Russian Troubles of 1917: the alignment of forces on the eve
History The February and October revolutions of 1917 in Soviet times were not always objectively interpreted. The leading role of the Bolsheviks was emphasized, the role of other socialist parties and especially the true goals of the driving forces of the February Revolution, which became the prologue of the Troubles and all the revolutionary events of 1917, was obscured.
In the works of the Russian historian Pyzhikov, these events are considered as a single process, starting from August 1916 and ending with the establishment of Soviet power at the end of 1917. In his works, he revealed and substantiated the true reasons for the collapse of the regime of monarchical power, the driving forces of the unfolding struggle, the motives and goals of the main political parties and their leaders acting then. The analysis and conclusions carried out are largely reminiscent of the events of the collapse of the Soviet Union, they are still relevant today in the transitional period of the search for their own face by modern Russia.
What was the political field of the Russian Empire on the eve of great achievements?
The failure of the socialist parties
Contrary to the prevailing opinion that everything was decided by revolutionary political organizations, this is far from the case.
The political parties that were the driving force of the 1905 revolution (Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries and others) were defeated and represented a pitiful and small circle, their leaders were in exile or emigration. The Bolshevik leaders, led by Lenin and Zinoviev, were in Geneva, Trotsky and Bukharin were in the United States, and another group — Stalin, Dzerzhinsky, Kamenev and Sverdlov — were in exile.
The same situation was with the parties of Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, for example, the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionaries Chernov was also in exile.
All were suppressed by the defeat of the revolution and the ensuing repressions, there was no revolutionary socialist movement in society. The leaders of the socialists believed that in the near future they had no chance of overthrowing the tsarist regime,
Until 1915, the name of Lenin was not known to anyone, except for a narrow circle of his associates. But he became an unexpectedly popular figure as the Bolsheviks launched a massive anti-war propaganda campaign on the Russian front this year, funded by the German General Staff, and all the trenches were littered with leaflets calling for a world war to turn into a civil war against their governments.
They began to write about Lenin in the foreign and Russian press, he became a media person, but the Bolsheviks did not have any strength to carry out real work on Russian territory, and these calls led to the decomposition of the army, and not to revolutionary transformations.
Controversy in the ruling class
The main events unfolded in a completely different field and were caused by the confrontation between the ruling elite and the nascent bourgeois class. The contradictions sharply exacerbated between the ruling noble-landlord class and the bourgeoisie that was getting on its feet in the person of bankers, industrialists and merchants. It was they who became the driving force behind the future revolution. The bulk of the population, represented by the peasantry and the growing proletariat, had practically no effect on the processes taking place in the country.
The political and socio-economic system did not correspond to the realities that took place in the country and the world. The ruling class was represented by the landlord-noble aristocracy, including the grand-princely royal “family”, high dignitaries close to it, the royal “court” and the richest hereditary landowners. This class did not produce anything, while living according to Western needs, which did not correspond to the capabilities of society and the country. All this led to a massive ruin of the nobility, and most of their estates and lands were already pledged by the banks, but they did not want any changes.
This class was also heterogeneous, torn apart by contradictions between various clans.
The tsar found himself isolated from the grand ducal entourage, explained by the difficult relationship between his wife, a German woman, Alexandra Feodorovna, with the royal court. Nicholas II married her for love, which is not typical for dynastic marriages, and in many respects heeded her recommendations. The heir to the throne, their young son Alexei, suffered from an incurable disease - hemophilia. This was hidden from everyone, and the queen was looking for all sorts of ways to cure him. The “elder” Rasputin turned out to be such a “doctor”, he really eased the suffering of the heir and in this connection he often visited the royal chambers.
Opponents of the tsar, including those from his entourage, fanned absurd passions in society about the love affair of Rasputin and the tsarina, the influence of the "elder" on government decisions and the betrayal of the German tsarina, who, through him, allegedly transmits information to the German General Staff. For all the insignificance of Rasputin's personality, thanks to fanned rumors, he became an iconic figure in the Russian political intrigue of that time. Because of these rumors, the authority of the tsarist government in society was at the lowest level.
The tsar's decision-making was influenced by various clans and lobbyists from his entourage, as well as his spouse, which often led to unjustified appointments and decisions. Seriously undermined the authority of the tsar and the dismissal in 1915 from the post of commander-in-chief of his uncle, Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich, respected in society and the army, and the occupation of this post by the tsar himself, far from military affairs.
In addition, the tsarist power was limited by the October Manifesto of 1905, according to which a new state institution, elected by the population, was introduced - the State Duma, in which influential bourgeois forces were concentrated by 1916, seeking to reformat the power in their own interests.
As a result of all these processes, an unstable clan-oligarchic system of government was formed in the country, undermined by Stolypin's destructive reforms and the outbreak of war. The government was seriously decaying, and attempts to carry out the necessary reforms did not lead to positive results.
It cannot be said that the tsarist administration did not take any action to bring the country out of the political and economic crisis. It is worth giving credit to the fact that there were professionals and intellectuals in the tsarist bureaucracy who understood that it was dangerous to carry out the imposed liberal reforms on the Western model in a peasant patriarchal environment raised on communal ownership of land, since the consciousness of the peasants contradicts the laws of the state, and they do not perceive private ownership of land. In their understanding, land cannot be a commodity and cannot be purchased for money, it is the property of the community as a means of production, and the community itself must decide how to dispose of it.
The tsar was warned that Stolypin's peasant reform, the purpose of which was to destroy the community and form an "effective owner" in the person of the kulak, would lead to aggravation in the village. But he did not heed the recommendations, and the Stolypin reforms only intensified the contradictions in the peasant environment. The contradictory nature of Stolypin's reform did not solve the land problem, contributed to the strengthening of the privileges of the ruling class and pushed the country towards revolution. In 1916, peasant unrest began, they plundered and set fire to the landowners' estates and kulak farms.
This, in turn, led to a reduction in grain purchases, problems with bread began in the cities, and the government had to urgently look for mechanisms to resolve the grain issue.
The tsarist government's attempt to start bourgeois reforms in the country's economy relied on a group of bankers and industrialists from St. Petersburg, while the Moscow industrial and merchant group was seriously losing. Contradictions and a split between the "Petersburg" and "Moscow" pushed the country into upheavals. It should be noted that all groups of influence made a vicious bet on the massive attraction of foreign capital; by 1917, foreign banks controlled up to 60-70% of Russian banking capital and largely determined the path of development of the Russian economy.
The emerging situation required reforming the political and economic system. The nascent bourgeoisie and the unresolved land issue pushed for reforms, while the aristocracy and nobility resisted and did everything possible to preserve the dominant position and power.
The conflict was inevitable, and the parties began to prepare for it.
The confrontation between "Moscow" and "St. Petersburg"
The main battlefield was the 4th State Duma, elected in 1912 for five years and represented by 442 deputies, mainly from the parties of the ruling classes: Octobrists, Cadets, progressives, centrists, right and small fractions of Trudoviks and Social Democrats (Mensheviks, a group deputies of the Bolsheviks in 1915 was arrested).
In the State Duma, there was a division of the deputies into the right, defending the monarchy, centrists, whose goal was a constitutional monarchy, and the left, represented by Trudoviks and Social Democrats. Octobrist Rodzianko was elected chairman of the State Duma.
In August 1915, the liberals, represented by the Cadet Party, found a way to unite the centrists and create a dominant Progressive Bloc of more than 300 deputies, headed by the Cadet leader Milyukov, which included the Cadets, Left Octobrists, progressives, centrists and right-wing nationalists. Outside the bloc, there were extreme monarchists on the right, and Trudoviks and Mensheviks on the left, who actually supported the progressists.
Progressives came out with demands for the creation of a "government of trust", amnesty for political prisoners, protection of the rights of national minorities, expanding the rights of local self-government and bringing the war to a victorious end. All of this was aimed at reaching an agreement with the government on the basis of minimal liberal reforms along the lines of the Western model.
The authorities unsuccessfully tried to split this bloc, and did not go to the creation of a "government of confidence" headed by Krivoshein. The tsar appointed the monarchist Sturmer as the head of the government.
In 1916, the State Duma came under the complete control of the liberals, behind whom stood the Moscow merchants under the leadership of Guchkov, Ryabushinsky, Konovalov, Tretyakov and Morozov. The merchants controlled the country's textile and light industry, had their own banks, stood on liberal pro-Western rails, and sought to expand their influence and crush the government. The Moscow clan also included the Nobile Brothers Partnership, a monopolist in the extraction and processing of oil, closely associated with the American Rothschild clan.
In Petrograd, there was another powerful financial and industrial group led by Putilov, backed by the largest banks in the capital and owning the country's main industrial plants and the sugar industry.
The financial and economic bloc of the government, represented by Krivoshein, Bunge and Kokovtsev, relied on the "St. Petersburg" and, with the support of the tsar, planned to modernize the country not according to liberal canons, but taking into account the patriarchal foundations of Russian society. Liberals, Moscow industrialists and merchants, the "family" of the tsar, court circles and the Black Hundreds opposed this course for various reasons.
That is, in 1916, a confrontation between the "St. Petersburg" and "Moscow" elite groups developed in the country, which sought to put the state at their service and use it to solve their corporate problems.
To strengthen their positions, the "Moscow", taking advantage of martial law, back in 1915, created opposition public organizations, as if to help the front and the military industry.
These organizations included the military-industrial committees, which, under their leadership, were supposed to facilitate the fulfillment of orders for the supply of equipment and food to the army. Through the military-industrial complex, the Moscow merchants profited from purchases for the army, increasing prices and robbing the state, while there was not so much real help to the front.
The Central Committee was headed by the protege of the "Moscow" Guchkov and his deputy Konovalov, and in Moscow the committee was headed by Ryabushinsky. The lobbyist of the liberals among the military was Chief of the General Staff Alekseev, who had long been in contact with them. Among the tsarist "family" the liberals acted through the wife of the tsar's brother Michael, who kept him "under the thumb" and was a man of merchants who provided her with services for personal enrichment.
Also, to facilitate the supply of the army, a committee of All-Russian zemstvo and city unions (Zemgor) was created, headed by a protege of the "Moscow" Prince Lvov.
The enterprising merchants also attracted workers to the activities of the military-industrial complex and Zemgora, working groups were created under the committees, which organized strikes at the right time under the slogan of protecting workers' rights, and the merchants achieved the results they needed.
So the military-industrial complex and Zemgor became the centers of the strike movement to put pressure on the government.
It should be noted that hundreds of thousands of employees were involved in the activities of the military-industrial complex and Zemgor, they wore a special paramilitary uniform (Kerensky also wore it) and were exempted from conscription, which naturally attracted many crooks.
The committees actually became organizations in opposition to the government and, what is most interesting, they existed at the expense of the state. In the first 25 months of the war, they received 464 million rubles from the treasury.
That is, the merchants, conducting a propaganda campaign against the authorities, financed the collapse of the state mainly at the expense of budget funds.
The Moscow merchants, in their struggle with their opponents, did not hesitate to work with the revolutionary organizations with which they had been in contact even during the 1905 revolution, and these ties continued. Socialist parties were involved in the activities of the committees, the Mensheviks worked through the military-industrial complex, and the Socialist-Revolutionaries through Zemgor and legally carried out their agitation against the government.
So these parties at that stage actually existed under the control of the Moscow merchants, they financed them and pursued a liberal policy.
The lobbyist of the St. Petersburg bankers was the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Protopopov, who had long been in contact with this group. On the recommendation of Rodzianko, the tsar in September 1916 appointed Protopopov Minister of Internal Affairs for reasons of establishing normal relations with the State Duma, ruined a year earlier by an attempt to create a "government of confidence." He knew well the entire internal kitchen of the State Duma, and this alarmed the Duma members. He was accused of betraying liberal ideals and was greeted with hostility after being appointed chief gendarme. So Protopopov became the defender of the St. Petersburg bankers and, as it were, the savior of the monarchy.
The confrontation in the summer of 1916 between the oligarchic St. Petersburg and Moscow groups intensified.
In June 1916, a congress of representatives of the country's largest banks, represented mainly by St. Petersburg banks, was held in Petrograd, which called for the unification of banking capital and determined the tactics of dealing with Moscow competitors.
At this time, the St. Petersburg bankers attempted a raider seizure of the richest representative of the "Moscow" - the oil tycoon of the Nobile Brothers Partnership. This attempt ended in failure, and this was facilitated by the lobbyist of the "Moscow" chief of the General Staff Alekseev, who organized in July through counterintelligence the inspection of St. Petersburg banks and tried to accuse them of espionage and treason. this confrontation.
In early August, the leader of the "Petersburg" Putilov wrote a letter to Nobile in which he admitted defeat and refused to further fight. This episode of confrontation was of fundamental importance, since the main instrument of the government in the struggle for economic power in the country capitulated, and the way to power was opened for the liberal oligarchic clans.
Simultaneously with the internal confrontation, relations with the Western allies have worsened.
By all indications, the war was drawing to a close with the inevitable victory of the Entente. In the summer of 1916, the Paris Economic Conference of the Allies was held, at which the issue of post-war economic cooperation, including with Germany, was considered.
The British, seeking to pit Russia against Germany, achieved the inclusion in the final resolution of the requirement to refuse to cooperate with defeated Germany after the war. It has traditionally been Russia's largest economic partner, and the Russian delegation refused to sign the declaration to its own detriment, despite the fact that the liberals in the State Duma insisted on signing it. They were supported by a significant part of the ruling class striving to fit into the European society, and especially by the royal family. In the event of the victory of Russia and the inevitable rise of the "St. Petersburg", their competitors "Moscow" perfectly understood that after the war they would not be in business, and tried to prevent such a turn of events.
The position of the Russian authorities did not suit the allies at all.
The embassies of England and France became almost the headquarters of the liberal opposition and directed the progressists in the direction they needed. The opposition, seeing the support of the West, began to prepare for a decisive attack on the ruling regime of Nicholas II.
The bulk of the population did not accept the political games of the elite and socialists, they were not interested in the struggle for power. The population was only trying to survive in the deteriorating conditions, and the elements of the people were ready to rise at any moment to fight for their daily bread.
So, by the fall of 1916, a crisis of power of Nicholas II was brewing, he was practically alone.
The tsarist entourage worked against him, the top leadership of the army was dissatisfied with them and was ready to betray the tsar, the government largely lost its economic levers of influence, due to the provocative actions of the tsarina and Rasputin, society despised the tsar for his weakness, the Western allies wanted to weaken Russia and worked to overthrow the ruling regime.
The liberal opposition, feeling the strength and support, was preparing for a decisive breakthrough, and in October a battle broke out between the two groups for control of the government and power in the country.
To be continued ...
- Yuri Apukhtin
- yandex.ru
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