Liberals argued for a representative, elected parliamentary government, subject to laws interpreted by a well-trained judiciary that was independent of rulers and officials.
Radicals:
The radicals wanted a nation in which government was based on the majority of a country’s population.
Conservatives:
They believed that the past had to be respected and change had to be brought about through a slow process.
Industrial Society and Social Change:
Some nationalists, liberals and radicals wanted revolutions to put an end to the kind of governments established in Europe in 1815.
In France, Italy, Germany and Russia, became revolutionaries and worked to overthrow existing monarchs.
The Coming of Socialism to Europe:
Robert Owen sought to build a cooperative community called New Harmony in Indiana.
In France, Louis Blanc wanted the government to encourage cooperatives and replace capitalist enterprises.
Karl Marx argued that industrial society was ‘capitalist’.
Support for Socialism:
Workers in England and Germany began forming associations to fight for better living and working conditions.
In Germany, these associations worked closely with the Social Democratic Party and helped it win parliamentary seats.
By 1905, socialists and trade unionists formed a Labour Party in Britain and a Socialist Party in France.
The Russian Revolution
The fall of monarchy in February 1917 and the events of October are normally called the Russian Revolution.
The Russian Empire in 1914:
The Russian empire included Moscow, current-day Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, parts of Poland, Ukraine and Belarus.
It stretched to the Pacific and comprised today’s Central Asian states, as well as Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Economy and Society:
There was a shift from farming to industries.
Worker’s society was divided.
Cultivators were unhappy.
Socialism in Russia:
The Socialist Revolutionary Party was formed in 1900 demanding peasants’ rights.
A Turbulent Time: The 1905 Revolution
Liberals worked with peasants and workers during the revolution of 1905 to demand a constitution.
They were supported by nationalists and jadidists who wanted modernised Islam to lead their societies.
The First World War and the Russian Empire
In 1914, the First World War broke out between Germany, Austria and Turkey and France, Britain and Russia.
Russian armies lost badly in Germany and Austria between 1914 and 1916.
The February Revolution in Petrograd
In February 1917, food shortages were deeply felt in the workers’ quarters as the winter was very cold.
Petrograd had led the February Revolution that brought down the monarchy in February 1917.
After February
Army officials, landowners and industrialists as well as the liberals and the socialists worked towards an elected government.
Lenin declared the war to be brought to a close, land be transferred to the peasants, and banks be nationalised.
The Revolution of October 1917
On 16 October 1917, Lenin persuaded the Petrograd Soviet and the Bolshevik Party to agree to a socialist seizure of power.
The uprising began on 24th October.
What Changed after October?
In cities, Bolsheviks enforced the partition of large houses according to family requirements.
The Bolshevik Party was renamed the Russian Communist Party.
In the November 1917 elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks failed to gain majority support.
In January 1918, the Assembly rejected Bolshevik measures and Lenin dismissed the Assembly.
In March 1918, the Bolsheviks made peace with Germany at Brest Litovsk despite opposition by their political allies.
The Civil War
By January 1920, the Bolsheviks controlled most of the former Russian empire.
Bolsheviks gave most of the non-Russian nationalities political autonomy in the USSR.
Making a Socialist Society
During the civil war, the Bolsheviks kept industries and banks nationalised.
Officials assessed how the economy could work and set targets for a five-year period and made the Five Year Plans.
Industrial production increased between 1929 and 1933 by 100 per cent.
Stalinism and Collectivisation
Stalin, who headed the party after the death of Lenin, introduced firm emergency measures.
Although Stalin’s government allowed some independent cultivation, the cultivator’s were treated unsympathetically.
Owing to the bad harvests of 1930 – 1933, Soviet faced its most devastating famines in history where over 4 million died.
The Global Influence of the Russian Revolution and the USSR
By the time the Second World War broke out, the USSR had given socialism a global face and world stature.
By the 1950s it was realised that the style of government in the USSR was not in keeping with the ideals of the Russian Revolution.
By the end of the twentieth century, the international reputation of the USSR as a socialist country had declined.
