Beginning note:
The Russian Revolution, whithout red ink..


Napoleon said that revolutions are not made alone, but by their leaders. In autumn 1917, Lenin was quoting with pride the philosophy of Bonaparte.And still, what means a revolution that belongs to the people? The history turn the sandglass of time- 100 years passed since the interior problems of one’s nation have catched a color.Red. Crimson red.That red which turned upside-down half of the planet.How we reached the events of 1917? What were the elements that have brought to this world the Russian Red ?

Tradition and modernization : two things that the Russians always wanted to combine, but they never managed to put them in a proper environment .A continuous pirouette in this vicious circle , to which only one stable fundament had kept it since the time of Rurik:silnaia ruka An iron fist with or without its silk glove, to rule everyone. An absolute leader, dedicated to Russia.How much was 1917 influenced by the balance between the two wishes of the Russian people? And in what extent was in the direct will of the people the coming of this new silnaia ruka ?An iron fist with or without its silk glove, to rule everyone. An absolute leader, dedicated to Russia.How much was 1917 influenced by the balance between the two wishes of the Russian people? And in what extent was in the direct will of the people the coming of this new silnaia ruka ?

March, 1872. An idea which was sold from its first circulation in totality : 3.000 copies. The relation between Marx’s Das Kapital and the Russian people was underestimated by the tsarists.The Marxism have catched the people, gave them the variant of a western ideology, applicable in Russia, which could bring it to a modern and free system. It did influence : it was popular that, especially the youth, to embrace the head-book of the German philosophy of the 19th centuty. A young Lenin , inspired by it, have created since then what was going to be his action’s manifest in 1917 : ‘’What is to be done?’’ . Idea and ideology.Where was 1917 positioned on the Marxist-Leninist axe ?

1891. The people were defeated by hunger.Not even the nature was on their side, the dangerous wild stepe, dikoe pole as it was called, was biting with its cold teeth their bones.Sankt Petersburg was closing it’s windows to the West . The Tsar was closing it’s rolling shutters in the face of a very divided society. On one side, the people, the workers, the ones with cracks on their hands and holes in their stomachs.On the other side, the elite, nobles, writers. Intelighentia

But why the last ones have written the revolution with red ink ? The Kingdom of God was found there by Tolstoi , wekened by the uncurable pain of the Russian people.They were still looking for Zhivago.The time passed, but in front of hunger, of fate and the Tsar , even God couldn’t help them.Father Gapon stood in front of the workers who were asking for bread.Only that. The people still belived in their bond with the Romanov,the faithful Christian. Armed with white boards, on which was written : ‘’Don’t shoot the people!’’, they were heading for the palace, in 1905.The soldiers have listened to the order: 2 shots in air, the third in the front row. ‘’Not the bread was keeping them alive,but it was killing them’’, a russian ballad said., not knowing what was preventing. And that’s how the faith is lost, in state and divinity- for a bread. The priest have escaped and told to the entire Russia :

‘’We are without a tsar! We are without a God!’’

The Russian people learned to endure,but the hunger was neede to be stopped.After the old calendar, 23 February was the Women’s Day, and the women have ’’celebrated it’’ in the streets. It was 1917 and the ‘’Glorious February’’was selling…for a bread. The Russian Revolution. The year 1917 is known just on short on the entire world : an event in February, the abdication of the Romanovs, then chaos, chaos and again chaos,until the 0 point in Octomber, when the Bolsheviks took the power and the history of the world took another path.

In the last 100 years, we must have learned that the Russia’s 1917 was more than just that. Social clases, leaders and ideas, propaganda and testimony, the Whites and the Reds, the end of one of the most important dynasty of the history, people around the throne and from behind the decisions, Father Petersburg and the widow tsarina Moscow, revolution and coup d’etat. But , especially, was part of the identity of a nation. And its echo would reach even my beloved coutry , leaving its marks here too.

I will try from now on , whenever I have the time , to write ‘’whithout red ink’’, to show you the truth.(more likely to compose and translate stuff about this topic ).

You might wonder, ''Why the heck are you writing this '' or other reasons . I decided to start doing this (and not to abandon it )for pure interest,to share some information from my country about this event, with some other reasons including practicing my english translation skils (and other that im to tired now to tell ).Also, I ask you to excuse my eventual gramatical and writing errors, as English its not my mother language (and we can't reach perfection
).I do hope it will gain interest among you .

DesertFox.

Technically, the anniversary isn't for another 2 weeks.

@OnlythePie it is indeed on 7 November, but I posted this according to the Julian callendar,so it's 25 October.

@Paugers thanks lad (now, don't get me wrong, I find ironic that Lenin photo, though I know you are on the extreme right side :P )

@Tabby sound logic.Also, they planned the ''armed insurection'' 2 days before 25 (is the date on the wiki source in N.S.or O.S ? )

Desert is one of the only non-shitposters on OT tbh.

>(((Modernization)))

I. A truth mystified by the Bolsheviks
The Russian Revolution took place in February 1917.


1.Russia during the Great War.
(Prologue 1 )

In 1917, near the abdication of the Tsar, Russia was in a very bad situation, military speaking.Having huge loses of men and material, the Russian Empire have lost also a huge part of it’s European lands, mostly on Germany’s hands.The entering in the war, forced by France, didn’t advantage the Russians.There were problems on social, economic and military levels,and the revolutionary spirit ,started in 1905, was still burning in the Russian society. Everything on the background of the Tsar losing popularity and the military loses.

The military effort of Russia was enourmous: between July 1914 and Octomber 1917, 15 million Russians took part on the Eastern Front- stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Danube- and the Caucasus Front. From this number, 5 million were taken prisoners and 2 million died. In July 1914, 1.4 million men were mobilized, the number reaching 7.17 million at the end of 1914. 5.64 were mobilized in 1915, 3.09 in 1916 and 2.7 in 1917, all of them coming from the industrial, agricultural and educational branches, greatly affecting them.A big problem was that, even though Russia could mobilize millions of soldiers, it couldn’d feed and arm all of them, those from the first line lacking the necessities for a decent life, from food to clothes, to weapons and ammunition. The low quality of the Russian officers, most of them from big nobiliar houses, the lack of proper communications and information about the enemy , and even the hate between the Russian commanders brought big defeats and the loss of the morale of the soldiers.

1.1 The Eastern Front.

In autumn of 1914, the Germans defeated the Russians at Tannanberg ,in East Prussia, and then at the Mazurian lakes, pushing the Russian troops , though superior in numbers, behind the border. For strategical reasons, but also from taking off the preasure from the Austro-Hungarian ally, the Germans attacked Warsaw , fresh troops being brought for this action from the Western Front.Other German troops advanced pretty fast through through the Baltic region, taking Liepaja in Latvia, then Kaunas, and from there the possibility of threatening Sankt Petersburg.

The Russian success was materializing though on the front with Austro-Hungary from the first months of the war,in Galicia and Bucovina. Lvov was occupied in the first month of the war,followed by other victories.Russians produced great loses in the ranks of the Austro-Hungarian troops.In may 1915, the Central Powers launched the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive, where the heavy German artillery brough hell through the Russian troops.Under general Mackensen, the Germans smashed the Russian 3rd Army, causing aprox. 1 million causalties- dead and wounded, and taking 250.000 prisoniers.

Even though, besides the defeats, 1914 could have offered somekind of optimism on the military plan, 1915 was the worst for the Russian army.Germany continued it’s offensive on the Eastern Front ,occuping Poland , Lithuania and parts of Bielorussia.German troops were 25 km away from Riga, making the authorities of Sankt Petersburg to start planning evacuating the state archives,the treasury and other cultural goods.At the same time, the Austro-Hungarian troops had recaptured Lvov and Przemysl, having such an advance, that made general Ivanov, commander of the South-West sector of the front, to order the evacuation of Kiev, but his order was rejected.

In 1916, guesing the possible disaster that was upon the Russian Army , the Entente started to send serious help , consisting in weaponry, ammunition, various military tech, alongside with military observers.The Western Front,freezed in the never ending trenches, couldn’t permit big actions for the Allied troops, to force the German troops to move from the Eastern Front. On the inter-allied conference at Chantilly held on December 1915, it was decided that the Allied powers would start simultaneously 2 big offensives against the Central Powers, somewhere in June 1916, the Russians getting help from the Salonika front.On March 18,1916, the Russian army started a new offensive in Bielorussia, with 300.000 soldiers and over 1000 artillery pieces.Important battles took place in the North-West sector, around Riga and Naroch lakes, where the Russian army was unfortunaly defeated.

The new commander of the South-West sector, general Brusilov, had planned very good the offensive that today bears his name - the Brusilov offensive - knowing that he will have a great chance to turn the tide of war. In big secrecy,after changing some commanders, he obtained new information about the enemy, ordered to use a new tactic and took care on an adequate instruction and rearranged the troops on the front, ordered attacking Galicia, in west,gaining one of the biggest victories in the war. The offensive was aimed on a 500 km front, towards Lutsk and Kowel, right on the birthday of Jozef Ferdinand, the commander of the 4th Austro-Hungarian army, which was helding a party in Trencin, Slovakia.

The offensive started on June 4th ,1916- the Russian artillery stroke hard, the Austrian counterstrike was weak. A thing to mention is that multiple Czech and Ruthenian units defected to the Russians, other units retreated from the front and other were captured by the Russians.After few days of fighting, from the initial 110.000 soldiers that the 4th A-H army had , only 18.000 were still active. Though the success, some Russian commanders did not execute the offensive orders, and the enemy, mostly the Germans, brought reinforcements to the front.On July 27, a new Russian attack smashed the remainings of the 1st and 4th A-H armies , but the northen flank of the the Russian attack did not make the necessary manouvres and the offensive stopped.If in June, 650.000 Russian troops attacked a combined Austro-Hungarian, German and Ottoman force of 500.000 troops ,at the end of the offensive in September, both sides had send reinforcements to replace the huge loses.The fights resulted in 500.000 casualties on the Russian side and over 50.000 prisoniers.The Central Powers suffered even more: the Austro-Hungarians lost over a half of million of it’s troops-dead or wounded-and aprox 400.000 prisoniers- the total numbers representing half of the troops on the Eastern Front the Austro-Hungarians had ! The Germans had 300.000 casulaties and the Ottomans, little over 10.000. Unfortunaly for the Russians, the excessive usure of men and equipment didn’t let Brusilov to mount an attack over the Carpathians towards the Panonian plains or even further…

November 7..

The '' Bolshevik Revolution'' starts.

Lenin writes the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party to arrest the Provisional Government members immediately.

Troops of the Military Revolutionary Committee surround the Winter Palace where the Provisional Government is in session. Telegraph offices, railway stations, and governmental buildings are occupied without any noteworthy resistance.

>when your failed economic system consistently collapses

its not easy bein red

November 8

- Petrograd falls into the Bolshevik hands. The Winter Pallace is captured.

-Takes place the 2nd All-Russia Congress of Soviets of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies, in which the power is transfered to the proletariat.The Center and Right wings of the Socialist Revolutionaries as well as the Mensheviks disagreed with this decision

-The Congress also elected a Sovnarkom ( Council of People's Commissars ) , with Lenin as it's leader, thus setting the first Soviet government.Later this day, it will pass the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land.

-Russians weren't the only in this revolutionary take-over. In Kiev, the Regional Committee in Protection of Revolution in Ukraine was created, with the intention of a temporary government, starting the Kiev Bolshevik Uprising