1. The Balance Sheet of October¶
Core Argument¶
The Russian Revolution of 1917 stands as one of history’s greatest events, establishing a workers’ and peasants’ state on one-sixth of the world’s land surface. Its essence lay in the active involvement of the masses, who ceased accepting decisions by others and began to think and act for themselves. Starting from extreme backwardness—tsarist Russia had a tiny industrial working class, 70 per cent illiteracy, and heavy dependence on foreign capital—the planned economy revolutionised productive forces. Between 1913 and 1963, Soviet industrial output rose over 52 times, compared to less than six times in the USA; labour productivity grew by 1,310 per cent against 332 per cent in the USA. Social indicators improved dramatically: doctors per 100,000 people reached 205, life expectancy more than doubled, and child mortality fell ninefold. The space programme demonstrated planned economy superiority. However, growth was uneven, hampered by bureaucratic mismanagement, forced collectivisation, and the Great Purges.
The chapter rejects the claim that October was a coup, arguing the Bolsheviks won majority support in the soviets because the Provisional Government had failed to deliver peace, bread, and land. Lenin’s writings show a burning faith in the masses’ ability to change society, counterposing them to the Party and insisting insurrection must rely on a revolutionary upsurge of the people, not conspiracy. The Bolshevik Party’s role was dialectical: the masses are a hundred times more revolutionary than any party, and the leadership itself required internal struggle against vacillation. The Bolshevik Party grew from around 8,000 members in February to 177,000 by July, winning majorities in the soviets of all major cities by September. The insurrection itself involved relatively few fighters because nine-tenths of the task was accomplished beforehand by winning over the decisive majority of workers and soldiers. Without organisation—trade unions and the party—the working class’s power remains mere potential; the Bolsheviks gave the mass movement form, purpose, and a voice.
The October Revolution was nearly peaceful because no class defended the old order. Peasants did not fight for the Constituent Assembly; they rallied to the Bolsheviks after experiencing White rule, since only the Bolsheviks gave them land by decree the day after the revolution. The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly is compared to Cromwell’s dispersal of the Long Parliament and Jacobin purges of the National Convention; such actions were necessary for revolutionary victory. The bloodbath occurred when 21 foreign armies invaded. The Red Army’s victory over the White generals was achieved not through superior force of arms but through mass desertion, mutiny, and risings in occupied areas. Under Trotsky, the shattered remnants of the old army were rapidly welded into a revolutionary fighting force of over five million soldiers. German officers Bauer and Hoffmann acknowledged Trotsky’s achievement as “absolutely Napoleonic” and astonishing.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks never envisaged the Russian Revolution as self-sufficient; they insisted final victory required world revolution. Lenin repeatedly stated that without revolution in advanced countries, the Soviet regime was doomed. The isolation of the revolution, combined with Russia’s backwardness, created enormous difficulties. Instead of the state withering away, bureaucratic deformations grew. The defeat of revolution in Germany and elsewhere made Stalinist political counter-revolution inevitable, emerging not from a theoretical flaw in Bolshevism but from crushing backwardness and isolation. The Soviet government was forced into War Communism—wholesale nationalisation, grain requisitioning, and labour militarisation—sooner than intended due to civil war, capitalist sabotage, and worker pressure. The economy collapsed: by 1920, iron ore and cast iron output fell to 1.6% and 2.4% of 1913 levels; industrial workers dropped from 3,000,000 in 1917 to 1,240,000 in 1920; Petrograd’s population fell from 2,400,000 to 574,000. Nine million died from famine, disease, and cold during the civil war. The working class became declassed, ceasing to exist as a coherent class. The New Economic Policy (NEP) followed: grain requisition was replaced by a tax in kind, allowing peasants to sell surpluses