Full transcript
0:02So in this first video exploring the
0:05revolution and dictatorship module for
0:07AQAa level history, what I want to do is
0:10think about the state of Russia in 1917.
0:13Think about what Russia was doing, the
0:16kinds of economic situations it was in,
0:19the social landscape as well as the
0:21political dynamics and the evidence of
0:24the political dynamics of course uh as
0:26we sort of go into 1917. So, we're
0:29talking specifically not necessarily
0:31about the entire year of 1917. Of
0:34course, we're going to be spending a
0:35good 30 or so lessons exploring the
0:37entire year of 1917, given that this is
0:40obviously the year of the February and
0:42October revolutions. So, we'll just talk
0:45about the political and social landscape
0:47of of of the Russian Empire at this
0:50point and think about the context in
0:53which we are going to be thinking about
0:54the revolutions. So, why did the
0:56revolutions happen? How did the
0:58revolutions happen? In order to know
1:00some of these features, we have to think
1:02about the historical context of course.
1:06So beginning first then when we think
1:08about social landscape um it should be
1:11noted that the majority of the Russian
1:15population roughly 80% of the entire
1:19population of the Russian Empire were
1:21peasants. They were part of the
1:22peasantry class, often still tied in one
1:25way or another to land and resentful of
1:28the inequalities despite the fact that
1:30of course as early as 1861 we see the
1:33emancipation of the of the surfs.
1:36Essentially what existed prior to 18661
1:39is a form of slavery sometimes known as
1:42surfdom where an individual is tied to
1:45legally tied to the land in which they
1:47operate and in which they work that is
1:48obviously owned by some kind of
1:50wealthier land owner. Now while the
1:52emancipation of the surfs took place all
1:54the way back in 1861 it took place under
1:57the reign of Alexander I thesar
1:59Alexander I um we still have a lot of
2:03poverty in the Russian Empire. roughly
2:0580% of the population are impoverished.
2:08They endured some burdensome redemption
2:11payments um which is which was part of
2:14the sort of emancipation process and
2:16often reverted to subsistence farming
2:19amid some of the uh issues that we start
2:22to see taking place in 1917.
2:25It should be noted that of course as
2:27early as 1914
2:29the Russian Empire has been engaged in
2:31world war. It has been engaged in World
2:33War I against the German and
2:35Austrohungarian empires
2:37and hasn't this hasn't gone particularly
2:39well for the Russian Empire. Okay, they
2:41had some minor very minor successes at
2:43the at the beginning and then have um
2:45taken quite a lot of failures and taken
2:48on quite a lot of issues associated with
2:51this conflict. And so one of the things
2:54that we have to think about is the
2:55relationship between the social and the
2:57economic. The subsistence farming was
3:00something that became a priority for
3:02many of the peasantry class because of
3:05the rise in inflation as the result of
3:08the wartime disruptions. So the economic
3:11conditions which we'll get to later on
3:12in this lesson starts to inform and
3:15starts to um and starts to shape the
3:18ways in which a number of members of the
3:20peasantry class would be able to operate
3:25when it comes to the urban workforce. So
3:27the people who living in the cities um
3:29rapid industrialization had produced a
3:32concentrated quite disgruntled working
3:34class um factory life was um quite harsh
3:38and involved quite a lot of uh long
3:40hours up to 12 hours a day unsafe
3:44conditions crowded tenement housing
3:46often we see for example uh as many as
3:49six people per room in in places like
3:51Petrorad for example um workers would
3:54face inadequate wages and were also
3:56exposed to as the result of this deep
3:59concentration of workforce they were
4:01exposed to revolutionary ideas um which
4:03heightened their expectations. So
4:06revolutionary ideas is a an issue that
4:08is beginning to is a is a sort of an
4:10issue for the at least that is
4:11permeating throughout a lot of this
4:13social landscape.
4:17The society at large was politically
4:21energized, becoming politically
4:22energized and the worsening of the sort
4:24of material conditions of these
4:26individuals would of course increase the
4:28ability for them to become politically
4:30energized. Workers, peasants, the growth
4:33of a of a middle class, women, soldiers,
4:36and national minorities all formed
4:38representatives. So you have, for
4:40example, factory committees, you have
4:43soldiers councils, sometimes described
4:45as Soviets. um uh the sort of uh work
4:48the ideas of workers and soldiers
4:50councils were were sort of described as
4:52Soviets.
4:53They would then begin to voice demands
4:55for things like land rights and for
4:57autonomy and also for an ending of the
5:00first world war um which is of course
5:02one of the major conditions uh that is
5:04that is causing a lot of this disruption
5:06economically and politically.
5:11Speaking of economic disruptions, the
5:14main issue that we are thinking about
5:15during this time period is of course
5:17inflation. War financing would take
5:20place through the printing of more money
5:23essentially. Um the printing of the
5:24ruble uh and a greater amount of ruble
5:27printing would trigger a runaway
5:29inflation. Essentially inflation for
5:32those of you who aren't studying
5:33economics or haven't studied economics
5:35at A level or GCSE is this idea of the
5:38value of currency decreasing.
5:40essentially or the alternatively you can
5:43you can define inflation as the value of
5:45uh goods increasing. Um but ultimately
5:48it results in the same is the in the
5:50same idea. That's that's all you need to
5:52really know. Essentially if you print
5:54more money the value of each individual
5:55bits of that money gets less and less
5:57because there's more of it in
5:59circulation and this can cause runaway
6:01inflation. It can cause the uh the uh
6:04the the the living costs outpacing the
6:08wages that are being given. So if for
6:11example workers are given a certain
6:13amount of wages but the costs of all
6:15those goods are increasing because of
6:17inflation it means that it won't be very
6:19long before they are unable to actually
6:21be able to afford any of the things that
6:23they uh any of the things that they
6:25need. So, for example, some some useful
6:28statistics for you here is that salt
6:30prices by 1917 had risen as high as 483%
6:34whereas wages had only gone up by a a
6:36percentage of 133% and meat had gone as
6:39high as 232%.
6:41So the wages of workers were not keeping
6:44up with the price inflation of these
6:48items which meant that there would be
6:51difficulty for ordinary people, ordinary
6:54workers to be able to afford any of the
6:56basic things like salt and meat and and
6:59bread and all these different kinds of
7:00things.
7:03In addition to this, for example, we see
7:04that food supplies are also plummeting.
7:07the supply of that food at the same time
7:09is beginning to drop because of the war
7:11effort which further increases its value
7:14and therefore further increases its
7:16price because if you have less of a
7:17thing the that thing becomes more
7:19valuable if the demand assuming demand
7:21stays the same. We see for example
7:23things like railways collapsing, workers
7:26flocking to jobs offering rations and
7:28and peasants are started to hoard grain
7:30in 1917.
7:32The war and the mismanagement of the war
7:35led factory closures. It led to soaring
7:38urban unemployment. It led to shortages
7:40of fuel and the breakdown of of
7:43transportation networks.
7:45The result is that essentially by late
7:471917 at least the economy was in
7:49freefall. We'll get to late 1917 later
7:52on, but at least as early as by early in
7:55early 1917, we see these problems become
7:57major issues uh for for for which
8:00revolution is going to be one of the uh
8:03major developments.
8:06And so really as a sort of summary of
8:08what the year of 1917 is going to bring
8:11for the Russian Empire and the and the
8:13Russian people um we have at the
8:15beginning at least the autocracy of the
8:18Russians Zar. the Russian Zar. Zar being
8:21a translation of the aification of the
8:24word Caesar, sort of the king, the king
8:27of Russia essentially was Nicholas II,
8:29Zar Nicholas II.
8:32And he had an it was an autoc autocratic
8:35monarchy. He controlled the monarchy. He
8:38controlled the um uh the the government.
8:41He had a great amount of control over
8:42all aspects of Russian the Russian
8:44Empire's government control. and he was
8:47part of what is known as the Romanov
8:48dynasty, a a line of succession that
8:52dates all the way back to 1613
8:55with the reign of Mikail I.
8:58Prior to that, you had the Ruric dynasty
9:00which ended with the reign of Ivan the
9:02Terrible, Ivan IV. There was a sort of
9:04period in between Ivan and Mikuel, which
9:07was a period known as the time of
9:09troubles where a lot of people died and
9:10a lot of people tried to become Zar and
9:12tried to become king and all this kind
9:13of thing. And then the um sort of uh
9:16Russian parliament of the 1600s,
9:18sometimes known as the Zki Sabor uh
9:21essentially elected Mikail the Mikall
9:23the first in 1613 to become the new Zar
9:26of Russia. And this set a course of
9:28motion of uh three centuries of Romano
9:31rule that ends in 1917 with Zar Nicholas
9:34II.
9:37And it ends because mainly the first
9:39world war the first world war is raging.
9:41The first world war is not going very
9:42well for the Russian Empire and it is
9:44causing political, social and economic
9:47collapse um across all aspects of
9:49Russian society. It ultimately leads to
9:52his abdication. The abdication of the
9:54Zard takes place on the 23rd of February
9:56um uh uh uh or at least the the um the
10:01uh revolution that begins the abdication
10:04um takes place on the 23rd of February.
10:06And we'll get to that in in future
10:08lessons time. But what ultimately
10:10happens is um following the February
10:12revolution you have a period of dual
10:14authority um where you have uh the dual
10:17authority of both the provisional
10:19government a provisional government and
10:21uh the power sharing of that of the
10:24Petrorad Soviet and we will get to that
10:27in future lessons. Um we'll talk about
10:29the provisional government we'll talk
10:30about the Petrorad Soviet. We'll talk
10:32about the failures of the provisional
10:34government during the February
10:35revolution. Uh during the uh during the
10:37rest of February, which then leads to
10:39the October revolution, the rise of the
10:41Boleviks and the establishment of the
10:44communist um takeover, the communist
10:46dictatorship um that begins in the end
10:48of 1917 and up to 19 up to uh uh 1918.
10:58So as a general overview then we can see
11:00that we are talking about a very unequal
11:03society. There are social disparities
11:0580% of the uh population are are part of
11:09the peasantry class. There's a lot of
11:11urban overcrowding lots of poor working
11:13conditions. Economic statistics we have
11:16um uh the salt prices going up 483%
11:19wages staying at only 133% meat as high
11:23as 232%
11:25in terms of their in terms of their
11:27value. The political breakdown leads to
11:29a dual power structure um with the
11:32provisional government and the Petrorad
11:34Soviets. A and we also see a
11:36decentralization of the military at the
11:38same time. And then from here we see the
11:41development from February through to
11:44October, the seizure of control by the
11:46Bolevik party and the establishment of
11:49the communist state and the communist
11:51party's uh dominance over the uh over
11:54the Russian territory which establishes
11:56the Soviet Union.