By Matt Hirst
In 1917, Russia experienced a revolution that would forever alter the course of world history. This revolution not only marked the collapse of a dictatorship and ended World War I, but also ushered in a new era. For the first time ever in the world, it gave birth to democratic workers’ state. These events were described vividly in the book Ten Days that Shook the World, written by John Reed, an American journalist and socialist who witnessed the revolution first hand.
Where did the revolution come from?
The 1917 revolution, which began in February 1917 and culminated in the conquest of power by the revolutionary Bolshevik party, was the result of conditions that had been brewing for decades.
The Romanov dynasty, which had ruled Russia for more than 300 years, led a brutal authoritarian system, based on a one-man dictatorship at the hands of the Tsar, who oversaw the oppression of workers and poor peasants. Russia under the Tsar was an imperialist country, enslaving Slavs, Poles and many other nationalities. To protect the interests of its ruling elite, it entered into World War I on the side of US, British and French imperialism. In 1917 it was on the edge of a revolutionary upheaval, with a rigid autocratic government, a growing and rebellious working class, widespread poverty and hunger, and the massive human cost of World War I.
Russia’s participation in the war was disastrous, both militarily and economically. By 1917, millions of Russian soldiers had perished, and morale was low. The army, largely made up of poorly trained and poorly equipped peasants, was in disarray. Food shortages and rising inflation exacerbated the suffering of workers back home. The Tsar’s government was seen as ineffective, corrupt, and detached from the realities of its people.
The February Revolution: The fall of the Tsar
The first phase of the revolution erupted in February 1917. It began with widespread protests in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), sparked by bread shortages and dissatisfaction with the Tsarist regime. Women textile workers began the movement, going from factory to factory, calling on workers to come out of their workplaces in demand of ‘peace, land and bread’. The protests quickly grew into a massive strike involving both workers and soldiers.
The unrest became uncontainable when soldiers, who had been sent to suppress the demonstrations, instead joined the protesters. This marked a turning point, as it became clear that Tsar Nicholas II had lost control of the capital.
On March 2, 1917, under immense pressure, Nicholas II abdicated the throne, effectively ending over three centuries of Romanov rule. In its place came a Provisional (temporary) Government, whose role was supposedly to act as a caretaker until a democratically-elected Constituent Assembly could be convened to determine Russia’s future. However, it quickly became evident that this new government was backed by the capitalists and generals as well as the imperialist powers allied to Russia in the war.
Dual power: The Provisional Government vs. the soviets
During the period following the February Revolution a system of ‘dual power’ began to develop. On one side stood the Provisional Government: a body composed of liberal politicians and moderate ‘socialists’ who sought to continue Russia’s involvement in the war. In other words, they stood fundamentally for a continuation of what came before.
On the other side were the soviets: grassroots councils of workers and soldiers who had power in the workplaces and streets, especially in Petrograd. They became the working class’ own centres of power, where different political factions debated their programmes, and the way forward for the revolution.
The Petrograd Soviet, a body of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies, quickly emerged as a powerful institution. It acted as a parallel government, through which elected workers’ representatives could issue orders that often contradicted those of the Provisional Government. The most famous of these orders was Order No. 1, which instructed soldiers to obey only the orders of the soviets, thereby undermining the authority of military officers and the Provisional Government itself.
The fundamental problem was that the Provisional Government did not address the key demands of the people – land, bread, and peace. The war continued, and so did the suffering. As the months passed, dissatisfaction grew, particularly among the people, who realised that the Provisional Government was no different from the Tsarist regime in its refusal to address their grievances.
The Bolsheviks and Lenin’s return
The Bolsheviks, a revolutionary Marxist party led by Vladimir Lenin, proved over the course of 1917 to be the only party with a programme which genuinely answered the problems of the masses. Unlike the Provisional Government, which favoured continuing the war, Lenin and the Bolsheviks called for an immediate end to the conflict, land redistribution to peasants, and workers’ control over factories. Other ‘socialist’ organisations in Russia at the time (such as the Mensheviks) were firmly opposed to these policies, instead arguing that socialists should tail behind the pro-capitalist parties. Though they stood in theory for socialism, they put the fight for this new society off into the far-distant future.
In April 1917, Lenin returned to Russia from exile, bringing with him a radical new programme outlined in his April Theses. In this document, Lenin argued that the February Revolution had merely replaced one form of class rule with another. He insisted that the next step was a socialist revolution, led by the soviets, which would transfer power from the capitalist class to the working class. His slogans – “peace, land, and bread” and “all power to the soviets” – resonated deeply with the masses, as it outlined the demands that workers and peasants wanted. But it also crucially outlined how they could achieve their demands – by having workers’ control of society, through the soviets.
Initially, Lenin’s ideas were met with scepticism, even within the Bolshevik Party. However, as the Provisional Government continued to falter, and as the war dragged on, Lenin’s vision gained traction, and he was supported in this by Leon Trotsky. By the summer of 1917, the Bolsheviks were growing in influence, particularly within the soviets of major cities like Petrograd and Moscow.
The July Days and the Kornilov affair
In July 1917, a spontaneous uprising broke out in Petrograd. Sections of workers and soldiers, frustrated with the Provisional Government’s inability to meet their demands, took to the streets, calling for the soviets to seize power. Although the Bolsheviks were opposed to what they saw as a premature uprising before there was mass support for it, they were still blamed for the chaos and faced a government crackdown. Lenin went into hiding, and several Bolshevik leaders were arrested.
Despite this setback, the Provisional Government’s position continued to weaken. The most significant blow came in August 1917, during the Kornilov Affair. General Lavr Kornilov, the commander-in-chief of the Russian army and extreme right-winger, attempted a coup against the Provisional Government, intending to restore ‘order’ by imposing a military dictatorship. Fearing that Kornilov would succeed, Kerensky, now the head of the Provisional Government, turned to the soviets for help. The Bolsheviks, who controlled much of the Petrograd Soviet, organised workers, sailors and soldiers to defend the capital.
Reed’s book recounted seeing sailors from the Baltic fleet in the street: “Five or six sailors with rifles came along, laughing excitedly. On the sailors’ hat bands were Avrora and Zaria Svobody,—the names of the leading Bolshevik cruisers of the Baltic Fleet. One of them said, ‘Kronstadt is coming!’ For at Kronstadt were twenty-five thousand sailors, convinced Bolsheviks and not afraid to die.”
Kornilov’s coup failed, and the Bolsheviks emerged stronger than ever, having positioned themselves as the best defenders of the revolution.
The October Revolution
By the latter months of 1917, the Bolsheviks had garnered substantial support within the working class of the cities. The Provisional Government, meanwhile, was increasingly isolated and ineffective. The Bolsheviks understood that the dual power situation between the government and the soviets could not endure and would have to be resolved. Either the working class would take power, or the gains of the February 1917 revolution would be lost to a counterrevolution.
For this reason, once it was clear that there was clear majority support for the end of the Provisional Government, the Bolsheviks raised the slogan “All power to the soviets!”. By October, when the Bolsheviks sought to break the deadlock between capitalists and workers by organising to take power for the working class, the Mensheviks opposed the move, despite its widespread support among the masses.
The October Revolution was swift and relatively bloodless. On the night of 25-26 October 1917 (6-7 November in the Gregorian calendar), forces from the soviets, led by the Red Guards, stormed key government buildings in Petrograd, including the Winter Palace, where the Provisional Government was headquartered. By the morning of 26 October, the soviets had effectively taken control of the capital. Contrary to the picture often painted of a ‘coup’ led by Lenin, this was in fact a thoroughly democratic action, carried out by the elected organisations of the overwhelming majority – the soviets.
In his book, Reed vividly describes the somewhat chaotic yet determined atmosphere in Petrograd during those crucial ten days. The city’s streets were teeming with energy as workers and soldiers rallied for the cause of revolution. Reed’s portrayal emphasises the sense of inevitability and urgency that permeated the revolutionaries, who understood that they were carrying out a historic task of global significance. As he comments: “How far they had soared, these Bolsheviks, from a despised and hunted sect less than four months ago, to this supreme place, the helm of great Russia in full tide of insurrection!”
Within hours of seizing power from the Provisional Government, the new soviet government issued decrees to address the three core demands they had rallied around: peace, bread, and land. The decree on peace initiated efforts to secure a ceasefire and negotiate peace with the Central Powers, while the land decree redistributed land taken from feudal lords to the poor peasants. Workers also began taking control of banks and industries, setting the stage for public ownership and laying the groundwork for a democratically-planned socialist economy.
The capitalist class internationally was petrified by the success of the revolution, and launched an invasion encompassing 21 different foreign armies to foment civil war and restore capitalism. The Bolsheviks understood that the workers’ state could not survive and establish genuine socialism without the revolution spreading. Reed quotes Trotsky as saying: “There are only two alternatives: either the Russian Revolution will create a revolutionary movement in Europe, or the European powers will destroy the Russian Revolution!”
This led the victorious Bolsheviks to found the Communist International to promote world revolution. With Russia’s economic underdevelopment, the success of revolutions in more industrialised countries was critical to fully realising the revolution’s goals and moving toward socialism.
Such a revolutionary wave across Europe did materialise – from the 1918-23 German revolution, to the mass workers’ uprisings in Italy, Hungary, Austria and elsewhere. However, due to the lack of a revolutionary leadership and party of the same calibre of the Bolsheviks, these revolutions ultimately failed to overturn capitalism. Amid the chaos of the civil war launched by pro-capitalist forces and the isolation of the workers’ state, mass poverty and destruction created a vacuum for the Stalinist dictatorship to rise to power, leading to a political counter-revolution.
This resulted in the dismantling of the democratic achievements of the October Revolution – something opposed by Leon Trotsky and the Left Opposition, who fought to preserve workers’ democracy. Although the bureaucracy initially maintained a planned economy, it was controlled by an authoritarian clique and, though it survived for 70 years, it was eventually dismantled entirely.
Since 1917, many revolutionary movements have emerged, but none have fully established the kind of workers’ democracy achieved in Russia during the early years of the revolution. A key difference was the presence of the Bolsheviks – a party that applied Marx and Engels’ theories on capitalism and the working class’s role in overthrowing it. They were deeply connected to the masses, shaping their policies based on a clear understanding of the need to overturn capitalism and gain majority support for revolutionary change.
This understanding – that a revolutionary party is crucial to achieving a socialist society – is why we continue building the forces of Marxism today. We follow the tradition of the Bolsheviks, while rejecting the grotesque and false caricature of Marxism that developed later under the rule of Stalin. This is also why building an international revolutionary organisation is so essential, making the global work of International Socialist Alternative a critical part of our efforts.
The October 1917 Russian revolution had a profound impact, not only on Russia but on the entire world. Despite its eventual defeat, it acted as a beacon of hope to workers and oppressed people internationally. It showed how the exploited and oppressed majority can overthrow capitalism and imperialism, and run society in a fundamentally different kind of way
