of
economic crisis, the factory committees understood that their chances of failing
and being discredited were very great.

CONCLUSION
The February Revolution was the explosion of two fundamental contradic-tions in
Russia–the revolt of the masses against the established order and the irreconcilable
conflict between ‘society and state’.The process of what Haimson describes as dual
polarisation had steadily progressed after 1905 under the impact of the successful
modernisation undertaken by Russia and led to the fall of Tsars.