India And The Contemporary World I Chapter 2 Socialism In Europe And The Russia

The conditions of Russia before 1905:
(i)Social Condition: At the beginning of the twentieth century, the vast majority of Russia’s people were agriculturists. About 85% of Russia's population was agriculturist. Industry was existent, but rarely in which most of was privately owned. Workers were divided on the basis of their occupation. They mainly migrated to cities for employment in factories. The peasant community was deeply religious, but did not care much about the nobility. They believed that land must be divided amongst themselves.

February Revolution:
(i)22nd February: Factory lockout on the right bank took place,
(ii)25th February: Duma was dissolved.
(iii)27th February: Police Headquarters ransacked. Regiments support the workers. Formation of Soviet.
(iv)2nd March: The Tsar abdicated his power. The Soviet and Duma leaders formed a Provisional Government for Russia.
October Revolution:
(i)16th October: A Military Revolutionary Committee was appointed by Soviet.
(ii)24th October: The uprising against provisional government begins. Military Revolutionary Committee controls the city by night and ministers surrender. The Bolshevik gained power.

The impact of the  October Revolution are mentioned below:

A.

Women's movement

B.

An English manufacturer

B.

A cooperative community

A.

Capitalist

A.

Karl Marx

C.

1870

C.

1905

A.

A war song

C.

Czar Nicholas II

D.

Muslim reformers

A.

France, Britain and Russia

A.

The Russian Communist Party

B.

In 1924 A.D.

C.

Russian Emperor

D.

1848

A.

1905 A.D.

B.

March 1918

D.

Russian defeat in first world war

D.

Bolshevic Revolution

B.

Lenin

C.

Well-to-do peasants

A.

Cheka

When the procession of workers led by Father Gapon reached the Winter Palace it was attacked by the police and the Cossacks. Over 100 workers were killed and about 300 wounded. The incident, known as Bloody Sunday.

Mensheviks.

Bolshevik thought that in a repressive society like Tsarist Russia the party should be disciplined and should control the number and quality of its members.

The soldiers and striking workers had gathered to form a ‘soviet’ or ‘council’ in the same building as the Duma met.

A Military Revolutionary Committee was appointed by the Soviet under Leon Trotskii to organise the seizure.

Bolsheviks was led by Lenin, believed in bringing change in the society with the help of revolutionary methods while Mansheviks believed in Parliamentary System.

Karl Marx: 
(i)Karl Marx argued that industrial society was ‘capitalist’. Capitalists owned the capital invested in factories, and the profit of capitalists was produced by workers.
(ii)The conditions of workers could not improve as long as this profit was accumulated by private capitalists. Workers had to overthrow capitalism and the rule of private property.
(iii)Marx believed that to free themselves from capitalist exploitation, workers had to construct a radically socialist society where all property was socially controlled.
(iv)This would be a communist society. He was convinced that workers would triumph in their conflict with capitalists.
(v)A communist society was the natural society of the future.

Leon Trotskii had played an important role in revolutions of 1905 and October revolution of 1917. 

The war also had a severe impact on industry.
(i)Russia’s own industries were few in number and the country was cut off from other suppliers of industrial goods by German control of the Baltic Sea.
(ii)Industrial equipment disintegrated more rapidly in Russia than elsewhere in Europe. By 1916, railway lines began to break down.
(iii)Able-bodied men were called up to the war. As a result, there were labour shortages and small workshops producing essentials were shut down.
(iv)Large supplies of grain were sent to feed the army. For the people in the cities, bread and flour became scarce.
(v)By the winter of 1916, riots at bread shops were common.

By the 1870s, socialist ideas spread through Europe. To coordinate their efforts, socialists formed an international body – namely, the Second International.

Socialists were against private property because they saw it as the root of all social ills of the time.
Individuals owned the property that gave employment but the propertied were concerned only with personal gain and not with the welfare of those who made the property productive. So if society as a whole rather than single individuals controlled property, more attention would be paid to collective social interests. 

Socialists had different visions of the future. Some believed in the idea of cooperatives.
Example:
(i)Robert Owen (1771-1858), a leading English manufacturer, sought to build a cooperative community called New Harmony in Indiana (USA). Other socialists felt that cooperatives could not be built on a wide scale only through individual initiative: they demanded that governments encourage cooperatives.
(ii)In France, for instance, Louis Blanc (1813-1882) wanted the government to encourage cooperatives and replace capitalist enterprises. These cooperatives were to be associations of people who produced goods together and divided the profits according to the work done by member.

Making of socialist society is described below:
(i)During the civil war, the Bolsheviks kept industries and banks nationalised. They permitted peasants to cultivate the land that had been socialised.
(ii)Bolsheviks used confiscated land to demonstrate what collective work could be. A process of centralised planning was introduced. Officials assessed how the economy could work and set targets for a five-year period.
(iii)On this basis they made the Five Year Plans. The government fixed all prices to promote industrial growth during the first two ‘Plans’ (1927-1932 and 1933-1938). Centralised planning led to economic growth. Industrial production increased (between 1929 and 1933 by 100 per cent in the case of oil, coal and steel). New factory cities came into being.
(iv)An extended schooling system developed, and arrangements were made for factory workers and peasants to enter universities.
(v)Crèches were established in factories for the children of women. Cheap public health care was provided. Model living quarters were set up for workers. 

Stalin’s collectivisation programme:

During the 1905 Revolution:
(i)The Tsar allowed the creation of an elected consultative Parliament or Duma. For a brief while during the revolution, there existed a large number of trade unions and factory committees made up of factory workers.
(ii)After 1905, most committees and unions worked unofficially, since they were declared illegal. Severe restrictions were placed on political activity.
(iii)The Tsar dismissed the first Duma within 75 days and the re-elected second Duma within three months. He did not want any questioning of his authority or any reduction in his power.
(iv)He changed the voting laws and packed the third Duma with conservative politicians.
(v)Liberals and revolutionaries were kept out.

(iii)Conservatives were opposed to radicals and liberals. After the French Revolution, however, even conservatives had opened their minds to the need for change. Earlier, in the eighteenth century, conservatives had been generally opposed to the idea of change. By the nineteenth century, they accepted that some change was inevitable but believed that the past had to be respected and change had to be brought about through a slow process.

The most important demands of the people in Russia, were four-folds: peace, land to the tiller, control of industry by workers and equal states for the non-slaves as described below:

1. Corruption in the state resulted in great suffering among the people. Feudalism formed the basis of Russian agriculture. Land hunger of peasant formed a major problem. The peasants demanded land to the tillers.

2. The condition of workers in Russia was very miserable. They were forced to lead a wretched life. They demanded control of industries by workers.

3. The Russian army suffered heavy reverses due to mismanagement of the government. The rising prices of food and clothes added hardship to the poorer classes. They demanded peace.

4. Non-Slav subjects of the empire demanded equal status but the Russian autocracy supported the Pan-Slavist idea.

In April 1917, the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia from his exile. He and the Bolsheviks had opposed the war since 1914. Now he felt it was time for Soviets to take over power. He declared that the war be brought to a close, land be transferred to the peasants, and banks be nationalised.
These three demands were Lenin's April Theses.’