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Gary Arndt
One of the most transformative events of the 20th century was the Russian Revolution. The revolution was responsible for the downfall of the Russian monarchy and the rise of the Soviet Union, the world's first communist country. However, its impact wasn't limited to Russia. It had reverberations that were felt all over the world by other revolutions that were inspired by it. Learn more about the Russian Revolution, why it happened, and how it came about on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by Quint's. It's summertime and that means it's time to bring out the summer clothes. If you're looking to update your wardrobe this summer, I suggest you check out Quince. Quince has all the things you actually want to wear this summer, like organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts, and comfortable pants that work for everything from hanging out in the backyard to nice dinners. And the best part? 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There are entire podcasts out there that have spent hundreds of hours covering the subject in depth. So as it's impossible to cover everything, my goal here is just to provide a very high level overview of the revolution, the causes of it and the major events that took place. And we'll start the story at the beginning of the 20th century. Russia in the early 1900s was a vast empire stretching across 11 time zones, ruled by an autocratic tsar who claimed divine authority. This enormous country was caught in a painful contradiction. It remained largely feudal and agricultural, while still trying to compete with rapidly industrializing Western nations. Compared to the rest of Europe at this point, Russia was rather backwards. When Karl Marx wrote about a communist revolution springing up in capitalist industrial economies, he most certainly was not thinking of Russia, which barely had an industrial base. He was thinking of countries like Germany or England. The fundamental causes of the revolution had been building for decades. Russia's social structure resembled a pyramid, with a tiny elite at the top and a massive base of impoverished peasants. About 85% of the population were peasants who had only recently been freed from serfdom in 1861. Yet they remained desperately poor and landless. Above them sat a small but growing middle class of merchants and professionals, while at the very top, the nobility and the imperial family lived in extraordinary luxury. Czar Nicholas II, who came to power in 1894, was perhaps the wrong man for such times. Unlike his more decisive predecessors, Nicholas was indecisive and often seemed overwhelmed by the magnitude of Russia's problems. He genuinely believed in his divine right to rule, which made him resistant to the kind of fundamental reforms that might have prevented a revolution. The first major crack in the tsarist system came with the Revolution of 1905. Triggered by Russia's humiliating defeat in the Russo Japanese War, the Russian Empire had been defeated by what many Europeans still considered a minor Asian power, Japan. This military disaster exposed the incompetence of the Taurus government and military leadership. It was in this environment that the first step towards revolution took place. In 1905, on January 22, Father Georgi Gapon led a peaceful march of workers to petition the Tsar for better conditions. Instead of receiving their petition, the marchers were fired upon by troops, killing hundreds. This event shattered the traditional image of The Tsar as the little father who cared for his people. The event ignited widespread strikes, mutinies and peasant uprisings. In response, Tsar Nicholas issued the October Manifesto, which promised civil liberties in the creation of a new parliament called the Duma. However, this concession was limited. The Duma had little real power and repression quickly resumed. Fast forward almost a decade to the start of the First World War in 1914. Initially, the war generated patriotic enthusiasm, as it did in countries throughout Europe. But this quickly turned to despair as the true scale of Russian military unpreparedness became apparent. The Russian military suffered catastrophic losses, with millions of soldiers killed, wounded or captured in just the first two years of fighting. The war created a cascading series of crises. Military defeats led to massive casualties, which created shortages of experienced officers and trained soldiers, to which then led to more defeats. The economy, already strained by rapid industrialization, collapsed under the demands of total war. Food shortages became common in cities, while inflation destroyed the savings of the middle class. Perhaps most damaging to the monarchy's reputation was the influence of Grigori Rasputin, a mysterious monk who seemed to hold sway over Tsarina Alexandra through his apparent ability to help her hemophiliac son. Alexei Rasputin's presence at court became a symbol of the dynasty's corruption and incompetence, leading to his eventual murder in December of 1916. By early 1917, the Tsara system had lost all legitimacy when bread riots broke out in February in Petrograd, which is what St. Petersburg used to be called. The crucial moment came when the soldiers refused to fire on the crowds and instead joined them. What became known as the February Revolution unfolded with surprising speed. Within days, the century old Romanov dynasty had collapsed and Nicholas II abdicated. The revolution succeeded so quickly because it had already won. In the people's minds, the monarchy had simply lost all support. Two competing centers of power emerged from the February Revolution. The Provisional Government, initially led by Prince Georgi Lvov and later by Alexander Kerensky, claimed legal authority as the successor to the Tsarist government. Simultaneously, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies emerged as an alternative power center representing the masses. A Soviet was the name of the legislative councils created in the aftermath of the revolution. This dual power situation created a fundamental instability. The Provisional Government controlled the official state apparatus, but lacked real authority over the military or the streets. The Soviet had the loyalty of the workers and the soldiers, but initially chose not to take formal power, believing that Russia wasn't ready for a social revolution. In April, things took a dramatic turn. In a Way that wouldn't become clear until years later, Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia from exile. Lenin was the leader of the Bolsheviks, a radical faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party. His journey back to Russia is itself remarkable. The German government, hoping to destabilize Russia, provided him with safe passage through Germany from Switzerland in a sealed train car. In one of the greatest cases of unintended consequences in world history, the German plan worked far better than they ever could have hoped. Lenin issued what became known as the April Theses, which shocked even his own party members. While other socialist leaders supported the Provisional Government and Russia's continued participation in the war. Lenin demanded immediate peace, redistribution of land to peasants, and the transfer of all power to the Soviets. His slogan, peace, land, bread, spoke directly to the three issues that mattered to most ordinary Russians. And here I should note something about revolutions in general. Revolutions are always against things, and they're almost never for things, at least not at first. The Russian Revolution was first and foremost a revolt against the Tsar and the established order in Russia. It wasn't a revolution for for communism per se. However, as with most revolutions, once the initial objective is complete, what happens next depends on who's more organized and sometimes who is more brutal. Throughout 1917, the Bolsheviks gained support amongst workers, peasants and soldiers. Disillusioned with the Provisional Government, they were methodically working on taking full power in Russia. Despite its name, the October Revolution actually occurred in November of 1917. According to the Western calendar, Russia was still using the old Julian calendar. At the time. This revolution was fundamentally different from the February Revolution. While February had been a spontaneous uprising that overthrew the Tsar, October was a carefully planned coup d' etat that brought the Bolsheviks to power. One of the key figures in organizing the October Revolution was Leon Trotsky, the brilliant orator and organizer who chaired the Petrograd Soviet. Trotsky understood that a successful revolution required not just popular support, but also control of key strategic points such as telegraph offices, railway stations, government buildings and military arsenals, all of which the Bolsheviks had secured by the time of the coup. The actual storming of the Winter palace, where the Provisional Government was meeting, was far less dramatic than later Soviet propaganda portrayed. Most of the palace's defenders had already melted away, and the building was captured with minimal fighting. The real achievement was the Bolsheviks systematic seizure of control throughout Petrograd and other major cities. The Bolshevik seizure of power in October of 1917 was just the beginning of their struggle. However, they faced immediate challenges that would shape the Soviet state for decades to come. First came the separate Peace with Germany through the Treaty of Brest Litovsk in March of 1918. Lenin recognized that continuing the war would destroy his new government, even though the treaty's terms were humiliating and cost Russia enormous territories. Russia ceded areas including Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States, which are today Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and parts of Poland, amounting to about a third of its population, a quarter of its industry and over half of its coal and iron resources. This decision sparked fierce opposition and contributed to the outbreak of civil war. The Russian Civil War involved the Bolsheviks, known as the Reds and the anti Bolshevik Whites. The Reds controlled central Russia, including key cities like Moscow and Petrograd. They were organized, ideologically, unified and led by the Red army, which was built and commanded by Leon Trotsky. Trotsky built the Red army out of nothing, which was actually quite the accomplishment given the circumstances. The Russian army today can trace a direct path to the Red army created during the Russian Civil War. The Whites were a loose coalition of monarchists, republicans, liberals and moderate socialists. Some wanted to restore the monarchy and others just wanted a democratic government. They were supported by foreign powers such as Britain, France, Japan and the United States, who feared the spread of Communism. However, the Whites suffered from poor coordination, conflicting ideologies and a lack of a united command structure. Several smaller nationalist movements also emerged from the chaos, particularly in Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Further complicating the war, the Bolsheviks implemented harsh measures during the war, including war communism, forced grain requisitioning and widespread political repression. The Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police, carried out the Red terror, executing tens of thousands of real and perceived enemies. Given what we know about the rest of the 20th century's history, it's easy to paint the Reds as the bad guys. And they were pretty bad. The Whites, however, were also guilty of atrocities, including pogroms and mass executions. There were some communities that simply rebelled against both sides of the conflict. Ultimately, the unorganized Whites couldn't compete with the Reds. By 1922, the Red army had decisively defeated its enemies. The Bolsheviks emerged victorious. But the country was devastated. Millions had died from combat, famine and disease, and much of the economy was in ruins. That same year, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR was was officially established, marking the birth of the Soviet state. There are probably a dozen future episodes from what I've covered in this single Russia during the First World War. Rasputin, the return of Lenin, the February and October Revolutions, the Treaty of Brest Litovsk, the Civil War, the involvement of foreign forces during the war, including America and many others. While the end of the civil war is usually the period that most people consider the end of the revolution, the revolution later turned on many of its early leaders. Alexander Kerensky, the leader of the Provisional Government, ended up fleeing to the United States and lived in New York. He died at the age of 89 in 1970. Vladimir Lenin died of a stroke in 1924, and his body is still on display in Red Square in Moscow today. He was eventually replaced as leader of the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin, who won a power struggle against Leon Trotsky. Trotsky then had to flee the Soviet Union and was hunted down by Soviet agents. He finally met his end in 1940 in Mexico City, where he was killed by members of the Soviet secret police. He was assassinated with a mountaineering ice axe. The Russian Revolution's impact extended far beyond Russia's borders. It created the world's first communist state and provided a model and inspiration for revolutionary movements worldwide. The establishment of the Soviet Union fundamentally altered the global balance of power, setting the stage for the Cold War that would dominate international relations for the next seven decades. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Oakton and Cameron Kieffer. I want to thank everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible. I'd also like to thank all the members of the Everything Everywhere community who are active on the Facebook group and the Discord server. If you'd like to join in the discussion, there are links to both in the show notes and as always, if you leave a review or send me a boostogram, you too can have it read on the show.