In two or more paragraphs, answer the following question. Your response must be single-spaced, 10pt

Reading: Art Mormorstein’s “The Great War”

 

With each century we’ve talked about in this course, I’ve

had a general theme. The 16th and 17th centuries: a time of

particularly rapid change. The 18th century: the age of

reason. The 19th century: the age of progress. For the 20th

century, there are lots of possible themes, but perhaps the

single most striking characteristic of the 20th century was

that it was an age of violence–much of it senseless

violence. A good example of this, World War I.

World War I, as the name implies, was a war that involved

much of the world. It was, however, primarily a European

war, and it was the Europeans who started it. How did this

happen? How did the best educated, most civilized people in

the history of mankind start one of the most terrible, most

senseless wars in history?

Now, often enough, people want to blame Germany for both

World War I and World War II. It’s wrong, though, to view the

Germans as the sole people responsible for these disasters.

Nevertheless, it is easiest to understand World War I and its

causes as a result of a series of German mistakes.

Germany did not become a nation until after the France

Prussian war of 1870. Once Germany did unify, however, it

was time for the rest of the world to look out. Germany was

soon a leader in vaccines, in chemistry, and in all sorts of

other areas. It was rapidly catching Britain as a leading

industrial power. However, because Germany unified so late,

it missed out on much of the European scramble for colonies

around the world. Having colonies seemed critical to an

industrialized society. Such colonies guaranteed access to

key industrial materials, and guaranteed markets for

manufactured goods. France, Britain, and even little

European countries like Belgium and Portugal had colonies

throughout the world. The German attitude was that, if there

was any part of the world *not* already claimed by another

European country, which should be theirs: they didn’t yet

have their fair share of colonies. German belligerence ended

up alienating many other countries, and, by 1914, Germany

had only one reliable ally left in Europe: Austria.

German aggression, then, did in part creating the tensions

that led to World War I. But playing an even bigger role,

German fear of aggression.

Germany, for instance, was afraid that Britain might decide

to side with Germany’s enemies. Was this likely? Well, not

really. The English speaking peoples and the German

speaking peoples were natural allies, sharing a common

historic enemy in France. But Germany wanted to make sure

Britain never attacked them, and so they created a strategy

based on the “Risk Theory.” The Risk Theory was the idea

that, if Germany built a big battle fleet, Britain couldn’t

afford to ever attack them. The British might wind, but they

would lose so many ships that their world-wide empire

would be endangered. So Germany builds its battle fleet.

But when Britain learns of this, it makes the British mad–

and makes them more likely to attack Germany! What could

be more senseless than to adopt an idea to *prevent* war

with another nation that actually makes war with that nation

more likely?

While the Germans worried somewhat about Britain, they

were far more concerned about two other potential

enemies, France and Russia. The Germans were certain that

they could lick France alone, and they were pretty sure they

could defeat the Russians. The nightmare, however, was the

two-front war, having to deal with the French in the West

and the Russians in the East at the same time.

The Germans came up with a plan for the two-front war: the

Schlieffen Plan. Basically, this plan said that, in the event of

war, Germany would begin by attacking France with all its

might, trying to knock France out of the war quickly. Then

the Germans would shift all their men and material to the

eastern front to deal with the more serious threat posed by

Russia. The Germans thought they’d do OK with this plan.

Russia, while formidable, was a vast country, slow to

mobilize. While the Russians were getting their act together,

the Germans were sure they’d have time to put France out

of business.

Two problems, though. First of all, the Schlieffen Plan

depended on speed, and the German/French border is not

built for speed: mountain country. So–an easier route: right

through Belgium. The Germans don’t seem to have thought

this a problem. Why would the Belgians not let the Germans

march right through the country? Also, the Schlieffen plan

was the only plan the Germans made. They adopted the

plan in 1905, never revised it, and never made any other

plan. All of this meant that Europe was a powder keg waiting

to explode.

The spark came in a region of Europe known as the Balkans.

For a long time, the Balkans had been part of the Ottoman

Turkish Empire. The “Sick Man of Europe” was still around at

this point, but nearing death, and the great question, as

always: what would become of the territories of the empire

once collapse was complete?

Some would have thought it made no difference. Otto von

Bismarck has said that the whole of the Balkans wasn’t

worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier. But

others felt differently. Various national groups in the Balkans

wanted independence. Austria wanted parts of the Balkans

for their own empire. The Turks likewise wanted to hold on

to as much territory as they could.

Little by little, some of the nationalist groups got their way.

Slavs, for instance, managed to create the nation of Serbia,

while the Bulgars created Bulgaria. But Austria too took

some of what it wanted: Bosnia and Herzegovina, for

instance. This was territory with a large slavic population,

the Serbs thought it ought to be theirs instead of Austria’s.

But Serbia was no match militarily for Austria, so the Serbs

resorted to terrorism. Groups like the Black Hand used

bombing and assassination to destabilize the region and

drive Austria out. The terror campaign reached its height

when a Serbian-backed terrorist assassinated Franz

Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife.

The Austrians were furious, and it’s not too surprising that

such an event would lead to war between Austria and

Serbia. But what happens next? Austria would have won

easily against Serbia alone. But the Russians, big brothers to

all other Slavs, would certainly come to Serbia’s aid. And

then the shoe would be on the other foot: Austria would get

crushed. But Germany could not stand by and see their only

ally defeated, so the Germans stepped in to help the

Austrians. However, the Germans had only one plan for war:

the Schlieffen plan. Attack France first! And, to get there in a

hurry, go through Belgium. German invasion of Belgium

brought Britain into the war as well. In 1915, Bulgaria joined

the war on the side of the “Central Powers” (Germany,

Austria, and Turkey), while Italy joined on the side of the

allied powers (Britain, France, Russia, and Serbia). Because

these nations had colonies all over the world, they drew on

the resources of those colonies, and we ended up with a

conflict that affected and involved much of the world–all

stemming from one assassination in the Balkans!

As it turned out, the Schlieffen Plan didn’t quite work. The

Belgian King said, “Belgium is a country, not a highway,”

and the Belgians, while they couldn’t stop Germany, slowed

the German forces down just long enough that France and

Britain could stop the German invasion. The Germans got to

within 50 miles of Paris, but there the attack stopped. What

now?

Well, the Germans improvised, digging themselves into

trenches, putting up barbed wire, and trying to hold on to

what they had already taken. The British and French on the

other side did the same thing, digging trenches and putting

up defenses designed to stop any potential German

advance.

This led to four bloody years of trench warfare, with neither

side able to make progress, and both sides losing thousands

of men. The twin battles of Verdun and the Somme, for

instance, cost the lives of 1,000,000 men–and all that

happened was the exchange of a few miles of territory.

Nothing–not poison gas, not airplanes–could break the

stalemate of the trenches. And yet instead of making peace,

the diplomats back home just let the war drag on and on

while a whole generation of young men was lost.

Even more senseless, what happened in Armenia.

While we generally seem to focus on the Western Front in

World War I, fighting along the Eastern Front was, if

anything, worse. The Russians alone lost eight million men

killed, captured, or wounded. Finally, torn apart by

Revolution at home, the Russians gave up. Lenin, the

Communist dictator who in November seized control of

Russia, basically surrendered unconditionally, signing the

treaty of Brest-Litovsk. This treaty let the Germans annex

territory that included prime agricultural land and many of

Russia’s most important industrial resources.

This was a huge shot-in-the arm for Germany. All sorts of

extra food to feed their soldiers and civilians. All sorts of iron

and coal, raw materials badly needed for the war effort.

And, in addition, Germany no longer had to worry about the

two-front war. The Schlieffen Plan had almost worked in

reverse: Russia was out of the war, and now Germany could

concentrate all its efforts on the Western front. Essentially,

Germany had won the war: the Germans could have

arranged peace terms favorable to Germany. But instead of

negotiating, the Germans fought on. Why? Because they

had been fighting the war with no military or political

objectives. The difficulty of fighting without objectives is

that you don’t know what you are fighting for, and so there

is really no way to tell when you have won! And Germany

continues to fight a “won” war until, eventually, the war is

no longer won.

Ultimately, 1918 was a disaster for the Germans, largely

because of American entry into the war.

Now for quite a long time, America avoided entry into the

war. George Washington had warned the US against

becoming entangled in European wars, and for 150 years

the US had followed Washington’s advice. Woodrow Wilson

(first elected in 1912) and his Secretary of State Bryan were

committed to this “non-entanglement” tradition, trying to

keep us from getting involved.

But it wasn’t easy. As the war raged in Europe, tremendous

trade opportunities were available to American businesses,

and American businessmen took advantage of this.

Germany had resorted to U-boat warfare to try to block

supplies from getting to Britain. They warned us that

anyone sailing on a British ship was subject to attack, but

Americans continued to travel on British ships anyway.

In 1915, the Germans sunk the Lusitania, killing 1,198

people including 128 Americans. This didn’t play well with

the American public. On top of that, the British-controlled

transatlantic cable was transmitting information designed to

make us sympathize with their side and be outraged by

German atrocities.

Still, Wilson held the line, and, when he ran for reelection in

1916, he made that a key point in his campaign. His

Republican opponent Charles Evans Hughes (called Charles

Evasive Hughes by his detractors) didn’t make clear where

he stood on US entry into the war. The Wilson campaign,

however, made much of Wilson’s success in avoiding

American involvement. “He kept us out of war” was a

featured slogan. One campaign ad: “You are working, not

fighting; alive and happy, not cannon fodder; Wilson and

peace with honor, or Hughes with Roosevelt and war?”

Well, Wilson won reelection, but in a close vote: 277 to 254

in the Electoral College. The American people had chosen

Wilson, at least partly on the implied promise we were *not*

going to enter the war.

But there were soon problems with this policy. The papers

played up the Zimmerman Note, an intercepted German

message to Mexico that said that, in the event of American

entry into the war, Mexico should attack the United States.

At the end of the war, the Germans would repay them by

getting back for them Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

On top of that, the Germans were sinking American ships

taking supplies to Britain. Anti-German sentiment increased,

and Wilson decided we had to go to war.

But if he was going to break his implied campaign promise,

Wilson better give the American people good reasons for

doing so. He did.

1. This would be a “war to end all wars.”

2. This would be a war to “make the world safe for

democracy.”

Good goals—but more than goals. Wilson was determined

that the war would be a “progressive” war, one that did in

fact lead to a more peaceful world and that did in fact lead

to free and democratic societies.

Wilson suggested a way of settling the war that might have

done just that, his “Fourteen Points,” Wilson’s plan for

resolving European (and world-wide) problems after the

fighting was done.

Wilson’s points included:

1. Open covenants (no secret diplomacy)

2. Freedom of the seas

3. The removal of economic barriers

4. The reduction of national armaments “to the lowest point

consistent with safety”

5. The impartial adjustment of colonial claims

6. The evacuation of Russia by foreign armies

7. Belgian independence

8. The Alsace-Lorraine area restored to France

9. Adjustment of the Italian frontier

10. Autonomy for the peoples of Austria-Hungary

11. The restoration of Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro

12. Autonomy for Turkey

13. An independent Poland

14. The creation of a League of Nations

Now these ideas reflect a pretty solid understanding of the

causes of WWI and a pretty sound recipe for an amicable

peace. American entry into the war *did* turn the tables in

Europe leading to the defeat of Germany, and our

contributions *should* have meant that we would have an

important voice in how the war was actually settled,

*especially* since the Germans surrendered under the belief

they would be treated in accord with the generous terms

promised by Wilson.

But what actually happened is that, after the war was over,

the British, and even more the French, insisted on much

harsher terms for Germany—and Wilson gave in. Why? He

sacrificed most of his goals to achieve the one goal he

thought most important, the creation of the League of

Nations. The Versailles Treaty that actually ended the war

(June 28, 1919) stripped Germany of the Saar Basin and the

Danzig region, reduced the German army to 100,000 men,

forbid German fortifications on their border with France—

and imposed on German an indemnity of more than $30

billion to pay for the war. But Wilson had got his League of

Nations—sort of. And World War I was a victory overall for

the good guys—sort of.

But it did not do what Wilson promised. Instead, World War I

led directly and indirectly into the creation of some of the

most tyrannical regimes the world has ever seen, and–just

20 years later–to another world war–this time, on an even

larger scale.

 

Art Marmorstein

Reading: HistoryDoctor.net: Dr. Larry E. Gates, Jr.’s

“The Outbreak of World War One”

 

The Outbreak of World War One

 

The end of the Franco-Prussian War marked the birth of the

German Empire in Europe. Germany, under the leadership of

Bismarck, had been transformed from the weakest European

power to the strongest. At the same time, France was

defeated and embittered over the loss of Alsace-Lorraine;

Russia together with Austria Hungary in the East was

volatile. Had Bismarck had territorial ambitions as did

Napoleon and later Hitler, it is likely that great European

coalitions in opposition to German expansion would have

arisen even sooner than they did; however Bismarck

continuously commented that Germany was “satisfied,” had

no territorial ambitions, and wanted nothing more than

peace.

Bismarck was wise enough to see that other European

powers were not so satisfied, particularly France. He knew

that he must keep France diplomatically isolated and keep

the powers on his eastern front mollified. The situation was

aggravated because the Ottoman Empire, the “sick old man

of Europe” was on the verge of collapse. Russia and Austria-

Hungary had conflicting interests in that area, and if war

broke out, Germany would be sure to become entangled.

Bismarck’s first step to preserve the delicate balance in

Europe was the Three Emperors’ League of 1873. Under its

terms, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Germany all allied

together against “radical movements.” Later, in the Berlin

Congress of 1878, Bismarck obtained the right for Austria to

“occupy and administer” Bosnia and Herzegovina. This

served to counterbalance Russian gains in Ottoman territory

in a recent war, but infuriated Russian nationalists. So,

Bismarck next signed a defensive military alliance with

Austria against Russia. Italy joined the alliance in 1882

because of tensions with France, thus giving birth to the

Triple Alliance. Ever the superb diplomat, Bismarck played

the fears of Austria and Russia off against each other and

signed secret alliances with each against the other. This was

known as the Alliance of the Three Emperors which

promised cooperation of the three in any further division of

Ottoman territory. They also promised to remain neutral

should any one of the three become involved in a war with

any fourth party other than the Ottoman Empire which they

were carving up between themselves.

At the same time, Bismarck worked to keep Britain and

France neutralized. He encouraged France to pursue its

interests in Africa (which kept it isolated in Europe) and

when Russia would not renew the Alliance of the Three

Emperors because of new problems in the Balkans,

Bismarck substituted a Russian German Reinsurance Treaty

by which both states promised neutrality if the other was

attacked. Bismarck was a master at diplomacy, and

managed to keep the delicate house of cards which was

Europe in tact. However he was fired by Wilhelm II who did

not like Bismarck’s pact with Russia, and himself refused to

renew the Russian-German Reinsurance Treaty, even though

Russia was willing to do so. This gave France an opportunity

to step in and court Russia, which it did by offering loans

and weapons as well as friendship. In 1894, France and

Russia became military allies with the understanding that

the alliance would remain in effect as long as the rival Triple

Alliance was in effect. Wilhelm’s actions had left Europe

divided into two camps.

In the meantime, Great Britain, which had enjoyed a period

of “splendid isolation” from European affairs with no

permanent alliances, became a player. Because of its

worldwide empire, Britain often was at odds with Russia; at

the same time, it often quarreled with Germany. Wilhelm II

was a master at tactless public statements, and Britain

found Germany’s involvement in world affairs discomforting.

Although many Germans and Britons felt a common bond as

they were members of the racially superior Anglo-Saxon

race, a bitter rivalry between the two powers soon emerged

for several reasons:

Commercial rivalry in world markets increased sharply in the

1890’s.

Germany expanded its military fleet in 1900, which

challenged British naval supremacy. Germany, under

Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, saw a large navy as the

legitimate sign of a world power. British leaders instead saw

it as a military challenge which forced them to spend “the

people’s money” on warships to meet the challenge.

Anti-British feeling in Europe was exacerbated by the Boer

War in South Africa.

The situation had become such that there was discussion of

a German, Austrian, French and Russian alliance against the

British Empire, which many considered bloated. British

leaders saw the threat, and began their own system of

alliances. In 1902, Britain concluded a formal alliance with

Japan and improved relations with the United States. In

1904, an Anglo-French Entente was signed which settled all

colonial disputes between the two countries.

German leaders were unhappy with the Anglo-French

alliance, and attempted to drive a wedge between the two

countries. Germany bullied France and insisted in 1905 on

an international conference to settle the issue of Morocco.

Their bullying forced Britain and France closer together

rather than separating them; the conference at Algeciras in

1906 left Germany isolated except for Austria-Hungary.

Britain, France, Russia, and even the U.S. began to see

Germany as a threat which might attempt to dominate all of

Europe; the very thing Bismarck had protested he would

never do. At the same time, German leaders grew paranoid,

imagining sinister plots to “encircle” Germany and prevent it

from becoming a world power. This situation was not helped

when Russia agreed to settle its disputes with Britain from

the Crimean War and signed the Anglo-Russian Agreement.

Europe was divided into two hostile blocs, ready for a spark

to ignite a tremendous explosion.

 

The Outbreak of War: The Balkan area, Greece, Turkey,

Yugoslavia, Serbia, Bosnia, etc. were one of the most

volatile areas in Europe, primarily because of the plethora of

nationalities in the region. By the Berlin Conference of 1878,

Austria-Hungary had gained the right to “occupy and

administer” Bosnia and Herzegovina; while Serbia and

Romania were independent and a portion of Bulgaria was

autonomous. Because Russia and Austria-Hungary did not

trust each other and feared the other would dominate the

Balkans, the Ottoman Empire still retained important

holdings. Imperialistic pursuits had diverted attention from

the Balkans but by 1903, Balkan nationalism was about to

boil over. Serbia, although independent, was openly hostile

to Austria-Hungary and looked to Russia for support,

inasmuch as the Russian people were Slavic, as were the

Serbs. To counter Serbian expansion and take advantage of

Russia’s weakness, Austria formally annexed Bosnia and

Herzegovina in 1905. Serbia was outraged, but could do

nothing. A series of Balkan wars broke out, and Austria

intervened, forcing Serbia to surrender Albania. Tensions

were great.

On June 28, 1914, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary,

Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated together with

his wife by Serbian revolutionaries in Bosnia during a state

visit.

Franz Ferdinand and his wife were in Sarajevo for an official

state visit. Serbia at this time was a province of Austria-

Hungary. A Serbian independence movement known as the

Black Hand had made plans to assassinate Ferdinand while

in Sarajevo. Several assassins had been stationed at various

points along his route.

One assassin threw a bomb at the car; but Franz deflected it

with his arm. The bomb exploded and destroyed the car

next behind his in the procession. He became very angry at

this and asked the mayor “is this how you make your guests

feel welcome?” On his way back from his meeting with the

mayor, he told his driver to drive to the hospital so that he

could visit those wounded in the bomb attack. This

necessitated turning the car around in the middle of the

road. One assassin, Gavrilo Princeps, aged nineteen, had

already assumed he had missed his chance, and was on his

way home; but the car stopped immediately in front of him.

He ran out into the road, and shot Ferdinand and his wife at

point blank range. Ferdinand was shot in the throat, his wife

in the stomach. She died first; and his last words were,

“Sophie, please don’t die, think of the children.” Princeps,

pursuant to plan, bit into a cyanide capsule and jumped into

a canal to drown himself. Neither worked, and he went to

prison, although he is normally considered a Serbian hero.

The Black Hand was secretly supported by the Serbian

government, but there is no way the German government

could have known this; however Austrian officials decided

that Serbia must be severely punished, and on July 23,

issued an unconditional ultimatum. Serbia had 48 hours to

agree to cease all subversion in Austria and all anti-Austrian

propaganda in Serbia. An investigation of the assassination

was to be led by a joint Austrian-Serbian commission. Serbia

was evasive, so on July 28, Austria mobilized and declared

war on Serbia. This was the Third Balkan War.

 

Austria would not have declared war were it not assured of

the unconditional support of Germany. Wilhelm II and his

chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, as much as

gave Austria a blank check, and egged them, even though

they had to have known that war between Austria and

Russia would result, since Russia saw itself as defender of

the southern Slavs. Bethmann-Hollweg had anticipated that

Russia (and its ally France) would probably enter the war on

behalf of Serbia, but gambled that Britain would not go to

war to support “Russian aggression.”

Sadly, the diplomatic situation was already out of control.

Because of its vast size, Russia required a great deal of time

to mobilize its troops. Nicholas II ordered a general

mobilization on July 29, as Austrian guns bombarded

Belgrade. Russia could not mobilize against Austria without

also mobilizing against Germany, as the Russian general

staff had determined that war, if at all, would be against

both. The full mobilization was in effect a declaration of war.

In Germany, the general staff had long concluded that any

war must be a two front war against both France and Russia.

A brilliant German strategist, Count Alfred von Schliefen,

chief of the German general staff from 1891 to 1906, had

devised a plan for a two front war, the famous Schliefen

Plan. The plan called for a lightning attack against France by

marching through Belgium and capturing Paris, thus

knocking France out of the war. With France neutralized,

German troops would then turn east and attack Russia. The

plan had been von Schliefen’s masterwork, which he had

perfected over a period of years.

Germany sent an ultimatum to France, demanding to know

France’s intentions. France replied evasively that it would

protect its own interests, and the German response was a

formal declaration of War on August 4, 1914. Prior to the

formal declaration, the German chief of staff, General

Helmuth von Moltke, “acting under a dictate of self-

reservation” demanded that Belgium allow free passage for

German troops. Belgium’s neutrality had been guaranteed

by all concerned parties as early as 1839, and refused

permission. Germany then attacked Belgium, using it as a

thoroughfare to reach France on August 3, one day before

the formal declaration of war. Great Britain, agitated at the

violation of Belgian neutrality, declared war on Germany the

following day. Britain, France, and Russia constituted the

Triple Entente as of August, 1914. The Great War was

underway.

 

Reflections on Origins of the War; Although Austria-

Hungary’s motives may be somewhat understandable in

that it started the Third Balkan War as an attempt to survive

against nationalist ambitions in the Balkans, it was goaded

into doing so by the actions of Germany, which turned a

minor war into the Great War by its sledgehammer tactics

against Belgium and France.

Historian John Pl McKay offers the following analysis of the

causes of the war: “It has been argued by some historians

that German leaders lost control of the international system

after Bismarck’s resignation in 1890. They felt increasingly

that Germany’s status as a world power was declining, while

that of Britain, France, Russia, and the United States was

growing. The members of the Triple Entente were not only

checking Germany’s aspirations, they were strangling

Germany’s only ally, Austria-Hungary. Germany’s aggression

in 1914 reflected the failure of all European leaders, not just

those in Germany, to incorporate Bismarck’s might empire

permanently and peacefully into the international system.”

Unquestionably, nationalism and nationalist ambitions were

a crucial underlying condition of the War. It was at the heart

of the Balkan wars, in Serbian attempts to overthrow

Austrian control of Bosnia, and grandiose pan-German vs.

pan-Slavic aspirations. The nationalist response of “my

country, right or wrong,” fomented arms buildup and

weakened those who thought in international rather than

nationalist terms. Socialists, who called for an international

world view and believed the war was against capitalism at

home rather than foreign forces abroad; as well as

international bankers who feared the prospect of war, were

overwhelmed by the outcry of nationalist sentiments.

According to McKay, “In each country, people believed that

their country had been wronged, and they rallied to defend

it. Patriotic nationalism brought unity in the short run.”

Reading: Dr. Stephen Kreis’s “The Russian Revolution,

February to October 1917″

 

On Monday December 19, 1916 the corpse of Grigory

Efimovich Rasputin was found and people knelt in the snow

outside the Moika Palace to give their thanks to God and to

Felix Yusupov, the man responsible for Rasputin’s demise.

On Tuesday, the Empress prayed over the corpse,

smothering it with flowers and ikons. On Thursday night,

Rasputin’s body was buried in a plot of ground on the edge

of the park at Tsarskoe Selo. His murderers could not be

executed — they were too popular. Not only that, Yusupov

was married to the Tsar’s niece, Irena. Instead, Yusupov was

sent into temporary exile to his family estates to the south.

In August 1915, one year after the start of the Great War,

Tsar Nicholas II had taken over Supreme Command of the

Russian Army at the Stavka (HQ) at Mogilev. It was here that

he first learned of Rasputin’s murder. That day he walked his

collies and watched a Path� serial called, The Streets of

New York. He was too weak to survive, they said in

Petrograd, power “hung over him like a shroud.” His days in

power were clearly numbered. Most venom was reserved for

the tsarina. The crowds called her, “the German woman.”

Her dull and melancholy evenings were passed listening to

chamber music and gazing into the fire. Each day,

sometimes several times, she poured out her simple-minded

political philosophy in letters to her husband at the Stavka.

The Russians loved “to feel the whip,” she wrote to Nicky.

“It’s their nature — tender love and then the iron hand to

punish and guide them.”

February 1917 began bitterly cold. The streets of Petrograd

were filled with ice. Food lines lengthened. “Never before

has there been so much swearing, argument and scandal,”

wrote one Okhrana agent. There were 170,000 troops in the

city, double the peacetime garrison, but the secret police

thought them to be “raw, untrained material, unfit to put

down civil disorders.” The best troops, of course, were at the

front. On February 14th, police agents reported that army

officers had, for the first time, mingled with the crowds

demonstrating against the war and the government on

Nevsky Prospekt. “Behind the white columns of the hall

grinned Hopelessness,” a conservative said of the mood at

the Duma debates. “And she whispered: ‘Why? What for?

What difference does it make?'”

Food hoarding was common. Wood for heating was beyond

the means of the poor and the temperature in middle class

flats was kept just above freezing. Grain trains on their way

to the capital were blocked by heavy snowfalls. International

Woman’s Day was held on Thursday, February 23rd. This

gave an excuse for women from textile plants to stream into

the streets shouting, “Down with hunger! Bread for the

workers!” They pelted the windows of the engineering shops

to bring the men out. Nikolai Sukhanov, the crotchety

radical civil servant who was to become the Revolution’s

diarist and victim, thought the disorders unremarkable. He

had seen them before. But what he now noticed was the

strange attitude of the authorities. The crowds felt it too.

They began overturning tramcars and sacked a large bakery.

The “Pharaohs,” slang for the police, stood by and did

nothing. Okhrana agents noticed that skilled workers now

joined the strikers. The agitators working the crowds no

longer bothered to pull their overcoats over their heads in

order to hide their faces. The troops hesitated when they

were told to disperse the crowds. A Cossack officer shouted

at some strikers led by an old woman, “Who are you

following? You are being led by an old crone.” The woman

replied, “No old crone, but a sister and wife of soldiers at the

front.” Someone yelled, “Cossacks, you are our brothers,

you can’t shoot us.” The Cossacks, great symbol of Russian

ferocity and terror, turned away.

The tsarina thought there was no more to the events in

Petrograd than children running about for excitement. “If the

weather was cold,” she wrote Nicky, “they probably would

have stayed at home.” She also wrote that she hoped that a

young socialist lawyer by the name of Alexander Kerensky

would be hanged. In a recent Duma debate, Kerensky had

called for someone to do to the Tsar what Brutus had done

to Caesar. In fashionable circles, the main talk was of the

party Princess Radziwill was throwing the following Sunday.

Quite a few people had simply missed the boat! As luck

would have it, the weather stayed warm on Friday.

Demonstrators were out again in force. It seemed that all of

the city’s 2.5 million residents were in the streets.

Something was odd in the behavior of the Cossacks. The

crowds had begun to cheer their customary tormentors. A

Cossack unit was ordered to charge. The horsemen rode

delicately in single file through the crowd. “Some of them

smiled and one actually winked,” wrote one observer.

Killing started on Saturday, February 25th. The

demonstrators were back. All factories had closed. The

police opened fire on a mob that was beating a police officer

with an iron tramcar lever, and fired a volley into the crowd

near the Nikolaevsky train station and the demonstrators

fled. A cavalry squadron shot down nine people on the

Nevsky. But slowly the people began to command, forcing

officers to abandon their carriages and rescuing those who

had been taken by the police. The police were melting away,

fearing for their lives. Politics played little part here. There

were no leaders. “What do they want?” asked one

bystander. “They want bread, peace with the Germans and

freedom for the Yids,” his companion replied.

Sunday began with a deceptive calm. The churches of

Petrograd were full. The weather was warm and sunny and

the scene so apparently uneventful that the tsar received a

telegram that announced, “the city is quiet.” So it was — but

not for long. A crowd started for the Nevsky, crossing the

frozen river to avoid the police on the river bridges. They

ran into an infantry unit near the Mioka canal at one o’clock.

The troops knelt and fired two volleys into the crowd.

Meanwhile, general fighting broke out in the Nevsky area.

Students wearing Red Cross arm bands gave first aid to the

wounded. At a nearby school for young ladies of the nobility,

the girls heard a mistress use an unfamiliar and thrilling

word: “Revolt!”

As the crowds were cut down, the tsarina was visiting the

grave of Rasputin. “It seems to me that it will all be all

right,” she wrote to Nicky . “The sun shines so clearly and I

felt such peace and quiet at His dear grave. He died in order

to save us.” An Okhrana agent was less certain. The game

depended entirely upon the army, he reported. “If the troops

turn against the government, then nothing can save the

country.” Meanwhile, Princess Radziwell’s party was in full

swing. The regime still had a few hours left.

The president of the Duma, Rodzyanko, became more and

more alarmed over the course of Sunday afternoon. Those

soldiers garrisoned in the city would not shoot at the mob —

in fact, many of them had gone over! If only they had used

fire hoses instead of bullets. Rodzyanko then sent a

telegraph to the tsar — copies were also sent to the high

commanders asking that they support his views. The

meaning of the telegram was quite clear:

Situation serious. Anarchy in the capital. Government

paralyzed. Transport of food and fuel in full disorder.

Popular discontent growing. Disorderly firing in the

streets. Some military units fire on one another,

Essential immediately to order persons having the

confidence of the country to form new government.

Delay impossible. Any delay deadly. I pray to God that in

this hour the blame does not fall on the crown.

After regular 5 PM tea at Mogilev, Nicholas invited a few

commanders to read the telegram. How would the tsar

respond? Nicholas suggested that since the Duma was to be

prorogued (closed down) that evening, then nothing should

be done and no answer was necessary. This caused some

concern at the Stavka, but mostly among junior officers.

One officer wrote in his diary: “why can’t the tsar

understand that he must show his will and his power?”

Meanwhile, Nicholas wrote the tsarina about the pains he

had suffered in his chest while at church that morning. At

9:20 PM he sent a final telegram to his wife saying that he

would leave for Tsarskoe Selo on Tuesday. Then he read a bit

and played dominoes.

The Volynsky guardsman who had shot down demonstrators

held a meeting on Sunday night. They decided that they

would not act as executioners but would join with the

people. At seven o’clock on Monday morning, cartridges

were issued and the unit formed up on parade in battle

order. The Captain arrived with his orders. He was met with

mutiny. “We won’t kill anymore. Enough blood.” From a

barracks window a shot rang out and the Captain was dead.

The Volynsky mutineers ran into a nearby engineering

barracks shouting, “Comrades, get your rifles!” The locked

doors of the storeroom were broken down and the

quartermaster was shot dead. The engineers joined the

uprising marching into the streets where their band played

to cheering crowds. The gates of the main arsenal were

battered in and the depot commander killed. Thousands of

revolvers were handed out to the crowds. Teenagers swirled

out of side streets, shouting and firing their weapons at the

pigeons on the streetcar wires.

The city governor demanded a plan from the police chief.

The existing security plan divided the city into sectors, each

under the control of a unit that was now mutinying. News

came in that a squadron of armored cars were rumbling

down the Nevsky with red flags flying from them. Civilians

began to urge regiments to come out. “Comrade soldiers,”

they shouted to a battalion of the Moscow regiment, “Come

out: join the people!” The crowd broke down the picket

fence and surged on the troops. The commander ordered his

men to fire volleys and drew his own revolver. He was

beaten to death. The troops began to shoot at their own

barracks while the crowd broke into the armory and helped

themselves to rifles and ammunition. The Kresty prison was

taken and its 2400 prisoners were freed. Policemen,

identified by their long coats and gray fur hats, were

lynched in the streets. Station houses were set on fire. Other

potential targets of the mob fled.

Alexander Kerensky was woken by his wife Olga at eight in

the morning on Monday, February 27th. Kerensky was thirty-

six, a Duma deputy who had found his moment. Born in

Simbursk, he had become involved in radical politics at

St.Petersburg in his teens, but had no time for fashionable

terrorism or Marxism for that matter. He was, as one

observer wrote, “unquestionably humanitarian and utterly

Russian in every respect.” On graduation, he started a legal

aid office in the city, advising workers on their rights and

representing them without fees. In 1904, he married

Baranovskaya, the daughter of an army officer. During the

1905 revolution, he founded a socialist newspaper and

served four months in the Kresty prison after a friend’s

revolver was found in his apartment. Kerensky was thrilled

with his luck. “I was now,” he wrote, “‘one of us’ in radical

and socialist circles.”

In 1912, troops shot dead 170 striking miners in the Lena

goldfields in Siberia. The massacre caused deep resentment

throughout Russia and Kerensky made a national reputation

when he was appointed to the inquiry commission. He was

elected to the Duma a few months later. Most Duma

members thought him weak because he speeches were

emotional. Almost alone, he denounced anti-Semitic

atrocities. The war was a catastrophe for the Jews. Not a day

passed without Jews being hanged on false charges of

spying yet more than 250,000 Jewish soldiers fought in the

ranks of the Russian army. Kerensky went in person to Kuzhi,

a small town near the front in Kovno where Jews were being

lynched for supposedly hiding Germans in their cellars. He

examined the cellars and proved the charges false.

His Okhrana nickname was “Speedy” and on the 27th he

hurried through the mutinous city of Petrograd to the right

wing of the Tauride Palace where the Duma met. At one

o’clock, a flood of soldiers and workers, scraps of red on

their coats, arrived at the palace. Kerensky greeted them.

“He is their vozhd, their leader,” one onlooker whispered. By

mid-afternoon, two provisional committees were set up in

separate wings of the palace. One was dominated by

moderate bourgeois members of the Duma and would later

become the Provisional Government. The other was the first

Petrograd Soviet to meet since 1905. The Soviet elected a

permanent executive committee drawn from all socialist

groups. The Bolsheviks had two members out of the

fourteen. It decided to publish its own daily newspaper to be

called Izvestia.

At eight o’clock on Monday evening Nicholas was cabled a

warning that only a handful of his troops remained loyal. A

state of siege was proclaimed. Any form of counterforce

simply melted away. But the mutineers also felt their

position desperate. They feared that loyal troops would be

sent from the front to crush them. The defenders of the

Tauride Palace, the center of the revolution, had no weapons

heavier than four non-working machineguns. A volunteer

sent out to buy lubricants for them returned empty-handed.

But mutineers slipped into the deserted Maryinsky Palace.

Grand Duke Mikhail demanded that loyal troops still holding

the Winter Palace be withdrawn. He did not want the people

to be fired upon from the House of the Romanovs. There

should be no repetition of 1905, he remarked. Exhausted

politicians, wrapped in their coats, slept in the armchairs

and benches of the Tauride. Kerensky was there too.

Meanwhile, a pair of soldiers cut Repin’s famous portrait of

Nicholas from its frame with their bayonets. Mutiny had

won.

The mutineers had the run of the city on Tuesday. Trucks

with rifles and bayonets drove through the streets while

looters broke into the palaces. The French ambassador

mused that the era stretching back to Catherine the Great

had come to an end. He was right. Nicholas spent the day

on the imperial train on his way to join his wife at the

Alexander Palace. Shortly after midnight, the train was flung

into reverse 90 miles short of Petrograd because the next

station was in rebel hands. In the early hours of March 1,

after 303 years, a Romanov was fleeing from his people. The

train stopped at Pskov station. Here, in the drawing room

car, March 2, 1917, Nicholas signed the act of ABDICATION.

The official death toll was 1224 — the equivalent of a few

hours’ casualties in the war. The Americans hailed the event

as a “fitting and glorious successor” to their own revolution.

US ambassador David Francis said that it was the realization

of the American dream. But there were two governments in

Petrograd. The Provisional Government, dominated by

middle-class members of the Duma and the Soviet of

workers’ and soldiers’ deputies. The two governments

represented different classes and sharply different political

platforms. The Soviet wanted an eight hour day, land grants

to the peasants, an army with voluntary discipline and

elected officers, and an end to the war. The Provisional

Government, on the other hand, wished to continue the war

and to keep social change at a minimum. Georgy Lvov, a

prince and a landowner, became the first Prime Minister of

revolutionary Russia.

Lenin was in Zurich at the time of the

revolution. When the first reports came in

from Petrograd, he was astonished. Stuck

in a miserable apartment whose windows

could only be opened when the nearby

sausage factory closed for the night, Lenin

had recently told a meeting of socialists

that he did not expect a revolution in his

lifetime. “The tsarist monarchy has been

smashed, but not finally destroyed,” Lenin

wrote in his first Letters from Afar (March

7, 1917).

The Soviet of Workers’ Deputies is an organization of the

workers, the embryo of a workers’ government, the

representative of the interests of the entire mass of the

poor section of the population, i.e., of nine-tenths of the

population, which is striving for peace, bread and

freedom.

The conflict of these three forces determines the

situation that has now arisen, a situation that is

transitional from the first stage of the revolution to the

second.

Of more importance perhaps, was the fact that his

Bolsheviks had played little part in the activities in

Petrograd those final days of February 1917. The Bolshevik

Party was at this time, marginal. It was riddled with

informers and Lenin spent the majority of his time engaged

in internal disputes with other socialists. However, Lenin

held out great potential for the Germans. He was opposed to

the war, an “imperialist and capitalist war.” If he returned to

Petrograd now he was sure to undermine the Russian war

effort. And he wanted to return to Russia. He had to return

to Russia. But how? The Swedes would not help return him

but the Germans offered a sealed railway car which would

take Lenin across enemy lines and back to Russia. “It was

with a sense of awe,” wrote Winston Churchill of Lenin’s

German support, “that they turned upon Russia the most

grisly of all weapons. They transported Lenin in a sealed

truck like a plague bacillus into Russia.” Lenin arrived at

Petrograd’s Finland Station late at night on April 3 and gave

a speech before he had even left the platform. In three

sentences, Lenin outlined the Bolshevik program and his

contempt for the Provisional Government: “The people

need peace. The people need bread and land. And

they give you war, hunger, no food, and the land

remains with the landowners.”

In May Leon Trotsky returned. Sentenced to life in Siberia for

his part in the 1905 Revolution, he had fled across the Arctic

taiga in a reindeer sled, guided by a local so drunk that

Trotsky had to kick him and take off his fur hat to keep him

awake. After a week he found himself safely at a railroad

station and was soon in Paris. He was deported during the

Great War to Spain and then went to New York a few days

after Rasputin’s murder. News of the February Revolution

came to him in the $18 a month flat he furnished on the

installment plan on 164th Street in the Bronx. He left New

York with regret, a city he called “the fullest expression of

our modern age.”

The war continued. “A great pump which sucks out the

strength of the country,” wrote one observer. Kerensky

became War Minister in early May. He was idolized at mass

meetings for the war effort. It is said that women flew into

fits of hysteria and threw their jewelry at his feet. Bruce

Lockhart, a British diplomat and secret agent thought

Kerensky the most powerful speaker he ever was to hear —

more powerful than even Adolf Hitler. By the end of June,

Kerensky’s summer offensive was a disaster. Regiments

dissolved as thousands of deserters streamed away from

the front, killing any officer who tried to stop them. Behind

the front, the few civilians left were filled with fear and the

women snatched their skirts and fled when they saw

soldiers. Further back, trains were so overloaded with

deserters that car axles caught fire from the weight.

The fiasco at the front hurried the Bolsheviks into a

premature uprising — The July Days. The men of a

machinegun regiment infiltrated by Bolshevik agitators

marched through the capital, urging the overthrow of the

Provisional Government and the hanging of Kerensky. A mob

joined them. Bourgeois Petrograd hid in terror. Regiments

loyal to the government were drafted into the city and the

attempt to force an issue failed. Details of German

payments to the Bolsheviks were leaked to the press. Lenin

was an agent of Berlin! Lenin fled, hiding in a haymakers’

hut before crossing the border into Finland. Trotsky was

arrested. His new home was the Kresty prison.

On July 21, Lvov resigned and Kerensky formed a new

government which busied itself with foreign relations and

constitutional reform. Meanwhile, Russia disintegrated. Food

was scarce and money flooded off the presses. 476 million

rubles were printed in April, one billion in July. Inflation

reached 1000 per cent. Government printing plants could no

longer cut the sheets of currency so the sheets were issued

to the public who had to cut the notes with scissors. In the

factories, the men “come to work drunk, speak at meetings

drunk….They drink methylated spirits, varnish and all kinds

of other substitutes.” In Tambov province, peasants ran

Prince Boris Vyazemsky off his estate and looted his house.

At the railroad station, deserters discovered him. They ran

him through with their bayonets and clubbed him with iron

bars. Then they cut off his head.

“Power,” one observer wrote, “was hanging in the air.”

Kerensky was a man of authority. He thrived on it. He used

the imperial train, he lived in the imperial suite in the Winter

Palace, he slept with his mistress in Alexander III’s bed. His

commander-in-chief, the wiry Cossack, General Lavr

Kornilov, mounted a confused rightest coup in early

September against the government, with a division of

mountain troops. It did not reach Petrograd: the rail line was

cut and agitators worked on the men as they milled about

the track. The “counter-revolution” collapsed. Kornilov was

placed under house arrest while the general who had led

the attack on Kornilov’s orders shot himself.

The Bolsheviks were rehabilitated by the blundering

Cossack reactionary and Kerensky found himself isolated.

Officers, tainted with Kornilov’s counter-revolution, lost all

control of their men. Louise Bryant, a young American

correspondent and later the lover of John Reed, arrived at

the docks of the Vyborg to watch soldiers on the adjacent

platform shouting: “The officers! The bright, pretty officers!

They threw them in the canal,” she filed to The Philadelphia

Public Ledger. “They have just finished it now. They have

killed fifty and I heard them screaming.” In the rear, two

young officers disguised as soldiers were flung from a train

into a gorge, “falling like dolls,” Bryant wrote. At the front,

troops fraternized with the Germans, who gave them

tobacco and wine. Russia was breaking up. Nationalist

movements rolled through the Ukraine, Finland and the

Baltic States. Cossacks, Bashkirs, Siberians, Buryats

declared themselves independent. Racial hatred boiled over.

Jews were particular targets. “The pogrom movement is

rising,” the Russkiye Vedomosti correspondent in Bessarabia

reported. “Talk is heard of shifting all the blame on the

Jews.”

Kerensky took brandy and morphine. “He really is

hysterical,” his secretary told Louise Bryant. “He weeps and

is so dreadfully alone. I mean, he cannot depend on

anyone.” There had still been no elections for the

Constituent Assembly, the parliament promised since

March. Committees had examined the American, Belgian

and Swiss constitutions in their search for perfection. They

discussed the merits of proportional representation and an

upper house — “All Russia, it seemed, was just talking and

talking.” Leon Trotsky, “a son of a bitch but the greatest Jew

since Jesus,” in the eyes of an American Red Cross

representative, was a doer, not a talker. And he had just

been released from prison. The stage was now nearly set for

the greatest drama and the greatest dream of the twentieth

century — the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917.

Reading: HistoryDoctor.net: Dr. Larry E. Gates, Jr.’s

“The Peace Settlement”

 

The Peace Settlement

Germany gained a brief respite after the surrender of Russia

at Brest-Litovsk. Shortly thereafter, the Germans launched a

major offensive against French lines, but the offensive was

turned back within 35 miles of Paris at the Second Battle of

the Marne. Allied success was largely the result of the

infusion of fresh American troops who did not suffer from

the war weariness that plagued the other forces. Both sides

were weary of the war, but it was the Germans who cracked

first.

After the Russian Revolution, a series of major strikes broke

out in Germany, mostly led by Socialists and Communists. In

July, 1918, a coalition of moderates in the Reichstag passed

a peace resolution calling for peace without territorial

annexation. In response, the German military cracked down

with a virtual dictatorship of the homeland. With the Allies

advancing on all fronts, General Ludendorff realized that the

war was lost; but insisted on blaming moderate politicians in

the Reichstag for the defeat. On October 4, 1918, a new

liberal government met to sue for peace; however President

Woodrow Wilson responded that he would only negotiate

with the democratically elected government of the German

people. The German people had had enough, and rose up in

rebellion. Soldiers and workers began to establish

revolutionary councils on the models of the Russian soviets.

On November 3, sailors in Kiel mutinied and on the same

day Austria Hungary surrendered to the Allies. Masses of

workmen in Germany struck and demonstrated for peace.

Faced with unrest and with army discipline collapsing,

Wilhelm II abdicated and fled to Holland, where he remained

to the end of his days. A German Republic was proclaimed

on November 9, and agreed to the Allied terms of surrender,

which were NOT generous. Allied and German

representatives met at Compiegne near Aix-la-Chappelle,

(present day Aachen) in a Railroad Car where the Armistice

was signed at eleven a.m. on November 11, 1918. The War

was over.

 

Revolution: Revolution broke out in Austria-Hungary and

Germany as a result of the defeat. In Austria-Hungary, the

Hapsburg empire collapsed. Independent Austrian,

Hungarian, and Czechoslovakian republics were proclaimed

and in the south Yugoslavia (literally, “land of the southern

Slavs”) was created. Class consciousness was replaced with

the prospect of establishing new national states.

In Germany, the Revolution of 1918 was similar to the

Russian Revolution of 1917. A popular uprising from below

toppled the monarchy and a liberal provisional republic was

established. Unlike other areas, radical revolutionaries did

not triumph, which caused great chagrin to the German

communists, who considered the revolution only half

completed. There were several reasons why Germany did

not embrace a communist government:

German Communists were not as violently revolutionary as

were the Russians. They wanted to see the expansion of

civil liberties and favored the gradual elimination of

capitalism; however they were also German patriots and

were appalled at the prospect of terror or violent revolution.

There was not the support from workers and soldiers for the

extreme left position as had been the case in Russia. The

German peasantry did not rise up as had been the case in

the French and Russian revolutions.

The German Social Democrats accepted defeat and ended

the war as soon as they took power. This ended the loss of

morale among the troops and prevented the regular army

from disintegrating.

Two radical communists, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa

Luxemburg, tried to seize control of the government in

Berlin and thereby bring about a Russian type Revolution. In

January, the moderate socialists called on the army to crush

the uprising. Liebknecht and Luxemburg were arrested and

later murdered by army leaders.

 

The Treaty of Versailles: Twenty seven victorious nations

sent seventy delegates to meet in Paris at Louis XIV’s palace

in January, 1919. Historian John McKay reports, “A young

British diplomat later wrote that the victors ‘were convinced

that they would never commit the blunders and iniquities of

the Congress of Vienna’ [of 1818]. Then the ‘misguided,

reactionary, pathetic aristocrats’ had cynically shuffled

populations, not ‘we believed in nationalism, we believed in

the self determination of peoples.’ Indeed ‘we were

journeying to Paris…to found a new order in Europe. We

were preparing not Peace, only, but Eternal Peace.”

Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States had

previously promulgated his Fourteen Points Peace Plan in

January, 1918, which gave the conference a spirit of

optimism.

Germany was not allowed to participate, and Russia was

involved in its own civil war, and did not participate. For that

reason, the major powers at the conference were the United

States, Britain and France. The conference immediately

devolved into quarrelling. Wilson was obsessed with

creating the League of Nations while others in attendance

were concerned with punishing Germany. David Lloyd

George had won an election in Britain based on his plan to

make Germany pay, commenting that “We shall squeeze the

orange until the pips squeak.” The British people as a whole

were not sympathetic to the Germans whom they

considered, in the words of Rudyard Kipling, “people with

the hearts of beasts.”

The French Ambassador, Georges Clemenceau, known as

“The Tiger,” wanted nothing short of old fashioned revenge

as well as security for France. He wanted a buffer state

between France and Germany, the permanent

demilitarization of Germany, and reparations from the

German government. Wilson considered this vindictive and

would not go along; and the conference was soon

deadlocked, and Wilson packed his bags to return home.

Clemenceau only compromised because of the fear of the

breakup of the conference which would leave France alone

to face Germany should hostilities break out again. In lieu of

a buffer state, the parties agreed to a permanent alliance of

France with the United States and Britain, whereby each

would come to the aid of France if it were attacked.

The resulting Treaty of Versailles was not as harsh as might

otherwise seem; in fact if one accepts the example of Brest-

Litovsk, it is likely that the Germans would have been even

more severe had they won. The terms:

Germany’s colonies were given to France, Britain, and Japan

as League of Nations mandates.

Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France.

Poland was recreated as a separate state from parts of the

old German empire. The German city of Danzig (now known

as Gdansk, Poland) was made part of Poland and a corridor

created which allowed Poland access to the sea. This latter

provision proved to be a sore point in later years, as East

Prussia was separated from the balance of Germany.

Germany had to agree to build no further military

fortifications and limit its army to 100,000 men.

Germany was required to sign a “war guilt clause” by the

terms of which Germany accepted full responsibility for the

war.

Since Germany was solely responsible for the war, it must

pay war reparations equal to all civilian damages caused by

the war.

When presented with the terms, the German delegates

protested vigorously, but they had no choice. Germany was

still under naval blockade, and the Allies refused to lift it

until representatives of the German government signed the

treaty. It was signed on July 28, 1919, in the same Hall of

Mirrors where Bismarck had proclaimed the German Empire

fifty years before.

Separate treaties were signed with Austria, Hungary,

Bulgaria and Turkey. The treaties basically ratified the

existing situation in eastern and central Europe following

the breakup of Austria-Hungary. Some Austrian territory was

ceded to Italy, and parts of Hungary were ceded to

Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Yugoslavia. The

Turkish Empire was broken up also. France received Lebanon

and Syria, and Britain received Iraq and Palestine. They

were officially League of Nations mandates.

 

American Rejection of the Treaty of Versailles: The

Treaty of Versailles was not perfect, but it was acceptable in

Europe. It provided for national self-determination, the

factor which had led to the outbreak of war in the first place;

a new world organization had been formed, and the

remaining problems could be worked out in the future. The

delegates at Versailles had felt it necessary to be

expeditious, as they detested Lenin and feared that his

Bolshevik revolution might spread to the rest of Europe (the

very plan that Lenin had in mind.) Peace seemed to be the

solution to Lenin’s calls for revolution.

Two obstacles remained: Germany and the United States.

Germany suffered communist uprisings, reactionary plots,

and disillusionment with losing the war. In fact, because

German soldiers were still on foreign soil and no foreign

soldiers were on German soil when the armistice was

signed, the army had accused the civilian government of a

“stab in the back.” The moderates faced an enormous

challenge. The ensuing Weimar Republic was successful in

suppressing rebellion, including Adolf Hitler’s Beer Hall

Putsch; however even it eventually collapsed not to left

wing rebellion but to right wing arrogance.

In the United States, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Chairman

of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, was opposed to

the treaty as written, primarily because he feared that the

League of Nations would deprive the United States of its

power to declare war. This fear was probably more imagined

than real. Lodge proposed modifications, but Wilson refused

to accept any change. He was ill and self-righteously narrow

minded. Wilson single handedly saw that the Treaty was

never ratified by the United States. The U.S. never joined

the League of Nations nor did it ratify the defensive alliance

Wilson had arranged with Britain and France. In essence, the

U.S. turned its back on Europe.

Britain relied on the U.S. refusal and also refused to honor

the defensive alliance with France. France was forced to

stand alone against Germany. The grandiose Western

Alliance fell apart, and only a fragile peace remained.

Reading: Dr. Stephen Kreis’, ” The Russian

Revolution, Red October and the Bolshevik Coup”

 

 

People do not make revolutions eagerly any more than they

do war. There is this difference, however, that in war

compulsion plays the decisive role, in revolution there is no

compulsion except that of circumstances. A revolution takes

place only when there is no other way out. And the

insurrection, which rises above a revolution like a peak in

the mountain chain of its events, can be no more evoked at

will than the revolution as a whole. The masses advance

and retreat several times before they make up their minds

to the final assault.

—Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution

Damp winds blew off the Gulf of Finland, but there were no

warm clothes in the shops. Just window after window full of

flowers, corsets, dog collars, false hair — bourgeois items for

which there was absolutely no demand. Lines for bread,

sugar and tobacco started forming at four o’clock in the

morning. On September 25, 1917, Kerensky appointed a

new cabinet. It was the fourth provisional Government, the

third coalition and the seventh major reshuffling since the

revolution had gotten underway back in February. The town

of Reval, the last stronghold between the Germans and

Petrograd, was evacuated by the Russians on October 3rd.

Every day now, the people of Petrograd asked the

government when their city would be evacuated. Barges

floated down the Neva, laden with the art treasures of the

Hermitage as well as sacks full of papers from all the

ministries. One barge sank. “It doesn’t matter,” said one of

the sailors as the barge went down. Indeed, it didn’t matter.

Every day hundreds of thousands of “hungry, tired and

angry people” listened to Bolshevik propaganda served up

gratis on the streets of Petrograd. It was a simple message,

according to Sukhanov: “The rich have lots of everything,

the poor have nothing. Everything will belong to the poor….”

It didn’t matter that it was all lies. “After all,” wrote the

young Russian poet Boris Pasternak, “what everybody

needed were not empires, but bread, salt and candles.”

Leon Trotsky, the “famous leader of the bandits and the

hooligans,” caused a sensation at the pre-parliament. He

openly accused the government and the bourgeoisie of

encouraging the “bony hand of hunger,” to strangle the

revolution. He said they were preparing to surrender the

capital as part of a government conspiracy. Such a

statement drew shouts from the right, shouts about

Germans, sealed trains and the cry of “Bastard!” Then he

and all the Bolsheviks walked out of the meeting. Sukhanov

thought that they were “now taking up arms against the

entire old world.” In “ruined, half-wild, petty bourgeois,

economically shattered” Russia, this small party was trying

to create an unheard of proletarian state and a new society.

They had “put an end to the united front of the democracy

for ever.” Civil war would surely follow. The lust for blood

fueled by class hatred was strong. Manors and country

estates were burning. Members of the ancien r�gime were

being casually murdered by the mob. In a village near Baku,

half a dozen ragged deserters bayoneted an elderly general

who had told them, “this is my single fault. I love Russia. I

love my people, I demand that you let me go.” Needless to

say, the deserters did not like his use of the word “demand.”

The mob turned on the two ladies with him and trampled

their bodies to death “like a manure heap.” The civil war

implicit in the walk-out, as all those concerned knew full

well, would extend throughout Russia.

Essential to a successful Bolshevik takeover was deception.

And it was Leon Trotsky who was brilliant in formulating its

tactics. The country was in no mood for a single party

power. An uprising carried out under the slogan of the

Soviet, Trotsky realized, was “something quite different.” So,

“whilst moving forward all along the line,” he later

explained, “we maintained an appearance of

defensiveness.” He could not do this with a properly

convened Soviet Congress. There was not the slightest

chance of a Bolshevik victory in a national Soviet election so

the existing Congress was illegally packed with Bolsheviks.

The decision to mount the coup was taken on October 10th.

Lenin had returned to Petrograd disguised as a train

engineer. At 10pm he crossed the city for the first Central

Committee meeting he had attended since July. The meeting

was held in Sukhanov’s apartment. His wife, Galina, was a

Bolshevik, and had ensured that her husband would not

return until late that night. Twelve members took part. They

all wore wigs and make-up, glued-on mustaches and false

beards. Lenin wore a wig of gray hair. It had been ordered

from a wigmaker who worked for the Maryinsky Theater and

whose normal clientele were aristocrats. He was puzzled

why Lenin wanted a gray model since most of his customers

wanted to look younger rather than older. Lenin also wore

glasses and had shaved off his trademark beard. Zinoviev,

known for his flowing mane, shaved his head and wore a

false beard. The Provisional Government’s chance to arrest

those plotting the coup was missed. Had the Government

swooped down on the meeting that night they would have

made history — Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Kollantai

were all there. So too were Felix Dzerzhinsky, future head of

the secret police, Yakov Sverdlov, the man responsible for

murdering Nicholas and his family and, of course, Joseph

Stalin (see Lecture 10). The Government ought to have

acted but didn’t — one more example of the impotence of

the Provisional Government itself.

Around three in the morning, Lenin picked up a child’s ruled

tablet and wrote the following resolution: “recognizing…that

an armed uprising is inevitable and that its time has come,

the Central Committee suggests that all party organizations

be guided by this.” The exhausted committee members

ended the meeting, ate a light breakfast, and then left

Sukhanov’s flat to spread the word: Now was the time to

seize power!

However, the Twelve were not the only individuals with

knowledge of the coup. The newspapers had been talking

about it for days. When the Cabinet met on October 16th,

there was no sense of alarm. They had simply assumed that

a coup was unlikely since by that time, any sense of surprise

had been lost. Lenin was exhausted. He dropped his wig in

the mud on his way to the Finland Station and it had to be

cleaned. He never got the hang of wearing it. “He kept

trying to straighten it,” said his Bolshevik landlady,

Margarita Fofanova. Needless to say, Lenin was a very

nervous man. Sukhanov thought that Lenin’s ideas — the

smashing of the credit system, the seizure of banks, parity

of wages, and workers’ control — were “so disproportionately

few in comparison with the immensity of the tasks, and so

unknown to anyone outside the Bolshevik Party, that you

might say they were completely irrelevant.” Maxim Gorky

described the plotters of the coup as “crazed fanatics.”

On October 22nd, the commissar for the western front

cabled a message to Kerensky that said: “There is nothing

left but to give up. Disintegration has attained its limit.” The

newspaper Russkiye Vedomosti apologized to its readers

that it could run only a fraction of the stories about mutinies

and pogroms that flooded its newsroom each day. Kharkov,

Tambov, and Ostrog “merge into one dark picture of

murders, pillages, arsons and debauch.” Mobs searched

everywhere for axes and crow bars so they could break into

wine cellars. Landowners and shopkeepers who were

suspected of speculation were beaten to death with clubs

and the “same fate awaits Jews, just because they are

Jews.”

In Petrograd, everything could be had for big money, that is,

if you had it. Cab fares were fifteen times their pre-war rate.

Soldiers were hired by the hour to stand in lines and sell

their chocolate rations at twelve rubles to the pound. Felix

Yusupov, back in Petrograd after his brief exile for the killing

of Rasputin, found social life “agreeable once more” and

began to give parties in his palace. If the Bolshevik coup

came, most thought it would fail. “I only wish they would

come out,” Kerensky told the British ambassador, “and then

I will put them down.” David Francis, the US ambassador,

thought that a golden opportunity was being lost.

“Beginning to think the Bolsheviks will make no

demonstrations,” he cabled Washington. “If so, shall regret

as believe sentiment turning against them and time

opportune moment for giving them a wholesome lesson….”

With the coup right around the corner, there were no plans

to cope with it. At 5 AM on October 24th, military cadets

acting on Kerensky’s orders broke the page molds of

Bolshevik newspapers and sealed off the offices. Trotsky

could hardly contain his excitement: “Kerensky is on the

offensive.” It’s pretty clear what this meant: now the

Bolsheviks could accuse the government of counter-

revolution. “Although an insurrection can only win on the

offensive,” Trotsky wrote in his massive History of the

Russian Revolution, “it develops better the more it looks like

self-defense.”

By mid-morning, Bolshevik troops retook the newspaper

offices without a struggle. The molds were repaired and the

papers began to pour off the presses once again. Kerensky

cabled the front for additional armed forces but he hoped he

would not have to use them. He had at his disposal, 200

cadets, 200 women soldiers and 134 unattached officers for

policing duties. Trotsky was at the Smolny Institute, the

former home of a finishing school for aristocratic girls, but

now used as the general headquarters for the Bolshevik

Party and the Petrograd Soviet. A delegation from the

Petrograd City Hall arrived during the afternoon to ask on

behalf of the mayor whether the uprising would take place

or not. Trotsky met the delegation and assured them that

indeed the insurrection was underway. The delegation left

the Smolny a bit puzzled for there was very little indication

that the city was in the midst of an insurrection. The rest of

the city, meanwhile, figured that since there were no

outward signs of insurrection, that the coup had not been

attempted. Elegant men and women, fashionable Petrograd,

assembled at the Alexandrinsky Theatre to watch Alexei

Tolstoy’s play The Death of Ivan the Terrible. Others, suitably

dressed, were at the Maryinsky listening to Fedor Ivanovich

Chaliapin in Boris Godunov. The Restaurant de Paris was

turning away diners unlucky enough not to have made

reservations. The cinemas, the bars and the night clubs

were bustling hives of activity. With the Bolshevik coup just

hours away, it’s hard to fathom that fashionable Petrograd

could remain so passive and unaware

Not so Lenin. He spent the better part of the evening pacing

the floor of his hideaway apartment. He couldn’t stand the

slow pace of events, the indecision in both Smolny and the

Winter Palace. He was also still getting information about

the supposed coup second-hand. That evening Lenin sat

down and wrote a letter to his wife, Krupskaya, who was

then at the Vyborg party headquarters. It was now 7 PM and

it was necessary, Lenin said, to get on with the uprising.

“What are they afraid of?” he asked of the Central

Committee. “Just ask them if they have one hundred loyal

soldiers or Red Guards with rifles. I don’t need anything

else!” Here is the full text of Lenin’s letter:

Comrades!

I am writing these lines on the evening of the 6th. The

situation is extremely critical. It is as clear as can be

that delaying the uprising now really means death.

With all my power I wish to persuade the comrades that

now everything hangs on a hair, that on the order of the

day are questions that are not solved by conferences,

by congresses (even by Congresses of Soviets), but only

by the people, by the masses, by the struggle of armed

masses.

The bourgeois onslaught of the Kornilovists, the removal

of Verkhovsky, show that we must not wait. We must at

any price, this evening, to-night, arrest the Ministers,

having disarmed (defeated if they offer resistance) the

military cadets, etc.

We must not wait! We may lose everything!

The immediate gain from the seizure of power at

present is: defense of the people (not the congress, but

the people, in the first place, the army and the

peasants) against the Kornilovist government which has

driven out Verkhovsky and has hatched a second

Kornilov plot.

Who should seize power?

At present this is not important. Let the Military

Revolutionary Committee seize it, or “some other

institution” which declares that it will relinquish the

power only to the real representatives of the interests of

the people, the interests of the Army (immediate offer of

peace), the interests of the peasants (take the land

immediately, abolish private property), the interests of

the hungry.

It is necessary that all the boroughs, all regiments, all

forces should be mobilised and should immediately send

delegations to the Military Revolutionary Committee, to

the Central Committee of the Bolsheviks, insistently

demanding that under no circumstances is power to be

left in the hands of Kerensky and Co. Until the 7th, by no

means! — but that the matter must absolutely be

decided this evening or to-night.

History will not forgive delay by revolutionists who could

be victorious to-day (and will surely be victorious to-

day), while they risk losing much to-morrow, they risk

losing all.

If we seize power to-day, we seize it not against the

Soviets but for them.

Seizure of power is the point of the uprising; its political

task will be clarified after the seizure.

It would be a disaster or formalism to wait for the

uncertain voting of November 7. The people have a

right and a duty to decide such questions not by voting

but by force; the people have a right and duty in critical

moments of a revolution to give directions to their

representatives, even their best representatives, and

not to wait for them.

This has been proven by the history of all revolutions,

and the crime of revolutionists would be limitless if they

let go the proper moment, knowing that upon them

depends the saving of the revolution, the offer of peace,

the saving of Petrograd, the saving from starvation, the

transfer of the land to the peasants.

The government is tottering. We must deal it the death

blow at any cost.

To delay action is the same as death.

If this letter showed anything, it was the total lack of

coordination between Lenin and the Central Committee. It

also showed Lenin’s deep distrust of the revolutionary

inclinations of his colleagues. Would the proposed coup

actually take place?

By 10 PM, Lenin decided to leave his flat and make his way

to the Smolny. He put on his ill-fitted wig and added a pair of

glasses but in his haste, had forgotten his makeup. So, he

wrapped a large handkerchief around his head as if he had a

toothache then caught a tram part of the way, arriving at

the Smolny just before midnight. The sentries at the main

gate refused to let him enter because his pass had expired.

He telephoned Trotsky and soon both men were ready to

make history.

Small groups of Bolshevik troops moved out of their

barracks in the early hours of Wednesday, October 25th.

They were visibly relieved at the general lack of resistance.

They took the Neva bridges, the main telegraph office, the

post offices, the railroad stations, the Central Bank and the

power stations. No shots were fired. The troops simply

surrounded the office and forced those inside into

submission. There was little evidence of retaliation. When

Kerensky woke up that morning he looked out his window

and noticed that the Bolsheviks controlled the bridge

leading to the Winter Palace. He tried to telephone the

Palace but his line was dead. So, the leader of the

Provisional Government had to do something: he decided to

leave Petrograd, go to the front and raise an army of loyal

troops so that the coup could be put down. He made his way

to the government motor pool but the Bolsheviks had

already removed all the distributors from the cars. An

ensign was sent out to see if he could requisition an

automobile that worked. The ensign made his way to the

British Embassy but his request for an automobile was

denied. The author, Vladimir Nabokov was still in his

morning bath when the ensign knocked on his door.

Somewhat upset, Nabokov told him his car was not suitable

for Kerensky’s long journey to Tosno, where he was to meet

the troops. The Chief of the Militia turned the ensign away

as did the Italian Embassy. The worried ensign was about to

give up when he saw an automobile flying an American flag.

The Pierce Arrow belonged to the Assistant Military

Attach�, E. Francis Bigg. The ensign told the attach�

that the car was for Kerensky. The Americans agreed that

Kerensky could use the car but also wanted his personal

assurance. So the ensign and three Americans walked to the

General Staff Building where Kerensky assured them that he

did indeed need the car. Soon, Kerensky and several of his

aides climbed into the car and were off. However, since

Kerensky’s driver, an American, really didn’t know where

they were going, they ended up making several wide circles

of the Palace Square in full view of hundreds of spectators

who, of course, recognized Kerensky. It was at least thirty

minutes before Kerensky’s driver found his way out of

Petrograd and toward the northern front.

Government ministers arrived at the Winter Palace by cab,

while in the Smolny, Lenin announced their overthrow. The

city pretty much ignored Lenin’s claim. Trams were running,

the banks were open and factories were working. The troops

stationed themselves at strategic points but were clearly

bored. At 2:35pm, Trotsky felt compelled to hold an

extraordinary session of the Petrograd Soviet to prevent the

Congress delegates drifting away in boredom at the Smolny.

He claimed that the government had “ceased to exist,” as

the result of a movement of “such enormous masses” for

which there was no parallel in history. The only real sign of

revolt was the odd armored car, siren blaring, with Bolshevik

initials splashed on its gray body. Sukhanov was so

unimpressed by it all that he went home to eat supper by

candlelight. He thought that any Bolshevik regime would be

short-lived.

The siege of the Winter Palace was so sloppy that the

American journalists John Reed and Louis Bryant were able

to stroll into the building during the afternoon. Palace

servants in their Tsarist blue uniforms took their coats, and

cadets were glad to show them around. Louise Bryant found

them “poor, uncomfortable, unhappy boys,” reared in

genteel isolation and now “without a court, without a Tsar,

without all the tradition they believed in.” Packing crates

and mattresses littered the floors along with cigarette butts

and empty wine bottles. Many of the defenders were drunk.

“I am very anxious to get away from Russia,” remarked one

captain to Reed, “I have made up my mind to join the

American army.” Two cyclists arrived with a Bolshevik

ultimatum threatening to open fire if the palace did not

surrender by 7:10pm. The ministers still had hopes that

Kerensky would appear with reinforcements and declined to

give themselves up.

As it turned out, the coup did not interfere with the evening

life of the city. The ministers in the Winter Palace dined on

soup, fish and artichokes and then ordered all the lights to

be put out. Meanwhile, the Bolshevik-manned battleship

Aurora, moored on the Neva, was ordered to open fire on

the Palace when a red light was shone from the Peter and

Paul Fortress. However, since the cruiser was fresh out of

the dockyards it had only blank ammunition on board.

Anyway, the fortress garrison could not find a red light but

eventually a purple flare was launched and the Aurora

began to fire its blanks. The cadets at the Palace opened fire

with their machine guns but it was several minutes before

they realized that no bombs were falling.

The women’s detachment loyal to Kerensky, declaring that

its function was to fight Germans, left the Palace. At 11 PM,

the six-inch guns of the Peter and Paul Fortress began to fire

rounds at the 1500-room Winter Palace. One shell missed by

several hundred yards; another hit but did little damage.

Most shells fell into the Neva. Meanwhile, the Ministers took

naps. In a period of two hours, the Bolsheviks fired thirty-

five shots at the Winter Palace: only two shots found their

mark and according to Trotsky, did little more than “injure

the plaster.”

At 2 AM on October 26th, a friend called on the Justice

Minister Malyantovich to ask how he was. “Not bad. In

cheerful spirits,” he replied. He lay back and tried to sleep

but soon he began to hear noises. The ministers grabbed

their coats. A cadet rushed in and asked “What are the

orders of the government? To fight to the last man?”

Wearily, the ministers shouted back, “It’s not necessary. It’s

useless. No bloodshed!” Just then a mob of Bolsheviks

crowded into the room. One man stood at the front and

shouted: “I inform you, all you members of the Provisional

Government, that you are arrested. I am Antonov-Ovseenko,

a representative of the Military Revolutionary Committee.”

Petrograd had fallen to the Bolsheviks.

COMMENTS AND REFLECTIONS ON 1917

This so-called October Revolution was an “armed

insurrection” carried out by the Bolshevik Party using the

apparatus of the Petrograd Soviet. Lenin insisted that the

transfer of power from the Provisional Government to the

Bolsheviks take this militarized form rather than the political

form of a vote by the forthcoming All-Russian Congress of

Soviets, an approach favored by Zinoviev and Kamenev.

Lenin did this because he believed, as did Marx, that the

class struggle was class warfare and so necessarily involved

physical violence. No other method could demonstrate

where the real power lay. In the same manner, Lenin

understood the literal meaning of Marx’s call to “expropriate

the expropriators” by urging the masses to “steal the

stolen.” This was no violation of Marx’s view of the logic of

history — armed coercion was always integral to that logic.

And so, the October coup set the precedent for the

continuing use of coercion by the Party through all the

stages required to construct socialism.

From his refuge in Finland, Lenin initiated pressure for such

an insurrection in the wake of the Kornilov affair of the late

summer, and by October 10th he had persuaded the Central

Committee to vote 10 to 2 for such an action “in principle.”

But the task of organizing the insurrection fell to Leon

Trotsky. In order to give the Party coup an appearance of

greater proletarian legitimacy, Trotsky delayed it so that it

would coincide with the forthcoming, national Congress of

Soviets. This was against Lenin’s express command. Trotsky

also engineered the creation within the Soviet of the Military

Revolutionary Committee, which was in fact dominated by

the Bolsheviks, to carry out the actual takeover of

Petrograd.

In other words, this Revolution was a minority military

action, not a mass event like the one that occurred in

February, or in 1905, for that matter. To be more precise,

what did occur was an amateur police operation of the

Military Revolutionary Committee, some sailors of the Baltic

fleet and a handful of Red Guards to take over the nerve-

centers of the capital on the night of October 24th. The

Petrograd proletariat and the city’s military garrison

remained overwhelmingly neutral. Because there were no

forces to fight for the Provisional Government, the

Bolsheviks had almost nothing to overthrow. As Lenin

himself put it, the Party “found power lying in the streets

and simply picked it up.”

Thus the strategy that Lenin had embraced in his APRIL

THESES paid off in the October seizure of power. Lenin, the

Bolshevik leader, hitherto unknown to most Russians as well

as the outside world, suddenly found himself the chairman

of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Russian Soviet

Republic, a government that was in fact little more than the

Bolshevik Party in power. This new power immediately

issued two decrees. The first, “On Peace,” called for a

negotiated end to the war. What this really meant was

Russia’s unilateral withdrawal from the conflict. The second,

“On Land,” socialized gentry and state properties. What this

implied was an endorsement of the already accomplished

agrarian revolution. As Lenin put it to Trotsky on the night of

the coup, “it makes the head swim.”

Our sense of wonder at the Bolshevik victory has lingered in

the historiography ever since, where it has produced

problems of interpretation The problem arises from the

facts. First, that the Bolshevik Party was largely Lenin’s

personal creation and second, that his personal insistence

on armed insurrection was the driving force which led up to

the October coup. However, does all this mean that without

Lenin there would have been no Red October and hence no

Soviet regime?

This rather extreme version of the “great man” theory has

often been advanced. Even Trotsky, though committed as a

Marxist to the social logic of history, comes close to holding

Lenin indispensable to Bolshevik victory. Trotsky may have

wished to be more cautious. The events of 1917 — from

Order Number One in February to the emergence of the Left

SRs in October — show that even without Lenin there was

ample room on the Russian Left for an extremist party of

“revolution now.” Consider that statement carefully. Before

October it was the case that Lenin’s Party, although the

most hierarchical of all the Russian parties, was not as yet

the monolithic instrument commanded at will by its leader

that it later became.

Indeed, Trotsky’s own historical role belies the overriding

importance he attributed to Lenin. In addition, Trotsky’s role

also points to the fluidity of the Party in 1917. After all,

Trotsky abandoned the Mensheviks only in June 1917. And in

October, it was Trotsky who was directing the Bolshevik

seizure of power. Go figure! He even countermanded Lenin’s

impatient directives in order to coordinate the Party

takeover with the Congress of Soviets, so as to enhance the

coup’s “proletarian” appearance. Lenin, for all the impetus

he gave to the coup, had nothing to do with carrying it out,

since he was still in hiding when it began. Where Lenin was

more than truly indispensable was in his role, over the

previous fourteen years, as architect of the Party

organization. However, even in this domain, by 1917, there

were numerous little Lenin’s who could have pursued the

same maximalist policies.

The maximalist strategy that Lenin worked out in the April

Theses would work only in the exceptional social

circumstances that the war had by 1917 created in Russia.

The central fact of that year was that the linchpin of the

over-centralized Russian Imperial system was removed.

From that point on, all subordinate structures in the country

began to quickly unravel. The army, the industrial economy,

the social structure of the countryside, and the

administrative system of the Empire, both in the Great

Russian provinces and among the border nationalities all

disintegrated. By the end of the year, Russia no longer

possessed any functioning, organized structures. The result

was a generalized void of power, an interregnum in all

aspects of national life. Thus, by the end of October the

wreckage of the Russian Empire was up for grabs,

vulnerable to whatever force with the will and organizational

capacity to take it over.

The dynamic of national disintegration began with the army

and was driven throughout the year above all by the war.

The policy of the Provisional Government was to prosecute

the war to a victorious conclusion at the side of its

democratic allies. The policy of the Soviet was to fight only

for a “democratic peace without annexations or

indemnities.” Once discipline had been restored after the

work of Order Number One, the liberal-socialist coalition

government formed in April adopted a …