Probably, at the end of the 20th century, it is already obvious for every sane person that nowhere and never social revolutions are a normal, healthy phenomenon. This is an explosion, a natural disaster, like a volcanic eruption, the mouth of which was clogged, which prevented the calm outflow of lava. The classics of Marxism, calling revolutions "locomotives of history," to put it mildly, manipulated the facts. It's easier to prove the opposite. The bourgeois revolution in England cost eighteen years of war, massacre, gallows, and Cromwell's dictatorship. The Great Revolution in France cost almost a quarter of a century of mass terror, guillotines, Napoleon's wars and devastation. And the civil war in the United States took more lives than the country lost in all the wars taken together, to this day, and for half a century threw the United States into a number of secondary states. Well, the Russian sad experience only reinforced this pattern with the most striking facts.
And, on the contrary, where the political and economic renewal took place in a healthy evolutionary way, this was accompanied by gigantic progressive impulses of development - this was the case in Germany, Japan, in the same Russia in the 60s of the last century and at the beginning of this one. But for normal progressive development, it is necessary that the authorities track the trends and the course of historical progress in time, bring legislation and state institutions in line with it with timely reforms. Otherwise, tensions begin to build up in society, and stability decreases. As the accumulation of stresses in the earth's crust leads to an earthquake, so in society - to a revolutionary explosion. It is already impossible to restrain it artificially, by force. It will only take time. In psychology, there is a term "accumulation of aggression". The longer you keep the steam in the boilerthe tighter you plug the vents, the worse the explosion will be.
Scientists are still arguing about the causes of the 1917 revolution. Some derive its roots from the reforms of Peter, which split the unity of society, others from the times of Alexander I and Nicholas I, who slowed down any reforms for a long time, while others reduce these reasons to the inevitable costs of the transition to capitalism and the failures of the world war. Such a detailed study is beyond the scope of this work. But, perhaps, it is worth noting one important feature - if you assess the situation through the eyes of today's Russian, then, in fact, there were no reasons for the revolution. Because never after 1917 Russia has been able to achieve the pre-revolutionary level of well-being of its citizens.
On the eve of its death, Russia was one of the leading world powers, enjoyed enormous international prestige, often acting as a determining force or arbiter in all issues of European and world politics. The country was on an unprecedented rise in its culture, shining with whole constellations of great writers, poets, artists, theatrical figures, musicians, philosophers … It was not for nothing that the beginning of the century was nicknamed the Silver Age of Russian culture.
Russia was one of the largest exporters of agricultural products. The poorest family had a cow in the villages. And the "epidemics" of hunger, devastating entire regions, only began under Soviet rule. And the land issue, for that matter, was acute only in the central, European provinces - then still overpopulated. It was not for nothing that Stolypin staked on the resettlement policy. For example, in Transbaikalia, farms of 15 heads of cattle plus 30 sheep were considered poor. And people with thousands of herds and ten thousandth flocks were considered rich. What can we say, if after three years of the hardest and most intense world war, only sugar cards were introduced! There were no restrictions on either meat or bread - they only rose in price (not very much by today's standards), and queues began to appear for the cheapest varieties of food.
In terms of industrial development, Russia, of course, lagged behind the leading powers of the West, but this lag was not as strong as accumulated during the era of Soviet power and democracy. And at the beginning of the century it acted, if not on an equal footing with these powers, then at least in one row. Suffice it to recall that one of the causes of the World War was the customs policy of Germany, which tried to protect its goods from Russian competition. Where the technical lag was still evident, it was compensated by participation in international concerns that operated widely in Russian territory and whose shareholders were also domestic firms. As for the position of the workers, then, according to the testimony of contemporaries, their well-being and working conditions were much better than, for example, among the workers of England in the same period.
According to the memoirs of N. S. Khrushchev, even in the position of secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU, he received less and had less benefits than when he was a simple worker before the revolution. Leading entrepreneurs, firmly on their feet, say, in the textile industry, cared not only about living conditions and pay, but also about the cultural development of their employees, arranging trips to theaters, museums, and celebrity concerts. Working conditions are eloquently indicated by the fact that most of the factories and plants built before the revolution, without significant reconstruction, worked until the end of the 20th century. Of course, the very size of the country and the imbalances in its development gave rise to another contingent of the unemployed, the declassed rabble, who gathered in large numbers in places of temporary work - port cities, shopping centers in the Volga region, in oil fields, etc. But a similar phenomenon was observed in other developed countries, in the same USA and England. And the spontaneous migrations of such contingents, including from abroad, testify precisely to the high intensity of industrial development in Russia.
The administrative apparatus of the country, which we are used to judging only by hypertrophied cartoons of Russian satirists, was much more streamlined and operated much more efficiently than the modern one. In the whole of Russia, there were about 250 thousand government officials - ten times less than under Soviet rule, not to mention today's administrative staff. And at the same time, they clearly ensured all the functions of state life - from tax collection and execution of duties to improvement and the social sphere.
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There were still vestiges of estate, but the boundaries between the estates had already become very fragile. Personal nobility was automatically acquired with a higher education, awarding the first order, seniority to the first officer or civilian rank. And to obtain hereditary nobility, it was enough to have a professorship, the rank of colonel, or, accordingly, higher order and civil degrees. But this did not give the slightest advantage, turning into an empty formality. In fact, ancestral vestiges retained some significance only in one area - the court.
Russia enjoyed practically all political freedoms. There was freedom of speech and press. Censorship, already significantly weakened at the beginning of the century, was completely abolished in 1905 - and restored in 1914 as military censorship. Even the Bolshevik Pravda had been legally published since 1912, and when it was closed for obviously illegal publications, it immediately resumed work under a different name with the same editorial board. In political life, the ban existed only on those parties that openly advocated extremist and terrorist goals - but this phenomenon is quite normal for any civilized state.
The entire central apparatus of the political police, the famous "Third Section" consisted of … three dozen officers. And in Russia, and did not reach a thousand. The death penalty was used extremely rarely - only where politics was intertwined with criminality and specific terrorist acts. And Vera Zasulich, who shot at the St. Petersburg mayor Trepov, was acquitted by the jury. All parties, including the Bolsheviks, were represented in the State Duma. True, in the event of a conflict between the branches of government, the tsar had the legal right to dissolve the Duma and call re-elections, which he repeatedly used, but from the modern experience of Russian parliamentarism the question arises: is it better?
Yes, there were failures on the fronts of the World. But after all, it is far from the scale as later in Civil, when they gave the Germans all of Ukraine and Russia to Pskov. And not on the scale as in the Great Patriotic War, when the enemy was beaten off from Moscow and the Volga. For three years, the Russian army left the enemy part of Lithuania, Poland and Belarus, while exhausting Germany itself in battles. And on other fronts, she also won striking victories, occupying a significant territory in Turkey, repeatedly advancing in Galicia and breaking through to Hungary. Losses on the fronts ranged as 1: 1.2 in favor of Russia, and not 20: 1 in favor of the enemy, as in 1941-1945. At the turn of 1914-15, there were acute shortcomings in the supply of ammunition, which largely determined the retreat in the west. But soon the industry was rebuilt on a war footing, and the situation was completely straightened out. By 1917the army received weapons and supplies in such quantities that it was enough for the entire Civil War, and even later, the Bolsheviks gave away to friendly regimes.
So there seems to be no reason for such a sharp and general discontent? But this was not for you and me. The answer lies in the field of psychology. We must not forget that during 70 years of communist domination the people were leveled and drilled, by all means bringing the slaughter cattle to obedience. Moreover, at all the turning points and in all critical situations, the best perished in the first place - both on the civil front, and from terror, and in the hell of the Gulag, and under the comb of dispossession and collectivization, and in the flames of the Patriotic War. The best gene pool was systematically knocked out, and, accordingly, the stereotypes of thinking changed, gradually coming to the present.
And at the beginning of the century, just on the crest of Russia's power, people were still completely different! And their psychology was radically different from ours. The then corruption and embezzlement of children's toys compared to modern ones overwhelmed their patience. Military failures - not so shameful in relation to any Chechnya - were perceived as a real tragedy of national shame. The injustices and shortcomings of the state system, which you and I would not have noticed, did not allow the then man to breathe. And the first ones are the very first in Russia! the grocery lines looked like a personal insult. And the reasons, insignificant, from our point of view, were enough to collapse the 300-year dynasty.
But, perhaps, the reasons for the revolution itself should be shared with others that prevented the further normalization of the situation, the stabilization of society and the transition of life to a healthy, renewed channel. The first of these reasons was the discrepancy between the theoretical models of liberal and democratic reforms and Russian reality, as well as between the great ambitions and goals of the reformers themselves and their paltry practical ability to govern the country and implement their designs. Often these theories themselves came into conflict with the practice of their implementation.
The second powerful factor in the war was the subversive activity of the German special services. If in the "knightly" XIX century. espionage was considered a shameful phenomenon, unworthy of an honest person, then at the beginning of the XX century. Japan made a real revolution in military affairs through its massive use, which gave very tangible results in the conditions of the Russian-Japanese war. Germany expanded and deepened this practice, including in the tasks of agents not only intelligence, but also disorganization of the enemy's rear - moral, political, and economic. In many ways, the internal disintegration of Russia was the result of purposeful sabotage. Moreover, at the height of the war, the doors to the country were wide open through Sweden and Finland, which was part of the empire, but did not submit to its jurisdiction (it was because of this that the Baltic Fleet and Petrograd underwent the most severe decomposition). Germany also supported opposition movements within Russia - some were directly taken for maintenance, others were used blindly, not knowing about their true patrons.
And the third reason was precisely the peculiarity of mass Russian psychology, which was brought up in the centuries-old traditions of a strong monarchical power, and by no means a weak democratic one. Therefore, after the collapse of the foundations of the empire, the country, having rolled into chaos, was able to stop only at the level of the most brutal dictatorship - even more authoritarian than the previous monarchy, but which changed the sign of moral values "plus" to "minus". Of course, all these factors might not have affected, and most likely would not have affected, not being able to crush the monolith of Russia by themselves. But as soon as the inner braces of the monolith were broken by the revolutionary explosion, their effect immediately became tangible and directed towards further destruction.
Note also that at the end of the XIX - beginning of the XX century. Russia was indeed going through a critical period. When a green street was opened for a long time to restrained socio-economic and political reforms, the very results of these reforms - an intensive transition to industrial development, the success of education and culture, democratization of society, modification of state structures - unwittingly weakened the former patriarchal moral foundations of the state: “Faith is Tsar - Fatherland . Moreover, just because of the traditional trinity of the formula, the weakening of one link inevitably affected the strength of others. And the new foundation of society - characteristic, for example, for the developed countries of our time - has not yet had time to form and cement itself, immediately undergoing such serious loads as the world war …
In critical periods of history, the personality of the ruler is especially important, which also sadly affected the fate of Russia. Nicholas II was on the throne clearly at the wrong time. A good and sympathetic person, quiet, intelligent and lightly wounded - this was a Chekhovian, not a sovereign type, who possessed neither the energy of Peter, nor the wisdom of Catherine II, nor the flexibility of Alexander I, nor the firmness of Nicholas I. On the one hand, he was not in age and not gullible by position, sometimes naive, which was used very successfully by all intriguers. On the other hand, he pathologically avoided all filth and scandals, which ensured impunity for the same schemers. Not knowing how to understand advisers, he constantly made mistakes - for example, he got involved in a war with Japan and lost it.
At first, he seemed to be lucky - in 1905, when the tensions in society, aggravated by this defeat, came to the brink of an explosion, intelligent people were still at the helm of the state - Witte, followed by Stolypin. The liberal reforms promulgated by the Manifesto of October 17, combined with decisive clean-up action, prevented a catastrophe. Not reckoning with the momentary dispositions of the social situation, or with rumors, or with his own popularity, and putting at the forefront only the benefit of Russia, Stolypin was not afraid to disperse the too radical composition of the Duma, which had taken a course to undermine the state. By expanding the use of the death penalty, at the cost of the lives of a few pogromists and terrorists, he stopped the wave of anarchy and crime. And the country, which after gaining civil liberties, got up on new, unrusty rails,made a giant leap forward in its development in 1907-1914.
Stolypin, continuing the policy of combining solid power with reforms, launched a decisive offensive against rural communities, where both a good owner and a drunkard, whose land was overgrown with swans, were equal in rights. He gave the owner the opportunity to separate, not to carry an extra burden on himself. To use the land constantly, and not by lot, according to which the drunkard could get the best piece, and the owner - overgrown with weeds and yesterday belonged to a bum. And if there is no earth, but the hands and head are in place - again there is a way out.
Stolypin began a resettlement policy. From the overpopulated provinces of Central Russia, peasants, receiving significant support from the treasury, could move to the rich, unmeasured expanses of Siberia, Altai, Priamurye, Kazakhstan. Make peasants owners, farmers, entrepreneurs - and Russia will become indestructible for centuries! How many times has he been attempted! The house was blown up, the daughter was mutilated. And he worked. A little more … but not destiny. To too many, he stood across the road - both right and left. And he died at the hands of the revolutionary Bogrov, when his resignation was already predetermined by the tsar …
After Stolypin, not a single worthy person was in the post of prime minister anymore. One of them turned out to be bad - they appointed another, even worse. Nicholas II did not know how to surround himself with sensible, energetic people. Yes, perhaps I didn’t want to - it’s safer without them. And he, unsure of himself, tried to do without sudden movements and without innovations. If today is like yesterday, then thank God. Everything will somehow come together, settle down. And he should have been with his family, with his beloved wife and with children …
The wives of Russian tsars did not leave a noticeable trace in history. Alexandra Fedorovna, alas, became a fatal exception. Under her influence, dubious and incompetent personalities were brought to the fore, masters of intrigues and intrigues emerged to the top. The incurable illness of the child made him look for "psychics" - and the figure of Rasputin crawled out. Well, how all sorts of healers subjugate the female psyche, how they become the highest authorities among exalted ladies - this is now also widely known. And already a whole tangle of crooks of all stripes, who know how to please a drunken boor, through the queen began vying to grab and pull at the threads of Russian politics.
As a result, by 1917 Nicholas had lost his authority and support even among the monarchists. Now they too saw the possibility of saving the autocracy and the monarchist idea only by replacing the ruling tsar. And when Russia approached the terrible events, there was no one to hold the helm of power. And these events began unexpectedly. Perhaps it is unexpected for everyone …
Shambarov V.