(thanks Kretoma. Im trying my best though to combine and translate stuff here )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZtHKMruR8w

Millennial Woes: The Fall of the Russian Empire

Edited 7/23/2018 16:20:58

2.2 The mixture of "mysterious and irresponsible forces"

The crisis affecting the daily existence of the population and the front army was also felt in political life. The conflicts between the State Duma and Tsar Nicholas II continued throughout the war, anticipating the crisis that will erupt in February 1917. The military weaknesses of the Tsarist Russia were to stand out on all fronts of the First World War, especially in the '' Great Retreat '' of the summer of 1915. ‘’After only three months of war-, General Brusilov wrote - most of our professional officers and trained soldiers had disappeared, leaving only a minimum of troops that had to be quickly filled with poorly trained people, sent to me directly from recruitment centers…From that moment on, the professional character of our troops disappeared, and the army became more and more a kind of poorly trained militia…the men sent to replace the fallen did generally know only how to march…many did not even know how to load their rifles, and the way they were shooting,well, the less we say, the better…Such people can not be considered to be true soldiers’’. It should be mentioned that the military equipment transport network for the front was completely disorganized and couldn’t face the needs of ammunition, food, clothes and sanitary materials. The Russian War Ministry estimated the war would be short-lived so that the stock of materials was exhausted after a few weeks of war. ‘’What are we doing in this war? Only in my platoon has already passed a few hundred people and at least half of them have fallen into battlefields,either killed,either wounded.What will they get at the end of the war ?...’’ the russian soldier Oskin wrote in his diary in april 1915.

The German origins of the tsarina, as well as other people in the imperial entourage, the execution in March 1915 of Colonel Miasoedov, one of the protegees of the war ministry, for espionage in favor of Germany, amplified the theories of conspiracy against Russia.’’ There are many traitors and spies at the command of our army, such as the war minister Suhomlinov, by the fault of which we do not have any shells, and Miasoedov, who gave the fortress to the enemy's hands’’ declared a russian petty officer to his comrades on the front line. A war comrade would conclude : ‘’ What kind of tsar is that surrounds himself with thieves and charlatans? It is clear as daylight that we will lose the war’’.In September 1915, Russian troops on the front line accounted for only one-third of those left to fight in August 1914.

The political crisis in the Tsarist Russia reached its peak in August 1915, when the Liberal and Conservative parliamentarians, representing almost three quarters of a legislature, made a joint front with the highest officials appointed by the Tsar to demand parliamentary a government. In the face of these pressures, Tsar Nicholas II has accepted to assign to the deputies of the State Duma and members of the business circles a more important role in the mobilization of the internal front, which favored the development of a "silent revolution",characterized by the participation of workers' representatives in the administration of industry and the presence of ordinary citizens in the governmental institutions, together with the rank bearers.Also, on August 22, 1915, Tsar Nicholas II will dismiss the Grand Duke Nicholas, the head of the General Headquarters of the Russian Army (STAVKA), and will personally take command of the troops on the front, supported by General M.V.Alekseev as Chief of Staff. STAVKA will move to Moghilev, 320 km to the east, in a dazzling and mournful province town, whose name derives from the Russian word grave (mogila). A shrewd anticipation of what was to follow in the destiny of the last Romanov.On 2 September 1915, Tsar Nicholas II disbanded the State Duma. "You are the autocrat and they will not dare to forget that," says Tsarina Alexandra, who was also begging him to comb his hair with Rasputin's comb before meeting with the reformist ministers in Moghilev on September 16 ,1915.

In the context of the political-military evolutions on the fronts of the Russian armies in the spring and summer of 1916, of the numerous failures of the administration supported by Romanov, the State Duma will meet on November 1, 1916. At the beginning of November 1916, Pavel N. Miliukov, the head of the Democratic Constitutional Party (known as the ‘’Cadets’’ ) and editor-in-chief of his newspaper, accused Prime Minister Sturmer of a high treason, at a sitting of the State Duma, by the fact that it was conducting a Germanophilic policy with the support of Tsarina Alexandra. His accusations were unfounded, but the passions of his speech played a decisive role in the downplaying of the February Revolution of 1917, in which the alleged betrayal of the Government constituted, initially, the main motivation of the protesters. After the war, emigrating, Miliukov admitted that everything was a calomniy that would have allowed the Progressive Bloc to take over the country's leadership. Given that the institution of authority had become "an object of amusement," the Council of the Empire-playing the role of the Senate-would vote on November 26, 1916, a resolution condemning the interference of ‘’ mysterious and irresponsible forces’’ in the country's politics. The work of S.P. Melgunov,’’ Vers la révolution de palais’’ (Towards the palace revolution) ,published in Paris in 1939, reveals that a Masonic circle inspires the politics of the "moderate-left" of the Imperial Duma ,represented by A.F.Kerenski,Nekrasov and Kolubiakin, and both Terescenko's and Lvov's candidacy were motivated by both being in Masonry circles. Nina Berberova in the volume of memories titled " The Italics are Mine’’will evoke countless discussions with A.F.Kerenski,Alexandr Konovalov,Alexandr Hatisov,Nikolai Volski,Vasili Maklakov and Lidia Dan with reference to : the work of the Government set up in February 1917, the role of the Freemasonic Lodge in the evolution of Russia's events of 1917, the "mystery" of the decision not to conclude a separate peace with Germany in the summer of 1917, the visit of the French minister Albert Thomas to Saint Petersburg (july 1917),etc. Russian post-1917 emigrants will be extremely concerned about the fact that Kerenski's government had been paralyzed by a commitment to France, and there was also a special and secret link between ten or twelve members of the Cadet party, some right-wing socialists and one the hand of generals, the most lucid of the high command, since 1915, as well as a political plan whose existence was known by certain English and French members from friendly lodges. Questioned by Nina Berberova, during the time she was in the US, about the role played by Freemasonry in the Provisional Government's decision not to sign a separate peace with Germany in the summer of 1917, A.F.Kerenski offered in response silence and then started to sing the Aida march.

One of those "mysterious forces" that was enormously involved in unleashing the Russian revolution of 1917 was Kaiser Wilhelm II’s German Empire. A memorandum from 23 February 1915 of the Press Section of the Berlin Ministry of Interior to all ambassadors, envoys and consular representatives from neutral countries specified the existence of special offices in the countries where they had been accredited, for the organization of propaganda, namely the provocation of social disorders and strikes, the initiation of revolutionary movements, separatist movements, civil war, etc. in the Allied countries in war with Germany or the German coalition. Regarding the actions of these German propaganda offices and their influence, Russian General A.I. Denikin notes that the German propaganda work follows "the idea of Russia's dismemberment, formulated clear and realized with a clear methodical spirit by the German government".The war propaganda and the Bolshevik one introduced by the Germans into the Russian trenches as well as the social-democratic agitation had the expected effect on the Russian army ,demoralized by the war, so that the symptoms of the disintegration of the army will be felt as early as the second year of the war.

On the way to victory and the disintegration of the Tsarist Empire, Wilhelm II’s Germany took as ally the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social-Democratic Party, led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Historian Dmitri Volkogonov, making an appreciation for V.I.Lenin's personality, considered that he was "an internationalist and a cosmopolitan for whom the revolution, the power and the party would be infinitely more precious than Russia itself".The two factions of the Russian Social Democratic Party, the majority (Bolsheviks) and the minority (Mensheviks), would officially co-exist until 1912, although the rupture was in the years 1906-1907.The Mensevics remained faithful to the Marxist goal of overthrowing the social order, but they were still in charge of training and organizing the working class. The Bolsheviks, followers of Lenin's theories, were preparing the cadres for the revolution, which they considered imminent. At the outbreak of war, Lenin elaborated a manifesto stating the tasks of revolutionary social democrats in the european war. In November 1914, he went on to write, "Transforming the current imperialist war into a civil war is the only valid slogan for proletarians.". The idea of civil war was to become Lenin's obsession and desire on his way to power, and to his conational emigrants would declare: "On Russia, gentlemen, we can spit out ! ".

The Bolshevik Wing of the Russian Social Democratic Party would enjoy German financial support since 1912. A series of new documents brought to the scientific circuit lead to the conclusion that German financial support only began after February 18, 1914, when the Reich Ministry of Finance requested the opening of German bank branches in Finland,Denmark,Norway,Holland and United States. Large sums of money were poured through the Swedish bank Nia by the Coal Industry Union of Rheinland-Westfalia to support Russian emigration willing to make revolutionary propaganda among prisoners of war in Germany as well as on the front. Involved in the financial subsidy process were Deutsche Reichbank,Deutsche Bank,Diskontogesellschaft and Deutsche Naphta Industrie through their subsidiaries in Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, China and the USA, then the Austrian bank Osterreichische Creditanstalt,Swedish banks Schwedische Nia Banken and Furstenberg,the Danish bank Waldemar Hansen and even the Siberian Bank from Russia. Some subsidies came to the Bolsheviks from the Union of Industrial Unions in Rhineland-Westphalia, either directly or through intermediaries acting on behalf of these unions through their subsidiaries in Denmark. Alexandr Lazarevici Helphand (also known as Parvus), one of the figures in the shadow who played the role of an unseen lever in the unleashing of the Russian Revolution and the Bolshevik coup, was the intermediary by which, on 29 December 1915, the Germans sent one million rubles to support the revolutionary movement in Russia. Regarding the Provisional Government investigations on German-Bolshevik financial arrangements, former Prime Minister A.F.Kerenski was of the opinion that Russia's entire history would have taken another course if it had succeeded in demonstrating in front of a tribunal the "sordid murder that no one want to believe , just because it seemed so inexplicable from a psychological point of view ",of the German-Bolshevik financial arrangements.

2.3 The Insignificant Russian

The events at Petrograd were going to unfold at the beginning of 1917 at a dizzying pace, generating a "social explosion whose speed and appeal never ceased astonishing even today." The hesitation of Tsar Nicholas II in ordering the attack on Petrograd by the troops under the command of General N.I.Ivanov, the pressure of the State Duma, made on the tsar for abdication, and the arrival of the imperial train at Pskov, and not at Petrograd,at the Headquarters of the North Front, commanded by General N.V Ruzski, known for his antimonarchical views, contributed to the final outcome.On February 28, 1917, under the pressure of the revolutionary crowd, the Interim Committee for the restoration of order and relations with individuals and institutions. On the same day, at the initiative of the Mensheviks , the Soviet of Petrograd was formed, made up of representatives of the factories and military units. Of the 3000 deputies the Soviet had, over 2,000 were soldiers, which confirmed that the February 1917 revolution was a ''revolution of the soldiers''. On 3 March 1917, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, and the Provisional Government, through a solemn manifesto, granted to all the inhabitants of the country, without distinction of class, confession, nationality, citizens' rights essential to the democratic regime, that is freedom of consciousness, freedom of speech, spoken and written, freedom of assembly and strife, suppression of national and confessional interdictions, immediate amnesty for political and religious offenses.

One of the most prominent personalities of the Provisional Government was Alexandr Feodorovich Kerenski, Minister of Justice.A.F.Kerenski was guiding by the French Revolution, being somewhere between the political left and the right , covering, through his contacts, a wide political spectrum , from conservatives to liberals and socialists. Shortly before the February 1917 revolution, he became the secretary of a lodge of Russian freemasons, many of his political alliances were based on this membership. A.F.Kerenski believed and imagined the existence of a "third way" in Russia's political development.’’ Social justice, liberty and people - Kerenski wrote in the midst of Russian civil war - were routed to the feet by white and red corporals. But a third decisive force will defeat both of them’’. A.F.Kerenski died in 1970, in New York, aged 89. After the eight months of governing, he felt marginalized. The conspiratorial name the NKVD gave him was "The Clown". In Kerensky's view, Bolshevism was "the socialism of poverty and hunger," and socialism could not be conceived without a democratic component. In a state that does not respect the personality of man and his rights, one can not speak of social liberation, which remains a simple desideratum. In an interview between 1966 and 1967, New York's correspondent of agency ‘’Novosti’’, Genrih Borovik, former russian Prime Minister A.F.Kerenski said there was no Revolution of February 1917, but only the Revolution of October 1917, and paraphrasing a book Winston S.Chruchill, may call the Revolution of February 1917 as "The Unknown Revolution". ''Whenever talking about the past - says A.F.Kerenski - in Russia it is said before the revolution or after the revolution and it is always about October, not February. The Russians were cleansed of their memory''.

(Thanks buffalo, i will hang this next to my diploma of 12 clases and my makhnovist self-made flag)

shh.. the only cringy thing is Bane's presence in the form of Buffalo's. Good text so far. The only problem I have with the Russian revolution is that it was morally wrong. All these soldiers died for the wrong cause. They needed to die for america instead so corporatism can be more enforced.

Desertfox. you should study the histories in high school. You know a lot on this subject. I'd suggest you write a text about the history of ancapitalism too! make my older brother proud

(Well, I did read some stuff about it, but mostly of this stuff is translated text from some diferent history mags I own and mixed up to have this text.And about high school... Im will now enter first year at university studying history )

Its cringey that someone even made a metameme for this website

''They needed to die for america instead so corporatism can be more enforced.''

You dumbass cuck corporatism is the economic system espoused by fascists like Thomson, Mussolini. Gentile etc. Corporatism is not when the government is guided by the interests of private corporations within the state. Corporatism is a system under which private enterprise is conducted under the eye of public groupings or ''corporations''. I'm not even gonna bother going further you're an idiot anyway. Also you quoted me as ''the average socialist'', not a socialist in the sense most imagine, I'm a fascist.

Edited 8/13/2018 09:15:19

The conservative "free market capitalist" is too declawed by his liberal peers to address the problem of private money in democracy.

2.4 Lenin and the Revolution

In the tumultuous evolution of the events from the old Romanov Empire in the summer of 1917, several facts were to push things towards the outcome of that "Red October" and then to the disintegration of the imperial Russia, the Civil War and the birth of the USSR. The famous "Prikaz No.1" of 1 March 1917, the arrival of V.I.Lenin in Petrograd on April 3, 1917, the attempted blow of the Bolsheviks in July 1917, and the ‘’General’s Rebellion’’ (Kornilov affair,August 1917) represent some essential steps on the way to the October blow. The arbitrary and subjective application of the 'Prikaz' provisions soon led to insubordination, aggression of officers, the despolation of the gallons and the exclusion of many military cadres in the army.

The arrival of Vladimir I. Lenin on the platform of Petrograd’s train station, on the evening of April 3, 1917, is the result of the mixture of those "mysterious and irresponsible forces", as defined by Nicholas II's cabinet, that mysterious '' force behind throne ‘’. Before leaving Switzerland, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin searched Allen Dulles, a US secret agent on Switz territory, to tell him very likely about German financial support and the proposal to be transported over the front line in Russia to unleash the revolution. Allen Dulles did not have time to meet with Lenin, who at the time seemed to be ‘’an insignificant Russian exile’’. France's Foreign Minister would write in a telegram addressed to Kerenski: "From the intelligence of the French intelligence services, Lenin is a paid agent of the German secret services".Two senior German officers will accompany, on the order of General Erich Ludendorf, the train that will transit the territory of Germany. One of them was Max Warburg, head of the German secret police, none other than Paul Warburg's brother, the first president of the Federal Reserve Bank. The discourse Lenin held on the evening of April 3, 1917, in the Ksesinskaia ballerina's villa, confused those present by the fact that the socialist revolution had become a matter of weeks, not years, in the opinion of the Bolshevik leader. The next day after his arrival ,on April 4, Lenin will present his famous April Theses, proclaiming with this occasion his unconditional hostility to "revolutionary defeatism", the Provisional Government and the parliamentary republic.

In spite of the revolutionary events, the disintegration of the armed forces and the struggle of the Bolsheviks to seize political and state power, the Provisional Government did not abandon the Tsarist foreign policy objectives, namely winning the war and occupation of Constantinople, a geopolitical and geostrategic objective of great importance. The failure of the Russian offensive in June 1917 amplified dissatisfaction with the Provisional Government and allowed the Bolsheviks to resume the attack to conquer the power. Lenin made several attempts to take power, culminating with the "July Days" (July 3 and 4, 1917), when the Bolsheviks attempted to transform the huge demonstrations of the rebellious population and troops from the Petrograd garrison into insurrection meant to bring them to power. As a result of the defeat of the coup d'etat, V.I.Lenin and the group of Bolshevik leaders will enter into illegality. The Provisional Government issued an arrest warrant on behalf of Lenin, and Bolshevik publications were banned. Pro-Kerenski's protesters were to wear ,in the summer of 1917 on the streets of Petrograd,placards with the message: '' Give back Lenin to Wilhelm! ''. The events of July 1917 constituted the general rehearsal for the grand show of the coup which was due to follow in October.

In the September 1917 municipal elections, the Bolsheviks won 49.5% of the seats in Moscow, while the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, who held together 71.1% in June, went down to 18.9%.At the same time, out of the 40,000 weapons distributed to the workers on the occasion of the "military coup", a good part came to the hands of the Red Guards. The establishment of the parliamentary elections for November 12 and the convocation by the Provisional Government of the Constituent Assembly on November 28 led to the precipitation of events on the Russian political scene.Leon Trotsky, who became president of the Petrograd Soviet and, implicitly, of the Revolutionary Military Committee, believed there was a need in the assault on power by a small, cold and violent band trained for insurrectional tactics ,capable of identifying " defensive organization of the technical, bureaucratic and military apparatus of the state vulnerable places, weak parts, sensitive points "and not the masses, as opposed to Lenin, that can not be of no use.

During the night of 21 to 22 October 1917, the Revolutionary Military Committee succeeded in taking control of the military garrison in Petrograd. On the night of October 25 to October 26, 1917, the Bolshevik guards, supported by the Petropavolosk Fortress cannons, and the famous shot from the cruiser ‘’Aurora’’, occupied the Winter Palace and arrested the Provisional Government members who had fled there. The second Soviet congress opened on October 26 with 650 delegates, including 338 Bolsheviks and 98 left-wing revolutionaries. Right-wing social revolutionaries and Mensheviks read a joint statement condemning the Bolshevik coup and demanding the formation of a democratic government. The Bolsheviks' opponents would leave the Congress Hall of the Soviets, abandoning the political struggle to mix with the counterrevolutionary elements. In this way, they were finally discredited in the eyes of the masses, and the Bolsheviks had their free hand as the population reacted to events with absolute indifference because things could not evolve worse than they were already going. Those left in the congress hall, the Bolsheviks and the left-wing revolutionaries, racked up the coup, adopting a text written by Lenin, by which all power was attributed to the Soviets, and formed a new government called the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), led by Lenin. The Decree on Peace and Land was read.The struggle for the conquest of power by the Bolsheviks in Moscow and other parts of the Empire has, in the following period, dressed in various forms, from alliances with socialist revolutionaries and menshevics, in order to proclaim the power of the Soviets until the removal of the socialists.

The new government took a number of authoritative measures at the end of October 1917: the suppression of "bourgeois" newspapers, the suspension of any publication that "could set panic in the spirits by publishing misleading news",control over the radio and telegraphy, the arrest of the personalities of opposition parties, both "bourgeois" and socialist. The Constituent Assembly (370 revolutionary socialists, 175 Bolsheviks, 80 "moderates of various orientations", 40 left-wing left-wing socialists, 17 cadets) that resulted from the elections gathered on 5 January 1918. The Bolsheviks were ready for the coup, and their troops rode the way to Taurid Palace. Deputies have tried to continue the Assembly's work, despite the pressure exerted by the Red Army bayonets, kept speeches, even though they were being threatened, for the Bolsheviks then proposed at five o'clock that afternoon that the deputies should leave the room. In a 20-minute speech, held in front of the Executive Committee of the entire Soviet Russia, on the night of January 6, 1918, Lenin underlined in the stormy applause of the audience, that the Civil War, which they all expected, was the natural consequence of the socialist revolution. 100 years after the events of that ''Red October'', many Russian historians continue to be convinced that the Russian Revolution was an accident that hijacked Russia from its "natural" course, of rich and working country, which could be oriented towards democracy. "Never - A.F. Kerenski said in 1966 - will Russia reach the type of capitalism that works here in America. Hopes that in Russia is a possible european or american capitalism are in vain. But I am convinced that the socialist regime will change and Russia will become a democratic country. That's why I do not like Brzezinski (President Carter's future security adviser during 1977-1981), because he does not believe that democracy in Russia is possible’’

3.The Russian Revolution of February 1917
(chapter 1)

The autocracy crosses the entire history of Russia as a red thread, from the Moscow of the first princes who have been emancipated from the Mongol whip, to the Imperial Russia of the Romanovs, or the USSR of the almighty general-secretaries of the CPSU. It is so entrenched in the Russian collective mentality that many analysts consider it the only form of viable government for such a vast territory, from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, populated by nations of extremely different tongues and confesions. 100 years ago, this autocrat model was put in the bracket of history by the surprising revolutionary events of 1917.For a few months, Russia seemed to follow another historical course that would have led it to a western parliamentary republic .This unique historical chance was missed by a military coup given by a small group of revolutionary professionals around Lenin, determined and unscrupulous.And history was rewritten by the victorious Bolsheviks, who presented the coup on October 25, 1917, as the real Revolution.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Russia was the only one of the great powers that had no constitution or parliament.The form of government, that of monarchic absolutism, belonged to an obsolete age on most of the European continent.The officials did not take the oath of loyalty to the state, but directly to the Tsar.According to the Criminal Procedure Code, any attempt to question the authority of the tsar or the mere expression of a desire to see the regime changed were major crimes.The extreme measures of control, surveillance and repression of the population, put into practice by the State Police Department, created in 1880 following a terrorist attack on the life of Tsar Alexander II, made Tsarist Russia a prototype of modern police state .One of the heads of the State Police Department transposes this rupture between state and society in terms of a real war : ‘’ There is a people and state authority, and the latter is constantly threatened by the former. Therefore, any form of public manifestation equates to a threat to the state authority.This is why the defense of the state takes the form of a war against the entire society''

3.1 Prelude

The attempts of reform in the first decade of the twentieth century , caused by the intensification of the contestation of the system, often in violent forms, and the catastrophic consequences of the defeat in the 1905 Russian-Japanese war, were considered sufficient by the unfriendly opposition to obtain political liberties and rights comparable to those enjoyed by the nations of Western Europe. Russia's first prime minister, Sergei Witte, has warned Russia's last tsar, Nicholas II, of the danger that these unsettled demands would turn into a revolution that might overthrow the entire political regime. ‘’The progress of mankind is unstoppable. The idea of freedom will triumph, if not through reform, then through revolution. But in the latter event, it will come from the ashes of a thousand-year history that will be destroyed. The Russian bunt (rebellion), foolish and indifferent, will sweep everything in its path, leaving behind only the dust. What kind of Russia will be born from this unprecedented attempt exceeds the power of human imagination : the horrors of the Russian bunt can surpass everything that history has known. It is possible for a foreign intervention to break the country. Attempts to give life to the ideals of theoretical socialism - who are doomed to failure, but will no doubt be put into practice - will destroy the family, faith, property, the foundations of the law’’

After the critical moment of 1905, marked by general strikes and violent clashes between demonstrators and repressive forces, Nicholas II had to accept a series of reforms that would eventually transform the autocratic Empire into a constitutional monarchy. The division of government responsibility with a more and more bold State Duma has failed but lamentable due to the oscillating nature of the Tsar, often influenced by the conservative elements of its entourage. So, in the wake of World War I, Russia was in a bloody situation with an increasingly challenging regime. Russia's hasty decision to enter into a war that has proven itself to be weary, with catastrophic defeats in front of German armies , has eroded confidence in the regime, encouraging the radicalization of revolutionary elements.The institution of the monarchy, once the main pillar of the regime, is in a crisis of popularity aggravated by the poor nature of Tsar Nicholas II and the foreign origin of Tsarina Alexandra Feodoraovna. Being born in Germany, Russia's main enemy , Tsarina played the role of a scapegoat for the Russian people about the same extent that Queen Marie Antoinette of France, with her Austrian origin, played in 1789. Perhaps the situation would have been under control if the army were at the disposal of the regime. But with her cantoned hundreds of miles away, trapped in a bloody war of extensive offensives and counter-offensives, the revolutionaries were able to unfold without much trouble behind the front.

3.2 The Events

As is often the case in history, the weather played an important role in the events of February 1917. After a terrible winter, an unusual warming for St. Petersburg (renamed in the years of the war in Petrograd, because the old name had a much too Germanic resonance), with temperatures of +8 degrees C. In the documentaries of the era can be seen the crowds of protesters gathered on a bright sky. The spark that provoked the chain of events that eventually led to the abdication of the Tsar and the establishment of a parliamentary republic was the women's march on the anniversary of the International Women's Day on 23 February/8 March 1917.The rigors of the war economy had severe repercussions on the civilian population that suffered from a chronic food shortage. Soon the march turned into a spontaneous protest, focused on the claim of the ‘’all-day bread’’.The women were joined by the workers at the huge Putilov workshops.A witness of the events of those days, the British Herbert Stewart, the tutor of the grandchildren of the Russian tsar, notes in his diary the spontaneous and anarchic character of the revolt demonstrations directed against the authorities.‘'Revolt and disorder reigned in the streets, and I think this is the best description of a revolution: the people break up shops, plundered bakeries, women in particular. Overthrown trams, building barricades from wood and paving stones "recorded Herbert Stewart.

Three days later, the pool of people reaches over 250,000 demonstrators, both workers entering the general strike, but also women and students. Feeling that the situation was out of control, the authorities unjustly ordered the Cossack troops to intervene forcefully to disperse the crowd. Finally, over 40 dead bodies are sprinkled on the Znameski Market Square. The news of the bloody incident revolted the soldiers in the barracks at Petrograd. Most of the 140,000 soldiers were 30-40 year-old reservists, civilians a little weeks ago.The revolt of the Petrograd garrison was the decisive moment of the February Revolution, the capital of the Russian Empire escaping from the control of the Tsarist regime.

In the immediate period a dual power system,dvoelastie,which lasts until October,is born. The State Duma continues to work alongside the newly-founded Petrograd Soviet, dominated by militaries. Of the 3000 deputies, 2000 were soldiers.This shows to what extent the February Revolution was, in fact, in its early stages, a revolt of the soldiers. As an executive power body, the Provisional Committee of the Duma (later referred to as the Provisional Government) it's going down on the boots with the Socialist-dominated Ispolkom (the Petrograd Soviet Executive Committee). On March 2, Tsar Nicholas II, following the pressure of his own generals, abdicated in favor of his 12-year-old son ,Tsarevich Alexei. The Regent was to be insured by his brother, Grand Duke Mihail. Nicholas believed that this is the only way to continue the war, not considering a separate peace with the Germans that would have allowed him to use the troops on the front to restore the Crown control. Because of his son's disease (hemophilia) he change his mind, deciding to give the Crown directly to his brother Mihail.The abdication decree signed by Nicholas II is transmitted on the same day to the Petrograd Duna : ‘’In the great days of struggle against foreign enemies, who have been trying for almost three years to enslave our homeland, the Lord had mercy to send to Russia a new and tough trial […]In these decisive days for Russia's life, We believe that it is Our duty to provide Our people with the closest unity and consolidation of all national forces[…]In agreement with the Imperial Duma, We decided to give up the Russian Imperial Throne and to surrender the supreme power. As We do not want to divorce Our beloved son, We convey the succession of our brother, Grand Duke Mihail Aleksandrovich. We command Our brother to lead state affairs in full and inviolable unity with the people's representatives in the legislative bodies, according to those principles that will be set by them[…]I urge the sons of the homeland to fulfill their holy duty, to obey the [new] Tsar in the moment of national restraint, and to help him, along with the people's representatives, lead the Russian Empire on the path of victory, prosperity and glory,May Lord help Russia !’’

3.3 The Parties.

The main political actors claiming access to power in revolutionary Russia are extremely varied parties,different in invoice and ideological orientations, ranging from far-left anarchists to far-right nationalists. Eventually, four big camps will dispute their primacy on the political scene.

The Democratic Constitutional Party, the main exponent of the liberal political current. His members were called Cadets, after the K-D abbreviation of the party, coming mainly from the ranks of liberal professions (academics, lawyers, physicians), nobles with reformist visions and even former disappointed socialists.They were proposing the introduction of extensive reforms in society, based on a democratic constitution that would ensure civil rights and liberties for all, regardless of religion, nationality or social extraction.In a country dominated by a virulent anti-semitic climate, translated into recurrent pogroms, the Cadets made the discordant note by actively supporting the goal of emancipating the Jews.They wanted the emulation of Western institutions and economies, with the emphasis on industrialization and private ownership.In this regard, the Cadets represented the most important agents of the modernization of Russia.Although their proportion in the State Duma had fallen since the first elections in 1905, they managed to control five portfolios in the Provisional Government, including the one Prime Minister through prince Gheorghi Lvov and the Foreign Ministry, through the party leader, historian Pavel Miliukov. Other big party representatives include historian Aleksandr Kornilov, Countess Sofia Panina, Deputy Minister of Education, the orientalist Serghei Oldenburg, Minister of Education in the Provisional Government, and Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov, the father of the famous writer and secretary of the Provisional Government.

The Socialist Revolutionary Party combines socialist ideas dominated by the intelligentsia with peasantism trying to penetrate the rural world that forms 85% of the Russian population. His members were known as Esers, from the abbreviation of the party name (S.R). n the first part of their activity, the main political weapon was terrorism directed against the agents of the Tsarist regime. After 1909 their tone is moderating, and the 1917 revolution propels them into an alliance of conjunctions alongside the Cadets in the Provisional Government.The leader and party theorist was Viktor Chernov, who will be the Minister of Agriculture in the government led by the other important figure of the Essers, lawyer Aleksander Kerenski.

The Mensheviks were a faction born after the rupture from the Social Democratic Labor Party of Russia, produced at the second congress organized abroad in 1903. Their title is misleading because, although menshevik derive from a russian word meaning minority, they represented the majority of the party. True to the Marxist theses, the Mensheviks wanted the change of the Tsarist regime through a democratic-bourgeois revolution that would have ensured the transition to the next stage, that of the dictatorship of the proletariat. They were somewhat moderate and more inclined to collaborate with liberal-burgeoning parties than their political rivals, the Bolsheviks.They occupied the majority of seats, 23, in the Central and Executive Committee of All Russia (CEC), the executive body of the Soviet Deputies of Workers and Soldiers from all over Russia who replaced Ispelkom.Mensheviks will occupy two portfolios in the Provisional Government, the Ministry of Labor through Matve Skobelev and the extremely important in the revolutionary dynamics , the one of the Ministry of Post and Telegraph through the georgian Irakli Tsereteli.The leader of the Mensheviks is the journalist Julius Martov, old friend and mentor of another famous menshevik, Lev Trotski, who later will join the Bolsheviks.

The Bolsheviks represented the radical faction of the Social-Democratic Labor Party in Russia that also broke away at the famous 1903 congress. Although a minority in the ranks of the russian Marxists, they have self-titled themselves as Bolsheviks after the russian word meaning "majority".As a main objective,same as the Mensheviks,they proposed the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, but, unlike them, they did not trust the class consciousness of the workers, and wanted the revolution to be led by a small group of fanatical professionals. The way of leadership was to be the one of "democratic centralism", a concept that concealed their vision of an authoritarian government, provided by a revolutionary elite. Their leader is the revolutionary professioner Vladimir Ilici Ulianov, known as Lenin. Other important figures of the Bolsheviks are Kamenev, Zinoviev, Buharin, Trotski and Stalin, all of whom will play extremely important roles in the subsequent events.

3.4 The Reforms

The state, as the Russian subject had known all his life, collapsed within a few days. The first abolished institutions were the repressive ones. On March 4, the government dissolved the Police Department, Ohrana, and the Gendarmerie, setting up civil militias subordinated to the zemstvos (local self-administration councils introduced in 1864) and municipal councils. The Army escapes the control of the Government, going through the Soviet one by politicizing it following the Order no.1, abusivel by the Ispolkom. which issued itself a legislative role. The rapidity of the disintegration of the Russian state in those days of revolutionary effervescence, the fluidity of change, or the predominant provisory are caught by Kerenski in his memories: ‘’The "Revolution" was a word that could not be applied to those that were happening in Russia ... An entire world, the world of national and political ties had sank and all the political and tactical programs, no matter how daring and well-designed they would have been, they seemed to float in the air, devoid of object and utility’’

Although the Provisional Government exercised a more theoretical political control than it actually did, the reform program adopted over the few months it has worked is really impressive. Political prisoners have been released, censorship has ended, freedom of absolute freedom being decreted, death penalty has been abolished, and vacant constitutional elections have been announced, based on universal, equal and direct universal suffrage, ending to ethnic and religious discrimination. Throughout Russia, the various social bodies, such as peasants, workers and soldiers, have been organized in councils, committees and professional associations free of state control. Russia was now moving fast to a western liberal democracy, surpassing them somewhere through the boldness of the reforms, typical of all the revolutionary regimes.Autocratic governance seemed to remain an unfortunate memory of the past, and constitutional democracy emerged on the horizon as the new ruling system of the post-revolutionary Russia .

3.5The End (of the February Revolution)

Although one of the main causes of the Russian Revolution was the aggravation of the population's dissatisfaction amid the war with the Central Powers, the Provisional Government took the catastrophic decision to continue it. With an army ravaged by revolutionary propaganda, with extremely limited perspectives to defeat the Prussian war machine, and with an unconsolidated authority on the internal front.Shortly, the Provisional Government was forced to confront the most determined faction to take power by any means, that of the Bolsheviks. With the help of the German Foreign Minister, Lenin, together with a group of 30 professional revolutionaries, arrives on 3 April 1917 in the Finnish Railway station in Petrograd, in a sealed wagon. Politicians in the fragile governing alliance were, however, determined to respect democratic and liberal principles, so Lenin and his loyalists were not arrested, and they could unhindered plan the assault on the fragile political edifice that emerged following the February Revolution.Cadet Vladimir Nabokov notes in his writings that the success of the Bolsheviks lies in their unscrupulous way to be, which they are proving and which contrasts sharply with the lack of pragmatism of the governors.’’ The Provisional Government had no sense of real power. It was a struggle between two forces: on the one hand, the rational and moderate, but timid and unorganized public elements, on the other, the immorality organized with its fanatical, absolutistic leaders […] Leninians and Trotskyians are totally indifferent to the fate of individuals. << When there is wood,chips are jumping >> they answer easily to any question.

In October there is a classic coup, given by a small but well-organized group of professional revolutionaries. To give an appearance of revolutionary democracy, a façade mass participated in the events of the military coup given by Lenin and his group of Bolsheviks.In a short time they return to the autocratic system based on a more draconian repressive control even at the standards of the Tsarist regime.The censorship is reintroduced, and indepedent newspapers or the one of the opposition are forbidden. Political opponents, Cadets, Mensheviks and Esers are considered enemies of the state and will be harassed, arrested, imprisoned and eventually executed by thousands. The cult of the personality of the political leaders, Lenin then Stalin, will take grotesque proportions, far exceeding that of the Romanovs.The liberal experiment of spring 1917 dies in the bud, just a few months after his gestation. Reforms initiated in this short period of time will be aborted by the new Soviet regime, and the early forms of pragmatic democracy leave room for "democratic centralism’’, a formula designed to mask the dictatorship of the Bolshevik factions. Russia sinks for more than seven decades back into the dark of political autocracy

Selective bibliography
- A Concise history of the Russian Revolution by Richard Pipes,
- A people’s tragedy : the Russian Revolution by Orlando Figes
- Russia: A 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East by Martin Sixsmith
- The Russian Revolution by Sheila Fitzpatrick
- The Bolshevik Revolution by Edward Hallen Carr
- Revolutionary Russia by John M.Thompson

Nothing i could say would do it justice.
I just say thank you for posting this.

It is my pleasure Kretoma.And though this have not yet ended.Still got some stuff to cover till October revolution and probly some other things related to the events.