In the previous blog, we
discussed how the world was being divided among Western powers at the Paris Peace Conference. However, one
country was absent from that equation: Russia. A new world order was being
established, but in the East, not only was a country collapsing; new ideologies
were also emerging.
In the 20th
century, the collapse of Czarist Russia started. The fear and unrest of poor
peasants and workers, overwhelmed by the harsh conditions under
Czarist Russia, in particular, spread gradually across Russia under the leadership of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. In fact, the first attempt at revolt came
in 1905; peasants and workers managed to establish workers' councils in St. Petersburg and Moscow, known for the first time as “Soviets.”
However, the major factor
accelerating the collapse of the regime was not poverty alone; it was the war
beyond Russia's borders. The destructive conditions of World War I led to
widespread famine among Russians, and a critical turning point came at the
Dardanelles. During the Battle of Gallipoli, the Entente powers failed to
achieve any decisive victory; as a result, Allied supplies and aid could not
reach Russia.
Due to the lack of Allied supplies,
this destroyed the last hope of the Tsarist regime. The resistance at the
Dardanelles acted as a butterfly effect, transforming Russian opposition into
an unstoppable force. A great rebellion breaking out on March 8, 1917, was the
first spark that ended an empire that had lasted for centuries.
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| Generated by AI |
The October
Revolution: The Rise of the Bolsheviks
Unable to withstand the mounting pressure of the uprisings, Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate on March 16, 1917. The Provisional Government, subsequently established by the Duma (the Russian Parliament), proclaimed a republic in September. However, this new government failed to address the people's most profound wound. Its insistence on remaining in the devastating fronts of World War I exhausted the patience of the peasants and soldiers who were already struggling with hunger and poverty.
It was
precisely in this chaotic environment that Vladimir Ilyich Lenin stepped onto
the stage, crying out the magical slogan the masses had been longing to hear: “Peace,
Land, and Bread!” Under Lenin's political leadership and organized by the
military genius of Leon Trotsky, the Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace on
November 7, 1917, an event that would go down in history as the October
Revolution, and seized power.
Brest-Litovsk and the NEP Era
The very
first promise the Bolsheviks kept upon coming to power was “peace.” In 1918,
they sat down at the table with the Central Powers and signed the Treaty of
Brest-Litovsk, an agreement carrying harsh terms, formally withdrawing Russia
from World War I. Through this treaty, the Ottoman Empire also reclaimed Kars,
Ardahan, and Batumi.
Having
ended the war abroad, the Bolsheviks now found themselves face to face with a
collapsed economy and a bloody civil war at home. Lenin realized that in order
for the new regime, which would soon take the name the USSR, to survive, he
would need to temporarily loosen the rigid principles of communist ideology. In
1921, he declared the NEP (New Economic Policy), a relatively flexible economic
model that allowed peasants to sell their surplus grain on the open market.
This move breathed new life into the Soviet economy and consolidated Bolshevik
power.
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| Red Guard unit of the Vulkan factory in Petrograd, October 1917 |
When the
Bolsheviks saw that the rigid practices of “War Communism” were driving the
country toward catastrophe, they allowed themselves a necessary flexibility
through the New Economic Policy (NEP). Under this policy, the forced seizure of
agricultural produce from peasants was abandoned. Small tradespeople and
merchants were given room to breathe, the nationalization of small industrial
enterprises was halted, and various opportunities were even extended to foreign
capital.
However,
this was not a return to capitalism; it was a tactical step back. The
Bolshevik government continued to keep the “commanding heights of the economy”,
banks, large industrial establishments, and transportation networks, firmly in
its own hands. This pragmatic move allowed the economy to recover rapidly while
giving the new regime the time it so desperately needed.
The greatest obstacle standing before
the Bolsheviks as they attempted to rebuild the economy was their political
rivals. The revolution had split the country sharply in two. On one side stood
the “Whites”, the White Army composed of those who wished to restore the
monarchy, constitutionalists, Mensheviks, and the Cossacks, the privileged
soldiers of the old regime. On the other stood the Bolsheviks, sworn never to
relinquish power. This relentless struggle ignited the Russian Civil War. In
December 1917, the Bolsheviks established a secret police organization known as
the Cheka (the Extraordinary Commission) to eliminate their rivals, launching a
systematic “Red Terror” across the country.
The most shattering event of this
period, in which dissenting voices were silenced without mercy, came in 1918.
With the stated aim of “completely destroying any hope of the old regime's
return,” the Bolsheviks executed Tsar Nicholas II and the entire Romanov family
by firing squad, drawing a bloody line under the age of autocracy.
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| The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly on 6 January 1918. The Tauride Palace is locked and guarded by Trotsky, Sverdlov, Zinoviev and Lashevich |
Germany's
defeat at the end of World War I handed the Bolsheviks the historic opportunity
they had been waiting for. Russia, having largely escaped the chaos of the
civil war and consolidated its strength, announced to the world that it no
longer recognized the punishing Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, a treaty it had been
forced to sign from a position of weakness. The Red Army moved to reclaim the
imperial territories it had lost. In the south, it established
control over the Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. However, the
resistance in the north could not be broken; the Bolsheviks were compelled to
reluctantly accept the independence of Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, and Finland.
The Moscow
leadership knew that the oppressive “Russification” policy, the forced
assimilation that had been Tsarist Russia's greatest mistake, would plant the
seeds of the revolution’s own destruction. From the 1920s onward, they
therefore pursued a cunningly calculated strategy. To prevent potential
nationalist uprisings against the system, they announced that they recognized
the linguistic and cultural autonomy of different peoples.
Beneath
this facade of “brotherhood of peoples” and equality, the structure of the
state was formally transformed into a federation. Founded by signatures put to
paper in the final days of 1922, this vast construct officially took the name
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR, by 1923. A new, red, and
colossal actor had appeared on the map.
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| The Death of Lenin. Generated by AI |
The
Bolsheviks’ consolidation of power in Russia sent shockwaves of panic through
the capitalist nations of the West. The Allied powers viewed this new “Red”
regime as an existential threat, fearing that the virus of communism would leap
across into Europe. In an effort to contain the spread of Bolshevism, they
erected what amounted to a “quarantine wall” between themselves and the Soviet
Union. To this end, they extended significant political and military support to
Finland, the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), Poland, and
Romania, effectively attempting to confine the USSR within its own borders.
The Death
of Lenin and the Man of Steel: Josef Stalin
By January 1924, an era had closed for the USSR: Vladimir Lenin, the architect of the revolution, was dead. From the bloody and merciless power struggle that followed his death, one man emerged victorious: Josef Stalin, known as the “Man of Steel.” With Stalin's rise to power, the relatively flexible NEP era came to an end, and the Soviet Union entered a period of rigid totalitarian control in which the state brought everything under absolute authority.
In the span of a few years, a centuries-old empire had collapsed, a new ideology had seized power, and the map of the world had been redrawn in red. The first part of our journey ends here.
In the second part, we will follow
Stalin's rise and the iron transformation of the Soviet Union into something
the world had never seen before.
Part II: The Basmachi Movement: Against the Soviet Empire (Part II)
