Russia's Three Revolutions, 1917–1932

Chapter 10 Russia’s Three Revolutions, 1917–1932 145B I O G R A P H YA Young Man in Lenin’s RussiaI became a Bolshevik and a member of theCommunist Party after the Revolution and ashort time later joined the Red Army as a politicalworker and propagandist. As soon as Ireturned from the Front after the Civil War,the Yuzovka Party organization made me adeputy manager of the Ruchenkov mines. . . .There was famine in the mines of theDonbass in 1922, and even isolated incidentsof cannibalism. The villages were even moreravaged than the mines. My first wife, Galina,died during the famine in 1921. Her deathwas a great sadness to me. I was left with twochildren to look after, my son Leonid and mydaughter Julia. In 1924 I married again toNina Petrovna. Those first years of SovietPower were years of struggle and hardshipand self-sacrifice. But the people still believedin the Party; even the most illiterate of ourcitizens understood the Party’s slogans andrallying cries. The people knew that thesehardships were being thrust upon us by thebourgeoisie—both by our own bourgeoisieand by the bourgeoisie of the world at large,which was instigating counterrevolution andintervention against us. We told ourselvesthat no matter how bad things were, theyhad been worse in the old days, before theRevolution.*...From the memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev, leaderof the Soviet Union from 1953 until 1964. Hewas in his middle and late 20s in the period describedhere. Although assistance from the AmericanRelief Administration helped save manylives, at least 5 million people died in the Sovietfamine of the early 1920s.*From Khrushchev Remembers, vol. I, by Nikita Khrushchev,translated and edited by Strobe Talbott. Copyright © 1971 byLittle, Brown & Co. Reprinted by permission.their enemies were scattered around the periphery. Finally, a Red victory held outmore hope to the peasants and the minority nationalities than did a White victory.Although both sides forcibly requisitioned food from them, peasants feared that theWhites might also try to restore the rights of landowners. Smaller nationalities fearedthat the Whites would reestablish the Russian Empire and that they would be dominatedonce again by the Great Russians. The Soviet leadership at least promisedsomething better.Yet the hopes of the non-Russian nationalities were almost immediately crushed.In 1920–1921 Bolshevik Russia restored control over most of Ukraine not lost to Polandand over the Caucasian republics of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. During the nextfew years the Bolsheviks also brought most of Central Asia back under Russian rule.In March 1921 the sailors of the Kronstadt naval base, early supporters of theCommunists who had grown tired of their authoritarianism, revolted, but the governmentcrushed the uprising. The anarchist Emma Goldman, then in Petrograd,stated that the brutal slaughter of the sailors severed the last strand that once unitedher with the Communist cause. Finally, however, Kronstadt and other economic andpolitical unrest (including widespread peasant revolts) helped lead to government concessionsencompassed in the New Economic Policy (NEP).

Chapter 10 Russia’s Three Revolutions, 1917–1932 147Lenin and Stalin, 1922.more courteous, and more considerate of his comrades.” Because of his stroke Lenincould not engineer Stalin’s removal. After Lenin’s death, Stalin used his positionas general secretary to strengthen his control over the party, cleverly playing on theambitions of others and making useful political allies when he needed them.By 1927 Stalin had Trotsky and a few of his other political opponents expelled from

Chapter 10 Russia’s Three Revolutions, 1917–1932 149to 1923, primarily through the American Relief Administration. And by 1930 theUnited States briefly became the chief exporter of goods to Russia.By the middle of the 1920s the Soviet government appeared to be becoming lessrevolutionary. In fact, Trotsky and a few others accused Stalin of a lack of enthusiasmfor encouraging revolutions abroad. They accurately charged that Stalin’s slogan of“socialism in one country” deemphasized the policy of fomenting revolution abroadand stressed instead the construction of a socialist society within the Soviet Union.In spite of a decline of revolutionary action on the part of the Comintern in thesecond half of the 1920s, Soviet foreign policy still continued to reflect its origins. In1927 Great Britain broke off relations with the U.S.S.R. on discovering extensiveSoviet espionage and propaganda activities in London.THE THIRD REVOLUTION: COLLECTIVIZATIONAND THE FIRST FIVE-YEAR PLANDespite the many changes Russia had experienced in the decade following 1917, thelives of Soviet peasants were not greatly changed from tsarist days. They still madeup about 80 percent of the Soviet population; more than half of them were illiterate.Their communal work and leisure habits, social organization, and suspicion of authorityhad changed little. Many, especially the older peasants, also retained their prerevolutionaryreligious beliefs and, to the extent possible, their religious ceremonies andcustoms.In 1928–1929 Stalin launched a “revolution from above” that compared in significanceto the two revolutions of 1917. With help from many party members dissatisfiedwith the NEP, he cast it overboard, attacked “class enemies,” introduced thecollectivization of agriculture, and brought forth the Soviet Union’s first Five-Year Plan,with its emphasis on rapid industrialization. The economic changes were accompaniedby a cultural revolution. It was directed against the NEP’s relative cultural toleranceand Lenin’s heavy reliance on “bourgeois experts”—the party leadership hadused non-Communist professionals and technical experts because of the shortage ofwell-educated Communists. Now, however, the party removed many of these individualsfrom their positions while training loyal Communists to obtain professionaland technical expertise. From 1927–1928 until 1932–1933, higher education enrollment(often in technical institutes) tripled, with students of working-class originincreasing from one-fourth to one-half the total. Among future Soviet leaders,Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Kosygin all received varying amounts of advanced technicaltraining in this period. By 1931 the cultural revolution had produced considerablechaos; in June, Stalin criticized excessive harassment of specialists and soonbrought this revolution to an end.The reasons Stalin introduced and continued his more radical economic policiesare subject to debate, but five have been frequently mentioned:1. More grain was needed to help feed the growing urban population, butpeasants were not selling enough grain to the state at the low prices thegovernment was willing to pay.REASONS FOR “THIRDREVOLUTION”

150 Part II The Era of Revolution and WarEFFECTS OF “THIRDREVOLUTION”2. More rapid industrialization, especially in heavy industry, was necessaryif the Soviet Union was to become a stronger military power. “If in10 years we do not cover the distance that other countries took 50 or100 years to traverse, we will be crushed,” Stalin warned.3. Marxist ideology based socialism on a developed industrial order, and thereforethe continued development of a Soviet socialist state was thought bymany to depend on the expansion of Soviet industry.4. Both the Five-Year Plan and collectivization would increase the control ofthe party over the economy and over the lives of Soviet citizens.5. If he now rejected the NEP approach, Stalin would at the same time discredithis remaining major political opponents, who had consistently supported it.With the inauguration in late 1928 of the first Five-Year Plan, the Soviet economytook on the characteristics that would mark it for the next six decades. Governmentofficials decided what should be produced in the Soviet Union and in whatquantity; consumers’ desires had relatively little effect. The government, followingparty orders as always, established target figures for the next five years, designedespecially to increase metal and chemical production, electricity and petroleum output,new factory construction, and other industrial growth. The government obtainedcapital for expansion in these areas by squeezing high indirect taxes from its population.The purchasing power of Soviet citizens declined, and few consumer goodswere available.At the end of 1932 the government claimed that it had already met the goalsof the first Five-Year Plan in a little over four years. Although it is impossible to besure of the exact figures, and haste in meeting production quotas often caused shoddyworkmanship, production did increase significantly in some areas. Most reliableestimates agree that iron and steel output went up at least 50 percent during the firstFive-Year Plan. The output of chemicals, machinery, equipment, fertilizers, petroleum,and electricity increased even more dramatically. New factories, industrial complexes,and cities sprang up, often located far in the interior, away from vulnerable borders.Although part of this industrial spurt flowed from genuine enthusiasm by someworkers for Stalin’s bold new plans, increased labor discipline and coercion alsohelped increase production.The record in agriculture was not as impressive. Russian peasants in 1933 producedless food than before collectivization, and the amount of livestock markedlydeclined. In addition, famine occurred in 1932–1933. The poor record was largelydue to the peasants’ resistance to collectivization and the government’s use of force.Stalin was determined to push most peasants into either collective farms or statefarms. In the collectives, peasants worked the land collectively, and, after meeting allother obligations, they divided what was left of their produce according to the percentagethey had earned by their work. On a state farm, on the other hand, workersreceived wages directly from the state.Both collective and state farms were unpopular with the peasants, and few werewilling to give up their old ways. Peasants slaughtered their animals rather than turnthem over to the collective farms. In response to such resistance, the government

Chapter 10 Russia’s Three Revolutions, 1917–1932 151Some of the millions of Soviet peasants who were deported from villages during thecollectivization process.killed or sent to Siberia and other parts of the country millions of peasants, often toface premature deaths in forced labor camps. Stalin waged war especially on thosedesignated as “kulaks,” who were supposedly prosperous peasants guilty of hoarding.Actually, almost any peasant who was in trouble with the authorities was apt to beincluded in this category. No group suffered more than the Ukrainian peasants. Stalin’sfood policies in Ukraine, and to a lesser extent in other regions, led to millions ofadditional deaths during the famine of 1932–1933.Despite resistance, however, Stalin succeeded in forcing many peasants onto collectiveor state farms. He granted only one noteworthy concession, when he allowedcollectivized peasants to maintain small private garden plots and a few animals. Bythe end of the first Five-Year Plan, more than 60 percent of the cultivated land inRussia was under the control of collective farms and about 10 percent under statefarms. In subsequent years, the collectivization thrust continued, placing most ofthe remaining peasants and their produce effectively under the control of the partyand state. At a time when Soviet peasants were starving to death, the governmentforced them to turn over grain to government agencies, which used it to feed theexpanding cities, to add to grain reserves, and even to export. (See Chapter 16 for adiscussion of the U.S.S.R. in the middle and late 1930s.)SUMMARY AND THE INTERNATIONALSIGNIFICANCE OF RUSSIA’SREVOLUTIONSThe years 1917–1932 witnessed cataclysmic changes in Russian life. The three revolutionsculminating in Stalin’s revolution from above helped to greatly transform Russia.By 1932 it had changed from an overwhelmingly agrarian, religious, and traditionalempire with an autocratic government to a rapidly industrializing Marxist society. Itsofficial values were atheistic and revolutionary, and the Communist Party and Soviet

152 Part II The Era of Revolution and Wargovernment interfered more actively in the lives of the people than had the old tsaristgovernment. Collectivization, in particular, transformed patterns of work. The increaseduse of education and the media as instruments of propaganda and the use of terroralso made it increasingly difficult to ignore or oppose the desires of the authorities.In the immediate postwar years, the revolutionary nature of the government andits aggressive Marxist-Leninist ideas threatened international stability. By 1932, however,the government was more concerned with continuing the internal transformationof the Soviet Union than with causing Communist revolutions in other nations.Nevertheless, the transformations wrought by the three revolutions remainedsignificant for other countries. Lenin insisted that imperialism was an outgrowth ofcapitalism and that colonial peoples should rebel and throw off both colonial andcapitalist shackles. Soviet leaders also claimed that less advanced countries could copySoviet methods of rapid industrialization and modernization. Ironically, althoughMarxism and Marxist socialism began in western Europe, Marxist governments cameto power only in less developed regions, first in Russia and then, after World War II,in other countries such as China.To the colonial powers themselves, the U.S.S.R. was a menace partly becauseits leaders encouraged colonial peoples, as well as those living in capitalist countries,to rebel. Although Communist parties came into being in western Europe after 1917,they were generally weaker than Socialist parties, also indebted to Marx. The Socialistparties had gradually been moving away from Marxist radicalism, and the loss ofsome of their more radical members to the new Communist parties just furthered thistendency. Yet, by 1932, with the Great Depression discrediting capitalism in the eyesof many, the appeal of Communist parties and the anticapitalist Soviet Union was onthe rise. Thus, even before the beginning of the cold war in the late 1940s, the SovietUnion presented a major challenge to its future cold war enemies.SUGGESTED SOURCESConquest, Robert. The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine. 1986. Theappalling story of Stalin’s policies, which cost millions of Soviet lives.* (A 55-minutedocumentary on the same subject, called Harvest of Despair, is available on video.)Figes, Orlando. A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891–1924. 1996. A long but wellwrittenaccount.*Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution, 1917–32. 2nd ed. 1994. A clear, brief, and objectiveaccount.*Foglesong, David S. America’s Secret War against Bolshevism: U.S. Intervention in the Russian CivilWar, 1917–1920. 1995. The author argues that anti-Bolshevik sentiments played a greaterrole in prompting U.S. intervention than most previous historians have stated.Goldman, Emma. My Disillusionment in Russia. 1970. Recounts the author’s experiences in Russiain 1920–1921 after she was deported from the United States.*Holquist, Peter. Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia’s Continuum of Crisis, 1914–1921. 2002.This work emphasizes the importance of World War I for understanding the 1917 revolutionsand subsequent civil war.Lincoln, W. Bruce. Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War. 1989. A comprehensiveoverview by a scholar who also writes excellent popular history.*

Chapter 10 Russia’s Three Revolutions, 1917–1932 153McDermid, Jane, and Anna Hillyar. Midwives of the Revolution: Female Bolsheviks and WomenWorkers in 1917. 1999. A brief work that presents solid information on women Bolsheviksand workers.*Montefiore, Simon Sebag. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. 2003. Chaps. 1–7. These chaptersoffer a fascinating examination of Stalin’s early years, based partly on recently openedarchival materials.*Pasternak, Boris. Doctor Zhivago. 1958. A great novel conveying the chaotic conditions of Russiaduring World War I, the revolution, and the civil war and the reactions of a sensitiveman to it all.* (Also a film.)Patenaude, Bertrand. The Big Show in Bololand: The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia inthe Famine of 1921. 2002. A comprehensive account of U.S. aid to famine victims of theearly 1920s.*Potemkin. 1926. One of Sergei Eisenstein’s most famous films, it deals with a mutiny on a battleshipduring the revolt of 1905.Raleigh, Donald J. Experiencing Russia’s Civil War: Politics, Society, and Revolutionary Culture in Saratov,1917–1922. 2002. An excellent study of the civil war’s impact in a Volga River area.*Reed, John. Ten Days That Shook the World. 1919. A firsthand account of the Bolshevik revoltby the famous American Marxist.* (Several films have also appeared with this title. Thefirst, an Eisenstein film, was originally called October and is now available on videotapeunder that title; also available is the 1981 U.S. film Reds, which deals with Reed and hisRussian experiences.)Scott, John. Behind the Urals: An American Worker in Russia’s City of Steel. 1989. A fascinatingaccount of life in the new city of Magnitogorsk during the early days of Stalin’s industrialization.*Service, Robert. Lenin: A Biography. 2002. The most comprehensive biography of Lenin available.*Siegelbaum, Lewis H. Soviet State and Society between Revolutions, 1918–1929. 1992. A good briefanalysis of the interrelationship between Russia’s new Communist government and societyand culture.*Viola, Lynne. Peasant Rebels under Stalin: Collectivization and the Culture of Peasant Resistance.1996. A fascinating and scholarly account of peasant resistance to Stalin’s collectivizationpolicies of the late 1920s and early 1930s.*Volkogonov, Dmitri. Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary. 1996. A biography by a former Russiangeneral and historian with access to the latest archival material; he also wrote interestingbiographies of Lenin and Stalin.Wade, Rex. The Russian Revolution, 1917. 2nd ed. 2005. A well-written, up-to-date treatment ofthe various forces that transformed Russia in 1917.*WEB SOURCESwww.soviethistory.org/index.php. A first-rate site, the best for Soviet history. See links to years1917, 1921, 1924, 1929; the site for each year contains numerous links to other valuablematerials in various media forms. For 1917, for example, see “The New Woman,”“Bolsheviks Seize Power,” and “Constituent Assembly.”www.geocities.com/sheerin104. Provides links for Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, and other Soviet materials,especially regarding the Russian revolutions of 1917.*Paperback available.