Bolshevik Revolution

War in Western Europe and on the Atlantic

In planning for their effort on the Western Front in 1917, Britain and France put hope in a French general, Robert Nivelle. Nivelle was an artillery officer who had become a hero at Verdun and famous for his declaration, referring to the Germans, that "they will not pass." He believed he had invented the formula for a successful offensive against the Germans: a massive, denser, creeping bombardment that would breakdown the German defenses, followed closely by a massive assault of troops. He declared that if he did not produce a breakthrough within the first 48 hours of battle he would stop the offensive rather than shed more blood.

The Germans, meanwhile, were placing their hope on their submarine offensive, and they planned to remain on the defensive on the Western Front in 1917. In places on the Western Front, they secretly withdrew to what was known as the Hindenburg Line - the Germans making their front line straighter, twenty-five miles shorter, and stronger.

On April 5, the French began the shelling as the first step in Nivelle's offensive, shelling that continued to April 15. Meanwhile, on the 9th, a British offensive began that was designed to pull Germans away from the impending French offensive, and it was immediately costly in British lives. Nivelle began his assault with troops on the 16th, and his forces in the center and right flanks advanced a mile and a half or two miles, but his left flank, supported by the first few tanks in warfare, failed. German machine guns continued killing numerous attackers. Nivelle's hoped for breakthrough did not happen. But admitting defeat at such a gigantic, historical moment was too much for Nivelle, and rather than admit defeat and call off his offensive as he had promised, Nivelle continued trying. And the slaughter went on. Weary soldiers, fed up with the prospect of death and what they believed were government lies about the war, mutinied, led by older veterans of the war. Soldiers being transported to the front ganged up on their officers, against military policemen and against railway men taking them to the front. An entire division that had fought at Verdun refused to go into battle. And the revolt spread to half the French army.

Stretches along the French front were undefended, but the Germans, remaining on the defensive, failed to notice. French civilians joined the unrest. People demonstrated in the streets. Labor went out on strike. The French high command managed to keep the rebellion a secret from the outside world, and Nivelle was replaced by a general who had long believed in a defensive strategy: Henri Pétain. Pétain doubled leaves of soldiers and improved their food. He had ringleaders of the mutiny shot or sent to Devil's Island. In some rebellious units, every tenth man was shot as a demonstration that authority had to be obeyed. French troops were told there would be no more offensives, and by mid-June the crisis had passed, with soldiers defending France's entire line and France now on the defensive waiting for the arrival of troops from the United States.

The Germans remained focused on their submarine offensive, which had begun in February and was sinking ships at a rate that posed a great danger to Britain. Lloyd-George urged a new convoy system - convoys of warships to accompany freighters. Most of Britain's admirals resisted the idea, complaining, among other things, that it would put "too many eggs in one basket" and present too big of a target for the Germans. The commander in chief of Britain's navy, Admiral David Beatty, supported Lloyd-George. Admiral William Sims of the United States Navy also supported the convoy system. And the first convoy began at the end of May.

A British offensive in Flanders began on June 7, the primary goal of which was to clear the Belgian coast of Germany's submarine bases. This offensive was preceded by a British artillery bombardment announcing its coming, a bombardment that could be heard in London. Around the Belgian town of Ypres, the British advanced only a couple of miles - another failure. But plans were made for another assault. A preparatory air offensive began on July 11, with 500 British and 200 French aircraft. Artillery bombardment began on July 18. The assault on the ground began on July 31, and it brought no appreciable gains. Bombardments had destroyed water drainage in the area, and with the heavy rains the battlefields had become soft mud and contiguous pools of water-filled shell holes. Men easily sank up to their waists. Nothing could move. The British commander, Douglas Haig, ordered the advance to continue anyway, and by November the British had lost another 300,000 as dead or wounded.

The British and the French had been improving their ability to calibrate artillery barrages, keeping artillery rounds "just over the shoulders" of their advancing troops while keeping the Germans pinned down. And the British had been developing a new weapon called the tank - a step up from armored cars and from tractors that were being used to pull artillery. The British had used eleven tanks without success in an attack at the Somme in 1916. On November 20, 1917 the British used a large number of tanks - 381 - for the first time, in an offensive near Cambrai, about 40 miles south of Ypres. The tanks ran in front of and with troops in a surprise attack - an attack without preparatory artillery shelling. And a breakthrough was made along a six-mile stretch of front. The British took 7,500 German prisoners and captured 120 guns, with few casualties. But with their previous losses in 1917 the British lacked the reserves needed to keep going, and they had made a vulnerable bulge in their line. Then the Germans counterattacked in a flanking maneuver, and the British fell back.

The Italian Front

An Italian offensive that had been planned to help the French and British had begun in May, with 38 Italian divisions massed along its mountainous front against 14 Austrian divisions. The Italians gained little ground, and they lost 157,000 in dead and wounded and the Austrians 75,000.

In August, Italy launched its second offensive for the year, while enjoying a two to one advantage in men over the Austrians. The Austrians fell back. German troops again went to the rescue of the Austrians. The Germans wished to see Italy knocked out of the war in 1917, as Serbia had been knocked out in 1915 and Romania in 1916. But the Germans were able to spare only six divisions, given the British offensive they were facing - divisions it pulled from its Russian front. A combined German and Austrian counter-offensive against Italy began along the lower elevations on the eastern half of the Austrian-Italian front. And in late October they broke through the Italian line, with a great battle being fought at the little town of Caporetto. The Italians fell back in a rout - more the fault of Italy's military leaders than its rank and file. Some Italian units fought with bravery and determination, but the breakdown of the front broke troop morale.

The unexpected collapse of the Italian front was more than the Germans had been prepared for, and they and the Austrians were unable to exploit it. Six French and five British divisions arrived in Italy and shored up the Italian defense line along the Piave River, while Italy was at a new low economically for fighting the war. But hope is wondrous: in Italy the war had become more popular, as people hoped for revenge against their nation's humiliation.

The Eastern Front

By the end of 1917, the Germans still had their submarine bases in Belgium, but the British and Americans, using the convoy system, depth charges and underwater listening devices, had brought a dramatic drop in the rate of ships being lost to German submarines. With the failure of their submarine offensive and the United States in the war, the Germans now faced overwhelming odds. The Allies had an overwhelming superiority in numbers of people, and the U.S. could produce enough to sustain the Allied cause indefinitely. Germany's economy was strained and blockaded and its people starving. Germany's submarine gamble bringing the United States into the war had doomed Germany to defeat. But the Germans were not calculating comparable economic strengths, and they found some hope in Russia's collapse as a military power. Rather than favoring a compromise peace, they continued to seek military victory.

After the overthrow of the tsar, Russia's new government abolished the death penalty and ended discrimination based on religious or ethnic affiliation. The government assured freedom of association and assembly. The new government promised Poland that after the war ended it would be independent. Finland – which had been ruled by Russia’s tsar – was guaranteed restoration of its constitutional rights. And the government proclaimed that full civil rights were extended to Russia’s soldiers. But across the new Russia the dissolved police departments and the hated tsarist government administrators were not being replaced. Few people were paying attention to laws. In the countryside, deserters from the military and criminals released from prisons were leading land seizures and attacking isolated estates. Peasants were cutting down trees for wood or stealing seed grain. And peasant soldiers were still deserting, rushing home to get their share.

In the capital, meanwhile, the Provisional Government believed that it could stay in the war. The United States and Britain hoped that the new Russian democracy would contribute to the war effort against Germany and Austria-Hungary, and early after the United States entered the war the Wilson administration told Russia’s Provisional Government that aid would be given to Russia only if it pursued a new offensive. Members of Russia’s Provisional Government were hoping for the benefits to Russia that they believed would come with an Allied victory, and they were especially interested in continuing the war against Germany’s wartime ally, Turkey. Russia’s Eastern Orthodox clergy looked forward to Turkey’s defeat and to Russia winning back Constantinople (Istanbul) for Eastern Orthodox Christianity (Constantinople having been taken by the Ottoman Turks and Islam in 1453).

The Provisional Government laid plans for an offensive in July, 1917. Its Minister of War, Alexander Kerensky, was among those applying "lessons" of history. He believed that the overthrow of the tsar made possible a new morale among Russia’s military, as had happened among the French during its revolution and when ancient Athens became a democracy. Circumstances were working against Russia that were different from those faced by revolutionary France or the democracy of ancient Athens, but Kerensky remained hopeful. He made speeches to the troops, calling them his comrades in revolution and telling them they could turn things around on the Eastern Front.

Lenin Arrives in Russia

Lenin's acid wit, his voracious reading, his energy as a writer and an organizer had allowed him to rise to prominence among Russia's socialists. He was the leader of the Bolshevik wing of Russia's socialist movement, a small organization dedicated to social revolution rather than reforms. Lenin believed that the world would be better off without investors - without capitalists and landlords. In keeping with Marxism, Lenin and his Bolsheviks saw organized factory workers as the base of their support and as the source of future revolution. At the beginning of the war, Bolshevik activists were beaten by factory workers because of their lack of patriotism, but hostility toward the war among soldiers and workers had changed that.

In April, Vladimir Ilych Lenin arrived in Petrograd from Switzerland with numerous other exiles who were returning under the amnesty provided by the Provisional Government. They arrived on a train that had passed through Germany to Finland – the feasible route for them given the refusal of the Allies to let them pass over their territory. Italy, France and Britain had not wanted to give them passage to Russia, fearing they would damage the war effort in Russia, while Germany looked forward to their contributing to Russia quitting the war.

Bolsheviks crowded in and around the train station in Petrograd to greet their leader, Lenin. After accepting their cheers, Lenin scolded them. The Bolsheviks had been working with others in the soviets, wishing to be identified as a part of the revolution that overthrew the tsar. Lenin told them that they should stand apart from others who supported the revolution, that they should stop supporting the Provisional Government and should begin advocating socialist revolution – the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. The stunned Bolsheviks thought that Lenin was out of touch because of his having been abroad.

Lenin had the same view toward the war as did many socialists in the United States, including Eugene Debs. He believed that "a handful of exploiters" were responsible for the war – as if Franz Joseph, Tsar Nicholas, Wilhelm and various military leaders had all been puppets of the capitalists. The capitalists, said Lenin, were destroying the peoples of Europe for the sake of profits.

From what he saw in Russia, Lenin concluded that the road to power was through the councils – the soviets – because that was where the masses were. He was not, as they said in his time, a putschist or a Blanquist: he did not believe that revolutions were made by some clique leading a successful coup. He saw coups as the work of counter-revolutionaries trying to keep the ruling class in power. He believed, as had Marx and Engles, that revolution was a mass phenomena.

Under Lenin’s leadership, the Bolsheviks in Petrograd took up the slogans "Bread, Land, Peace" and "All power to the Soviets." When Petrograd’s First All-Russian Congress of the Workers’ and Soldier’s Soviets met on June 17, Lenin was there representing the Bolsheviks. Amid the speechmaking and arguing, Lenin responded to a shout from the floor by announcing that his party was ready to take power. This brought laughter from the predominately non-Bolshevik assembly. Lenin also announced that what Russia needed was the arrest of fifty to one hundred of the most substantial capitalists and to force them to reveal the clandestine intrigues that kept the Russian people at war and in misery. The blinders he said would then fall from the eyes of the masses and food shortages and inflation would disappear.

Hunger and other miseries were creating more followers for the Bolsheviks – the only revolutionary party that stood in opposition to the Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks created their own private army, the Red Guard, which Lenin refused to subordinate to the Petrograd Soviet. And the Bolsheviks were conducting a propaganda campaign among the soldiers, including those at the front. They were distributing a newspaper free to the troops, and to help pay this and perhaps some other expenses, Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders were secretly accepting money from German agents – as later described by the German foreign minister to Russia, Richard von Kühlman. The Bolsheviks did not support the German war effort any more than they supported Russia’s war effort. They tried to keep a distance between themselves and the charge that they were German agents. And in their newspaper they advised soldiers to keep themselves armed.

The July Military Offensive and Threatened Civil War

In preparing for the July offensive, the Minister of War, Kerensky, was trying to restore discipline in the army, which led many soldiers to lose faith in the new government. Russia’s armies were still no match for Germany’s defensive line in the east, and all Kerensky’s work came to naught. Russia’s July offensive began with gains against the Austrians, but the offensive fell apart under a German counter offensive.

In violation of the agreements made when the tsar was overthrown, regiments in Petrograd were ordered to the front to help the failed offensive. Soldiers in Petrograd took to the streets, and the revolt was joined by 6,000 sailors from the nearby Kronstadt naval base. Soldiers repeated the Bolshevik’s call for "all power to the Soviets," and the Bolsheviks supported their revolt. The Provisional Government announced evidence they had of Bolshevik dealings with the Germans, which stunned the soldiers. Then what had not happened for the tsar happened for the Provisional Government: troops loyal to the government entered Petrograd and quelled the rising there. Numerous Bolsheviks were arrested, and some soldiers from Petrograd were sent to the front. The office of the Bolshevik newspaper, Pravda, was wrecked, and an order went out for the arrest of Lenin, who went into hiding.

After the failed Russian offensive, the Germans began a slow advance that appeared to the Provisional Government as a threat to Petrograd. Kerensky was elevated to Prime Minister, and he wanted to make a separate peace with Germany, but he yielded to objections from the United States, Britain and France.

Kerensky began sending forces into the countryside to restore order there – a reasonable endeavor for a Prime Minister, except that it needed more manpower than he was willing or able to apply. Then Kerensky accused one of his generals, Lvar Kornilov, of plotting a coup. Kerensky feared a general overthrowing the Russian revolution just as Napoleon had ended the French Revolution. He charged Kornilov with treason. Kornilov, who had been loyal and somewhat progressive, was outraged and made true Kerensky’s accusation: he called for the people of Russia to rally behind him to save the country from Kerensky and the Germans.

Some who believed that Kerensky was not using strong enough measures to reestablish order sided with Kornilov. Others began joining forces against what they saw as an attempt at counter-revolution. Fearing counter-revolution, Kerensky sought as much help as he could get from those who supported the revolution against the Tsar, including the Bolsheviks. The government released Bolsheviks from prison, and it released from prison an ally of the Bolsheviks, Leon Trotsky, a skilled writer and orator, a revolutionary who had been a leading figure in the popular rising in 1905.

Trotsky and the Bolsheviks armed all of those they could who were sympathetic to preventing counter-revolution. Kerensky’s government arrested prominent generals for conspiring with Kornilov. Military officers abandoned any support they had had for the Provisional Government and Kerensky. Kornilov sent an army of Cossacks under General Krymov toward Petrograd. Workers and soldiers met Krymov’s army and talked many in Krymov’s army into abandoning their drive on Petrograd. Defeated, Kornilov and some other generals were arrested and jailed, and General Krymov killed himself with his revolver.

By now opinion in the Soviets had shifted in favor of an immediate end of the war and taking governmental power away from the Provisional Government. The swing in sentiment in the Petrograd Soviet elevated Leon Trotsky to chairman. Then, on September 18, the Bolsheviks won a majority in the Moscow Soviet. And on September 23 they won a majority in the Petrograd Soviet.

Still in hiding, Lenin was aware that the Provisional Government had lost effective power. With the Bolsheviks having majority support in the Petrograd Soviet, it was time, he believed, to take power in behalf of the soviets. Bolshevik leaders around Lenin, namely Kamenev and Zinoviev, feared another premature attempted coup like the one in July, and they opposed such a move. Trotsky supported Lenin. Lenin won enough of his fellow Bolsheviks leaders to his side to make his move. And joining the Bolsheviks and Trotsky were their allies in the Soviets, an agrarian political party favoring social revolution known as the Left SRs.

The Bolshevik Coup

The rising was scheduled to coincide with a meeting in Petrograd of the All Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. Trotsky, as Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, was determined to make the coup appear as a defense of the revolution that overthrew the tsar and as a defense against an attempt by the Provisional Government to disperse the Congress of Soviets then in session.

The coup occurred in the early morning hours on November 7. Red Guards (Bolshevik soldiers) tried to take control of the city’s biggest newspapers, but they failed, finding the offices well guarded by armed men. At one o’clock in the morning, armed revolutionary soldiers and sailors – the latter from the Kronstadt naval base – occupied without difficulty the city’s telegraph exchange. At 1:35 in the morning, revolutionaries occupied the post office. At 5 a.m., a revolutionary force took control of the telephone exchange. At dawn, a Bolshevik force surrounded the state bank. At 10 o’clock armed revolutionaries surrounded what had been the tsar’s Winter Palace, which held the offices of the Provisional Government – the biggest target for the revolutionaries. And the revolutionaries took control of the local train station.

So far, hardly any blood had been shed. Life in the city during the day was limping along as it had during previous days, with people in their homes and in the street taking little notice of the coup. But Kerensky noticed, and he fled to the front in search of an army. It was the first of the ten days that was said to shake the world.

The All Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies opened that day in Petrograd with the declaration that the Provisional Government was deposed and that all power now belonged to the Soviets. Moderate socialists (Mensheviks) at the congress spoke against the coup, demanded negotiations with the Provisional Government and accused the Bolsheviks of a conspiracy and of failing to consult with other factions and parties in the Soviets. They were hooted down, and they walked out, with Trotsky announcing from the podium that they belonged to the garbage heap of history.

People in Petrograd whose opinions were not represented in the Petrograd Soviet appeared indifferent, believing perhaps that matters as they were before the coup could hardly get worse. It is estimated that about 10,000 armed men in Petrograd supported the Bolsheviks and that the rest of the soldiers in Petrograd – perhaps 230,000 – were neutral. In Petrograd were also 15,000 or so military officers who had withdrawn from military affairs, largely for their own protection. Also organizing no challenge to the Bolshevik coup were the moderate Socialist-Revolutionaries (SRs), whose party represented peasants. They had been a part of the coalition that made up the Provisional Government and were, for the time being, without influence.

On November 8, Lenin gave his keynote address to the Soviet delegates. "We shall now proceed to the construction of the socialist order" he stated, and he was wildly applauded. He announced that Russia was now out of the war, and the delegates roared their approval. Rather than the old Bolshevik position that all land should be socialized, Lenin announced a land decree that suited the Left SR delegates: peasant proprietorship.

Then the Congress of Soviets put forth resolutions that Lenin had had a hand in creating. No compensation was to be given to landowners whose lands were confiscated. All private ownership of land was abolished in the sense that rich peasants, industrialists, churches and monasteries could no longer consider land, livestock or buildings as theirs by law. A resolution was put forward that defended "soldier’s rights" and enforced "complete democratization of the army." Industry was put under "workers' control." It was decreed that necessary means were to be taken to supply bread to the cities and articles of necessity to the villages. All local power would be transferred to workers’ and peasants’ councils – the soviets – which were to have the responsibility of enforcing "revolutionary order." Anti-Jewish pogroms or incidents were declared illegal. And all nationalities that had been under tsarist rule were to enjoy the freedom of self-determination.

The Congress of Soviets called upon the soldiers in the trenches to be "watchful and steadfast." It called upon the nations still at war to make peace. And, in an attack on imperialism, it called on the nations of the world to abolish secret diplomacy. It promised that the Soviet government would conduct all negotiations in the light of day before the people. And it promised to publish all of the secret treaties to which Russia had been a party. The Congress voted on these declarations and passed them unanimously. Lenin assured the delegates that democracy would reign: that all decisions would be subject to the approval or modification of the Constituent Assembly, scheduled to open in a few weeks.

The Congress of Soviets remained in session four more days, during which the eight-hour work-day was decreed. And it was decreed that all newspapers hostile to the revolution would be closed – because, it was said, newspapers were under the control of wealthy persons who should be prevented from "poisoning and confusing" the minds of the masses. Meanwhile, on November 9, Moscow had come under the control of its soviet, and revolutionaries were beginning to take power in the name of the soviets in other Russian cities.

And now came the showdown with Kerensky. Kerensky had had a difficult time finding troops at the front who would support the Provisional Government, but he did find support from the Cossack general P. N. Krasnov, who, with 700 Cossacks, was advancing on Petrograd as the Congress of Soviets was coming to a close. A battle between the revolutionaries and Kransov’s forces was fought on November 11, ten miles from Petrograd – a crucial turning point for the twentieth century.

The Bolsheviks defeated the forces under General Krasnov. For the time being the Bolshevik revolution was secure. But opposition to the Bolshevik takeover was organizing. Pockets of hostility to the Bolsheviks remained, some in Cossack areas. And Latvia, Estonia and Finland declared their independence. Leaders of the Petrograd Soviet, dominated by Lenin, continued to rule by decree, in the name of "the people." The Petrograd Soviet ordered postal employees, telegraph operators and railway employees back to work. Postal and telegraph workers who did not recognize the authority of the new Soviet government were to be dismissed from their positions without benefit of their pensions.

Hearing that for Russia the war was over, desertions at the front increased. With what seemed to be the fall of authority, criminal activity was rising. Roaming the countryside were bands of anarchists, reveling in what to them seemed a new freedom. On November 20, a regime of moderate socialists in the Ukraine announced the independence of a new Ukraine republic.

On November 23, the Petrograd Soviet decreed that all "class distinctions, class privileges and class limitations, class organizations and institutions, as well as all civil ranks" were abolished. And the Petrograd Soviet decreed that the property of the nobility was to be confiscated. Where Soviets were in control, especially in Petrograd, the wealthy were giving up space in their homes to members of the "working class," and moving into their attics or basements.

November 25 was the day that had been scheduled for the election of delegates to the Constituent Assembly. Lenin favored postponing these elections. He was opposed by comrades who observed that the Bolsheviks had often attacked the Provisional Government for its postponement of the elections, and they argued that hope for the elections was too widespread to ignore and that the credibility of the Bolsheviks had to be maintained. Bolsheviks, moreover, were looking forward to the Constituent Assembly as a means of legitimizing their revolution.

Elections for seats in the Constituent Assembly were held, and they were a disappointment for the Bolsheviks. Bolsheviks won only 25 percent of the vote. With most Russians being peasants, SR candidates won a majority of the seats. The majority of the delegates elected to the Constituent Assembly were sympathetic with socialism, but not necessarily in support of the Bolsheviks. The Constituent Assembly was scheduled to open on December 11, but the Bolsheviks postponed the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly to January.

Meanwhile, the tsar's old empire continued to break apart, and the chance of civil war was rising. On November 28, Estonia proclaimed its independence. In the Don region - near Rostov, a seaport on the Black Sea - an anti-Bolshevik army was forming. On December 2, General Kornilov and other officers escaped from prison, and with 400 Cossack soldiers they began making their way toward Rostov. On December 7, Trotsky ordered a force against Kornilov, and after the battle Kornilov was left with just a few men, with whom he escaped, reaching Rostov on December 19.

The Soviet regime issued a decree that replaced the old court system with "People's Courts," its judges to be elected. Originally Lenin had believed that leadership of a communist revolution after acquiring power could turn the revolution over to the masses. But Lenin was not about to try this. He still saw the need for organization and his leadership. Lenin was swamped with practical considerations. He stopped the vengeance of factory workers putting engineers and other skilled white-collar men to cleaning latrines, but he had to take action against managers who were sabotaging what had been their factories. And he faced a strike by teachers, engineers and other white-collar workers. Rather than leave matters to the spontaneity of the masses, a decree was issued establishing a Supreme Economic Council to manage the entire economy. In Russia's cities, meanwhile, hunger had worsened. Grain supplies had dropped to new lows. So Lenin sent armed detachments of workers and poor peasants to confiscate food that peasants had stored, and armed clashes occurred between resisting peasants and the requisition teams.

Fearing counter-revolution and sabotage, the Bolsheviks created a commission to be known by its acronym, CHEKA (the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage). And to combat "counter revolution" in the Ukraine and bring the Ukraine into the Soviet camp, the Bolsheviks mobilized an army.

Russian money, the ruble, was falling precipitously in value on the world currency market, and, rather than adopt the anarchist dream of abolishing money, the Bolsheviks nationalized all banking institutions. Also there were negotiations with Germany that could not be left to the spontaneity of the masses, and, on December 22, the Bolsheviks began negotiating with representatives of Germany at a town of Brest-Litovsk(Brest), approximately 150 kilometers on the other side of the German frontline - a line that ran from a few miles east of the city of Riga in the north, a little west of Minsk, a few miles east of Czernowitz and to the border of Romania and the Russian Empire at the town of Vylkove, by the Black Sea.

Recommended Books

The Russian Revolution, by Richard Pipes, Knopf, 1990.

The First World War: A Complete History, by Martin Gilbert, 1996.

to the top | 1901-World War II | Russia, 1918