the russian revolution(s) & the rise of marxism in russia
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The Russian Revolution(s) & The Rise of Marxism in Russia. 1894-1924. 1894. Alexander III dies. His son, Nicholas II, succeeds him as Tsar. 1 March 1898. Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labor Party holds its first congress. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
The Russian Revolution(s) &
The Rise of Marxism in Russia
1894-1924
1894
Alexander III dies.
His son, Nicholas II, succeeds him as Tsar.
1 March 1898
Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labor Party holds its first congress.
First meeting held in Minsk. All the delegates arrested by Tsarist police after meeting.
17 November 1903
Second RSDLP congress held in exile in Brussels (then London). The Party splits into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions.
8 February 1904
Russo-Japanese WarJapanese launch surprise torpedo attack on Russian navy at Port Arthur (Manchuria).
3 January 1905
Strike beginning at the Putilov Works in St. Petersburg starts the 1905 Russian Revolution.
9 January 1905
BLOODY SUNDAY
5 September 1905
Treaty of Portsmouth signed ceding some Russian territory to Japan, ending Russo-Japanese War.
17 October 1905
Nicholas II signs the October Manifesto, expanding civil liberties and establishing and empowering the Duma.
23 April 1906
The Fundamental Laws issued, reasserting the autocratic supremacy of the Tsar.
1906 & 1907
Duma Problems—First & Second State Dumas
June-August 1914
28 June: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria assassinated
28 July: Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia
30 July: Russia mobilizes its army to defend Serbia
1 August: Germany declares war on Russia in defense of Austria-Hungary
WWI German Success on Eastern Front
Horrors on the Front—Medieval Weirdness at Home
16 December, Rasputin murdered by a group of nobles
February 1917—The February Revolution
22 February: Workers at Putilov Plant in Petrograd go on strike
23 February: Series of demonstrations demanding end of autocracy and Russian involvement in WWI
25 February: Battalion sent to Petrograd to end the uprising
26 February: Nicholas II orders dissolution of the 4th Duma and is ignored; decree of establishment of Provisional Government
27 February: Soldiers sent to suppress uprising join the protestors; Menshevik leaders freed from Peter and Paul Fortress; Petrograd Soviet founded
2 March 1917
Nicholas II abdicates throne
July 3-6, “The July Days”
Pro-Bolshevik demonstrations in Petrograd
Put down July 6; Provisional Government orders arrest of Bolshevik leaders
4 September: Under public pressure Bolshevik leaders released from prison
The October Revolution
25 October
Soldiers directed by the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet capture the Winter Palace, ending the power of the Provisional Goverment
October Revolution
25 October
Menshevik and moderate Socialist-Revolutionary (SR) Party members walk out in protest of 2nd All Russian Congress of Soviets; Lenin elected chairman of Sovnarkom (Council of the People’s Commissars)
26 October
2nd All Russian Congress of Soviets issues Decree on Peace, promising to end Russian involvement in WWI and Decree on Land, approving the taking of land from the nobility
1917-1918
7 December 1917: Cheka established
27 December 1917: Counterrevolutionary Volunteer Army established
15 January 1918: Red Army established
3 March 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed, ending Russian participation in WWI
1918-1924
18 July 1918: Nicholas II and rest on royal family executed
1921 Famine
25 October 1922: Fall of Vladivostok marks end of Russian Civil War
21 January 1924: Lenin dies
Marx
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Marxism• Historical Materialism• Dialectics (emphasized by Engels)• Class conflict• Ideological Superstructure (religion, bourgeois
values, justifications for inequality)• Inevitable (but progressive) Collapse of Capitalism• Inevitable (but progressive) Emergence of Socialism
then Communism (the withering away of the state) = the complete liberation of all human beings
Marx on Russia“From the historical point of view the only serious argument put forward in favour of the fatal dissolution of the Russian peasants’ commune is this: By going back a long way communal property of a more or less archaic type may be found throughout Western Europe; everywhere it has disappeared with increasing social progress. Why should it be able to escape the same fate in Russia alone? I reply: because in Russia, thanks to a unique combination of circumstances, the rural commune, still established on a nationwide scale, may gradually detach itself from its primitive features and develop directly as an element of collective production on a nationwide scale. It is precisely thanks to its contemporaneity with capitalist production that it may appropriate the latter’s positive acquisitions without experiencing all its frightful misfortunes.”
From Marx’s Letter to Vera Zasulich
Marxism-Leninism
Marxism plus the idea of a revolutionary vanguard party acting on behalf of the world proletariat.
Bolshevism as Utopian Religious Ideology?
“Bolshevism as a social phenomenon is to be reckoned as a religion, not as an ordinary political movement. The important and effective mental attitudes to the world may be broadly divided into the religious and the scientific. The scientific attitude is tentative and piecemeal, believing what it finds evidence for, and no more. Since Galileo, the scientific attitude has proved itself increasingly capable of ascertaining important facts and laws, which are acknowledged by all competent people regardless of temperament or self-interest or political pressure. Almost all the progress in the world from the earliest times is attributable to science and the scientific temper; almost all the major ills are attributable to religion.
“By a religion I mean a set of beliefs held as dogmas, dominating the conduct of life, going beyond or contrary to evidence, and inculcated by methods which are emotional or authoritarian, not intellectual. By this definition, Bolshevism is a religion…. Those who accept Bolshevism become impervious to scientific evidence, and commit intellectual suicide. …One who believes, as I do, that the free intellect is the chief engine of human progress, cannot but be fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism, as much as to the Church of Rome.”
From Bertrand Russell’s The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920)
“Leaping Ahead” with Comrade Stalin
Utopianisms Left and Right
l
Thought Experiment Time
History and randomness: the role of Luck in the story.
(Mis)understanding backwards?
What if the USSR had “won the Cold War”?
What if they sent us “economic advisors” to help our economy recover with “shock therapy”?