The Russian Bolshevik Revolution (Mar-Nov 1917) | Strategy of Protest and Revolution 4.5
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- Опубликовано: 25 июл 2024
- How did 3 thousand Bolsheviks take over an Empire of 160 million? In this video, we explore how Lenin's Bolsheviks navigated the turbulent waters of Revolutionary Russia to ultimately seize power and establish the Soviet Union. In the process, Lenin's social movement theory would have to adjust to various practical realities, including: limited organizational reach, radical sailors, and of course, constant ideological deviation. The result was a Revolution that would - theoretically - inspire socialists throughout the world.
SCRIPT: strategosstuff.blogspot.com/2...
All errors are my own. I apologize again to all channel followers for my unannounced hiatus (again)...
▬ CHAPTERS ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
0:00 - Start
0:19 - (I) Introduction
2:58 - (II) The February Revolution
10:42 - (III) Mar-Apr: A Strategy of Chaos
18:00 - (IV) May-Oct: Organizing Revolution
27:00 - (V) The October Revolution
30:33 - (VI) Prevention: The Soviet Dictatorship
35:14 - (VII) Conclusion
▬ SOURCES ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Anweiler O. The Soviets. Random House 1974.
Benvenuti F. The Bolsheviks and the Red Army. Cambridge University Press 1988.
Brinton M. The Bolsheviks and Workers Control. Zabalaza Books 2017.
Gill G. Peasants & Government in the Russian Revolution. The Macmillan Press 1979.
Lih L. ‘Fully Armed: Kamenev and Pravda in March 1917’. The NEP Era: Soviet Russia 1921-1928, 8 (2014).
Mandel D. The Petrograd Workers in the Russian Revolution. Brill 2017.
Mawdsley E. The Russian Revolution and the Baltic Fleet. Antony Rowe Ltd 1993.
Merridale C. Lenin on the Train. Metropolitan Books 2017.
Smith S. Red Petrograd. Cambridge University Press 1985.
Slusser R. Stalin in October. Johns Hopkins University Press 2019.
▬ CREDITS ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Alex
▬ ATTRIBUTIONS ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Wikipedia (basic facts + figures + dates)
www.marxists.org/ (quotes)
Maps:
omniatlas.com/maps/northern-e...
(Pre-Revolution Russia)
omniatlas.com/maps/northern-e...
(Provisional Government)
omniatlas.com/maps/northern-e...
(Areas of Bolshevik Control)
omniatlas.com/maps/northern-e...
(Russian Civil War)
omniatlas.com/maps/northern-e...
(Soviet Union)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karelia...
(Finnish borders)
McMeekin S. The Russian Revolution. Profile Books 2017.
(1917 Frontlines)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...
(Riga Campaign)
Faulker M. The Great War at Sea. Seaforth Publishing 2015.
(Operation Albion)
Mawdsley E. The Russian Revolution and the Baltic Fleet. Antony Rowe Ltd 1993.
(Land/Naval forces around Petrograd)
Galili Z. The Menshevik Leaders in the Russian Revolution. Princeton University Press 1989
(Petrograd in 1917 1)
Wade R (ed.). Revolutionary Russia. Routledge 2004.
(Petrograd in 1917 2)
Gill G. Peasants & Government in the Russian Revolution. The Macmillan Press 1979.
(Peasant Unrest)
Made using Microsoft Office 2013, Remote Mouse, ShureMV7, Audacity, WavePad and VideoPad.
THE KING IS BACK 👑
LONG LIVE THE KING!
I love how we have no other conceptual vocabulary to describe 1917 other than Lenin’s (“class-conscious proletariat,” “vanguardism,” etc.). Lenin was the ultimate practitioner; the consummate political soldier.
It's great to see that this channel is still uploading! Awesome content!
Honestly these are so much more interesting and engaging than my political science professors. I really appreciate your concise and clear explanations.
Regarding the role of sailors in a revolution:
From a psychological point of view, it is also interesting to look at the November Revolution in Germany (1918). It essential started as a mass mutiny of the sailors from warships and Cruisers. They were often the backbone of revolutionary and later communist forces.
The sailors of the other vessels (Torpedo boats, U-Boats, etc.) overwhelmingly joint the Freikorps, becoming the vanguard of the reaction.
But why the different behaviour?
The warships had a very distant officer corps. The captain was just someone who yelled orders and seemed to care little about the plight of his men, while enjoying the amenities of his cabin.
The smaller vessels did not allow this kind of distinction. Here the captain was the grime covered guy next to you. Resulting in a closer, more trusting relationship between them. And in the revolution, this personal loyalty trumped the promises of Agitators.
I see some really interesting parallels between the “Power to the Soviets” and the contemporary American “States’ Rights” arguments. Smaller power bases are easier to control/defeat in detail
Thank you for your hard work, but now I'm even more curious about the future content! Do you consider that the Russian revolution is now "covered" or should we expect another chapter about the Civil War?
Well if I ever get around to doing the Russian Civil War, it will be more of a military/geopolitical strategy thing rather than as a part of this series. The next and final video in this series would be the Chinese Revolution c.1927-36 (again, before the part where the CCP militarily conquered the country)
@@StrategyStuff Nice!
Will you also cover the "Cultural Revolution" at some point?
Maybe. I haven't even begun looking into what resources / how relevant they are.
@@StrategyStuff I would love to see a video from you of the Chinese Revolution of 1927-36! 🇨🇳
✨💖🛠💖✨
Truly a lenghty hyatus and now all of sudden two long videos whoa!
I'd love to see examples of failed or semi-successful revolutions subject to the same analysis too! Good for comparison
Good to see a new upload from you👍 high quality content as always
So good to see you’re back! Strategy stuff content is without a doubt the best RUclips has to over. I hope you will continue working on this awesome project!
Dude I just thought about your channel yesterday. What a time to be alive.
Welcome back.
You were missed. Glad to see your new work.
He's back after years amazing
WELCOME BACK, YOU WERE MISSED!
It's great that you are still making videos. Love your work!
Overjoyed to have you back!
Great stuff! Glad you're back!
I missed your content ! Its so good to see that you are back!
Hell yeah. Great to see your return
Thank you for your videos. Best wishes from Brazil.
Strategy Stuff Lived
Strategy Stuff Lives
Strategy Stuff Will Live Forever
That's some S-tier quality RUclips content. May the Algorithm be with you! ❤
wel helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooo there
i love your work dude!!!!
The return of the King. 👑
He is back
So happy to see your work back!
巴打復活呀！！！大師兄回來了！！我感覺到全都回來了！！
Algorithm just finally let me know you had a new upload...Yt didnt tell me.
So I am clicking this to watch later. Thanks man!
Welcome back!
Very helpful tutorial
Good to see you back!
I just learned more stuff about the Russian revolution in those two videos than in my entire education. Interesting and well explained.👍
Your videos are so insightful. I would love it if you covered the Itallian fascist and Nazi takeover of their respective countries from their origins until they achieved total power. They would make for incredibly interesting videos.
This was a far more insightful overview and lesson on Communism and the revolution without devolving into any bashing. The RUclips algorithm is actually working for once. Keep up the outstanding work.
Interesting.
He's back!
Best strategy channel on youtube
HOLY SHIT YOURE ALIVE PLEASE KEEP MAKING VIDEOS
welcome back
Nice video
He's back
HE IS BACK
yes he is back baby!
He’s returned!
A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one!
Woooo new vids
first off, awesome content! glad to see you back!
second part. so this is a bit of a big question:
given the analysis in here and chapter 4, there's two questions I want to hear your opinion on: was there a way to both propogate this strategy to other groups like the Spartacists while reducing the 'distastefulness' of the pure power politics that the strategy required to carry it out?
second question is: do you think there was a way, given this model youve used in your series and the historical circumstance, that the autonomous soviets could have been indoctrinated/radicalised *without* bolshevik control? (I suppose this question is partially answered: many of the soviets and ethnic republics were radicalised socialists in the civil war, just that they werent under bolshevik control and were thus suppressed. likewise with the petrograd uprising showing how bolshevik radicalisation was frequently at odds with bolshevik inner circle control/aims)
Thanks for your support!
1) I suppose “distastefulness” is in the eye of the beholder. But even on a theoretical level, the problem with eschewing power politics: power = making smb do what they normally/naturally wouldn’t do. And ppl don’t normally believe in “Spartacism” (regardless of the ideology’s right or wrong) and definitely don’t naturally sacrifice for it. The application of power (and esp organized power) in these cases is needed to get ppl to follow Spartacist goals/end. Does it have to be as cynical as Lenin’s strategy of chaos? No - certainly capitalism has shown u can build a lot of “commitment” even off of regular ad campaigns (Nike, Apple etc).
2. Radicalized and indoctrinated are fairly diff things in my book. Radicalization is merely the application of increasingly power-ful action to achieve the Issue, so it is fairly directionless. indoctrination is to have a participant believe a specific issue, so there is much more “direction” involved. Yes, you can fairly say that the autonomous Soviets would have been radicalized due to the lack of overall PG control, but for them to be “Bolshevized” (instead of following Anarchism or SR-ism or any radical ideology that they fancied), that required Bolshevik control.
@@StrategyStuff thanks for the response, a lot of very good points!
We are worried about you, given where you live. The fact that you're alive and well is a sigh of relief...
Just when he was needed most,he returned.
Typo at 6:15. The slide says "Petrograd Soviet (PG)" but it should say "Petrograd Soviet (PS)"
Great eye, though I thought people would comment first on 'Russian Empire' being applied to the Provisional Govt in the 1st video...
Very interesting analysis. Did Lenin explicitly describe his chaos strategy as such or is the chaos label your interpretation of what he said and did? If the former could you provide a citation? Also, what is your basis for the statement in the first video that the Grman trade unions “took over” the Social Democratic Party to get the benefit of Bismarck’s social welfare legislation and then drove the SPD into the reformist nationalist position it adopted up to and during in WWI? My research indicates that the trade unions took the benefits they got from Bismarck but did not abandon the SPD or its socialist line in the late 1900s. My research also indicates the reformist nationalist position of the two entities during WWI was a reflection of the socioeconomic background of the leaders at the time which in both cases was petty bourgeois.
Just stumbled upon this series.. Simply wow.. amazing job man.. I used to wonder what happened between Feb and Oct. The entire story of Lenin is nothing but tremendous.. Agitation is very powerful.
West is doing exactly same to across the world.. Agitation is the weapon with some vague slogans
great video, could you say the nazis too used mass agitation? manipulating a certain class of people and eventually radicalising enough to establish firm control?
To an extent (which is what I was sorta getting at with my comments at the end), though there is of course a well-debated historiographical Q regarding how 'organic' Nazism or at least nationalism/revanchism was to the German people at the time. Did GER have to be manipulated into accepting Hitler? IIRC Hitler, unlike Lenin, never implied that what he was doing wasn't what GER wanted.
Woooooow who's back here!!!!!!
So we'll get the the essay on the chinese revolution by the heat death of the universe?
Can you do the Theban War as a continuation of the Peloponnesian War?
I would love to see your summary analysis of the Vietnamese communist struggle against France.
Please, please setup a patreon account.
You are the greatest RUclips channel and I want you to get paid for these vids
4 days ago I downloaded all your videos thinking you gave up on your channel, one day latter you post another masterpiece.
Woohoo!
the return of the king
Holy shit it were 2 videos all along
A really interesting and deep piece also rather remarkable that the socialist movement in germany influencend and refined the red revolution which in turn did the same to the national-socialist one that occured later again in germany
Magistrale.
What is the update schedule?
Question: when will you post your next video?
Next one will be about the Duke of Wellington in India (1790s-1800s)… hopefully soon (I’ve never managed to keep to any RUclips timetables so I should just keep my mouth shut on this lol)
The return of the king
HONEY WAKE UP, STRATEGY STUFF UPLOADED A NEW VIDEO.
While I agree that the Menshevik (SD, "whites") were pro-bourgeois (and still are to this very day), I feel that they were pretty much non-existant or at least not influential in the Russian Revolution, judging both on the historical reports (that emphasize SR and Anarchist influence on the early soviets but do not mention the Mensheviks, who also had no presence in the provisional government either) and the results of the aborted elections of November ("October"), which were a bipartisan contest between SRs and Bolsheviks alone.
Also SRs had two wings: a right wing which led the provisional government and a left wing which was often allied to the Bolsheviks and would to some extent merge with them ultimately, it was not a monolithic party unlike the Bolsheviks.
I'd argue that the Mensheviks were definitely influential in the immediate aftermath of the February Revolution - they led many of the factory soviets (mainly coz they were better known, granted) up until the July Days. And part of my 'point' was that they deliberately diluted themselves into irrelevance thru lack of control.
And yes, it was difficult to fit the SR split here into this narrative (tho Left SRs like Kollontai of course did a lot), but much of their support was in the rural/-er areas and therefore fairly irrelevant to Bolshevik strategy again. And they also failed to exert any control, hence the split (tho Trotsky etc said that it was inevitable b/c kulaks and poor peasants had no common interests).
@@StrategyStuff - A comprehensive answer I must bow to. I'll try to research better the late Menshevik influence.
yaaaay
I wonder what you can do by studying strategy related stuff at a post-graduate level, and where would be good places to study them?
Well strategy and especially non-corporate strategy is almost by nature governmental, so you'd either be a bureaucrat or a govt consultant (RAND etc) or a 'content creator' (journo, pundit etc). When I attended a military strategy course during uni, the prof there also advised NATO re: Afghanistan - make of that what you will.
For places, most 'National Defence Universities' (the US one being the most famous) should offer courses on both military and civilian strategy. Personally I've always had a soft spot for War Studies at King's College London, though I've never studied there so I don't know what it's like.
Re. Kornylov affair, what about the soviets being armed by the PG precisely in that moment. You mention the "red guards" out of the blue but AFAIK there was no such thing yet and was actually the PG arming of the soviets, on Bolshevik demand, which created them (and defeated Kornylov).
Fair enough: that's why I introduced the vagueness re: K's motives in the paragraph, because Kerensky (perhaps self-servingly) believed K was out to actually overthrow him and so reached for any help he could get. And I think the PS, very belatedly, also had a hand in mobilizing the Soviets once K's forces were near P. In any case, in the aftermath the PG got no credit for whatever action they did during the Affair - probably was too tied to liberalism and liberals like Miliukov who did support K.
@@StrategyStuff - My understanding is that Kerensky (an SR himself and thus probably believing he had some influence over the soviets) was truly scared of Kornylov and that's why he armed the soviets. In any case the arming of the soviets is a decisive moment in the road to October and I think it should have been mentioned, regardless of Kerensky's motivation.
He's the messiah and he's alive!
bae wake up new strategy stuff video.
30:05 I'm pretty sure that's not accurate? The land decree was supposed to give land to the communal villages and not the state. It was really just the SR land programme. Not that they had any intention of implementing it, but it was clearly a ploy to win support among the peasants.
You're right and I should have added more nuance to 'nationalization of all land', guess I failed to check on that one. In any case, A) the state directly nationalized mineral wealth; B) Lenin never liked the idea of communes so distribution to them was political expediency; and C) the peasant communes/soviets were ultimately meant to be subject to central govt diktat.
@@StrategyStuff Yeah he absolutely hated it which is why I find it so fancinating that they promised it. Knowing the backlash the SRs and PG faced for not doing anything about it themselves. I am guessing it was a move they felt they needed to do to neutralize oposition or counter-revolution from the peasants.
Anyway, really enjoyed the video. Great as usual!
@@SvAwesomeness94 IMHO Lenin was ruthlessly practical, which was part of what made him such a good strategist. I agree with you - he doubtless saw how spontaneous peasant unrest brought down the PG (peasants just seizing estates, burning them, holding up urban grain deliveries in protest etc), so he needed to concede to their demands... for now.
Another contributing reason was that the B (and much of RUS socialism) also did not believe that peasants, being permanently low-consciousness, were capable of much more than spontaneous and rudimentary organization. So there was no risk that concessions to them would foster a more organized opposition, unlike say concessions to the bourgeoisie.
2:00 When did Lenin say poor peasants are apart of the proletariat? He mentioned worker-peasant alliance's and the progressive masses but I don't know of a quotation of him saying that.
Lenin in Chp. II of 'Social-Democracy and the Provisional Revolutionary Government' 1905 has this: "To speak of the democratic revolution and confine oneself to a bald contrast of “proletariat” and “bourgeoisie” is sheer nonsense, for that revolution marks the period in the development of society in which the mass of society virtually stands between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and constitutes an immense petty-bourgeois, peasant stratum. For the very reason that the democratic revolution has not yet been consummated, this immense stratum has far more interests in common with the “proletariat” in the matter of realising political forms than has the “bourgeoisie” in the real and strict sense of the word.
So yes, strictly not proletariat but aligned in terms of political/class interests (at least for now). Still chastised as un-Marxist by Mensheviks etc. And of little practical use given B weakness in countryside.
@@StrategyStuff Yeah that’s what I thought. He’s also not speaking of socialist revolution in that passage either. He’s talking about Bourgeois democratic revolution. When you said something along the lines of Lenin making an about face/heresy you meant from the Menshevik/Left SR perspective.
I hope there’s a video at some point on the strategy of the NSDAP as a social movement during the Weimar era
Hi, i wonder what you mean by ´classical marxism´ since in Marx´s Capital there is an explicit rejection of the so called ´iron law of wages´ and the idea that worker conditions can not improve under capitalism. Of course, Marx and marxism have been different things from the very start.
Hey - I'm by no means an expert (or even student) of Marx, but I thought that the point that M was making re: 'iron law of wages' was that while it IS possible to increase wages, such increases inevitably lead to the substitution & redundancy of labor with capital/machines?
@@StrategyStuff right, i´m no expert either of course. As i understand it, the substitution of labor by machines is indeed a tendency within each economic cycle, driven by capitalist competition and increased wages. This tendency diminishes profits and is a major factor (this has been debated by experts though) in crisis... so wages can not grow indefinitely. However, while a cycle is developing, the total wealth of the economy is growing, and the base level of wages (in absolute terms) tends to grow, even if it doesn´t grow in terms of participation or distribution (meaning relative poverty stays the same). So the absolute wage tends to grow over time. I hope i´m not too unclear.
What in the world? I did it again!
You forgot one major step: Dye hair blue
Crowns this MF
Could you make a video about the strategies of the different factions within the Spanish Civil War? I love your content. We have a more or less new Marxist-Leninist party that is using patriotism and anti-wokism to promote their vanguard party while keeping loyal people in the m-l party. I'm fairly attracted because of the patriot and anti-islamic stuff. Its called Frente Obrero. Until today i didn't understand why they had a small m-l party and a bigger non-communist party XD. Thanks!!
That 2% again.
7:06, imagine a future where 20th century Russia could have become a new Sweden or Norway...
This is exactly how a bourgeois intellectual would look at Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution. The number of tines you've used the term "manipulation" is indicative of the fact that you deny any agency on the part of the proletariat to differentiate between correct and incorrect ideas and what should be done.
Have you ever read any of Lenin's works?
Spotted the marxist. Get your gnostic ideology somewhere else, commie scum😂 you aint ever gonna represent 'the people'
I thought for sure you were dead.
Hell yeah dude.
Based Lenin and so on.
its called the strategy of having hebrew bankers on your side
It's fairly interesting that the bolsheviks were overwhelmingly predominantly jewish.
Do u have good sources for me to learn more? This topic is ultra censored. Thanks in advance!
Yeah please elaborate. I know about the Jewish Bolsheviks and that Jews were prevalent in Marx's regime but to say predominantly?
@@MadM0nte I think he's referring to the fact Lenin had Jewish ancestry, Trotsky was Jewish himself, and 40 % of the Central Committee for the Bolsheviks on the eve of the October Revolution were Jewish. Not an overwhelming majority, but certainly a plurality of notable figures.
@@stevencooper4422 Very significant amount considering the percent of population, even more than western governments today. Still to say predominantly does seem like a bold claim. I haven't read Solzhenitsyn's other book yet. My understanding remains that socialism is a very attractive ideology to jews.
@@MadM0nte Well, look at Israel. It went from state socialism to wild capitalism with Netanyahu. Very odd country...
boy howdy, I guess I only thought I disliked lennin before. now I REALLY don't like what he did
Why?
@@Lostsock402 That the authoritarianism was a core part of the philosophy not just an incidental result of the political environment of the time
Like seeing a theological corruption tenets you believe in, a fascist Marxist theocracy. Creating a social structure of religious cults just with marxism