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Europe on the Verge of War

p At the turn of the century rivalry and conflicts between the Great Powers at the imperialist stage of capitalism approached breaking point. There was very little room left for colonial expansion since these powers had already divided most of the world between them, and a keen struggle developed for "spheres of influence”. A series of international crises, all threatening to boil over into a general world conflict, reflected mounting political tension round the globe.

p England’s openly aggressive war against the Boer republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State from 1899 to 1902 ended in their annexation. In 1900, the European powers along with Japan and the USA intervened in China. In 1904, the bloody Russo-Japanese War broke out, and the following year German efforts to halt French expansion in Morocco seriously strained relations between the two powers. Austria-Hungary’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908 threatened to develop into a general European conflict. In 1911, a second Moroccan crisis arose between France and Germany, the latter sending the gunboat Panther to Moroccan waters (the Agadir crisis), as a show of force designed to discourage France from her penetration of Morocco, which by this time was anyway virtually completed. In 1912 to 1913 Europe was shaken by the two Balkan wars. Behind the small countries taking part stood the might of the Great Powers, divided into two hostile camps.

p The final line-up of forces had already taken shape. On the one. hand stood the Triple Alliance, made up of Germany, AustriaHungary and Italy, on the other the Triple Entente composed of Britain, France and Russia.

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Both camps were actively preparing for war, engaging in a keen arms race and vying with one another in the field of diplomacy to secure valuable allies. Germany did her best to woo Russia away from Britain and France, while France was more successful in her efforts to secure Italy’s withdrawal from the Triple Alliance.

The Outbreak of War

The First World War broke out on August 1, 1914. It had been brewing for several decades and was an imperialist war for both sides, but it was Germany who took the initiative in declaring war. The German ruling circles, and especially the military, were eager for an early outbreak of hostilities, since Germany then had a military superiority, which might be lost with time. Germany and her partner Austria-Hungary seized the opportunity offered by the assassination of the Austrian Arch-Duke Franz-Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, by a Serbian patriot to provoke an international conflict. Austria-Hungary delivered a clearly unacceptable ultimatum to Serbia, followed by a declaration of war. General mobilisation was declared in Russia, and the German declaration of war on her followed on August 1st. On August 3rd, Germany declared war against France, and on the 4th invaded Belgium. At the violation of Belgian neutrality Britain also entered the war. The German armies quickly overcame Belgian resistance and pressed on into France.

The Failure of Von Schlieffen’s Plan

p The German High Command followed a plan which had been carefully prepared eight or nine years previously by General Alfred von Schlieffen. The plan was for a lightning war to eliminate the enemy on the Western Front in four to six weeks and then concentrate on victory on the Eastern Front in roughly the same period. The aim was to avoid a war on two fronts simultaneously by fighting a lightning war on each front in turn. Total victory was to be achieved by the fall.

p At first everything seemed to point to the plan succeeding. The main forces of the German army advanced across Belgium and deep into France, and by September were approaching Paris, having reached the Marne. The French Government was hastily evacuated to Bordeaux. It seemed that all was lost. But just when the Germans were about to celebrate victory, their plans were suddenly upset. The arrogant German High Command had been 572 contemptuous of Russia’s ability to mobilise her armies in a short space of time and have them ready for action; these German calculations, however, were to prove ill-founded since the Russian mobilisation was carried out rapidly and following a request from the French High Command, alarmed at the German invasion, Russian armies invaded Eastern Prussia at the end of August, and at the same time advanced against Austria-Hungary, occupying Lvov on September 3rd.

Meanwhile a major confrontation between the French armies under General Joffre and the advancing German troops took place on the Marne on September 5th-12th. The Germans, anxious at 573 the Russian advance into Prussia, transferred two and a half corps to the Eastern Front, which led to a Russian defeat But the German strength on the Marne was considerably weakened, and the French not only succeeded in holding the line but soon launched a massive counter-offensive causing the Germans to retreat. Thanks to the propitious help afforded France by the Russians, the German advance in the West was halted, Paris was saved and von Schlieffen’s plan for a lightning war was foiled. It was now clear that the war would be a long, protracted struggle. The fronts hardened and trench warfare began, and the opposing armies settled down to a war of attrition which would be won by the side with the greatest military and economic might.

The Collapse of the Second International

p The war was a severe blow to the international labour movement. The Second International and socialist parties in various countries had been opposing militarism and trying to avert the danger of war for many years. But the working class was not strong enough to prevent the imperialist bourgeoisie from unleashing war The forces of reaction were merciless in their suppression of the anti-military proletarian leaders. The French socialist leader Jean Jaures was treacherously murdered for his anti-war activities, as early as July 31st, 1914.

p The main cause of the working class’s weakness was the decisive role opportunists had come to play in the majority of socialist parties and in the leadership of the Second International. On August 4th, 1914, the strongest party in the Second International, the German Social-Democrats, voted war credits to the government, despite a previously taken decision to the contrary, thereby betraying the very principles of internationalism and allying themselves with their national bourgeoisie and militarist clique. The French, Belgian and Austrian socialists and the Russian Mensheviks did likewise. The International Socialist Bureau, the leadership of the International, proved completely powerless in this hour of crisis, and virtually ceased its activities.

All this signified in effect the collapse of the Second International. The major member parties ignored the decisions they had themselves taken at the congresses, and the International was split into three opposed groupings: the socialists of the German bloc, the socialists of the Entente bloc and the socialists of the neutral countries.

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The Bolsheviks’ Struggle Against
the War, for a Revolutionary Outcome of the Crisis

p The Bolsheviks were the only party that remained true to the principles of proletarian internationalism. Five Bolshevik deputies who spoke against the war in the Duma were arrested and exiled to Siberia. In September 1914, Lenin, then in Switzerland, proposed a new programme for revolutionary struggle in war conditions. He was the first socialist to define the war that had started as an imperialist war and brand the behaviour of the leaders of the Second International as a betrayal of the proletarian cause. He found an answer to the questions tormenting every honest socialist at the time, every worker, every one of the oppressed: what was to be done? which path to choose?

p The war brought the people incalculable hardships. Millions of ordinary people, workers and peasants, lost their lives on the numerous fronts so that the factory owners, landowners, generals and high officials might line their already well-lined pockets still more. Their wives and children, deprived of their breadwinners, were left to go hungry. Lenin and the other Bolsheviks realised that the masses were longing for an end to this appalling state of affairs, and shared the people’s desire for peace.

p The question was: what kind of peace should be the aim? Peace between the imperialist powers? Lenin rejected outright this solution, which would merely mean an interruption of hostilities and the continuation of oppression for the masses, so that all the sacrifices would have been in vain. Such a peace would merely be a truce, and before long the imperialists would once more be sending workers and peasants off to the slaughter.

p In order to assure an enduring peace and make further wars impossible, or at least reduce the danger of their occurring, the cause of war must be removed: imperialism must be overthrown.

p Was this possible? Or was it merely a Utopian dream? This was the view of many of Lenin’s opponents, the socialists serving the imperialist cause and calling on the people to come to terms with their national bourgeoisies.

But Lenin demonstrated that the imperialist war provided the ideal conditions for the overthrow of imperialism. Why? Because the war greatly worsened the plight of the masses, and bringing about sharp rises in prices condemned them to hunger and privation, thereby causing a serious crisis in the majority of European countries. This crisis would become more and more serious as the war went on, and would serve to galvanise the revolutionary ardour of the masses. How should this crisis be resolved, how should it be used by the class-conscious proletarians? And Lenin answered these questions.

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p The ruling classes had found it necessary to arm the people. They had given the workers and peasants rifles for the purpose of killing one another. But these rifles could and should be turned in another direction, against the capitalists, landowners and colonialists, against the forces of imperialism.

Thus Lenin came to devise his most important political slogan of the war years: the imperialist war should be transformed into a civil war. In other words, the war should be brought to a stop by overthrowing imperialism.

Lenin’s Theory of Socialist Revolution

p It was quite natural that in the years of the imperialist war, when Lenin was urging the working class of Russia and other countries to turn the war into a revolutionary struggle, he should have elaborated and perfected the basic principle of his theory of 576 socialist revolution. The struggle for socialist revolution was then in the order of the day.

p Lenin wrote several important works during the war years, including Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, and The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution. Taking into account all the latest features of capitalism at the imperialist stage, he elaborated the tactics and strategy for the proletariat to follow in the new historical conditions. On the basis of the doctrine of Marx and Engels, Lenin produced a new theory of socialist revolution applicable in the age of imperialism.

p Lenin advanced two new principles of fundamental importance. The first was that the socialist revolution could not triumph in all countries simultaneously in view of the fact that the various countries were at different stages of economic and political development. The victory of socialism was possible first in a few or even in one single country. The second new principle was that the proletariat would acquire new allies in its struggle against imperialism. To the peasantry, which had already become the ally of the proletariat in the capitalist countries, would be added the anti-imperialist forces of the oppressed peoples of colonial and dependent countries. The struggle of the working class against imperialism coincided with the liberation struggle of the oppressed peoples against imperialism, swelling the forces of the anti-imperialist movement.

These theories had an immense practical value, opening up new prospects for the working class in the revolutionary struggle.

The War Spreads

p The imperialist war which had begun as a European conflict-in 1914 soon developed into a world war. The number of belligerent countries increased rapidly. Bulgaria and Turkey were drawn into the war on the side of the Central powers, led by Germany with her vast military might and dreams of world domination.

p More and more countries were joining the war on the side of the Triple Entente powers. Serbia, Belgium, and subsequently and at different times Japan, Italy, Rumania, and the United States, and several other countries declared war on the Central powers. All continents were involved, but in Europe, the main theatre of the struggle, little progress was made by either side. The struggle had developed into a positional war, with appallingly costly battles being waged for every yard of ground. The Battle of Verdun in 1916, for instance, after months of heavy fighting in which casualties on both sides were atrociously high, ended in a stalemate. No less costly and futile than the slaughter at Verdun were 577 the battles on the Somme in the summer of 1916. The Germans did achieve several victories on the Eastern Front in 1915, but failed in their main aim to eliminate Russia from the war. As the war dragged on, it became more and more obvious that the victors would be the side with the greatest economic might. Despite her temporary victories, the ultimate defeat of Germany was only a question of time.

The war caused unprecedented damage to the productive forces. The flower of Europe’s manhood, ten million men killed and over twenty million wounded—such was the atrocious toll in human lives. Industry in the belligerent countries was completely geared to the war effort, and production of consumer goods fell off sharply. Food and clothing prices soared, and in many countries the working people suffered great privations, and later hunger.

The Revolutionary Crisis Mounts

Monopolists, industrialists, bankers and various breeds of speculator amassed colossal fortunes out of the war. Arms production and the supply of food and clothing to the millions under arms brought in vast profits. But while the bourgeoisie were prospering from the war, it brought general impoverishment to the ordinary people in almost all the belligerent countries. As early as 1915 there could be noticed a marked sobering up in the outlook of the masses which had been caught up by the wave of jingoism in the first months of the war. At the end of 1914 Karl Liebknecht had openly condemned the war, and was the only Social-Democrat deputy in the Reichstag to vote against the granting of war credits. He and Rosa Luxemburg headed a group of revolutionary internationalists within the Social-Democratic Party which called themselves the Spartacus Group and waged a bold campaign against the war and its supporters in Germany. In Bulgaria opposition to the war was expressed by the Tesnyaki under Vasil Kolarov, Dimitr Blagoev and Georgi Dimitrov. Gradually the Left internationalists mounted the struggle in all countries

The Bolsheviks’ Struggle
for Left Internationalist Unity

p With the shift to the left among the masses various opportunist, so-called Centrist elements became more active in the ranks of the Social-Democratic parties. Centrism was a covert form of opportunism practised by people posing as revolutionaries. The chief Centrists during the war years were Kautsky in Germany, 578 MacDonald in England, Longuet in France, and Martov and Trotsky in Russia. Many of the waverers, dissatisfied with the policy of the ruling classes but not yet having reached full revolutionary awareness, followed the Centrists.

p In September 1915, the first international conference of socialists opposed to the imperialist war and the chauvinistic policies of the official Social-Democratic leadership was held in the Swiss village of Zimmerwald. The delegates included Centrists, socialists with Centrist leanings, and Left internationalists, among them Lenin.

p Lenin came to the conference because it represented the first step towards a break with the chauvinistic socialist leadership. His main aim was to unite the Left internationalists, and in this he met with partial success. Out of this conference emerged what was called the Zimmerwald Left, a loose grouping of internationalist, anti-war socialists, the embryo out of which the Third International was to grow.

In April 1916, the Zimmerwald International Socialist Committee held another conference in the Swiss town of Kienthal. Thanks to Lenin’s tireless efforts to unite the Left internationalists, the Zimmerwald Left was much stronger than at the previous meeting, and the decisions taken at the conference represented an important step forward in the ideological sense.

The Effect
of the War on the Colonial Countries

p The war had important effects on all the colonial and dependent countries. The imperialist powers used their colonies and dependencies as a reserve in the struggle against their enemy. In Africa and India forced conscription of soldiers for the Western Front was carried out, and tens of thousands of Vietnamese were transported to France to dig trenches and work behind the lines. The war at sea, and in particular German submarine activity, had interrupted the normal trading links between Asia and the European metropolitan countries, while the latter were anyway no longer able to supply their colonies with all the industrial goods they had hitherto sold them.

p The United States and Japan were to reap particular benefit from this situation, and their exports to the European colonies in Asia increased considerably. Japan, apart from strengthening her economic and political influence in China, began energetic penetration of Siam, Indonesia and the Philippines.

p Turkey, who had joined the Central powers on the eve of the war, was totally dependent on Germany. Iran, who had declared 579 her neutrality, became the scene of fierce rivalry between the two belligerent camps.

p Germany tried to use Iran’s quarrels with England and Russia to gain the support of factions in opposition to the Shah, infiltrating the country with spies and saboteurs, in an effort to bring to a halt Iranian oil shipments to England. She sent military missions via Iran to Afghanistan, with the aim of provoking trouble on the Afghano-Indian border.

p Iran also became the scene of fighting between the Russian army and a German-Turkish expeditionary force. The fighting in northern Iran was like a continuation of the Russo-Turkish front in Transcaucasia. In the course of the war, British and Russian efforts to combat Germany’s activities in Iran led to her becoming more and more of a colonial dependency of the two powers.

p The war greatly worsened the plight of the peoples of Asia and Africa. The curtailment of the market for agricultural produce brought the peasantry great hardship. In the villages and especially in the towns prices soared. Meanwhile the national bourgeoisie of these countries prospered since, fearing increased Japanese and American invasion of their markets, the European powers sought to encourage the expansion of local industry, and particularly light industry.

p With the worsening of the living conditions of the masses in the majority of Asian countries, popular unrest became widespread. Numerous peasant uprisings broke out, often under religious sectarian banners.

p An important role in the growing national liberation movement was played by the local bourgeoisie, demanding participation in government and increased economic opportunities.

p At its congress in Lucknow the Indian National Congress demanded immediate wide powers of self-government, the opening of senior army posts to Indians, customs autonomy and control over the state finances. These demands were also supported by the Moslem League which held a congress in Lucknow at the same time. Indian Home-Rule Leagues were formed for the promulgation of this programme.

p In Indonesia, the Union of Islam developed in the war years to become a mass organisation. The leading role was to be played by the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie and those connected with the Social-Democratic Union, founded by the Dutch Left-wing Social-Democratic Tribune Party. At its congress in 1916, and particularly at the one in October 1917, the Union of Islam sharply criticised Dutch imperialism and its reactionary lackeys in the country.

p The 1917 congress adopted a resolution condemning "evil capitalism”. Numerous trade unions grew up during the war years, 580 and the workers became more vociferous in their demands for better living and labour conditions.

p In the Philippines, the bourgeoisie and liberal landowners whose strength had increased in the course of the war intensified their demands for independence and were actively supported by the working masses.

p In French Indochina discontent mounted among all strata of society, and peasant revolts against forced conscriptions and excessive requisitions in some places took the form of an armed struggle. In 1916, a peasant army advanced on Saigon, managing to seize the town and hold it for a while, and destroy the prison. In many districts the peasants succeeded in taking back recruits conscripted by force. Many of the feudal lords likewise openly expressed their discontent. A conspiracy led by the young Emperor Dhui-Tan was formed in Hue and took advantage of the weakening of French garrison troops, which had largely been transferred to the Western Front, to instigate an uprising in 1916. But the majority of feudal lords were not prepared to offer it their support and the rising lacked popular roots. The revolt was crushed and Dhui-Tan was made prisoner and exiled to the island of Concorde. A puppet emperor, loyal to the imperialists, was placed on the throne, and although outbursts of popular revolt continued, they lacked the necessary organisation and leadership.

p The imperialists were forced to resort to complicated tactics and manoeuvres to deal with the national liberation movement and curb revolutionary disturbances. The colonial powers made all sorts of wild promises for the purpose of securing the support and obedience of the national bourgeoisie and the wealthy classes. Jones’s Law, passed by the US Congress in 1916, increased the participation of Filipinos in the government of their country and promised the Philippines self-government in the near future.

p In the Montague Declaration, delivered to the House of Commons by the British Minister for Indian Affairs, England promised India gradual transfer to dominion status. At the same time similar promises were made in India by the Vice-Roy, Lord Chelmsford. Also in 1916, Indonesia was promised a representative organ, the National Council.

p Various manoeuvres taking into account popular demands were also resorted to in the case of the Arab countries. England did her utmost to weaken the Ottoman Empire and further her own influence there by enlisting the support of the local ruling classes. In 1916 the High Commissioner for Egypt, which had been declared a British protectorate, immediately after Turkey’s entry into the war promised King Hussein of Mecca that His Majesty’s Government would support the creation of an Arab sovereign state under the Hashimite dynasty. Hussein declared a "Holy War" on 581 Turkey, the Arab forces being led by Hussein’s son, Emir Feisal, who was greatly aided and abetted by the British agent "Lawrence of Arabia".

p At the same time the Entente powers were busy concluding a secret agreement for the partition of the Ottoman Empire among themselves.

p The anti-imperialist movement also developed in many African countries during the war years. There was fighting from the outset between the Entente powers and Germany in Southern Sahara. All the German colonies in Africa, with the exception of German East Africa, were seized by the British and French. Africans were conscripted by force to serve as soldiers, workers and bearers.

p The local population sought to escape these impositions by fleeing from their homes, and sometimes (as in Dahomey and the Ivory Coast) organised open resistance. A revolt broke out against the English planters in Nyasaland. In the Union of South Africa massive strikes took place, and in 1917 the African workers held their first conference and formed the Industrial Workers League, which was to lead a strong protest movement against the system of special passports for Africans and other forms of racial discrimination.

The anti-imperialist movement in Asia and Africa was given a powerful stimulus by the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917.

The Mounting Tide of Revolution in Russia

p As the war dragged on it brought serious economic damage to many European countries, causing severe food shortages and leading to a sharp deterioration in the living conditions of the masses. The tremendous profits made out of the war by the bourgeoisie made all the more clear to the common people the imperialist nature of the war. Despite increased military-police surveillance and the militarisation of labour, a mass protest movement against the war and capitalist oppression rapidly gathered momentum on the home front in the belligerent countries.

p In the second year of the war there were large street demonstrations in Germany, and there was an outbreak of strikes in France and England. In the spring of 1916, an Irish rebellion against British rule broke out, which was suppressed by British troops.

In tsarist Russia, whose economy was less equipped than that of the other major belligerent powers to take the burden of the war, the strain on the economy and food shortages were particularly severe.

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p Even the army was left short of supplies and equipment. In June 1916, the Russians launched a new offensive under General Brusilov, and broke through the Austrian front, practically annihilating two Austro-Hungarian armies, occupying Galicia and Bukovina. Yet they were unable to follow up this victory, since in the decisive battles the Russian artillery found itself short of shells.

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p The soldiers’ rations weie gradually reduced, and as if the strain of positional warfare were not enough, on the Russian soldiers fell the added burden of hunger. Corruption was life in army supplies, and as rumours to this effect spread among the soldiers, so disaffection increased.

p Meanwhile the hungry women left at home to fend for themselves, broke into bread shops and made protest marches through the streets bearing anti-war slogans. The strike movement soon acquired a political colouring. In 1916, on the anniversary of "Bloody Sunday”, the workers of Petrograd (as St. Petersburg had been renamed at the outbreak of the war with Germany) staged a demonstration, marching through the streets singing revolutionary songs and bearing aloft banners with the slogan "Down with the War!" Peasant unrest increased in the countryside. The Minister of the Interior warned the Tsar: "The whole countryside is seething with the spirit of 1905.” In the summer of 1916 the workers of Central Asia and Kazakhstan revolted against tsarist colonial rule.

p Military reverses and the danger of a new revolutionary upheaval gave rise to opposition among the bourgeoisie and some of the landowners. The bourgeois-landowner faction in the Duma united in the so-called Progressive Bloc, and demanded the establishment of a responsible government capable of " commanding public confidence”, crushing the revolutionary movement and leading the war to a victorious conclusion.

p However, the ruling camarilla were scornful of the Duma leaders’ proposals. Tsar Nicholas IFs German consort, Empress Alexandra, wrote of them: "These creatures are trying to play a part and interfere in matters they have no business meddling with. ... They would do far better to occupy themselves with questions of drainage....”

p The weakness of the tsarist government was clearly reflected in the frequent ministerial changes. In the first two years of the war Russia had no less than four Premiers and six Ministers of the Interior. Yet these ministers had little authority even among the empire’s ruling circles. Behind them loomed larger and larger the ugly figure of Grigory Rasputin, the Empress’s favourite. The ignorant, half-literate Siberian peasant cunningly exploited the susceptibility to superstition and mysticism of the court ladies, setting himself up as a “saint” and “clairvoyant”. Bringing the Empress, and through her the Tsar, completely under his spell, Rasputin meddled freely in the affairs of state and even tried to influence the strategic plans of the tsarist High Command.

By the end of 1916, even the most ardent monarchists had become convinced of the need to remove the Tsar if revolution were to be averted. They decided to begin by assassinating Rasputin, 584 hoping that this act might force Nicholas to alter his policy and adopt a line more favourable to the bourgeoisie and the landowners. The assassination was carried out in the home of Prince Yussupov, a well-known money-bag, and the body was cast into the frozen Neva. However, this terrorist act brought no change in tsarist policy. The ship of state of the tsarist autocracy sailed fullspeed ahead towards its own impending doom.

The Overthrow of the Autocracy

p At the beginning of 1917 popular discontent in Russia sharply increased. The cold winter of privation incurred by the war was particularly hard to bear. There was a serious fuel shortage in the capital and food supplies were running very low. In February, the vast city of Petrograd with its two million inhabitants had only enough Hour left to last ten days and only enough fats for three days. Long queues of women stood outside the bread shops, in the bitter frost, for hours on end.

p Faithful to the revolutionary traditions of 1905, the Petrograd proletariat staged massive strikes. In January 1917, on the twelfth anniversary of "Bloody Sunday”, 150,000 workers went on strike. On March 3, the workers of the Putilov Plant, one of the largest factories in the city, stopped working. The management ordered a lock-out, and the workers took to the streets where they were joined by women from the bread queues. Workers of other factories came out in sympathy.

p By March 8, 90,000 workers were out on strike, and two days later the strike had become a general one, with 250,000 taking part. The streets were strewed with leaflets printed by the Petrograd Committee of the Bolshevik Party, with "Down -with the Tsarist Monarchy! Down with the War! Long Live the Fraternity of the Workers of the World!”

p The tsarist military leaders sent troops to disperse the demonstrators. Surrounded by women imploring them not to fire on the people, the soldiers hesitated. On one of the main squares (now named Uprising Square) when a police officer gave the order to fire at the crowd, a Cossack rushed at him brandishing his sabre.

p On March 11, there was street fighting all day in various parts of the capital. Nicholas was hundreds of miles away, at General Headquarters near Mogilev. Mikhail Rodzyanko, Chairman of the Duma, sent wire after wire entreating the Tsar to form a new government enjoying the confidence of the country. But Nicholas did not intend to make any concessions. "That fat Rodzyanko has been writing me all sorts of rubbish again,” he informed his wife.

p On the morning of March 12, military cadets of the Volynsky Regiment revolted and killed their commander, and joined the 585 workers in the streets. After this various other regiments of the city garrison revolted en masse and went over to the side of the revolution. The arsenal was captured, and the workers seized 40,000 rifles. Police headquarters and law-courts were peppered with fire. The revolting regiments and workers broke into the jails and freed the political prisoners. Gendarmes were disarmed in the streets and tsarist ministers and generals were placed under arrest.

p “Measures should be taken immediately as tomorrow will be too late,” Rodzyanko wired the Tsar. Nicholas replied with an order to suspend the Duma.

p By the evening of March 12, Petrograd was in the hands of the insurgent people. According to the calendar then officially in force in Russia the date was February 27, and the second Russian revolution which triumphed in the capital is thus known as the February Revolution.

p While the revolutionary storm was sweeping through the streets of Petrograd, the terrified bourgeois leaders in the Duma were hastily forming a Provisional Committee. On the same day (March 12), the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies was formed, and held its first session. On learning this, the following day the Duma Committee announced that it was taking over the reins of government. Conciliators among the leaders of the Soviet readily sanctioned this decision. On March 15, a Provisional Government was formed, in which most of the Cabinet ministers were members of bourgeois parties. The only “democrat” was the lawyer Kerensky, who bandied Leftist phrases about in the Petrograd Soviet. He became Minister of Justice.

p The same day railway workers held up the Tsar’s train on the way to Petrograd at Pskov, and then and there, in his railway carriage, the Tsar was forced to sign a document of abdication.

The tsarist regime had fallen. It had collapsed thanks to the victory of the revolutionary forces of the Russian people led by the heroic working class and supported by the vast peasant masses, whose sons, dressed in army uniform, had at last taken a firm stand on the side of the revolution. All the peoples of Russia and progressives everywhere welcomed the news of the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy with gladdened hearts.

The Revolutionary Crisis in Europe

p As the war dragged on with its endless train of sacrifices, suffering and hardship for millions of people, popular discontent began to mount. In most of the countries that were at war, 586 and especially in Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany, this discontent began to manifest itself in open disturbances and the political barometer began to rise sharply.

p When, in September 1914, Lenin had predicted that the imperialist war would lead to revolution and that every effort must be bent towards that aim, his words were met with open incredulity and scorn by the social-chauvinists, and ironic smiles and scepticism by the Centrists.

p Yet only three years later Lenin’s views had been thoroughly confirmed by events. In March 1917 (February according to the old calendar) the Russian revolution had started in Petrograd, and led within a few weeks, with only very slight resistance, to the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty which had ruled the country for three centuries.

p The February Revolution in Russia was only the first of a series of revolutions that rocked Europe. In October 1918, the Hapsburg dynasty was overthrown and the Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrated. In November 1918, revolution triumphed in Germany, sweeping away the House of Hohenzollern from the throne, so that the proud, haughty Kaiser Wilhelm II was sent scurrying to seek refuge in Holland, abandoning his family.

Just as Lenin had predicted, the imperialist war in Europe had turned into a civil war.

The Path to Socialist Revolution

p Although conciliators allowed the bourgeoisie to seize the reins of government in Russia, the bourgeois Provisional Government was obliged to reckon with the new form of power embodied in Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. A strange situation arose, which Lenin referred to as "dual power".

p Under pressure from the masses, the leadership of the Soviets was forced to abandon its conciliatory line and adopt measures which ran counter to the political course of the Provisional Government. Thus, on the instance of the Petrograd Soviet, a workers’ militia was formed, people’s courts chosen, and special elected soldiers’ committees created in every army unit, to exercise control over commanding officers.

p In April 1917, Lenin returned to Russia, and immediately launched the appeal for the peaceful transfer of all power to the Soviets: "No Support for the Provisional Government! All Power to the Soviets!”

p Under Lenin’s leadership the Bolsheviks got busy with the political education and organisation of the masses, exposing conciliators, and securing a majority in the executive organs of the 587 Soviets. The aim was the peaceful development of the revolution from its bourgeois to its socialist stage.

p Lenin’s ideas began to carry more and more influence. The people longed for peace, yet the Provisional Government was for continuing the imperialist war, under the slogan "Carry the War to a Victorious Conclusion”. In June the Russian armies had begun an abortive offensive on Lvov, and in September Riga was treacherously surrendered to the Germans. The anti-popular policy of the bourgeois ministers caused mounting discontent among the workers and peasants who desired peace, bread and freedom. But the Provisional Government made no effort to satisfy the popular demands.

p In July 1917, crowds of workers and soldiers came out into the streets of Petrograd demanding the transfer of all power to the Soviets. On orders from the Provisional Government this peaceful demonstration was fired at by counter-revolutionary troops. With the support of the conciliators the bourgeoisie then assumed complete power, and Kerensky became Premier. Repressions against Bolsheviks were instigated, and as his life was in danger, Lenin was forced to go into hiding in a deserted spot outside the capital, near lake Razliv.

The peaceful period of the revolution was over. The Sixth Bolshevik Congress, which met in secret, called on the working class in alliance with the peasantry to overthrow the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and take power into their own hands by force, through armed uprising. This was the call for socialist revolution.

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