Matthew Rendle

The symbolic revolution: The Russian nobility and February 1917

This article examines the role of symbols and language in the Russian Revolution from the perspective of the former ruling class – the nobility. Nobles were more favourable to a political revolution than many historians have assumed, but they were opposed to social change, a key demand of the lower classes. The symbolic revolution not only forced the nobility to perceive the wider implications of February but also helped to exacerbate the social revolution, encouraging the polarisation of society that grew throughout 1917. This trend culminated in the October Revolution and the systematic persecution of perceived enemies by the Bolsheviks.

The ‘lessons’ of 1917

So far this year, the response to the centenary of 1917 in Russia has been underwhelming. Faced with an event that does not fit neatly into the positive, patriotic and unifying version of Russian history promoted in recent years, and fearing that commemorating a revolution might encourage the opposition movement, President Vladimir Putin and his government have done relatively little to mark one of the greatest events of the twentieth century. To be sure, the Russian Revolution has long been about October rather than February in Russia’s popular memory and more may be to come, especially as Putin has stated repeatedly that 1917 is too significant to ignore. Yet it was only in December 2016 that a commission to oversee the commemoration of 1917 was established under the auspices of the patriotic Russian Historical Society. Composed mainly of state officials, leading cultural figures and representatives of the media, with very few professional historians, it held its first meeting only in late January 2017. This meeting produced a list of exhibitions, conferences, media events and ‘educational projects,’most of which had already been organised by other groups, but there is little that resembles the resources and effort that went into commemorating the bicentenary of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 2012 – an event that fits neatly into the official narrative of Russian history. Even the 2014 commemoration of the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, a war that Russia eventually lost, enjoyed greater official memorialisation; it included a new monument at Moscow’s Poklonnaia Gora to the heroes of the Russian army unveiled by Putin himself who emphasised the importance of patriotism and properly recognising soldiers. The committee did, however, provide a strong indication of the ‘official’ line on 1917. Various speakers talked of the ‘lessons’ that needed to be learned from 1917 and, when later asked to summarise these lessons, one member responded bluntly that revolution was not the best means of resolving social conflict as it leads only to violence and death. This same ‘lesson’ came through during the ‘official’ events that did occur around the centenary of the February Revolution. On its eve, a conference organised by the committee in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow – a symbolic location but not for historical reasons – the Minister of Culture, Vladimir Medinskii, stressed the national ‘tragedy’ of a revolution that failed to solve Russia’s problems. An exhibition in the same cathedral was dedicated to the ‘victims’ of the revolution. Finally, Patriarch Kirill prayed for the victims on the anniversary of Nicholas’s abdication and later blamed the intelligentsia for the revolution, with the implicit message that political upheaval was fostered by those who failed to place the concerns of ordinary Russians to the fore. Notwithstanding the historical inaccuracy of some of this, these ‘lessons’ clearly echoed Putin’s call from his presidential address in December 2016 to learn from history’s lessons to foster reconciliation and unity in Russia.

Inspiring a ‘fourth revolution’? The modern revolutionary tradition and the problems surrounding the commemoration of 1917 in 2017 in Russia

There has been much written about the official commemorations of 1917 in Soviet Russia, but after 1991 the revolution became a contentious event and it is unclear how the state will commemorate the centenary. It is too big to ignore, but potentially dangerous politically. After the ‘colour revolutions’ and the Arab Spring, revolution has been associated with instability, violence and terror, and is used to justify increasingly authoritarian and interventionist domestic and foreign policies. This article examines Putins speeches and the states actions to suggest that the state may try to recast 1917 as a celebration of former imperial and Soviet power rather than as a short-lived democratic revolution.

Defining the ‘Political’ Crime: Revolutionary Tribunals in Early Soviet Russia

After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks established revolutionary tribunals to judge ‘counter-revolutionary’ and ‘political’ crimes. Amid conflicting reports from contemporaries on the effectiveness of these new courts, this essay examines their development over the first year of their existence. It argues that whilst tribunals were initially too inefficient for the regime, forcing greater central control over them, they played an important role in defining what constituted counter-revolution. In doing so, they promoted the regimes ideology, imparted an image of legality to the regimes actions, and helped the Bolsheviks to exert their control over a fragmented and diverse political landscape.

IntroductionSilences and noises: commemorating 1917

In the introduction to the first issue of Revolutionary Russia in this centenary year, we commented that the official response to commemorating 1917 had been ‘underwhelming’ thus far, qualifying our judgement by noting the possibility that there may be more to come given that the October Revolution has always enjoyed far more prominence in Russia than its predecessor in February. Now that we have passed the centenary of October, however, it seems that there was little or nothing more to come. Putin may have said that 1917 was too significant to ignore, but the Kremlin did precisely that; a spokesman, presumably responding to rumours, denied the Kremlin was cancelling its commemorations, declaring nothing had been planned in the first place and questioning what there was to commemorate. The only group that marked the centenary officially was the Communist Party who alleged the Kremlin was deliberately seeking to ‘silence’ the issue, distracting the population to such an extent that the majority of people were apparently not even aware the centenary was upon them (not least by organizing a march in Red Square on 7 November in honour of those who gathered there in 1941 before marching to the front). Defiantly, the Communists co-ordinated a gala reception and a march in the neighbouring Revolution Square attended by several thousand people from over 80 countries, some holding up posters of Lenin and Stalin. In contrast, the centenary, according to a spokesman, was a ‘routine working day’ for Putin who had several meetings in the Kremlin, within spitting distance of the two marches. Western publications also talked of the ‘official silence’ and ‘reticence’ surrounding 1917 and how it has been ‘banished almost entirely from public places and official narratives.’ The latter may be largely true, but the former is not entirely; there has been plenty of ‘noise’ surrounding the centenary in various public arenas. The organizing committee established by the Kremlin under the auspices of the patriotic Russian Historical Society has continued its work, sponsoring conferences, exhibitions and publications, whilst promoting the state’s anti-revolutionary message. Following the lead set by the Museum of Contemporary History with its ‘Khod revoliutsii’ exhibition earlier this year, the Central Manezh (on the Comintern), Federal Archive (on Lenin), the State Historical Museum (on the ‘energy of dreams’), and the State Tret’iakov Gallery (on the artists of 1917) have also opened high-profile exhibitions and no doubt there are many more.

The battle for spaces and places in Russia's civil war: revolutionary tribunals and state power, 1917–22

After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks needed to battle to control Russias urban and rural spaces to win the war, exert state power and transform mentalities. This article argues that revolutionary tribunals played an important role by organizing travelling sessions to reach beyond abstract spaces into the familiar places central to peoples everyday lives. They held trials in public squares, workers’ clubs, passenger waiting halls and other similar places, transforming them into the official vision of the revolution. As political courts focusing on counter-revolutionary crimes, tribunals projected the concerns of the central state more effectively than local courts. This helped the Bolsheviks to exert state power across Russia, thereby contributing to the end of the civil war.

Quantifying Counter-Revolution: Legal Statistics and Revolutionary Justice during Russia’s Civil War, 1917–1922

Abstract This essay uses the numerous statistics produced by revolutionary tribunals to explore the nature of counter-revolution after the October Revolution, how it changed and developed across the Civil War, and the importance of revolutionary justice, as represented by tribunals, in facilitating the Bolsheviks’ victory. Statistics are unreliable sources and the state faced many problems in gathering data, but these figures permit us to explore key areas and trends, and demonstrate the ability of revolutionary justice to react in more nuanced ways to the counter-revolutionary threat than repressive organs such as the Cheka.

The Russian origins of the First World War

Russian empire of winter 1917–1918 is fascinating. Despite Torrey’s focus on telling the story of the Romanian army, the implications of the Russian revolution in that small section of the empire are deeply intriguing because the chaos brought an overextended Romanian military new occupation duties in Bessarabia and overt cooperation with enemy German troops, as the latter sought to construct a hold on southern Ukraine and Odessa. Moldovian nationalism, Romanian irredentism and deep class tensions made the regions a seething pool of cross-cutting political passions. Meanwhile, the Romanian ambitions to control Bessarabia repeatedly undercut the army’s credibility as a disinterested police force. One wishes that Torrey could have sacrificed a little narrative discipline to explore the Romanian military’s experience in Bessarabia a bit more granularly. Torrey has shown a masterful grasp of the source material to write what will be the definitive book on the military history of Romania’s Great War.

Forging a Revolutionary Army: The All-Russian Military Union in 1917

The Russian military was deeply divided after the February Revolution of 1917, but if Russia was to emerge victorious from the First World War, it needed to forge a unified revolutionary army. This article examines the only serious attempt to foster unity, the All-Russian Military Union. While the union was not successful, a study of its activities emphasizes that divisions existed within social groups in the military as well as between them, which were exacerbated by the authorities. It also sheds light on the role of unions in the military and across Russia in 1917.