Paul Le Blanc on Russia’s 1917 Revolution and the problems of socialist organization

“Russia’s 1917 Revolution: Problems of Socialist Organization,” by Paul Le Blanc, is the text (with sources added) of a December 4, 2025 presentation kicking off the third installment of Solidarity’s online study group dealing with “Problems of Socialist Organization.” It is reprinted with permission from both the author and Solidarity and, as such, appearing simultaneously on LINKS and Communis.

Russia’s revolution of 1917 resulted from the blend of terrible catastrophes and profound hopes. The First World War was going very badly for the Tsar’s army and for the Russian people, adding new grievances to old, and generating a new wave of working-class radicalization. The tsarist system of oppressive absolute monarchy was beginning to collapse as expanding catastrophes overtook Russian society. Historian Roy Medvedev noted: “By drafting millions of peasants and workers into the army and training them to handle weapons, the tsarist regime, without intending to, provided military and technical training […] The likely allies of the working class, the peasants, were armed and organized in military garrisons in every major city, with especially large garrisons in Moscow and Petrograd.” (Medvedev, 42-4.)

Journalist-historian William Henry Chamberlin once commented: “the collapse of the Romanov autocracy in March 1917 was one of the most leaderless, spontaneous, anonymous revolutions of all time.” (Chamberlin, vol. 1, 73.) This is both true and false — a paradox shedding light on the role of the revolutionary party. The deepening exasperation with the old system spreading throughout Russian society was compounded by war-weariness and despair. The only hope for a better life seemed to be in some kind of radical social change. Such moods and beliefs — “spontaneously” generated by objective conditions — were certainly the source of the uprising, but the revolutionary parties played an essential role in offering coherent conceptual alternatives to the status quo.

Protest actions were organized by such activists, including on the socialist-inspired holiday, International Women’s Day of March 8, 1917 (February 23, according to the old Russian calendar). In earlier years, there had traditionally been a relative political “backwardness” and passivity among unskilled workers — such as female textile workers — in contrast to the militant activism of the “conscious workers” among the more skilled laboring strata, such as those predominating in the heavily Bolshevik-influenced metal trades. Now it was metalworkers who were inspired to take to the streets in response to the appeals of militant textile workers, women of the factory districts on International Women’s Day chanting “Down with the war! Down with high prices! Down with hunger! Bread for the workers!”

On the following day demonstrations and strikes spread throughout Petrograd, with a proliferation of anti-war and anti-government banners. The military units of the city for the most part refused to take action against the insurgents, and in some cases even joined them. This appeal was issued by an on-the-ground united front:

We Bolsheviks, Menshevik SDs [Social Democrats], and SRs [Socialist-Revolutionaries] summon the proletariat of Petersburg and all Russia to organization and feverish mobilization of our forces. Comrades! In the factories organize illegal strike committees. Link one district to another. Organize collections for the illegal press and for arms. Prepare yourselves, comrades. The hour of decisive struggle is nearing! (Melancon, 22.)

Days of street fighting saw the police take the offensive, fire into the crowds, and then be routed as the workers fought back with growing confidence. As a general strike paralyzed the city, the overwhelming majority of the working class seemed alive with enthusiasm for revolutionary change. Increasingly, masses of soldiers, mostly peasants, joined with the workers. Historian Michael Melancon has emphasized the interplay between the socialist groups and radicalized working-class layers that were coming into the streets, noting: “Direct and organized socialist involvement and intervention occurred at every single stage.” (Melancon, 35; also see Mandel.)

The 1917 reports from knowledgeable New York Tribune foreign correspondent Isaac Don Levine give a sense of the events. While the “mainstream” politicians reared back in fear (with prominent liberal Pavel Miliukov predicting “the revolution will be crushed in fifteen minutes” by tsarist troops), Levine reports on “the leaders of the socialistic, revolutionary, and labor elements organized for a general attack . . . against the old regime.” Their democratic councils (soviets) mobilized “a revolutionary army, composed of soldiers, armed students, and workers. Red flags were now waving in the air everywhere, and, singing the songs of freedom and revolution, the masses continued their victorious fight. The leaders of the movement commandeered every motorcar they could get, armed it with a machine-gun and a gun crew, and set it free to tour the city and round up agents of the Government.” (Levine, 220, 225)

The revolution was triumphant. Traditional liberal and conservative politicians, with support from moderate socialists, hastily composed a Provisional Government, but its power was limited. “It was the workmen and soldiers that actually fought and shed their blood for the freedom of Russia,” Levine reported at the time. The politicians “took a hand in the situation only after the revolution had achieved its main success.” (Levine, 227.)

Levine explained to his readers that the gulf between the Provisional Government and the workers’ councils “is as wide as between the United States Government and socialism. Only such an upheaval as the revolution could have bridged this chasm between the two extremes.” While the Provisional Government “represents . . . business and commerce,” he noted, “the ultimate aim of the Workmen’s Council is social revolution. To achieve this revolution it is necessary to de-throne the political autocrats first, they say. Then the capitalistic system must be attacked by the working classes of all nations as their common enemy.” (Levine, 271.) This was in June 1917.

When he returned to Russia from revolutionary exile, Lenin came into conflict with some comrades in the leading circles of the Bolshevik party, as highlighted in his April Theses.

The theses asserted that Russia was “passing from the first stage of the revolution which … placed power in the hands of the bourgeoisie to its second stage, which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants.” The Provisional Government was, he said, a “government of capitalists, those worst enemies of peace and socialism.” Instead, the theses insisted, the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies (or Soviets of Workers’, Agricultural Laborers’ and Peasants’ Deputies) “are the only possible form of revolutionary government.” There should not be a parliamentary republic, but instead a soviet republic “throughout the country, from top to bottom.” The theses called for the abolition of the police, the army and the bureaucracy – Lenin believed the organized workers and peasants should take over the functions of these entities, with “salaries of all officials, all of whom are elective and displaceable at any time, not to exceed the average wage of a competent worker.” The theses also emphasized that “it is not our immediate task to ‘introduce’ socialism, but only to bring social production and the distribution of products at once under the control of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies.” (Lenin in Žižek, ed., 56-61.)

But Mensheviks and SRs were in control of the soviets. The Bolsheviks had not yet recovered the hegemony they had gained in the workers’ movement before the wartime repression of 1914. Despite growing frustration with the Provisional Government, the moderate socialist leaders insisted the soviets should support the Provisional Government to help establish a capitalist democracy, which they saw as a lengthy but necessary prelude to socialist transition.

Alexander Kerensky, on the periphery of the SRs, had put himself forward as a bridge between the soviets and the Provisional Government. He was ultimately selected by others in the Provisional Government as President. Though many believed Kerensky was destined to build a democratic Russia, those who knew him well had doubts. “In Kerensky everything was illogical, contradictory, changing, often capricious, imagined, or feigned,” wrote SR leader Victor Chernov, Kerensky’s minister of agriculture. He added: “Kerensky was tormented by the need to believe in himself and was always winning or losing that faith.” (Chernov, 174.)

While still claiming to represent the soviets’ interests within the Provisional Government, Kerensky began to side with other establishment politicians against the councils, which were undermining his government’s authority. More and more frustrated workers were joining the Bolsheviks — even the SR and Menshevik left wings found Bolshevik arguments convincing. The brilliant maverick Leon Trotsky was only the most famous of many Bolshevik recruits.

The popular aspirations animating the February Revolution had been peace, bread, and land: an end to the mass slaughter of Russians in the imperialist war; the end of bread shortages caused by the impact of the war; and sweeping reforms to transfer land from the thin layer of aristocrats to the masses of land-hungry peasants. The Provisional Government balked at all these aspirations, and it was especially committed to continuing the war effort.

A crescendo of working-class anger in July culminated in a revolutionary demonstration. Militants in Petrograd, not under party control but with Bolshevik support, initiated what verged on a spontaneous uprising. The ensuing violence gave the government a pretext for large-scale repression. As Left SR Isaac Steinberg recounted, “troops of officers, students, Cossacks came out on the streets, searched passers-by for weapons and evidence of ‘Bolshevism,’ committed atrocities.” (Steinberg, 174.)

In the wake of “the July Days” (as this upheaval came to be known), Kerensky appointed right-wing general Lavr Kornilov commander-in-chief of the Russian army. Both hoped to counter the pressure from “unreasonable” workers, who were setting up factory committees to take control of workplaces and organizing their own “red guard” paramilitary groups to maintain public order and protect the revolution against reactionary violence. Kerensky found such radicalism disturbing, but right-wingers like General Kornilov thought moderates like Kerensky were just as distasteful. Traditional politicians — liberals as well as conservatives — began viewing military dictatorship as the only way to stabilize the nation. As Kornilov put it: “the spineless weaklings who form the Provisional Government will be swept away […] It is time to put an end to all of this. It is time to hang the German spies led by Lenin, to break up the Soviet, and to break it up in such a way that it will never meet again anywhere!” (Kerensky, 368.)

Prominent Menshevik Raphael Abramovitch recalled: “The news of Kornilov’s revolt electrified the nation, and especially the left. The Soviets and their affiliated organizations, the railroad workers and some sections of the army, declared themselves ready to resist Kornilov by force if necessary.” Another Menshevik eyewitness, N. N. Sukhanov, noted the Bolsheviks had “the only organization that was large, welded together by an elementary discipline, and linked with the democratic lowest levels of the capital.” He emphasized: “The masses, insofar as they were organized, were organized by the Bolsheviks.” (Abramovitch, 63; Sukhanov, 505.)

Working-class insurgents still identified with a variety of socialist currents, but as Abramovitch explained, “the threat of a counterrevolutionary revolt roused and united the entire left, including the Bolsheviks, who still exerted considerable influence in the Soviets. It seemed impossible to reject their offers of co-operation at such a dangerous moment.” (Abramovitch, 64.)

The Bolsheviks won immense authority in the soviets and greater support from workers in general. Trotsky, who helped manage these practical efforts and became president of the Petrograd Soviet, later recalled: “The Bolsheviks were in the front ranks; they smashed down the barriers blocking them from the Menshevik workers and especially from the Social Revolutionary soldiers, and carried them along in their wake.” (Trotsky, 1970, 185.)

The right-wing military offensive disintegrated before it could reach Petrograd. “The hundreds of agitators — workers, soldiers, members of the Soviets — who infiltrated Kornilov’s camp … encountered little resistance,” wrote Abramovitch. (Abramovitch, 63-4.) Kornilov’s troops responded to the Bolshevik, SR, and left-Menshevik agitators’ appeals by turning against their officers and rallying to the soviets.

In the wake of Kornilov’s failed coup, the Bolsheviks won decisive majorities in the soviets and secured overwhelming support among the working class as a whole. A majority of the SR party split to the Left, as did a significant Menshevik current, aligning with Lenin and Trotsky. This united front set the stage for revolutionary triumph in October. A majority was won for the demands: “Down with the Provisional Government, All Power to the Soviets!” Eyewitness John Reed offered this judgment:

Not by compromise with the propertied classes, or with the other political leaders; not by conciliating the old Government mechanism, did the Bolsheviks conquer the power. Nor by the organized violence of a small clique. If the masses all over Russia had not been ready for insurrection it must have failed. The only reason for Bolshevik success lay in their accomplishing the vast and simple desires of the most profound strata of the people, calling them to the work of tearing down and destroying the old, and afterward, in the smoke of falling ruins, cooperating with them to erect the framework of the new. (Reed, 292.)

This is consistent with a consensus among historians seriously studying the matter. (For example: Mandel; Rabinowitch 2017; Suny, 2017.) But the revolutionary majority soon crumbled amid the terrible difficulties that overwhelmed Russia in 1918-1921. Yet if we restrict ourselves to 1917, what Reed says is true. The spirit of this reality can be found in Lenin’s proclamation to the Russian population immediately after the triumph of the Bolsheviks and their allies. (Le Blanc, ed. 2008, 278-80.) In it, Lenin says:

socialism is dependent on the Russian working people taking power into their own hands;

• it will come into being gradually;
• it must take place with the consent and approval of a majority of peasants;
• it must be in keeping with practical experience of the workers as well as of the peasants;
• it must be secured by working-class insurgency in the advanced industrial countries.

Another useful insight has recently been emphasized by Eric Blanc, who notes “the party that led the October Revolution … was not simply the product of the numeric expansion of the Bolshevik current.” Rather, “Bolshevism itself contained a wide variation of tendencies” but also “underwent a fundamental transformation in 1917 due to . . . unification with other Marxist currents.” This included: some left-wing Mensheviks; some who had been aligned with the Bogdanov wing of the Bolshevik faction; an anti-factional “Inter-District” grouping associated with Trotsky and others; veterans of the Jewish Bund; militants of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania; and more. “An ability to avoid the crystallization of a rigid, self-perpetuating leadership team was one of the secrets of Bolshevik success.” (Blanc, 278.)

A tilt toward majority rule is suggested in a point made by Ronald Suny: “much of the revolution took place in meetings of one sort or another — committees, soviets, conferences, and congresses — punctuated by demonstrations and the occasional armed clashes.” (Suny 2020b, 665.) A young participant, Mikhail Baitalsky, recalled “our exhilaration with the ideas of the revolution,” which “came from the depths of our soul.” He explained: “We were sincere above all because we formulated our views in absolute freedom […] It was based on a Communist faith — pure and unsullied — probably much like the faith of the first pre-Christian societies on the shores of the Dead Sea, with their doctrine of justice and their sacred writings that they read many hours each day.” Engaged in similar reading, discussions, meetings, Baitalsky and his young comrades “were never bored.” This was living democracy according to Baitalsky. Democracy, he explained, “is directly related to sincerity in human relations. I speak not about democracy as a social institution but about democratization as an element of social norms.” He concluded: “We carried in ourselves democratism as a consciousness of something akin to a mission – an extraordinary mission for the universal equality of all people.” (Baitalsky,13-4.)

At the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets in January 1918, Lenin explained the controversial decision to dissolve the Constituent Assembly, after a single day, when it refused to recognize the authority of the soviets. Noting the workings of bourgeois parliaments as a sparring-place for the verbal contests of politicians, he concluded: “In Russia, the workers have developed organizations, which give them power to execute their aspirations […] We did not organize the soviets. They were not organized in 1917: they were created in the revolution of 1905. The people organized the soviets. When I tell you that the government of the soviets is superior to the Constituent Assembly, that it is more fundamentally representative of the will of the mass, I do not tell you anything new.” (Lenin quoted in Beatty, 432-4.; also see Douds.)

Many revolutionaries agreed that democratic soviets provided the best governmental form. “In the era which we are now entering the old standards no longer suffice,” proclaimed Maria Spiridonova, whose Left SR party worked with the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution and the early Soviet regime. “Until recently the phrase Constituent Assembly spelled revolution,” she acknowledged. “It is only recently, when the character of the revolution has made itself more and more clearly felt, that parliamentary illusions began to be dispelled from our minds. It is the people themselves, not parliaments, that can bring about the social release of man. Yes, when the people discovers the secret of its own power, when it recognizes the soviets as its best social stronghold, let it then proclaim a real national assembly. Let that national assembly be the only one invested with legislative and executive functions.” (Spiridonova quoted in Steinberg, 191.) Tragically, the Left SRs soon broke from the Bolsheviks over a treaty with Imperial Germany. They soon joined the many Right SRs (and even a few Mensheviks) who, along with tsarist and pro-capitalist forces, had launched a bloody civil war, supplemented by military interventions from major capitalist powers and an economic blockade, designed to bring down the Soviet regime. And yet, the revolution’s initial phase could still be described in this way, even by the Cold War scholar Alfred G. Meyer:

The October Revolution brought about the overthrow of all remnants of the old order […] The distribution of all gentry land among the peasants, which the Leninist seizure of power guaranteed, was as thorough as it could possibly have been. This … “bourgeois revolution” … carried with it all those changes usually attributed to the complete abolition of the precapitalist order. National self-determination of Russia’s many nationalities was, at least for the moment, carried to its logical conclusion […] Legal separation of church and state, removal of the old judiciary, reform of the calendar—all these measures were … part of the “bourgeois revolution.” This revolution was also expressed in the social institutions, in science, art, and education — in virtually all functions of public and private life. . . . [T]he revolution carried with it maximum freedom of expression and experimentation. Even where political liberties were soon curtailed, a certain degree of personal freedom was not extinguished for several years. (Meyer, 185-6.)

Unfortunately, the defeat and blockage of socialist revolutions in other countries meant catastrophes already afflicting revolutionary Russia widened and deepened. The Soviet Republic became what Lenin called a “besieged fortress,” engulfed by the increasingly brutal civil war, foreign invasion, and economic collapse. (Lenin, “Letter to Americans,” in Le Blanc, ed., 300.) Mistakes were made. Popular support badly eroded. The brutal and authoritarian realities of 1919 resulted in a one-party dictatorship by Lenin and his comrades. Complexities of the 1920s would culminate in the Stalinism of the 1930s. (Le Blanc 2017, 219-54, 293-367; Mayer; Rabinowitch 2008; Suny 2020a.)

The fact remains that there is much we can learn from the inspiring liberation struggle of 1917 that we have focused on here.

Sources

Abramovitch, Raphael 1962, The Soviet Revolution: 1917-1939. New York: International Universities Press.

Baitalsky, Mikhail 2025, Notebooks for the Grandchildren: Recollections of a Supporter of the Marxist Opposition to Stalin WhoSurvived the Stalin Terror. Translated and edited by Marilyn Vogt-Downey. Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill.

Beatty, Bessie 1918, The Red Heart of Russia. New York: Century Co.

Blanc, Eric 2022, Revolutionary Social Democracy: Working Class Politics Across the Russian Empire (1882-1917). Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.

Chamberlin, William Henry 1987, The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921, 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Chernov, Victor 1935, The Great Russian Revolution. New Haven, CT.: Yale University Press.

Douds, Lara 2018, Inside Lenin’s Government: Ideology, Power and Practice in the Early Soviet State. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic.

Kerensky, Alexander 1965, Russia and History’s Turning Point. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce.

Le Blanc, Paul 2023, Lenin: Responding to Catastrophe, Forging Revolution. London, UK: Pluto Press.

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