Comparison between Russian and German Revolutions - Essay Example

? Comparison between Russian and German Revolutions Module Module No: Submitted Submitted by: Russian and German revolutions serve as remarkable events of early twentieth century, which left indelible political, social, economic and cultural impacts on the individual and collective life of the people belonging to the entire region at large. Occurred in the wake of WWI, both these revolutions out broke with tremendous enthusiasm and fervor, where the Russian and German citizens established high hopes with these developments taking place all around them. However, both of the events lasted for very few years only and ended in fiasco eventually without achieving the targets and goals on the foundations of which the revolts had been raised by the revolutionaries. The following lines aim to discuss the chronicle of incidents leading towards the revolution along with the aftermath of these great events of the world history. The Paper Russian Revolution: Aptly stated as the Bolshevik or October Revolution 1917, the Russian revolution was actually the outcome of the prevailing despotism, nepotism, poverty, social inequality and suppression of the haves-not at the hands of the haves in the early twentieth century Russia. Consequently, the revolution was entirely socialistic in nature that took place on the Marxist-Leninist principles of justice, freedom and equality. Hence, the revolution had essentially been planned and structured against the prevailing socioeconomic discrimination, injustices and inequalities under the imperialist Russian political structure. The despotism, according to the revolutionaries, had patronized the malpractices and exploitation of the deprived strata by the cruel elite stratum. Although the entire Europe had witnessed the same social scheme under despotic rulers, yet the improvements could be witnessed in the western and central parts of the continent after the advent of famous 18th century French Revolution. However, being a separate and farther zone of Europe, Russia could not witness any uplift in the socioeconomic lot of the masses, and her situation was almost similar to that of 18th century France. Consequently, poverty, slavery, serfdom and class discrimination existed in Russia at their full swing even after one and half century of the advent of Industrial Revolution of 1750. The Russian subjects were bound to lead the life of misery, deprivation and lawlessness under Czarsi, where the oily-tongued flatterer courtiers and opportunists like Rasputin and others could have access through unfair means and nasty activities. “Under pressure from richer Europe the Russian State swallowed up a far greater relative part of the people’s wealth than in the West, and thereby not only condemned the people to a twofold poverty, but also weakened the foundations of the possessing classes.” (Trotsky 1930, 3) 1 Marxist perspective also played an important part in accelerating the pace of revolution in Russia. Karl Marx (1817-1883) had presented his social conflict theory during the later part of nineteenth century, through which he had communicated to the downtrodden members of society the message of organized struggle for obtaining their rights on the foundations of the hard efforts they made while working in the agricultural fields as well as in industrial zones from dawn to dusk, against which they attainted almost nothing. Marx was of the opinion that the workers, laborers and peasants consumed considerable period of time and energies, but the industrialists and feudal enjoyed lion’s share in the profit of the product. Hence, there was urgent need of the revising of contract between the owners and workers in order to avoid bloody conflict between the two. If the contract freely entered into by the vendors of money in the form of wages and the vendors of their own labor that is, between the employer and the workers were concluded not for a definite and limited term only, but for one’s whole life, it would constitute real slavery. (Maximoff 1953, 182)2 Thus, Marx had warned the laborers and workers of the snare being prepared by the investor to entrap them permanently. Another important factor behind the Russian Revolution was the corruption and misuse of office at the hands of the imperialistic government on the one hand and its civilian and military officials on the other. Consequently, the bureaucracy worsened the situation in the country, and paved the way towards the advent of revolution. “For centuries, autocratic and repressive czarist regimes ruled the country and most of the population lived under severe economic and social conditions. Consequently, movements for overthrowing the oppressive government were staged at different times by students, workers, peasants, and members of the nobility.” (emayzine.com) Since the Czar regime had least interest in the welfare of the masses, and it did not intend to invest huge amount of money to eradicate the backwardness of the vast country, the socioeconomic instability augmented unrest and chaos in Russia. Thus, the Czarist regime met with its fateful end, and the Bolshevik Party came at the helm of the government, with the promise of bestowing respectable place upon workers and peasants, according to the expectations of the people. Additionally, Russia had to bear heavy losses in men and material during the course of WWI at the hands of Central Powers, which had deteriorated the entire infrastructure of the country. As a result, the Czar was forced to abdicate in favor of the socialist government, so that the new regime could introduce reforms in the society for the welfare and uplift of the public. Somehow, the Russian subjects were not in consensus in respect of the developments being made in the name of revolution. On the contrary, the country had been undergoing severe clashes and conflicts because of the civil war between the Red Army of Socialists, Pro-Czarist White Army, the revolutionaries and the anti-revolutionaries. Bolshevik yet it failed to exhibit freedom and justice according to the high hopes established by the Russian subjects. Consequently, civil war broke out in the country, between the pro-Czar White Army, liberals, reactionary stratum and land owners on the one hand, and the farmers, peasants, students, revolutionists and Bolshevik Red Army led by the Leninist-socialists on the other, turning the country at a sorry state of affairs. The civil war created unrest and chaos by destabilizing the economic activities of the masses. Thus, the movie under-analysis reflects the entire socio-cultural scenario of the Soviet Russia during and after the war, which ended in the success of the Red Army and imposition of Socialist principles in its true spirit subsequently. The people got acquainted with the negative aspects of socialism, which had not been taken into consideration before the establishment of very first socialist governmental system in any part of the globe. The revolution could not improve the lot of people; on the contrary, civil war aggravated their miseries and worsened their socioeconomic condition. The social evils including corruption, nepotism and misuse of power, adopted by the socialists in the name of revolution, shattered the dreams of the masses. The entire social establishment brought uncertainty and insecurity, and thus paved the way towards the restlessness and chaos in the life of the poor Russians in general. “The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 aroused high hopes of liberation from imperialist rule in the minds of millions of colonial people. The emergence of Soviet Union gave fillip to the national liberation movements in the colonial countries.” (Mahajan 2002, 146)3 German Revolution: Unlike the Russian Revolution, German revolution of November 1918 was not the outcome of poverty and socioeconomic conflict due to the very fact that the country was far more prosperous and financially stable one in comparison to her eastern neighbor Russia. The German empire had observed imperative territorial expansion and economic stability during the European nations’ scramble for Africa and Asia, and hence, the country had got an access to the wide range of wealth and resources of the subjugated Asian and African territories. Furthermore, German empire had snatched the industrial French provinces at the eve of Unification in 1871, which had boosted the industry and economy of the nation. After WWI, additional major territorial changes occurred at Germany’s Western border: Alsace and Lorraine became part of France, whereas the Saar (Saargebiet) was governed by the League of Nations between 1920 and 1935. (Heinemeyer, 2006, 2)4 On the one side, former German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck had played decisive role in the unification of the country, and on the other side he entered into strategic alliance with Austria-Hungary and Russia, which turned Germany somewhat safe and secure at the international arena. Consequently, German Emperor Wilhem II paid due attention to improve the strategic strength of the country along with establishing the economy of the country parallel to the rival states of Europe. So, the bases of German revolution were quite different ones than those of Russian revolution. Wilhem II was extremely determined to dominate all over the European continent by dint of German military might on the one hand and economic prosperity on the other. Consequently, the Emperor invested tremendous amount of energies and resources of his country in the war preparations to knock out the British pride under the chariot wheels of German forces. Though the Central Powers under the dynamic leadership of Germany had appeared to be triumphant over the Allies till 1917, the inclusion of the USA turned the tables in favor of the Allies and paved the way towards German defeat. The first step taken towards the revolution was actually the naval revolt made by the sailors against the Emperor and his war plans. Subsequently, the Emperor abdicated and flew to Holland in order to seek political asylum. Thus, the November Revolution established its foot in Germany in the aftermath of complete destruction of the social, political and economic structure of the country at the hands of Allies during WWI. Consequently, Wilhem II and the Crown prince were forced to abdicate by the Triple Entete, so that a democratic government could be formed through elections. One of the greatest similarities between the revolutions under examination is this that both the revolutions were socialist in nature. It is therefore Socialist Democratic Party (SDP) was popular in the country. Social Democrats Philipp Scheidenann and Friedrich Ebert, declared a "German Republic." They soon called a 19 January election for a National Assembly to frame a constitution. (McLarty 1991, 61)5 Eventually, the Socialists won the elections and were in a position to form the government. Although they had established the development agenda for the reconstruction of the country, yet it was really hard for them to implement the same because of the high war indemnity in the form of compensation and huge fines. The country was also deprived of her territories in Asia and Africa. Additionally, the post productive zones were also snatched away from Germany by the Allies at the end of the war. In such a perplexed state of affairs, no political group could bring immediate changes in the fate of the nation. Consequently, the demand of urgent reforms was at their climax, and the Socialist Party was striving to satisfy the nation. However, the foreign debts and sorry state of economy did not allow the Socialists to produce results altogether. As a result, the Party split into two, and both the factions imposed allegations of corruption and malpractices on each other. The split between the Socialist Party also have close proximity with the Russian revolution, as the Socialist were also divided into groups and factions in Russia within few years of the advent of the revolution. Somehow, a major difference between the two includes the role of army in the countries, as in Russia, the Red Army of Socialists was crushing the pro-Czarists and anti-revolutionaries, while German sought little role of army in the country. References Heinemeyer, Hans Christian. The Impact of new Borders on Trade: World War I and the Economic Disintegration of Central Europe Freie Universitat Berlin, Department of Economics, Boltzmannstrasse 20, 14195 Berlin, Germany (August 2006) 2-3 Retrieved from http://www.cepr.org/meets/wkcn/1/1658/papers/Heinemeyer.pdf Mahajan, V.D. International Relations since 1900 (S. Chand & Company Limited, Ram Nagar, New Delhi 1997), 19-105 McLarty, Colin Richard Courant in the German Revolution (Springer-Verlag Newvobk, Volume 23. Number 3, 2001), 60-68 Maximoff, G. P. The Political Philosophy of Bakunin (The Free Press NY 1953) 181-196 Trotsky, Leon. The History of Russian Revolution Volume One (1930) 2-4 Retrieved from http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/download/hrr-vol1.pdf Read More