Russian Revolution and Civil War: Crash Course European History #35

World War I was very hard on the Russian Empire. So hard, in fact, that it led to the end of the Russian Empire. As the global conflict ground on, Tsar Nicholas II faced increasing unrest at home. Today we'll learn about the Revolutions of 1917, the rise of Lenin, Trotsky, and the Bolsheviks, and the Reussian Civil War and the creation of the Soviet Union. 

Sources
-Engelstein, Laura. Russia in Flames: War, Revolution, and Civil War, 1914-1922. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
-Kivelson, Valerie A. and Ronald Grigor Suny. Russia’s Empires. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
-Sanborn, Joshua A. Imperial Apocalypse: The Great War and the Destruction of the Russian Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
-Smith, Bonnie G. Europe in the Contemporary World since 1900. 2nd ed. London: Bloomsbury, 2020.

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[andrewgutmann]

“So it was February, sort of, and we were in Petrograd, sort of” sounds like a great opening for a novel.

[TheMattastic]

I feel like any effort to fit the Russian Revolution into just fifteen minutes was going to end up frustrating a lot of people. Particularly in the interesting times we're suffering through, I think people of all political stripes look to the revolution as something to learn from.

What I'm saying is, we need Crash Course: Soviet History.

[breadan]

it's also not true to say that Lenin abandoned his faith in a worldwide revolution, and he did NOT embrace the idea of socialism in one country, or at least certainly not to the extent that Stalin did. Lenin thought that the only way for the revolution to survive was for bigger european countries to become socialist themselves (namely Germany). while he eventually became cognisant that that wasn't going to happen in the short term, he never abandoned his belief in the importance of worldwide revolution, and did everything he could to help build it through institutions like comintern

[wyacheslawkodanev]

My notes, as a historian from Russia:
1. "Chekha" is actually ChK (ЧК -- the letter Ч sounds like ch and in abbreviations it's pronounced like che /like in "Che Guevara"/; K sounds like usual K and in abbreviations it is pronounced exactly like English word "car"). It's an abbreviation for Чрезвычайная Комиссия (Chrezvychaynay Komissiya; Emergency Commission). And yep, it is a Bolshevik secret police.
2. Of course, Bolshevik rise to power was a way more complicated story. Basically, it's something like an underdog thing -- the most radical and extremely unpopular group of people gathers support and opportunity to use brutal force to become the ruling party, though still being unpopular. They got their momentum for the first time in the end of spring 1917 and used it as they can and in september 1917 they got their second momentum. And of course, up until spring 1917 they were seen only as marginal radical Marxist theorists living in Western Europe.
3. Though I really hate bolsheviks, it's unfair to say they hated the idea of constitution. They didn't like the constitutionalism as a movement based on separation of powers. They disbanded Constituent Assembly only after the Assembly declined constitution proposed by bolsheviks (I know, it's also undemocratic, but it's not like they got to know they had no majority and disbanded the assembly). And about two months later on one of the regular All-Russian Congress of Soviets (basically a big congress of deputies from each city, from many big rural areas and from the army) the bolshevik constitution was accepted and became the first Constitution in Russian history.
4. Stalin's role in foundation of USSR. There were two plans of forming USSR in 1922: "Lenin's plan" and "Stalin's plan". Stalin was a general secretary of Russian Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) -- it was not an influential position at that time (basically, "the head of party bureaucracy") -- and also a Minister of Ethnic Relations. So, in terms of forming USSR he was a "profile minister". He suggested creating lots of different ethnical autonomies inside the country, which will be somehow self-governed in terms of local economy and preserving local cultures, but really controlled by the government of Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Stalin's idea was based on practicality of "socialism in one country", Lenin's -- on the desire of spreading revolution. There were five independent communist states (they were recognised by each other and by Russian SFSR) directly bordering RSFSR: Ukrainian SSR, Byelorussian SSR, Georgian SSR, Armenian SSR and Azerbaijani SSR in the end of 1922. And bolsheviks were eager to make like Hungarian SSR, German SSR, Finnish SSR and so on. The Lenin's idea was to make each of SSRs an equal member of Soviet Union with the secession right (it was needed to say to other communist countries that we are ready to see you as an equal partner in the Union and if you don't like it here, your country may leave anytime it wants), and Stalin's plan was to make those states an autonomy inside RSFSR. In the end... Lenin's plan won, not Stalin's. And later on, Stalin would actually embrace Lenin's plan during his rule, as would any other future Soviet leaders -- de-jure the secession rights will be a thing up until 1990 (when Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia, Armenia, Moldova used their secession rights, but only the first three of them officially left the union, 'cause others were not sure if they wanted to leave the Soviet Union, which was democratizing very quickly that year) and December 1991 (when Russia, Ukraine and Belarus used their secession rights and basically informed other Union members that "of course, you can stay in Soviet Union, but without us it has no point"). Though, some of Stalin's ideas were implemented in 1922, the main one was merging of RSFSR government and USSR government. Basically, in 1922-1989 the territory of Russian SFSR was directly rule by a government of authorities from all 15 republics.

P.S. I would really recommend a book called "The Empire Must Die" by Mikhail Zygar on this topic. It is a non-fiction book based on memoirs of different members of Emperor's court, artists, businessmen, leaders of different political parties, labor unions and terrorist organizations in 1900-1917. It is a very neutral book without any "this side is bad, this side is worse and this side is good" definitions, it is more a narrative about how a really divided country may split, how many people with different views will have different agendas and different hopes -- and how, in the end, the smallest and most radical party won it all. And, since it's written by a pretty popular in UK Russian journalist, it's really easy to find English version of this book. They even have it on Audible, though I don't think it will be easy for a non-Russian person to remember Russian names in the book while listening to audio version.

[OnlyInItForCheese]

When the country's out of bullets and the Tsar still sends you out to fight


*Blyat*

[tea]

I can't believe this guy wrote 𝒻𝒶𝓊𝓁𝓉 𝒾𝓃 𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓇𝓈 .

[HoneyHotTapBenjamin]

Big fan of the series for a few years but this episode is really problematic...
Slight distortion of facts, thin explanation of events and missing other crucial components entirely.

[astery]

To hold up the statement - "Everyone should use same calendar all the time", I want to add further: "Everyone should use the same metric system all the time"

[pedromeade]

"Socialism in one country" was Starlin's idea. Lenin was always an internationalist.

[Bingusginghs]

Lenin didn’t break from Marx’s ideas, he developed and extended them. This is why Marxism-Leninism emereged after the Russian revolution and not just Leninism

[thefishoftruth]

A few points: 1) Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not oppose democracy, merely the Duma in its current state. They wanted to expand the democratic powers of the soviets in government. 2) Leninism is still Marxism. They did not want an oligarchy but a representative democracy using the soviet system. This is not direct democracy as the anarchists wanted but is still democratic. The soviets were given much power in local government and central planning.

[JesseMJames]

"Because the memorization of dates is overrated" 👏👏👏⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

[KRN]

John I'm 42, can't even do the math maybe 25 years from highschool now. Your channel is so valuable. I ENJOY learning at my own pace. The force-feeding of History in school didnt work for me, barely remember anything. Please keep up the good work. If possible I would love to see content on Asian and Middle Eastern history also. Thank you so much for this work.

[TheLaughingPanda]

Wow, all this talk of the provisional government in Russia really takes me back to Indy's Great War.

[annarose]

This is the third source I have read or watched on the Russian Revolution and quite frankly it is hard to believe that they are apparently describing the same events. Couple of problems that I have with this video:
- the Revolution of course wasn't just fuelled by war, it was also fuelled by factors like the average life expectancy for most people being 35 while the Tsar controlled somethung like 45 billion dollars, and by the failures of previous demands for reform (like the 1905 Revolution)
-the Provisional government from what I have read wasn't very democratic at all. They said for example that they were pursuing peace and then got caught doing the opposite when newspapers published government papers. They also made no steps to redistribute land for example. I think 'democracy' is an overused word. If it applies to governments like the Provisional one (or like the ones we have now, actually), of course people aren't going to have faith in it anymore.
-

[DmitryKurushin]

I never really liked the translation "Provisional Government". In Russian it's "Временное Правительство" or "Temporary Government".

Yeah, similar words, but one describes the main problem with this group a lot better -- it was never meant to be the future government of Russia. It was "temporary". Yet it stayed anyway, well after the point when people wanted it to stay. And, personaly, I think the big reason for this was in the name. You can't call yourself something "temporary" and expect people to take you seriously. It's like calling your film "A temporary waste of time before a superior sequel" -- would you really go see it? You'd probably just wait for the sequel. Or, in the case of the Bolsheviks, make one yourself.

[ktkatte]

If any of you want to know more about the Russian Revolution, Mike Duncan has a multi-part series on his podcast, Revolutions, that's a highly detailed version of this video. If you feel like you've only had a tiny taste of the history being talked about here, it's because you have.


I don't want to plug the guy too much, but like this was, like a few other videos in this series, an extremely summarized version, that can't really do the thing justice.


It's a good taste, don't get me wrong, but y'all have no idea how batshit the story of the Russian Revolution is.

[vladsiyanov]

John definitely has bias in this matter, but reading through comments it's great to see so many educated people who know of John's misrepresentations in this clip and actually know the bigger picture of the Russian revolution. Very nice :)

[eruno_]

This is very biased. First of all Russian people never really supported provisional government and Bolsheviks knew this, that's why they were successful.

[whiteb]

This videos got all the tankies out in the comments