REVOLUTION OF 1905

Revolution of 1905

Revolution of 1905

Introduction

The urgency of the goal of political freedom was something on which all Russian social democrats agreed. Also common coin was the assumption that the anti-tsarist revolution could succeed only if energetically supported by the Russian proletariat—indeed, only if the proletariat played a leadership role. (Alexinsky, 1913, 23)

As a distinctive strategy for accomplishing the urgent task of overthrowing tsarism, Bolshevism arose during the 1905 revolution and only took final shape in the following years. According to the Bolshevik analysis of Russian society, the peasantry was the only non proletarian class that could be counted on to be thoroughly revolutionary and anti-tsarist due to the peasants' desire for land. The primary task of the Social Democratic Party was, therefore, to get the peasants to follow the lead of the revolutionary workers rather than the liberal bourgeoisie. As the Bolsheviks saw it, the liberals also wanted political freedom but were so afraid of revolutionary upheaval that they were perpetually ready to compromise with tsarism. (Hesli, 2007, 34)

Revolution of 1905

The Bolsheviks were so determined to carry out the democratic revolution “to the end” (do kontsa) that they were ready to assume governmental power in coalition with peasant parties. This readiness was a violation of the taboo felt by many social democrats against any socialist participation in a bourgeois government. (Kautsky, 1992, 45) The other main faction within Russian social democracy, the Mensheviks, rejected the possibility of a “provisional revolutionary government” of this type. The Mensheviks also looked on the peasants as an unreliable and sometimes even a reactionary force. The Menshevik strategy, therefore, aimed at forcing the liberal bourgeoisie to act in a revolutionary manner. Despite the Menshevik claim to greater Marxist orthodoxy, the Bolshevik strategy received the imprimatur of two of the leading lights of European social democracy, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Kautsky. (Kryshtanovskaya, 2004, 67)

Left Zimmerwald

In September 1915, a small group of European socialists who opposed the war met in Zimmerwald to discuss ways of ending the war. Lenin and other Russian socialists such as Iulii Martov and Karl Radek were original members of this group. (Lenin, 1993, 12)

Lenin summed up the tactics of Left Zimmerwald with the slogan “turn the imperialist war into a civil war!” In other words, use the crisis that was sure to be caused by the war to foment socialist revolution. The civil war in this slogan was meant to contrast both with the imperialist war between nations, which pitted proletarian against proletarian, and with the civil peace within nations. Civil peace was a pledge to suspend class struggle against the capitalists for the duration. The most famous example was the Burgfrieden declared in Germany by the majority leadership of the SPD—a pledge that shocked many socialists, not only those on the far left. (Lenin, 1965, 45)

The Left Zimmerwald slogan translated into three main tactical demands. The first of these demands was to work for socialist revolution in Western ...