To What Extent is the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917 a Turning Point in the Development of Modern Russia - Coursework Example

RUSSIAN HISTORY Russia is a fascinating to study from a historical perspective. A global power for the past two centuries, Russia has recently witnessed a geopolitical reconfiguration of power and influence in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) in 1989-1991. Since the days of the Russian Tsar, this country has exerted a preponderance of influence on the international stage and remained an important actor both in Eastern Europe and around the world. Facing unprecedented devastation and loss in the wake of the Nazi invasion of the western portions of the country during the Second World War, Russia, as the largest and most powerful state in the Soviet Union emerged as a global superpower in the social, economic and political realms. Following more than sixty years of Cold War with the United States, Russia emerged from the ashes of the U.S.S.R. as a political actor ready to reassert its authority on the international stage. The U.S.S.R., an authoritarian political movement which evolved following the overthrow of the Russian tsar Nicholas II, officially represented the Russian state for the better half of the twentieth century. The Bolshevik Revolution paved the way for the establishment of the U.S.S.R and this essay aims to answer the question, to what extent is the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917 a key turning point in the development of modern Russia in the years 1856-1964? With this question in mind, the following will explore Russian history in holistic perspective. This essay will analyse why 1917 was such an important turning point in Russian history and investigate and analyse major turning points between 1856 and 1964. We begin now with a comprehensive introduction to the most important antecedent to the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917, the Emancipation Edict of Tsar Nicholas II in 1861 (Hobsbawm, 1994). The Emancipation Edict was arguably the most important document in nineteenth century Russian history. Established by Tsar Nicholas II in 1861, the Emancipation Edict sought to transform the rural peasant base of Russia during the middle of the 19th century and represented a liberal reform which was at aimed at the eradication of serfdom in rural Russia. This reform was followed by the 1866 Emancipation Manifesto which reportedly granted more than 23 million people their liberty from the bonds of serfdom. Accordingly, the inegalitarian nature of Russian society was predicated upon unequal access to land and a strong aristocracy which exploited serf labor for hundreds of years. Peasants were beholden to their landlord/masters and were dependent upon them for their livelihood. Mobility was restricted under this system of land ownership and the reforms undertaken by Tsar Nicholas II sought to address the feudal character of Russian society at the time. Enacted in response to important grievances lodged by the landless serfs, Nicholas II’s reforms helped propel the industrialization of the country and inadvertently promoted a sense of class consciousness which arguably did not exist in great numbers prior to the reforms of the 1860s. As we shall see, this proletarian class consciousness culminated in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the most important moment in Russian history from 1856 to 1964 (Waldron, 2007). The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was a watershed moment in world history. The Soviet Union, an authoritarian political system based upon the ideals of socialism and centrist economic planning, grew out of mass discontent associated with the First World War and the rise of the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, viewed themselves as the shepherds of a new international communist order in necessary conflict with the old order, embodied by bourgeois liberal capitalism. Based upon a proletariat class consciousness, the Bolshevik Revolution utterly transformed Russian society. The Bolshevik Revolution paved the way for the establishment of the Soviet Union and the implementation of Marxist-Leninism in practice. A centrist planning economy necessitated activist governmental intervention in all aspects of the state’s social and economic growth. The Soviet Union’s centrist planning economy was a feature of the Russian existence for more than ninety years. Because the Soviet Union removed itself from the global capitalist economic world system following the October Revolution, it was effectively immune to the crisis caused by the Great Depression of 1929. Accordingly, bureaucratic regulation and heavy governmental economic intervention were used by the Soviets for another further aim: the establishment of a modern, communist utopia (Hobsbawm 1994). The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 represented a profound break from the past and led to the overthrow and eventual death of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II, ending more than 300 years of Romanov rule in Russia. The break from its monarchist past was a significant transformation which effectively altered the trajectory of Russian, central Asian and European history. With the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, Russia and its successor state, the Soviet Union, effectively removed itself from the capitalist equation. Without the Emancipation Edict of 1861, the Bolshevik Revolution would never have been possible. This edict paved the way for the industrialization of modern Russia and the formation of a working class consciousness which did not exist prior to the industrialization of the country. Accordingly, the promotion of state-led socialism and economic development stimulated by the reigns of an authoritarian government remained features of the USSR and the Russian experience until the fall of the Soviet Union (Hobsbawm 1994). A future superpower which exerted incredible influence on the global stage, the Soviet Union was one of the most important international actors of the twentieth century. Russia today is the remnants of the largest state of the former Soviet Union and the union of Russia with a series of Eurasian constituent states paved for the way for the creation of the USSR in 1922. At its height, the Soviet Union was composed of fifteen union republics which included the now independent countries of Armenia to Azerbaijan and Ukraine to Uzbekistan. As the largest socialist state in practice, the USSR strove for state-led communism and was inspired by the teachings of Marxist-Leninism. This union was led by one political party, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and was characterized by centrist economic planning, authoritarianism, economic self-sufficiency and eventual economic and political decay. Despite the fact that the Soviet Union represented authoritarianism in the wake of the Second World War, there were many adherents to the Marxist-Leninist doctrine and this state was engage in a Cold War with the United States for more approximately sixty years. With the world divided between two political and ideological poles, the Cold War came to a conclusion following the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Twentieth century Russian history will forever been remembered in the context of the Soviet Union; accordingly, the establishment of the U.S.S.R would have been impossible without the successes of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. This Revolution thus paved the way for creation of a superpower and eventual Cold War between the U.S.S.R and the United States. It is to this subject that we shall turn later. We now explore World War II and the Soviet Union (Volkov, V. & Denenberg, 2005). Officially the most devastating war in the history of the world, Russian participation in the Second World War helped destroy the wrath of Nazi Germany and played a decisive role in saving Europe from the horrors of Nazism. Accordingly, Russia, as the most important member of the U.S.S.R, was one of the most important protagonists during the battles of the Eastern front. Bolshevism, elevated to the status of a national ideology following the successful overthrow of Tsar Nicholas in 1917, played an important role in propelling the Soviet Union into the conflict. Accordingly, Joseph Stalin reportedly feared capitalist encirclement of the Soviet Union and emphatically believed that fascism represented an evolution, albeit in the worst sense, of capitalism. Thus the eradication of fascism from the shores of Europe was a national duty. The wars on the Eastern front are referred to in Russia as the Great Patriotic War and the U.S.S.R was able to muster great defence and effectively routed the Nazi forces leading to the end of the Second World War. Without the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, world history would be much different and the Nazis may have won the war (Hobsbawm, 1994). During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in a bitter confrontation which pitted two opposite poles in the international political order against each another. In this period of bipolar relations, the behavior of each state was mediated by concerns regarding the stability of the international system as well as the state interest of the other major power. A capitalist-communist split was a feature of the international order and the values and expectations about the behavior of each state were shaped by misinformation and mutual distrust. While the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in ideological, cultural and economic conflict, no war was ever fought between these two states. Violence often occurred on the periphery of the two superpowers (Korea, Vietnam, Angola and nearly in Cuba) with sporadic violence brewing between client states but never bringing the two main protagonists to actual war. Additionally, the invention of nuclear weaponry added a whole new dimension to the conflict adding a new and explosive element to the Cold War. The Cold War began in 1945 and although it continued for an additional half century, the rise of Bolshevism in 1917 led to the creation of a socialist state which inevitably came into conflict with modern capitalism following the Second World War (Hobsbawm, 1994). Concluding Remarks Early socialists such as Karl Marx advocated proletarian revolution and mass mobilization to correct the various social inequalities perpetuated by world capitalism. Marxist-Leninist thought inspired socialists around the globe including Fidel Castro in Cuba and Mao in China, amongst others. Accordingly, Vladimir Lenin established an authoritarian political system following the successes of Bolshevism in 1917. Bolshevism grew out of mass discontent associated with the First World War and led to the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922. We have traced the rise of Bolshevism to the Emancipation Edict of 1861 and have demonstrated a direct correlation to Russian involvement in World War Two as well as the Cold War, which began in 1945. Accordingly, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 had an enormous impact on Europe’s social, political and economic landscape and accordingly “produced by far the most formidable organized revolutionary movement in modern history” (Hobsbawm 1994). REFERENCES Hobsbawm, E. (1994). Age of Extremes: The Short History of the Twentieth Century: 1914-1991. London: Abacus. Volkov, V. & Denenberg, J. (2005). Wealth and poverty in modern Russia. WSWS.com. 11 March 2005. Last Accessed October 29, 2009 http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/mar2005/russ-m11.shtml Waldron, P. (2007). The Governing of Tsarist Russia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan Waltz, K. (1979). Theory of International Politics. McGraw-Hill, New York. Read More