We looked at archival photographs from rallies and demonstrations in 1917, slogans with which people took to the streets and asked for a doctor historical sciences, Deputy Director of the Institute Russian history RAS Dmitry Pavlov to talk about how the demands, dreams and hopes of the Russian people came true or ended in disappointment
Land for the peasants, factories for the workers, power for the people!
Slogan of the radical left (not only the Bolsheviks)
Peasants. Peasants received land according to the Decree on Land of October 26/November 8, 1917 and the Basic Law on the Socialization of Land (February 1918). But after the introduction of the “food dictatorship” in the spring of 1918, they actually lost the right to use the products of their labor, which were forcibly confiscated by the poor peasants’ committees and food brigades. The surplus appropriation system was abolished with the transition to the NEP in March 1921. But collectivization Agriculture led to the final nationalization of both the land and the products of peasant labor.
Workers. After an unsuccessful experiment with the transfer of industrial enterprises to the control of factory committees, the Bolshevik government began to nationalize industry and transport. At the end of June 1918, large companies were nationalized industrial enterprises, in November 1920 - all industrial enterprises with more than five workers.
Power to the people. This meant the transfer of power to elected multi-party Councils of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies. In reality, such “power of the Soviets” lasted until the summer of 1918, when the first Soviet elections took place after the Bolsheviks came to power. Through manipulation, use administrative resource, and often with direct violence, the Bolsheviks pushed aside their competitors and won a majority in the new Soviets. Since 1919, at congresses and conferences of the RCP (b), the slow “dying” of the Soviets, bureaucratic and removed from state affairs by party bodies, was increasingly noted.
War for the freedom of peoples until the complete destruction of German capitalism!
The slogan of Russian socialists, Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries of the 1917 model.
The Bolsheviks came to power under the slogan of Russia’s immediate withdrawal from the war and the conclusion of a democratic (without annexations and indemnities) peace, which was reflected in the Peace Decree of October 26/November 8, 1917. The subsequent negotiations with Germany and its allies led to the signing of the peace treaty in Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918, which was actually a surrender Soviet Russia: the country was losing territory of 780 thousand. square kilometers with a population of 56 million people and pledged to pay reparations of 6 billion marks, as well as compensate for Germany’s material losses from the Russian Revolution in the amount of half a billion gold rubles.
If a woman is a slave, there will be no freedom. Women's voting rights!
Slogan of all Russian revolutionary democracy in 1917
Death to the bourgeoisie!
Post-October slogan of the Bolsheviks and their allies (anarchists, left Socialist Revolutionaries and maximalists)
Was successfully implemented
during the years of the revolution and the Civil War with the help of the Cheka - the main repressive instrument of the Bolsheviks.
Down with the death penalty!
The slogan of all socialists in 1917
It was abolished after the February Revolution, but was resumed in the summer of 1917 by the Provisional Government for military and especially serious crimes. Completely abolished by the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets on October 26 / November 8, 1917. Despite this, from the end of 1917 Lenin called on “communes, small cells in the countryside and in the city” to independently engage in “correcting the correctable elements of the rich, bourgeois intellectuals, swindlers and hooligans "" in a thousand forms and ways" - from "cleaning outhouses" to "executing one in ten on the spot." Officially resumed by a departmental act - a resolution of the People's Commissariat of Justice dated June 16, 1918 in relation to "revolutionary tribunals". The boss was the first victim Baltic Fleet Shchastny, who refused to carry out Trotsky’s order to scuttle military ships. He was executed by the verdict of the Supreme Tribunal of the Central Executive Committee on June 21, 1918.
Old photographs confirm that the spring rejoicing of the people over the overthrow of tsarism gave way to bitter disappointment. In the fall, under the slogans: “Down with the capitalist ministers,” the Bolshevization of the soviets took place.
L. Trotsky, having become the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, turned the Executive Committee of the Soviet into a headquarters for preparing a coup d'etat.
No, today Russia is not threatened by bread riots. Again we reaped a good harvest. And there are no problems with food in the country.
But social differentiation and today it is manifested in the fact that wealthy Russians, being able to overpay for services and food, eat and live normally, but millions of Russians who receive 7 thousand rubles for their work, as well as pensioners, are already simply malnourished and sometimes go hungry.
The most powerful socio-political irritant is how the public property is preserved and distributed - the treasury.
Every year, the Accounts Chamber names huge amounts of illegal spending of budget funds.
Every year, people learn about how appointees of the head of state participate in cuts and kickbacks of budget funds that are allocated from the treasury. Some of them are prosecuted, but the stolen goods, as a rule, remain untouched.
In every region, Russians know how officials live, but those who are obliged to check whether they legally own the property that they have do not see this?
Russians see what cars these same “inspectors” drive to work, what apartments and houses they live in, where and how they relax. But the clause has not been applied to officials or their “inspectors” for the sixth year now. 8 paragraph 2 art. 235 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, which allows the deprivation of property of someone who owns it unlawfully. And every year there is so much talk about the fight against corruption.
Today there are none political forces who would firmly promise to find a way out of the current situation. The existing Bolshevik Party is losing the trust of the people. And how could it be otherwise, if deputies from this party in the State Duma voted for laws that provide them with a salary that exceeds the average salary in the country by 20-30 times, and pensions of Russians by 40-50 times?
V. Putin, the guarantor of the Russian Constitution, is also losing trust. Only 45,602,075 out of 110,000,000 eligible voters voted for him in the last election.
Something tells me that if he goes to the position of guarantor of the Constitution for the fourth time, he won’t get that much.
I am sure that the 15,000,000 working pensioners who were deprived of pension indexation in 2018 will not vote for such a guarantor of the Constitution.
Millions of graduates educational institutions who have not found work in their specialty, knowing that deputies and ministers have assigned pensions to themselves at 75% of their salary of 800,000 rubles, and their grandparents, who have 40-50 years of work experience, have been assigned pensions of 7- 10 thousand rubles, they are unlikely to want to vote for such a guarantor of the Constitution.
During all the years of his rule, V. Putin never moderated the autocracy of his appointees with the requirements of the Basic Law and did not provide judicial protection for Russians from illegal and unreasonable actions, inactions and decisions of government bodies and officials.
A hundred years ago, out of despair, people decided to support the Bolsheviks, seeing in them a more decisive political force capable of establishing order in the country.
Today there is no force capable of establishing the power of the Constitution and justice in the country, which can ensure the meaning, content and application of laws, the activities of the legislative and executive powers.
The main problem is that those who exercise state power today do not understand this. Therefore, those who do not even promise to establish the rule of the Basic Law in the country are striving for power. They want to establish their own autocracy and the people will again be in the hands of new adventurers.
"Transformation imperialist war in a civil war there is the only correct proletarian slogan, indicated by the experience of the Commune, outlined by the Basel (1912) resolution and arising from all the conditions of the imperialist war between highly developed bourgeois countries. No matter how great the difficulties of such a transformation may seem at one moment or another, socialists will never give up systematic, persistent, steady preparatory work in this direction, once war has become a fact" (Lenin, article "War and Russian Social Democracy", September 1914 .)
Here we need to stop and pay attention to a very important feature of Lenin’s plan. Ilyich had no intention of saving Russians from the horrors of war; he only wanted to redirect the cannons and machine guns so that the war would go against part of his own people. But it was easier to achieve this transformation of the war “wrong” into “right” - so that brother against brother and son against father - when “one’s” government was defeated. This defeat weakened him and made the path to revolution easier. And Lenin points out: “A revolution during war is a civil war, and the transformation of a war of governments into a civil war, on the one hand, is facilitated by the military failures (defeat) of governments, and on the other hand, it is impossible to actually strive for such a transformation without facilitating those defeat itself... The revolutionary class in a reactionary war cannot help but desire the defeat of its government..." (article "On the defeat of its government in the imperialist war"). In principle, Lenin proclaimed the slogan of defeat not only the tsarist, but also all other governments participating in the First World War. However, he cared little whether the socialists of Germany, Austria-Hungary, England and France would support his call with their practical actions. In addition, only one of the warring parties can suffer defeat in a war. Therefore, the defeat of Russia in practice means military victory Germany and the strengthening of the Kaiser's government. But Lenin is in no way embarrassed by this circumstance and he insists that the initiative for defeatism should come precisely from Russian Social Democrats: “... The last consideration is especially important for Russia, because it is the most backward country in which socialist revolution directly impossible. That is why the Russian Social Democrats had to be the first to come up with the theory and practice of the slogan of defeat" (Lenin, "On the defeat of their government in the imperialist war").
Admire the following quotes from the leader of the world proletariat, every letter and punctuation mark in them is saturated with complete Russophobia: “Down with priestly sentimental and stupid sighs for peace at all costs! Let us raise the banner of civil war...” (Lenin, “Situation and Tasks” socialist international"). "The slogan of peace, in my opinion, is wrong in this moment. This is a philistine, priestly slogan. The proletarian slogan should be: civil war..." (Lenin, "Letter to Shlyapnikov 10/17/14") "For us Russians, from the point of view of the interests of the working masses and the working class of Russia, there cannot be the slightest, absolutely no doubt that The least evil would be now and immediately - the defeat of tsarism in this war. For tsarism is a hundred times worse than Kaiserism...” (Lenin, “Letter to Shlyapnikov 10.17.14.”) Stunning statements of cynicism! And it’s not just “losing in a war,” but turning it into a civil war is already a double betrayal! Lenin demands, furiously insists on the need for a civil war! It’s a pity that the tsarist government did not think of sending a messenger to Europe with an ice ax for Mr. Ulyanov, who was scribbling his Russophobic libels in European coffee shops. Look, the fate of Russia in the twentieth century would have been much less tragic.
And still very important point: We look at the dates of Lenin’s statements. The leader of Bolshevism put forward the tasks of the defeat of Russia and the need for a civil war immediately and unambiguously, when no one yet knew the upcoming course of the war. N. Bukharin, who was with him in Switzerland, said in the Moscow Izvestia in 1934 that the very first propaganda slogan that Lenin wanted to put forward was a slogan to the soldiers of all the warring armies: “Shoot your officers!” But something confused Ilyich and he preferred the less specific formula “transforming the imperialist war into a civil war.” There haven't been any yet serious problems at the front: no heavy losses, no shortage of weapons and ammunition, no retreat, and the Bolsheviks, according to Lenin’s plan, had already launched a fierce struggle to reduce the country’s defense capability. They created illegal party organizations at the front, conducting anti-war propaganda; issued anti-government leaflets and appeals; carried out strikes and demonstrations in the rear; organized and supported any mass protests that weakened the front. That is, they acted like a classic “5th column”.
Anti-war rally in a military unit 
A.A. Brusilov writes in his memoirs: “When I was commander-in-chief of the Southwestern Front during German war The Bolsheviks, both earlier and after the February coup, strongly campaigned in the ranks of the army. During the time of Kerensky, they had especially many attempts to penetrate the army... I remember one case... My chief of staff, General Sukhomlin, reported to me the following: several Bolsheviks arrived at headquarters in my absence. They told him that they wanted to infiltrate the army for propaganda purposes. Sukhomlin was obviously confused and allowed them to go. I, of course, did not approve of this and ordered them to be returned. Arriving in Kamenets-Podolsk, they came to me, and I told them that under no circumstances could I allow them into the army, since they want peace at all costs, and the Provisional Government demands war until common world together with all our allies. And then I expelled them from the borders under my control."
Anton Ivanovich Denikin testifies: “Bolshevism spoke most definitely of all. As we know, he came to the army with a direct invitation - to refuse obedience to his superiors and stop the war, finding grateful soil in the spontaneous sense of self-preservation that gripped the mass of soldiers. Delegates sent from all fronts to the Petrograd Soviet with inquiries, requests, demands, threats, there they sometimes heard from the few representatives of the defencist bloc reproaches and requests to be patient, but they found complete sympathy in the Bolshevik faction of the Soviet, taking with them into the dirty and cold trenches the conviction that peace talks will not begin until all power passes to the Bolshevik soviets."
The tsarist regime had many shortcomings, but it was not at all “rotten”, as they tried so hard to convince us Soviet propaganda. Black and Baltic Sea were controlled by the Russian fleet, industry sharply increased the production of ammunition and weapons. The front has stabilized in western regions Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states. Losses? In total, Russia irretrievably lost less than 1 million people in the First World War, compare with the gigantic multimillion-dollar losses in the Civil and Great Patriotic Wars. But where the autocracy has fallen very short is in countering people of different political colors who are conducting subversive anti-state activities, including the so-called liberals. February revolution 1917 was a strong blow to the country's defense capability. From the memoirs of the so-called “old Bolshevik” V.E. Vasiliev “And our spirit is young,” the active role of the Bolsheviks in organizing the February revolution is clearly visible: “Late in the evening, the Putilovite Grigory Samoded came to our company. He brought an appeal from the St. Petersburg Committee of the Bolsheviks, in which , in particular, it said: “Remember, comrade soldiers, that only the fraternal union of the working class and revolutionary army will bring liberation to the dying oppressed people and put an end to the fratricidal and senseless war. Down with the royal monarchy! Long live the fraternal alliance of the revolutionary army with the people!" We immediately went to all the Izmailovo barracks to raise soldiers. Samoded went with us to the 1st battalion. Already in the morning of February 25, rallies began in the barracks. Officers, among whom Colonel Verkhovtsev was in charge , captains Luchinin and Dzhavrov, tried to interrupt the speeches, but the soldiers refused to obey the officers and began to act together with the revolutionary companies. At rallies, the soldiers called for decisive action - arming the workers, dispersing and disarming the police, policemen... Izmailovsky and Petrogradsky regiments, leaving the barracks. , joined the worker columns. All the streets and alleys on the Peterhof highway were reliably guarded by armed workers and our companies. That evening, leaflets from the St. Petersburg Bolshevik Committee were passed from hand to hand, calling for decisive action: “Call everyone to fight. It’s better to die a glorious death fighting for the workers’ cause than to lay down your life for the profits of capital at the front or to wither away from hunger and backbreaking work... We stopped one of the cars. Let's go to the barracks. We shot the officers who offered desperate resistance."
Street fighting in Petrograd in February 1917 
We read further the curious memoirs of V.E. Vasiliev especially carefully: “On March 1, 1917, an event of enormous importance occurred. A joint meeting of the workers’ and soldiers’ sections of the Council, with the participation of the Bolsheviks, developed (this was major victory our party) order number 1 of the Petrograd Soviet, mandatory for all units of the garrison. I remember well this order, which in the post-February days blocked the path of reaction and counter-revolutionary elements to arms. The order ordered the troops to obey only the Petrograd Soviet and their regimental committees. From now on, weapons were to be at the disposal of soldiers' committees and were not to be issued to officers even at their request. Soldiers were granted civil rights, which they could use outside of service and formation. Order 1 (the soldiers understood perfectly well who initiated it) raised the authority of the Bolsheviks even higher. The nascent connection grew stronger. At the beginning of March, under the St. Petersburg Party Committee, a Military Commission was created, headed by N. I. Podvoisky, one of the most experienced organizers of military and combat work, the core of the future “Military Committee”. At the end of March, a meeting of the Bolsheviks of the garrison took place (97 representatives from 48 military units). It established, instead of the Military Commission, a permanent apparatus - the Military Organization - with the goal of "unifying all party forces of the garrison and mobilizing the masses of soldiers to fight under the banner of the Bolsheviks."
So who actually inspired the adoption of the infamous order No. 1 - again, these were the Bolsheviks! The situation in Petrograd was critical, huge crowds of armed soldiers rushed around the city, starting fierce battles with cadets and gendarmes; happened in Kronstadt massacres officers and sailors. Formal anarchy! In such a situation, it would have cost nothing to push any, even the most anti-Russian, resolution through the new authorities, just to calm the raging “defenders of the Fatherland.” And for some reason we still blame the so-called “liberals” for the collapse of the army. General A.S. Lukomsky noted that the order of the 1st Petrosovet “undermined discipline, depriving the officer command staff of power over the soldiers.” With the adoption of this order in the army, the principle of unity of command, fundamental to any army, was violated, as a result there was a sharp decline in discipline. All weapons came under the control of soldiers' committees. But this was to the benefit of the Bolsheviks, and during this period they became the most active defenders of the so-called “army democracy.” The order to the delegates to the Minsk Council, drawn up by the Bolshevik A.F. Myasnikov, said: “Considering it correct... the destruction of standing armies... we see the need to create more democratic orders in the army.” Among the new Bolshevik slogans is “arming the people.” It is interesting that when the Bolsheviks began to create their own - truly combat-ready Red Army - they completely forgot about order number 1 of the Petrograd Soviet, and about “army democracy”, and about “arming the people” too. In the army led by Trotsky, without any sentimentality they shot their soldiers even for minor offenses, achieving the strictest discipline. Thus, in August 1918, Trotsky used decimation to punish the 2nd Petrograd Regiment of the Red Army, which had left its combat positions without permission.
The memoirs of another “old Bolshevik” - F.P. Khaustov - date back to April and May 1917: “District Bolshevik committees are elected. This makes the regiment united... The committee establishes connections with neighboring regiments and the same work is also carried out there, according to elections of Bolshevik committees. The matter expanded, and in mid-March the entire 43rd Corps was organized on the Bolshevik program. The Bolshevik Committee of the 436th Novoladozhsky Regiment was almost entirely included in the corps committee, replenished with representatives from other regiments. At the same time, the Bolshevik committee of the 436th Novoladozhsky regiment established contact with the Central and St. Petersburg committees of the Bolsheviks through Comrade A. Vasilyev and received literature and leadership from there. At the same time, a live connection was established with the Kronstadt sailors, and the regiment committee became part of the Petrograd military organization. central committee Bolshevik party. At the beginning of March, the committee organized, contrary to the order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front, fraternization with the Germans on an area of at least 40 miles. At this time I was the chairman of the Bolshevik corps committee. The fraternization took place in an organized manner.... The result of the fraternization was the actual cessation of hostilities in the corps sector."
So, the tsarist government was unable to keep the situation in the country under control. Instead of reliably isolating or eliminating the organizers of anti-state activities, law enforcement agencies exiled them to well-fed Siberia, where they gained strength, fed themselves, freely communicated with each other, building revolutionary plans. If necessary, revolutionaries easily escaped from exile. During the war, the fight against subversive activities was also insufficiently active and did not correspond to reality. After the attempted Kornilov rebellion, the Military Revolutionary Committees (MRC), under the control of the Bolsheviks, seized into their hands all command and administrative power in the regiments, divisions, corps and armies of the Western Front. The Provisional Government, like the tsarist government, was unable to promptly and firmly stop the subversive activities of the Leninists. For the sake of truth, let us recall once again that it itself did a lot to destabilize the army with ill-conceived resolutions and orders. But one should not attribute too much to the Kerensky government; despite serious mistakes, it had no intention of surrendering the country to the Germans. From January to September 1917, about 1.9 million people joined the active army from the rear garrisons, which significantly blocked the increasing flow of desertion. In the summer, Germany continued to maintain significant forces on the Eastern Front: 127 divisions. Although their number dropped to 80 in the fall, it was still a third of the total ground forces Germany. In June 1917, Kornilov's army with a decisive assault broke through the positions of the 3rd Austrian Army of Kirchbach west of the city of Stanislav. During the further offensive, about 10 thousand enemy soldiers and 150 officers were captured, and approximately 100 guns were captured. However, the subsequent breakthrough of the Germans on the front of the 11th Army, which fled before the Germans (despite its superiority in numbers) due to moral decay, neutralized the initial successes of the Russian troops. This is how supporters of Russia’s defeat stabbed their own country in the back.
Of course, defeatist activity Russian revolutionaries was received with great enthusiasm by the Germans. The German General Staff organized a large-scale campaign to support the subversive efforts of the Bolsheviks. Special offices were engaged in agitation among Russian prisoners of war. German intelligence financed the Bolsheviks with large sums through the left-wing political adventurer Parvus (real name Gelfand). He settled in Stockholm, which became an outpost of German intelligence to control events in Russia. On March 2, 1917, the German representative office in Stockholm received the following instruction 7443 of the German Reichsbank: “You are hereby notified that demands will be received from Finland for cash to promote peace in Russia. The demands will come from the following persons: Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Sumenson, Kozlovsky, Kollontai, Sivers or Merkalin. Current accounts are opened for these persons in branches of private German banks in Sweden, Norway and Switzerland in accordance with our Order 2754. These requirements must be accompanied by one or both of the following signatures: “Dirschau” or “Milkenberg”. Demands endorsed by one of the above-mentioned persons must be fulfilled without delay." After the war, Erich von Ludendorff (Quartermaster General, the de facto head of the German General Staff) recalled: "... Our government, by sending Lenin to Russia, took on enormous responsibility ! This trip was justified from a military point of view: it was necessary for Russia to fall...” And again: “By November, the degree of disintegration of the Russian army by the Bolsheviks had reached such a level that the OKH was seriously thinking about using a number of units from the Eastern Front to strengthen its positions on West. Then we had 80 divisions in the East - a third of all available forces."
Erich von Ludendorff: "...Our government, having sent Lenin to Russia, took on enormous responsibility! This trip was justified from a military point of view: it was necessary for Russia to fall" 
After the October coup, the first thing the Bolsheviks did was publish Lenin’s decree on peace. This treacherous step became the most powerful and decisive impetus for the complete collapse of the front, it practically ceased to exist. Soldiers huge crowds went home. At the same time, a mass exodus of officers began from the army, who did not agree with the new conditions of service, with the new government and who reasonably feared for their lives. Murders and suicides of officers were not uncommon. The guards assigned to guard the warehouses scattered, which is why a lot of property was stolen or perished under open air. Due to the massive loss of horsepower, the artillery was completely paralyzed. In January 1918 on everything Western Front 150 thousand people remained; for comparison, in mid-1916 it consisted of more than 5 million people.
General Brusilov testifies again: “I remember a case when in my presence it was reported to the Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front that one of the divisions, having expelled its superiors, wanted to go home entirely. I ordered to let them know that I would come to them the next morning to talk with them They tried to dissuade me from going to this division because it was extremely brutal and that I would hardly get out of them alive. I, however, ordered to announce that I would come to them and that they would meet me with a huge crowd of soldiers. raging and not aware of her actions. I drove into this crowd in a car... and, standing up, asked them what they wanted. They shouted: “We want to go home!” I can’t with the crowd, but let them choose several people with whom I will speak in their presence. With some difficulty, but still the representatives of this crazy crowd were chosen. When I asked which party they belonged to, they answered me that. They used to be social revolutionaries, but now they have become Bolsheviks. "What is your teaching?" - I asked. “Land and freedom!” they shouted... “But what do you want now?” They frankly declared that they no longer wanted to fight and wanted to go home in order to divide the land, taking it away from the landowners, and live freely, not bearing any burdens. To my question: “What will happen to Mother Russia then, if no one thinks about her, and each of you cares only about yourself?” To this they told me that it is not their business to discuss? , what will happen to the state, and that they firmly decided to live calmly and happily at home. “That is, to eat sunflower seeds and play the harmonica?!” “Exactly like that!” the nearest rows burst out laughing. “I also met my 17th Infantry Division, which was once in my 14th Corps, which greeted me enthusiastically. But in response to my exhortations to go against the enemy, they answered me that they themselves would have gone, but other troops adjacent to them, they will leave and will not fight, and therefore they do not agree to die uselessly. And all the units that I saw, to a greater or lesser extent, declared the same thing: “they don’t want to fight,” and everyone considered themselves Bolsheviks.. "
Lenin, in his speech at the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies on June 9 (22), 1917, said: “When they say that we are striving for a separate peace, this is not true... We do not recognize any separate peace with the German capitalists and We won’t enter into any negotiations with them.” It sounded patriotic, but Ilyich blatantly lied and resorted to any tricks to come to power. Already at the end of 1917. The Bolsheviks entered into negotiations with Germany, and in March 1918. they signed a separate peace on fantastically enslaving terms. Under its terms, a territory of 780 thousand square meters was torn away from the country. km. with a population of 56 million people (a third of the total population); Russia pledged to recognize the independence of Ukraine (UNR); indemnity in gold (about 90 tons) was transported by the Bolsheviks to Germany, etc. Now the Leninists had a free hand for the long-awaited war with their own people. By 1921, Russia was literally in ruins. It was under the Bolsheviks from the former Russian Empire the territories of Poland, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania were ceded, Western Ukraine and Belarus, Kars region (in Armenia), Bessarabia, etc. During the Civil War, from hunger, disease, terror and battles (according to various sources), from 8 to 13 million people died. Up to 2 million people emigrated from the country. In 1921, there were many millions of street children in Russia. Industrial production fell to 20% of the 1913 level.
It was a real national disaster.
Unlike Russo-Japanese War, which was unpopular, the war of 1914-1918. caused an explosion of patriotism among the population. The war began in the name of protecting the Serbian people. For centuries, the Russian people have cultivated sympathy for younger brothers Slavs. For the sake of their liberation from the Turkish yoke, a lot of Russian blood was shed. With the announcement of mobilization, all strikes immediately stopped. The workers, who the day before had staged demonstrations with slogans: “Down with autocracy!”, now sided with the tsar.
At the meeting State Duma On July 26, 1914, the leaders of all bourgeois-landowner factions issued a call to rally around “their sovereign tsar, leading Russia into holy battle with the enemy of the Slavs,” putting aside “internal disputes and scores” with the government. At the same meeting, the Duma unanimously (the Social Democrats refused to vote) approved military loans.
At the beginning of the war, all-Russian unions were created - Zemsky and Gorodsky, which set as their goal to attract broad sections of society to joint measures with the government for the defense of the state. But the tsarist bureaucracy treated these organizations with distrust, limiting their activities only to helping the sick and wounded, and allowing their activities only during the war.
He was appointed Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, who enjoyed enormous popularity both in the army and among the people. Russia entered the war unprepared. Since the Russo-Japanese War, a lot of work has been done on reorganization and rearmament Russian army and the fleet, which was supposed to end by 1917, but the war began three years earlier. The outbreak of the First World War led to the collapse of the Second International, which betrayed the principles of proletarian internationalism and voted to support the bourgeoisie in the war. On July 22 (August 4), 1914, in the German Reichstag, the Social Democratic faction voted to provide war loans to the government. English, Belgian and French socialists joined the imperialist governments. In Russia, the Duma faction of the Mensheviks, fearing to lose all influence among the people, voted with the Bolsheviks against war loans. But under pressure from the chairman of the bureau of the Second International, the Mensheviks declared that on the part of Russia and its allies the war was “just” and retired. The only party that clearly stood on its positions was the Bolshevik Party. In the manifesto of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, published on October 19, 1914 in Central Authority Social Democratic Party, the slogan was proclaimed to transform the imperialist war into a civil war, into a revolution against the exploiting classes. The first steps towards this great goal should have been an unconditional refusal to approve war loans and the withdrawal of socialists from bourgeois governments, a complete break with politics “ national peace", the creation of illegal organizations, support for fraternization at the front, organization of all kinds of revolutionary actions of the proletariat in the rear.
The Bolsheviks countered the social-chauvinist slogan of defending the bourgeois fatherland with the slogan of revolutionary defeatism. This is the true internationalism of Bolshevik tactics, designed for the fraternal alliance of workers of all countries in the struggle against the imperialist war, for the overthrow of all bourgeois governments, for the establishment of universal democratic peace. The tactics of revolutionary defeatism were based on the interests of the development of the world socialist revolution. At the same time, it did not contradict correctly understood national interests. According to the Bolsheviks, the development of the productive forces of society - the concentration of production and capital, the merging of industrial capital with banking capital, the formation of a system of state-monopoly capitalism - all this should create the material prerequisites for the socialist revolution. But since revolution cannot be caused artificially, it must grow out of an objectively urgent general political crisis.
First World War accelerated maturation in all warring countries revolutionary situation. According to the Bolsheviks, such a situation could arise in any country. The Bolsheviks were the first to take this path. Already on July 16-18, 1914, Bolshevik leaflets appeared in St. Petersburg plants and factories, calling on workers to actively protest against the war threat and to international solidarity of workers. On July 20, a “patriotic” demonstration marched along Tverskaya Street with the slogans: “Down with the war!” According to official, clearly understated data, anti-war protests by workers and peasants took place in 17 provinces, some of which resulted in armed clashes with the police. In May 1915, at the All-Russian Congress of Representatives of Industry and Trade, the Central Military-Industrial and District Committees in the provinces, which included prominent industrialists, bankers, representatives technical intelligentsia.
At the same time, the unions of zemstvos and cities expanded their functions, forming in July 1915 on a parity basis the Main Committee for Army Supply. By uniting in military-industrial committees, expanding the range of activities of the Zemstvo and City Unions and establishing contacts with the highest authorities through a Special Meeting under the Minister of War command staff, the bourgeoisie claimed overall leadership of the military-economic mobilization in the country. The continued withdrawal of Russian troops, the growth revolutionary movement raised concerns that the government would not cope with the situation. Confusion reigned in the Council of Ministers. Ministers complained about the isolation of the government, which has no support “neither from below nor from above.” The majority of ministers came to the conclusion that the only way out The only way out of the political impasse can be an agreement with the Duma on the basis of a specific program. At a meeting of Duma members and State Council On August 11 and 12, 1915, the so-called Progressive Bloc began. The bloc’s platform was supposed to ensure the “preservation inner world and the elimination of divisions between nationalities and classes.” To please the right-wing members of the bloc, it was decided not to include social reforms in the program and to maintain exceptional restraint in political matters. But the main task of the bloc was to change the government, that is, to create “a united government of individuals who enjoy the confidence of the country and have agreed with the legislative institutions regarding the implementation of a certain program in the near future.” This formula meant the formation of a coalition, mixed cabinet, consisting of bureaucrats, bourgeois leaders and responsible to the tsar.
The successes of the Russian fleet in the Gulf of Riga and the troops of the Southwestern Front at Tarnopol strengthened the reactionary currents in ruling circles. The king assumed supreme command of the army. This was an attempt to strengthen the shaky throne, an attempt to convince the people that in difficult times “the king himself came to the defense of his country.” This also meant an end to power fluctuations.
The war brought significant changes to the number and composition of workers. These changes were caused by the restructuring of industry to serve the needs of the war, the diversion from work in industry as a result of the mobilization of some workers, and special conditions replenishment of the working class during the war years. Over three years (1914-1916), the number of workers employed in metal processing increased by 65%. About 25% of the workers were drafted in the first years of mobilization. From January 1, 1914 to January 1, 1917 specific gravity female workers in factories and factories increased from 31 to 40% and adolescents from 10.5 to 14%. In the spring of 1915, under the influence of the rising cost of living, there was a rise in the strike movement. In May there was a general strike in Ivanovo-Voznesensk. In July, a thousand-strong demonstration of workers from the Big Linen Manufactory was shot in Kostroma. Events in Ivanovo-Voznesensk caused mass strikes and protest demonstrations in Petrograd, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Ekaterinoslav. On September 2, a strike began at the Putilov plant in Petrograd, which quickly spread to other enterprises. 83 thousand people from 70 enterprises took part in it. As a result of the increasingly flared up mass strike movement, labor productivity fell. The First All-Russian Congress of Military-Industrial Committees in July 1915 decided to create a workers' government in these committees. This was, in the opinion of the congress participants, to awaken in the workers “an active and healthy interest in the cause of national defense,” paralyze the strike movement and ensure class peace.
The capitalists hoped to introduce social-chauvinists from the workers into the military-industrial committees and thus achieve at least the appearance of cooperation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP adopted a resolution on the tactics of boycotting military-industrial committees, which provided for the use of the election campaign for propaganda purposes with the obligatory refusal to join these committees. In Petrograd, more than 200 thousand workers from 101 enterprises took part in the elections. At factory meetings, electors were elected at the rate of one elector per thousand workers. The electors at the citywide meeting had to elect their representatives to the Central and Petrograd Military-Industrial Committees. The St. Petersburg Committee of the RSDLP developed a draft order to the electors, which stated that the efforts of the proletariat should be aimed at gaining power by turning the imperialist war into a civil war and that participation in the military-industrial committees would be a betrayal of the revolutionary imperialist banner. At the meetings, the sympathy of the workers was clearly on the side of the Bolsheviks. The Petrograd workers, who played a leading role in the Russian labor movement, with their refusal to cooperate with the bourgeoisie, had a great influence on the outcome of the entire campaign in the elections to the military-industrial committees.
In 1916, the strike movement intensified. In total, 1,172 thousand people went on strike this year at enterprises subject to the supervision of factory and mining inspectorates, compared to 571 thousand in 1915. Compared to the post-war rise of the labor movement, the ratio of economic and political strikes has changed dramatically. If in 1914 participants in economic strikes accounted for 22%, then in 1915 and 1916 - 72 and 73%, respectively. This is explained by the sharp deterioration in the situation of the workers, the renewal of their composition and the difficulty of carrying out political strikes in wartime. These workers participated in revolutionary struggle primarily for improving their financial situation. The mobilization of industry and the shortage of labor created favorable conditions to fight for higher wages.
In 1915-1916, 70% of all economic strikes ended in full or partial satisfaction of workers' demands, while in 1911-1914 - less than 38%. Relying on worker soldiers, the Bolsheviks carried out selfless work in the army and navy. In the active army, Bolshevik propaganda was carried out on the greatest scale in the armies Northern Front, which is explained by its proximity to Petrograd and Riga.
Under the influence of Bolshevik agitation, soldiers began to understand that the war was beneficial only to the ruling classes of both belligerents. Among the soldiers, the idea of international solidarity of workers without distinction of nationalities grew stronger. The Bolsheviks explained that peace was impossible without revolution, and as a first step towards exiting the war, they convinced the soldiers not to go on the offensive. The First World War, exacerbating economic and social contradictions, became the starting point of the general crisis of the world imperialist revolution.
The beginning of 1917 was marked by a powerful upsurge in the labor movement. On January 9, the day of solidarity with the revolutionary fighters of 1905, in Petrograd the number of strikers, according to official data, exceeded 144 thousand people. Strikes and demonstrations also took place in Moscow, Kharkov, and Baku.
In total, in January-February 1917, only at enterprises subject to the supervision of the factory inspection, 676 thousand people went on strike, of which 66% took part in political strikes in January, and 95% in February. Grew revolutionary mood active army. In January 1917, an uprising of the 223rd Odoevsky Infantry Regiment took place on the Southwestern Front. There was strong unrest among the peasants. Discontent gripped the democratic intelligentsia. Students of Moscow University staged a street demonstration on January 12. In the second half of February, the RSDLP addressed the workers of Petrograd with a call to “wage a fight against the entire tsarist clique in order to put an end to the shame oppressing Russia forever.” The Bolsheviks paid special attention to the Putilov plant, whose performance usually roused the entire proletariat of the capital to fight. On February 18, the fire monitor and stamping workshop stopped working: workers sought an increase in prices by 50%. The administration refused to meet these demands and fired the strikers. Then all the workshops stopped. On February 22, by order of the military authorities, the plant was closed.
The conflict at the Putilov plant was a harbinger of mass revolutionary uprisings by St. Petersburg workers, which led to the overthrow of tsarism. On February 23 (March 8), meetings took place in the factories of the capital in honor of the International women's day. The Bolsheviks called for expansion of the movement. Workers shouting “Bread!”, “Down with war!” went outside.
80 thousand workers went on strike. The tsarist authorities, mistaking the outbreak of unrest for a hunger riot, ordered an increase in bread baking. On February 24, the number of workers increased to 200 thousand people. On February 26, a demonstration of workers was shot on Nevsky Prospekt. On the same day, soldiers of the 4th company of the western battalion of the Pavlovsky Life Guards Regiment went over to the side of the workers and the revolution. On the night of February 17, the training team of the Volyn regiment refused to shoot at the people. In the morning the team leader was killed, the rest of the officers fled. The Preobrazhensky and Lithuanian regiments also joined the rebel soldiers. Armed soldiers and workers freed political prisoners and occupied Peter and Paul Fortress. By February 27, the number of rebels was 66,700. On the morning of February 28, the last defenders of the tsarist regime, laying down their arms, left the Admiralty. The capital was completely in the hands of the rebel people. On February 27, the manifesto of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party “To all citizens of Russia!” was published. The manifesto called on workers and soldiers to choose representation in the Provisional Revolutionary Government, which was tasked with establishing a republican system, confiscating landowners' land and grain reserves, introducing an 8-hour working day and ending the imperialist war by direct appeal to the peoples of all warring states. The victorious uprising of workers and soldiers plunged members of the State Duma into confusion. On February 27 the Duma was read royal decree about the break of the Duma session, after which the Duma members retired for a private meeting. At the opening of the meeting, Rodzianko said that the unrest in the capital had resulted in an armed riot, the government was completely inactive and seemed to have abandoned power, and that there was no time to delay in suppressing the riot. It was proposed to transfer power to a trusted military leader, but at this time information was received that the revolutionary troops had taken the Arsenal, the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Vyborg Prison and set fire to the District Court. Then, in a hurry, a proposal was adopted to create a special committee of 12 people headed by Rodzianko. The main task The Provisional Committee was about restoring order in the country - the Duma members had not yet lost hope of establishing “order” together with the tsarist authorities. Already in the first days of the revolution, St. Petersburg workers began to create new government in the form of the Soviets. The Bolsheviks warmly supported the workers' initiative.
The first meeting of the Council opened on the evening of February 27. About 50 deputies attended it. Most of them came to verbal mandates. There was no verification of the correctness of the elections. Under the pressure of the masses, the Council acted as a revolutionary power. To further organize revolutionary uprisings, the Council decided to create military commission. At the first meeting of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, it was decided to organize a workers' militia in factories and factories. At the insistence of the masses of soldiers, the Council on March 2 adopted a resolution to leave a revolutionary garrison in the city. On March 8, the Council decided to arrest the entire Romanov family.
All parties supported their government in the First World War. But the Bolsheviks did not support. In 1915, Lenin spoke with a programmatic article “Transforming the imperialist war into a civil war.”
Here it is, the slogan, let’s think about it: TRANSFORM THE IMPERIALIST WAR INTO A CIVIL WAR. The word has been spoken.
The Bolsheviks uttered slogans of the inevitability, desirability, and usefulness of the Civil War many times, quite frankly.
“NO SUPPORT FOR THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT!”
The first words of Lenin, who entered his native land on April 3, were: “Won’t they arrest me in Petrograd?” Lenin came as a spy, with the money of his enemies and to undermine his state. But the Bolsheviks who met Lenin assured his own father: no, there was no danger.
The Petrograd Soviet even arranged a solemn meeting for Lenin at the Finlyandsky Station; on his behalf, the Chairman of the Executive Committee, Chkheidze, made a fiery speech, calling on Lenin to join “revolutionary democracy” and talking about his services to the revolution.
During his speech, Lenin was frankly bored, and then addressed the assembled crowd. Lenin concluded it with the slogan:
Long live the world socialist revolution!
Another legend: that right there, on the square, the text of the future article “On the tasks of the proletariat in this revolution” was read. This article was written after the speech at the station, the next day. It went down in history as the April Theses.
The meaning of the article is very simple - Lenin declared war on four fronts at once:
To the leadership of one's own party;
The leadership of the Soviets, especially the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries;
Provisional Government;
To all governments around the world (a World Revolution was being prepared).
“THERE IS SUCH A PARTY!”
On June 3, 1917, the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies opened in Petrograd. The main topic of discussion revolves around the idea of coalition, unification, and support for the Provisional Government. Everyone wants to unite.
In his speech, the Menshevik Tsereteli says: “In Russia there is not a single political party that would say: give power into our hands, we will take your place.”
To this, Lenin shouted from his seat, according to one version: “There is such a party!” According to another version, it’s even shorter: simply “Yes!”
Having received the floor, he explained in more detail: “I answer: yes. Our party is ready every minute to take power entirely. Trust us and we will give you our program.”
And do not unite with anyone, do not share power with anyone.
REPARTION REQUIREMENT
In May on I All-Russian Congress of peasant councils, Lenin declared: “We want now, without losing a single month, not a single week, not a single day, the peasants to receive the landowners’ lands.”
But it is quite obvious that no one will give up their legal property for a good living. This means that it can only be “taken” in the form of a Civil War.
In September 1917, Lenin demanded to move “to the factories, to the barracks” with a program of radical reforms. And right there: we must “without wasting a minute, organize the headquarters of the rebel detachments, distribute forces, move loyal regiments to the most important points, surround Alexandrinka (the Pre-Parliament meets there), occupy Petropavlovka, arrest General base and the government, mobilize armed workers... call them to desperate last fight, immediately occupy the telephone and telegraph.”
Lenin boldly promoted violence and the crudest methods quick solutions. He was not afraid of chaos or the danger of massacre. The Bolsheviks had long considered civil war inevitable. They prepared precisely this as the “inevitable future” of their country and the whole world.
Regarding the events of October 25 in Petrograd, Trotsky wrote: “The bourgeois classes were waiting for barricades, flames of fires, robberies, streams of blood. In fact, there was a silence more terrible than all the noise in the world. The social soil moved silently, like a revolving stage, carrying yesterday’s masters into the underworld.”
POLITICAL “SPEAKS”
From September 14 to 25, 1917, this All-Russian Democratic Conference took place in the building of the Alexandria Theater. Delegates: 134 Bolsheviks, 305 Mensheviks, 592 Socialist Revolutionaries, 55 People's Socialists, 17 non-party members and 4 Cadets.
The Democratic Conference declares itself the Provisional Council Russian Republic, or the Pre-Parliament. New chapter The Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, Leon Trotsky, declared on behalf of the party: “We have nothing in common with the government of popular treason and with this Council of counter-revolutionary connivance.”
Resolution of the Bolshevik Central Committee: the creation of such a government is “a signal for civil war.”
Excuse me... Whose signal exactly?!
In September 1917, Tsereteli believed: “The transfer of all power to the Soviets would inevitably lead to an immediate civil war with all its horrors.”
“And we want civil war!” - Trotsky answered him.
After the October coup, the Bolsheviks created their own one-party government. (Left Social Revolutionaries and anarchists would be introduced into it a little later and very briefly.) Then the workers, in whose name the Bolsheviks swore, spoke out against the one-party government. The All-Russian Executive Committee of Railway Workers (Vikzhel) threatened a strike. Vikzhel in its resolution stated that it did not want civil war. Vikzhel is the leading professional association in Russia: the most united, numerous (up to 500,000 members), active, decisive. In the years Great War the value of the Vikzhel was determined exclusively important role railways.
A delegation of Putilov workers came to inter-party negotiations on November 30, 1917. The delegation stated: we will not allow a civil war! We don't need bloodshed between revolutionary parties.
The Putilovites made evasive promises, but did not change anything.
Lenin negotiated with Vikzhel for three weeks. Vikzhel did not yield, and Lenin dispersed Vikzhel.
On Constituent Assembly On January 4, 1918, N. Bukharin said no less definitely: “The question of power will be finally resolved by that very civil war, which cannot be stopped until complete victory Russian workers, soldiers and peasants. With our irreconcilable class enemies, we vow from this rostrum to wage civil war, not reconciliation.”
WORLD CIVIL WAR
Another slogan: peace to the peoples! Sounds nice. But how can we combine the words from the official “Address to the peoples and governments of the allied countries” with the idea of peace: “We promise full support to the working class of each country, which will rise up against its national imperialists, against the chauvinists. Against the militarists, - under the banner of peace, brotherhood of peoples and socialist reconstruction of society."
There was a war going on. This “Appeal” is an actual call for treason against the Fatherland and violation of the Oath. To “transform the imperialist war into a civil war” - already on the territory of other countries.
The Bolsheviks believed that there should be “self-determination not of peoples and nations, but of the proletariat in each nationality” - “individual demands of democracy, including self-determination, are not an absolute, but a part of the general democratic (now: general socialist) world movement. It is possible that in individual specific cases a particle contradicts the general, then it must be rejected.”
The slogan of the World Revolution meant: Civil war must break out not only in Russia, but throughout the world.
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