Russia in the Great War

Both revolutions of 1917 in Russia, the so-called February and the so-called October, took place during World War I (the Great War) when Russia fought against the Central Powers and their allies as a full member of the Entente powers together with France and Great Britain and their allies, including the Kingdom of Serbia, for which Tsarist Russia selflessly entered the war, even though in the summer of 1914 it was not sufficiently prepared for war against the Central Powers, especially in terms of purely military parameters.

However, in August 1914, in St. Petersburg, moral and cultural-historical reasons prevailed rather than purely military-political ones, as Tsar Nicholas II decided to defend Serbia’s independence at all costs against Pan-German imperialism and Berlin’s policy of Drang nach Osten (driving through the Balkans to Basra and the Persian Gulf).

Although Russia reluctantly entered the Great War in 1914, it entered it with great enthusiasm and faith in a final victory. However, soon after the initial military successes, it became clear that the Russian army was unable to effectively confront the army of the Second German Reich, which was then the strongest military land force in Europe. The war enthusiasm in the Russian army began to disappear after the heavy defeat at Tannenberg in the summer of 1914, during the first month of the German offensive on the Eastern Front (Second Battle of Tannenberg or Grünwald, August 23rd–30th, 1914).

In Russia at that time, only the Bolsheviks resolutely opposed the war, and they were accused by the authorities of Tsarist Russia and Russian patriots of being German mercenaries. Therefore, five Bolshevik deputies in the Duma (parliament) were exiled to Siberia by the authorities. The leader of the Bolsheviks, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924), saw in the military defeat of Russia the only and surest way to achieve the revolutionary goals of the Bolsheviks, who were fighting for the destruction of Tsarist Russia by any means necessary.

February/March Revolution

It became clear as the war dragged on that the longer the hostilities lasted, the less capable the Tsarist Russian government was of bringing the war to an end in its favour. There was also the possibility that the Tsarist government would sign a separate peace with the Central Powers, given that the Western Front had not moved and that a stationary trench war was being waged without any major results for either side.

In this context, Russia believed that France and Britain with all their rich overseas colonies were not fully willing to break through the Western Front, thus leaving Russia in a difficult position on the Eastern Front. Something similar happened in World War II when J.V. Stalin, after successful battles against the German army in 1943 (Stalingrad, Kursk), threatened to begin negotiations with the Germans with the possibility of signing a separate peace with Berlin unless the Western Allies launched a ground invasion of Germany and opened the Western Front. This front, agreed upon at the Tehran Conference in the fall of 1943, was finally opened on June 06, 1944, with the Allied landings in Normandy, France (D-Day).

In 1915, however, the Gallipoli Operation by the Western members of the Entente failed, and the Central Powers overran Serbia in the autumn of that year, making a direct connection with the Ottoman Empire via Serbia and Bulgaria. The Tsarist government was unpleasantly surprised by the revolution in March (February, according to the old calendar) 1917, as were its opponents. Tsar Nicholas II (1868–1918), who was forced to abdicate on March 15, was overthrown by hungry peasants, a disillusioned aristocracy, and a rebel army.

Power in St. Petersburg was transferred to a provisional government whose task was to govern the country until a new constitution could be adopted by the Constituent Assembly and a legal government formed. The first provisional government did not want to take Russia out of the war and therefore had the support of the Western Allies, but it fell because it failed to end the war, which in 1917 was unfolding unfavorably for Russia.

At that time, peace (i.e., Russia’s withdrawal from the war) and land redistribution (i.e., agrarian reform) were foremost priorities. Russia had paid a huge price in human casualties due to its unpreparedness for war and its inability to wage a long and exhausting modern war, unlike    Germany. By mid-1917, more than 15 million people had been mobilized in Russia. About 1.7 million people had disappeared on the battlefield, 4.9 million were wounded, and 2.4 million were captured.

During the war, Russia was superior to the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria, and Austria-Hungary, but proved inferior on against its main enemy, Germany. If Russia had withdrawn from the war under any conditions, the soldiers (mostly peasants in uniform) would demand that they be given more land to cultivate. If peasants were given land as part of the wartime agrarian reform, the soldier-peasants would desert to take their share. The Russian provisional government also had to fight against new forms of governing – ??the soviets (councils). The most influential and famous soviets were located in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but others sprang up throughout Russia after the March Revolution.

The April 1917 demonstrations against the war led to the fall of the first provisional government and resignation of Foreign Minister Milyukov (1859–1943). However, Russia continued its war effort, and the soviets increasingly supported the Bolsheviks, who were in favourof Russia’s withdrawal from the war, which undoubtedly suited the Central Powers and especially Germany. V.I. Lenin, who had lived abroad since 1900, returned from Switzerland in an armored train with the help of the Germans in April and set out his demands for a socialist revolution and his views on socialism in the April Theses.

Demanding peace and a gradual transfer of power from the provisional government to the soviets, the demonstrators in June 1917 showed that the influence of the Bolsheviks was growing and support for the provisional government was rapidly declining. Despite the support of moderate socialists (Mensheviks and social revolutionaries), the provisional government was resolutely opposed by the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin. Armed demonstrations of workers and soldiers broke out in St. Petersburg on July 16-18, 1917, when the demonstrators demanded all power from the soviets and tried to seize power, but the provisional government suppressed this rebellion.

The provisional government officially accused V.I. Lenin of being a German agent, of being financed by Germany, and of aiming to stage a revolution in order to seize power illegitimately to conclude a separate peace with the Central Powers to the detriment of Russia. Taking Russia out of the war would allow Germany to transfer all of its armies in the east to the Western Front against the French and British and give the Germans a crucial military advantage on the Western Front, which would likely end the war in Germany’s favour.

After the failed July demonstrations and a street coup in St. Petersburg, Lenin was forced to flee to Finland (which was then effectively separated from Russia). Alexander Kerensky (1881–1970) became Prime Minister on July 22, 1917, and attempted to restore order in the capital. Kerensky was a minister in the first two provisional governments, Prime Minister from July onwards, and after the suppression of a military uprising in September, became Commander-in-Chief of the Army.

However, Kerensky’s failure to resolve the country’s major problems paved the way for Lenin and his Bolsheviks to seize power in November 1917 (October/November Revolution). Kerensky made a cardinal mistake in September 1917 that, later in November, facilitated the Bolsheviks’ path to power. General L.G. Kornilov (1870–1918), commander-in-chief, marched with his troops on St. Petersburg in August 1917.

Kerensky perceived this as an attempted coup against him and the Provisional Government, and in order to oppose the putschists, turned to Lenin’s Bolsheviks for armed assistance. The Bolsheviks were able to exploit this later for their political goals in the October Revolution.

(To be concluded…)