Lenin’s optimism that the Russian revolution would induce a series of revolutions across the continent, and even the world was promoted by the teachings of Marx and “Lenin had justified the timing of the Russian October Revolution by referring to the imminence of Revolution in Europe.” Who stipulated that the oppressed would rise up and overthrow their oppressors, however once revolutions failed to spread naturally the Bolsheviks tried to encourage them to occur,
“By January 1919, it appeared to the Russian Bolsheviks’ that it was the absence of a true Bolshevik party that was holding up the European revolution. Invitation went out to thirty-eight socialist organisations the Bolsheviks’ considered eligible for consideration as members of Communist International, (Comintern). By the time the 2nd congress of Comintern met in July 1920, working class militancy had declined almost everywhere in Europe.”
Comintern (or more precisely komintern), after the Bolshevik revolution was established in 1919 to work for communist revolutions due to the belief that communist revolutions were going to spread across the globe.
“Lenin, explicitly stated that the Soviet revolution was but the start of a World Revolution- a historical inevitability which the Moscow- led communist international, (comintern) was dedicated to hastening.”
The deep rooted fear from democratic countries such as Britain that the propaganda from the Bolsheviks would entice the working classes to rise and rebel against the systems in power led to them being included in the fighting of the civil war in Russia, which occurred in 1917, seeing the ‘red’ Bolsheviks fight the ‘white’ counter-revolutionaries. The help from outside nations to counter the communist attack came through this embedded fear that shadowed such things as writing the peace treaty at the end of World War One, for careful planning had to dispel any chance of a nationalist uprising on the left.
“At Versailles the peacemakers were haunted by the ‘spectre of bolshevism’ spreading from Lenin’s newly created Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, (USSR).”
This mistrust in the left was provoked by Lenin’s government actively persuading revolution across the world “The Russian newspaper, Pravda proclaimed on the first of November 1918, ‘The World Revolution has begun…Nothing can hold up the iron tread of Revolution’”. These attacks on the systems of the west in turn, led to countries to withhold recognition; such as Britain until 1924, the US until 1933 and Yugoslavia until 1940.
These actions secluded Russia, leaving her cut off from the allied forces,
“The pre-war balance of power was stricken at its roots; the revolution inaugurated twenty years of virtual isolation for Russia”
And so throughout the inter war years Russia had to turn inward and to small states. This isolation stemmed from the revolution due to the revolution being that which brought a communist government to power, the capitalist west thereby disapproving and as such meant that as a weak nation the newly formed Soviet Union turned to Nazi Germany and negotiated the Nazi-Soviet pact on the 23rd of August 1939, in order to maintain neutrality in the face of an impending war. This action left the world stunned due to the two conflicting ideologies cooperating and thereby adds justification to the idea that the October revolution was extremely significant to European history for it added weight to the Nazi campaign towards the Second World War.
However this pact did not observe the neutrality of the USSR, for the secret protocol for Germany to occupy western Poland and the USSR to invade the eastern part was overturned by the Nazi’s invasion of the USSR on June 22nd 1941, however, by occupying Poland the second World War began and the USSR was once again drawn in to the fighting. By the end of this war Germany was divided between the four major powers, Russia occupying the eastern part, however distrust between the nations due to their conflicting ideologies brought to power through the revolution, meant that the balance between occupying forces was turbulent.
America who had a staunch anti-communist leadership became wary of its actions, for both the USSR and the USA had emerged as world superpowers
“In 1917, the US took over leadership of democratic republicanism from war-weary France; in 1947, she inherited the Quasi-imperial position vacated by war-bled England. Both events brought America into conflict with the Soviet Union.”
As well as this the USSR had also gained significant power,
“She (the USSR) had won by 1945 a position which was stronger than the tsarist empire had ever known…and the only other conceivable military counterweight-the American army-was soon beginning to go home.”
Yet the American presence in Germany, and specifically Berlin put tantamount pressure on relations between these superpowers, and the stalemate of the Cold War began as hostile manoeuvres such as the Berlin blockade in response to the currency reform in the western zones in 1948. And in response American bombers moved back to English bases.
However the disruption between the two forces was felt throughout Europe,
“Some felt that European history in an even longer run, too, showed it to be a matter of life and death to overcome the continents disunion running back from well before 1939 to the aftermath of the Great War.”
For in accordance to J.M. Roberts view, the interwar period was a major development in the process towards the Cold War, for the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 allowed a party with contrasting ideology and priorities to that of the main global powers into the system of an influential country with the ability to split the continent in half through the shadow of the iron curtain after the end of the Second World War.
However other dates have subsequently been important in shaping the history of Europe. For around the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there were frequent protests and revolutions inspiring the need for change across Europe, such as the French revolution of 1789, which created fears of revolution in other countries such as Britain, inspiring there to be a change in the system of voting and other elements of government in order to avoid civil war. These types of changes have also helped to push Europe towards the First and Second World Wars, as well as the Cold War, which since the First World War, which began in 1914, has left Europe as a battleground for over seventy years. For the First World War (or Great War) in itself was an extremely significant catalyst in the transformation of Europe. Old grudges such as that between Britain and Germany over empires were raised and the future of Europe was overturned as fighting gave way for whole societies being mobilised against one another. One British civil servant spoke of the ministry of food as “suppressing private enterprise entirely” expressing how the First World War gave a taste, to much of Europe, the first aspects of socialism.
And therefore there are other epochs that give rise to the changing nature of Europe and how it is seen today. The Bolshevik revolution has been a catalyst in the evolution and explosions of war across the continent, however, by allowing the protests and revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to provoke the revolt on Petrograd in the February revolutions the October revolution may not of occurred, for it was through the Dumas’ failure to produce a governmental system capable of leading Russia after the fall of the Tsar that left the government open to a coup d’etat by the Bolshevik party. This fear of similar revolutions further isolated the new USSR and caused rise to extremist right-wing activity such as the Nazi party who promised to ‘defend against the threat of communism’ thus in turn leading to that which caused the Second World war, and from that the Cold War as the fear of a strong communist country propelled the USA into a stalemate and arms race with the nation.
The Bolshevik revolution in essence was in preparation for a series of revolts and uprisings across the continent, for, “Lenin had justified the timing of the Russian October Revolution by referring to the imminence of Revolution in Europe.” However, instead it caused the isolation of the USSR and therefore created a shadow across the eastern part of Europe, which threatened the democratic west with the slow approach of communism, and therefore the Bolshevik revolution was highly integral to the formation of Europe as it is seen today.
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