Class 9 history Russian Revolution PDF Download

The Age of Social Change

After the revolution, individual rights and social power began to be discussed in many parts of the world including Europe and Asia. Colonial development reshaped ideas of societal change but everyone was not in favour of the complete transformation of society. Through the revolution in Russia, socialism became one of the most significant and powerful ideas to shape society in the twentieth century.

Liberals, Radicals and Conservatives

• Liberals: Wanted a nation which tolerated all religions. They argued for an elected Parliamentary government, subject to laws interpreted by a well-trained judiciary that was Independent of rulers and officials. They were not democrats.
• Radicals: Wanted a nation in which government was based on the majority of a country’s Population. They disliked concentration of property in hands of a few, not the existence of private property.
• Conservatives: They resisted change. After the revolution they started accepting changeProvided it was slow and had links and respected the past.

Industrial Society and Social Change

• Industrial Revolution led to changes in social and economic life, new cities came up and new industrialised regions developed. 
• Men, women and children came to factories in search of work. But, unfortunately, working hours were long and wages were poor. 
• There was unemployment during the time of low demand for industrial goods. Liberals and radicals made wealth through trade or industrial ventures. 
• According to them, society can be developed if freedom of individuals was ensured, if the poor could labour, and those with capital could operate without restraint. 
• In France, Italy, Germany and Russia, revolutionaries overthrow existing monarchs. Nationalists talked of revolutions to create ‘nations’ with equal rights.

The Coming of Socialism to Europe

• Socialism was a well-known body of ideas by the mid-nineteenth century in Europe. Socialists were against private property and saw it as the root of all social ills of the time. They wanted to change it and campaigned for it. 
• Robert Owen (1771-1858) sought to build a cooperative community called New Harmony in Indiana (USA). 
• Louis Blanc (1813-1882) wanted the government to encourage cooperatives and replace capitalist enterprises. 
• Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) added other ideas to this body of arguments. 
• According to Marx industrial society was ‘capitalist’ who owned the capital invested in factories, and the profit of capitalists was produced by workers. Capitalism and the rule of private property were overthrown. 
• Marx believed that a communist society was the natural society of the future.

Support for Socialism

• By the 1870s, socialist ideas spread through Europe and they formed an international body – namely, the Second International. 
• Associations were formed by workers in Germany and England to fight for better living and working conditions. 
• The Labour Party and Socialist Party were formed by socialists and trade unionists, by 1905.

The Russian Revolution

• Economy and Society: Most of the Russian population were agriculturalist. Industries were being set up which was mostly private property of industrialists. Workers were divided into groups but they get united to strike work when they were dissatisfied. Peasants had no respect for nobility, very unlike the French peasant. Russian peasants were the only peasant community which pooled their land and their commune divided it.
• Socialism in Russia: All political parties were illegal in Russia before 1914. The Russian Socialist Democratic Labour Party was formed in 1900. It struggled to give peasants their rights over land that belonged to nobles. As land was divided among peasants periodically and it was felt that peasants and not workers would be the main source of the revolution. But Lenin did not agree with this as he felt that peasants were not one social group. The party was divided into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.
• The 1905 Revolution: Russia was an autocracy. The Tsar was not subject to the parliament. Liberals wanted to end this state of affairs. They worked towards demanding a constitution during the Revolution of 1905.
• Bloody Sunday: Prices of essential goods rose so quickly by 1904 that the real wages declined by 20%. During this time, four members of the Putilov Iron Works were dismissed. Action was called for. Over 110,000 workers in St. Petersburg went on strike demanding a reduction in working hours and increase in wages. This procession was attacked by the police and Cossacks. Over 100 workers were killed. Strikes took place as a reaction. People demanded a constituent assembly. The Tsar allowed the creation of an elected consultative Parliament or Duma. The Tsar dismissed the first Duma within 75 days and announced the election of a second Duma.
• The First World War and the Russian Empire : In Russia, the war was initially very popular but later the support grew thin. Anti-German sentiments ran high. Russian armies lost badly in Germany and Austria. There were 7 million casualties and 3 million refugees in Russia. The war also affected the industry. There was labour shortage, railway lines were shut down and small workshops were closed down. There was shortage of grain and hence of bread.

The February Revolution in Petrograd

• Petrograd city is divided among its people. 
• On the right bank of the River Neva workers quarters and factories were located and on the left bank located fashionable areas such as the Winter Palace and official buildings. 
• Food shortages deeply affected the workers’ quarters. 
• On the right bank, a factory was shut down on February 22. Women also led the way to strikes and it is called International Women’s Day. 
• The government imposed a curfew as the fashionable quarters and official buildings were surrounded by workers. Duma was suspended on 25th February. 
• The streets thronged with demonstrators raising slogans about bread, wages, better hours and democracy. The government called out the cavalry but they refused to fire on the demonstrators. 
• Soldiers and striking workers gathered to form a ‘soviet’ or ‘council’ in the same building as the Duma met and it is termed as the Petrograd Soviet. 
• Soviet leaders and Duma leaders formed a Provisional Government to run the country. Russia’s future would be decided by a constituent assembly, elected on the basis of universal adult suffrage. 
• Petrograd had led the February Revolution that brought down the monarchy in February 1917.

Effects

• Restrictions on public meetings and associations were removed.Soviets were set up everywhere.
• In individual areas factory committees were formed which began questioning the way industrialists ran their factories. Soldiers’ committees were formed in the army.
• The provisional government saw its power declining and Bolshevik influence grow. It decided to take stern measures against the spreading discontent. 
• It resisted attempts by workers to run factories and arrested leaders.
• Peasants and the socialist revolutionary leaders pressed for a redistribution of land. Land committees were formed and peasants seized land between July and September 1917.

October Revolution

• 16th October 1917 — Lenin persuaded the Petrograd Soviet and Bolshevik Party to agree to a socialist seizure of power. A Military Revolutionary Committee was appointed by the Soviet to organise seizure.
• Uprising began on 24th October. Prime Minister Kerenskii left the city to summon troops. Military men loyal to the government seized the buildings of two Bolshevik newspapers. Progovernment troops were sent to take over telephone and telegraph offices and protect the Winter Palace. 
• In response Military Revolutionary Committee ordered to seize government offices and arrest the ministers. The ‘Aurora’ ship shelled the Winter Palace. Other ships took over strategic points. By night the city had been taken over and ministers had surrendered.
• All Russian Congress of Soviets in Petrograd approved the Bolshevik action. Heavy fighting in Moscow by December, the Bolsheviks controlled the Moscow - Petrograd area. The people involved were Lenin, the Bolsheviks, and troops (pro-government).

Effects

• Most of the industries and banks were nationalised in November 1917. Land was declared social property and peasants were allowed to seize the land of the nobility. 
• Use of old titles was banned. New uniforms were designed for the army and officials.
• Russia became a one party state.
• Trade unions were kept under party control. A process of centralised planning was introduced. This led to economic growth.
• Industrial production increased. An extended schooling system developed. Collectivisation of farms started.

The Civil War

• The Russian Army broke up and their leaders moved to south Russia and organised troops to fight the Bolsheviks (the ‘reds’). 
• During 1918 and 1919, the Russian Empire was controlled by the ‘greens’ (Socialist Revolutionaries) and ‘whites’ (pro-Tsarists) backed by French, American, British and Japanese troops. These troops and the Bolsheviks fought a civil war. 
• By January 1920, the Bolsheviks controlled most of the former Russian empire. In the name of defending socialism, Bolshevik colonists brutally massacred local nationalists. 
• Most non-Russian nationalities were given political autonomy in the Soviet Union (USSR) – the state the Bolsheviks created from the Russian empire in December 1922.

Making a Socialist Society

• During the civil war, industries and banks kept nationalised. Peasants were permitted to cultivate the land. 
• Centralised planning process was introduced. Officials worked on how the economy will work and set targets for a five-year period. 
• During the first two ‘Plans’ the government fixed all prices to promote industrial growth (1927-1932 and 1933-1938). 
• Centralised planning led to economic growth. But, rapid construction led to poor working conditions. 
• Schooling system developed, and arrangements were made for factory workers and peasants to enter universities. 
• For women workers, crèches were established in factories for the children. Cheap public health care was provided. Model living quarters were set up for workers.

Stalinism and Collectivisation

• The period of the early Planned Economy led to disaster of the collectivisation of agriculture. 
• By 1927- 1928, the towns in Soviet Russia faced an acute problem of grain supplies. Stalin introduced firm emergency measures. 
• In 1928, party members toured the grain-producing areas, supervising enforced grain collections, and raiding ‘kulaks’ – the name for well to-do peasants. After 1917, land had been given over to peasants. 
• From 1929, the Party forced all peasants to cultivate in collective farms (kolkhoz). Peasants worked on the land, and the kolkhoz profit was shared. Between 1929 and 1931, the number of cattle fell by one-third. 
• The government of Stalin allowed some independent cultivation, but treated such cultivators unsympathetically. 
• In spite of collectivisation, production did not increase immediately and due to bad harvests of 1930-1933 over 4 million people died. 
• Throughout the country, accusations were made, and by 1939, over 2 million were in prisons or labour camps.

The Global Influence of the Russian Revolution and the USSR

• In many countries, communist parties were formed, like the Communist Party of Great Britain. Non-Russians from outside the USSR participated in the Conference of the Peoples of the East (1920). 
• The Bolshevik-founded Comintern (an international union of pro-Bolshevik socialist parties). Before the outbreak of the Second World War, the USSR had given socialism a global face and world stature. 
• The USSR became a great power and its industries and agriculture had developed and the poor were being fed. By the end of the twentieth century, the international reputation of the USSR as a socialist country had declined.