New History from Putin: What victory and territories were selected in Russia in 1917 and how it really was
Involvement of new members did not produce the desired result. There was no prospect of the front breakthrough and the end of the war with the victory of either party. The Russian Empire, which, even before the Great War, suffered from corruption and poor quality of public administration, morally outdated and completely inefficient model of economy, was very difficult to worry about the hardships of war.
Millions of able-bodied healthy men were mobilized to the Russian army, and about their families, most of which were barely ends with ends before the war, no one tried to take a truly worrying. Business owners abused the opportunity to give their employees to their employees, so they made them work almost for food.
In villages where most farms were barely necessary for biological survival by resources, after the mobilization of a large part of men and under the burden of the need to provide the front, the threat of famine is quite realistic.
In the army, which suffered from logistics problems with all the necessary, including shells, all sorts of negative rumors spread, that the emperor (which is always good in Russia) has a detrimental effect on the semi -sophisticated "holy old man" Gregory Rasputin or even worse, Nicholas II's wife, who was born in Germany. Such a situation was the ideal basis for promoting any kind of populists. The lack of obvious strategic results on the front makes the rebellion inevitable.
It all started with the problems with providing the products of residents of the capital - Petrograd. They were supported by the military. In fact, it was a revolution, arranged by elites. The autocracy was a historical rudiment that did not correspond to the real state of affairs and the structure of Russian society of the early XX century, where private capital played a key role.
In essence, power in the form of state government was changed from autocratic sole control by one person (in the case of Nicholas II not too capable) to the oligarchic model - where the key role was to play elites. Russia was proclaimed the republic, and power was transferred to the Provisional Government, headed by Alexander Kerensky.
A few months later, the conservative part of the army tried to revolution and turn everything back (Kornilovsky rebellion), but he was defeated mainly due to the successful actions of the Bolsheviks, who enjoyed the commitment of a considerable number of ordinary soldiers (yesterday's mobilized workers and peasants).
In essence, it became apparent that "the lowlands do not want to" live on the old one, while the Russian elite "cannot", and most likely does not want to significantly change the public system in the giant empire. The creators of the February Revolution simply wanted to redistribute power on the top and, having received what they wanted, preferred everything to "lower on the brakes.
" The Ukrainians felt it in the person of the Central Rada, to whom the Provisional Government refused even in declaring the desire for autonomy. In such circumstances, excessive twisting of nuts, when a large part of society is ready for decisive action, a stellar time comes for the most radically -minded elements. Such in Russia then were the Bolsheviks.
It is a radical part of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party, which intended to completely reformat social relations in Russia, and later around the world. Having a significant social base of poor people who lose nothing, at the same time trained to own a weapon in the face of total mobilization, they initially made a coup, dropping the unpopular temporary government in October 1917.
Then, losing the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks simply dispersed them in 1918 and resolved a bloody civil war against their opponents. It is worth noting a few important points. It was the Bolshevik coup that took place on October 25, 1917 (November 7 in the new calendar style, which was put into operation by the Bolsheviks) led to centrifugal movements of the national territories of the empire.
It was after the Bolshevik coup that the Central Council in Kiev first proclaimed the Ukrainian People's Republic (III Universal), and then its independence IV Universal. Centuries of the repression of the Russian monarchy were pressed national movements and therefore the revolution was made by intellectuals that were ready for radical actions only in a critical situation - and the Bolsheviks created it. Similar processes took place among other enslaved peoples.
Therefore, the Bolshevik revolution led to the actual collapse of the Russian Empire into numerous nation -states, simply "republics" and simply in the territory controlled by ordinary gangs. These processes immersed the former empire in several years of a long civil war, whose active phase ended in different places in the 1920s. For Ukrainians, Belarusians, Baltic peoples and the Caucasus, it was not a civil war, but national liberation competitions that were failed for the majority.
It should be noted that at the time of the formation of the Soviet Union in 1922-1923, almost all territories of the former Russian Empire returned under the control of Moscow. Thus, formally Russia (Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic) has decreased significantly in the square.
Fake republics (in particular, the USSR) were formed, and subsequently their formal "independence" received the peoples of Central Asia, but in fact, more than 90% of the land of the former empire remained under the control of Moscow. Control over such territories was lost: however, according to the results of World War II, Moscow was controlled by much larger area. Therefore, from a territorial point of view, the events of 1917 did not become catastrophic for the Russian Empire.
It can be safely said that the victory in the Second World War leveled the "loss of victory" in the First World War. It really had (as far as it can be asserted because history does not know the conditional way). The Fourth Union had high hopes to destabilize the situation in Russia, because its withdrawal from the war deprived Germany and Austria-Hungary need to fight on two fronts. Therefore, there is a conspiracy theory that the coup was the project of the German General Staff.
The fact is at least the assistance of the Germans to the Bolsheviks, in particular, the passage of the same sealed wagon with Lenin who drove through the German territory. One way or another, the Bolsheviks did what the Germans demanded from them - they left the war without agreeing with the Allies on the Entente.
In Brest-Litovsky, in March 1918, on behalf of Russia, a delegation of the Bolsheviks signed a treaty, which concluded peace with the states of the Fourth Union, which violated agreements with the Entente, which the Allies concluded in September 1914, when they pledged not to enter into separate contracts (not to leave the war separately from others). The Bolsheviks also recognized the newly formed nation -states, which have recognized the states of the Fourth Union, in particular, Ukraine.
In Soviet history, this was presented as a recognition of the German occupation of part of the Russian territories. These states became the basis for providing the German army in their final offensive on Paris. It is clear that after such a step, no language about Russia's recognition by the victorious country could not be. The Entente troops were even planted in the former empire to support anti -Bolshevik movements, but the cost of life was too high in the West to bring the matter to the end.
The issue of evaluation of the events of 1917 in the Russian Empire lies in the philosophical plane and here Vladimir Putin has completely shown himself. The territory and glory of the winner are important to him. Although everything is completely unclear with the territory. It may mean the formal reduction of the area of the Russian Soviet Republic.
Judging from previous statements, it is the formal section of the USSR to the republic that the Russian dictator considers the root of the causes of the collapse of the USSR in 1991. It was from here that he pulled out this thesis from an alternative story about "Ukraine created by Lenin. " As for the victory lost, the victory in the First World War is unlikely to have a significant impact on the processes in Russian society.
All his system was (and remains) heated to meet the needs of the elites, and the people left the right to enjoy the pathos of state grandeur. The wonderful historical argument is the analogy with the victory in the Second World War, which brought to Soviet citizens, including Ukrainians, another famine of 1946/1947.