Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution Class 9 History Chapter 2 Etutor

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Table of Contents :

• The Age of Social Change
• Liberals, Radicals and Conservatives Liberals
• Radicals
• Conservatives
• Industrial Society and Social Change
• The Coming of Socialism to Europe
• Support for Socialism
• The Russian Revolution
• The Russian Empire in 1914
• Economy and Society
• Socialism in Russia
• The 1905 Revolution
• The Incident of Bloody Sunday
• Reaction of The Tsar
• The First World War and the Russian Empire
• The February Revolution in Petrograd
• After February
• Worker’s Movement
• The Revolution of October 1917
• Changes After October
• The Civil War
• Making a Socialist Society
• Status of Workers
• Stalinism and Collectivisation
• Stalin’s Policies
• Global Influence of the Russian Revolution and The USSR
• Writing About the Russian Revolution in India
• Summary
• PDF- notes & Printing Notes

The Age of Social Change

• The French Revolution provided an opportunity to establish a new social structure. Society was broadly divided into estates and orders prior to the eighteenth century. The aristocracy and church wielded economic and social power.
• In India, Raja Rammohan Roy and Derozio emphasised the significance of the French Revolution, and many others debated post-revolutionary European ideas.
• Following the French Revolution, new ideas about “individual rights” and “societal changes” emerged in Europe and Asia.
• There were groups that wanted to change society based on their ideas and visions.
• During this time, three major groups emerged: liberals, radicals, and conservatives.

Liberals, Radicals and Conservatives Liberals

• They proposed changing society and supported the idea of religious tolerance.
• They were opposed to dynastic ruler’s unchecked power. They wished to protect individual rights against governments.
• They advocated for a representative, democratically elected parliamentary government and an independent judiciary.
• Liberals were not democratic because they opposed the Universal Adult Franchise (Right to Vote) and favoured voting rights only for men, not women.

Radicals

• Based on the majority of the country’s population, they supported the government. They were against the privileges granted to large landowners and wealthy factory owners. 
• Many of them were also supporters of women’s suffrage movements. They supported private property but were opposed to the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few.

Conservatives

• They disagreed with Radicals and Liberals. 
• Initially, they were opposed to change, but by the nineteenth century, they had accepted some changes. They insisted on respecting the past.
• They desired change, but only at a slow pace.

Industrial Society and Social Change 

• Many changes occurred in society and the economy during the Industrial Revolution. Some of them are discussed further below.
• New cities, industrial zones, and railway lines were built. 
• Workers in factories included men, women, and children.
• Working hours were frequently long, and wages were low. Because of the low demand for industrial goods, unemployment was common.
• Because towns were rapidly expanding, housing and sanitation became issues.
• Liberals and radicals sought solutions to these problems. Many of the factory owners were Democrats and Republicans.
• Both Liberals and Radicals believed that workers’ efforts should be rewarded.
• They also believed that its benefits would be realised if the economy’s workforce was healthy and citizens were educated.
• In the early nineteenth century, many working women and men who wanted to see changes in the world rallied around liberal and radical groups.
• Some Nationalists, Liberals, and Radicals desired revolutions to end the type of governments that had been established in Europe in 1815. They worked to depose the monarchs of France, Italy, Germany, and Russia.
• Nationalists emphasised revolutions that would create “nations” with equal rights for all citizens.
• After 1815, an Italian nationalist named Giuseppe Mazzini conspired with others to achieve this in Italy.

The Coming of Socialism to Europe

Socialism was a well-known body of ideas that drew widespread attention in Europe by the mid-nineteenth century. Socialists opposed the concept of “private property,” but they disagreed on how a society without property could function. 

The following are some socialist visions:

• Robert Owen (1771-1858) envisioned establishing a cooperative community in Indiana called New Harmony (USA).
• Louis Blanc (1813-1882) He was a French socialist who advocated for the government to promote cooperatives in order to replace capitalist enterprises. These cooperatives were groups of people who produced goods together and divided profits based on the amount of work done by members.
• Karl Marx, (1818-1883) believed that the industrial society was capitalist and that workers generated capitalist profit. Workers’ conditions could not improve until private capitalists amassed profits.
• To eliminate capitalism, he believed that workers needed to build a radically socialist society in which all property would be socially controlled.
• This gave rise to the concept of a communist society. Workers, according to Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), must abolish capitalism and the rule of private property.

Support for Socialism

The Second International was formed as a result of the spread of socialist ideas throughout Europe. Worker’s organisations such as the Social Democratic Party and the Labour Party emerged in England and Germany. 

• They were formed in order to improve workers working and living conditions.
• They established funds to assist member workers in difficult times.
• They demanded shorter work hours and the right to vote.
• By 1905, socialists and trade unionists had established the Labour Party in the United Kingdom and the Socialist Party in France.

However, socialists were unable to form a government in Europe until 1914. Socialists were well-represented in Parliament, but governments were still led by conservatives, liberals, and radicals.

The Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution refers to the fall of the monarchy in February 1917 and the events of October 1917. During Russia’s October Revolution of 1917, socialists took control of the government.

The Russian Empire in 1914

Tsar Nicholas II ruled Russia and its empire in 1914. The Russian Empire included present-day Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, as well as parts of Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus.

The empire reached all the way to the Pacific and included today’s Central Asian countries, as well as Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Russian Orthodox Christianity was the majority religion, with Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and Buddhists also present.

Economy and Society

• At the turn of the twentieth century, agriculture provided a living for approximately 85 per cent of the Russian Empire’s population. 
• Russia had a higher proportion of farmers than most European countries.
• Russia was the Empire’s leading grain exporter, with cultivators producing for both the market and their own needs.

There were very few industries. St. Petersburg and Moscow were important industrial areas. In the 1890s, many factories were established, and the Russian rail network was expanded, as was foreign investment in industries.

• As a result, coal production more than doubled, while iron and steel output more than quadrupled.
• The majority of the industries were privately held. The government supervised large factories to ensure minimum wages and work hours. Craft units and small workshops broke factory rules because working hours exceeded 15 hours, compared to 10 or 12 hours in factories.
• As a social group, workers were classified according to their “skill.” Metal workers, for example, were considered aristocrats because they were more trained and skilled.
• By 1914, women made up about 31% of the factory labour force, but they were paid less than men. Workers were united despite divisions when they disagreed with employers about dismissals or working conditions.
• Peasants were another social group in the countryside who cultivated land owned by the nobility, the crown, and the orthodox church. They were religiously divided but united against the nobles.
• Nobles rose to power and position through their service to the Tsar, rather than through local popularity. A commune was the name given to the peasant community (mir).
• Peasants in Brittany respected and fought for nobles during the French Revolution. Peasants in Russia demanded that the land of the nobles be given to them. They refused to pay their rent and even assassinated landlords. Such incidents occurred on a large scale in South Russia in 1902, but by 1905, they had spread throughout Russia.
• Russian peasants were distinct from other European peasants in that they accumulated their land collectively and then divided it according to the needs of individual families.

Socialism in Russia

Prior to 1914, all political parties were illegal in Russia. In 1898, socialists who admired Marx’s ideas founded the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party. Due to government policies, the party was run as an illegal organisation in secret. It launched its own newspaper, organised strikes, and mobilised workers.

Some Russian socialists believed that the Russian peasant tradition of dividing land on a regular basis made them natural socialists. As a result, peasants, rather than workers, would be the driving force behind the revolution.

In 1900, rural socialists founded the Socialist Revolutionary Party. This party fought for peasant rights and demanded that land owned by nobles be transferred to peasants.

Concerning peasants, Social Democrats disagreed with socialist revolutionaries. Due to financial differences, Lenin believed that peasants were not a unified group. They could not be a part of the socialist movement because of these differences.

Later, the Social Democratic Party was split into two factions: the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks.

Vladimir Lenin led the Bolshevik movement because he desired a disciplined party with high-quality members. Mensheviks, on the other hand, desired that the party be open to all (as in Germany).

The 1905 Revolution

• Russia was still an autocracy at the turn of the twentieth century, and the Tsar was not accountable to Parliament.
• Liberals wanted to put an end to this situation during the 1905 revolution. They banded together with social democrats and socialist revolutionaries to demand a Constitution from peasants and workers.
• They were supported by nationalists in the Russian Empire (for example, in Poland) and by jadidists in Muslim-dominated areas who wanted to modernise Islam in order to lead their societies.

Some of the causes of the 1905 Revolution are discussed below :

• Prices of essential goods rose so quickly in 1904 that the Workers’ real wages have fallen by 20%. Four Putilov Ironworks employees were fired and a strike was declared.
• Many workers in St. Petersburg went on strike, demanding shorter work hours and higher pay.

The Incident of Bloody Sunday

• On a Sunday in 1905, a procession of workers led by Father Gapon arrived at the Tsar’s winter residence to present a petition. They were, however, attacked by police and Cossacks.” Many workers were killed or injured in this incident.
• This became known as Bloody Sunday, and it kicked off a chain of events that became known as the 1905 Revolution.
• These incidents were part of a nationwide strike trend.
• Universities were forced to close after students complained about a lack of civil liberties. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, and other middle-class workers formed the Union of Unions and called for the formation of a Constituent Assembly.
• For a short time, there were numerous trade unions and factory committees comprised of factory workers.
• Political activity has been severely restricted.

Reaction of The Tsar

The Tsar permitted the formation of an Elected Consultative Parliament, or Duma, as part of the widespread revolution.” He fired the first Duma in 75 days and re-elected the second in three months.

He did not want his authority called into question or his power diminished. He changed the voting laws and created the third Duma, which was comprised of conservative politicians, liberals, and revolutionaries.

The First World War and the Russian Empire 

The First World War began in 1914 between two European alliances: Germany, Austria, and Turkey (the central powers) and France, Britain, and Russia (later joined by Italy and Romania).

• The Russian people initially supported Tsar Nicholas II during the war. Tsar Nicholas II entered the war without first consulting the Duma.
• The anti-German sentiment grew stronger, as evidenced by St. Peterberg, a German name renamed Petrograd. The autocracy was unpopular due to Tsarina Alexandra’s German ancestry and her advisor Rasputin (a German monk).
• During World War I, armies fought from two directions: eastern and western. There was a distinction between the Eastern and Western Armies of World War One. The Western army fought from trenches that stretched across Eastern France, whereas the Eastern army fought in a battle that resulted in heavy casualties.
• Russia suffered humiliating defeats as well as heavy casualties during the war. Between 1914 and 1916, Russian armies suffered heavy losses in Germany and Austria.
• To prevent the enemy from living off the land, the Russian army destroyed crops and buildings. It resulted in more than 3 million refugees in Russia. The war had an impact on the industry as well. Supply disruptions and industrial equipment failures harmed the economy.
• By 1916, railway lines were beginning to fail. Men with strong bodies were drafted for the war. This causes a labour shortage and the closure of small workshops. Grain supplies were sent in large quantities to feed the army. This causes a shortage of bread and flour for city dwellers.

The February Revolution in Petrograd

In February 1917, Russia experienced a severe food shortage, making workers’ lives extremely difficult. The Tsar’s desire to dissolve the Duma was met with opposition from parliamentarians.

• A factory lockout occurred on February 22nd. This sparked protests and strikes against the factory, which were joined by women. This was the first International Women’s Day.
• Workers on strike crossed from the factory quarters to the capital’s main thoroughfare, Nevskii Prospekt. At this point, no political party was actively organising the movement.
• The government imposed a curfew, and cavalry and police were called in to restrain the demonstrators.
• The government suspended the Duma on February 25th. Politicians spoke out against the bill.
• Demonstrators returned to the streets on February 26th, while the police headquarters were attacked and damaged on February 27th.
• Workers took to the streets, shouting slogans about bread, wages, better working hours, and democracy. The government used Cavalry to control the situation, but it refused to fire on demonstrators.
• A regimental officer was shot in the barracks. Three other regiments rose up and voted to join the strikers.
• Cavalry soldiers joined the workers in forming a Soviet Council in the same building as the Duma. This was the Soviet of Petrograd.
• A delegation visited the Tsar on February 28th. On March 2, 1917, the Tsar resigned the throne on the advice of military commanders.

To run the country, Soviet and Duma’s leaders formed a provisional government. In Russia, a Constituent Assembly was elected using the Universal Adult Franchise. In February 1917, Petrograd led the February Revolution, which overthrew the monarchy.

After February 

Some of the changes that occurred following the February Revolution are discussed below.

• Army officers, landowners, and industrialists all played key roles in the Provisional Government.
• Liberals and Socialists both worked for an elected government. Public meetings and associations were no longer restricted.
• In April 1917, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia from exile. He desired for the Soviets to seize power. 

Lenin issued his ‘April Theses,’ which included three demands :

• (i) The war should be declared over. 
• (ii) The land must be given to the peasants.
• (iii) Nationalization of banks is necessary. Lenin desired that the Bolshevik Party be renamed the Communist Party to reflect its radical goals.

Worker’s Movement

• Throughout the summer, the Worker’s Movement spread. Factory committees were formed in industrial areas to question how industrialists run their businesses.
• The army also established soldier’s committees. The provisional government’s power was reduced, while the Bolshevik influence grew.
• The Provisional Government decided to take firm action against worker unrest. It resisted worker attempts to run factories and began arresting leaders.
• In July 1917, the Bolsheviks strictly repressed popular demonstrations.
• Peasants and their socialist revolutionary leaders demanded land redistribution in the countryside, prompting the formation of land committees.
• Between July and September 1917, peasants were encouraged by socialist revolutionaries to seize land.

The Revolution of October 1917

The conflict between the Provisional Government and the Bolsheviks became increasingly heated. Lenin feared that the Provisional Government would establish a dictatorship as a result of the conflict. He began planning an uprising against the government in September.

• On October 16, 1917, Lenin rallied supporters from the army, the Soviets, and the factories, and the Soviets formed a Military Revolutionary Committee led by Leon Trotsky to seize power.
• In fear, Prime Minister Kerensky fled the city on the 24th of October 1917 to summon troops. In the evening, government loyalists stormed the offices of two Bolshevik newspapers. Pro-government troops were dispatched to seize telephone and telegraphy offices and guard the winter palace.
• In response to these measures, the Military Revolutionary Committee directed its supporters to seize government buildings and arrest ministers, while the ship Aurora guarded the winter port.
• Other ships sailed down the Neva and took over various military positions.

The revolution ended with the Bolshevik action being approved by the entire Russian Congress of Soviets in Petrograd. There was heavy fighting, particularly in Moscow, but by December, the Bolsheviks had taken control of the Moscow-Petrograd region.

Changes After October

The significant changes that occurred following the October Revolt were 

• In November 1917, the Bolsheviks nationalised the banks and industries.

• The Bolsheviks declared the land to be social property, allowing peasants to seize land from nobles, the Church, and the Tsar.
• The Bolsheviks abolished aristocratic titles, and large houses were divided according to family needs.
• New uniforms were designed for the army and officials, as well as the Soviet hat (budeonovka). The Russian Communist Party replaced the Bolshevik Party (Bolshevik).
• The Bolsheviks were staunch opponents of private property.
• The Bolsheviks held elections to the Constituent Assembly in November 1917, but they did not win a majority.
• The Assembly rejected Bolshevik measures in January 1918, and Lenin dismissed the Assembly. He considered the All Russian Congress of Soviets to be more democratic than an assembly elected under uncertain circumstances.
• In March 1918, the Bolsheviks signed a treaty with Germany in Brest Litovsk, effectively ending the war with Germany. The Bolsheviks were the only party to run for election to the Russian Congress of Soviets, the country’s parliament, and they won.
• Russia became a one-party state, and trade unions were kept under the control of the party. The secret police punished those who criticised the Bolsheviks (Cheka and later OGPU and NKVD).
• Many young writers and artists were against the party because it represented socialism and change. After October 1917, this resulted in experiments in the arts and architecture.
• Many Bolshevik supporters became disillusioned with the way the party operated after October 1917.

The Civil War

• The Bolsheviks’ decision to redistribute land caused the army to disband. Clashes erupted between supporters of autocracy, liberals, and Bolshevik soldiers.
• Between 1918 and 1919, pro-Tsarists (the ‘whites’) and Socialist Revolutionaries (the ‘greens’) fought a civil war against Bolshevik (the reds) troops.
• French, American, British, and Japanese troops backed the pro-Tsarists and socialists.
• Private property supporters among ‘whites’ took harsh measures against peasants who had seized land. As a result, they became unpopular.
• By January 1920, the Bolsheviks attempted to seize power with the help of non-Russian nationalists and jadidists.
• Bolshevik colonists brutally murdered local nationalists in Khiva, Central Asia, in the name of defending socialism. Many people were perplexed about what the Bolshevik government desired in this situation.
• Most non-Russian nationalists were granted political autonomy in the Bolshevik-created USSR in 1922.

The Bolsheviks established the USSR as a state within the Russian Empire in December 1922. However, the Bolshevik government discouraged nomadism,” which resulted in partial success in winning over the region’s various nationalities.

Making a Socialist Society

• The Bolsheviks kept industries and banks nationalised during the civil war. 
• They allowed peasants to cultivate the captured land in order to demonstrate collective work.
• With the implementation of five-year plans, centralised planning was introduced. 
• During the first two ‘plans,’ the government fixed all prices to encourage industrial growth (1927-32 and 1933-38).
• Economic growth resulted from centralised planning. New factory cities sprang up. 
• Between 1929 and 1933, industrial production in the fields of oil, coal, and steel increased by 100%.

Status of Workers

Workers faced poor working conditions as a result of the rapid construction. A steel plant was built in Magnitogrosk in three years. Workers were not even provided with basic amenities such as toilets, health care, and so on.

Measures taken to improve the status of workers were :

• An expanded education system was created, and plans were made for factory workers and peasants to attend universities.
• For the children of female factory workers, creches (day boarding) were established.
• Workers were provided with low-cost public healthcare and model living quarters.

However, because government resources were limited, the impact of all of these measures was uneven.

Stalinism and Collectivisation

• The planned economy of Soviet Russia resulted in some disasters, one of which was the collectivization of agriculture.
• After Lenin’s death in January 1924, Joseph Stalin took over as leader of the Soviet Communist Party.
• By 1927 and 1928, Soviet Russia’s towns were facing a critical shortage of grain supplies.
• The government set the prices at which grain had to be sold, but peasants refused to sell to government buyers at these prices. Stalin believed that rich peasants and traders in the countryside were stockpiling in anticipation of higher prices.
• As a result, Stalin implemented the collectivization of Soviet agriculture. It forced the vast majority of peasants to work on collective and state farms.
• In 1928, members of the party toured grain-producing areas, oversaw enforced grain collections, and raided the Kulaks.
• The land was returned to the peasants after 1917. 
• It was necessary to eliminate Kulaks in order to take land away from peasants and establish large state-controlled farms in order to develop modern farms.

Stalin’s Policies

• The Communist Party forced all peasants to cultivate collective farms in 1929. (Kolkhoz). Peasants worked on the land, and the profits from collective farms were divided among them.
• Peasants who opposed collectivisation were harshly punished, with many being deported and exiled. However, the collectivisation programme did not immediately increase output.
• The poor harvests of 1930-1933 caused one of the most devastating famines in Soviet history, killing over 4 million people. Many members of the party criticised the planned economy’s confusion in industrial production and the consequences of collectivisation.
• Stalin and his supporters accused these critics of conspiring against socialism. Many people were coerced into making false confessions. They were subjected to torture and executions.

Global Influence of the Russian Revolution and The USSR 

• Despite criticism for how they operated, the Bolsheviks remained popular around the world. Communist parties, such as the Communist Party of Great Britain, began to emerge around the world.
• The Bolsheviks encouraged colonials to adopt their ideas. The Conference of the Peoples of the East was attended by a large number of non-Russians (1920). Comintern, an international union of pro-Bolshevik socialist parties, was founded by the Bolsheviks.
• Non-Russians were educated at the Soviet Union’s Communist University of the Workers of the East.

By the end of World War II, socialism had gained a global presence and admiration. By the end of the twentieth century, the USSR’s international reputation as a socialist country had deteriorated. The USSR grew to be a great power with developed industries and agriculture, but basic freedom for its citizens was lacking. Socialist ideas were rethought in a variety of ways in each country.

Writing About the Russian Revolution in India

Many Indians were inspired by the Russian Revolution. By the mid-1920s, India had formed the Communist Party. Its members had ties to the Soviet Communist Party. Important Indian political and cultural figures were drawn to the Soviet experiment and travelled to Russia. Among them were prominent writers such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore, both of whom wrote about Soviet Socialism.

Writings in India conveyed images of Soviet Russia. RS Avasthi wrote Russian Revolution in 1920-21, Lenin, His Life and Thoughts, and The Red Revolution in Hindi. SD Vidyalankar wrote The Soviet State of Russia and The Rebirth of Russia. The text was composed in Bengali, Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu.

SUMMARY

• Liberals, radicals, and conservatives all desired societal changes, but in different ways. While the radicals advocated for major changes such as universal adult suffrage, the liberals opposed dynastic rule but opposed giving women the right to vote. Conservatives desired gradual change while honouring the past.
• By the mid-nineteenth century, socialist ideas had spread throughout Europe, attracting widespread attention.
• Marx, Engels, and other socialists contributed their ideas about changing society.
• Industries could be found all over Russia. Its main cities were St. Petersburg and Moscow.
• Because of the railway expansion in the late 1890s, many factories were established.
• By 1914, women made up 31% of the factory labour force, but they were paid less than men.
• The Russian Socialist Democratic Party was divided into two factions: the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. Prices of essential goods in Russia skyrocketed in 1904, forcing workers to strike for better pay and working conditions.
• On a Sunday in January 1905, a peaceful procession of workers was attacked by police and Cossacks. This incident became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
• During the Revolution, an elected parliament known as the Duma was established.
• The Russian economy was primarily agricultural at the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.
• Russia took part in the war against Germany but was defeated. The Russian people were demoralised as a result of this.
• In February 1917, a lockout at a Petrograd factory sparked numerous strikes and demonstrations, and the Duma was suspended, ultimately leading to the Tsar’s resignation.
• Lenin, the Bolshevik leader, returned from exile in April 1917 and issued three demands known as the “April Theses.”
• The conflict between Kerensky’s Provisional Government and the Bolsheviks sparked the October Revolution, which installed Lenin as the leader of the world’s first Communist government.
• The Russian Communist Party replaced the Bolshevik Party (Bolshevik).
• The Bolsheviks fought a civil war with the pro-Tsarists and Socialist Revolutionaries.
• When the Civil War ended, the USSR was formed, consisting of all the republics of the former Russian empire. After Lenin’s death, Stalin took control of the party and instituted collective farming to alleviate the country’s grain shortage.
• However, poor harvests from 1930 to 1933 caused famines that killed over 4 million people. The Russian Revolution had a global impact, with Communist parties forming in many countries. The Russian Revolution and its ideals influenced many Indian writers…..

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