7.5: The Russians Exit, the United States Enters

The Russians Exit, and the United States Enters

Despite all of the efforts for a breakthrough on the battlefields of France and Eastern Europe, the most effective strategy against Germany was the British-led naval blockade, which cut off grain and other food supplies from overseas. The Germans, who had developed the most effective submarines and torpedoes, tried to blockade Great Britain and France by sinking incoming supply ships. This German naval strategy, however, risked bringing the United States into the war. After the sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania in May 1915 (figure 7.5.1), when a hundred U.S. citizens were drowned a few miles from the Irish coast, some American public opinion began to shift in favor of entering the conflict. The German government quickly backed away from unrestricted submarine warfare against supply ships bound for Great Britain and France.

In November 1916, Woodrow Wilson was re-elected President of the United States. The people rallied around the slogan, “He kept us out of war.” By the spring of 1917, President Wilson believed a German victory would drastically and dangerously alter the balance of power in Europe. But he had promised to keep the U. S. out of the war. Submarine warfare had been a problem earlier in the conflict when the Lusitania was sunk in 1915. In 1917, the German general staff decided that a new push for victory on the Western Front needed to be combined with the renewal of U-boat attacks in an effort to starve the British and French. The Germans realized that such a policy would draw the U.S. into the conflict on the side of the Allies, but calculated that the military unpreparedness of the United States would give them time to break through the trench lines in France and end the war before the Americans arrived.

In January 1917, a document called the Zimmerman Telegram surfaced. When decoded it was found to contain a suggestion from an official of the German foreign office to the German ambassador in Mexico that if the U. S. entered the war, Mexico should be encouraged to invade America to regain the territory taken in the Mexican-American War. Many Americans doubted the authenticity of the telegram, especially because it was delivered by British intelligence officers to the secretary of the U. S. Embassy in London. However, Zimmerman soon acknowledged its authenticity, claiming he had only been suggesting a Mexican invasion if the United States had already entered the war. The Mexican government, for its part, announced they had never seriously considered the German suggestion—after all, they were occupied with their revolution. With American public opinion finally behind him, President Wilson went to Congress in February 1917 to announce that diplomatic relations with Germany had been severed. On April 2, Wilson returned with a “War Message” that included the argument that “The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.” Congress declared war on Germany on April 4, 1917.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): "Sinking of the Lusitania," Norman Wilkinson, in the Public Domain.

Wilson’s request for a declaration of war followed just a few days after Russia’s withdrawal from the conflict. The third year of the war saw a major change in German military prospects when the Romanov Dynasty of Tsar Nicholas II collapsed in 1917. The trouble had begun in late February with a strike by women factory workers in St. Petersburg. 90,000 women took to the streets shouting “Bread!”, “Down with the autocracy!”, and “Stop the war!” The following day, over 150,000 men and women marched and a general strike began. Within a few days the army had sided with the revolutionaries and Nicholas II was forced to abdicate.

Liberal reformers soon established a republic, which made it easier for U.S. President Wilson to proclaim that the war was to “make the world safe for democracy,” since a major ally was no longer ruled by an absolute monarch. However, the democratic reformers in Russia were not as well organized as socialist revolutionaries led by Vladimir Lenin, who saw the end of tsarist rule as an opportunity to also defeat capitalism and create a “dictatorship of the proletariat”. The revolutionaries and the soldiers and sailors who supported them wanted to end Russian participation in the war (figure 7.5.2).

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): "Russian troops march through Moscow carrying a banner that says 'Communism'”, Public Domain in Wikimedia Commons

By the fall, Lenin’s party, called the Bolsheviks, established workers’ and soldiers’ councils—“soviets”—in major cities. In October 1917, they overthrew the fledgling republic to establish a revolutionary socialist state under the leadership of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, who began to call themselves the Communist Party. Lenin, who had opposed the war since its beginning and had been advocating for a Russian withdrawal since the February Revolution, quickly negotiated a peace with Germany in March 1918. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk would cede much of Russia’s western territories, including  Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine, losing 34% of the former Russian Empire’s population and most of the industrial base. The treaty also called for territories claimed by the Ottoman Empire to be handed over to Germany’s ally, but Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia declared their independence instead. Russia also agreed to pay 6 billion marks to compensate Germany for its losses.

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): "Map showing territory lost by Russia according to the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk," George H. Allen, in the Public Domain.

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The Russian Revolution soon became a civil war between the “Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army”, formed by the Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky, and the armies of the “White Russians” under several leaders, dedicated to restoring the Tsarist monarchy. To prevent the return of the Romanovs to power, the revolutionaries had the entire family killed in July 1918. The revolutionaries also waged war on uncooperative peasants called Kulaks, whom they accused of withholding grain from the Bolshevik government. Many of the Kulaks were Ukrainian, which contributed to ongoing aggression toward Ukraine by the new Soviet Union.

Even after World War One ended, the Allies, including the United States, supported the White Russians against the Bolsheviks, sending thousands of troops to support the counterrevolutionaries in Siberia between 1918 and 1920. Years later Josef Stalin, who fought on the Soviet side in the civil war, would remember this fact while negotiating with Britain and the U.S. during World War II.

Between 1917 and 1924, the Soviet Union took control over what had been previously the Russian Empire. Central Asia, which Imperial Russia had conquered in the mid-to-late 19th century, was subdued anew by Communist rule. Communist rule in Central Asia was reinforced through the expansion of political messages and symbols, many of which were simplified images and texts so that the entire population could understand their meanings. At the time of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, only half of the population was literate, and that number quickly rose to 75% by the mid-1930s. The Soviet aesthetic of “the New Soviet Man” and “New Soviet Woman” were reiterated through pictures of hardworking farmers, factory workers, and educators. 

Sovietization, as the process came to be known, profoundly affected Central Asians, their cultures, and their societies. Many Central Asians saw the Bolshevik takeover as an opportunity for Islamic modernist reforms. These reformers, known as Jadids, argued that Muslims had entered a period of degeneration in the Russian Empire, and the new Soviet system would enable Central Asians to implement new, modern education systems that would save Muslims. Leaders of the Jadid movement, like Abdurauf Fitrat, argued that a Central Asian political movement centered on the education of the populace would lead to an autonomous Central Asia. While their efforts were successful in transforming the educational and religious landscape of the region, Central Asia remained part of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991.

Primary Source: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, "What is to Done?" 1902

In this text, Lenin makes his argument for a coherent, strictly controlled party of dedicated revolutionaries as a basic necessity for a revolution. Some have seen an analogy with the Jesuit Order in his proposals for an elite corps to lead the masses. One may see in Lenin's proposals a deep insight into to necessary requisites for a revolution, or a deep contempt for the working classes. 

The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e, it may itself realise the necessity for combining in unions, for fighting against the employers and for striving to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc. The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical and economic theories that were elaborated by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals. According to their social status, the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia. Similarly, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social Democracy [Note: By "social democracy" Lenin means revolutionary political Marxism, not the later concept of "moderate" socialism] arose quite independently of the spontaneous growth of the labour movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development of ideas among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia. At the time of which we are speaking, i.e., the middle of the nineties, this doctrine not only represented the completely formulated programme of the Emancipation of Labour group, but had already won the adherence of the majority of the revolutionary youth in Russia. 

*** 

It is only natural that a Social Democrat, who conceives the political struggle as being identical with the "economic struggle against the employers and the government," should conceive of an "organisation of revolutionaries" as being more or less identical with an "organisation of workers." And this, in fact, is what actually happens; so that when we talk about organisation, we literally talk in different tongues. I recall a conversation I once had with a fairly consistent Economist, with whom I had not been previously acquainted. We were discussing the pamphlet Who Will Make the Political Revolution? and we were very soon agreed that the principal defect in that brochure was that it ignored the question of organisation. We were beginning to think that we were in complete agreement with each other-but as the conversation proceeded, it became clear that we were talking of different things. My interlocutor accused the author of the brochure just mentioned of ignoring strike funds, mutual aid societies, etc.; whereas I had in mind an organisation of revolutionaries as an essential factor in "making" the political revolution. After that became clear, I hardly remember a single question of importance upon which I was in agreement with that Economist! What was the source of our disagreement? The fact that on questions of organisation and politics the Economists are forever lapsing from Social Democracy into trade unionism. The political struggle carried on by the Social Democrats is far more extensive and complex than the economic struggle the workers carry on against the employers and the government. Similarly (and indeed for that reason), the organisation of a revolutionary Social­ Democratic Party must inevitably differ from the organisations of the workers designed for the latter struggle. A workers' organisation must in the first place be a trade organisation; secondly, it must be as wide as possible; and thirdly, it must be as public as conditions will allow (here, and further on, of course, I have only autocratic Russia in mind). On the other hand, the organisations of revolutionaries must consist first and foremost of people whose profession is that of a revolutionary (that is why I speak of organisations of revolutionaries, meaning revolutionary Social Democrats). In view of this common feature of the members of such an organisation, all distinctions as between workers and intellectuals, and certainly distinctions of trade and profession, must be obliterated. Such an organisation must of necessity be not too extensive and as secret as possible. 

*** 

I assert: 

1. that no movement can be durable without a stable organisation of leaders to maintain continuity; 
2. that the more widely the masses are spontaneously drawn into the struggle and form the basis of the movement and participate in it, the more necessary is it to have such an organisation, and the more stable must it be (for it is much easier for demogogues to sidetrack the more backward sections of the masses); 
3. that the organisation must consist chiefly of persons engaged in revolutionary activities as a profession; 
4. that in a country with an autocratic government, the more we restrict the membership of this organisation to persons who are engaged in revolutionary activities as a profession and who have been professionally trained in the art of combating the political police, the more difficult will it be to catch the organisation, and 
5. the wider will be the circle of men and women of the working class or of other classes of society able to join the movement and perform active work in it... 

The active and widespread participation of the masses will not suffer; on the contrary, it will benefit by the fact that a "dozen" experienced revolutionaries, no less professionally trained than the police, will centralise all the secret side of the work-prepare leaflets, work out approximate plans and appoint bodies of leaders for each urban district, for each factory district and to each educational institution, etc. (I know that exception will be taken to my "undemocratic" views, but I shall reply to this altogether unintelligent objection later on.) The centralisation of the more secret functions in an organisation of revolutionaries will not diminish, but rather increase the extent and the quality of the activity of a large number of other organisations intended for wide membership and which, therefore, can be as loose and as public as possible, for example, trade unions, workers' circles for self-education and the reading of illegal literature, and socialist and also democratic circles for all other sections of the population. etc, etc We must have as large a number as possible of such organisations having the widest possible variety of functions, but it is absurd and dangerous to confuse those with organisations of revolutionaries, to erase the line of demarcation between them, to dim still more the masses already incredibly hazy appreciation of the fact that in order to "serve" the mass movement we must have people who will devote themselves exclusively to Social Democratic activities, and that such people must train themselves patiently and steadfastly to be professional revolutionaries. Aye, this appreciation has become incredibly dim. The most grievous sin we have committed in regard to organisation is that by our primitiveness we have lowered the prestige o revolutionaries in Russia. A man who is weak and vacillating on theoretical questions, who has a narrow outlook who makes excuses for his own slackness on the ground that the masses are awakening spontaneously; who resembles a trade union secretary more than a people's tribune, who is unable to conceive of a broad and bold plan, who is incapable of inspiring even his opponents with respect for himself, and who is inexperienced and clumsy in his own professional art-the art of combating the political police-such a man is not a revolutionary but a wretched amateur! Let no active worker take offense at these frank remarks, for as far as insufficient training is concerned, I apply them first and foremost to myself. I used to work in a circle that set itself great and all­ embracing tasks; and every member of that circle suffered to the point of torture from the realisation that we were proving ourselves to be amateurs at a moment in history when we might have been able to say, paraphrasing a well­ known epigram: "Give us an organisation of revolutionaries, and we shall overturn the whole of Russia!"

 

Internet Modern History Sourcebook. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin: What is to be Done, 1902

Discussion Questions

• What is Lenin’s argument for why an “organisation of revolutionaries” is necessary for making a political revolution?
• How does the work of this organization of revolutionaries differ from the organization of the workers?

Review Questions

• Why did the United States enter the war?
• How did World War contribute to the outbreak of the Russian Revolution?