Editing Russian Revolution (section)

==Background==
{{main|History of Russia (1892–1917)}}
[[File:U Narvskikh vorot.jpg|thumb|Soldiers blocking [[Narva Triumphal Arch|Narva Gate]] on [[Bloody Sunday (1905)|Bloody Sunday]]]]
The [[Revolution of 1905|Russian Revolution of 1905]] was a major factor contributing to the cause of the Revolutions of 1917. The events of [[Bloody Sunday (1905)|Bloody Sunday]] triggered nationwide protests and [[Mutiny|soldier mutinies]]. A council of workers called the [[St. Petersburg Soviet]] was created in this chaos.{{Sfn|Wood|2004|page=18}} While the 1905 Revolution was ultimately crushed, and the leaders of the St. Petersburg Soviet were arrested, this laid the groundwork for the later [[Petrograd Soviet]] and other revolutionary movements during the leadup to 1917. The 1905 Revolution also led to the creation of a [[Duma]] (parliament) that would later form the Provisional Government following February 1917.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last1=Perfect |title=Reinventing Russia |last2=Ryan |last3=Sweeny |date=2016 |publisher=History Teachers Association of Victoria |isbn=978-1-8755-8505-2 |location=Collingwood}}</ref>

Russia's poor performance in 1914–1915 prompted growing complaints directed at [[Nicholas II of Russia|Tsar Nicholas II]] and the [[House of Romanov|Romanov family]]. A short wave of [[Russian nationalism|patriotic nationalism]] ended in the face of defeats and poor conditions on the [[Eastern Front (World War I)|Eastern Front of World War I]]. The Tsar made the situation worse by taking personal control of the [[Imperial Russian Army]] in 1915, a challenge far beyond his skills. He was now held personally responsible for Russia's continuing defeats and losses. In addition, [[Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse)|Tsarina Alexandra]], left to rule while the Tsar commanded at the front, was German born, leading to suspicion of collusion, only to be exacerbated by rumors relating to her relationship with the controversial mystic [[Grigori Rasputin]]. Rasputin's influence led to disastrous ministerial appointments and corruption, resulting in a worsening of conditions within Russia.<ref name=":0"/>

After the entry of the [[Ottoman Empire]] on the side of the [[Central Powers]] in October 1914, Russia was deprived of a major trade route to the [[Mediterranean Sea]], which worsened the economic crisis and the munitions shortages. Meanwhile, Germany was able to produce great amounts of munitions whilst constantly fighting on two major battlefronts.{{Sfn|Wood|2004|page=24}}
{{multiple image
| align             = right
| total_width       = 300
| image1            = Lenin in 1920 (cropped).jpg
| caption1          = [[Vladimir Lenin]], founder of the [[Soviet Union]] and leader of the [[Bolshevik party]].
| image2            = Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R15068, Leo Dawidowitsch Trotzki.jpg
| caption2          = [[Leon Trotsky]], founder of the [[Red Army]] and key figure in the [[October Revolution]].
}}

The conditions during the war resulted in a devastating loss of morale within the Russian army and the general population of Russia itself. This was particularly apparent in the cities, owing to a lack of food in response to the disruption of agriculture. Food scarcity had become a considerable problem in Russia, but the cause of this did not lie in any failure of the [[harvests]], which had not been significantly altered during wartime. The indirect reason was that the government, in order to finance the war, printed millions of [[rouble]] notes, and by 1917, inflation had made prices increase up to four times what they had been in 1914. Farmers were consequently faced with a higher cost of living, but with little increase in income. As a result, they tended to hoard their grain and to revert to [[Subsistence agriculture|subsistence farming]]. Thus the cities were constantly short of food. At the same time, rising prices led to demands for higher wages in the factories, and in January and February 1916, revolutionary [[propaganda]], in part aided by German funds, led to widespread strikes. This resulted in growing criticism of the government, including an increased participation of workers in revolutionary parties.

Liberal parties too had an increased platform to voice their complaints, as the initial fervor of the war resulted in the Tsarist government creating a variety of political organizations. In July 1915, a Central War Industries Committee was established under the chairmanship of a prominent [[Union of October 17|Octobrist]], [[Alexander Guchkov]] (1862–1936), including ten workers' representatives. The Petrograd Mensheviks agreed to join despite the objections of their leaders abroad. All this activity gave renewed encouragement to political ambitions, and in September 1915, a combination of Octobrists and [[Constitutional Democratic Party|Kadets]] in the Duma demanded the forming of a responsible government, which the Tsar rejected.{{Sfn|Wood|2004|page=25}}

All these factors had given rise to a sharp loss of confidence in the regime, even within the ruling class, growing throughout the war. Early in 1916, [[Guchkov]] discussed with senior army officers and members of the Central War Industries Committee about a possible coup to force the abdication of the Tsar. In December, a small group of nobles assassinated [[Rasputin]], and in January 1917 the Tsar's cousin, [[Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich of Russia (1856–1929)|Grand Duke Nicholas]], was asked indirectly by [[Georgy Lvov|Prince Lvov]] whether he would be prepared to take over the throne from his nephew, Tsar Nicholas II. None of these incidents were in themselves the immediate cause of the February Revolution, but they do help to explain why the monarchy survived only a few days after it had broken out.{{Sfn|Wood|2004|page=25}}

Meanwhile, Socialist Revolutionary leaders in exile, many of them living in [[Switzerland]], had been the glum spectators of the collapse of international socialist solidarity. [[French Section of the Workers' International|French]] and [[Social Democratic Party of Germany|German Social Democrats]] had voted in favour of their respective governments' war efforts. [[Georgi Plekhanov]] in [[Paris]] had adopted a violently [[Anti-German sentiment|anti-German]] stand, while [[Alexander Parvus]] supported the German war effort as the best means of ensuring a revolution in Russia. The Mensheviks largely maintained that Russia had the right to defend herself against Germany, although [[Julius Martov]] (a prominent Menshevik), now on the left of his group, demanded an end to the war and a settlement on the basis of national self-determination, with no annexations or indemnities.{{Sfn|Wood|2004|page=25}}

It was these views of Martov that predominated in a manifesto drawn up by [[Leon Trotsky]] (at the time a Menshevik) at a conference in [[Zimmerwald]], attended by 35 Socialist leaders in September 1915. Inevitably, Vladimir Lenin supported by [[Grigory Zinoviev|Zinoviev]] and [[Karl Radek|Radek]], strongly contested them. Their attitudes became known as the [[Zimmerwald Conference|Zimmerwald Left]]. Lenin rejected both the defence of Russia and the cry for peace. Since the autumn of 1914, he had insisted that "from the standpoint of the working class and of the labouring masses the lesser evil would be the defeat of the Tsarist Monarchy"; the war must be turned into a civil war of the proletarian soldiers against their own governments, and if a proletarian victory should emerge from this in Russia, then their duty would be to wage a revolutionary war for the liberation of the masses throughout Europe.{{Sfn|Wood|2004|page=26}}

===Economic and social changes===
[[File:Броневик и юнкера на Дворцовой площади 1917.jpg|thumb|[[Russian Provisional Government|Provisional Government]]'s volunteer soldiers secure Petrograd's [[Palace Square]] with the [[Austin Armoured Car]], summer 1917.]]

An elementary theory of [[property]], believed by many peasants, was that land should belong to those who work on it. At the same time, peasant life and culture was changing constantly. Change was facilitated by the physical movement of growing numbers of peasant villagers who migrated to and from industrial and urban environments, but also by the introduction of city culture into the village through material goods, the press, and word of mouth.<ref group="nb">For recent research on peasants, see {{Cite book |author-link= Christine Worobec |first= Christine |last= Worobec |title=Peasant Russia: Family and Community in the Post Emancipation Period |publisher=Princeton University Press |date=1955}}; {{Cite book |editor-last=Frank |editor-first=Stephen P. |editor-last2=Steinberg |editor-first2=Mark D. |title=Cultures in Flux |publisher=Princeton University Press |date=1994}}; {{Cite book |author-link= Barbara Engel (historian) |first= Barbara Alpern |last= Engel |title=Between the Fields and the City: Women, Work, and Family in Russia, 1861–1914 |publisher=Cambridge |date=1994}}; {{Cite book |first=Jeffrey |last=Burds |title=Peasant Dreams and Market Politics |publisher=Pittsburgh |date=1998}}; {{Cite book |first=Stephen |last=Frank |title=Crime, Cultural Conflict and Justice in Rural Russia, 1856–1914 |publisher=University of California at Berkeley Press |date=1999}}.</ref>

Workers also had good reasons for discontent: overcrowded housing with often deplorable sanitary conditions, long hours at work (on the eve of the war, a 10-hour workday six days a week was the average and many were working 11–12 hours a day by 1916), constant risk of injury and death from poor safety and sanitary conditions, harsh discipline (not only rules and fines, but foremen's fists), and inadequate wages (made worse after 1914 by steep wartime increases in the cost of living). At the same time, urban industrial life had its benefits, though these could be just as dangerous (in terms of social and political stability) as the hardships. There were many encouragements to expect more from life. Acquiring new skills gave many workers a sense of self-respect and confidence, heightening expectations and desires. Living in cities, workers encountered material goods they had never seen in villages. Most importantly, workers living in cities were exposed to new ideas about the social and political order.<ref group="nb">For research on Russian workers, see especially {{Cite book |first= Reginald |last=Zelnik |title=Labor and Society in Tsarist Russia: The Factory Workers of St. Petersburg, 1855–1870 |publisher=Stanford University Press |date=1971}}; {{Cite book |first=Victoria |last=Bonnell |title=Roots of Rebellion: Workers' Politics and Organizations in St. Petersburg and Moscow, 1900–1914 |publisher=University of California at Berkeley Press |date=1983}}</ref>

The social causes of the Russian Revolution can be derived from centuries of oppression of the lower classes by the Tsarist regime and Nicholas's failures in World War I. While rural agrarian peasants had been [[Emancipation reform of 1861|emancipated]] from [[serfdom]] in 1861, they still resented paying redemption payments to the state, and demanded communal tender of the land they worked. The problem was further compounded by the failure of [[Sergei Witte]]'s land reforms of the early 20th century. Increasing peasant disturbances and sometimes actual revolts occurred, with the goal of securing ownership of the land they worked. Russia consisted mainly of poor farming peasants and substantial inequality of land ownership, with 1.5% of the population owning 25% of the land.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Russian Revolution {{!}} Boundless World History |url=https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-russian-revolution |access-date=3 March 2021 |website=courses.lumenlearning.com}}</ref>

The [[Industrialization in the Russian Empire|rapid industrialization of Russia]] also resulted in urban [[overcrowding]] and poor conditions for urban industrial workers (as mentioned above). Between 1890 and 1910, the population of the capital, Saint Petersburg, nearly doubled from 1,033,600 to 1,905,600, with Moscow experiencing similar growth. This created a new 'proletariat' which, due to being crowded together in the cities, was much more likely to protest and go on strike than the peasantry had been in previous times. One 1904 survey found that an average of 16 people shared each apartment in Saint Petersburg, with six people per room. There was also no running water, and piles of human waste were a threat to the health of the workers. The poor conditions only aggravated the situation, with the number of strikes and incidents of public disorder rapidly increasing in the years shortly before World War I. Because of late industrialization, Russia's workers were highly concentrated. By 1914, 40% of Russian workers were employed in factories of 1,000+ workers (32% in 1901). 42% worked in 100–1,000 worker enterprises, 18% in 1–100 worker businesses (in the US, 1914, the figures were 18%, 47% and 35% respectively).<ref>{{Cite book |first=Joel |last=Carmichael |author-link=Joel Carmichael |title=A short history of the Russian Revolution |pages=23–24}}</ref>
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Years !! Average annual strikes<ref>{{Cite book |first=Abraham |last=Ascher |title=The Revolution of 1905: A Short History |page=6}}</ref>
|-
| 1862–69 || 6
|-
| 1870–84 || 20
|-
| 1885–94 || 33
|-
| 1895–1905 || 176
|}

World War I added to the chaos. [[Conscription in the Russian Empire|Conscription]] across Russia resulted in unwilling citizens being sent off to war. The vast demand for factory production of war supplies and workers resulted in many more labor riots and strikes. Conscription stripped skilled workers from the cities, who had to be replaced with unskilled peasants. When famine began to hit due to the [[Russian Railways|poor railway system]], workers abandoned the cities in droves seeking food. Finally, the soldiers themselves, who suffered from a lack of equipment and protection from the elements, began to turn against the Tsar. This was mainly because, as the war progressed, many of the officers who were loyal to the Tsar were killed, being replaced by discontented conscripts from the major cities who had little loyalty to the Tsar.

===Political issues===
[[File:1917petrogradsoviet assembly.jpg|thumb|The [[Petrograd Soviet Assembly]] meeting in 1917]]

Many sections of the country had reason to be dissatisfied with the existing autocracy. Nicholas II was a deeply conservative ruler and maintained a strict authoritarian system. Individuals and society in general were expected to show self-restraint, devotion to community, deference to the social hierarchy and a sense of duty to the country. Religious faith helped bind all of these tenets together as a source of comfort and reassurance in the face of difficult conditions and as a means of political authority exercised through the clergy. Perhaps more than any other modern monarch, Nicholas II attached his fate and the future of his dynasty to the notion of the ruler as a saintly and infallible father to his people.<ref name="See1993" group="nb">See, especially, {{Cite book |first=Dominic |last=Lieven |title=Nicholas II: Emperor of all the Russias |publisher=London |date=1993}}; {{Cite book |first=Andrew |last=Verner |title=The Crisis of the Russian Autocracy: Nicholas II and the 1905 Revolution |publisher=Princeton University Press |date=1990}}; {{Cite book |first1=Mark |last1=Steinberg |first2=Vladimir |last2=Khrustalev |title=The Fall of the Romanovs: Political Dreams and Personal Struggles in a Time of Revolution |location=New Haven |publisher=Yale University Press |date=1995}}; {{Cite book |first=Richard |last=Wortman |title=Scenarios of Power |volume=2 |publisher=Princeton University Press |date=2000}}</ref>{{Sfn|Figes|1996}}

This vision of the Romanov monarchy left him unaware of the state of his country. With a firm belief that his power to rule was granted by [[Divine right of kings|Divine Right]], Nicholas assumed that the Russian people were devoted to him with unquestioning loyalty. This ironclad belief rendered Nicholas unwilling to allow the progressive reforms that might have alleviated the suffering of the Russian people. Even after the 1905 Revolution spurred the Tsar to decree limited civil rights and democratic representation, he worked to limit even these liberties in order to preserve the ultimate authority of the crown.<ref name="See1993" group="nb"/>

Despite constant oppression, the desire of the people for democratic participation in government decisions was strong. Since the [[Age of Enlightenment]], Russian intellectuals had promoted Enlightenment ideals such as the dignity of the individual and the rectitude of democratic representation. These ideals were championed most vociferously by Russia's liberals, although populists, Marxists, and anarchists also claimed to support democratic reforms. A growing opposition movement had begun to challenge the Romanov monarchy openly well before the turmoil of World War I.

Dissatisfaction with Russian autocracy culminated in the huge national upheaval that followed the [[Bloody Sunday (1905)|Bloody Sunday]] massacre of January 1905, in which hundreds of unarmed protesters were shot by the Tsar's troops. Workers responded to the massacre with a crippling general strike, forcing Nicholas to put forth the [[October Manifesto]], which established a democratically elected parliament (the [[Duma#State Duma in Imperial Russia|State Duma]]). Although the Tsar accepted the 1906 [[Russian Constitution of 1906|Fundamental State Laws]] one year later, he subsequently dismissed the first two Dumas when they proved uncooperative. Unfulfilled hopes of democracy fueled revolutionary ideas and violent outbursts targeted at the monarchy.

One of the Tsar's principal rationales for risking war in 1914 was his desire to restore the prestige that Russia had lost amid the debacles of the [[Russo-Japanese war|Russo-Japanese War]] (1904–1905). Nicholas also sought to foster a greater sense of national unity with a war against a common and old enemy. The Russian Empire was an agglomeration of diverse ethnicities that had demonstrated significant signs of disunity in the years before the First World War. Nicholas believed in part that the shared peril and tribulation of a foreign war would mitigate the social unrest over the persistent issues of poverty, inequality, and inhumane working conditions. Instead of restoring Russia's political and military standing, [[World War I]] led to the slaughter of Russian troops and military defeats that undermined both the monarchy and Russian society to the point of collapse.

===World War I===
{{Main|Eastern Front (World War I)}}
The outbreak of war in August 1914 initially served to quiet the prevalent social and political protests, focusing hostilities against a common external enemy, but this patriotic unity did not last long. As the war dragged on inconclusively, war-weariness gradually took its toll. Although many ordinary Russians joined anti-German demonstrations in the first few weeks of the war, hostility toward the Kaiser and the desire to defend their land and their lives did not necessarily translate into enthusiasm for the Tsar or the government.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Allan |last=Wildman |title=The End of the Russian Imperial Army |volume=1 |publisher=Princeton University Press |date=1980 |pages=76–80}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hubertus |first=Jahn |title=Patriotic Culture in Russia During World War I |publisher=Ithaca College Press |date=1995}}</ref>{{Sfn|Figes|1996|pages=257–258}}

Russia's first major battle of the war was a disaster; in the 1914 [[Battle of Tannenberg (1914)|Battle of Tannenberg]], over 30,000 Russian troops were killed or wounded and 90,000 captured, while Germany suffered just 12,000 casualties. However, [[Austria-Hungary|Austro-Hungarian]] forces allied to Germany were driven back deep into the [[Battle of Galicia|Galicia]] region by the end of the year. In the autumn of 1915, Nicholas had taken direct command of the army, personally overseeing Russia's main theatre of war and leaving his ambitious but incapable wife Alexandra in charge of the government. Reports of corruption and incompetence in the Imperial government began to emerge, and the growing influence of Grigori Rasputin in the Imperial family was widely resented.

In 1915, things took a critical turn for the worse when Germany shifted its focus of attack to the Eastern Front. The superior [[German Army (German Empire)|German Army]]&nbsp;– better led, better trained, and better supplied&nbsp;– was quite effective against the ill-equipped Russian forces, driving the Russians out of Galicia, as well as [[Congress Poland|Russian Poland]] during the [[Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive]] campaign. By the end of October 1916, Russia had lost between 1,600,000 and 1,800,000 soldiers, with an additional 2,000,000 prisoners of war and 1,000,000 missing, all making up a total of nearly 5,000,000 men.

These staggering losses played a definite role in the mutinies and revolts that began to occur. In 1916, reports of fraternizing with the enemy began to circulate. Soldiers went hungry, lacked shoes, munitions, and even weapons. Rampant discontent lowered morale, which was further undermined by a series of military defeats.

[[File:Russian Troops NGM-v31-p379.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Russian troops in trenches awaiting a German attack]]

Casualty rates were the most vivid sign of this disaster. By the end of 1914, only five months into the war, around 390,000 Russian men had lost their lives and nearly 1,000,000 were injured. Far sooner than expected, inadequately trained recruits were called for active duty, a process repeated throughout the war as staggering losses continued to mount. The officer class also saw remarkable changes, especially within the lower echelons, which were quickly filled with soldiers rising up through the ranks. These men, usually of peasant or working-class backgrounds, were to play a large role in the politicization of the troops in 1917.

The army quickly ran short of rifles and ammunition (as well as uniforms and food), and by mid-1915, men were being sent to the front bearing no arms. It was hoped that they could equip themselves with arms recovered from fallen soldiers, of both sides, on the battlefields. The soldiers did not feel as if they were valuable, rather they felt as if they were expendable.

By the spring of 1915, the army was in steady retreat, which was not always orderly; [[desertion]], [[Looting|plundering]], and chaotic flight were not uncommon. By 1916, however, the situation had improved in many respects. Russian troops stopped retreating, and there were even some modest successes in the offensives that were staged that year, albeit at great loss of life. Also, the problem of shortages was largely solved by a major effort to increase domestic production. Nevertheless, by the end of 1916, morale among soldiers was even worse than it had been during the [[Great Retreat (Russia)|great retreat of 1915]]. The fortunes of war may have improved, but the fact of war remained which continually took Russian lives. The crisis in morale (as was argued by Allan Wildman, a leading historian of the Russian army in war and revolution) "was rooted fundamentally in the feeling of utter despair that the slaughter would ever end and that anything resembling victory could be achieved."{{Sfn|Wildman|1980|pages=85–89, 99–105, 106 (quotation)}}

The war did not only devastate soldiers. By the end of 1915, there were manifold signs that the economy was breaking down under the heightened strain of wartime demand. The main problems were food shortages and rising prices. [[Inflation]] dragged incomes down at an alarmingly rapid rate, and shortages made it difficult for an individual to sustain oneself. These shortages were a problem especially in the capital, [[St. Petersburg]], where distance from supplies and poor transportation networks made matters particularly worse. Shops closed early or entirely for lack of bread, sugar, meat, and other provisions, and lines lengthened massively for what remained. Conditions became increasingly difficult to afford food and physically obtain it.

Strikes increased steadily from the middle of 1915, and so did crime, but, for the most part, people suffered and endured, scouring the city for food. Working-class women in St. Petersburg reportedly spent about forty hours a week in food lines, begging, turning to prostitution or crime, tearing down wooden fences to keep stoves heated for warmth, and continued to resent the rich.

Government officials responsible for public order worried about how long people's patience would last. A report by the St. Petersburg branch of the security police, the [[Okhrana]], in October 1916, warned bluntly of "the possibility in the near future of riots by the lower classes of the empire enraged by the burdens of daily existence."<ref>"Doklad petrogradskogo okhrannogo otdeleniia osobomu otdelu departamenta politsii" ["Report of the Petrograd Okhrana to the Special Department of the Department of the Police"], October 1916, Krasnyi arkhiv 17 (1926), 4–35 (quotation 4).</ref>

Tsar Nicholas was blamed for all of these crises, and what little support he had left began to crumble. As discontent grew, the State Duma issued a warning to Nicholas in November 1916, stating that, inevitably, a terrible disaster would grip the country unless a constitutional form of government was put in place. Nicholas ignored these warnings and Russia's Tsarist regime collapsed a few months later during the February Revolution of 1917. One year later, the Tsar and his entire family were executed.