Russian Revolution in Dates.

917 2 Nov Bolsheviks gain Moscow

917 7th Nov Ukraine proclaimed independent by the Central Rada.

917 Nov 12-14 Elections to the Constituent Assembly. Socialist Revolutionaries the largest party.

917 12 Dec Left-SRs join Sovnarkom

917 Dec (early) Congress of Socialist Revolutionaries results in victory for the left under Chernov. Likewise Menshevik Congress gives victory to Martov's Menshevik internationalists.

918 Jan 5th The Constituent Assembly in which the Bolsheviks are a minority meets for one day before being suppressed. Earlier that day a demonstration is fired on by Bolshevik units and several demonstrators are killed

918 10-18 Jan 3rd Soviet Congress

918 Jan 28th Trotsky denounces the German Peace Terms as unacceptable and walks out of the peace negotiations at Brest- Litovsk.

918 Feb 1/14 Russia adopts Western (Gregorian) calendar.

918 Feb 18th The Germans invade Russia which is all but defenceless as virtually the entire army has deserted.

918 March The Bolsheviks accept the dictated peace of Brest-Litovsk. The Left SRs denounce the peace and leave the government.

918 April 12th Moscow headquarters of the anarchists surrounded and attacked by Bolshevik troops

918 May 9th Bolshevik troops open fire on workers protesting at food shortages in the town of Kolpino

918 May (late) The Czechoslovak legion mutinies against the Bolshevik government. Using the railways they are able to sweep away Bolshevik control from vast areas of Russia. The Socialist Revolutionaries support the rising.

918 July Fifth Soviet Congress. The left SRs assassinate the German ambassador and are in turn crushed by the Bolsheviks.

918 16 July GorkyÆs Novaia Zhizn , the last opposition paper, banned.

918 23rd Aug 3 ministers of the Siberian Government are arrested by supporter of Mikhailov, the finance Minister, when they arrive in Omsk. They are told to resign their posts. Two agree. The third, Novoselov, refuses and is hacked to death.

918 22nd Sept Siberian Oblast Duma dismisses Mikhailov and is itself dispersed by Mikhailov

918 18th November Kolchak, stages a coup against the Directory, the multi party government in Siberia, and establishes a counterrevolutionary despotism.

918 Dec Perm falls to Kolchak's Whites

919 Jan Mensheviks legalised and allowed to publish Vsegda Vpered in Moscow. Era of relative freedom begins in Bolshevik controlled Russia

919 25 Feb The Cheka closes down Vsegda Vpered. This marks a return to despotic rule by Bolsheviks.

919 White Armies attack the Bolsheviks from all directions but the Red Army is finally victorious.

920 25 Apr Poland invades Russia.

920 19th Aug Start of peasant insurrection in Tambov

920 14 Nov. Last White army under Wrangel evacuates the Crimea

921 Peasant unrest sweeps Russia. These risings are suppressed but the New Economic Policy is proclaimed that gives the peasants the right to sell their grain surpluses

921 1-17 Mar The old Bolshevik stronghold of Kronstadt rises demanding free election to the Soviets but is suppressed.

921 May Tambov insurrection suppressed

924 Lenin dies. Trotsky is defeated by a triumvirate of Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev. Though Stalin stays in the background it is he who is the real power as the other two will shortly discover.

World Revolution

The terror and the civil war put the finishing touches into transforming the Bolshevik professional revolutionaries into a ruling class whose relationship with the toilers was one of master to serf. Is this really anything to do with socialism?

Social Democrats (including Lenin) had always argued that the economic conditions were not ripe for revolution in Russia. Hence it was entirely in conformity with social democrat theory - even Leninist theory - that a socialist transformation in Russia would lead to political and economic catastrophe. The get out was that if the revolution spread to western europe a socialist federation would be set up that would have a strong enough economic basis for socialism to prosper.

I disagree with both propositions. First I agree with the populists that a form of socialism was possible. That is to say, a form of market socialism based on workers running the factories and the peasants controlling the land was not only possible but being implemented by the toilers themselves. The state's role would have been one of support rather than direction and of ironing out some of the irationalitys of the market. In Lenin's eyes only a centralised 'planned' economy is true socialism. Perhaps he was right . But an attempt to have all economic life directed according to a central plan would, I believe, have failed if implemented Europe wide just as surely as it did in Russia alone.

But no matter. Let us imagine that the Bolsheviks were right. Then the attempt to implement socialism in Russia was merely a method of inspiring the workers of more industrial countries to follow suit. If the Russian toilers were so parochial that they were satisfied with a more decentralised form of socialism and failed to see why they should provide an example to the rest of the world then the Bolsheviks had the right, indeed the duty, to force it on them. As Lenin said "It isn't a question of Russia at all, gentlemen. I spit on Russia.... This is merely one phase through which we must pass on the way to a world revolution." The Russian toilers were pawns in a much bigger game.

The October Revolution then was a gamble. We know that it failed. Revolution was defeated in Western Europe. The Bolshevik professional revolutionaries were left as a strange anomaly - a ruling class who believed they had no right to exist. They survived on borrowed time until the thirties they were bloodily deposed by Stalin's nomenklatura in the great purges. In the process the idea of workers revolution became associated with famine and tyranny. So much for the Bolsheviks duty to world revolution.

But what if the gamble had paid off? If the existence of a socialist state had inspired a world revolution would not this have justified the Bolshevik experiment. It is true that Soviet Russia did indeed provide an inspiration for the world. Russia, it was believed, was a land of plenty and freedom where the workers controlled their destiny. The reality was repression, famine and the lack of the most basic worker rights such as the right to strike. As inspiration the October revolution was a con. It inspired purely because many were prepared believe Russia was what it claimed to be - a workers republic. Even if we say that a lie that builds revolution was justified that hardly justifies the Bolshevik imposition of their doctrinaire form of socialism. If all it needed was for the worlds workers believe that socialism had triumphed in Russia then all the Bolsheviks need have done was issue a proclamation announcing this ... and let the toilers get on with making their own revolution.

Conclusion

There are two important features of October. Most obvious is that October brought the Bolsheviks to power. Bolshevik rule as it unfolded showed itself as a ruthless dictatorship dominated by one individual - Lenin. And it did unfold. It did not 'develop' for events rather than shaping Bolshevik rule merely revealed it in its true colours. October itself was a massive step on the road to Stalinism.

But Stalinism could not have developed from Bolshevism if the Bolsheviks had lost power. This brings me to the second feature of October - the lack of revolutionary spirit. Often as in February 1917 a government that has been carried into power on a revolutionary wave begins in a very weak position. Any independent action of that government against the wishes of the masses risks the survival of that government. The Bolsheviks did not face this problem and hence opposition grew only gradually as they conducted a major assault on the revolution. The nature of October is a crucial factor in explaining the survival of the Bolsheviks

Glossary

Bolsheviks. The Russian Social Democrat and Labour Party split at its Congress in 1904. Bolsheviks were those who followed Lenin.

Chernov, Victor. The left wing leader of the Socialist Revolutionary Party - the Hamlet of the Russian Revolution. Though against the war and genuinely commited to social change he was bound by loyalty to the right wing leadership of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. He was mininster of Agriculture in the first two coalitions.

Chinovnik A kind of aristocratic bureaucracy that dominated the Tsarist civil service.

Mensheviks. The Mensheviks were a real mixed bunch (Trotsky was originally a Menshevik!). What they had in common is that they were Marxists but didn't believe Lenin was God. During 1917 the dominant Menshevik faction supported the government and the war effort. After the October revolution a more left wing faction the Menshevik-Internationalists won control of the party.

Socialist Revolutionaries (PSR). A socialist party that unlike the Marxists believed that it was the peasantry not the workers who were the most revolutionary class. Though nominally led by Victor Chernov it was actually controlled by a right wing faction for most of 1917. The more left wing faction under Chernov won control after October. In many areas they have much in common with modern Greens. The mistrusted the Marxists enthusiasm for economic growth above all else and had a land policy that a moderd green party would be proud of. They also share with modern greens a strong commitment to decentralisation. On violence however there is a big gulf for unlike modern greens comitment to nonviolence the SRs celebrated assasination as way of bringing down tyrants.

Left Socialist Revolutionaries (Left SRs) Throughout 1917 there was a strong anti-war faction within the PSR. Immediately after the Bolshevik siezure of power they were expelled for refusing to boycott the Bolshevik controlled Soviets. They then formed a separate party.

Toilers (Truzhyenik) A term used Socialist revolutionaries to cover workers, peasants and white collar workers as opposed rabotnik which only applied to industrial workers.