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Russian Revolution/Week 6

Week 6
(For a more indepth course on the October Revolution, please see- [course coming late January and done late Summer 2007])

October Revolution (1917)
The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a series of political events in Russia, involving first the overthrow of the system of autocracy, and then the overthrow of the liberal Provisional Government (Duma), resulting in the establishment of the Soviet power under the control of the Bolshevik party. This eventually led to the establishment of the Soviet Union, which lasted until its dissolution in 1991.

The Revolution can be viewed in two distinct phases:

 * The February Revolution of 1917, which displaced the autocracy of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the last effective Tsar of Russia, and sought to establish in its place a liberal republic.
 * The October Revolution, in which the Bolshevik party and the workers' Soviets, led by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Provisional Government. While many notable historical events occurred in Moscow and St. Petersburg, there was also a broadly based movement in the rural areas as peasants seized and redistributed land.

See also "Russian history, 1892-1920" for the general frame of events.

Causes of the Russian Revolution
1917 saw two distinct revolutions in Russia: the overthrow of the Tsarist regime and formation of the Provisional Government (February Revolution), and the October Revolution in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government. The causes of these two revolutions encompass Russia’s political, social, and economic situation. Politically, the people of Russia resented the autocracy of Tsar Nicholas II and the corrupt and anachronistic elements in his government. Socially, Tsarist Russia stood well behind the rest of Europe in its industry and farming, resulting in few opportunities for fair advancement on the part of peasants and industrial workers. Economically, widespread inflation and food shortages in Russia contributed to the revolution. Militarily, inadequate supplies, logistics, and weaponry led to heavy losses that the Russians suffered during World War I; this further weakened Russia’s view of Nicholas II. They viewed him as weak and unfit to rule.

Ultimately, a combination of these four, coupled with the development of revolutionary ideas and movements (particularly since the 1905 Bloody Sunday Massacre) led to the Russian Revolution.

Economic
The economic causes of the Russian Revolution largely originated in Russia's slightly outdated economy. Russia's agriculture was largely based on independent peasants, who seldom owned modern machinery. Suffering from a naturally cold climate, Russia's growing season was only 4-6 months, compared to 8-9 in most of Western Europe.However, vast territory and population still allowed Russia to be the largest exporter of agricultural products in the world, even supplying North America in the 1900's.

Social
The social causes of the Russian Revolution mainly came from centuries of oppression towards the lower classes by the Tsarist regime and Nicholas's failures in World War I. While rural agrarian peasants had been emancipated from serfdom in 1861, they still resented paying redemption payments to the state, and demanded communal tender of the land they worked. Increasing peasant disturbances and sometimes full revolts occurred, with the goal of securing ownership of their land. Russia consisted mainly of poor farming peasants, with 1.5% of the population owning 25% of the land.

The rapid industrialization of Russia also resulted in urban overcrowding and poor conditions for urban industrial workers (as mentioned above). Between 1890 and 1910, the population of the capital of St Petersburg swelled from 1,033,600 to 1,905,600, with Moscow experiencing similar growth. In one 1904 survey, it was found that an average of sixteen people shared each apartment in St Petersburg, with six people per room. There was also no running water, and piles of human waste were a threat to the health of the workers.

World War I then only added to the chaos. Conscription swept up the unwilling in all parts of Russia. The vast demand for factory production of war supplies and workers caused many more labor riots and strikes. Conscription stripped skilled workers from the cities, who had to be replaced with unskilled peasants, and then, when famine began to hit, workers abandoned the cities in droves to look for food. Finally, the soldiers themselves, who suffered from a lack of equipment and protection from the elements were discontent with Russia's poor accounting in the war.

Political
Politically, most areas of Russian society had reason to be dissatisfied with the existing autocratic system. They had no representation in government, and the Tsar remained out of touch with the people's problems.

Dissatisfaction with Russian autocracy culminated in the Bloody Sunday massacre, in which Russian workers saw their pleas for justice rejected as thousands of unarmed protestors were shot by the Tsar's troops. The response to the massacre crippled the nation with strikes, and Nicholas released his October Manifesto, promising a democratic parliament (the State Duma) to appease the people. However, the Tsar effectively nullified his promises of Democracy with Article 87 of the 1906 Fundamental State Laws, and then subsequently dismissed the first two Dumas when they proved uncooperative. These unfulfilled hopes of democracy fuelled revolutionary ideas and violence targeted at the Tsarist regime.

It appears as though Tsar Nicholas II never really considered Russia a constitutional state and invariably held on to his strong inclination towards an Autocratic Russia.

 * "Let it be known to all that I... shall maintain the principle of autocracy just as firmly and unflinchingly as did my unforgettable dead father" - Tsar Nicholas II, 1906, in a speech to the Duma.

Beside the economic and social problems plaguing the country, the Russian Empire was still recovering from a humiliating defeat at the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. One of Nicholas's reasons for going to war in 1914 was his desire to restore the prestige that Russia had lost during that war. Nicholas also wanted to galvanize the diverse people in his empire under a single banner by directing military force at a common enemy, namely Germany and the Central Powers. He believed by doing so he could also distract the people from the ongoing issues of poverty, inequality, and poor working conditions that were sources of discontent.

Instead of restoring Russia's political and military standing, World War I would lead to horrifying military casualties on the Russian side and undermined it further. From the beginning the troops were not adequately supplied with weapons, or were led by incompetent generals and officers. Logistics were also a problem, since Russia's poorly maintained roads and railroads inhibited communication and distribution of supplies. Almost everywhere Russian forces were matched against German forces who had a superior advantage in weaponry, military talent, and logistics.

World War I
Russia's recent history was a litany of military failures. Even before the outbreak of the First World War, Russia had lost a war with Japan in 1904–05. Most of Russia's fleet was sunk by the Japanese in that war. While the Russian army enjoyed some initial successes against Austria-Hungary in 1914, Russia's deficiencies — particularly regarding the equipment of its soldiers and the lack of advanced technology (aeroplanes, telephones, poison gas) became increasingly evident.

Russia's first major battle of the war was a disaster. In the 1914 Battle of Tannenberg, over 120,000 Russian troops were killed, wounded, or captured, while Germany suffered only 20,000 casualties. Whatever nationalistic or patriotic support the Russian government had gained in the initial time frame leading up to the war had been lost.

In 1915, things took a critical turn for the worse when Germany shifted its focus of attack to the Eastern front. The superior German army - better led, better trained, better supplied - was terrifyingly effective against the ill-equipped Russian forces. By the end of October 1916, Russia had lost between 1.6 and 1.8 million soldiers, with an additional two million prisoners of war and one million missing for a total of nearly five million men. These were staggering losses. Mutinies began to occur, and in 1916 reports of fraternizing with the enemy started to circulate. Soldiers went hungry and lacked shoes, munitions, and even weapons. Sometimes entire regiments would be sent to the front without guns, only hoping that before they made contact with the enemy, they would find weapons from soldiers that had been killed in earlier waves. Rampant discontent lowered morale, only to be further undermined by a series of military defeats.

In the autumn of 1915, Nicholas had taken direct command of the army, personally overseeing Russia's main theater of war and leaving his ambitious though incapable wife Alexandra in charge of the government. Reports of corruption and incompetence in the Imperial government began to emerge, and the growing influence of Grigori Rasputin in the Imperial family was widely resented.

Nicholas was blamed for all these crises, and what little support he had left began to crumble. As this discontent grew, the State Duma issued a warning to Nicholas in November 1916 stating that disaster would overtake the country unless a constitutional form of government was put in place. In typical fashion, Nicholas ignored them. As a result, Russia's Tsarist regime collapsed a few months later during the February Revolution of 1917. A year later, the Tsar and his family were executed. Ultimately, Nicholas's inept handling of his country and the War destroyed the Tsarist regime and cost him both his rule and his life.

February Revolution

The February Revolution was the result of the acute aggravation of the economical and political crisis in Russia. It came about seemingly spontaneously when people of the Russian capital Petrograd started to rally against the war and against the food supply shortages in the city.

As the protests grew, various political reformists (both liberal and radical left) started to coordinate their activities. In February the protests in Petrograd turned violent as large numbers of city residents rioted and clashed with police and soldiers, followed by the total strike. Eventually the bulk of the soldiers garrisoned in Petrograd joined the protests, and the uprisen people occupied most of the important places in the city. This had led to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in a nearly bloodless transition of power.

A new Provisional Government was formed. Between February and October revolutionaries attempted to foment further change, working through the Petrograd Soviet and other organizations. The driving force behind the provisional government was a young and popular lawyer named Alexander Kerensky. Kerensky, as minister of war, decided to continue the Russian effort in World War I despite the enormous unpopularity of the war. He appointed new generals and began a new offensive, the Kerensky Offensive, which started well and then turned into yet another defeat. Kerensky's government tried to shame the soldiers into fighting by creating a Women's Battalion, but without success. The failure of his offensive brought about much resentment from the people.

October Revolution
, leader of the Bolsheviks]]

The October Revolution was led by Vladimir Lenin and was based upon Lenin's writing on the ideas of Karl Marx, a political ideology often known as Marxism-Leninism. It marked the beginning of the spread of communism in the twentieth century. It was far less sporadic than the revolution of February and came about as the result of deliberate planning and coordinated activity to that end. Though Lenin was the leader of the Bolshevik Party, it has been argued that, seeing as Lenin wasn't present during the actual take over of the Winter Palace, it was really Trotsky's organization and direction that led the revolution, spurred by the motivation Lenin instigated within his party. The financial and logistical assistance of German intelligence via their key agent, Alexander Parvus was a key component as well.

On November 7, 1917, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin led his leftist revolutionaries in a revolt against the ineffective Provisional Government (Russia was still using the Julian Calendar at the time, so period references show an October 25 date). The October Revolution ended the phase of the revolution instigated in February, replacing Russia's short-lived provisional government with a Soviet one. Although many Bolsheviks supported a soviet democracy, the 'reform from above' model gained definitive power when Lenin died and Stalin gained control of the USSR. Trotsky and his supporters, as well as a number of other democratically-minded communists, were persecuted and eventually imprisoned or killed.

After October 1917, many SR's (members of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party) and Russian Anarchists opposed the Bolsheviks through the soviets. When this failed, they revolted in a series of events calling for "a third revolution." The most notable instances were the Tambov rebellion, 1919–1921, and the Kronstadt rebellion in March 1921. These movements, which made a wide range of demands and lacked effective coordination, were eventually crushed during the Civil War.

Civil war
The Russian Civil War, which broke out in 1918 shortly after the revolution, brought death and suffering to millions of people regardless of their political orientation. The war was fought mainly between the Red Army ("Reds"), consisting of radical communists and revolutionaries, and the "Whites" - the monarchists, conservatives, liberals and moderate socialists who opposed the drastic restructuring championed by the Bolsheviks. The Whites had backing from nations such as the UK, France, USA and Japan.

Also during the Civil War, Nestor Makhno led a Ukrainian anarchist movement which generally cooperated with the Bolsheviks. However, a Bolshevik force under Mikhail Frunze destroyed the Makhnovist movement, when the Makhnovists refused to merge into the Red Army. In addition, the so-called "Green Army" (nationalists and anarchists) played a secondary role in the war, mainly in Ukraine.

The Russian revolution and the world
Lenin and Trotsky said that the goal of socialism in Russia would not be realized without the success of the world revolution. Indeed, a revolutionary wave lasted until 1923. Despite initial hopes for success in the German Revolution, in the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic and others like it, no other Marxist movement succeeded in keeping power in its hands.

This issue is subject to conflicting views on the communist history by various Marxist groups and parties. Stalin later rejected this idea, stating that socialism was possible in one country.

The confusion regarding Stalin's position on the issue stems from the fact that he, after Lenin's death in 1924, successfully used Lenin's argument - the argument that socialism's success needs the workers of other countries in order to happen - to defeat his competitors within the party by accusing them of betraying Lenin and, therefore, the ideals of the October Revolution.

Brief chronology leading to Revolution of 1917
''Dates are correct for the Julian calendar, which was used in Russia until 1918. It was twelve days behind the Gregorian calendar during the 19th century and thirteen days behind it during the 20th century.''

Cultural portrayal
The Russian Revolution has been portrayed in several films.

 * Arsenal ' (IMDB profile). Written and directed by Aleksandr Dovzhenko.
 * Konets Sankt-Peterburga aka The End of St. Petersburg (IMDB profile).
 * Lenin v 1918 godu aka Lenin in 1918 (IMDB profile). Directed by Mikhail Romm and E. Aron (co-director).
 * October: Ten Days That Shook The World (IMDB profile). Directed by Sergei M. Eisenstein and Grigori Aleksandrov. Runtimes: Sweden:104 min, USA:95 min. Country: Soviet Union. Black and White. Silent. 1927.
 * Reds (IMDB profile). Directed by Warren Beatty. It is based on the book Ten Days that Shook the World.
 * Anastasia (IMDB profile). Directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman.
 * Dr. Zhivago

Participants' accounts

 * Reed, John. Ten Days that Shook the World. 1919, 1st Edition, published by BONI & Liveright, Inc. for International Publishers. Transcribed and marked by David Walters for John Reed Internet Archive. Penguin Books; 1st edition. June 1, 1980. ISBN 0-14-018293-4. Retrieved May 14, 2005.
 * Serge, Victor. Year One of the Russian Revolution. L'An l de la revolution russe, 1930. Year One of the Russian Revolution, Holt, Reinhart, and Winston. Translation, editor's Introduction, and notes © 1972 by Peter Sedgwick. Reprinted on Victor Serge Internet Archive by permission. ISBN 0-86316-150-2. Retrieved May 14, 2005.
 * Trotsky, Leon. The History of the Russian Revolution. Translated by Max Eastman, 1932. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 8083994. ISBN 0-913460-83-4. Transcribed for the World Wide Web by John Gowland (Australia), Alphanos Pangas (Greece) and David Walters (United States). Pathfinder Press edition. June 1, 1980. ISBN 0-87348-829-6. Retrieved May 14, 2005.

Primary Documents

 * Steinberg, Mark D. Voices of Revolution, 1917. In the series “Annals of Communism,” Yale University Press, 2001. On-line publication of these texts in the Russian original: Golosa revoliutsii, 1917 g. (Yale University Press, 2002): http://www.yale.edu/annals/Steinberg/golosa.htm

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Week 7

title: Russian Revolution/Week 6


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Russian Revolution/Week 7

History of events after October 1917
The Russian Civil War was fought from 1917 to 1921. It began immediately after the collapse of the Russian provisional government and the Bolshevik takeover of Petrograd, rapidly intensifying after Lenin's dissolution of the Russian Constituent Assembly and the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The main hostilities took place between Communist forces known as the Red Army and loosely allied anti-Communist forces known as the White Army, and the worst fighting took place from 1918 to 1920. The Communists won after four years of savage fighting, and established the Soviet Union in 1922.

Overview
Following the abdication of Russian Tsar Nicholas II and the turbulent Russian Revolution throughout 1917, a socialist-leaning Provisional Government was established. In October another revolution occurred in which the Red Guard, armed groups of workers and deserting soldiers directed by the Bolshevik Party, seized control of St. Petersburg and began an immediate armed takeover of cities and villages throughout Russia. In January 1918, Lenin had the Constituent Assembly violently dissolved, proclaiming the Bolsheviks as the new government of Russia.

The Bolsheviks decided to immediately make peace with Germany and the Central Powers, as they had promised the Russian people prior to the Revolution. This decision has also been attributed by historians to Vladimir Lenin's sponsorship by the foreign office of Kaiser Wilhelm II's Germany, offered by the latter in hopes that with a revolution, Russia would withdraw from World War I.

A cease fire was immediately announced and peace talks began. As a condition for peace, the proposed treaty by the Central Powers conceded huge portions of the former Russian Empire to Imperial Germany and the Ottoman Empire, greatly upsetting nationalists and conservatives. Leon Trotsky, representing the Bolsheviks, refused at first to sign the treaty while continuing to observe a unilateral cease fire, following the policy of "No fighting, but no peace treaty".

In view of this, the Germans began an all out advance on the Eastern Front, encountering no resistance. Signing a formal peace treaty was the only option in the eyes of the Bolsheviks, because the Russian army was demobilized and the newly formed Red Guard were incapable of stopping the advance. They also understood that the impending counterrevolutionary resistance was more dangerous than the concessions of the treaty, which Lenin viewed as temporary in the light of aspirations for a world revolution. The Soviets acceded to a peace treaty and the formal agreement, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, was ratified on March 6, 1918.

In the wake of the October Revolution, the old Russian army had been demobilized and the volunteer based Red Guard was the Bolsheviks' main military arm. In January, Trotsky headed its reorganization into the "Workers' and Peasants' Red Army," in order to create a more professional fighting force. He instituted a forceful conscription program, frequently resorting to repressive tactics, and used former Tsarist officers as "military specialists".

The Bolsheviks banned all non-Bolshevik political activity around the same time, even other socialist groups, when it became clear that the Bolsheviks could not hold a majority of the seats in any democratically elected governing body outside of St. Petersburg and Moscow. This was particularly visible in the elections to the Constituent Assembly where Bolsheviks constituted a minority of the vote (despite Bolshevik supervision at major urban polling centers).

While resistance to the Red Guard began on the very next day after the Bolshevik coup, the Brest-Litovsk treaty and the political ban became a catalyst for the formation of anti-Bolshevik groups both inside and outside Russia, pushing them into action against the new regime.

A loose confederation of anti-Bolshevik forces aligned against the Communist government, including republican, conservative, reactionary, pro-monarchist, liberal, non-Bolshevik socialists, and democratic reformist supporters, voluntarily united only in their opposition to Bolshevik rule. Their military forces became known as the White movement (sometimes referred to as the "White Army"), and they controlled significant parts of the former Russian empire for most of the war.

A Ukrainian nationalist movement known as the Green Army and an anarchist movement known as the Black Army played a much smaller part in the war, sometimes harrying both the Reds and the Whites, and sometimes even each other.

The Western Allies, upset at the withdrawal of Russia from the war effort, also expressed their dismay at the Bolsheviks. Winston Churchill declared that Bolshevism must be "strangled in its cradle". In addition, there was also a concern - shared by many countries in the Central Powers as well - that the socialist revolution would spread and so many expressed support for the Whites, occasionally provided troops and supplies.

The majority of the fighting ended in 1920 with the defeat of General Pyotr Wrangel in the Crimea, but a notable resistance in certain areas continued until 1922 (e.g, Kronstadt Uprising, Tambov Rebellion, and the final resistance of the White movement in the Far East).

The Soviet government held that the Bolshevik movement was an international workers' movement and not specifically Russian; therefore, Soviet historiography traditionally referred to the conflict as the "Civil War and Military Intervention of 1917-1922". This term also encompassed the Polish-Soviet War, resistance in Ukraine, as well as Basmachi resistance and foreign intervention in Central Asia in its definition.

Geography and Chronology
The war was fought across three main fronts; the eastern, the southern and the north-western. It can also be roughly split into three periods.

The first period lasted from the Revolution until the Armistice. First, in late November of 1917 the new Bolshevik government declared that traditional Cossack lands were now to be run by the state. This provoked a revolt in Don region headed by General Kaledin, where the Volunteer Army began amassing support. The signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk also resulted in direct Allied intervention in Russia and the arming of military forces opposed to the Bolshevik government. There were also many German commanders who offered support against the Bolsheviks, fearing a confrontation with them was impending as well.

Most of the fighting in this first period was sporadic, involving only small groups amid a fluid and rapidly shifting strategic scene. Among the antagonists were the Czech-Slovaks, known simply as the Czech Legion or White Czechs (Белочехи, Byelochekhi), the Poles of the Polish 5th Rifle Division and the pro-Bolshevik Red Latvian riflemen (Красные латышские стрелки, Krasnye Latyshskiye strelki).

Lenin was surprised by the outbreak of civil war and initially underestimated the extent of the forces that rose against his new government.

The second period of the war was the key stage, which lasted from January to November of 1919. At first the White armies' advances from the south (under Denikin), the east (under Kolchak) and the northwest (under Yudenich) were successful, pushing back the new Red Army on all three fronts. But Leon Trotsky reformed the Red Army and pushed back Kolchak's forces (in June) and Denikin's and Yudenich's armies (in October). The fighting power of all the White armies was broken almost simultaneously in mid-November.

The final period of the war was the extended siege of the last White forces in the Crimea. Wrangel had gathered the remnants of the armies of Denikin, and they had fortified their positions in the Crimea. They held these positions until the Red Army returned from Poland where they had been fighting the Polish-Soviet war. When the full force of the Red Army was turned on them the Whites were soon overwhelmed, and the remaining troops were evacuated to Constantinople in November 1920.

While historiography generally considers the Russian Civil War to be over after the defeat of Wrangel's troops, organized military resistance continued up until the evacuation of General Diterikhs' troops in Vladivostok in October of 1922, after which the Soviet Union declared itself a state. Thereon after, military resistance to the Soviet government was not to resume on a massive scale until the emergence of the Russian Liberation Movement during World War II.

Course of events
The first attempt to seize the power from the Bolsheviks was made by the Kerensky-Krasnov uprising in October, 1917. It was supported by the Junker mutiny in Petrograd, but quickly put down by the Red Guards.

The initial groups that fought against the Communists were local Cossack armies that had declared their loyalty to the Provisional Government. Prominent among them were Kaledin of the Don Cossacks and Semenov of the Siberian Cossacks. In November, General Alekseev, the old Tsarist Commander-in-Chief, began to organize a Volunteer Army (Добровольческая Армия, Dobrovolcheskaya Armiya) in Novocherkassk. He was joined in December by Kornilov. These forces fought against the Bolshevik army all across the Ukraine. The Cossacks took Rostov in December 1917.

1918
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which pulled Russia out of the war and gave Germany control over vast stretches of western Russia, came as a nasty shock to the Allies. The British and the French had supported Russia on a massive scale with war materials and money. After the treaty, it looked like much of that material would fall into the hands of the Germans. As a result the United Kingdom and France sent troops into Russian ports. There were violent confrontations with troops loyal to the Bolsheviks but little bloodshed.

It was not until the spring of 1918 that the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionary Party joined the armed struggle against the Bolsheviks. Initially they had been opposed to war with the Bolsheviks but the treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the establishment of harsh dictatorial measures changed their position. They could have been a serious threat, as they had some popular support and the authority of their election victory on the Russian Constituent Assembly in 1918; However, they needed an army. An early attempt by the Socialist-Revolutionary Party to recruit Latvian troops in July 1918 was a failure. Fortunately, the Czech Legion proved to be a more reliable group to aid their "democratic counter-revolution".

The Czech Legion had been part of the Russian army and by October 1917 numbered around 30,000 men. Most were ex-prisoners of war and deserters from the Austro-Hungarian Army. Encouraged by Tomáš Masaryk, the legion was renamed the Czecho-Slovak Army Corps and hoped to continue fighting the Germans. An agreement with the new Bolshevik government to pass by sea through Vladivostok (so they could unite with the Czechoslovak legions in France) collapsed over an attempt to disarm the Corps. Instead their soldiers disarmed the Bolshevik forces in June 1918 at Cheliabinsk. Within a month the Czech Legion controlled most of the Trans-Siberian Railroad from Lake Baikal to the Ural Mountains regions. By August they had extended their control even farther, taking over Ekaterinburg on July 26 1918.

The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries supported peasant fighting against Soviet control of food supplies. In May 1918, with the support of the Czech Legion they took Samara and Saratov, establishing the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Комуч, Komuch). By July the authority of Komuch extended over much of the area controlled by the Czech Legion. The Komuch implemented a socialist reform program but without the unpopular economic changes the Soviets were pursuing.

There were also conservative and nationalist "governments" being formed by the Bashkirs, the Kirghiz and the Tatars (see Idel-Ural State) as well as a Siberian Regional Government in Omsk. In September 1918 all the anti-Soviet governments met in Ufa and agreed to form a new Russian Provisional Government in Omsk, headed by a Directory of five: three Socialist-Revolutionaries (Avksentiev, Boldyrev and Zenzinov) and two Kadets, (V. A. Vinogradov and P. V. Vologodskii).

However, the new government quickly came under the influence the new War Minister, Rear-Admiral Kolchak. On November 18 a coup d'état established Kolchak as dictator. The members of the Directory were arrested and Kolchak was proclaimed "Supreme Ruler of Russia". Kolchak was apolitical and not involved in the coup. He proved to be ineffective as both a political and military leader (his training was all in naval warfare). He also did not get along with the leaders of Czech Legion, the strongest military force in the area.

To the Soviets the emergence of Admiral Kolchak was a political victory because it confirmed their opponents as anti-democratic reactionaries. Following a reorganization of the People's Army, Kolchak's forces captured Perm and Ufa in December of 1918. But this was to be the high water-mark for his army.

In July two Socialist-Revolutionaries; Blyumkin and Andreyev; assassinated the German ambassador in Moscow, Count Mirbach, in an attempt to provoke the Germans into renewing hostilities. Other Socialist-Revolutionaries attempted to rouse Red Army troops against the regime. The Soviets managed to put down these local uprisings, and Lenin personally apologized to the Germans for the assassination. There were mass arrests of Socialist-Revolutionaries. Following two further terrorist acts on August 30—the assassination of the Chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, Uritsky, and the wounding of Lenin—the "Red Terror" was unleashed in response. Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries were expelled from the Soviets and anyone suspected of counter-revolutionary activity could be imprisoned or executed without trial.

1919
The stage was now set for the key year of the Civil War. The Bolshevik government was firmly in control of the core of Russia, from Petrograd through Moscow and south to Tsaritsyn (now Volgograd). Against this government in the east, Admiral Kolchak had a small army and had some control over the Trans-Siberian Railroad. In the south Cossacks armies controlled much of the Don and the Ukraine. In the Caucasus, General Denikin had established an army. In the newly independent country of Estonia General Yudenich was organizing an army. Estonia was overtly hostile to the Bolsheviks and had been fighting with them since November 1918 (see Estonian War of Independence for details). The French occupied Odessa. The British occupied Murmansk. The British and Americans occupied Arkhangelsk and the Japanese occupied Vladivostok.

Trotsky ordered the Bolshevik army to recapture Ukraine first. This they did in a quick campaign in the winter-spring of 1919. The Cossacks had been unable to organize and capitalize on their successes at the end of 1917. Consequently, when the Soviet counter-offensive began in January 1919—under the Bolshevik leader Antonov-Ovseenko—the Cossack forces rapidly fell apart. The Red Army captured Kiev on February 3 1919 and ten days later, with his army in chaos, General Kaledin committed suicide. Rostov was captured in March 1918. The Cossack Volunteer Army was evacuated to the Kuban, where they joined with the Kuban Cossacks to mount an abortive assault on Ekaterinodar. General Kornilov was killed in the fighting on April 13, Operational command passed to General Denikin who spent the next few months rebuilding his Cossack army. In October, General Alekseev died of a heart attack and General Denikin was (in theory at least) now the top political leader for the White armies in Southern Russia.

With Bolshevik forces seemingly triumphant in Ukraine, the French, having done almost no fighting, withdrew their troops from Odessa on April 8 1919.

While the war was going on in Ukraine, Trotsky sent another army against Kolchak's forces. This army, lead by the capable commander Tukhachevsky, recaptured Ekaterinburg on January 27 1919 and continued to push along the Trans-Siberian railroad. Both sides had victories and losses, but by the middle of summer the Red army was larger than the White army and was winning back lands it had lost earlier. The British and Americans pulled their troops out of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk before the onset of winter, having accomplished little. The Red Army captured Omsk on November 14 1919. Admiral Kolchak lost control of his government shortly after this defeat and in fact, the White army in Siberia essentially ceased to exist by December.

Even though the United Kingdom withdrew its troops, it continued to give significant military aid (money, weapons, food, ammunition, and some military advisors) to the White armies during 1919, especially to General Yudenich. Without this support the White armies would likely have lost the war much earlier due to lack of weapons and food.

In the early summer, the Caucasus Army (now under operational command of General Wrangel) attacked north, trying to relieve the pressure on Kolchak's army or even link up with it. Wrangel's troops managed to capture Tsaritsyn on June 17 1919. Trotsky responded to this threat by sending Tukhachevsky with a new army against Wrangel's troops. The Caucasus army of Wrangel, faced with superior numbers, retreated south, leaving Tsaritsyn to the Bolsheviks.

Later in the summer, another Cossack force called the Don Army under the command of Cossack General Mamontov and attacked into Ukraine. The Red army, stretched thin by fighting on all fronts, was forced out of Kiev on September 2 1919. Mamontov's Don Army continued north towards Voronezh but there they were defeated by Tukhachevsky's army on October 24. Tukhachevsky's army then turned towards yet another threat, the rebuilt Volunteer Army, and destroyed that army at Orel in October. The Red Army recaptured Kiev on December 17 and the defeated Cossacks fled back towards the Black Sea.

While the White Armies were being defeated in the south, the center and the east, there was still one more threat to the Bolshevik government. This threat came from General Yudenich who had spent the spring and summer organizing a small army in Estonia, with British support. In October of 1919 he tried to capture Petrograd in a sudden assault with a force of around 20,000 men. The attack was well executed, with night attacks and maneuvers to turn the flanks of the defending Red army. Yudenich also had six British tanks that caused panic whenever they appeared. By October 19 1919 Yudenich's troops had reached the outskirts of Petrograd. The Bolshevik leadership in Moscow was willing to give up Petrograd, but Trotsky refused to accept the loss and personally went to the city to organize the defenses. Trotsky did everything he could to defend the city including arming the industrial workers and ordering the transfer of military forces up from Moscow. Within a few weeks the Red army defending Petrograd had tripled in size and outnumbered Yudenich three to one. At this point Yudenich gave up his attack and withdrew his army back to Estonia. Upon his return to Estonia, his army was disarmed by order of the Estonian government. The Bolshevik forces that followed Yudenich were beaten back by the Estonian army. Following the Treaty of Tartu most of Yudenich's soldiers then went into exile.

These victories by the Bolsheviks over Mamontov's Cossack army at Voronezh, Yudenich at Petrograd, and Kolchak at Omsk—all in a one month period—transformed the war. Quite suddenly the Bolshevik government had triumphed over all its internal enemies; the job that remained now was mopping up.

1920
In Siberia, Admiral Kolchak's army had disintegrated. He himself gave up command after the loss of Omsk and designated Semenov as the new leader of the White Army in Siberia. Not long after this he was arrested by a dissident faction (which was probaly made up of nationalist Bashkirs ) as he traveled towards Irkutsk (historian Richard Pipes thinks the French military liaison was involved in this). Kolchak was turned over to the Red army in February 1920 and executed two weeks later (likely on Lenin's order). Fighting in Siberia continued for the next year as armed gangs—essentially bandits—roamed the land. Semenov and his tattered band of Cossacks ultimately retreated into China.

The Czech Legion had no real interest in fighting in the Russian Civil War. They wanted to fight the German army, but with the end of World War I, that desire died. Uninspired by Kolchak (and not, in turn, trusted by him) they spent most of 1919 moving their troops east and having them shipped, boat by boat, back to Europe. They were aided in this effort by American military units, under the command of General William S. Graves, who took control over the eastern end of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The Czech Legion managed to evacuate all their forces out from Vladivostok (as had been their original plan in 1918). They were gone by April 1920 which is when the American troops also left Siberia.

Most of the White Armies were evacuated by British ships during the winter-spring of 1920. General Wrangel was the only holdout; his army remained an organized force in the Crimea throughout the summer of 1920. Then, trying to take advantage of the Red Army defeat in the Polish-Soviet War of 1920, General Wrangel attacked north. This offensive was rapidly halted by the Red Army and his troops were forced to retreat back to the Crimea in November 1920. He was evacuated by the British out of the Crimea on November 14 1920 amidst horrific scenes of desperation and cruelty. Tens of thousands of Russians tried to escape from the Red army but were unable to find transport on the British ships.

The Japanese, who had plans to annex the Amur region of Eastern Siberia, finally pulled their troops out in October of 1922 as the Bolshevik forces gradually asserted control over all of Siberia. The regions of Kamchatka and Northern Sakhalin remained under Japanese occupation until their treaty with Soviet Union in 1925, when their forces were finally withdrawn.

Explanations for the Red victory
The Reds held the central, industrial area, which gave them control over railways and the production of amunitions. They also controlled a huge population base from which they could conscript large armies (which they did starting in 1919). The Reds were united in the face of a common enemy, they feared the Tsar’s return, and they made use of the fear of invasion and newfound patriotism in the people. They relied on no one else, which made it easier to coordinate defense. The peasants feared the Tsar’s return and that of the landlords. They were worried that they would lose their land.

The core area which the Bolsheviks controlled was the most populous area of Russia and, when the decisive battles took place at the end of 1919, they had more than 3,000,000 men under arms. By the end of the Civil war in 1921 they had 5,000,000 men in their army. More than 75,000 ex-Tsarist officers served in the Red army. Compared to this, the strength of the White armies never exceeded 250,000 men. The core area which the Bolsheviks controlled contained the main industrial regions and almost all of the weapons of the Czarist army. They had the advantage of inner and better lines of communications, in particular railway lines. This allowed soldiers to be transported quickly to battlefields, and sufficient supplies to reach them. These inner lines of communication allowed Trotsky to shift Tukhachevsky and some of his best troops from the east - where they were fighting against Kolchak's army - to the south - where they fought against Wrangel's army at Tsaritsyn; all in the summer of 1919.

Leon Trotsky turned out to be an effective leader and organizer; he was also a brilliant speaker. He was appointed as Commissar for War in 1918 after the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. From a core of Red Guards, which had been armed by the Provisional Government during the Kornilov Revolt, Trotsky built up the Red Army through conscription. Traveling on his legendary train, he boosted the Red Army's morale. He also re-introduced strict discipline (after a short period of "equality" under Soviet Order No. 1). Deserters were shot, and political commissars, committed Bolsheviks, were placed in the ranks to ensure loyalty. Trotsky was personally responsible for ending the panic in Petrograd and turning back Yudenich's army. However, Trotsky was not usually responsible for the local conduct of the military operations, which remained in the capable hands of energetic men like Tukhachevsky.

Weaknesses of the Whites
Victory for the Bolsheviks was partially due to the weaknesses of the Whites. The Whites consisted of a coalition of many different diverse groups, all with different ideologies and objectives. Many peasants didn’t support the Whites and tried to maintain neutrality. The peasants were worried that a White victory could restore their land to the former land owners. While some White factions supported radical change and land reform, such as General Pyotr Wrangel's land reform, most Whites did not want to get involved in the land question and some were content giving the land back to its original owners, at least until another political solution was decided.

Admiral Kolchak was a capable naval officer but was not politically educated and had no prior experience in commanding a land based army. His tensions with certain commanders of the Czech Legion, the strongest and best organized military force in Siberia, caused difficulties. He had also been unable to gain the support of top Allied powers (Britain, France, or the United States). No Allied government recognized Kolchak's government as legitimate, partly owing to the Allies' uncertainty in the future of Kolchak's government (many socialists sought to replace him). Other reasons for not recognizing Kolchaks government include dislike of the Kolchaks autocratic rule and fear of a new united Russian empire with colonial interests.

The Whites were unable to gain support from three powers that had an interest in the conflict: Finland, Poland, and the Baltic States. While the Bolsheviks were quite willing to recognize the independence of these new countries (the Bolsheviks thought that all countries would soon cease to exist as Communism would dissolve national boundaries), the Whites were hesitant in deciding the question outside of the yet to be convened Constituent Assembly. As a result, General Yudenich was unable to get military support from Estonia or Finland for his attack on Petrograd. The Polish government lead by Yusuf Pilsudski, chose instead to ally with the Ukrainian government lead by Symon Petlura, whose territory had been invaded by the whites.

The Whites suffered because of their strategic position, which was scattered throughout the country, while the Bolsheviks were centralized. It was difficult too for Whites to communicate, much less coordinate attacks. There were also disputes over politics and military tactics. Some of the White generals (such as Semenov) became known for torture, rape and murder of civilians, which gave them many enemies. .

Aftermath
...it [is] possible to suppose that, if Russia is allowed to have peace, an amazing industrial development may take place, making Russia a rival of the United States. At the end of the Civil War, Soviet Russia was exhausted and near ruin. The droughts of 1920 and 1921 and the 1921 famine worsened the disaster. The war had taken an estimated 15 million lives, including at least one million soldiers of the Russian Red Army who died in battle. Fifty thousand Russian Communists were killed by the counter-revolutionary Whites. Millions more were also killed by widespread starvation, epidemics, wholesale massacres by both sides, and even pogroms against Jews in Ukraine and southern Russia. The economic loss to Soviet Russia was 50 billion rubles, or 35 billion in current U.S. Dollars. The industrial production value descended to 4-20% of the value of 1913.

Another million people, known as the White emigres, fled Russia - many with General Wrangel, some through the Far East, others fled west into the newly independent Baltic countries in order to escape the ravages of the war, the famine, or the rule of either warring faction. These émigrés included a large part of the educated and skilled population.

War Communism saved the Soviet government during the Civil War, but much of the Russian economy ground to a standstill. Private industry and trade was proscribed, and the newly established (and barely stable) state was unable to run the economy on a sufficient scale. It is estimated that the total output of mines and factories in 1921 had fallen to 20 % of the pre-World War level, and many crucial items experienced an even more drastic decline. For example, cotton production fell to 5 %, and iron to 2 % of pre-war levels.

The peasants responded to requisitions by refusing to till the land. By 1921, cultivated land had shrunk to 62 % of the pre-war area, and the harvest yield was only about 37 % of normal. The number of horses declined from 35 million in 1916 to 24 million in 1920, and cattle from 58 to 37 million. The exchange rate of the U.S. dollar declined from two rubles in 1914 to 1,200 in 1920.

Although Russia eventually recovered and even experienced extremely rapid economic growth in the 1930s, the combined effect of World War One and the Civil War left a lasting scar in Russian society, and had permanent effects on the later history of the Soviet Union.

Many socialist theorists, particularly those in the Trotskyist tradition, cite the combined devastation of these two experiences as the basis for Stalin's rise to power and the reason for the dissolution of the workers' state established by Lenin and the original Bolsheviks. They argue that the proletariat had been crippled by both massive physical death and the destruction of class consciousness. What is more, they strongly emphasize the ruinous state that Russian economy was in after years of national conflict. They claim that the ascendency of Stalinism took root in the shambles of the country's socioeconomic system.

Questions
Week 7 Questions

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Russian Revolution/Week 7


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Russian Revolution/Questions

Questions
Note: these questions are not well related to the weeks of the course. --Abd 14:07, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Week 1

 * 1) Why would I (you the student) study the Russian Revolution?
 * 2) What impacts would you say the Revolution had on Russia?
 * 3) What do you think you'll learn from this course?
 * 4) How do you think you'll grow as a person after this course?
 * 5) What are your goals regarding this course?

Week 2

 * 1) Who were the Romanovs?
 * 2) How did they come to power?
 * 3) Why did they rule the way they ruled?

Week 3

 * 1) What affected the 1905 revolution?
 * 2) Who were some of the major players in the 1905 revolution?
 * 3) How was this revolution different from past Russian revolutions?
 * 4) How was this revolution different from other Russian revolutions to come?

Weeks 4 and 5

 * 1) What affected the February 1917 revolution?
 * 2) Who were some of the major players in the February 1917 revolution?
 * 3) How was this revolution different from other past Russian revolutions?
 * 4) How was this revolution different from other Russian revolutions to come?
 * 5) How did Lvov react towards this revolutions?
 * 6) How did Kerensky react towards this revolutions?

Week 6
What were the causes of the 1917 revolution?

title: Russian Revolution/Questions


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Russian Revolution/Syllabus

Introduction
Hello, my name is Gabriel Spiro. I am a student at Montgomery College in Germantown, Maryland.

Course Information
Welcome to RU 1050 Russian Revolution! This course's homepage is Russian Revolution and its supplemental material pages are located on the home page (Material). Most of our activities will be confined to the Wikiversity and Wikipedia, but other sites that are reputable might be added at a later point.

Instructor Information
Currently there is only one teacher but others may be added. Gabriel J. Spiro is a student at Montgomery College at the Germantown Campus. He is a History and Political Science major and has grown in his love of Russian History and specifically Russian Revolutions. If you need to e-mail me please don’t hesitate to do so; MCStudentSenate@gmail.com.

Text and Supplementary Readings
All the material necessary for the class will be found somewhere on the Internet and predominately from Wiki sources.

Textbook
The textbook for this course will be found here and any other extra sites that are necessary for the completion of this class will be denoted on that week’s page under the Home Work section.

Supplementary reading(s)
It might be helpful to look at the related Wikipedia pages located here.

Course Descriptions/Objectives
It is my desire that you the students will learn about the Russian Revolution and how each succeeding revolution built up to a calumniating event which many historians said was a mistake. Why did the backward nation of Russia at the beginning of the century become such a powerful superpower at the middle of that century and then dissolve into a minor power by the end of the century. It is our goal that you will be able to correctly and specifically outline the causes and reasons for the October Revolution and then be able to move into other higher level Russian classes at a traditional college and have a good foundation to build up.

Course Calendar/Schedule
The calendar of this class starts on – and will end on -. The course lectures have been prepared in a weekly format. To help those of you who are really busy, I have added two weeks to the number of weeks necessary to complete the material so that you the student have a little bit a cushion of time if you start to fall behind. The final will be a research paper that you will write. Because it is impossible to have a real ‘final’, the research paper will done in place of it. Therefore, you have – weeks to complete – weeks worth of material. Homework has no real deadline but it must be completed when you turn in the final. Topics for the final must be submitted a week before the end of the class.

Course Policies
Here are the policies for the course.

Attendance, lateness
There is no attendance necessary at any one point but lateness will be an issue when it comes to the final and homework. You have to turn everything to myself (MCStudentSenate@gmail.com) no later than one week after the class ends.

Class participation
All registered members of the class must post their answers to the questions for each week on the talk page for each week’s home work page. Unregistered users’ comments will be removed and the grading for the talk about the answers will result in 10% of your grade.

Missed exams or assignments
If your homework, essays, and final are not received one week after the end of the class, that assignment will be marked as a 0.

Academic dishonesty
You must reference your sources and any form of plagiarism will result in immediate expulsion from the class.

Grading
Grading for this class will follow this spreadsheet.

title: Russian Revolution/Syllabus


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Russian Revolution/Related Wikipedia pages

Individuals

 * Vladimir Lenin
 * Joseph Stalin

Groups

 * Bolshevik
 * Menshevik
 * White movement
 * Black Guards
 * Green Army

Revolutions

 * Russian Revolution of 1917
 * February Revolution
 * October Revolution
 * Russian Civil War


text:
Russian Revolution/Related Books

Books on Specific Revolutions

 * 10 Days that Shook the World, John Reed
 * Bolshevik Revolution, Richard Pipes

Books on Russian History

 * 20th Century Russia, Robert Service
 * Lenin, Robert Service

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Russian Revolution/Week 5

February Revolution Revolution (1917)

 * For the French revolutions, see Revolutions of 1848 in France

The February Revolution (N.S.: March Revolution) of 1917 in Russia was the first stage of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. The February Revolution saw a transfer of power from the Tsar, with around 1,500 to 2,000 people being killed or badly wounded in the disturbances. The regime that came into being was an alliance between liberals and socialists who wanted to instigate political reform, creating a democratically elected executive and constituent assembly.

World War I
The 1917 February Revolution occurred largely as a result of World War I and dissatisfaction with the way that the country was being run by the Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna of Hesse and Tsar Nicholas' ministers, who were acting on the authority of the Tsar while he was away at the Army Headquarters as Commander-in-Chief. (A telegram from Rodzienko to the Tsar on 26 February 1917, in which he begs for a strong capable minister, illustrates the lack of strong leadership.) The personal assumption of command by the Tsar in itself caused tension as involvement in the World War I was seen to be causing the majority of the problems Russia was experiencing internally, and the personal association of the Tsar with the war further worsened his position.

Controversy also surrounded the role of Grigori Rasputin in the Russian royal family, with speculation arising regarding his relationship with the Tsarina in particular, speculation that resulted in the assassination of Rasputin by members of the extended royal family. Furthermore, Alexandra's German heritage made her an unpopular figurehead for the Romanovs in Petrograd while Nicholas was away at the front.

All political parties had supported, in August 1914, Russian participation in World War I, alongside the United Kingdom and the French Third Republic allied in the Triple Entente--apart from the Social Democratic Labour Party divided between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. After a few initial victories, the Tsar's armies were confronted with serious defeats; in particular, in East Prussia. The factories were not productive enough, the railway system insufficient, and poor logistics overall explained the Russian losses. More than 1,700,000 Russian soldiers were killed, and 5,900,000 injured. Mutinies sprang up often, general morale was at its lowest and the officers and commanders were at times quite incompetent. Over 140,000 desertions occurred in one year. Some units went to the front line with ammunition that was incompatible with their weapons.

On the home front, famine was threatening and commodities were becoming scarce. The Russian economy, which had just seen one of the highest growth rates of Europe, was henceforth blocked from the European market. The Duma, composed of liberal deputies, warned the Tsar Nicholas II and counselled him to form a new sort of constitutional government, which he had dissolved after some short-term attempts following the 1905 Revolution. But the Tsar ignored the Duma's advice.

The February Revolution Events February 22, 1917 - Nicholas II leaves Petrograd to visit troops February 23 - International Women’s Day demonstration in Petrograd February 24 - Massive strikes and demonstrations occur throughout the capital February 25 - Unrest continues; Mensheviks meet and set up a “Workers’ Soviet” Nicholas II orders military to stop riots February 26 - Troops fire on demonstrating crowds Mass mutiny begins in local army regiments Firefights break out between troops and police February 27 - More than 80,000 troops mutiny and engage in widespread looting February 28 - Duma and Workers’ Soviet gather separately and begin making decisions about restoring order and establishing a new state March 2 - Nicholas II abdicates the throne; provisional government formed Key People Nicholas II - Last Russian tsar; abdicated as a result of the February Revolution Alexander Kerensky - Member of the provisional government and Petrograd Soviet; wielded significant political power after Nicholas II’s abdication International Women’s Day 1917 With Russia faring poorly in World War I and facing severe food shortages, strikes and public protests happened in the country with increasing frequency during 1916 and early 1917. Violent encounters between protesters and authorities also increased. On February 23, 1917, a large gathering of working-class women convened in the center of Petrograd to mark International Women’s Day. The gathering took the form of a protest demonstration calling for “bread and peace.” While the demonstration began peacefully, the next morning it turned violent as the women were joined by hundreds of thousands of male workers who went on strike and flooded the streets, openly calling for an end to the war and even to the monarchy. Feeding on their outrage with each passing day, the demonstrations became larger and rowdier, and the outnumbered police were unable to control the crowds. Violence and Army Mutiny With news of the unrest, Tsar Nicholas II, who was away visiting his troops on the front, sent a telegram to Petrograd’s military commander on February 25, ordering him to bring an end to the riots by the next day. In their efforts to carry out the tsar’s order, several troops of a local guard regiment fired upon the crowds on February 26. The regiment fell into chaos, as many soldiers felt more empathy for the crowds than for the tsar. The next day, more than 80,000 troops mutinied and joined with the crowds, in many cases directly fighting the police. The Duma and the Petrograd Soviet During this period, two political groups in Russia quickly recognized the significance of what was developing and began to discuss actively how it should be handled. The Duma (the state legislature) was already in active session but was under orders from the tsar to disband. However, the Duma continued to meet in secret and soon came to the conclusion that the unrest in Russia was unlikely to be brought under control as long as Nicholas II remained in power. During the same period, the Petrograd Soviet, an organization of revolutionary-minded workers and soldiers dominated by the Menshevik Party, convened on February 27. They immediately began to call for full-scale revolution and an end to the monarchy altogether. The Tsar’s Abdication Despite the mutinies in the army and government, there was still no consensus that the monarchy should be dismantled entirely; rather, many felt that Nicholas II should abdicate in favor of his thirteen-year-old son, Alexis. If this occurred, a regent would be appointed to rule in the boy’s place until he reached maturity. Therefore, both the Duma and military leaders placed heavy pressure on the tsar to resign. Nicholas II finally gave in on March 2, but to everyone’s surprise he abdicated in favor of his brother Michael rather than his son, whom he believed was too sickly to bear the burden of being tsar, even with a regent in place. However, on the next day Michael also abdicated, leaving Russia with no tsar at all. Responding to this unexpected turn of events, leading Duma members assumed the role of being the country’s provisional government. The provisional government was to serve temporarily, until a Constituent Assembly could be elected later in the year to decide formally on the country’s future government. The Provisional Government and Petrograd Soviet Although the provisional government was quickly recognized by countries around the world as the legitimate governing body of Russia, the Petrograd Soviet held at least as much power and had significantly greater connections with regional authorities in other parts of the country. The Petrograd Soviet was in essence a metropolitan labor union made up of soldiers and factory workers. By the time of Nicholas II’s abdication, it had some 3,000 members and had formed an executive committee to lead it. Dominated by Mensheviks, the group was chaotic in structure and favored far more radical changes than did the provisional government. Though often at odds, the provisional government and the Petrograd Soviet found themselves cooperating out of necessity. With every major decision, the two groups coordinated with each other. One man, an ambitious lawyer named Alexander Kerensky, ended up a member of both groups and acted as a liaison between them. In time he would become the Russian minister of justice, minister of war, and then prime minister of the provisional government. Assessing the February Revolution The February Revolution was largely a spontaneous event. It began in much the same way as had dozens of other mass demonstrations in Russia in previous years and might well have ended in the same manner, if the military had not gotten involved. There was no plan or oversight for the way it happened, and few, if any, dedicated Russian revolutionaries were involved—most, such as Vladimir Lenin, were out of the country. Afterward, many political groups competed for power, but they did so relatively peacefully. The two main groups, the provisional government and the Petrograd Soviet, disagreed completely about the direction that Russia should take, yet they did manage to work with each other. Meanwhile, the various rival political parties also developed cooperative attitudes and worked with one another. The arrival of Lenin in Russia in April 1917, however, immediately changed the situation.

Petrograd's riots
February 1917 gathered all the preconditions for a popular uprising: harsh winter, lack of food, and general lassitude towards the war. All began with wildcat strikes, in the beginning of February, from workers in Petrograd (St. Petersburg prior to the war). On February 22 (O.S.) the major plant of Petrograd, Putilov plant, announced a strike; the strikers were fired and some shops closed, which caused unrest at other plants. Some demonstrations were organized to demand bread, which were supported by the industrial working force, which found in them a reason for continuing the strikes. Although some clashes with the Tsar's forces happened, on the first day no one was injured. In the following days, the strikes generalized themselves in all of Petrograd and tension was rising. On February 23 (O.S.; March 8, N.S.), a series of meetings and rallies were held on the occasion of the International Women's Day, which gradually turned into economic and political ones. Slogans, which had been until this time quite reserved, became more and more political: "End to the war!", "End to the autocracy!". This time, clashes with the police resulted in casualties on both sides. Demonstrators armed themselves by looting police headquarters. After three days of demonstrations, the Tsar sent a large battalion of soldiers to the city to quell the uprising on February 25 (O.S.). The soldiers resisted the first attempts at fraternization and killed many demonstrators. However, during the evenings, soldiers progressively deserted their officers and joined the revolt instead, permitting it to become more conventionally armed.

The Tsar initially refused to believe the reports sent to him by the President of the Duma, stating in a telegram to his wife on 27 February that "Again, that fat-bellied Rodzianko has written me a load of nonsense, which I won’t even bother to answer". On 1 March, he decided to take a train to the government capital after hearing that his children, including the Tsarevich Alexei had contracted the measles. However, on route, the royal train was instructed to divert by a group of disloyal troops. When he reached his destination, the Army Chiefs, his remaining ministers (those who had not fled on 29 February under the pretense of a power cut) in unison, suggested that he abdicate. Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne on March 2 (O.S.) (March 15, N.S., thirteen days difference), he also abdicated for his son the Tsarevich; and nominated Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich to succeed him. However, all of Petrograd's troops had joined the demonstrators; the Grand Duke then refused the crown and the Provisional Government took control of Russia, by default. The first elections took place at the Petrograd Soviet (Workers council), while the provisional government got itself organized: two competing powers were getting organized ("diarchy").

The Provisional Government and Petrograd's Soviet
The Provisional Government which replaced the Tsar was initially led by a liberal aristocrat, Prince Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov, a member of the Constitutional Democratic party (KD). After his government failed, he was succeeded by a Social Revolutionary, Alexander Kerensky. Maintaining Russian involvement in the World War I, Kerensky was unable to deal with the problems Russia faced. Pressure from the right (such as those behind the Kornilov Affair), from the left (mainly the Bolsheviks) and pressure from the Allies, to continue the war against Germany, put the government under increasing strain. On March 1, 1917 the Petrograd Soviet issued Order No. 1, which ordered the military to obey its orders rather than those of the Provisional Government. The conflict between the "diarchy" became obvious.

Lenin returned from exile to Petrograd on April 3, and issued his April's Theses the next month, in favour of "revolutionary defeatism", opposed to the "imperialist war" whose "link to the Capital" must be demonstrated to the masses, and opposed to the "Social-Chauvinists" who supported the war, such as Georgi Plekhanov the grandfather of Russian socialism. Finally, Lenin announced the necessary creation of a new International to replace the defunct Second International, dissolved in 1916 after the 1915 Zimmerwald Conference. Ultimately, the regime and the Dual Authority formed between the Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional Government instigated by the February Revolution was replaced in the October Revolution.

Revolts against the provisional government of Lvov
The most important revolution to happen during Lvov’s administration was the -. General – led a mutiny of sailors against the government and it was stopped by the Bolshevik, Trotsky.

Questions
Week 5 Questions

Next week's materials
Week 6

title: Russian Revolution/Week 5


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Russian Revolution/Week 4

1905 Revolution
The Russian Revolution of 1905 was an empire-wide struggle of both anti-government and undirected violence. It was not controlled or managed, and it had no single cause or aim.

Background
Although unrest had been a regular part of the Russian Empire, serious disturbances had been rare in the decades prior to 1905. Nonetheless, political discontent had been building since the controversial 1861 emancipation of the serfs by Alexander II. The emancipation was dangerously incomplete, with years of 'redemption' payments to the nobility, and only limited, technical freedom for the narod (common people). Rights for the people were still embedded in a range of duties and rules which were rigidly structured by social class.

The emancipation was only one part of a range of governmental, legal, social and economic changes began in the 1860s as the country slowly moved from feudal absolutism towards market-driven capitalism. While these reforms had liberalized economic, social and cultural structures, the political system was left virtually unchanged. Attempts at reform were sternly resisted by the monarchy and the bureaucracy. Even agreed-upon development was limited; for example, less than forty provinces had zemstva (rural councils), fifty years after the legislation was introduced. The raising of expectations, offset by the limited implementation progress, produced frustration which eventually led to rebellion. The feeling among those who rebelled was that the demand for 'land and liberty' could only be truly met by revolution.

Active revolutionaries were drawn almost exclusively from the intelligentsia. The movement was called narodnichestvo, revolutionary populism. This was not a singular and unified group, but rather an enormous spectrum of radical splinter groups, each with its own agenda. The revolutionaries' early ideological roots stemmed from the pre-emancipation work of the noble Alexander Herzen and his synthesis of European socialism and Slavic peasant collectivism. Herzen held that Russian society was still pre-industrial, and espoused an idealised view which considered narod and the obshchina (peasant commune) as the base for revolutionary change; as, in his opinion, the country lacked a significant body of industrial proletariat at the time.

Other thinkers argued that the Russian peasantry was an extremely conservative force, loyal to their household, village, or commune, and no one else. These thinkers held that the peasants cared only for their land and were deeply opposed to democracy and western liberalism. Later Russian ideologues gravitated to the idea of a leading revolutionary 'elite' or New class, a concept that was later put into action in 1917.

On March 1 (Old Style), 1881, Alexander II was assassinated in a bomb-blast by Narodnaya volya, a splinter of the second Zemlya i volya party. He was succeeded by Alexander III, a deeply conservative man who was heavily influenced by Constantin Pobedonostsev, a devotee of autocratic government.

Under Alexander III the Russian police political service (the Okhrana) acted very effectively to suppress both revolutionaries and proto-democratic movements across the country. The Okhranka scattered the revolutionary groups through imprisonment and exile. Members of revolutionary organisations often emigrated to avoid persecution. It was this emigration into Western Europe that first brought Russian thinkers into contact with Marxism. The first Russian Marxist group was formed in 1884, although it did not reach any significant size until 1898.

In sharp contrast to the social stagnation of the 1880s and 1890s were the huge modernising leaps in industrialisation, relative to Russia's relatively low technological level at the time. This growth continued and intensified in the 1890s, with the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway and the reforms brought about by the "Witte system". Sergei Witte, who became Minister of Finance in 1892, had been faced with a constant budget deficit. He sought to increase revenues by boosting the economy and attracting foreign investment. In 1897 he put the ruble on the gold standard. Economic growth was concentrated in a few regions, including Moscow, St Petersburg, Ukraine, and Baku. Roughly one third of all the capital invested was foreign, and foreign experts and entrepreneurs were vital.

Nicholas II came to power in 1894. Like his predecessors, he stubbornly refused to allow any political change.

By 1905, revolutionary groups had recovered from the oppressive 1880s. The Marxist Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) was formed in 1898 and then split in 1903, forming the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) published his work What Is To Be Done? in 1902. The Socialist-Revolutionary Party (SRs) was founded in Kharkov in 1900, and its 'Combat Organisation' (Boevaia Organizatsiia) assassinated many prominent political figures up to 1905 and beyond; this included two Ministers of the Interior, Dmitry Sergeyevich Sipyagin in 1902 and his successor, the hated Vyacheslav von Plehve, in 1904. These killings drove the government to grant more draconian powers to the police.

The war with Japan 1904-05, while initially popular, was now feeding discontentment, as military failures and unclear war aims alienated the people. The deep inequality of the emancipation was being re-examined, and the peasants were burning farms all across Russia. The boom of the 1890s had fallen into a slump and workers were expressing their grievances at their abysmal conditions. In 1903 one-third of the Russian army in western Russia had engaged in "repressive action".

Revolution
On January 22 1905, the day known as "Bloody Sunday", there was a protest march in St. Petersburg, led by Father Georgi Apollonovich Gapon, hoping to deliver a petition to the Tsar, urging him to improve workers' conditions and to hold democratic elections to establish a constituent assembly. The protest was put down by armed force outside the Tsar's Winter Palace without the Tsar's knowledge as he was not in St. Petersburg at the time. Estimates of the number of deaths vary, but it is generally accepted that around a thousand were killed or injured. This event was the spark to push many groups in Russian society into active protest. Each group had its own aims, and even within similar classes, there was no overall direction. The main protestors were the peasants (economic), the workers (economic and anti-industrialism), intelligentsia and liberals (civil rights), the armed forces (economic), and minority national groups (political and cultural freedom).

Peasant unrest
The economic situation of the peasants was appalling, but without organization, each splinter sought its own objectives. Unrest was spread across the year, reaching peaks in early summer and autumn, culminating in November. Tenant farmers wanted lower rents; hired workers wanted better wages; and land-holders wanted bigger plots of land. The protestors' actions included land-seizures, sometimes followed by violence and burning; looting of the larger estates; and illegal hunting and logging in the forests. In the Samara area peasants formed their own republic, illegally logging and distributing land until put down by government troops. The level of animosity displayed had a direct link to the condition of the peasants — the landless of Livland and Kurland attacked and burned, while the better-off in the neighbouring Grodno, Kovno and Minsk took little destructive action. In total, 3,228 disturbances required military intervention to restore order, and land-holders suffered around 29 million roubles worth of damage.

The radical political parties of Russia were quick to intervene in the peasant revolt. There was some attempt to create a council which would organise and coordinate peasant action, leading to the formation of the All-Russian Peasant Union in May. The council was formed by regional delegates, and had close affiliations with the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, but failed to put forwards realistic and coherent demands.

After the events of 1905, peasant unrest returned in 1906 and lasted until 1908. The government concessions were seen as support for the redistribution of land, so there were attacks to force landlords and 'non-peasant' land-holders to flee. Believing a country-wide redistribution was imminent, the peasants took the opportunity to 'pre-empt' the decision-makers. They were strongly suppressed.

Strikes
The workers' act of resistance was the strike. There were massive strikes in St. Petersburg immediately after Bloody Sunday; over 400,000 workers were involved by the end of January. The action quickly spread to other industrial centres in Poland, in Finland and the Baltic coast. In Riga 80 protestors were killed on January 13 O.S., and in Warsaw a few days later over 100 strikers were shot on the streets. By February there were strikes in the Caucasus and by April in the Urals and beyond. In March all higher academic institutions were forcibly closed for the remainder of the year, adding radical students to the striking workers. A strike by railway workers on October 8 >O.S. quickly developed into a general strike in St. Petersburg and Moscow. This prompted the setting up of the short-lived St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies, a largely Menshevik group, which organized strike action in over 200 factories. By October 13 O.S., over 2 million workers were on strike and there were almost no active railways.

Assassinations
From 1901 to 1911 revolutionaries killed 17 thousand people (9 thousand in 1905-1907).

According to police statistics, from February 1905 to May 1906, the list of killed officials included:

 * 8 Governors-General, Governors and Mayors
 * 5 Vice-Governors and guberniya council members
 * 21 Chiefs of police
 * 8 Gendarme officers
 * 4 Generals
 * 7 Army officers
 * 846 Policemen of different ranks
 * 18 secret police agents
 * 12 Priests
 * 85 Civil servants
 * 51 Landowners
 * 54 Factory owners
 * 29 Bankers and wealthy merchants

Assassinations were carried out by armed groups of RSDLP, Socialist-Revolutionary Party, anarchists and by lone-wolf terrorists. The 'Combat Organisation' (Boevaia Organizatsiia) of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party assassinated many prominent political figures up to 1905 and beyond; this included two Ministers of the Interior, Dmitry Sergeyevich Sipyagin in 1902 and his successor, Vyacheslav von Plehve in 1904.

Outcome
The government responded fairly quickly. The Tsar had hoped to resist any major change, and dismissed Minister of the Interior Pyotr Sviatopolk-Mirskii on January 18, 1905 O.S.. Following the assassination of his relative, Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich on February 4 O.S. he agreed to certain concessions. On February 18 O.S. he published the Bulygin Rescript, which promised the formation of a 'consultative' assembly, religious tolerance, language rights for the Polish minority and a reduction in the peasants' redemption payments. These concessions failed to restore order, and on August 6 O.S. he agreed to the creation of a consultative state duma. When the slight powers of the Duma and the limits to the electorate were revealed, unrest redoubled, culminating in a general strike in October.

On October 14 O.S., the October Manifesto was written by Witte and Alexis Obolenskii and presented to the Tsar. It closely followed the demands of the Zemstvo Congress in September, granting basic civil rights, allowing the formation of political parties, extending the franchise towards universal suffrage, and establishing the Duma as the central legislative body. The Tsar waited and argued for three days, but finally signed the manifesto on October 30 1905), owing to his desire to avoid a massacre, and a realization that there was insufficient military force available to do otherwise. He regretted signing the document, saying that he felt "sick with shame at this betrayal of the dynasty".

When the manifesto was proclaimed there were spontaneous demonstrations of support in all the major cities. The strikes in St Petersburg and elsewhere either officially ended or quickly collapsed. A political amnesty was also offered. The concessions came hand-in-hand with renewed, and brutal, action against the unrest. There was also a backlash from the conservative elements of society, notably in spasmodic anti-Jewish attacks—around five hundred were killed in a single day in Odessa. The Tsar himself claimed that 90% of revolutionaries were Jews.

The uprisings ended in December with a final spasm in Moscow. Between December 5 and 7 O.S. there was a general strike by the Russian worker class. The government sent in troops on December 7, and a bitter street-by-street fight began. A week later the Semenovskii Regiment was deployed, and used artillery to break-up demonstrations and shell workers' districts. On December 18 O.S., with around a thousand people dead and parts of the city in ruins, the Bolsheviks surrendered. In the subsequent reprisals the number beaten or killed is unknown.

Aftermath
Among the political parties formed, or made legal, was the liberal-intelligentsia Constitutional Democratic party (the Kadets), the peasant leaders' Labour Group (Trudoviks), the less liberal Union of October 17 (the Octobrists), and the positively reactionary Union of Land-Owners.

The electoral laws were promulgated in December 1905—franchise to citizens over 25 years of age, electing through four electoral colleges. The first elections to the Duma took place in March 1906 and were boycotted by the socialists, the SRs and the Bolsheviks. In the First Duma there were 170 Kadets, 90 Trudoviks, 100 non-aligned peasant representatives, 63 nationalists of various hues, and 16 Octobrists.

In April 1906 the government issued the Fundamental Law, setting the limits of this new political order. The Tsar was confirmed as absolute leader, with complete control of the executive, foreign policy, church, and the armed forces. The Duma was shifted, becoming a lower chamber below the tsar-appointed State Council. Legislation had to be approved by the Duma, the Council and the Tsar to become law and in "exceptional conditions" the government could bypass the Duma.

Also in April, after having negotiated a loan of almost 900 million roubles to repair Russian finances, Sergei Witte resigned. Apparently the Tsar had "lost confidence" in him. Later known as "late Imperial Russia's most outstanding politician", Witte was replaced by Ivan Goremykin, an Imperial lackey.

Demanding further liberalization and acting as a platform for "agitators", the First Duma was dissolved by the Tsar in July 1906. Despite the hopes of the Kadets and the fears of the government, there was no widespread popular reaction. However, an assassination attempt on Pyotr Stolypin led to the establishment of field trials for terrorists, and over the next eight months over a thousand people were hanged—the hangman's noose earning the nickname "Stolypin's necktie".

In essence the country was unchanged, political power remained with the tsar, wealth and land with the nobility. The introduction of the Duma and the clamp-down did, however, successfully disrupt the revolutionary groups. Leaders were imprisoned or exiled and the groups were confused and uncertain of whether they should join the Duma or stay outside. The resulting splits and internal divisions kept the radicals disorganized until the stimulus of World War I.

Finland
In the Grand Duchy of Finland the Social Democrats organized the general strike of 1905 (October 30 – November 6). First Red Guards were formed, led by captain Johan Kock. During the general strike the Red Declaration, written by Yrjö Mäkelin, was given in Tampere, demanding dissolution of the Senate of Finland and universal suffrage, political freedoms, and abolition of censorship. Leader of the constitutionalists, Leo Mechelin crafted the November Manifesto, that led to the abolition of the Diet of Finland of the four estates and to the creation of the modern Parliament of Finland. It also resulted in a temporary halt to the russification policy started in 1899.

On July 30 1906, Russian sailors rose to rebellion in the fortress of Viapori (later called Suomenlinna), Helsinki. The Finnish Red Guards supported rebellion with a general strike, but it was quelled by the Baltic Fleet in sixty hours.

The Great War (World War 1)
The Eastern Front was a theatre of war during World War I in Central and, primarily, Eastern Europe. The term is in contrast to the Western Front. Despite the geographical separation, the events in the two theaters strongly influenced each other.

The geography of Eastern Europe in general has played a key role in how both World Wars' Eastern Front conflicts played out. Eastern Europe is, for the most part, physically similar to Western Europe as both belong to the same European plain. The key difference was the level of economic development. While Belgium and Northern France were among the most industrially advanced areas in the world, Eastern Europe was undeveloped in comparison.

Furthermore, the length of the front in the East was much longer than in the West. The theatre of war was roughly delimited by the Baltic Sea in the West and Moscow in the East, a distance of 1,200 kilometers, and Saint Petersburg in the North and the Black Sea in the South, a distance of more than 1,600 kilometers. This had a drastic effect on the nature of the warfare. While World War I on the Western Front developed into trench warfare, the battle lines on the Eastern Front were much more fluid and trenches never truly developed. This was because the greater length of the front ensured that the density of soldiers in the line was lower so the line was easier to break. Once broken, the sparse communication networks made it difficult for the defender to rush reinforcements to the rupture in the line to mount a rapid counteroffensive and seal off a breakthrough. In short, on the Eastern front the side defending did not have the overwhelming advantages it had on the Western front.

Because of this, front lines in the East kept on shifting throughout the conflict, and not just near the beginning and end of the fighting, as was the case in the West. In fact the greatest advance of the whole war was made in the East by the German army in the summer of 1915.

Chronology
At the outbreak of the war, Czar Nikolay II appointed his cousin, Grand Duke Nikolay as commander in chief. Although not without ability, the Grand Duke had no part in formulating the war plans. This led to disaster.

The war in the East began with the Russian Army attempting to invade Germany’s East Prussian province and the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia. The first effort quickly turned to a disaster following the Battle of Tannenberg in August 1914. However, the second incursion was completely successful, with the Russians controlling almost all of Galicia by the end of 1914. Under the command of Nikolay Ivanov and Aleksey Brusilov, the Russians won the Battle of Lemberg in September and began the Siege of Przemysl, the next fortress on the road towards Kraków and the Austro-Hungarian border.

This early Russian success in 1914 on the Austro-Russian border was a reason for concern to the Central Powers and caused considerable German forces to be transferred to the East to take pressure off the Austrians, leading to the creation of the new German 9th Army. At the end of 1914 the main focus of the fighting shifted to Central Poland, west of the river Vistula. The October Battle of the Vistula River and the November Battle of Łódź brought little advancement for the Germans, but at least kept the Russians at a safe distance.

The Russian and Austro-Hungarian armies continued to clash in and near the Carpathian Mountains throughout the winter of 1914–1915. Przemysl fortress managed to hold out deep behind enemy lines throughout this period, with the Russians bypassing it in order to attack the Austro-Hungarian troops further to the west. They made some progress, crossing the Carpathians in February and March 1915, but then the Germans sent relief and stopped further Russian advance. In the meantime, Przemysl was almost entirely destroyed and the Siege of Przemysl ended in a defeat for the Austrians.

Despite these successes, the effectiveness of the Russian Army at the same time rapidly declined as the underdeveloped Russian arms industry proved unable to meet the demands of the front. Furthermore, as the situation on the Western Front stabilized, the German command decided to make its main effort on the Eastern Front in 1915, and accordingly transferred considerable forces there.

To eliminate the Russian threat the Central Powers began the campaign season of 1915 with a successful Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive in Galicia in May of 1915. After the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes, the German and Austro-Hungarian troops in the Eastern Front functioned under a unified command. The offensive soon turned into a general advance and then a strategic retreat by the Russian army. By mid-1915, the Russians had been expelled from Russian Poland and hence pushed hundreds of kilometers away from the borders of the Central Powers, removing any threat of Russian invasion of Germany or Austria-Hungary. At the end of 1915 the main part of the front reached a line which in general outline did not change until the Russian collapse in 1917.

In 1916 the Russians attempted a large counteroffensive under the leadership of General Aleksey Brusilov (the Brusilov Offensive). The attack, aimed against the part of the front held by Austro-Hungarians, was initially a spectacular success. However, a successful counterattack by German units halted the Russian assault. Also during 1916, Romania entered the war on the side of the Entente, but was rapidly conquered by German-Austrian-Bulgarian-Ottoman forces.

By 1917, the Russian economy finally neared collapse under the strain of the war effort. While the equipment of the Russian armies actually improved due to the expansion of the war industry, the food shortages in the major urban centres brought about civil unrest which led to the abdication of the Czar and the February Revolution. The large war casualties also created disaffection and mutinous attitudes in the army, which was fueled by Bolshevik agitators and the Russian Provisional Government’s new liberalization policies towards the army (stripping officers of their mandate by giving wide sweeping powers to “soldier committees”, the abolition of the death penalty). The very last offensive undertaken by the Russian Army in the war was the brief and unsuccessful Kerensky Offensive in July of 1917.

In November of 1917, the Communist Bolsheviks took power under their leader Vladimir Lenin. Lenin’s new Bolshevik government tried to end to the war but the Germans demanded enormous concessions. Finally, in March, 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed and the Eastern Front ceased to be a war zone. The Germans were able to transfer some of their divisions to the West, in order to mount an offensive in France in 1918. However, by then the arrival of American units in Europe was sufficient to offset the German advantage. Even after the Russian collapse, about a million German soldiers remained tied up in the East until the end of the war, attempting to run a short-lived addition to the German Empire in Europe. In the end, Germany and Austria would lose all their captured lands, and more, under the Treaty of Versailles.

Questions
Week 4 Questions

Next week's materials
Week 5

title: Russian Revolution/Week 4


text:
User:JustinLillich

Me
Sometime writer, everyday student, and average guy.

I'm trying very hard to get back to teaching but can't seem to make people hire me.

My mission is to dump everything I know into this site. I want the world to be filled with all the things that fill me.

Things I will do
1. I will take on several would-be scribes, help them create better prose. 2. I will make an effort not to dislike those who say that "can't write." 3. I will take time from my busy schedule to comment on student work and questions. 4. I will teach those willing to learn about the life of the written word.

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I have to be honest. I don't have patience for those of you who want something for nothing. If you don't know Ulysses, I'm not going to Cliff Note it for you. I read a lot of Ergodic lit. I write some too.

title: User:JustinLillich


text:
User talk:WikiWiki

Thank you for experimenting with Wikiversity. Your test worked, and it has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the what is Wikiversity page if you would like to learn more about contributing.
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Tourism/International

This course will help you in the consideration of generic subjects which relate to the global tourism industry. It is designed to help those already skilled in the travel and tourism sector to develop management capability for international tourism operations.

Tourism industry
This Tourism industry topic will assist you in developing an understanding of the many aspects of the tourism industry, and an appreciation of its place in the global and local economies.

Tourism Marketing

 * Market planning
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 * 2) Presentation
 * 3) Assessment
 * 4) Skills
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Geography

 * Global
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Customer Services

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Human Resource Management

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Destinations

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 * Planning (local)
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Operations Management

 * Design
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 * Operations and Information
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Finance and Tourism

 * Business
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title: Tourism/International


text:
User:Hagerman

w:en:User:Hagerman

title: User:Hagerman


text:
User talk:Hagerman

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title: User talk:Hagerman


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User:HagermanBot~enwikiversity

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