Was Revolution Inevitable? Turning Points of the Russian Revolution

tercentenary celebrations (1913) 294 Romanov family 59, 66, 106, 164-77, 287 Romm, Mikhail 180 Rosen, Baron Roman 60 Rosmer, Alfred 274 Rossiya television station 30 Rozanov, Vasily 43, 176, 196 Russia

emancipation of serfs (1861) 32, 33, 34 modernising of 1

socialism seen as offering a bright new future 1

tradition of state-dominated tyranny 1 constitution (1905) 13 disintegration 14, 16, 18, 19, 66 importance of Russian power to French security and the European balance 15 ethnic Germans in 15 growing antagonism between Germany

and Russia before 1914 18 Britain's distrust of 18 entry into the First World War (1914) 3, 62

Tsarina and Rasputin rule during the

First World War 4, 67, 148, 300 Ukraine issue 19-21 competition with Germany 19, 24 lacks a government (1917) 71, 72, 73 war aims 95, 97, 98, 100 'secret treaties' 95, 96, 101 see also Soviet Union; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Russian Army

Northern Army Group 210

Fifth Army 210

Northern Army 102

Russian Army of the Caucasus 98, 101

Western Army 102

Third Cavalry Corps 113, 114, 118, 120

First Machine Gun Regiment 103-4,

105, 109

Latvian Rifleman 132m, 267 Preobrazhensky Guards 146 desertion 126

disintegration of 110, 126, 163

peasant soldiers 126 see also Russian Imperial Army Russian Civil War (1917-21) 6, 140, 141, 168,

199, 257, 273, 283

start of 168, 169

puts totalitarian communism in power 1, 8

'War Communism' 7-8, 196-7, 242, 274,

277, 278 Lenin on 128, 129, 134, 135 peasantry in 7-8, 38 struggle between Bolshevik Reds and

opposition Whites 187 breakdown in food supply as a great

challenge 218, 219 defeat of White forces 218, 221 New Economic Policy 219-20 and Stalin's Novosibirsk speech (1928) 221

and the agricultural cycle 228 Bolsheviks' victory 7, 26 and revolutionary socialism 275 shapes the violent culture of the Bolshevik regime 124 Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (the RKP(b)) 271 Moscow Committee 275 Russian empire 12, 20, 26, 34, 38, 204, 267 Russian Fascists 30 Russian Federation 31 Russian Foreign Ministry 96, 100 Russian Historical Society 165 Russian Imperial Army

Imperial Guard's actions on 'Bloody

Sunday' (9 January 1905) 2-3 mutiny of First Battalion,

Preobrazhensky Guards (1906) 13 the tsar orders full mobilisation (1914) 62 in Petrograd barracks 68-9 mutiny of Pavlovsk Guards in February

Revolution 69 troops join the demonstrators 4, 69 Northern Army headquarters, Pskov 73 front-line units' oath of allegiance to Michael 80

Lenin demands its demolition 94 weakened by Bolsheviks 4 loss of support for Kerensky's

government 5 'Black Sea division' 96

'Tsargradsky regiment' 96 see also Russian Army Russian Justice Ministry 105 Russian Ministry of War 112, 125 Russian navy

in Russian Revolution of 1905 13 Baltic fleet 75, 101n, 115, 132n, 190, 208 Black Sea fleet 75, 97, 101-2 reconnaissance probe of Constantinople

(March 1917) 97 Naval General Staff 208 Russian Orthodox Church

made a department of state under Peter

the Great 143 hostility of the Bolsheviks 8, 249 confiscation of Church valuables (1922) 8, 244-61 Ukrainian allegiance to 20 and Stolypin's reforms 42 and famine relief 245, 252 church-state relations 246, 247, 251, 256 Local Council (Pomestnyi Sobor) 255 concordat with Stalin (1943) 257 hounding of 260 Russian Parliament 297 Russian Revolution (1905) 2, 3, 207 causes 2

'Bloody Sunday' (9 January 1905) 2-3,

144-5, 149

and creation of Duma 3, 13, 34, 66, 145-6 October Manifesto 13, 46 constitution 13 peasant revolt 13 and foreign intervention 14-16 Russian Revolution (1991) 284, 285 common features with the 1917 revolution 293-8 Russian Revolutions (1917) and rise of Nazism 1, 59 common features with the 1991

revolution 293-8 China as the most significant

inheritance 299 see also April Days; February Revolution; July Days; October Revolution Russian Social Democratic Party 94 Russo-Japanese War (1904-5) 2, 39, 66,

144, 208, 286 Ruzsky, General Nikolai 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 210

Rykov, Alexei 232, 268

St John Baptist Church, Mokhovaya Street,

Moscow 259 St Petersburg built by Peter the Great 292 bicentenary (1903) 32 'Bloody Sunday' (9 January 1905) 2-3 Nicholas II's attitude to 35 demonstrations during First Balkan War 54

renamed Leningrad (1924-91) 263, 298 renamed Petrograd (1914-24) 3 renamed St Petersburg (from 1991) 298 see also Leningrad; Petrograd St Petersburg Courier 60, 63 St Pitirim's Church, Kievskaia ulitsa,

Petrograd 255 saints' relics, exposure of 250 Sakharov, Andrei 285 Samara province 126, 205-6, 226, 233 Saratov province 33, 34, 41, 126 Sassnitz, Germany 93 Savinkov, Boris 112-13, 114, 117, 118, 119, 191-2

Sazonov, Sergei 56, 61, 62, 96, 100 Schiemann, Professor Theodor 15 Schmidt, Axel 60-61 Schwarzenberg, Felix 16 Second World 12

Second World War 1, 12, 28, 161, 291 and rise of Nazism 1 always a likely outcome of 1918 25

eastern Europe falls under Russian rule

25

may have been avoided if Germany had

won the First World War 28 some authoritarian regime countries freed 12 secret ballot 153 secret police Cheka 6, 156, 198 Okhrana 37, 65, 70 fall of tsar's secret police 95 Sedova, Natalia 252 Semyonov, Grigory 182, 184, 187 Serbia 54, 57, 60, 61 Serbs 25

serfs see under peasantry

Sergeii (Patriarchal locum tenens) 246

Sevastopol 101, 102, 202, 216, 255

naval base 209 Sheglovitoff (ex-Minister) 192 Shliapnikov, A. 131 Shlusselburg Castle 166 Shlyapnikov, Alexander 276 Shmidt, V. 131

Shulgin, Vasily 77-81, 83, 84, 85, 89 Shuya (textile town) 253 Siberia exile in 143-4

massacre of strikers in (1912) 147 tsar imprisoned in 6, 166 opposition to the Bolsheviks by the Komuch 7

British diplomatic support to local anti-

Bolshevik government 202 Soviet government loses control 205 and Komuch forces 206 and Kolchak 209, 210 no history of serfdom in 216-17 and Trotsky's proposal 230 'raiding banditry' in 236 grain procurement 237-8 a so-called 'grain-rich' province 239 Siberian Army 212, 223 Sigunov, Ivan 224, 229 Simbirsk 226

Sinop, Turkey 102 Sirotino 85 Skrypnik, Nikolai 186 Slavs Rasputin on 55 pan-Slavists 60 Austrian 98

demands for independence 285-6 Smilga, Ivar 132n Smoke of the Fatherland 53, 54 Smolny Palace, Petrograd 5, 123, 124, 127, 136

social estates (sosloviia) 34 socialism 1, 14, 95, 101, 111, 197, 201, 262, 274, 278, 292

and capitalism 281 democratic 263, 283 proletarian 271

revolutionary 265, 267, 269-70, 275, 280, 282

rush away from since 1991 299 Soviet 221, 243

'with a human face' 262-3, 264 Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR) 203, 219, 231

Central Committee 208 Socialist Revolutionary Party (SRs) 29,

134, 139, 210

and the peasantry 94-5, 153, 155, 206, 216-17

opposition to the 'imperialist war' 99 and an all-socialist government 127 move to the left 128 and armed insurrection 135 Mensheviks and SR delegates walk out

of the Congress 137, 138 seizure of power splits the socialist

movement in Russia 140, 182 arrests after October revolution 194 and November 1917 elections 155, 183 wants to avoid civil war at all costs 159 and Kaplan 180, 181, 187 committed to toppling tsarism 180 aims at a democratic socialism 180 Central Committee 187

Fighting Committee (Terror Brigade) 191-2

eclipsed and destroyed by zealots of

Bolshevism 180-81 and assassination attempt on Lenin 194 and creation of Komuch 206 Left SRs 136-7, 269 Right SRs 140, 188 Socialist Youth International 92 Sokolov, Nikolai 59 Soldatskaia Pravda 102-3 Soloviev, Boris 59, 168-9 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander 37, 264, 279-80

The Red Wheel 29 sosloviia (social estates) 34 Soviet Communist Party see Communist

Party of the Soviet Union Soviet Congress, Smolny Palace, Petrograd, 25 October 1917 000 plans to form a socialist coalition

government 5, 124, 127, 137, 138, 140 delegates 125-6, 136-7, 138 Lenin's insistence on coup preparations

before the Congress 130-35 postponement of 133 told of Lenin's pre-emptive seizure of

power 137 Mensheviks and SR delegates walk out

in protest 137-8 Trotsky denounces Martov's resolution for a coalition 138 Soviet of People's Commissars

(Sovnarkom) 154, 155, 156, 268, 272 Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies 164

Soviet Union 195, 291 broken up into independent states 295 effective alliance with Nazi Germany 296

failed coup (August 1991) 295 Gorbachev marginalised 295 ideological hostility to Nazi Germany 296

the regime in the 1980s 294 the state Lenin created 292-3

see also Russia; Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 'Soviet values' 260 soviets (workers' councils) rise of 4 defined 4 radicalised 4

new Petrograd Soviet during February

Revolution 73-4 influence on Provisional Government 121

leftward move of 128 sovnarkhozy (soviets of the People's

Economy) 231 Sovnarkom see Soviet of People's

Commissars Spain, adoption of an authoritarian regime 12

SRs see Socialist Revolutionary Party Stalin, Joseph 10, 28, 241-3, 292 views of his role 1 atrocities associated with 30, 198 denounces Lenin's 'down with the war' slogan 94

becomes General Secretary of the party

279

inherits power from Lenin 7 rule of eastern Europe 25 reintroduces razverstka (1928) 8 collectivisation of agriculture 38, 220-21 industrialisation drive (1930s) 20, 38 abandons dream of world revolution 199 and Trotsky 199, 281 concordat with the Church (1943) 257 Great Terror (1930s) 7, 195 and 'greatest Russian' 30, 284, 285 and 'Leningrad' principles 264 Stalinism 7, 8, 158, 282 standard of living 265 starets (Russian Orthodox elder) 58 State Conference (Moscow, 14 August 1917) 112 State Council 35, 42, 43, 46 Stavka, Mogilev 60, 66, 68, 78, 96 Steveni, Captain 211-12

Stock Exchange News 52 Stockholm, Sweden 93, 103, 106 Stolypin, Pyotr 287 governor of Saratov province 33, 34, 41 provincial governor in Grodno 33, 35 in Kovno province 33, 35 appointed minister of internal affairs

33, 45

prime minister of Russia (1906-11) 3,

33, 146

relationship with Nicholas II 33-4, 35, 46-7

economic and social reforms 3, 29, 31-2,

34-5, 37-42, 43, 46, 146, 147 and Jews 29, 37, 45 Great Russian nationalism 29 'wager on the strong' 29, 37 aims to make the state the focus of

national unity 34 and zemstvos 35, 43, 45, 46 and Polish influence 35 and Finland 36, 38

emphasis on Russia's need for peace 39 religious reform 42, 45 alignment with the Nationalists 46 arouses resentment and superstition in

St Petersburg 46 assassination (1911) 3, 29, 36, 47, 147 incompetence of secret police 37 reputation during the Cold War 30 current popular adulation of 30-31 Putin's admiration for him 3, 31 assessment of 43-4 'Stolypin's necktie' 33, 146 Stoppard, Tom: Travesties 91 stranniki (holy pilgrims) 50 strikes preceding first Duma 3 massacre of strikers in Siberia (1912) 147 stopped during the First World War 3 during Red Terror 196, 198 Struve, Peter 121-2, 249 Sturmer, Boris 96 'substitution' (podmena) 273 Suez crisis (1956) 17

Sukhanov, Nikolai 94, 130, 136, 137-8 Sukhomlinov, General Vladimir 36, 39, 62, 181

Supreme Council of the People's Economy

(VSNKh) 231, 232 Sverdlov, Yakov 173, 187, 188, 191, 192 Svobodnaia Rossiya (dreadnought) 102 svyatyni ('sacred objects') 245 Swabians 54 Sykes, Mark 96, 100 Syromiatnikov, Col. A. D. 212, 213 Sysertovsky factory 172

Tambov province 234-8, 240, 242 Tauride Palace, Petrograd 70, 73, 79, 80, 81,

83, 85, 89, 104, 105, 123, 149, 156, 183, 184 tax-in-kind system 229, 231, 233, 240, 241, 278 Tereshchenko, Mikhail 83 Thatcher, Margaret, later Baroness 30 Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets of

the People's Economy 231-2 Tiflis, Georgia 101

Tikhon, Patriarch 245, 246, 250, 253, 254 Tikhvinsky monastery, Ekaterinburg 172-3 Tiumen province, Siberia 168, 237 Tobolsk, Siberia 59, 106, 163, 166, 167, 168, 169

toleration edict (1905) 42

Tolstoy, Count Ivan 44

Tomsk Regional Clinic for the Insane

49-50

totalitarianism 282, 293 Trabzon, Turkey 102 trade unions 131, 222, 274, 277, 280 Trans-Caucasus 14, 22, 217 Trepov, A. F. 96

Trinity St Sergius Monastery, Sergiev

Posad 31 Trotsky, Leon 182, 239 a Menshevik 92 and razverstka 8 converts to Lenin's cause 104 arrested after July 1917 putsch attempt 105

effective leader of the Bolsheviks 127 no plans for armed conflict 127 denies rumours in the Petrograd Soviet 132

denounces Martov's resolution for a

coalition 138 demands majority cabinet seats for

Bolsheviks 139-40 on the SRs 159 and the Romanov family 173 if Lenin had died in the Kaplan shooting

198-9

and Stalin 199, 281

and world revolution 199

ideas on ending grain requisitioning 220

and militarisation of labour 222

assignment of 3rd Red Army to regional

tasks 223 and razverstka 224

food supply proposals 229-31, 232-3, 237 and market decriminalisation 241 and church valuables 245, 252 joins the radicals 268 and Kronstadt revolt 278 crucial to carrying the Bolshevik project through 289 Trudoviks (Labourers) 41 tsarism

seen as rotten and doomed 1, 11, 287 liberal alternative to 1 and modernising of Russia 1 nationalist demands after fall of 294 Tsaritsyn (Volgograd) 49, 126

Iliodor's hunger strike 43 Tsarskoe Selo 59, 69, 72, 74, 85, 106, 164, 167 Tuileries Palace, Paris 165 Turkey

and the Army of the Caucasus 101 in first Balkan War 54, 56 and Russian war aims 100 Mudros armistice 202 and Black Sea Fleet 208 Turks

and the Trans-Caucasus 22 first Balkan War (1912-13) 54

Rasputin on 55 repatriation of refugees 100 Tyumen, Russia 49, 57

Ufa, southern Urals 170, 214 State Conference 206, 207 Ukraine 22, 180, 195, 217, 296

and Treaty of Brest-Litovsk 7, 19, 201 independence issue 19, 20, 91, 294 vital economic role 20, 27 geopolitical vulnerability 20 internal weaknesses 20 nationalism 20, 21 Ukrainian identity 20, 21 German protection 21 Bolshevik Russia moves back into 26,

295

and French economic blockade plan 202 France's expedition (December 1918) 216 and Trotsky's proposal 230 'raiding banditry' in 236 so-called 'grain-rich'province 239 and confiscation of church valuables 246 Russia's grab for (2014) 284 Ullman, Richard 212 Ulyanov, Dmitry 182

Union for the Defence of the Constituent

Assembly 156, 157 Union for the Regeneration of Russia

(Soiuz vozrozhdeniia Rossii) 210 Union of Russian People (URP) 35, 44, 47 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

creation of (December 1922) 272 second collapse of Russian power

(1989-91) 19, 30, 284

see also Russia; Soviet Union Union of Writers 258 United States independence 292

brought into First World War 18-19, 23, 95, 108

grain exports competition with Russia 20

possible consequences of remaining

neutral in the war 27 retreats into isolation after the First

World War 24 spearheads famine relief effort 239 dominates world affairs 298 universal male suffrage 13, 88, 146, 153, 183 Upper Isetsky Workers Detachment 172 Urals region 20, 170, 205, 206, 210, 211, 214,

220, 223, 229, 237, 239 Uritsky, Moisei 182, 195 US army 19

USSR Congress of People's Deputies 273

Van (former Ottoman vilayet) 100

Vareikis, I. M. 226, 227

Veniamin, Metropolitan, of Petrograd 246,

247, 252, 254, 255

verkhi (upper tier) 274 verkhovnyipravitel ('supreme ruler') 200, 204

Versailles settlement (1919) 24, 25 Vienna 91

Congress of (1815) 24 Vikzhel (All-Russian Executive Committee

of the Union of Railwaymen) 139, 140 Vinogradov, V. A. 203 Virgin Lands campaign (1953) 38 Vitebsk province 35 Vladimir Ilyich Electromechanical Plant, Moscow (previously Mikhelson (Hammer and Sickle) engineering factory) 179, 184 Vladimirov, Alexander 49 Vladimirovich, Grand Duke Andrei 67 Vladimirovich, Grand Duke Boris 67 Vladimirovich, Grand Duke Kirill 67, 87 Vladivostock 205, 207, 209, 210 Volga region 236, 239, 244 Volga River 205 Volinsky, Artemy 177 Volodarsky, V. (Moisei Markovich

Goldstein) 131, 182 Vologodsky, Petr Vasil'evich 203

Volunteer Army 120, 210, 216 Volya (dreadnought) 102 Voronezh province 239 Vossische Zeitung 55, 61 Vostokov, Vladimir: Responses to Life 53-4 Vrangel, General Pyotr 177 Vvedensky, Father Alexander 244-5 Vyborg 129

Vyrubova, Anna 54-5, 57, 62, 168 W

War Cabinet (British) 212, 214

'War Communism' 7-8, 196-7, 242, 274,

277, 278 war credits 92

War Office (British) 209, 211 Warner Brothers 191 Whites

anti-Bolshevik forces 6, 7, 140-41 foreign support 6, 7, 187 a movement to rebuild a strong

sovereign power 167 Nicholas contemplates fleeing to them 168

headed by tsarist generals 169, 187 Yakovlev/Myachin joins 170-71 false conspiracy to free the tsar 174-5 and murder of the tsar and Tsaritsa 176 leaders hate one another 177 the tsar as a potential unifying symbol

177

and Red Terror 193, 194 become more of a threat to the Red

Army 217 defeat of main forces (1920) 218, 221 Wildman, Allan: The End of the Russian

Imperial Army 103 Wilhelm II, Kaiser

potential German intervention during 1905 Russian revolution 15

the tsar begs him to stop Austria going to war 61-2 Wilson, Colin 52 Winter Palace, Petrograd 70, 125

storming of 5, 136, 137, 167 Witte, Count Sergei 44, 46, 55, 60, 61, 145, 287, 300 'workers' democracy' 278 Workers' Opposition 262, 276, 277, 282 world revolution 51, 130, 187, 199, 291, 292, 296

Yakovlev see Myachin, Commissar Yale University 59 Yanushkevich, General Nikolai 62 Yatmanov, Grigory 248 Yeltsin, Boris 295, 297 Yermakov, Pyotr 172 Yevpatoria health clinic, Crimean coast 181-2

Yokohama, Japan 209 Yudenich, Nikolai 101, 177, 221 Yusupov, Prince Felix 64, 65, 67

Zavarzin, Pavel 65

zemstvos (elective local authorities) 35, 43,

45, 46, 71, 264 Zenzinov, V. M. 203, 210, 213 Zhdanov, Andrei 263 Zhizhilenko, Professor Alexander 247 'Zimmerwald Left' faction 92 Zimmerwald peace congress, Switzerland

(1915) 92

Zinoviev, Grigory 91, 93, 106, 130, 132, 133,

140, 182, 198, 263, 268 Zlatoust 172

Zurich, Switzerland 91, 92, 93 Zurich Volkshaus 92

[1] The kings intoxicate us with gunsmoke,

Peace between ourselves, war on the tyrants.

Let us bring the strike to the armies,

fire into the air and break ranks!

If they insist, these cannibals,

On making us into heroes,

They'll know soon enough that our bullets

Are for our own generals!

[2] Confusingly though revealingly, Lenin later insisted that the Bolsheviks had 'merely wanted to carry out a peaceful reconnaissance of the enemy's strength, not to give battle'. But he also admitted, as if nonchalantly, that it had been the first Bolshevik 'attempt to resort to violent means'.

[3] In the David Lean epic Doctor Zhivago, a like-minded officer stands atop a beer barrel exhorting the men to defend their homes, their women - not to shamefully surrender to the Germans. The men cheer: until the barrel gives way and the commissar falls into the beer. The men laugh, and shoot him.

t Bad as this sounds, mutinies in the Baltic fleet in spring 1917 were far more serious, costing at least 150 lives.

[4] So well did Kerensky hide the Romanov treasure in the Kremlin that the Bolsheviks did not find it until March 1922.

[5] Kerensky told this author in private conversation that his actions at the time were strongly influenced by the experience of the French Revolution when indeed the threat came from Bonaparte.

[6]

Lenin's arrival at the Smolny changed the course of history. Histor­ians are agreed on that. Without him, the Bolsheviks would not have launched an insurrection on 25 October. There was no need to. Until Lenin's intervention, the majority of the Central Committee had not envisaged the overthrow of the Provisional Government before the opening of the Soviet Congress, and this view was shared by the Mili­tary Revolutionary Committee (MRC). Formed on 20 October to defend the Petrograd garrison against Kerensky's order to transfer the bulk of its Bolshevised troops to the northern front, the MRC became the leading organisational force of the Bolshevik uprising.

[7] During September he had even thought of organising the Petrograd uprising as a military invasion from the Baltic region, where he had spent the summer and had been impressed by the revolutionary mettle of the Latvian Riflemen (who would make a substantial portion of Lenin's personal bodyguard in the early days of Soviet rule). 'It seems to me,' he had written to Smilga, 'that we have completely at our disposal only the troops in Finland and the Baltic Fleet and that only they can play a serious role.'