Historical sources on the Russian Revolution

"The corrupt reactionaries in control of the Tsar's Court deliberately undertook to wreck Russia in order to make a separate peace with Germany. The lack of arms on the front, which had caused the great retreat of the summer of 1915, the lack of food in the army and in the great cities, the break-down of manufactures and transportation in 1916—all these we know now were part of a gigantic campaign of sabotage. This was halted just in time by the March Revolution... 

"The propertied classes wanted merely a political revolution, which would take the power from the Tsar and give it to them. They wanted Russia to be a constitutional Republic, like France or the United States; or a constitutional Monarchy, like England. On the other hand, the masses of the people wanted real industrial and agrarian democracy... 

"Mr. A. J. Sack, director in this country of the Russian Information Bureau, which opposes the Soviet Government, has this to say in his book, The Birth of the Russian Democracy: The Bolsheviks organised their own cabinet, with Nicholas Lenine as Premier and Leon Trotsky — Minister of Foreign Affairs. The inevitability of their coming into power became evident almost immediately after the March Revolution. The history of the Bolsheviki, after the Revolution, is a history of their steady growth... 

"Bolsheviki. Now call themselves the Communist Party, in order to emphasise their complete separation from the tradition of 'moderate' or 'parliamentary' Socialism, which dominates the Mensheviki and the so-called Majority Socialists in all countries. The Bolsheviki proposed immediate proletarian insurrection, and seizure of the reins of Government, in order to hasten the coming of Socialism by forcibly taking over industry, land, natural resources and financial institutions. This party expresses the desires chiefly of the factory workers, but also of a large section of the poor peasants. Among the leaders: Lenin, Trotzky, Lunatcharsky... 

"The people rapidly deserted them, and went over to the Bolsheviki, who stood for Peace, Land, and Workers' Control of Industry, and a Government of the working-class. In September, 1917, matters reached a crisis. Against the overwhelming sentiment of the country, Kerensky and the 'moderate' Socialists succeeded in establishing a Government of Coalition with the propertied classes; and as a result, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries lost the confidence of the people forever... 

"I have adopted in this book our Calendar throughout, instead of the former Russian Calendar, which was thirteen days earlier... 

"This book is a slice of intensified history — history as I saw it. It does not pretend to be anything but a detailed account of the November Revolution, when the Bolsheviki, at the head of the workers and soldiers, seized the state power of Russia and placed it in the hands of the Soviets." 

Contextual information:

John Reed was an American journalist and socialist who travelled to Petrograd in 1917 and witnessed the revolution firsthand. He had close access to the Bolshevik leadership and wrote this book in 1919 as a sympathetic but detailed eyewitness chronicle of the events. 

Bibliographical reference:

Reed, J. (1919). Ten days that shook the world (Preface, pp. v–xv; Notes and Explanations, pp. xvi–xxxvii; Chapter I, pp. 1–15). Boni & Liveright. 

Copyright: Public domain. 

"In Moscow I saw two peasant soldiers gazing at a poster being stuck up on a kiosk. 'We can't read a word of it,' they cried, indignant tears in their eyes. 'The Czar only wanted us to plough and fight and pay taxes. He didn't want us to read. He put out our eyes.' 'To put out the eyes' of the masses, to put out their minds and consciences, was the deliberate policy of the Russian autocracy. For centuries the people were steeped in ignorance, narcotized by the church, terrorized by the Black Hundreds, dragooned by the Cossacks. The protesters were thrown into dungeons, exiled to hard labor in Siberian mines, and hung up on gibbets... 

"The masses felt that more vicious even than the Kaiser in Berlin was their own Czar in Petrograd. Their cup of bitterness was full. They marched forth against the palaces to end it all. First, out of the Viborg district, came the working women crying for bread. Then long lines of workingmen. The police turned the bridges to prevent them entering the city, but they crossed on the ice... They came on in face of wilting fire from machine gun nests. They came on until the streets were littered with their bodies. Still they came on, singing and pleading until soldiers and Cossacks came over to the people's side, and on March 12 the Romanov dynasty, which had misruled Russia for 300 years, went crashing to its doom... 

"It was mainly the workers and soldiers who made the Revolution. They had shed their blood for it. Now it was assumed that they would retire in the orthodox manner leaving affairs in the hands of their superiors. The people had taken the power away from the Czarists. Now appeared on the scene the bankers and lawyers, the professors and politicians, to take the power away from the people... 

"It was not the revolutionists who made the Russian Revolution. This in spite of hosts of revolutionists — who tried their best to make it. For a century gifted men and women of Russia had been agitated over the cruel oppression of the people. So they became agitators. Into the villages, the shops and the slums they went... But the people did not rise. They did not even seem to hear. Then came that supreme agitator — Hunger. Hunger, rising out of economic collapse and war, goaded the sluggish masses into action." 

Contextual information:

Albert Rhys Williams was an American journalist and clergyman who spent fourteen months in revolutionary Russia, living among workers, soldiers and peasants. He published this eyewitness account in 1921, drawing on his direct observations of the revolution and its aftermath. 

Bibliographical reference:

Williams, A. R. (1921). Through the Russian revolution (Introduction, pp. 1–8; Part IV, pp. 271–280). Boni & Liveright. 

Copyright: Public domain.

"In the midst of the great struggle against a foreign foe, who has been striving for three years to enslave our country, it has pleased God to lay on Russia a new and painful trial. Newly arisen popular disturbances in the interior imperil the successful continuation of the stubborn fight. The fate of Russia, the honor of our heroic army, the welfare of our people, the entire future of our dear land, call for the prosecution of the conflict, regardless of the sacrifices, to a triumphant end... In these decisive days in the life of Russia, we deem it our duty to do what we can to help our people to draw together and unite all their forces for the speedier attainment of victory. In agreement with the State Duma we have thought it well to abdicate the throne of the Russian State and to lay down the Supreme Power. Not wishing to be separated from our beloved son, we hand down our inheritance to our brother, Grand Duke Michael Aleksandrovich, and give him our blessing on mounting the throne of the Russian Empire... May the Lord God help Russia! NIKOLAI. March 2, 1917, 3 P.M. City of Pskov." 

Contextual information:

This is the abdication document of Tsar Nicholas II, the last emperor of Russia, signed on March 2, 1917 (Old Style) at Pskov, where his train had been halted by revolutionary forces. The document was originally published in Izvestiia komiteta petrogradskikh zhurnalistov on March 3, 1917, and was reprinted in Frank Golder's documentary collection. 

Bibliographical reference:

Nicholas II. (1917). Abdication manifesto. In F. A. Golder (Ed.), Documents of Russian history 1914–1917 (pp. 297–298). The Century Co., 1927. 

Copyright: Public domain.

"I did not arrive in Petrograd until the night of April 3, and therefore at the meeting on April 4, I could, of course, deliver the report on the tasks of the revolutionary proletariat only on my own behalf, and with reservations as to insufficient preparation... 

"Instead of 'Social-Democracy', whose official leaders throughout the world have betrayed socialism and deserted to the bourgeoisie (the 'defencists' and the vacillating 'Kautskyites'), we must call ourselves the Communist Party." 

Contextual information:

This document, commonly known as the "April Theses," was written by Vladimir Lenin and published in the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda (No. 26) on April 7, 1917 (Old Style), just days after his return to Petrograd from exile in Switzerland. The ten theses outlined Lenin's programme for the Bolshevik Party to oppose the Provisional Government and push towards a socialist revolution. 

Bibliographical reference:

Lenin, V. I. (1917). The tasks of the proletariat in the present revolution. Pravda, (26). Reprinted in V. I. Lenin, Collected works (Vol. 24, pp. 21–26). Progress Publishers, 1964. 

Copyright: Public domain.

"The fourth anniversary of October 25 (November 7) is approaching. The farther that great day recedes from us, the more clearly we see the significance of the proletarian revolution in Russia, and the more deeply we reflect upon the practical experience of our work as a whole. Very briefly and, of course, in very incomplete and rough outline, this significance and experience may be summed up as follows. The direct and immediate object of the revolution in Russia was a bourgeois-democratic one, namely, to destroy the survivals of medievalism and sweep them away completely, to purge Russia of this barbarism, of this shame, and to remove this immense obstacle to all culture and progress in our country." 

Contextual information:

Lenin wrote this article for Pravda (No. 234) on October 14, 1921, four years after the Bolsheviks seized power. It was published as a retrospective assessment of what the revolution had achieved, written at a time when the Soviet government was transitioning from War Communism to the New Economic Policy (NEP). 

Bibliographical reference:

Lenin, V. I. (1921). Fourth anniversary of the October Revolution. Pravda, (234). Reprinted in V. I. Lenin, Collected works (Vol. 33, pp. 51–59). Progress Publishers, 1965. 

Copyright: Public domain.

"The rest of the country took little or no part in the active steps but with great unanimity adhered to the revolution when the Tsar had abdicated. The change found the people of the country divided, roughly speaking, into two classes. There was a small class who had long been actively attacking the old government; most of its members came within the general description of socialists... Some of them believed that the pathway to real liberty lay through the immediate destruction of all capitalism; that is to say, their idea was that the revolution should destroy the whole industrial system of Russia and put an end to the possession of private property both in land and in chattels. Some of them were internationalists and believed in the universal organization of the proletariat of the world as a substitute for the existing national system... 

"The other class included the great mass of the people of Russia, most of whom were the landowning peasantry... They had been accustomed to receive orders and to obey them; not to form, or express, or act upon their own political opinions. They had no institutions through which to carry on the government of the country; they had no real knowledge of the workings of such institutions, and no habits of thought adapted to devise such institutions. Where all laws had rested upon the authority of the Tsar, the repudiation of that authority seemed to leave the laws without sanction or moral obligation." 

Contextual information:

This report was written by Elihu Root's Special Diplomatic Mission, sent to Russia by President Woodrow Wilson in June 1917 to assess whether Russia would remain in World War I following the March Revolution. The mission found the Provisional Government in a precarious position and seriously underestimated the Bolsheviks' growing support. 

Bibliographical reference:

U.S. Department of State. (1931). Report of the Special Diplomatic Mission to Russia (Document 108). In Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, 1918, Russia (Vol. 1, pp. 139–148). U.S. Government Printing Office. 

Copyright: Public domain.