Russia: The Romanovs to Stalin

5.1.2. Godunov, Time of Troubles and the Romanov Dynasty (1598-1917)

            In 1598, Godunov seized power (1598-1605) and became the first non-Ryurikid Tsar. He was succeeded by his 16-year old son Fyodor II, but Fyodor was murdered after only being in power for 2 months. Following the murder of Fyodor came the Time of Troubles (1605-1613) during which there were two False Dmitry imposters (impersonating the elder son that Ivan the Terrible had murdered), palace coups, rebellions, and foreign interference and occupation. The Polish manipulated internal Russian politics, and then later invaded and occupied Moscow, with King Sigismund III of Poland seizing the Russian throne. A Russian revolt forced the Poles out of Moscow in 1612.

            In 1613 the elite of Russia offered the Tsardom to the sixteen year old high ranking aristocrat Mikhail Romanov (he was the son of the Patriarch of Moscow, who became the de facto ruler of Russia upon his release from Polish imprisonment in 1619), after several other options had been exhausted; this began the Romanov dynasty that would last until the Bolshevik Revolution three centuries later. Over the next century Kiev was retaken, access to the Gulf of Finland gained (including the site of what is now Saint Petersburg), the Khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan once again defeated, and the Khanate of Siberia defeated – creating a sprawling multiethnic state. Under the rule of Peter the Great (1682-1725) the Great Northern War (1700-1721) with the Swedish Empire was initiated, stretching across western Russia, Poland and Denmark. The decisive Battle of Poltava of 1709, fought deep in the Ukraine, established Russia as a major European power. In 1721 Peter the Great was proclaimed Emperor of All the Russias, an Empire that over the next century would expand to the approximate geography of the post-WW2 Soviet Union. Peter changed the basis of the political hierarchy from that of birth to that of merit and service to the Emperor; depriving the Boyar nobles of their inherited seniority and therefore reducing their political power. In addition, he abolished the Duma and concentrated power in a ten-member Senate that more reliably served him, together with formally subordinating the Russian Orthodox Church to the Russian state. These changes reinforced the position of the Tsar as an absolutist monarch in command of an autocratic state bureaucracy; a position that would remain largely unchanged until the reestablishment of the Duma in 1905. He also modernized the Russian army and state functions, as well as carrying out many reforms aimed at Westernizing Russian culture and producing a modern industrial economic sector. Catherine the Great (1762 to 1796) extended the territories of Russia to the Black Sea and into the Caucasus, and into Europe through the annexation of the much of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (with the rest being partitioned between Prussia and the Habsburg Empire). During her reign, the elites adopted many aspects of Western European culture and philosophy. Alexander I (1801-1825) then continued by taking over Finland in 1809, Bessarabia in 1812, and expanding further into the Caucasus. Russian power reached its apogee under Alexander I with the defeat and destruction of Napoleon’s invading Grand Armee of nearly 700,000 men in 1812 (Napoleon only had a significantly outnumbered 73,000 men at Waterloo), which included the Fire of Moscow that destroyed much of the city.

            The coronation of Nicholas I (1825-1855) was marred by the Decembrist Revolt of thousands of liberal minded army officers and citizens, demonstrating for a more representative form of government, that was quickly crushed by the army. The inability to move toward the kind of constitutional monarchy established through the British Glorious Revolution (1688-1689) and by the Unification of Germany (1871), or the federal republic established in the US in 1776 and the re-established republic in France in 1870, became a fundamental issue as Russia attempted to join the industrial revolution later in the century. Nicholas’ reign would be known for political repression backed by extensive censorship and a huge network of spies and informers; a modus operandi later taken up by Stalin. Regional autonomy was also substantially reduced, as power was further centralized.

            Despite large expenditures lavished upon the military during the reign of Nicholas I, the crushing defeat in the Crimean War (a misnomer for a war that stretched “from the Balkans to Jerusalem, from Constantinople to the Caucasus” [Figes 2011, Intro., para. 10], better known as the Eastern War in Russia) of 1853-1856 at the hands of the Ottomans and their allies Britain and France exposed Russia’s relative military, bureaucratic and industrial backwardness. Nicholas had miscalculated that the Christian nations would not support the crumbling Muslim Ottoman Empire. Instead, the European nations saw both the need to stop an expansionary Russia from becoming a more dominant power, and the opportunity to increase their own interests in the Ottoman Empire. The conflict was also seen as  “a crusade for the defence of liberty and European civilization against the barbaric and despotic menace of Russia, whose aggressive expansionism represented a real threat, not just to the West but to the whole of Christendom”  (Ibid.); sentiments that have stretched from the time of Russia’s alignment with Byzantium to the present day (Bailey 2020; Cohen 2019, 2019a; Tsygankov 2019; Mettan 2017; Taras 2014; Tsygankov 2009; Foglesong 2007; Foglesong & Hahn 2002; Gleason 1950). Nineteenth century French writers that argued that an “Asiatic Russia was to follow in the hoofprints of the hordes of Gengis Khan” (McNally 1958, p. 188) would have felt at home watching “Red Dawn” (Feitshans, Beckerman & Beckerman 1984) and be well employed in the current US media. Russia’s early destruction of the Ottoman fleet only served to increase the urgency of European concerns. Russia lost approximately half a million men in a trench-style warfare to be seen later in WW1 (the allies lost approximately 300,000), saw its Sevastopol naval base destroyed and was forced to cease naval operations in the Black Sea.

            Nicholas’ successor, Alexander II (1855-1881), made efforts to instigate a much needed “revolution from above” to implement a state-led industrialization and to develop capitalist economic and social structures within Russia (Anievas 2014), including the abolition of serfdom and administrative and political reforms. Unfortunately, with his assassination in 1881 a much more reactionary and autocratic Alexander III came to power and ruled until 1894, during which time some of Alexander II’s reforms were reversed. The next Tsar, Nicholas II (1894-1917), only gave limited support to the required political reforms while overseeing an “ambitious programme of state-backed industrialization” aided by an alliance with France that “accelerated French investment, mainly in mining, metallurgy, and engineering, though much went also into banking, insurance, and commercial firms” (Smith 2017, p. 34). British investment also aided in the development of the oil industry, and there was significant domestic private sector industrial development. Notwithstanding the above, Russia still trailed significantly in industrialization with respect to the USA, Germany, Britain and France.

            By the turn of the century this industrialization had produced a concentrated urban proletariat that could act as a revolutionary force, especially when it was without formal, and legal forms of political expression. A politically conscious student population and emancipated peasants looking for greater control over their lives also represented forces for change that were without representation. It is important to note that “by 1903 peasants were already leasing almost half the land belonging to the landowning class and some had taken out loans from the Peasant Land Bank to buy noble land” (Smith 2017, p. 32) while “for any peasant, the nobleman … symbolized ‘them’, the privileged society from which they felt entirely excluded” (Smith 2017, p. 32). Increases in rural literacy may have also served to increase the understanding of being without political representation. The devastating defeat of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-5), a multi-year economic downturn starting in 1899 after the prior period of growth, and the Bloody Sunday massacre of unarmed demonstrators (1905), helped spur the widespread revolt of the First Russian Revolution (1905) that forced the Tsar to accept the October Manifesto. This established the Duma as the central legislative body, elected under universal suffrage; a limited constitutional monarchy.

            Nicholas II rapidly turned back to autocracy and repression though, taking steps to limit the power of the Duma and when the 1906 elections produced a left-wing political body, he dissolved it after only 73 days of existence. The Second Duma of 1907 lasted only 103 days and was succeeded by the Third Duma (1907-1912) that was elected with much greater weight given to the votes of land and city property owners and was followed by the Fourth Duma (1912– 1917). The opening provided for a peaceful move away from autocracy was rejected, producing the volatile political and social conditions with which Russia entered the First World War (1914-1918).

Nicholas’ determination to maintain his divinely ordained position as all-powerful autocrat hardened in the face of the radicalism displayed by the first and second dumas … At the same time, the ebbing of the mass movements from summer 1906 encouraged him to unleash the full might of state repression in order to suppress the insurgency. (Smith 2017, p. 61)

            As Gatrell (2014, Intro., para. 17) notes “Nicholas II demonstrated a very impoverished understanding of the complex forces unleashed by the revolution”, and made no effort to remedy “the lack of institutional mechanisms to extend involvement in decision-making beyond a relatively narrow circle”; to the contrary, he actively resisted any attempts to implement such mechanisms. The repeated military failures against the German invasion, together with economic and social breakdown on the home front, greatly diminished the legitimacy of a Tsar who had taken personal control of the armed forces. Fundamentally, Russia had not completed the economic and social modernizations required to fight a multi-year industrialized war with the more advanced Germany:

Backwardness was deeply entrenched and a constraint on the adaptability of the Russian economy. A dearth of skilled labour made it hard to achieve rapid increases in labour productivity in the short run. Industries of crucial significance to modern war, such as chemicals and machine tools, remained weak. Backwardness implied difficulty in persuading subsistence farmers to apply themselves to the challenge of growing for non-farm consumption. It raised a question mark over the use of financial instruments to encourage the population to contribute to the war effort. (Gatrell 2014, Intro., para. 15)

            Nicholas’ legitimacy was further damaged by the influence of Rasputin on his German-born wife who ruled at home while he was at the front. Towards the end of 1916 Russian society became increasingly unstable, with spiralling civilian food and fuel prices and bread riots, widespread strikes and an exhausted and dispirited conscripted peasant dominated military ridden by mass desertion, large-scale surrendering and enemy fraternization, self-wounding and criminal activities (Astashov 2019). With the military supporting the February Revolution of 1917, Nicholas II abdicated, and a provisional government dominated by aristocratic and capitalist interests was established. In parallel, the socialists set up a network of Soviets that vied for power in a socially chaotic period. For a while patriotic support for the war was renewed, but the positive response of the general population to the provisional government faded as it increasingly favoured the interests of employers over workers. “As Trotsky wrote, their stance ‘cost the capitalists dear’” (Gatrell 2014, chap. 9, sub-sect. 4, para. 2) and increased the support for Bolshevism – seen as the only chance of safeguarding the workers’ revolution. The situation was resolved with the Bolshevik Revolution on October 25^th, 1917 (in the Julian calendar), which saw the Bolsheviks led by Lenin overthrow the provisional government.

5.1.3 Revolution, Civil War & New Economic Program (1917-1928)

            Following the Bolshevik Revolution came a demeaning peace treaty with Germany that created a Polish state, took hegemony over the Baltic States, and separated Ukraine and a significant portion of Belarus from Russia. The Treaty of Versailles of 1918 and the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 confirmed the creation of a Polish state. In addition, in December 1918 the Soviet government accepted the independence of Finland. The highly destructive Russian Civil War continued for four years from 1918 to 1922 against the “White” counter revolutionaries and their European and US interventionist allies, and various independence movements (such as Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Belarus and the Ukraine). This included the Polish-Soviet War (1919-1921), which resulted in large areas of western Belarus and Ukraine being placed under Polish rule with the Peace of Riga of 1921 that also recognized the independence of the Baltic States. Victory in the civil war delivered to the Bolsheviks a nation shattered by the German invasion, the brutal civil war itself, the war with Poland, and the brutality of the War Communism implemented by Lenin.

The years between 1918 and 1922 witnessed a level of chaos, strife, and savagery that was unparalleled since Russia’s ‘Time of Troubles’ … It has been estimated that between May 1918 and the end of 1920 nearly 4.7 million members of the Red and White forces, partisan detachments, and nationalist armies died as a result of combat or disease, or simply disappeared. The population on Soviet territory (within 1926 borders) fell from its 1917 level by 7.1 million in 1920, by 10.9 million in 1921, and by 12.7 million in early 1922. Up to 2.1 million of this loss was due to emigration, but the overwhelming majority who died perished not in battle but as a result of the ravages of typhus, typhoid fever, cholera, smallpox, dysentery, hunger, and cold. (Smith 2017, p. 161)

            The autocratic and repressive Bolshevik state that partly resulted from the exigencies of this period had much in common with the Tsarist state. The nation had passed from one autocracy to another, a continuation of the autocratic rule that had reined from the beginning of the Rus’. For the West, the Oriental Tsarist Other was exchanged for the Bolshevik Other – a “monster which seeks to devour civilized society and reduces mankind to the state of beasts” (US Secretary of State Lansing quoted in Carley 2014, p. 17); a new incarnation of the wild and bestial Russian Bear was to be contained by the dutiful Bulldog, the Rooster and the majestic Eagle within a cordon sanitaire. The 1920 Miracle on the Vistula that had saved Warsaw, and therefore Poland, from the Red Army and integration into the Soviet Union, had blocked direct Bolshevik access to Western Europe. The earlier failed German Revolution (1918-1919) had also reduced the possibility of any repeat of the Bolshevik Revolution across the continent. A US Red Scare and a French Peril Rouge were also utilized to crush any socialist forces that might catch the Bolshevik disease, as “The spirit of the Bolsheviki is lurking everywhere, and there is no more fertile soil than war weariness” (President Wilson quoted in Lascurettes 2020, p. 150). The Zinoviev Letter (from the head of the Communist International to the British Communist Party directing the latter to engage in sedition), widely agreed now to have been a forgery, was also used in Britain to defeat the socialist Labour Party in the 1924 election. All of these actions underlined the antagonism of Western governments to Bolshevism.

            The New Economic Policy (NEP) that was put in place in 1921 by Lenin allowed for a mixed economy reoriented toward the market and private business, in an attempt to recover from the devastation of the two wars and to quiet widespread unrest; such a change in policy may have also been at least partially prompted by the 1921-23 famine that led to the deaths of approximately 5 million, mostly in the Volga area. In some ways the NEP paralleled the approach taken decades later by Deng in China, a communist party overseeing a significantly liberalized economy. Unlike the post-WW1 Soviet Union though, China was aided by extensive trade and investments from the West, did not have to be concerned about future military conflict with the West, and was nor handicapped by an economy and population utterly devastated by eight years of war. The heyday of the NEP was from 1924-1926, after which the Stalin-dominated group (Lenin had been seriously ill since 1922 and died in 1924) turned against it. The Soviet War Scare of 1927 (the Nationalists in China had split with the Communists, the British had cut off diplomatic relations to the Soviet Union, the Soviet minister to Poland was assassinated in Warsaw and France forced the recall of the Soviet ambassador [Sontag 1975, p. 70]) underlined the need for a rapid industrialization to make the USSR capable of fighting a war with one or more of the Western powers.

            Without rapid industrialization the result of a major war with the West would most probably be a rerun of the WW1 - defeat. Great Britain, Italy and France had recognized the Soviet Union in 1924, but the other actions of these powers were interpreted as removing the possibility of them aiding in the development of the Soviet economy. Instead the USSR would have to rely upon domestic resources, “By the summer of 1927, however, it had become evident to Soviet spokesmen that the capitalist West would not be the source of badly needed credits; rather the West had shown its hostility toward the Soviet Union and was viewed once again as a threat to the existence of the Soviet state” (Sontag 1975, p. 74). This was underlined by the lack of governmental recognition by a United States that was extremely antagonistic towards the Soviet communist party; in contrast to the immediate US recognition of the 1917 Provisional Government. The period from 1917 until the inauguration of Roosevelt, who recognized the communist government, has been likened to a First Cold War (Davis & Trani 2002),

America had “quarantined” Russia and asked others to do so as well. In March 1921, Hoover issued a statement that trade was limited by communism because credits could not be extended to a government that repudiated private property (Davis & Trani 2002, p. 200).

            Such a policy of containment was reintroduced in the post-WW2 years, representing continuity from this period – with much in common between President Wilson’s and George Kennan’s statements about the nature of the Bolshevik government; “in 1920 Wilson had come close to the conclusion that Kennan arrived at after World War II … If Russia were contained, the system would collapse under the weight of its own contradictions” (Davis & Trani 2002, p. 206). A food shortage that the communists believed was significantly due to the kulaks (more affluent peasants) hoarding food also undermined support for the NEP. The above pointed toward the need to extract a much greater surplus from agriculture with which to carry out rapid industrialization. This would require the repression of any peasant resistance to that extraction, a resistance centered on the kulaks. Stalin utilized the War Scare to consolidate his power, and by the end of 1927 he had expelled his main rival Trotsky, together with two other leading communists, Zinoviev and Kamenev, from the Party.