The Russian Revolution: A Historiographical Narrative

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What was the Russian Revolutionreally about? Discuss with regard tothe work of Sheila Fitzpatrick,Leonard Schapiro and Richard Pipes.

“There are no such things as ‘answers’ in history

but the continuous attempt to find them is part of

the duty of responsible citizens.”

Leonard Schapiro1

The Russian Revolution of 1917 was arguably the defining

moment of the 20th century. Regime change in Europe’s most

populous county brought down a 300 year old autocracy

dynasty and ushered in an era of radical social

experimentation. The ensuing ideological battle between

Capitalism and Communism was to affect almost every country

1 Leonard Schapiro, 1917: The Russian Revolutions and the Origins of Present-Day Communism

(Temple Smith, Middlesex, England, 1984), p. 1

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on the planet. As such, few political events have attracted

such sustained historical interest as the Russian

revolution. Successive generations of historians have

sought, if not ‘answers’, then at least explanations as to

what the Russian Revolution was really about, and in this

essay I will do the same.

I will argue that the Russian Revolution was really about a

number of key factors including autocratic misrule,

modernisation, radical ideology and the pressures of ‘total

war’ on an already fragile society. I will further argue

that historians are only now beginning to reveal the true

nature and complexity of the events of 1917. To argue this

position, first I will consider the historiographical

polemic that existed for many years between scholars in

Soviet Russia and the West. Then I will discuss how changing

circumstances in turn changed historiographical

perspectives, these new perspectives bringing with them new

understandings of the Revolution. I will conclude that our

appreciation of what the Russian Revolution was really about

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is likely to continue to develop into the future.

It is important to note that there were two revolutions in

Russia in 1917. The February Revolution led to the fall of

the Tsarist regime and the installation of a provisional

government, the October Revolution saw this provisional

government overthrown and Lenin’s Bolshevik party assume

control of the country. Despite the fact that the two

revolutions were distinct, they were very much part of the

same overall process. Some historians argue that this

process began as far back as 17302 and continued until

1938.3 However, in this essay I will regard 1917 as the

period of Revolution in Russia and refer to the year rather

than the specific uprising unless accuracy dictates

otherwise.

For many years, historical accounts of 1917 divided into two

distinct ‘schools of thought’, the Soviet view and the Liberal

2 Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution, 1899-1919, (Harvill Press, London, 1997), p. 33 Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, New Edition, (Oxford University Press,

England, 2008), p. 4

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view. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these somewhat narrow

perspectives mirrored the broader ideological and

geopolitical battle between Communism and Capitalism which

raged until the early 1990’s. As such, the reasons given for

the Revolution varied markedly depending through which

particular ‘lens’ a historian viewed the Revolution.

Crucially, neither appears to sufficiently articulate the

complexity of the situation.

According to the Soviet view as espoused by the likes of

Leon Trotsky, a man at the very heart of the events of 1917,

the Revolution was an inevitably, an ideological necessity

as predicted by Marx and Engels in their Communist Manifesto.4

The Bolshevik’s rise to ultimate power in the October

Revolution was the result of Class Struggle as the

radicalised and conscious urban proletariat became “the

battering ram which the awakening nation directs against the

walls of absolutism”.5 Thus the Russian Revolution was the

4 Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto, (Merlin Press, 2012), pp.

1-30 5 Leon Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution, (Volume One, 2008), p. 24

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fulfillment of both the revolutionary aspirations of the

masses and the very laws of history.

But what happened in Russia in 1917 does not neatly fit into

Marx’ revolutionary paradigm, and if his criteria cannot be

satisfied it questions the legitimacy of the entire Soviet

explanation. At the time of the Revolution, Russia was only

18% urbanised and the urban proletariat, the “only class

capable of bringing about true socialist revolution”6

represented a mere 4% of society.7 The reality was that some

82% of Russians were still rural agricultural workers.8 And

with a literacy rate of only 23%,9 Russia was far too rural

and far too backward to undertake the kind of urban

proletarian revolution that Marx had predicted.

The opposing, liberal perspective on the Revolution shifted6 Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, p. 26

7 Richard Malone, Analysing The Russian Revolution, (Cambridge University Press,

England, 2005), p. 11 8 Ibid. p. 11 9 James Bater, “St. Petersburg and Moscow on the eve of revolution”, in The

Worker’s Revolution In Russia, 1917, The View From Below, ed. Daniel Kaiser, (Cambridge

University Press, 1990) pp. 20-59.

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the agency of the situation from the inevitability of

history and into the hands of a few selected leaders.

Liberal historians such as Russian emigre Leonard Schapiro

have focused on the Bolshevik Party and Lenin himself

casting him as a Machiavellian character who took advantage

of a power vacuum. In his 1917: The Russian Revolutions and the Origins of

Present-Day Communism, Schapiro accuses the Bolsheviks of a long list

of offenses; unscrupulousness, deceitfulness, exploitation,

demagoguery and subversion of the armed forces, all of which

combine to present a party lacking legitimacy.10

The equally liberal Richard Pipes does not even allow the

events of October the legitimacy of being called a

Revolution; he claims it was a classic coup d’etat.11 He

further discredits Lenin by talking of his “lust for

power”12 and couches him as “out of touch with reality, if

not positively mad”.13 But like the Soviet explanation, this

10 Schapiro, 1917: The Russian Revolutions, pp. 214-21611 Richard Pipes, A Concise History of the Russian Revolution, (Random House, USA, 1996),

p. 113 12 Ibid. p. 115 13 Ibid. p. 117

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narrow Liberal focus on one particular aspect of the

Revolution, in this case Lenin and the Bolsheviks, is

questionable. Lenin was undoubtedly an agent provocateur; he

was not prepared to wait around for the proletarian

revolution simply to occur naturally.14 However, he was just

one man and was not even present in Russia at the time of

the February uprisings, having been exiled by the Tsar some

years before.15 And revolutionary leaders themselves do not

inspire revolution, rather then harness the revolutionary

zeal of the masses, often after the fact as was the case

with Russia.16 The Bolsheviks were a fringe party at best in

early 1914 with only around 10,000 members.17 Therefore

Bolshevik influence on the February Revolution that actually

brought down the Romanov dynasty was minimal a best.

The corollary of this “top down” approach by both Soviet and

Liberal historians is that Cold War era accounts tended to

14 Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, p. 3115 Pipes, A Concise History of the Russian Revolution, p. 114 16 Malone, Analysing the Russian Revolution, p. 19 17 Ibid. p. 25

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ignore the agency of the masses.18 Soviets viewed the masses

as inert heroes, “men of marble”, whereas liberals instead

saw “dark masses”, typifying the peasant traditions of

ignorance, violence and drunkenness.19 In making these

generalisations, both groups denied the masses any active

role in the events of 1917. By instead assigning the agency

of the Russian Revolution to the Bolsheviks and Lenin,

Schapiro and Pipes seek to deligitimise their rule,

precluding any notion that the October revolution was in any

way a popular movement or the will of the Russian people. A

further issue is that neither Soviet nor Liberal perspective

gives enough consideration to the prevailing social and

economic conditions that preceded the events of both

February and October. However, the narrow and deeply

political historiography of the events was to change with

the death of Communist dictator Joseph Stalin.

18 Edward Acton. Rethinking The Russian Revolution, (Hodder and Stoughton, England,

1990), p. 37 19 Diane Koenker, “Moscow in 1917: the view from below”, in The Worker’s Revolution In

Russia, 1917, The View From Below, ed. Daniel Kaiser, (Cambridge University Press,

1990), pp. 80-97

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Just as the death of Stalin in 1953 heralded a subtle shift

in the cold war binary, Nikola Kruschev’s denunciation of

him brought a shift in the historiography of the Revolution.

Previously hidden sources became available and were utilised

by a growing number of social historians.20 This emerging

form of historical analysis focused on the hitherto ignored

accounts of the ordinary citizen, the view ‘from below’.21

The eventual collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought a

further dimension to the historiography of the Revolution

and the quest for the real reasons behind it. Crucially, the

teleology of the revolution changed; it was instantly

repositioned as the beginning of a failed experiment, a

“wrong turning that took Russia off course for seventy-four

years”, according to Fitzpatrick.22 As such, Russian

scholars were no longer obliged to couch the revolution in

glowing ideological terms, and Western scholars, if they

could avoid the pitfalls of triumphalism, could shift their

focus away from the agency of individuals and onto

20 Acton, Rethinking The Russian Revolution, p. 45 21 Ibid. p 4522 Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, p. 1

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situational factors, aided by yet more new source material.

These Revisionist historians, freed from the constraints of the

previously held polemic, could turn their attention to other

factors behind the events of 1917, not the least of which

was the influence of the Tsar himself.

Nicholas II and the crumbling autocracy he represented

undoubtedly played a part in their own demise in 1917. Out

of touch and unwilling to reform Russian society quickly

enough, Nicholas sealed his own fate by his inactivity and

his ineptitude. Nicholas became Tsar in 1894 at the age of

only 26 when his father, Alexander III died unexpectedly of

renal failure.23 A reluctant leader, he possessed none of

his father’s commanding personality or strength of

character, preferring a private family existence to the

rigours of public affairs.24 Nonetheless, he firmly believed

in his divine ordination and was prepared to use any means

necessary to defend his position, including to a limited

extent, reform. 23 Malone, Analysing the Russian Revolution, p. 624 Ibid. p. 6

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Nicholas’ Minister of Finance, Sergei Witte introduced the

first tranche of reforms in the 1890s, mostly focusing on

industry. Notable successes included the Trans-Siberian

railway from Moscow to Vladivostok and an influx of foreign

capital, but they did not prevent a worker’s uprising in St.

Petersburg in January 1905. As the number of protesters

topped 120,000, the Tsar ordered in the troops, killing 200

protesters and injuring 800 more. In an instant, Nicholas

had gone from “Little Father” to “Nicholas the Bloody”.25

Strikes continued throughout 1905 and a reluctant Tsar

eventually introduced a series of further reforms in his

October Manifesto. These included the introduction of a

Constitution, major land reforms, free education for all and

the establishment of a Duma, a form of proto-parliament.26

But unfortunately for Nicholas and the dynasty he

represented, these reforms were too little too late. It has

even been suggested that the concessions granted by the Tsar

after the 1905 Revolution may have reinforced the perception25 Ibid. p. 33 26 Ibid. p. 40

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amongst ordinary Russians that changes were possible,

especially if confrontations occurred on a large enough

scale.27 Indeed, ongoing industrial reforms were to bring

changes to Russia’s urban landscape that were edge the

nation ever closer towards revolt.

On the eve of WWI, Russia was in the throes of an

industrialisation programme which was to profoundly alter

her two major cities; Moscow and the capital, St.

Petersburg. The resulting transformations in the daily lives

and working conditions of ordinary Russians were to turn

both cities into hotbeds of revolution.28 Russia in 1914 was

Europe’s most populous country at around 160 million, this

figure having risen rapidly from 40 million just a century

before.29 This population surge combined with Witte’s

industrialisation program resulted in the rapid growth of

both cities; the population of St. Petersburg nearly doubled

in 20 years leaping to 2 million by 1914.30 The effect of27 Bater, “St. Petersburg and Moscow on the eve of revolution,” p. 3528 Ibid. p. 20 29 Ibid. p. 21 30 Ibid. p. 25

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this rapid urbanisation was to place enormous pressure on

already primitive infrastructure and to force these new city

dwellers into truly appalling living conditions.

The influx of workers to the cities far outstripped their

municipal governments capacity to provide adequate housing.

As such, rents escalated and overcrowding was acute: Moscow

averaged 8.7 people per apartment in 1912, more than twice

the density of other European cities.31 Added to this

overcrowding was poor sanitation, with a quarter of all

residences having no running water or toilets.32 As such,

the risk of contagious disease was high with outbreaks of

cholera, typhus, scarlet fever, diptheria, pneumonia and

consumption being a regular feature of Russian city life.33

And unfortunately for Russian workers, the conditions they

faced in the factories were often just as bad.

Russia’s historical small scale farming and artisanal31 Ibid. p. 5132 Ibid. p. 51 33 Orlando Figes, “A People’s Tragedy, The Russian Revolution, 1891 - 1924”,

(Jonathan Cape, London, 1996), p. 605

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industries quickly gave way to large scale factories with

Moscow and St. Petersburg having some of the largest in the

industrial world; the infamous Putilov metalworks in St.

Petersburg, for example, had over 13,000 employees.34 The

conditions in these factories mirrored the appalling

conditions the workers faced at home with 12 hour working

days and a high rate of industrial accidents. Given these

terrible living and working conditions, it is little wonder

that the ideologies of wealth redistribution promulgated by

parties like the Bolsheviks took such root in the factories,

especially as Marxism was an ideology of modernisation as

well as revolution.35 And with 50% of rural households

having at least one member working in the cities,36 when

migrant workers returned to their villages, they took the

radicalism of the shop floor home with them. From this

‘bottom up’ perspective, Revisionists have been able to

reconsider the roles which radical socialist ideology, its

proponents such Lenin, and the masses themselves played in

34 Bater, “St. Petersburg and Moscow on the eve of revolution,” p. 2735 Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, p. 26 36 Ibid. p. 18

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the process of Revolution. Viewed through this new ‘lens’,

the Bolsheviks appear less like Machiavellian manipulators

and more like astute politicians who were sensitive to the

moods of the Russian people.37 This volatile situation in

Russia’s major cities and its spread to the countryside was

to be pushed to breaking point by the pressures of the First

World War.

Many historians including Steve Smith and Sheila Fitzpatrick

have suggested that the pressures WWI placed on all levels

of Russian society were simply too much for the old system

to bear, and that some form of Revolution was

unavoidable.3839 In spite of having the world’s largest army,

Russia suffered heavy losses as her peasant conscripts were

often ill-trained and under-equipped.40 A lack of rifles and

ammunition led to an emphasis on hand-to-hand combat which37 Ronald Suny, “Revising the old story: the 1917 revolution in light of new

sources”, in The Worker’s Revolution In Russia, 1917, The View From Below, ed. Daniel Kaiser,

(Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 18 38 Ibid. p. 3939 Steve Smith, “The Russian Revolution: A Very Short Introduction”, (Oxford

University Press, 2002), p. 12 40 Malone, Analysing the Russian Revolution, p. 48

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was farcical against the machine guns of the Germans.

Attempts to produce sufficient materiel by ramping up

industrial output served only to push more people into the

already overcrowded cities to work in the already

overcrowded factories. It was thus to prove impossible to

support the army’s needs for food, fuel and weapons without

concomitantly undermining the civilian economy.41 And then,

Nicholas made a decision which more than any other single

factor was to bring hasten the fall of his regime; in August

1915, he dismissed the experienced and popular commander,

Gran Duke Nikolaevich and took personal charge of the

army.42

While he may have had good intentions, his decision was

misguided in the extreme. He not only abandoned his seat of

power, fragile as it already was, in St. Petersburg and

rushed to the front, but “Nicholas the Bloody” assumed

direct responsibility for every Russian casualty from that

point onward. Revolution became an inevitability. For the41 Smith, The Russian Revolution, p. 14 42 Malone, Analysing the Russian Revolution, p. 51

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Provisional Government that was to replace the Nicholas, the

overthrow of the Tsar was necessary for Russia to stand any

chance of winning the war. For the downtrodden masses,

nothing short of the complete destruction of the old order

would satisfy their newfound ideals of liberty and

democracy.43 Disaffection with the old order was to be found

in all levels of society in 1917, hence the ease with which

the autocracy finally crumbled and fell away.44

So what then, was the Russian Revolution really about? Was

it about class struggle as Trotsky and the Soviet historians

would have us believe? Was it about the actions of Lenin and

the Bolsheviks as liberals like Schapiro and Pipes have

suggested? Is Fitzpatrick correct with her claims that

Russia revolted due to the pressures of industrialisation?

The reality is, it was about all of these things and more.

It was about a nation undergoing a crisis of modernity; it

43 Smith, The Russian Revolution, p. 1544 William Rosenberg, “Conclusion: understanding the Russian Revolution”, in The

Worker’s Revolution In Russia, 1917, The View From Below, ed Daniel Kaiser, (Cambridge

University Press, 1990), p. 135

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was about the collapse of a regime which was unwilling to

change as quickly as it needed to; it was about migration

and urbanisation and the pressures these processes put on

both infrastructure and the emerging social order; it was

about radical new thinking articulated by a few but

inspiring the many who lived and worked in conditions

belonging to another age; and it was about a country ill

equipped to fight the world’s first ‘total war’, tipping an

already volatile situation over the edge. Just as the

historiography of the Russian Revolution has changed over

the years, so has our understanding of what the events of

1917 were really about. And with new sources and modes of

analysis always emerging, our ‘answers’ about the Russian

Revolution are likely to continue to change.

Bibliography

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Acton, Edward. “Rethinking The Russian Revolution”, Hodder and

Stoughton, England, 1990.

Bater, James. “St. Petersburg and Moscow on the eve of revolution”, in

The Worker’s Revolution In Russia, 1917, The View From Below, edited by Daniel Kaiser,

Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 20-59.

Fitzpatrick, Sheila. “The Russian Revolution”, New Edition, Oxford

University Press, England, 2008.

Koenker, Diane. “Moscow in 1917: the view from below”, in The Worker’s

Revolution In Russia, 1917, The View From Below, edited by Daniel Kaiser, Cambridge

University Press, 1990, pp. 80-97.

Malone, Richard. “Analysing The Russian Revolution”, Cambridge

University Press, England, 2005.

Pipes, Richard. “A Concise History of the Russian Revolution”, Random

House, USA, 1996.

Pipes, Richard. “The Russian Revolution, 1899-1919”, Harvill Press,

London, 1997.

Rosenberg, William. “Conclusion: understanding the Russian Revolution”,

in The Worker’s Revolution In Russia, 1917, The View From Below, edited by Daniel

Kaiser, Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 132-142.

Schapiro, Leonard. “1917: The Russian Revolutions and the Origins of

Present-Day Communism”, Temple Smith, Middlesex, England, 1984.

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Smith, Steve. “The Russian Revolution: A Very Short Introduction”,

Oxford University Press, 2002.

Suny, Ronald. “Revising the old story: the 1917 revolution in light of

new sources”, in The Worker’s Revolution In Russia, 1917, The View From Below, edited

by Daniel Kaiser, Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 1-20.

Trotsky, Leon. “The History of the Russian Revolution”, Volume One,

2008. Available from

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/download/hrr-vol1.pdf

HST310 Self-Assessment – Review task/Long Essay

This self-assessment sheet is designed as both a check list and an indication ofwhat

markers look for. Please complete and attach it to your Long Essay uponsubmission.

RUBRIC F P C D HD

Understanding of and focus on the taskDid I consult the instructions so that I understoodwhat was required in this task? Have I demonstratedthat understanding by remaining focused throughout the essay on one clear argument? Have I tried to approach the task with as much originality as possible for an academic essay?

x

KnowledgeDid I go to the library as part of my research intothe background and contexts of my question? Did I do a proper search of catalogues, databases, document anthologies, and journals to find relevantprimary sources? Did I utilize my research to compelling effect in the essay?

x

ArgumentDoes my essay have a clear thesis? Is this argumentoutlined in the introduction of the essay? Do I assemble and go through appropriate evidence for my

x

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argument in an orderly fashion? Have I moved beyonddescription to offer analysis and evaluation of theevidence? Is the thesis reinforced in each paragraph?

CommunicationHave I expressed my ideas clearly? Have I foregone the temptation to use complicated phrases or jargonand instead opted for plain and direct language? Have I used my own words to construct my argument rather than simply quoting other historians? Have Ichecked my grammar and spelling?

x

ReferencingHave I cited all my claims appropriately? Have I followed the departmental guidelines about footnotes and not decided on a whim to use in-text citation or make up my own system? Have I provided a full bibliography at the end of the project, starting on a new page, ordered alphabetically and without dots, numbers, emoticons, or flourishes of any kind?

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PresentationHave I given the essay a good title? Have I double spaced the text in 12 point font so my marker does not go blind? Have I left wide margins so my markercan write comments? Have I numbered all the pages so my marker can refer back to certain pages? Have I taken the time to edit for sense and proofread for typos so my marker doesn’t have to guess what Imean?

x

What mark would I give myself out of 100? 75

Name: Jody Musgrove