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By Eric Blanc. The forgotten Finnish Revolution has perhaps more lessons for us today than events in 1917 Russia.
Women members of Red Guards, Finland 1917
In the past century, histories of the 1917 revolution have usually focused on Petrograd and Russian socialists. But the Russian empire was predominantly made up of non-Russians — and the upheavals in the imperial periphery were often just as explosive as in the center.
Tsarism’s overthrow in February 1917 unleashed a revolutionary wave that immediately engulfed all of Russia. Perhaps the most exceptional of these insurgencies was the Finnish Revolution, which one scholar has called “Europe’s most clear-cut class war in the twentieth century.” Read more…
(First published in The Bullet, June 7, 2017. Reposted by permission.)
By Socialist Project. North America has been witness to two distinct forms of climate vandalism over the last year.
North America has been witness to two distinct forms of climate vandalism over the last year.
In the case of the United States, it came from President Donald Trump’s decision last week to formally withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord of December 2015, an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) set for 2020 to address greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, and adaptation, as well as proposals for financial assistance. The 21st Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC in Paris was adopted by consensus, and as of June 2017, 195 countries have signed the agreement, with 148 ratifying it, with each country setting targets, making plans and reporting on its efforts to mitigate climate change. Read more…
‘1917: The view from the streets’ – leaflets of the Russian Revolution #10-11
Russian and German soldiers fraternizing at the front
One hundred years ago, on May 15 (2), 1917, the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies issued two appeals – one to all socialists of the world and the other to all soldiers at the front. Read more…
Part 2 of Lars Lih’s series ‘All Power to thte Soviets’
By Lars T. Lih, April 2017. Were the Bolsheviks fundamentally prepared or fundamentally unprepared by their previous outlook to meet the challenges of 1917? To answer this question, we must first arrive at an understanding of the political strategy of Old Bolshevism. A coherent political strategy must answer two fundamental questions:
- What are the driving forces of the revolution in Russia—that is, what classes of Russian society would determine the course of the revolution, what were their interests and degree of organization, how would these classes clash and interact?
- What are the prospects of the upcoming revolution—that is, what progressive accomplishments could socialists reasonably hope for and what accomplishments were unlikely to happen?
The following is the concluding section of “The Driving Forces and the Prospects of the Russian Revolution,” written by Kautsky in 1906. For a discussion of this article, see “The Logic of Bolshevik ‘hegemony’ ”. Selected and translated by Lars T. Lih. Read more…
By Lars T. Lih. Three vivid and emotive Russian words are indispensable for a real understanding of the hegemony scenario: vlast, narod, and vozhd. While each of them have typical English equivalents that are not in themselves inaccurate, the English words leave out much that is important. Read more…
A previously untranslated reminiscence by Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Zinoviev, drawing by Yuri Annenkov
One hundred years ago today, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin returned to Russia with a small group of revolutionaries aboard the famous ‘sealed train.’ The following reminiscence of this event was written after Lenin’s death in 1924 by Grigory Zinoviev, one of Lenin’s companions on the train. Introduction and translation by Ben Lewis. Republished with permission from Weekly Worker. Read more…
By Eric Blanc. The following article continues a series initiated by Eric Blanc’s “Before Lenin: Bolshevik Theory and Practice in February 1917 Revisited.” See also comment by Gaston Gutierrez (in Spanish).
Introduction
In the hundred years since the overthrow of Tsarism, there has been a near consensus among socialists and scholars that Bolshevism underwent a strategic rupture in early 1917. According to this account, the Bolsheviks supported the liberal Provisional Government until Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia in April and veered the party in a radical new direction by calling for socialist revolution and soviet power.
Through a re-examination of Bolshevik politics in March 1917, the following article demonstrates that the prevailing story is historically inaccurate and has distorted our understanding of how and why the Bolsheviks eventually came to lead the Russian Revolution. Read more…
A Series by Lars T. Lih (Spring, 2017)
Banners: “Power to the Workers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Soviets”; “Down with the Minister Capitalists”.
The following article is the first in a seven-part series. An appendix to this article, “Mandate for Soviet Elections,” has been posted separately. See also other writings of Lars Lih. –JR
By Lars Lih. “All power to the Soviets!” is surely one of the most famous slogans in revolutionary history. It is right up there with “Egalité, liberté, fraternité” as a symbol of an entire revolutionary epoch. In this essay and others to follow later in the spring, I would like to examine the origin of this slogan in its original context of Russia in 1917.
Our slogan consists of three words: вся власть советам, vsya vlast’ sovetam. “Vsya” = “all,” “vlast’” = “power”, and “sovetam” = “to the soviets”. The Russian word sovet simply means “advice,” and, from that, “council.” By now, of course, we are very used to the Russian word, because it evokes a specific set of meanings arising out of the revolutionary experience of 1917. Read more…
For possible use in electing delegates to the Soviet of Worker and Soldier Deputies
The following declaration appeared 7 May 1917 on the front page of the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda under the title, Draft of a mandate for use in electing delegates to the Soviet of Worker and Soldier Deputies. This Mandate marked the first appearance of the slogan “All power to the soviets” in an official party statement. Its purpose was to help the soviet constituency distinguish genuine revolutionary candidates from revolutionaries in name only.
The statement has been translated and submitted by Lars Lih as an appendix to his contribution, “’All Power to the Soviets!’ Part 1: Biography of a Slogan” and as a guide to the meaning of that slogan in 1917.–JR Read more…
Louis Proyect responds here to analyses of the 1917 Russian revolution by Eric Blanc and Lars Lih that have appeared on this website. Louis’ article first appeared on his site, https://louisproyect.org/, on March 4, 2017, and is reposted with permission. For links to related material, see bottom of this post.
Louis Proyect (from louisproyect.org)
By Louis Proyect. When I first heard the term “revolutionary democratic-dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry” not long after joining the SWP in 1967, I said to myself “What the fuck is that?” Democratic dictatorship, say what?
Soon, I learned that this was a term coined by V.I. Lenin to convey the goals of the Bolshevik Party in the coming Russian revolution. Basically, it meant that the workers would make a revolution against the feudal class in Russia that dominated the countryside and that was represented politically by the Czar. After that stage had been accomplished, Russia would go on to the next stage of capitalist development freed from feudal constraints. Under those conditions, the workers would take advantage of constitutional freedoms to build a socialist party modeled on the German social democracy that can overthrow the capitalist system. Read more…
Proclamation of Polish socialist workers in Petrograd
“1917: The View from the Streets” – leaflets of the Russian revolution – #8
Maria Koszutska (1876 – 1939), theorist and leader of the PPS-Left
One hundred years ago today, on March 17 (4) 1917, the following appeal calling on Polish workers to support the Russian Revolution and fight for Polish independence was adopted at a rally of Polish socialist workers in Petrograd.
After the outbreak of World War One, the bulk of Poland (which had previously been ruled by the Tsarist government) came under German occupation. By 1917, roughly three million Poles – many of whom had been evacuated from Poland on the eve of the German invasion – found themselves under Tsarist rule. In response, Polish socialist parties began organizing the large groups of displaced Polish workers in industrial cities like Petrograd and Moscow.
Little is known about the initiators of the following appeal. Given its simultaneous stress on class struggle, internationalism, and Polish independence, the authors were likely members of the revolutionary Marxist Polish Socialist Party-Left and/or the far left wing of the Polish Socialist Party (Revolutionary Fraction).[1] Whereas most Polish nationalists and the moderate leaders of the Polish Socialist Party (Revolutionary Fraction) had throughout the war sought to promote Polish independence through a pact with German or Austrian imperialism, the following appeal makes the case for why national liberation could only be won through the struggle and solidarity of the international working class.
Selection, translation, and annotation by Eric Blanc. Read more…
‘Your representatives and worker deputies should become the people’s Provisional Revolutionary Government.’
“1917: The View from the Streets” – leaflets of the Russian revolution – #7
100 years ago today, on March 14 (1), 1917, the Social Democratic Interdistrict Committee (Mezhrayonka), supported by the Petersburg Committee of Socialist-Revolutionaries, issued the following appeal to soldiers.
At that time, the Duma Committee and the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies were striving to bring order into the revolutionary events on the streets and to prevent the tsarist autocracy from restoring its control over the city. Dominated by moderate socialists, the Soviet pursued a policy of cooperation with liberals in the Duma.
Soldiers demonstration 1917
Culmination of the Russian February Revolution
“1917: The View from the Streets”: Leaflets of the Russian revolution – #6.
100 years ago today, on March 12 (February 27) 1917, Socialists in Petrograd distributed the following appeal for an insurrectional general strike to bring down tsarism. That day, the culmination of the Russian February revolution, witnessed the crumbling of tsarist power.
The day after the demonstration by women workers on March 8 (February 23), more than 200,000 striking workers marched into the center of Petrograd. Large numbers of students and middle-class professionals joined the demonstrations on March 10 (February 25 ). Soldiers at first hesitated to forcefully remove demonstrators, but on March 11 (February 26), some soldiers followed orders to shoot at demonstrators, killing hundreds.
Soldiers rally to the revolution
