Exactly 100 years ago, in October 1917, with virtually no resistance, the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, which until recently was one of the strongest empires in the world. Why did it happen? A number of factors led to this.
Money of the West
The Bolshevik Party has never experienced a serious shortage of money. At the beginning of the 20th century, American well-wishers, represented by the "California gold mines", gave considerable sums to support the Russian revolutionaries.
During the First World War, the Bolsheviks were sponsored by Kaiser's Germany, as evidenced by many sources.
In particular, we note the request of the German Ambassador to Switzerland, von Bergen, addressed to the State Secretary of the Treasury in Berlin: "To provide the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with 15 million marks for the purpose of conducting political propaganda in Russia."
According to experts, the German treasury spent at least 382 million marks on the preparation of the revolution in Russia. The goals of the Germans were obvious: to withdraw the Russian Empire from the war and weaken the state. However, Germany did not even imagine that it was investing in the formation of a new world superpower.
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Propaganda
In conditions of strict political censorship and increased police supervision, the Bolsheviks were forced to learn to constantly restructure the methods of their agitation and propaganda work, which undoubtedly improved the levers of interaction with the population.
Using painful social themes, the Bolsheviks received a powerful tool of psychological influence on the masses, which the tsarist government did not have.
This largely explains the phenomenal growth in the number of party members: from 5,000 in February 1917 to 350,000 in October.
A well-thought-out system of political propaganda also played an important role during the civil war. Thus, General of the Russian army Alexei von Lampe noted the "brilliantly organized red propaganda" as opposed to the mediocre bureaucratic work of white propagandists.
Class violence
A considerable number of historians and researchers do not at all consider the alliance of the Bolsheviks and the masses of workers and peasants to be cloudless. In their opinion, not consent, but violence played a decisive role in the revolution.
“October is a short, rough local military coup as planned,” notes Alexander Solzhenitsyn. - There is no doubt that in the XX century in Russia the greatest bloody irreversible revolution of worldwide significance took place.
According to the writer, it was accompanied by "the millions of KGB terror, quite spontaneous peasant uprisings and artificial Bolshevik famine."
Historian Vladimir Buldakov notes that “on the whole, the masses have by no means made a choice in favor of 'proletarian' socialism. But they wanted "their" power. It seemed that the Bolsheviks most fully responded to these aspirations. " "The October Revolution," writes Buldakov, "took place under the sign of universal human values and democracy, but began to assert itself through unprecedented class violence."
War and devastation
On the eve of entering the First World War, although Russia suffered from the costs of progress, its economy was distinguished by sufficient stability, moreover, the record harvest of 1913 reduced the severity of social conflicts.
Everything changed with the outbreak of the war. By 1917, Russia's military and economic situation had deteriorated so much that the state was on the brink of disaster.
The government had neither the means nor the ability to establish elementary order in the country. A series of protests by workers, peasants and soldiers followed. The Bolsheviks proved to be the force that took advantage of favorable situations.
Former Minister of Internal Affairs Pyotr Durnovo warned Nicholas II about the possibility of a socialist revolution in Russia, discouraging the tsar from entering the war on the side of the Entente. Durnovo tried unsuccessfully to warn Nicholas that war could lead to the death of the monarchy.
Peasant support
Recently, researchers have been paying more and more attention to the agrarian issue as a factor that influenced the success of the 1917 revolution. Moreover, some historians tend to regard the October Revolution as a peasant one.
The increase in land hunger seriously affected the behavior of the peasantry. The Provisional Government could not accept peasant demands for the elimination of private ownership of land, since this would have dealt a blow not only to the landowners, but also to financial capital as a whole.
The negative attitude towards the right of private ownership of land, according to the historian Vladimir Kalashnikov, was the most important component of the Bolshevik mentality. The Bolsheviks also welcomed the communal traditions that were taking root in the countryside.
The support of the peasantry also played an important role during the years of the intervention. Kalashnikov notes that “the centers of civil war broke out only in the Cossack regions and were quickly suppressed. This success of the Bolsheviks in the country was ensured by the fact that it was from their hands that the peasants received the land."
Lenin's personality
Vladimir Ulyanov turned out to be the political leader who managed not only to rally the Bolsheviks, but also to overcome differences among them.
As soon as Lenin felt that the leaders of the Soviets were incapable of making a compromise with the bourgeoisie, he began to insist on the speediest possible armed uprising.
In his directives a month before the revolution, he wrote: "Having obtained a majority in both the capital's Soviets of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies, the Bolsheviks can and must take state power into their own hands."
Lenin, perhaps, as no one else caught the mood of the revolutionary forces and the crisis state of power. His personal initiative was the creation of the headquarters of the uprising, the organization of the armed forces and the decision to suddenly strike and take possession of Petrograd, seizing the telephone, telegraph, bridges and, ultimately, Winter
Indecision of the Provisional Government
With all its striving to keep the state rolling into the abyss through concessions and reforms, the Provisional Government only pushed the country towards revolution.
The famous "Order No. 1", designed to democratize the army, in fact, led to its collapse. The soldier's power that arose thanks to the innovations, according to General Brusilov, served the prosperity of "trench Bolshevism."
With its indecisive steps, the Provisional Government exposed the chasm between the top and bottom, as a result of which it completely lost the confidence of the workers and peasants. When the peasantry, at the suggestion of the Bolsheviks, began a mass seizure of the landlord's lands, the Kerensky government was unable to resist such arbitrariness, but it could not legitimize it either.
Vladimir Kalashnikov notes that "the reluctance of the Kerensky government and the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks who supported him to resolve issues of land and peace opened the way for the Bolsheviks to power."