Russian Revolution of 1917

The Kerensky Government

The July demonstration produced a wave of political reaction. Some land committees were dissolved by the government; the death penalty, abolished during the first days of the revolution, was restored in the fighting zones although not enforced; and the convocation of the constituent assembly was postponed to the end of November. Forceful methods were employed against the Bolsheviks. Lenin was denounced as a paid agent of German imperialism and went into hiding in Finland; Trotsky and others were arrested. Nonetheless, the Sixth Congress of the Bolshevik Party opened in Petrograd on July 26, despite the absence of some of its leaders.

Because the Kerensky government took no effective steps to overcome the steadily deteriorating economic situation, unrest continued in the cities and countryside, and Bolshevik influence again began to increase. Convinced that Kerensky could not cope with the situation, some Kadet elements and the general staff, led by Kornilov, the newly appointed commander in chief, decided to bring loyal troops to Petrograd and establish a military dictatorship. For a time Kerensky was a party to the conspiracy, but when he learned that Kornilov proposed to remove him from the government, he appealed to the Petrograd Soviet for support.

While Kornilov's forces advanced on the capital, the workers' and soldiers' militia prepared to defend it. With the approval of the Congress of Soviets, military organizations were established throughout the city, and the boldness and initiative of the Bolsheviks in these bodies made them the leaders of the defense. The railroad workers refused to transport Kornilov's force. As the troops advanced on foot, they encountered the soldiers and workers of the capital, who came out of the city to meet them with appeals to fraternize. Kornilov's army dissolved before it reached the capital; he himself was arrested. These events left the workers of Petrograd organized and armed. And now, for the first time, the Bolsheviks secured a majority in the Petrograd Soviet.

After Kornilov's defeat the Provisional Government was virtually powerless. Under growing Bolshevik pressure the All-Russian Soviet Executive Committee decided on the election of a new Congress of Soviets to convene on October 20; later it was postponed to October 25. A Bolshevik majority in the new congress was assured by the rising tide of support for Lenin's party among the soldiers and workers. Fears that the new political alignment would result in the creation of a Bolshevik government spurred Kerensky to make a half-hearted attempt to send some troops from the Petrograd garrison to the front. On October 16 the Petrograd Soviet created the Military Revolutionary Committee for the defense of the capital against the counterrevolution; on this committee the Bolsheviks obtained a commanding majority, and the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries thereupon refused to participate.

The October Revolution

Foreseeing the course of events, Lenin, from about the end of September, pressed the central committee of the Bolshevik Party to organize an armed insurrection and seize power. After some resistance, the committee on October 10 approved Lenin's policy. It is generally believed that the insurrection was planned by the military organization of the party to coincide with the opening of the second Congress of Soviets. It was carried out during the night of October 24 to 25 and the following day by the Military Revolutionary Committee under the direction of Trotsky. Armed workers, soldiers, and sailors stormed the Winter Palace, headquarters of the Provisional Government. Although the seizure of power involved tens of thousands of men and women, it was virtually bloodless. On the afternoon of October 25 Trotsky announced the end of the Provisional Government. Several of its ministers were arrested later that day; Kerensky escaped and subsequently went into exile.

On October 25, while the insurrection was in progress, the second Congress of Soviets began its deliberation. Of the 650 delegates, 390 (60 percent) were Bolsheviks. The opening session, its speeches punctuated by rifle fire in the streets, was the scene of a stormy debate over the legality of the congress and the character of the insurrection. Most of the Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary delegates withdrew from the congress, which continuously received declarations of support from workers' organizations and military groups; the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries remained in the congress and formed a short-lived coalition government with the Bolsheviks.

Second Congress of Soviets

Making his first appearance at the Congress of Soviets on November 8, Lenin struck the keynote of its further deliberations with his opening declaration: "We shall now proceed to the construction of the socialist order." The congress then took up the three crucial issues of peace, land, and the constitution of a new government. It unanimously adopted a manifesto appealing to "all warring peoples and their governments to open immediate negotiations for a just, democratic peace." To that end the manifesto proposed an immediate armistice for a minimum of three months.

Ratification of Principles

Decisions on the land question were made in the form of a decree: "The right to private property in the land is annulled forever … The landlord's property in the land is annulled immediately and without any indemnity whatever … " All landed estates and the holdings of monasteries and churches were made national property and were placed under the protection of local land committees and soviets of peasants. The holdings of poor peasants and of the rank and file of the cossacks, however, were specifically exempted from confiscation. Hired labor on the land was prohibited, and the right of all citizens to cultivate land by their own labor was affirmed. The Congress of Soviets laid down the principle that "the use of the land must be equalized, that is, the land is to be divided among the toilers according to local conditions on the basis of standards either of labor or consumption." Since most of these principles had already been put into practice by the Bolsheviks, however, the decrees were in effect a ratification of an accomplished fact rather than a new change.

New Government

The Congress of Soviets provided for a governmental structure in which supreme authority was vested in the congress itself. Execution of the decisions of the congress was entrusted to the Soviet of People's Commissars, which was made subject to the authority of the Congress of Soviets and to its Central Executive Committee. Each of the people's commissars was the chairman of a commissariat (commission) corresponding to the ministries of other governments. Lenin was elected head of the Council of People's Commissars. Among other leading Bolsheviks elected to this council were Trotsky and Stalin. With the establishment of the new government, the Congress of Soviets adjourned.

The decisions of the Congress of Soviets on peace and land evoked widespread support for the new government, and they were decisive in assuring victory to the Bolsheviks in other cities and in the provinces. In November the Council of People's Commissars also proclaimed the right of self-determination, including voluntary separation from Russia of the nationalities forcibly included in the czarist empire, but made it clear that it hoped that the "toiling masses" of the various nationalities would decide to remain with Russia. It also nationalized all banks and proclaimed the workers' control of production. Industry was nationalized gradually. The freely elected constituent assembly, which convened in Petrograd in January 1918, and in which the Bolsheviks were only a small minority, was dispersed with armed force by the newly formed government.

Civil War

Under Bolshevik control, the new government ended Russia's involvement in World War I by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918. Under the treaty Russia had to give up the Baltic states, Finland, Poland, and Ukraine. Indignation at losing this territory sprang up in Russia, and opposition to the Bolshevik Party, by then called the Russian Communist Party, erupted into a civil war that lasted from 1918 until late 1920. Lenin's government, operating out of the new capital in Moscow, began a policy of crushing all opposition. The Russian Communists began the "Red terror" campaign in which suspected anti-Communists, known as Whites, were arrested, tried, and executed. Although the peasantry had become hostile to the Communists, they supported them, fearing that a victory by the Whites would result in a return to the monarchy. Poorly organized and without widespread support, the Whites were defeated by the Red Army in 1920.

Lenin and the Russian Communist Party took strict control of the country. Workers' strikes, peasant uprisings, and a sailors' revolt known as the Kronstadt Rebellion were quickly crushed. In 1921 Lenin established the New Economic Policy to strengthen the country, which had been drained by seven years of turmoil and economic decline. On December 30, 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was formally established when the ethnic territories of the former Russian Empire were united with the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR).