On July 20, 1914,(1) Tsar Nicholas II declared war. Choked by the dust of the primitive country roads, marching past fields of ungarnered grain, the Russian regiments hastened to the German frontier. Mobilisation had not yet been completed. Guns stood in the arsenal yards in disordered array. Transport facilities for the artillery were lacking. In village and hamlet, at the very height of the harvest season, the young men were driven from the fields straight to the recruiting stations. For the tsar was bound by his treaties with France. He had borrowed billions of francs from the Paris bankers.
The military treaties stipulated that Nicholas was to launch his armies against Germany fourteen days after war was declared.
In the West, the German army corps were driving irresistibly through Belgium and rapidly approaching Paris. From Paris came panicky calls to Petrograd urging the Russians to take the offensive against Germany without delay.
On July 30, the Russian Military agent in Paris sent an urgent report to General Headquarters:
“It is now hardly likely that the French army can assume the offensive in the very near future. The most I expect is a slow retreat. . . . The success of the war will entirely depend on our movements in the next few weeks and on the diversion of German army corps to the Russian front.”(2)
In vain did general Zhilinsky, Commander-in-Chief of The North-Western Front, declare that the invasion of East Prussia was doomed to certain failure. In vain did General Yanushkevich, Chief of Staff, plead against an immediate attack. Paris was insistent. The French Ambassador, Maurice Paléologue, haunted the Foreign Ministry, demanding that the Russian armies should attack. And on July 31 the Supreme Commander, Grand Duke Nicholas, the tsar’s uncle, nicknamed “Big Nicholas,” informed Paléologue that the Vilna and Warsaw armies would take the offensive “to-morrow at dawn.”(3)
Unprepared for war, the Russian armies invaded Germany.
Not expecting such precipitate action on the part of the Russian generals, Kaiser Wilhelm was obliged to retard the advance on Paris. The German High Command transferred the Reserve Corps of the Guards, the Eleventh Infantry Corps and the Second Cavalry Division to the Eastern Front. But even before these reinforcements arrived, the German regiments had already assumed the offensive and repulsed the Russians. Five divisions transferred from the Western Front subsequently participated in the complete rout of the Russian army in East Prussia. Twenty thousand Russians were killed and 90,000 taken prisoner. The tsar’s army lost all its artillery. Two army corps—the Thirteenth and the Fifteenth—were surrounded and captured to a man. But Paris was saved. Even before the battle in East Prussia was decided, Paléologue made the following entry in his diary:
“The fighting . . . continues with unabated vigour. Whatever the final result may be, the mere fact that fighting is continuing is enough to give the British and French troops time to re-form in the rear for an advance.”(4)
The “final result” was the destruction of the Russian armies. But the tsar had fulfilled his engagement—he had repaid the French gold with the lives and blood of the toilers. On August 30, the day the Russian troops were routed, Sazonov, the Foreign Minister, said to Paléologue:
“Samsonov’s army is annihilated. . . . We had to make this sacrifice for France.”(5)
In the war of 1914 Russian tsarism acted as the hireling of British and French capital. Russia was in reality a semi-colony of the West European countries. Even the intellectual leader of the Russian imperialist bourgeoisie, the Constitutional-Democrat Milyukov, subsequently admitted that in the war against Germany Russia was a tool of the British and French capitalists. Milyukov wrote in an émigré newspaper on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the war:
“I did not expect at the time that Russia, without having mustered her forces, would send millions of her sons into the trenches in a foreign cause.”(6)
The autocratic government and the bourgeoisie and landlords who stood behind it were the more ready to obey the wishes of the foreign capitalists for the fact that a revolutionary movement was rapidly developing at home. The shooting down of the workers in the Lena goldfields in 1912, and the ominous response it awakened all over the country were harbingers of the revolutionary storm. The strikes that broke out in Baku on the eve of the war and the St. Petersburg strike of 1914, when barricades once again appeared in the streets of the cities, marked the break of the storm itself. From these barricades, the spectre of the 1905 Revolution stared tsarism in the face. Many tsarist dignitaries fearfully prophesied that the impending revolution would go incomparably farther than the Revolution of 1905. P.N. Durnovo, former Minister of the Interior, wrote to Nicholas II on the very eve of the war:
“A political revolution in Russia is inevitable, and every revolutionary movement is bound to develop into a socialist movement.”(7)
In sending the Russian people to die for “a foreign cause,” the tsarist autocracy hoped to drain their lifeblood and restrain the growing forces of revolution.
It would be a mistake, however, to think that the ruling classes of Russia involved themselves in the world slaughter solely in the interests of British and French capital, or that in doing so the Russian bourgeoisie was not pursuing its own imperialist aims. It was to the interest of the ruling classes of tsarist Russia to take part in the war. The stage of capitalism known as imperialism had begun in Russia before the war, and monopoly capital had already become a leading factor in Russian economic life. But while ruling the country economically, the bourgeoisie did not govern it politically: the country was governed by an autocracy representing the feudal landlords.
The bourgeoisie was in no great hurry to remove the discrepancy between its economic might and its political impotence. It was not to its interest to wage a determined struggle against the autocracy, for there was the proletariat, which had already taken definite shape as a class. Enriched by the experience of the 1905 Revolution, the proletariat was entering on a new struggle under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, Lenin’s party. If the Russian bourgeoisie were to seize power by removing the autocracy, it would be left to confront the working class single-handed. The 1905 Revolution had already shown what the result of such a duel might be. The autocracy, with its army and police, served the bourgeoisie as a reliable shield against the attacks of the proletariat. As Lenin wrote:
“They are too much in need of tsarism, with its police, bureaucratic and military forces, in their struggle against the proletariat and the peasantry for them to strive for the destruction of tsarism.”(8)
Furthermore, Russian capitalism had begun to take shape at a time when capitalism in Western Europe had long been fully developed and had managed to secure all the best places in the sun. The young marauder was unable to compete with such inveterate bandits as the imperialists of Great Britain and Germany. Strong elbows and heavy fists were required to force a way into the profitable markets. These heavy fists the autocracy possessed. With the help of its armies it was clearing the way to new markets for the bourgeoisie. The Russian imperialists were reaching out for Galicia. The Russian capitalists were striving to subjugate the countries of the Near East. They wanted Constantinople.
Promyshlennost i Torgovlya, a Russian imperialist periodical, had said in December 1912 that “mercantile freedom” through the Dardanelles was essential for international trade.
“The country cannot live in constant fear that the ‘front-door key’ to our house, falling from the feeble hands of the Turks, may find its way in to the strong hands of others, who will be in a position to punish us or pardon us at discretion.”(9)
The autocracy and the bourgeoisie were united in the struggle for new markets and new colonies, for the “front-door key.” If it could succeed in securing a firm foothold in the Dardanelles, Russian imperialism would command the Danubian countries—Bulgaria and Rumania. Writing of the aims of the struggle between Russia and Germany, Lenin said:
“The aims of Russian imperialist policy . . . may be briefly described as follows: to smash Germany in Europe with the aid of Britain and France in order to plunder Austria (annex Galicia) and Turkey (annex Armenia and especially Constantinople).”(10)
The tsar’s Manifesto proclaiming war was greeted by the bourgeoisie with enthusiasm. Patriotic processions marched to the tsar’s palace. Bourgeois organisations deluged the throne with messages of loyalty. The newspapers trumpeted loudly about the “unity of the tsar and the people.” Students kneeled in the streets, singing “God Save the Tsar!”
On July 30 an organisation called the All-Russian Union of Zemstvos was formed in Moscow, followed a week later by the All-Russian Union of Cities—the purpose of both of which was to help the autocracy win the war against Germany.
Tsarism entered the war amid the pealing of bells and the enthusiastic plaudits of the landlords and the bourgeoisie.
But the enthusiasm was soon dampened by the progress of the war. As long as Germany’s main forces were being diverted by the operations on the Western Front, the Russian armies were able to make good their first defeats in East Prussia. In Galicia, they succeeded in capturing the city of Lvov on August 21, 1914, and Przemysl, one of the most important Austrian fortresses, on March 9, 1915. The Russian forces reached the Carpathians. In Transcaucasia they drove Germany’s allies, the Turks, back to Erzerum. But the victorious fervour was short-lived. The rotten and corrupt machinery of war failed to provide shells. The inefficient generals were unable to bring up artillery and reserves in time. The German and Austrian troops rapidly recovered the territory they had lost. On April 25, 1915, the Germans seized Libau and threatened Riga. On May 20 the Austrians recaptured Przemysl, and on July 9 the Russians evacuated Lvov. In the course of July the Germans seized all the Russian fortresses in Poland, and on July 23 Warsaw fell. Having lost Poland, the Russian troops also evacuated Lithuania.
Defeat at the front was accompanied by disintegration in the rear.
The patriotic fervour of the bourgeoisie gave way to “patriotic alarm,” as Milyukov expressed it in the State Duma on July 19, 1915.(11) Defeat at the front shattered the “unity” between the tsar and the capitalists.
The imperialist war caused a marked alteration in the relative strength of the ruling classes. War profiteering increased the economic power and importance of the bourgeoisie. The official Vestnik Finansov estimated that the profits of the capitalist owners of 142 of the larger textile mills alone increased from 60,000,000 rubles in 1913 to 174,000,000 rubles in 1915. Profits in the linen industry in 1915 were three times larger than in any year prior to the war.(12)
At the same time according to the Vestnik Finansov, taxation on capitalists steadily declined in proportion to gross profits.
The increased economic influence of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by the growth of its political importance. The autocracy was obliged to sanction the formation of a number of societies to help mobilise resources for the war, such as the Union of Zemstvos and the Union of Cities. In the summer of 1915, War Industry Committees were set up to handle the distribution of orders for military supplies. This afforded the bourgeoisie wide opportunities to organise and strengthen itself politically. In the press and through its representatives the bourgeoisie declared with increasing persistence and openness that the autocracy was showing little concern for its interests. More and more frequently cautious references were made at ceremonial banquets to the “despotism” of the tsar. The influence of liquor even induced some to speak openly of the necessity of limiting the power of the monarch. At an extraordinary conference of representatives of the War Industry Committees held in August 1915, P. Ryabushinsky, a big industrialist, declared:
“It is time the country realised that we are powerless to do anything in face of the existing attitude towards us of the government, which is unequal to its task. We are entitled to demand that we be allowed to work, since this responsibility is being thrust upon us. . . . We must draw attention to the very structure of the government power, because the government is not equal to its task.”(13)
The bourgeoisie demanded the creation of a “Cabinet of Confidence,” i.e., the appointment of Ministers trusted by the country. At an extraordinary meeting held on August 18, 1915, the Moscow City Duma passed a resolution demanding:
“the creation of a government which would be strong by virtue of the confidence placed in it by society, and unanimous, headed by a man whom the country trusts.”(14)
The resolution of the Moscow City Duma was supported by the Moscow Merchants’ Society, the merchants of Petrograd, the Council of Congress of Representatives of Commerce and Industry, the Petrograd City Duma and a number of other city dumas. “A Cabinet of Confidence” became the slogan of the whole bourgeoisie. Under the caption “A Defence Cabinet,” Ryabushinsky’s paper, Utro Rossii, printed the following list of persons whom it proposed as candidates for the “Cabinet of Confidence”: Prime Minister, M. V. Rodzyanko; Minister of Internal Affairs, A. I. Guchkov; Minister of Foreign Affairs, P. N. Milyukov; Minister of Finance, A. I. Shingaryov; Minister of Ways of Communications, N. V. Nekrasov; Minister of Commerce and Industry, A. I. Konovalov; Director of Agriculture and Agrarian Affairs, A. V. Krivosheyin; Minister of War, A. A. Polivanov; Minister of Marine, N. V. Savich; Comptroller General, I. N. Efremov; Procurator-General of the Synod, V. N. Lvov; Minister of Justice, V. A. Maklakov; Minister of Education, Count P. N. Ignatyev.
Many of the persons enumerated did in fact join the government, only considerably later, after the revolution had placed the bourgeoisie in power.(15)
The alarm of the bourgeoisie was expressed not only in oppositionist resolutions. The bourgeois political parties in the State Duma decided to join forces against the tsar. On August 22, what was known as the Progressive Bloc was formed.
The Fourth State Duma, elected in 1912, represented a bloc of the feudal landlords and the upper bourgeoisie, in which the former greatly predominated. The largest group in the bloc consisted of the Rights: 170 of the 410 deputies in the State Duma were Rights (Nationalists, Progressive Nationalists, moderate Rights, etc.). They drew their support from the arch-reactionary Union of the Russian People, which had been formed in 1905 and was recruited from the most reactionary elements, such as landowners, houseowners, police officials and small traders. Armed squads were recruited from the lower middle classes and from the vagabond element. These squads were known as Black Hundreds. The programme of the Union of the Russian People was: a firm and absolute tsarist autocracy, a single and indivisible Russian Empire and no concessions to the oppressed nationalities. In order to win the sympathies of the peasants and the backward elements among the working class, the Black Hundreds included a number of demagogic demands in their programme, e.g., larger land allotments for peasants possessing little land and equality of legal status for all labouring classes. The Union of the Russian People ran food kitchens and taverns, where monarchist propaganda was conducted, and distributed money, for which funds were provided in abundance by the government. The chief purpose of the Union of the Russian People was to combat revolution, and its principal methods of warfare were pogroms, organised with the aid of the authorities, secret assassination, Jew-baiting and persecution of the non-Russian nationalities inhabiting the Russian Empire. The Black Hundreds enjoyed the wholehearted support of the autocracy. Nicholas II received a delegation from the Union of the Russian People, joined the society himself and wore its badge. One of the leaders of the Union was a Bessarabian landowner, V. M. Purishkevich, who began his career as a special commissioner of one of the most brutal police chiefs Russia had ever known, V. K. Plehve. His advocacy of pogroms, his reactionary activities and his unrestrained campaign against the “aliens,” i.e., the national minorities in Russia, made Purishkevich’s name a symbol of obscurantism and feudal oppression. Another prominent figure in the Union of the Russian People was N. E. Markov 2nd, a landowner in the Kursk Province, and a representative of the extreme Rights, the “aurochses,” as they were called. Markov 2nd was the centre of constant brawls and free-fights. Every disturbance in the Duma, even the hand-to-hand fracases in which the deputies sometimes indulged, was invariably associated with the name of Markov 2nd—a zealous defender of the autocracy.
After the defeat of the 1905 Revolution the importance of the Union of Russian People began to decline and the dominant rôle among the Rights passed to the Council of the United Nobility. But the reactionary Union of the Russian People continued to exist and to receive funds from the government. It reappeared on the political scene whenever the revolutionary movement began to gain strength in the country.
In addition to the extreme Rights, an important part in the Duma was played by V. V. Shulgin, a Nationalist. He was a deputy from the Volhynia Province, an active figure in the Zemstvos and the editor of a reactionary newspaper called the Kievlyanin (Kiev Citizen).
Closely connected with the Rights in the Duma were the Octobrists, or the Union of October 17, which consisted of about one hundred deputies representing the interests of the big industrial capitalists and of large landowners who conducted their estates on capitalist lines. The only difference between the Octobrists and the Rights was that the former supported the Manifesto of October 17, 1905, in which the tsar had promised certain political liberties and the creation of a State Duma, or parliament. But as early as 1906 the Octobrists had explained that “the title of autocratic monarch” in no way conflicted with the Manifesto of October 17, or with a constitutional monarchy. The Octobrists wholeheartedly supported the home and foreign policy of the government. They servilely backed every step taken by the government. The Left press nicknamed them “the party of the latest government edict.”
The Octobrists were a government party in the Duma, and only in the second year of the war, when the absolute inability of the tsar to fight the war to a victorious finish became apparent, did the Octobrists join the opposition. The leader and organiser of the Octobrists was A. I. Guchkov, a Moscow house-owner and a big industrialist. Mobile and energetic by nature, in his youth he fought as a volunteer on the side of the Boers against the British and took a hand in the insurrection of the Macedonians. In the Russo-Japanese War he served in a Red Cross unit. During the Revolution of 1905 he formed the Union of October 17 and was the leader of the reactionary wing of the bourgeoisie. As chairman of the Third Duma, he inspired the imperialist policy of the autocracy. During the war he was elected chairman of the Central War Industry Committee. Guchkov was an energetic advocate of fighting the war “to a victorious finish.” On committees and at conferences, he frequently criticised the inefficiency and corruptness of the generals in charge of supplying the army with munitions. He demanded that the autocracy should confer greater independence on the bourgeois organisations working for defence. Guchkov frequently visited the front and established contacts with the higher commanding officers. In the eyes of Nicholas, who regarded everybody who stood more to the Left than the Octobrists as an “anarchist,” Guchkov was almost a “revolutionary” because of his active interference in military affairs. The tsarina wrote to her husband, “Oh, could one but hang Guchkov!”(16) and she dreamed of a “strong railway accident”(17) which would put him out of the way.
Another leader of the Octobrists was M. V. Rodzyanko, who owned huge estates in the Ekaterinoslav Gubernia. As President of the Fourth Duma he supported the reactionary policy of the autocracy. On April 27, 1915, when the Octobrists had begun to express dissatisfaction, after the first defeats of the tsarist armies in the war, N. A. Maklakov, Minister of Internal Affairs, wrote to Nicholas as follows:
“Rodzyanko, Your Imperial Majesty, is only an instrument—self-important and unintelligent—but behind him stand his leaders, people like Guchkov, Prince Lvov and others, who are systematically pursuing their purpose. What is this purpose? To tarnish your glory, Your Imperial Majesty, and to undermine the importance of the holy idea of the autocracy, which from time immemorial has always been a force of salvation in Russia.”(18)
The Constitutional-Democrats (or, abbreviated, the Cadets), constituted the next largest group in the Duma. It consisted of more than fifty deputies, or, if one adds the kindred group—the Progressivists, whom Lenin called “a mixture of Octobrists and Cadets”(19)—of about one hundred deputies. The Cadets were the political representatives of the liberal bourgeoisie. The party was organised in 1905, and was recruited from liberal members of the Zemstvos, bourgeois intellectuals, lawyers, professors and so forth. The Cadets had undergone a series of curious metamorphoses. In the first revolution, the Revolution of 1905, Lenin described the Cadets in the following terms:
“Not connected with any one definite class of bourgeois society, but entirely bourgeois in its composition, its character and its ideals, this party vacillates between the petty-bourgeois democrats and the counter-revolutionary elements among the big bourgeoisie. The social support of this party consists, on the one hand, of the urban lower middle classes . . . and, on the other, of the liberal landlords.”(20)
With the defeat of the Revolution of 1905, the Cadets swung even more to the Right. At their Second Congress, in 1906, they inserted the following clause into their programme:
“Russia must be a constitutional and parliamentary monarchy.”(21)
It would therefore be more correct to call the Constitutional-Democrats a constitutional-monarchist party. They were opposed to the confiscation of the landed estates and favoured the “alienation of the land at a fair valuation.” They were actually a bourgeois party and endeavoured only with the help of their name to retain the support of the masses by adopting at their Third Congress the title of National Freedom Party. In actual fact the Cadets wanted to share power with the tsar and the feudal landlords in such a way as not to disturb the foundations of the power of the latter and not to surrender the power to the people. The liberals feared the movement of the masses more than they feared reaction. This explains why, although they were a force economically, the liberals were impotent politically. In the end the Cadets became a party of the imperialist bourgeoisie which openly supported the predatory foreign policy of the autocracy. Only their more oppositionist phraseology distinguished them from the Octobrists. In the State Duma the Cadets worked in harmony with the Octobrists. An example of this was the unanimous election of A. I. Shingaryov, a Cadet, as Chairman of the Military and Naval Commission of the Duma. The Octobrists frankly explained their support of this candidature by the fact that the Cadets were more glib with their tongues. The Nationalist A. I. Savenko referred to the election of Shingaryov as follows:
“There are situations in which an independent opposition can perform the functions of control and criticism better than parties which in their time have sinned by excessive deference to the government. That is why A. I. Shingaryov may prove indispensable in his post.”(22)
Lenin had earlier foretold that the Cadets and the Octobrists would join forces:
“The Octobrist is a Cadet who applies his bourgeois theories to practical life. The Cadet is an Octobrist who in his hours of leisure, when he is not plundering the workers and peasants, dreams of an ideal bourgeois society. The Octobrist will learn a little more about parliamentary manners and the political humbug of playing at democracy. The Cadet will learn a little more about the business of bourgeois intrigue, and they will merge, they will merge inevitably and infallibly.”(23)
The leader of the Cadet party was P. N. Milyukov, former professor of history in the University of Moscow. In the First State Duma the Cadets designed him as Prime Minister of a responsible cabinet. A capable orator and an authority on foreign affairs, Milyukov was a prominent intellectual leader of the imperialist bourgeoisie. His frequent articles and speeches advocating the seizure of Galicia, Armenia, and especially the Black Sea straits earned him the nickname of “Milyukov-Dardanelles.” Other prominent leaders of the Cadets were V. A. Maklakov, a prominent Moscow lawyer, F. I. Rodichev, a district Marshal of Nobility in the Tver Province, and A. I. Shingaryov, a physician and an active figure in the Zemstvos.
These three big groups—the Rights, the Octobrists and the liberals—in fact made up the Duma, for the electoral system was so arranged as to give an overwhelming majority to the landlords and bourgeoisie. The proletariat had been represented by only five Bolshevik deputies in the Duma—G. I. Petrovsky, M. K. Muranov, A. E. Badayev, F. N. Samoylov and N. R. Shagov—but they had all been arrested in November 1914 and later exiled to Siberia.
The petty-bourgeoisie was represented by ten Trudoviki and six Mensheviks. The Trudoviki, or the Group of Toil (Trudovaya gruppa), aimed at uniting all the “toiling classes of the people—the peasants, the industrial workers and the working intellectuals,”(24) while preserving capitalism. The Trudoviki are known in Russian history as the authors of the agrarian Bill called the “Bill of the 104,” which demanded that the land should be divided up among the peasantry on the basis of the amount of land each peasant household could cultivate by its own labour. The Trudoviki were opposed to the confiscation of the landed estates and proposed that the landlords should be compensated for land alienated, in which they were at one with the Cadets. In the Duma the Trudoviki vacillated between the Cadets and the Social-Democrats, and when the Socialist-Revolutionaries formed their own fraction in the Duma and left the Group of Toil, the Trudoviki fell completely under the sway of the Cadets. The leader of the Trudoviki in the Fourth Duma was A. F. Kerensky. An exceptionally temperamental orator, mordant and impulsive, Kerensky acquired fame as a defence lawyer in a number of political trials. In the Duma he frequently made speeches criticising government measures. One could meet in the waiting-room of his law office peasant petitioners who had come to request him to act as defence lawyer in trials connected with agrarian disorders. After the arrest of the Bolshevik deputies, Kerensky seemed to be the most Left of the deputies in the Duma. He was regarded as a revolutionary by the Rights and the Octobrists, and also by the secret police. As a matter of fact, Kerensky was a petty-bourgeois democrat. He swore by the people, prated about the people and paraded his love of the people, but he did not regard the people as a motive force in history. Kerensky was of a nervous temperament and easily excitable, but he would subside even more easily and tend to lose his head. He had no firm political principles, but regarded himself as a Socialist-Revolutionary. Yet he was the chairman of the Trudoviki fraction, which not only did not call itself Socialist, but was not even opposed to the monarchy in its programme. Kerensky did not carry on any steady work among the masses. He was attracted to the liberal groups, which he regarded as the centre of the movement. He combined morbid vanity and ambition with a passion for histrionics and a love of pose and gesture. He openly supported the imperialist war, recognised the necessity for the military might of tsarist Russia and vigorously opposed the Bolsheviks. Kerensky frequently assumed the rôle of conciliator between the bourgeoisie and certain groups of workers. For example, in September 1915, when workers who were under the influence of the Mensheviks came to a congress of the Union of the Cities and requested to be allowed to take part in the deliberations of the congress, even without the right to vote, Kerensky came out and addressed them. He advised the workers to stop the strike, “which had no serious significance,” and to “occupy themselves with their internal organisation,” and then the “bourgeois liberals would not dare to refuse to allow them to participate in political conferences.” Long before the revolution broke out, Kerensky was already rehearsing the rôle of compromiser and conciliator between the bourgeoisie and the working people in the interests of the bourgeoisie—the rôle which this political actor was to play in 1917.
The party to which Kerensky subsequently professed his adherence, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, was formed in 1902. In the spring of that year the first extensive peasant movement developed in the Ukraine and partly also in the Volga region after a long period of calm. The action of the peasants evoked a response among the petty-bourgeois intellectuals, who could see with their own eyes what the Narodniki of the ‘seventies had not seen, namely, the masses in revolt. Narodniki ideas and hopes were revived. The Socialist-Revolutionaries, who professed to follow the traditions of the Narodniki, regarded the peasantry as the mainstay of revolution. The village communities, which had been preserved by the autocracy(25) in order to facilitate the collection of taxes, were regarded by the Socialist-Revolutionaries as the germ of Socialism. The endeavour of the small property-owner to retain his independent enterprise despite all hardships was regarded as a proof that the struggle against capitalism could be fought successfully. From this the conclusion was drawn that Russia could avoid capitalism and pass directly to Socialism. The remnants of the Narodniki groups joined to form a single party, which, unlike the Social-Democrats, called itself a party of “all the toilers”—workers, peasants and intellectuals.
The Socialist-Revolutionaries wanted to be primarily a party of the peasantry. Their activities were conducted mainly in the rural districts, where they agitated for the “Socialisation of the land,” or, as they explained, for
“its withdrawal from the sphere of commercial transactions and its transformation from the private property of individual persons or groups into the property of the "whole people.”(26)
With the object of retaining the support of the peasantry, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party had always glossed over the existence of any class differentiation among the peasantry and had argued that there was no fundamental difference between the rural proletariat and the “independent husbandmen”: “They must be classed under the single category of working peasantry.” This was entirely in line with the interests of the rich peasants, the kulaks. The kulaks also professed to act in the interests of the “working agricultural population” and persistently denied that there was any differentiation of classes among the peasantry. This explains why the ranks of the Socialist Revolutionary Party were filled by kulaks during the 1917 Revolution.
The Socialist-Revolutionaries regarded individual terrorism as their chief method of warfare. In their early period of activity they succeeded in carrying out several terrorist acts: Stepan Balmashov assassinated Sipyagin, Minister of Internal Affairs; Pyotr Karpovich assassinated Bogolyepov, Minister of Education; Yegor Sazonov assassinated Plehve, Minister of Internal Affairs; Ivan Kalyaev threw a bomb which killed the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. This courageous single-handed fight of individuals against the hangmen of the tsar invested the party with a halo of glory in the eyes of the revolutionary intellectuals. But the futility of terrorism soon became apparent. An assassinated tyrant was immediately replaced by another tsarist hireling who was no better, and often even worse, than his predecessor. Terrorism enfeebled rather than fostered the mass movement, because the policy and practice of individual terrorism was based on the Narodnik theory that there were active “heroes” on the one hand, and the passive “crowd,” on the other, which expected deeds of prowess from the heroes. But such a theory and practice precluded all possibility of rousing the masses to action, of creating a mass party and a mass revolutionary movement. Moreover, the police soon succeeded in placing their own man—E. F. Azef, an engineer and agent provocateur—at the head of the terrorist combatant organisation of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Thus the terrorist activities came under the control of the police. Azef became undisputed master in the party. He selected the members of the Central Committee. The exposure of Azef as an agent provocateur in 1908 completely disrupted the ranks of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.
The Socialist-Revolutionary Party had revealed its bourgeois character already in the Revolution of 1905-07. Even at that time the Socialist-Revolutionaries betrayed a tendency to come to terms with the Cadets. They joined the Group of Toil in the First Duma. The tsarist Prime Minister, P. A. Stolypin, had the Social-Democratic fraction in the Second Duma brought to trial, but did not touch the Socialist-Revolutionaries.
Already at its first congress in 1906, various currents made themselves manifest in the ranks of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. The Rights were opposed to terrorism and the agrarian programme. In the autumn of that year the Rights definitely broke away from the party and formed their own semi-Cadet party, called the Popular Socialist Toilers’ Party. The “Popular Socialists” rejected the idea of a republic, insisted on the necessity of compensating the landlords for land that might be alienated in the interests of the peasants, and formed a bloc with the Cadets. The leader of this party was A. V. Peshekhonov, who became Minister of Food after the Revolution of February, 1917.
At this first congress of the party a Left Wing also separated off and formed its own semi-anarchist party, known as the Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists. The Maximalists at that time, i.e., during the first bourgeois- democratic revolution in 1905, demanded not only the “socialisation of the land,” but also the immediate “socialisation” of the mills and factories. But these demands served only to mask the essential bourgeois character of the Maximalists. They proposed to make terrorism their chief method of warfare. The Maximalists subsequently degenerated into an unprincipled group of bandits—“expropriators,” as they were called—who enjoyed no support whatever among the masses.
The disintegration of the party did not stop there. During the war the Socialist-Revolutionaries again split into several groups. Some of them proclaimed their unreserved support of the war. To this group belonged Kerensky and N. D. Avksentyev, one of the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Avksentyev started a periodical in Paris called Prizyv (The Call), which agitated for the defence of tsarist Russia. Other Socialist-Revolutionaries regarded themselves as internationalists, ostensibly attacked the defencists, but continued to remain with them in one party. The ideological leader of these “internationalist” Socialist-Revolutionaries who endeavoured to sit between two stools was V. M. Chernov.
The Menshevik Social-Democrats at the time of the Fourth Duma did not constitute a single and united organisation. They were divided into a number of groups and sub-groups. On the extreme Right Wing stood G. V. Plekhanov, who acted in unison with the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, N. D. Avksentyev and I. I. Bunakov. At the beginning of the war Plekhanov addressed a letter to the Russian workers arguing that Russia was waging a war of defence and that it was therefore the duty of the workers to defend the fatherland. Plekhanov’s action was enthusiastically greeted by the Cadets. Milyukov declared that “with his usual skill” Plekhanov had demonstrated the difference between British imperialism and German imperialism, between a defensive war and an offensive war.
Plekhanov was supported by the defencists K. A. Gvozdyev, P. P. Maslov and A. N. Potresov, who advocated open support of the imperialist bourgeoisie. They were in favour of the formation of workers’ groups on the War Industry Committees and endeavoured to show that the workers of Russia approved a united front with the bourgeoisie and civil peace. Gvozdyev was the chairman of the workers’ group on the Central War Industry Committee. He was strongly opposed to strikes, which in his opinion enfeebled the working class and disorganised the country, and worked in close harmony with Guchkov. “I entertain the greatest sympathy for and confidence in Gvozdyev,”(27) Guchkov said of the latter. During the Revolution of 1917 the Mensheviks proposed Gvozdyev as Minister of Labour.
Further to the “Left” stood the Menshevik “Centre,” headed by F. I. Dan, I. G. Tsereteli and N. S. Chkheidze, A. I. Chkhenkely and M. I. Skobelev, the last three being members of the Duma. The Centre made great play of revolutionary phrases, but actually supported the defencists. On the Left Wing of the Mensheviks stood Martov and—just a little more to the Left—Trotsky. In the early period of the war Trotsky and Martov published a paper in Paris called Nashe Slovo (Our Word), criticised the tactics of the Bolsheviks, called the Bolsheviks “splitters” and appealed for unity with the defencist supporters of the war.
The Centre and the Left Mensheviks were afraid to take up an open defencist position. In the Duma, Chkheidze, like Kerensky, abstained from voting in favour of granting war credits to the tsar. Lenin explained the conduct of the fraction by the fact that “otherwise they would have aroused a storm of indignation against themselves among the workers.”(28)
In spite of their criticism of the defencists, in their political practice both the Left Mensheviks and the Centre aided the overt agents of the Russian bourgeoisie. When Vandervelde, one of the leaders of the Second International, wrote a letter to the Menshevik fraction in the Duma persuading them to support the defence of tsarist Russia against Germany, Chkheidze and his friends replied:
“In this war your cause is the just cause of self-defence against the dangers offered to the democratic liberties and the struggle for liberation of the proletariat by the aggressive policy of the Prussian junkers. . . . We do not resist the war, but we deem it necessary to draw your attention to the necessity of preparing immediately and energetically to counteract the annexationist policy of the Great Powers which is already in evidence.”(29)
Despite their revolutionary phraseology, all these Left Narodnik-Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik-Social-Democratic groups—from the Chernov group and the Maximalists to the group of Martov and Trotsky—actually constituted the Left petty-bourgeois wing of the bourgeois democrats, who advocated preserving and “improving” capitalism; for they all denied the possibility of the victory of socialism in Russia, were opposed to the Socialist transformation of Russia, favoured unity with the defencists who supported the imperialist war, opposed the Bolshevik slogan of transforming the imperialist war into a civil war, carried on an active fight against the Bolshevik policy of bringing about the defeat of the tsarist government in the imperialist war, and formed a united front against Lenin’s party, the Bolshevik Party.
The only revolutionary, proletarian and socialist party in Russia was the Bolshevik Party. Although officially constituting a single Social-Democratic Party with the Mensheviks, the Bolsheviks had actually been an independent party ever since 1905. In 1912 they officially broke with the Mensheviks, expelled their Right leaders from the party and formed a separate Bolshevik Party. The Bolshevik Party was the only party which considered the hegemony of the proletariat a fundamental condition for the success of the bourgeois-democratic revolution and for its transition to a socialist revolution. It was the only party which believed it possible for Socialism to be victorious in Russia, and which had its own definite revolutionary platform for the transition period from the bourgeois revolution to the Socialist revolution. It was the only party which consistently fought the imperialist war, favoured the defeat of the tsarist government in the imperialist war, carried on a policy of fraternisation at the front, irreconcilably fought chauvinism and defencism in the name of proletarian internationalism and advocated the slogan of transforming the imperialist war into a civil war. The leader and founder of the Bolshevik Party was Lenin. The Bolshevik Party had its fraction in the Duma, consisting of workers elected by workers’ electoral bodies. The Bolshevik members of the Duma had been arrested in November 1914 and subsequently exiled to Eastern Siberia.
The war of plunder continued unabated and unrestrained and foreign territory was being shamelessly seized, yet the Mensheviks spoke only of the necessity of “preparing” to fight “the annexationist policy . . . which was already in evidence.” It was enough for Milyukov and Guchkov that the Mensheviks did “not resist the war.” Sober bourgeois politicians knew that in practice “not resisting” was equivalent to “assisting.”
And such was the case in fact when the Progressive Bloc was formed. It was joined by nearly all the bourgeois parties—the Octobrists, the Cadets, the Progressivists, a section of the moderate Rights, what was known as the Progressive Nationalist group and the fraction of the Centre. The only groups that did not join were the Trudoviki, the Mensheviks and the Extreme Rights. But the first two groups were very sympathetic towards the bloc, and Chkheidze promised to support all its “progressive” measures. The only thing Chkheidze demanded was that the bloc should “get closer to the people,” but what exactly this meant the Menshevik leader did not explain.
The programme of the Progressive Bloc was “to create a united government consisting of persons enjoying the confidence of the country,” whose function it would be to pursue:
“a wise consistent policy aiming at the preservation of peace at home and the elimination of discord between the nationalities and classes.”(30)
The demands of the bourgeoisie were extremely modest. Not only did it not demand a share of the power, but did not even demand a responsible cabinet. All it requested was the appointment of several Ministers who enjoyed the confidence of the bourgeoisie and a more tolerant attitude towards bourgeois organisation. The programme of the bloc also demanded a partial amnesty for political and religious prisoners, the drafting of a Bill granting autonomy to Poland, a conciliatory policy towards Finland, initial measures for abolishing restrictions on Jews, restoration of the trade unions, and the legalisation of the labour press—all of which was obviously designed to win the support of the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nationalities and at least the more backward section of the working population.
But even this empty talk of the bourgeoisie sounded like a challenge to the autocracy, which had long grown unaccustomed to “senseless dreams”—as in the early days of his reign Nicholas II had termed the attempts of the liberals to modify his régime. The autocracy accepted the challenge.
“Nobody needs their opinion, can’t they see to their canalisation first,”(31)
the irate tsarina wrote sarcastically to Nicholas in reference to the Moscow Duma, which had put forward the same demands as the Progressive Bloc. Somewhat earlier the tsarina had written:
“Russia, thank God, is not a constitutional country though those creatures try to play a part and meddle in affairs they dare not.”(32)
The Progressive Bloc was opposed by the Rights, the feudal landlords. The Union of the Russian People addressed a violent appeal to the “Russian people” against “curtailing the rights of the autocratic monarch of all Russia.”
The Black Hundred press appealed to the government not to yield to the majority in the Duma. The Rights in the Duma decided to set up an “Information Bureau” as a counterweight to the Progressive Bloc. But there were too few of them. Since they were not strong enough to combat the Bloc within the Duma, the Rights started a campaign for the dissolution of the Duma. A. P. Strukov, Chairman of the Council of the United Nobility, wrote a letter demanding the prorogation of the Duma. Monarchist Organisations in a number of cities supported the demand of the United Nobility. They also appealed to the tsar to cease making concessions and to take urgent measures to strengthen the government power.
Nor was the government itself idle. First of all, Nicholas, under pressure of the tsarina, decided to dismiss “Big” Nicholas and to assume command of the army himself. The tsar’s uncle could not be forgiven for his share in organising the Duma. Members of the court told Witte, who was Prime Minister in 1905, that in the stormy days of October 1905, “Big” Nicholas, who had been designed for the part of military dictator, seized a revolver and, threatening to shoot himself in the study of “Little” Nicholas, compelled the latter to sign the Manifesto proclaiming civil liberties and the convocation of the Duma.
“We are not ready for a constitutional government. N’s [Nicholas’] fault and Witte’s it was that the Duma exists, and it has caused you more worry than joy,”(33)
the tsarina recalled in 1915 when she insisted on the dismissal of “Big” Nicholas.
But the trouble was not the “old sins” of the Grand Duke Nicholas. The Grand Duke was not over-intelligent. Count Witte wrote of “Big” Nicholas that “he has long ago taken to spiritualism, and is not quite all there, so to speak.”(34) And the tsar himself referred to him not very respectfully in one of his letters to the tsarina:
“We had a very good talk about several serious questions and, am glad, completely agreed upon those we have touched. I must say when he is alone and in a quiet mood he is sound—I mean he judges rightly.”(35)
Perhaps the fact that the Grand Duke was not quite “sound” made him a suitable candidate for a constitutional monarch in the eyes of the bourgeoisie. Another consideration was the Grand Duke’s share in the proclamation of the Manifesto of October 17. However that may be, in court circles it was considered that the bourgeoisie was setting up “Big” Nicholas against “Little” Nicholas. As the tsarina wrote to her husband:
“Nobody knows who is the Emperor now—you have to run to the General Headquarters and assemble your ministers there, as though you could not have them alone here like last Wednesday. It is as though N. [Nicholas] settles all, makes the choices and changes—it makes me utterly wretched.”(36)
According to the tsarina, in court “some dare call” Grand Duke Nicholas, Nicholas III.(37)
The news of the proposed replacement of the Supreme Commander aroused great alarm in the bourgeois circles. The President of the Duma implored the tsar not to assume the post of Supreme Commander. On August 12, 1915, Rodzyanko submitted a report written in sharp and strident tones. The Moscow City Duma, adopted a resolution on August 18 severely criticising the government, and at the same time addressed Grand Duke Nicholas expressing its “feelings of confidence” in him. But these pronouncements only served to confirm the suspicions of the court. On August 23 the tsar issued a manifesto dismissing Grand Duke Nicholas, and on September 3, he prorogued the State Duma. The dry minutes of the Duma describe the prorogation in the following terms:
“The session opened at 2.51 p.m., M. V. Rodzyanko presiding.
“Chairman: I hereby open the session of the State Duma. I call upon the State Duma to rise and hear a ukase of His Imperial Majesty. (All rise.)
“Vice-Chairman of the State Duma, Protopopov: ‘Ukase to the Government Senate. In accordance with Article 99 of the Fundamental State Laws we hereby command: the business of the State Duma shall be discontinued from September 3, 1915, and the date of its resumption shall be appointed, in accordance with our ukase to the Government Senate of January 11, 1915, not later than November 1915, depending on extraordinary circumstances. The Government Senate shall not fail to adopt the necessary measures in fulfilment of this. The original is signed in His Imperial Majesty’s own hand: “Nicholas.” Given at the General Headquarters of the Tsar, August 30, 1915.’
“Chairman: Hurrah for His Imperial Majesty! (Prolonged cheers.) I hereby declare the session of the State Duma closed. (The session closes at 2.53 p.m.)”(38)
In two minutes all was over. Only the day before the bourgeois deputies had demanded the resignation of the tsar’s Ministers, but now they themselves submissively cheer those who were driving them out.
[1] August 2, 1914. All dates in this volume are old style, unless otherwise stated.—Trans.
[2] S. Lukirsky, “Authoritative Opinions in Foreign Military Literature on the Influence of the Movements of the Russian Army on the Course of Events in the World War of 1914-1918,” Who Is The Debtor? Moscow, 1926, p. 102.
[3] Maurice Paléologue, La Russie des Tzars pendant la Grande Guerre (Tsarist Russia in the Great War), 22 ed., Paris, Librairie Plon, Vol. I, p. 77.
[4] Ibid., p. 122.
[5] Ibid., p. 123.
[6] P. Milyukov, “My Attitude to the Late War,” Posledniye Novosti (Latest News), No. 1309, August 1, 1924, Paris.
[7] “Durnovo’s Memorandum,” Krasnaya Nov (Red Soil), 1922, No. 6, p. 196.
[8] Lenin, “The Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution,” Collected Works, Vol. VIII.
[9] V. Savitsky, “The Dardanelles and Their Importance to Trade,” Promyshlennost i torgovlya (Industry and Commerce), 1912, No. 24, p. 531.
[10] Lenin, “A Separate Peace,” Collected Works, Vol. XIX.
[11] The State Duma. Fourth Assembly, Fourth Session, Verbatim Report, Petrograd, 1915, column 92.
[12] N. Pokrovsky, “War Profits in the Principal Branches of the Textile Industry,” Vestnik Finansov, Promyshlennosti i Torgovli (Financial, Industrial and Commercial Messenger), 1917, No. 21, p. 292.
[13] Archives of the Revolution and Foreign Policy, Files of the Department of Police. Special Register, No. 343, Vol. I, 1915, folio 235.
[14] “Resolution of the Extraordinary Meeting of the Moscow City Duma,” Utro Rossii (Russian Morning), No. 228, August l9, 1915.
[15] “A Defence Cabinet,” Utro Rossii, No. 222, August 13, 1915.
[16] Letter of September 2, 1915.—Trans.
[17] Letter of September 11, 1915.—Trans.
[18] V. P. Semennikov, The Monarchy on the Eve of the Collapse, 1914-17. Papers of Nicholas II and Other Documents, Moscow, 1927, pp. 95-6.
[19] Lenin, “Results of the Elections,” Collected Works, Vol. XVI.
[20] Lenin, “The Victory of the Cadets and the Tasks of the Workers’ Party,” Collected Works, Vol. IX.
[21] The Constitutional Democratic Party (Party of National Freedom). Resolutions of the Second Congress, January 5-11, 1906, and Programme, St. Petersburg, 1906, p. 7.
[22] A. Khrustchov, A. I. Shingaryov, His Life and Activities, Moscow 1918, p. 71.
[23] Lenin, “An Experiment in Classifying the Russian Political Parties,” Collected Works, Vol. X.
[24] L. M. Bramson, History of the Trudovaya Party. The Group of Toil in the First State Duma, Petrograd, 1917, p. 14.
[25] i.e., after the Reform of 1861 which legally abolished serfdom in Russia.—Trans.
[26] Programme of the Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries, Moscow, 1917, p. 11.
[27] Fall of the Tsarist Régime. Stenographic Report of the Examination and Evidence Heard in 1917 by the Extraordinary Investigation Commission of the Provisional Government, Vol. VI, Leningrad, 1926, p. 286.
[28] Lenin, “Socialism and War,” Collected Works, Vol. XVIII.
[29] Sotsial-demokrat (Social-Democrat), No. 34, December, 5, 1914, Geneva.
[30] “The Progressive Bloc in 1915-1917,” Krasny Arkhiv (Red Archives), 1932, Vols. L-LI, pp. 133-4.
[31] Letter of August 28, 1915.—Trans.
[32] Letter of June 25, 1915.—Trans.
[33] Letter of June 17, 1915.—Trans.
[34] S. Y. Witte, Reminiscences, Vol. II, Moscow, 1923, p. 33.
[35] Letter of June 26, 1915.—Trans.
[36] Letter of June 17, 1915.—Trans.
[37] Letter of September 16, 1915.—Trans.
[38] The State Duma. Fourth Assembly, Fourth Session. Verbatim Report. Petrograd, 1915, columns 1207-8.
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